They were reluctant to move. It was the girl to whom she had been teaching the herbs, bustling through the crowd to the clearing, who at last broke the spell. A page had fetched her to revive his lord, the bearded man who winced at every indrawn breath. Gwenllian moved forward to the girl, who wiped blood from the man’s face. Quietly, she instructed the girl to bind his ribs, to prepare poultices of comfrey for the wounds, to examine the hurts of the other men and repair them as well as could be managed. She hoped the girl was equal to the task.

The crowd at last began to disperse, and move toward the hall. She walked back to Ranulf, stood before him with her head bowed slightly, and took his hand. He had not worn gloves and it was bruised and bloody.

“Come with me, my lord, and I care for your hurts.”

His face was wooden, staring blankly at her hand on his.

“Others there are who need your care.”

She stared at the linen of his shirt, stained with the blood of other men, and knew she had no potion that might heal him.

“Come with me, I pray you.”

He did not respond. After a time, he allowed her to guide him away.

The north tower was nearest, and so she took him there. Inside, the room was half-bare. No rushes on the floor, a single forlorn tapestry on the wall, and a low bench. There she sat him down and knelt before him. In her pocket was a small glass bottle, hastily stowed there while she worked. She reached for it now, hoping it would be of some use. But it was angelica, steeped in water and easily known by the fragrance it gave off, useless in dressing wounds.

Still it would wash the blood from his hands, she decided. She found the small knife in her pocket, used to trim plants, and cut a strip of linen from her undertunic. She was too hasty, her unsteady hands making a jagged tear in the gown too, but she could not care. His right hand was swollen, the knuckles scraped raw. He did not flinch as she began to clean the torn flesh.

“They are dead?”

She looked up at him, startled. “Dead?”

His eyes were almost black, the blue deeper than she had ever seen.

“The men. In the yard. Two of them.”

He must mean the men who had lain senseless. She shook her head. “They live,” she said, but knew he did not believe her. She did not know how to reassure him, to ease the tension that radiated from him. “I saw one revived but unmoving, the other breathing in deep sleep. Is likely they do not wish to move their aching heads, and so they did not rise.”