“Don’t fret yourself, he’s all right. Not a scratch. So you remember it now? Well, that’s a good sign, anyway! Yes, you both took a toss, and you were lucky, too. Another handspan deeper, and you’d have drowned before they got you out. You hit your head, but it’s no more than a bruise to spoil your handsome face for a day or two.” She laughed fatly, busying herself with cloths and hot water. The water smelled of some herb mixture, and he relaxed gratefully back on the pillow.

“I’ve hurt my foot, I think. Did you say there was blood?”

“That was from your arm here, and a nasty little gash it is, too. Aye, you can feel that, can’t you? Bide still now, we must make sure it’s clean. They reckoned you must ’a speared your arm on a bit of a broken branch when you went over the bank. Your foot’s naught to worry you, a sprain that’ll keep you lying up for a few days, no more. I told you, you were lucky.”

“It seems I was. Who brought me in?”

“There were three of them out hunting. It was Enoch carried you in here. There, that’ll do you for now. You stay where you are, and rest yourself, and Peter’ll bring you something to eat in a minute. Nay, young master, I said stay there in your bed … It’ll be a day or two before you feel right enough to go about, with that knock on the head. And don’t fret yourself about your horse. It’s cared for. You just do as old Brigit says, and the two of you will be out of here and on your road before the week’s out.”

In this, as it happened, she was wrong.

Alexander ate what the boy brought him, fully resolved to get out of bed as soon as he had finished, and see if he could relieve his reluctant hostess of what must now be a decidedly tiresome guest. But either the knock on the head had been worse even than it felt, or there had been some sort of soporific drug in the drink the nurse had given him, for when he sat up and tried to rise, the room spun dangerously round him, and the feeling of nausea returned. He lay down again and shut his eyes. A little rest, yes, and then the world would hold steady and he would be himself again …

But when he woke once more it was dusk, almost dark, and he felt no inclination to move from his bed. His head still ached, and the arm throbbed. Peter, coming in (for the third time that day, though Alexander did not know it) with a bowl of broth and some fresh bread wrapped in a napkin, gave him a doubtful look, then set the things down and hurried out of the room, to frighten Brigit with the news that the young lord looked to him to be none too lively, and all set for a real bout of the fever such as had taken his, Peter’s, uncle off that time he had fallen drunk into the moat and lain there for the whole night before anyone found him.