Donna Beatrice continued to stab the dead thing for quite some time. Her blows landed with meaty sounds. She was still screaming at the top of her lungs.

The horses were racing around the inside of the walls as if the little orchard were a race course.

Long Paw wasn’t sure who he was. And then he was a little sure, and then a little more.

Brown vaulted the wall of the enclosure and almost died under the hooves of M’bub Ali’s stallion. Brown rolled and then leaped and managed to get clear of a wild-eyed mare.

He looked for a moment at the thing. The Etruscan woman was kneeling by Long Paw, and she was thrusting, dagger reversed in both hands, over and over into the thing’s back.

Long Paw’s sword was through its head.

And as fast as Donna Beatrice stabbed it, the wounds healed. He had thought her maddened, but she was merely panicked, and nonetheless doing what she could; the talons were hacked away.

Brown reached into his shirt, leaned down, and plunged ten inches of witchbane into the creature.

It spasmed.

He left it there.

The wounds stopped closing.

The woman looked at him. She was covered in blood like an actor at the end of a tragedy. She was also burned all over her body, her clothes full of holes as if she’d been attacked by deadly moths.

Brown grabbed the corpse. It was hot to the touch, and it felt wrong, and he used his revulsion to hurl it as far as he could. It didn’t weigh much.

Long Paw’s eyes fluttered open.

Brown’s dagger hand was steady and the point of the dagger was at Long Paw’s throat.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Long Paw’s eyes met his. “What the fuck was that?” he asked.

Four hours had passed, and they were in the mill at the side of a river. Long Paw was sensible enough to know it when they got him off his horse; the rain was lighter, but he was cold, soaked through, and none of them looked good. M’bub Ali was badly wounded; one of his horse boys was dead and two more wounded. All of them stank of mud; all were cold and wet.

Sauce was there in person with the duchess. Long Paw smiled at her; he knew her; his head was coming back together, although there were odd flashes in the corner of his eyes and things were not right in his head; Donna Beatrice had him under one shoulder and Lucca under the other.

“Lay him down. There’s beds. Magistera Tancreda is here and ready to work. And our doctors. Thank God we had no casualties today.” Sauce shook her head. “Paw, you look like shit.”

They pushed Long Paw down.

“Talk when you are better,” she said. “Who is this?”

“Donna Beatrice,” Long Paw said. “Put her on the rolls. She killed the fucking thing.”