“I am a lady, one of the hostages.” He didn’t even bow his head. “One of my friends is ill—there’s a big purplish patch on his chest, near his throat—”

“Take me there and I can see for myself.” We set out, me first, then the surgeon and Narra with her skirts clinging to her skinny little legs in the growing heat of the morning. I love that child.

Smahil looked up as we entered, but he didn’t say anything. Only his eyes moved, his head must have seemed too heavy. His eyes had become slow and bleary and the recognition in them wasn’t quick. He didn’t seem interested. He had begun to sweat profusely, his skin was no longer grittily dry, and the flies which I hadn’t been there to brush away were crawling all over his helpless body, in and out of his shirt, apparently drinking his sweat.

“Stay outside, Narra,” I said, but when I next turned I found her still beside me.

Meanwhile I watched as the surgeon bent over Smahil. He brushed away the flies—they were too bold and too glutted to wave away—and we saw the wound. The alien colour had spred again.

“Whew,” said the surgeon. “You should have called me a whole day and night ago—nearly thirty hours ago the creature bit him.”

“I didn’t know till yesterday evening—and no one would find you for me. Is he all right?”

“Of course he’s not all right,” the surgeon said irritably. He stood staring down at the torso which seemed divorced from Smahil’s pain-tired face.

“I mean—will he die?”

“If only he hadn’t been bitten just there. On an arm or a leg—but one can’t amputate a chest or a neck.”

“Then he’ll die?” I clutched Narra’s hand. “But, by my Cousin’s Knuckle-bones, you’re not to let a man just die like that. Get the poison out somehow.”

I stared at him and he stared back as haughtily. “I’ll remind you, madam, I’m an army surgeon but this man is not a soldier. He’s a foreign lord and there’s no compulsion on me to cure him—”

“To save his life!”

I flung out and dashed to the officers’ quarters. There was already activity, slaves and grooms getting ready for the day’s march, even packing up the tents of the earliest risers among the officers. I thought anxiously of the water-bottle in Smahil’s tent. I must make sure no slave found it. The first officer whom I knew was Clor, one of the General’s subordinate commanders. I ran up to him so suddenly that he choked on the bread and cheese he was just swallowing, and had to spit it out before he could swallow it again. “Oh, so it’s you!” he said. “Well, holy winegirl?”