The stranger reacts to this moan. She looks over at Thomas, digs in a sort of satchel that seems sewn onto her very garment, draws forth a fistful of something green. Moss. Dry as it is, it retains an eerie emerald sparkle in the grey of her hand. But she won’t step closer, not until Charlie withdraws and pulls Livia with him, taking her hand as naturally as though he’s held it all his life.

“Please,” he repeats and with a sudden burst of movement the woman sprints over to Thomas’s side, falls on her knees, takes off the bandages and scatters them carelessly by his side. She presses the moss into the wound, starts digging between a tree root, finds a fistful of clammy mud, and smears it on top. Livia starts forward but Charlie’s hand stops her. They can see the mud caking in the cold of the air. The woman, meanwhile, is digging in her satchel, dismissing a dozen herbs, until she pulls out a dried flower and forces it into Thomas’s mouth, slipping it under the tongue. All this takes her barely a minute. As a last step, she knots the strips of soiled petticoat together and quickly slips them into her bag.

When Livia and Charlie walk over to Thomas, the woman withdraws again, crouches in the dead leaves of the forest floor. The poultice looks barbaric and like it will crumble away at the slightest touch. But the bleeding has stopped. Charlie makes to pick Thomas up, then stops.

“We need to get him to safety,” he says to Livia. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

She closes her eyes, tries to picture the forest and the surrounding land. It is hard to transfer distances from horseback to this stumbling through the woods.

“There is a village somewhere. At the far side of the woods. Near the river. But it’s several miles.”

Charlie nods, turns back to the woman, takes a slow step towards her. She does not move. His voice is very gentle when he speaks. Gentle, but not condescending. How long, Livia finds herself thinking, since this woman has been spoken to as a human being not a beast?

“We need help,” Charlie explains. “People. A village. But we don’t know the way.”

When the woman does not respond, Charlie falls to his knees, clears a patch of forest floor. He uses a stick to draw into the dirt. A house, the way a child would draw it: a box with a roof. A stickman, then another, clothed with the triangle of a skirt. When the woman still does not react he adds a clumsy river, writhing like a worm. This means something to her. She copies the picture with her fingers in the air.

“The river? Do you know where it is?” Livia’s words sound hard to her ears, after Charlie’s gentle whisper.

“Riv-ver.”