"I don't think it was his fault," Gemma said quietly, for Mr. Bing's ears only. "I think he's a soldier, like you. He went so strange and dark after he was thrown from his horse. The way you were sometimes, after the war."

Bing shot her a sharp look. "Aye, I saw that too. I think he's some worse than me, belike. Mayhap it ain't his fault, but these folk won't understand. Not a single one of theirs came back from t' war."

Gemma looked around at the hard-working people of Farby as they began to pick up the pieces of their festival, just as they had solemnly and stoutly picked up the pieces of their families after losing so many sons to Napoleon's troops.

"Then we shall just have to understand for them."

LYSANDER LAY VERY STILL. His head pounded with such breathtaking ferocity that he counted that fraction of a second between the spikes of pain and cradled it, waiting for that absence of agony as other men might wait for a moment of pleasure.

A cool cloth touched his face and it did soothe the ache. The rest of his body seemed to be very sore as well. His ribs protested with every breath, and any slight shifting seem to bring on hot twinges that made no sense in the muscles of his shoulders, back and legs.

Perhaps if he'd been able to maintain a thought for longer than a fraction of a second between the hammering in his head, he might have remembered how he came to be lying somewhere dark, on something soft, covered by something warm, being touched by something cool. Yet every time the dimmest impulse of curiosity struck him, that curiosity was slammed out of his thoughts by the reverberation of his own pulse through his aching head.

There was a sound. He could almost hear it through the hammer blows. What was it? It was nice, low and soft and sweet.

He couldn't hear words. Just a soft singing.

Oh it hurt.

The pain reminded him of something bad, but honestly he could not even recall what it was, except that it was something he would probably rather not remember.

Focus on the sound. It made him feel better. Calmer. What was it?

A sweet lilting voice. It was a song. A moment of memory, and then a faded image of a woman rocking a tiny flame-haired infant.

Iris. His mother.

Sister. He had a sister.

Oh my head.

A sweet song. A soft comforting song in the dark. So soft. Warm. Like something from before the thunder and the mud, the blood and the rain.

A cool hand stroked back his hair. The cloth, refreshed with chill water, draped over his brow. The sweet, breathy voice sang on.

Warmth. Touch. Music.

He slept, a true healing sleep this time.