‘You have taken a blow to the head, mademoiselle,’ he explained in his German-accented French. ‘Your shoulder and arm have been punctured and cut by a knife. The wound is deep but the surgeon has stitched it shut. I believe you will live, though the crowd would have trampled you had you not been pulled from beneath their heels.’

I attempted to speak, but could only moan.

‘You have narrowly escaped death, mademoiselle. Three others were not as fortunate as you.’ There was a note of chastisement in his tone.

‘Madame?’ I muttered feebly.

‘She is still in labour. I must return to her. She has called for you but I have told her you have met with an accident.’ He paused. ‘You should not have been upon the street, Mademoiselle Lightfoot. Monsieur d’Orléans cannot imagine what lunacy possessed you.’

I shut my eyes. I felt some cold poultice drying in my hair. My arm was tightly bound.

‘Here,’ said Seiffert, raising me. Lucy pressed a glass to my lips. ‘It is laudanum.’

I recall no more than its warm, honeyed sensation in my throat before I sank into a lengthy spell of heaviness and dreams. Banners of red billowed in my visions, wafting above fountains which ran with blood. The head of a Medusa with long skeins of hair floated at the base of one. I could smell sage. There were hedges of green, twisted bracken which tore at my arms as I struggled in search of someone. There were cries of the tortured. Briefly I believed that I had awakened and some angel brushed the hair from my forehead, but when I glanced downward, I spied two horned demons twisting my skirts about my waist. They turned and tightened them, compressing my hips together until I begged for mercy. At some point in the midst of this ordeal I grew aware of Lucy raising me in the bed. I was entirely unaware of the hour or the day and was somewhat startled to see daylight as I fluttered my eyes.

‘I have not been murdered,’ was all I could think to say to my maid. My tongue was so dry I could scarcely move it. She smiled at me, undoubtedly thinking my words to be mere laudanum-laced ramblings.

‘No, madam,’ said she, sliding something from between my legs before pausing to touch my forehead. ‘You are powerful warm.’

I felt heavy, as if my limbs had been built of brick. The pain from my head had seemed to travel into my belly and down through my arm, which now throbbed and stung. I looked at her from slow, stunned eyes.

‘It has come away, madam,’ she whispered to me as she pulled the fresh bedding around me.

‘What has?’ I uttered through my parched lips.