I sat scribbling the first part of the above entry on some paper I found—I stuck it into this Diary later—and Smahil lay beside me breathing. At times the breathing sounded painful, but he was asleep. I had to wave away endless swarms of flies, but at least that and the scribbling kept me awake. I was desperately weary. Every tendon wept feebly, pleading for sleep which I wouldn’t grant. I had a hard day of riding and another evening of anxiety ahead of me so I should have slept while I could but I was new to nursing and was afraid to sleep in case anything happened. Once, when Smahil started to snore and I thought he was deeply enough asleep for me to risk it, I held one of the torches close over him and peered fearfully at the place. It had not spread much further, but the texture of the skin it coloured was very tight-stretched and shiny.

I thought, “The best thing to do is to cut it and let out the poison,” but there was no lump just the flat discoloured skin. I dare not do it, I was afraid of piercing some important artery or nerve. I know nothing about anatomy, but I do know my mother told me to strike at the throat to kill. Amateur hacking at the base of Smahil’s throat wasn’t going to improve things.

Twice I ran out to find Blob.

The first time he was surly and baleful, said he’d help look after Smahil when I couldn’t but no more, he had his own life between working hours, didn’t he, no he didn’t know where a surgeon was. I was sure he did know where one could be found if he only troubled to think. But I didn’t stay to argue. I was terrified something else would happen to the wound while I was away.

The second time I ran to Blob he was sitting slumped, nasally snoring. I didn’t dare wake him and ran, almost distracted, back to Smahil.

As daylight seeped in, the black blot looked uglier and uglier to my nervous exhausted eyes, though it had not grown any bigger.

At dawn Smahil woke and blinked up at me in surprise.

“Cija?” he said.

“I stayed all night,” I explained.

“Silly, your eyelids are swollen. Didn’t you get any sleep?”

“A little. I was too worried to sleep except when I had to but it can’t have been more than a few minutes each time.”

“Worried? About me?”

“About your wound. Now don’t worry too, it’s not bad—”

He didn’t squint down to look at it, I suppose he remembered well enough what it had been like and didn’t exactly feel like gloating over it. I didn’t tell him it had spread.

“You’ll drop off Urns asleep today—”