He strode eagerly over to her. It is astonishing the way his face can take on an honest ingenuous eager look. On the way I gave my usual servile bob and started to scurry out. His hand caught my shoulder, he stopped, and from the comer of my eye I saw the simper on her face fade.

“Here, what is this, floss-hair,” he said, taking the bandage between finger and thumb. It pulled a little from my wound and I could not help giving an involuntary whimper, which I stifled immediately. I was very much aware of her presence.

“I whipped her,” came the soft, suddenly cold, little voice from the bed.

His mouth pulled into a grin. “What a shame, she dislikes whippings. But the pain looks bad. What did she do to deserve that, my love?”

“I’m glad you ask that,” she said, raising herself on an elbow. “She has been a wickedly naughty girl. She is insubordinate, insulting and insolent. Today she refused to tend me and ran out, after insulting me, before I could stop her. Later she returned with a man.”

“Returned here?”

“He brought her back and left her here. But he insulted me too—”

“He did, too?”

“I—I won’t repeat what he said. But she will be in pain for days and the marks may never go.” She relaxed, after telling him all this. “Now you may go,” she said without looking at me.

He sat me down on the bed, pulled off my bandage and looked at my back.

“Yes, the child will be in pain for some days. But you flatter yourself, my love, your gentle arm is not as strong as you believe. The marks will heal well—unless they fester much.” He went across to her table and came back with an amber pot.

“Zerd, what are you doing?” she said, watching him in suspicious frustration. “Zerd, I won’t have her old bandage lying almost by my face—”

He reached behind him, tossed the bandage away on to the rugs, and began to rub thick, cool, fragrant unguent from the amber pot into my back. I sat upright, willing myself not to flinch, though the unguent moving under the ruthless movement of his strange fingers into my sore back burned like fire or the teeth of a wild beast.

“It will sting a little,” he said, “but it means that they will heal cleanly.”

“Thank you,” I murmured through teeth tight clenched.

He bound a new bandage crosswise across my back, and told me to go, I nodded, rose weakly, and stumbled out.

She hates me now. She’ll never stop.