‘I jest. Neatly done, old friend. You have my gratitude. Now, if you don’t consider it rude after your considerable endeavours, it is my firm intention to lapse into unconsciousness, which will not require the assistance of your chloroform. If it turns out I am not dead in the morning, please do make sure I am roused by eight. Langenbeck is giving a lecture on battlefield amputations at nine and I do not wish to miss it.’

TWO

hat was very courageous, what you did,’ said Gabriela. It was the first either had spoken since they fell upon each other.

They lay upon Raven’s bed, tired, languorous, yet far from sleep. Liselotte had stayed with Henry, ministering to him overnight, although not in the way she had perhaps intended some hours ago. For Raven and Gabriela, however, the proximity to danger had produced an unexpected amorousness; morbid fear transmuted into passion.

Raven had known her for several weeks, having been introduced at a dinner hosted by the Charité’s prosector, Dr Virchow. Although he was head of the pathology department at the hospital, Virchow had an interest in obstetrics and therefore an interest in Raven, who, despite his lowly status, had worked as an apprentice to the famous Professor Simpson. Everyone was keen to know more about the great man and his remarkable discovery. Gabriela was a friend of Rose Mayer, soon to be Virchow’s wife. She had shown little interest in what Raven had to say about chloroform but became considerably more attentive when he mentioned his experience with the Edinburgh photography pioneers David Octavius Hill and the late Robert Adamson.

Gabriela was a slight woman with dark eyes and dark hair, curls loosely swept up, always at imminent risk of unfurling. He was constantly struck by the contrast with the women at home, their hair pulled rigidly into place, their skin so pale. It was not merely their appearance that seemed constrained by comparison. Fifteen years Raven’s senior, Gabriela was a writer, artist and sometime artist’s model who had some years ago outraged her wealthy family by leaving her aristocratic husband. She was not a woman prepared to be bound by convention, which both excited Raven and yet made him wary of her. They both knew their relationship was not something that could last: its very transience, no doubt, was part of the allure. Neither would have sought the other out as a suitable partner otherwise.

Raven looked at her in the light of the candles she had placed around the bed, jammed into the necks of wax-encrusted bottles.

‘I have performed surgical procedures before. Surgery, however, is not my primary area of interest. The courage was Henry’s in entrusting me with the task.’

‘No, I mean how you fought off those men who tried to rob us. There were three of them and you faced them alone, knowing one of them had a pistol.’