denly. We lurched past the barracks-sentries, Smahil giving the password in a weak whisper, and demanded to see the commanding officer on urgent business from the General.

The commander came out in less then five minutes, his staff anxiously behind him.

“Cursed Southern allies—attacked headquarters—the General beseiged in courtyard—” Smahil gasped out

“Reinforcements, quickly,” the commander rapped out, and as his orders were obeyed he looked keenly at Smahil. Smahil was slumped in the saddle, there was blood oozing from the gash on his cheekbone though already there was a murky green and bright yellow bruise there, as though paints had carelessly been allowed to run together, and his face was covered with blood where he’d wiped his hand across it. There was also some on his uniform where I’d been pressed against him.

“Get a surgeon to this man,” ordered the commander.

“Oh, no sir—please—I don’t warrant that,” said Smahil feebly. “I’d like to go back to the defence of the General—only my bird seems to be wounded—”

The commander looked at the splash of brains on its head, at its wild eyes and hysterical demeanour and the twist of its mouth which Smahil had unmercifully wrenched.

“Where’s your billet?”

“My companion will see me there. There’s a surgeon quartered there too, sir, anyway, sir.”

“I’m glad you’ve given in, you’re in no state—” the commander remarked hurriedly, obviously relieved. “And as for that, there’s no need, all that’s under control. All right, I suppose you can get there.”

“He didn’t even offer me a change of mount,” Smahil said as we trotted back up the road, the reinforcements already a galloping flurry in the distance.

The trees were like fountains on the hill now, but Smahil made a detour over it.

“All this is doing down my neck.”

“Never mind, there’s a spring at the top.”

“You aren’t thirsty, in this?”

“No, but I’m sick of looking like a rusty beetle. The resemblance has served its turn.”

Preparatory to washing, he took off his leather tunic-coat, laid it across the pommel. Under it he wore a black linen shirt, open at his chest which is smooth and tanned.

The path to the crown of the little hill was steep and thickly wooded. Already half squashed by the rain, berries and the dungballs of little animals squished and loose stones rattled under the bird’s claws.

Abruptly we emerged into a curved space, a cup in the hill’s summit, the grass short as though used regularly for grazing, surrounded by the trees. To one side was a gravelly incline, overhung by a small chalky cliff. Little grasses and flowers quivered from its interstices under the rain. The underside of the overhang was glaucous with thick wet moss, and a spring gushed from it.

Smahil dismounted.