A second cloth was wrapped and strapped around her waist and legs. Mary’s headdress fell off, her graying blond braid flopping free, coming loose in wild tangles, her body still heaving and twisting in the soldiers’ hands. Yseult propped herself up with her right hand, her left cheek throbbing, her left arm a mass of throbbing pain from shoulder to wrist. Three clerks were helping the man called Captain Garrick sort through the papers on the table; he was a tallish brown-haired man with a neat pointed chin-beard and mustache, in full armor except for the gauntlets and helm. Two more were smothering the fire and carefully pulling out the charred scraps.

“How much did she burn?” asked Sir Garrick.

“Hmmm,” said one of the clerks. “I make it ten pages by the surviving edges and corners. She didn’t do the best job. What are they?”

“Probably drafts of their letters.” Sir Garrick frowned down at the bound woman struggling and screaming at his feet.

“Adolphus!” he snapped. “Quiet her down. I can’t hear myself think.”

A slender unarmed young man wearing a white tabard with a red cross on the shoulder came forward. After frowning for a few minutes he pulled a small brown bottle out of his leather satchel.

“Laudanum,” he said briefly. “I hate to use drugs, but I don’t have too many options. I could try to gag her, but the danger of her choking or aspirating is very high. The danger of overdosing her on opium is lower, but still significant. Especially with a case of hysteria like this.”

Sir Garrick grumbled under his breath. “She’ll do herself an injury anyway if we don’t quiet her, and we need her alive.” Louder he said: “Drugs. I take the responsibility.”

Mary struggled and thrashed like a salmon in a net, but Adolphus was very good; he dribbled the drops in one by one. Yseult blinked, trying to sit. An ungentle hand, gauntleted and armored, pushed her back down.

“Bide where you are, girl,” said the rough voice. “Bide quiet, that’s best.”

She lay watching her mother try to spit out the drops and Adolphus pour small amounts of water in her mouth and rub her throat. Gradually her struggles eased and she lay still, breathing heavily. Sir Garrick turned towards Yseult and smiled thinly. She cowered, feeling much like a rabbit confronted by a coyote. Or a wolf.

“Vulture and her chick, all in one net. Neat. Ah, Goodwife Romarec, attend.”

Yseult’s teeth chattered; her skin wrinkled as if it were freezing cold, not a warm early evening. Romarec was frog-marched into the room and shot one quick glance at Yseult before bobbing her curtsy to the knight. With her came all the higher staff; one of the men had a bleeding bruise across his cheek and was being assisted by two of the Protector’s Guardsmen.