“You’ll be all right, Charles,” she said. She spoke gently now, but her voice was rock-steady. “You’ll be warm and dry in no time.”

I closed my eyes, the better to listen to what my hands were telling me. I’d found the wound in his back, and it wasn’t good. A ball had entered between the last thoracic and first lumbar vertebrae. It still was between the vertebrae; I could feel it with my middle finger, a small hard lump, and stuck fast; it didn’t move when I pushed it a little. The flesh of his back was hard and cold, the muscles all in spasm.

He was shivering, though the room was quite warm. I told Elspeth to put a blanket over him, nodding at the vomit-yellow woolen coverlet, folded neatly on top of the cabinet.

The men who had brought him in were still in the hallways, talking in low voices. I recognized the voices; they were Jamie’s trusted men.

“Gilly!” I called over my shoulder, and Gillebride MacMillan peered cautiously round the doorjamb.

“Seadh, a bhana-mhaighister?”

“Is anyone hurt? Beyond the captain and Jamie, I mean?”

“Ach, it’s nay more than a few bruises and cracked ribs, mistress, and I think it may be that Tòmas has the broken nose.”

I had moved to the counter and was choosing my instruments, but was still thinking and talking at the same time.

“What about the others? The men who—were with the captain?”

He lifted a shoulder, but smiled, and I heard a brief laugh from someone in the hall. They’d won, I realized, and the adrenaline of victory was still holding them up.

“I could not say, a bhana mhaighister, save that I broke a shovel over the head of Alasdair MacLean, and there were knives, and two or three who came to grief in the landslide, so …”

“The landslide?” I looked over my shoulder at him, startled, then shook my head. “Never mind; I’ll hear about it later.”

“They will have gone to—to my house.” Elspeth spoke softly. “The wounded Loyalists who didn’t come here. I’ll—I’ll need to go and tend them.” She was holding her son’s hand, though, fingers tightly laced with his, and her face was full of anguish when she looked at him.

I nodded, my throat tight in sympathy. I didn’t need to see the thoughts racing across her face to know what they were: love and fear warring with duty. And I knew the deeper fear that was beginning to bloom within her. Her eyes were fixed on his bare feet, willing them to move.

“Gilly, go to the kitchen, will you, and fetch Agnes?”

He left, and I turned to Elspeth.

“He’s not going to die,” I said, low-voiced but firm. “I don’t know if he’ll walk again—he might, he might not. The ball didn’t go all the way through the spinal cord, but it’s clearly done some damage. That might heal. I’m going to take the ball out and dress the wound, and when the swelling goes down and the bruising heals …” I made a small gesture, equivocating hope and doubt.