Not Worthington house. Too uncluttered and bare. Nor some barracks tent. Not a battlefield pitch. Not a worn marble floor like the hospital. He spread his hands apart, stroking them along the floor seeking clues. His breath was slowing, his lungs laboring much less. When his hands shook slightly he pressed them firmly to floor until they stopped.

Now he remembered. He reached his hand to one side and yes, there was the bed. The clean sheets still smelled of spring line drying. The lumpy featherbed. The thick soft blanket that carried a faint scent of lanolin in its undyed wool.

He was in the clean, quiet room. In the lady doctor's house.

Had his nightmare woken her? He listened but no one seemed to be rushing to his aid. Perhaps he had not made as much noise as his dream suggested. A chill ran up his back and he realized his nightshirt was sticking to him, soaked with perspiration. Unable to bear the tacky chill, he pulled it from his body and left it in a pile on the floor as he stood. There was a very faint seam of light coming from a window. He made his way toward it, feeling carefully, but no furniture blocked his path in this empty, clean room.

He reached the window and parted the curtains. Yes, there was a bit of light, surprisingly. He thought it would be darker in the country, but although there were a few clouds in the night sky they did allow the gleam from a half-moon to stretch into the room. He waited for a long moment for his eyes to adjust.

He saw the outline of the bed and the bulk of the chair beyond it. There was a table there, he knew, but it was tucked in the shadow to one side of the window.

He remembered seeing his clothing hanging on pegs near the door. Turning, he looked long in that direction. Once his eyes adjusted, he walked to them easily, reaching for the mingled dark and light of his trousers and shirt.

His coat was not there but his feet kicked something on the floor. He reached down and found his boots. That was enough.

In trousers, boots, and his shirt untucked and open, for there were no studs to be found, he stood for a long moment in the empty room. He would not sleep again. There was no point in trying. The dream was too close, hovered too near, whispering to him in the back of his mind. He needed to think of something else. He needed to do something else.

He needed to walk. The view from the window drew him. The bucolic dale outside was only lightly brightened by the shy half-moon, but it would do. Outside would be better, where he could smell the grass and feel the breeze and know that it was not raining and there was no fire and no blood and no screaming.