Once again his quill scratched over the parchment, much too briefly to write down everything he had said a short while before. And then he took up his monologue in exactly the place he had left it.

‘Some of the words and names the girl mumbled in her delirium are worth remembering. And investigating. Everything suggests a very–I mean very–extraordinary person has found their way to old Vysogota’s cottage…’

He said nothing for a while and listened.

‘I just hope,’ he muttered, ‘that old Vysogota’s cottage doesn’t prove the end of her road.’

Vysogota bent over the parchment and even pressed his quill to it, but wrote nothing, not a single letter. He threw the quill onto the table. He breathed heavily for a while, muttered angrily and blew his nose. He looked at the pallet and listened to the sounds coming from it.

‘It must be stated and noted,’ he said in a weary voice, ‘that things look very ill. All my endeavours may be insufficient, and my exertions in vain. My fears were well-founded. The wound is infected. The girl is most worryingly feverish. Three of the four cardinal symptoms of acute inflammation have appeared. Rubor, calor and tumor can easily be confirmed by eye and touch. When the post-treatment shock passes, the fourth symptom–dolor–will also appear. Let it be writ that almost half a century has passed since I have practiced medicine. I feel the years weighing on my memory and the dexterity of my fingers. I have little practical skill, and there is little I can do. I have painfully few resources or medicaments. The only hope lies in the young body’s immune mechanisms…’

‘Twelfth hour following my intervention. In accordance with expectations came the fourth cardinal symptom of inflammation: dolor. The patient is crying out in pain, the fever and shivers are growing stronger. I have nothing, not a single physic to give her. I have a small quantity of stink weed elixir, but the girl is too frail to survive its effects. I also have monk’s hood, but monk’s hood would surely kill her.’

‘Fifteenth hour following my intervention. Dawn. Patient unconscious. The fever advances rapidly, the shivers intensify. Moreover, powerful spasms of the facial muscles are occurring. If it is tetanus the girl is done for. Let us hope it is only the facial nerve… Or the trigeminal nerve. Or both of them… The girl would be left disfigured… But she would live…’

Vysogota glanced at the parchment, on which not a single word was written.

‘On condition,’ he said hollowly, ‘that she survives the infection.’