No mouse this time. And no real pain either, not unless you counted the dull ache hovering at the back of his eyeballs as he waited for his vision to adjust to his surroundings. Even then, the darker recesses remained obscured by the smoke curling up from the cooking fires.

He touched a hand to his head and ran his fingers tentatively over what felt like some sort of sticky paste. The smell gave an indication of the ingredients: softened pine resin mixed with deer tallow and beeswax. The traditional remedy for cuts and wounds.

Above him he could see the slatted underside of a storage platform and the furs and blankets that lined the sleeping compartment’s walls. Protruding over the edge of the platform he could just make out the corner of a woven reed mat and the bottom curve of an iron cooking pot. Other objects were strung from the posts that supported the partitions at each end of the compartment and which, in turn, formed part of the longhouse’s timber frame: wood-splint baskets, an infant’s carry-cradle, mixed articles of clothing – including his coat – a pair of snow shoes, a carry pouch and assorted clubs, bows, knives and a quiver of arrows. Above the central aisle the joists were festooned with provisions: strips of dried meat competed for hanging space with smoked fish, corn husks, slices of dried pumpkin, herb garlands and several bleached animal skulls.

His ears picked out the low murmur of voices, but when he turned his head the only person he could see was a slight, round-shouldered, grey-haired figure kneeling with its back to him, tending the fire adjacent to his own sleeping ledge. He transferred his gaze to the opposite partition – a twin of the one in which he lay – and to the supine form half-hidden beneath a layer of beaver pelts. Relief rose within him when he saw the steady rise and fall of Lawrence’s chest beneath the coverings. Immediately, his mind flashed back to the fight with the Oneida and the aftermath. Then his head began to throb once more. Sensing the onset of confusion, he lowered himself down.

A hand on his shoulder returned him to the present. He started and found himself gazing up into the wrinkled features of an elderly, grey-haired woman who was holding a small wooden bowl towards him. The figure from the hearth; he assumed she’d been instructed to wait until he or Lawrence showed signs of life before administering her potions.

“Onighira,” she commanded, pressing the steaming bowl gently to his lips. Her eyes, he saw, were grey and cloudy, the inevitable result of a life spent in smoke-filled interiors.

Hawkwood raised himself up and took a cautious sip. It was some sort of herbal brew. Beech-bark tea, most likely, and slightly bitter to the tongue. But there was comfort in the warmth as it coursed through his insides.