“This is High John the Conqueror,” he said. “My great-grandmama gives him to me, and says to me it is man’s medicine and will heal me if I am hurt or sick. You put this into your moco before you put your hands on me, please.”

It was a dried nodular root, so dark a brown as to be almost black, but a very peculiar one. I could see why his great-grandmother said it was man’s medicine, though: it looked exactly like a tiny pair of testicles.

“Thank you,” I said, rubbing my thumb over the object. It felt like a well-polished bit of hard root, but I wasn’t feeling any particular sense of anything from it. “Your great-grandmother is a … hoodoo? Would that be a sort of healer?”

He nodded, though his mouth shifted sideways, slightly dubious.

“Mos’ly, madam.”

Jamie cleared his throat in a meaningful sort of way. He was standing near the fire, and small wisps of steam were rising from his hair and clothes.

“Well, then.” I tucked the bit of root into my amulet, cleared my throat, and picked up the mask again. “Lie down, Mr. Jackson. This won’t take a moment.”

IT DID, OF course, take somewhat longer than that—but the look of amazement on Corporal Jackson’s face when he blinked and opened his eyes to see his leg, straightened, bandaged, and wrapped in drying strips of linen soaked in a mixture of gypsum, lime, and water was very gratifying.

“Hau!” he said, and added something in a language I didn’t recognize, almost to himself.

“You might feel a little dizzy,” I said, smiling at him. “Just close your eyes and rest for a bit. The plaster on your leg needs to dry before we can move you.”

I eased a folded towel under his head and covered him with my trusty surgery blanket.

“I’ll send you something warm to drink that will help the pain,” I told him, tucking the blanket round his shoulders. “And I’ll be back to check on you soon.”

Fanny was in the kitchen, chopping bacon into small bits, watched closely by Bluebell, but she amiably stopped doing this in order to make Mr. Jackson a posset.

“Warm milk with an egg beaten up in it—if we have any eggs?”

“Yes’m, there are,” she said proudly. “I found three this morning. But I think they might be duck eggs,” she added dubiously. “’Twas near the creek, and they’re summat bigger than your Scotch dumpys lay.”

“So much the better, as long as they’re moderately fresh,” I said. “If there’s an embryo—you know, the beginnings of a duck?—in the egg, just lift it out and give it to Bluebell; it won’t hurt the posset. Not that Corporal Jackson is likely to notice,” I added reflectively, “once you’ve added two jiggers of whisky and a spoonful of sugar. I think he’ll fall asleep right away; if he doesn’t, though, you can give him one spoonful of the laudanum.”