“I don’t suppose you’d consider escaping, if I left for a moment?” I asked abruptly.
“No,” he said, not opening his eyes. “I gave my parole. Besides, I wouldn’t make it outside the camp,” he added.
The silence resumed, broken by the brumm of a large bumblebee, which had blundered into the tent, and the more distant shouts and drumbeats of soldiers drilling and the low thrashing noises of daily camp life.
The only good thing—if one chose to regard it that way, and I might as well—was that the rising sense of battle urgency was likely to preclude official curiosity about John. What the devil would Jamie do with him when the army decamped in the morning? I wondered.
“Grand-mère, Grand-mère!” Germain burst into the tent, and Rollo—who had slept through Percy Beauchamp’s visit without stirring a whisker—shot out from under the cot with an explosive WOOF! that nearly overturned the cot and John with it.
“Hush, dog,” I said, seeing him glaring wildly round, and took a restraining grip on his scruff. “And what the he—I mean the dev—I mean what’s the matter, Germain?”
“I saw him, Grannie! I saw him! The man who took Clarence! Come quick!” And without waiting for response, he turned and raced out of the tent.
John began to sit up, and Rollo tensed under my hand.
“Sit!” I said to both of them. “And bloody stay!”
THE HAIRS ON my forearms were prickling, even as sweat streamed down my neck. I’d left my hat behind and the sun blazed on my cheeks; I was panting by the time I caught up with Germain, as much from emotion as from heat.
“Where—”
“Just there, Grannie! The big bugger wi’ the kerchief round his arm. Clarence must ha’ bitten him!” Germain added, with glee.
The bugger in question was big: roughly twice my size, with a head like a pumpkin. He was sitting on the ground under the shade of what I thought of as the hospital tree, nursing his kerchief-wrapped arm and glowering at nothing in particular. A small group of people seeking medical treatment—you could tell as much from their hunched and drooping attitudes—was keeping a distance from him, looking warily at him from time to time.
“You’d best keep out of sight,” I murmured to Germain, but, hearing no answer, glanced round to discover that he’d already faded artfully from view, canny child that he was.
I walked up, smiling, to the little group of waiting people—mostly women with children. I didn’t know any of them by name, but they clearly knew who and what I was; they bobbed their heads and murmured greetings, but cut their eyes sideways at the man under the tree. “Take him first before he does something messy” was the clear message. Just as clear as the sense of badly contained violence that the man was radiating in all directions.
I cleared my throat and walked over to the man, wondering what on earth I was to say to him. “What have you done with Clarence the mule?” or “How dare you rob my grandson and leave him in the wilderness alone, you bloody bastard?”
I settled for “Good morning. I’m Mrs. Fraser. What happened to your arm, sir?”
“Bleedin’ mule bit me to the bone, gaddamn his stinkin’ hide,” the man replied promptly, and glowered at me under eyebrows ridged with scar tissue. So were his knuckles.
“Let me see it, will you?” Not waiting for permission, I took hold of his wrist—it was hairy and very warm—and unwrapped the kerchief. This was stiff with dried blood, and no wonder.
Clarence—if it was Clarence—actually had bitten him to the bone. Horse and mule bites could be serious but usually resulted only in deep bruising; equines had powerful jaws, but their front teeth were designed for tearing grass, and as most bites were through clothing, they didn’t often break skin. It could be done, though, and Clarence had done it.
A flap of skin—and a good chunk of flesh—about three inches wide had been partially detached, and I could see past the thin fatty layer to the gleam of tendon and the red membranous covering of the radius. The wound was recent but had stopped bleeding, save for a little oozing at the edges.
“Hmm,” I said noncommittally, and turned his hand over. “Can you close your fingers into a fist?” He could, though the ring finger and little finger wouldn’t fold in completely. They did move, though; the tendon wasn’t severed. “Hmm,” I said again, and reached into my bag for the bottle of saline solution and a probe. Saline was a little less painful for disinfection than dilute alcohol or vinegar—and it was somewhat easier to get hold of salt, at least when living in a city—but I kept a tight grip on the enormous wrist as I poured the liquid into the wound.
He made a noise like a wounded bear, and the waiting onlookers took several steps back, as a body.
“Rather a vicious mule,” I observed mildly, as the patient subsided, panting. His face darkened.
“Gonna beat the gaddamn bastarding f**ker to death, soon as I get back,” he said, and bared his yellow teeth at me. “Skin him, I will, and sell his meat.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t advise that,” I said, keeping a grip on my temper. “You don’t want to be using that arm violently; it could bring on gangrene.”
“It could?” He didn’t go pale—it wasn’t possible, given the temperature—but I’d definitely got his attention.
“Yes,” I said pleasantly. “You’ve seen gangrene, I daresay? The flesh goes green and putrid—beastly smell—limb rots, dead in days . . . that sort of thing?”