The yard was full of horsemen and Phillippa was there, and both the Rose girls and old Gynn and Beatrice Upton. Then there were torches.
Ser John appeared among the men. He was in full armour, and he looked old. But he managed a smile for her. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he said. ‘I’m covered in shit.’
She flinched back, and saw that there were other knights – a man on a stretcher between two horses, and a bundle that held the particular quality of a corpse. She put her hands to her mouth, but only for a moment.
‘Hot water,’ she called. ‘And get Sister Amicia!’
‘I’m here,’ said the nun. She was dressed only in a shift, and she ran across the yard to the man on the horse-stretcher.
Ser John swung a leg over his horse and dismounted slowly. His squire came and took the horse.
‘He fought a giant. By himself,’ said Jamie.
‘Crap I did,’ said Ser John. ‘Sister, Ser Richard isn’t dying. This boy is.’ Ser John led her to another man, also on an improvised stretcher between two pack horses.
Helewise went to the man called Ser Richard. She waved to the girls. ‘Let’s get him inside,’ she said. ‘Smartly with the stretcher.’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ her daughter said with her usual attitude.
She and Jen got the stretcher unlashed from the saddles and they carried the wounded man inside, grunting at his weight. He was a big man in full harness. The two young women grunted but they got him onto the hall table, while Mary Rose took the cloth and rolled it away, moving the two great bronze candlesticks that the looters couldn’t break, and dropping a heavy salt-cellar on her foot and cursing.
‘Christ, they stink,’ said Mary.
There was a glow of gold-green light outside, and then they heard Sister Amicia praying.
‘Oh,’ said Phillippa. ‘I want to see her miracles!’
‘You can stay right here and help me with these buckles,’ said her mother.
Golden light like the rising sun played outside.
‘Oh! It’s not fair!’ said Phillippa.
‘Be a help and not a hussy,’ spat Helewise. ‘Get his arm harness off.’
While she fumbled with the unfamiliar buckles under the man’s sword arm, Ser John and the priest and Sister Amicia came in. Phillippa suddenly became very serious about her buckles.
Sister Amicia had hair going every which way, and there were lines under her eyes. Helewise had never seen her look so old.
But she put a hand on Phillippa’s hand. ‘You must be even more gentle,’ she said. ‘Look – collarbone is broken, and the arm, and all these bones in the hand. And his breastplate – see where it is bent?’ Amicia took a deep breath. ‘All those ribs are broken, and they can’t even spring back until the breastplate is removed.’ Her voice emitted a sort of warm calm, like a mother’s love made palpable.
She took a deep breath and turned the collet on her ring so that the bezel was out. ‘Oh, my sweet Lord,’ she said.
Six hundred leagues to the east, the Red Knight paused, his breath caught, and for a moment he was sitting hand in hand with Amicia the novice, under the magical apple tree on the wall of the convent at Lissen Carrak. The feeling was so powerful that he was there.
She didn’t seem to ask, but he gave her every scrap of his horded ops – the deep reserve he kept for the moment he might have to face Harmodius.
She took it all.
Ser John reached past Phillippa and undid the side-straps on the other knight’s breastplate – one, two. But the third moved something inside, and Ser Richard gave a choked scream.
Ser John looked at the nun, and she shook her head.
He drew a dagger and cut the strap, and the armour hinged open, and the man’s body made a wet sound.
‘Helewise!’ Ser John said, and she got a hand in with his and they rolled the man a little, and the priest got the backplate off as he coughed blood.
‘No!’ said Amicia. ‘Lay him flat. Gently.’
Phillippa finally had the last straps on the arm undone, and Ser John opened the left vambrace with a sticky, wet sound.
Ser Richard’s eyes opened, and he screamed and then choked and said, ‘Awfully sorry.’
Sister Amicia put a hand on his shoulder. Her face grew pale, then almost leaden. The ring flared like a diamond in sunlight, and then like a small sun.
She sighed. And slowly smiled.
Her eyes opened.
Ser Richard’s eyes fluttered again. He released a breath that he might have been holding for a very long time. ‘I’ll never doubt God again,’ he said dreamily.
Sister Amicia laughed. It wasn’t a strong laugh but it was a good one, and she sat heavily on the trestle bench.
Now that the crisis was past, Helewise and her daughter looked at each other. They both smiled.
The stench was truly awful.
‘Everyone wash,’ said Helewise. ‘What in the name of heaven is it?’
Ser John shook his head. ‘Giant shit,’ he said. ‘Pardon my Gallish, but that’s what it is.’
The hall was full and so was the yard, and everyone was awake. And everything happened at once – girls got pails of water from the well, fires were lit in the kitchen and the hall fireplace and even in Helewise’s solar, and every kettle they possessed was pressed into service heating water. Ben Scold, the best of the new men, started cleaning the horses, and the surviving archer joined him. Young Jamie began collecting the reeking armour – Lord Wimarc’s was the worst – and by then Phillippa had some boiling water for him. He looked at her and smiled.
‘Did you kill one?’ Phillippa asked.
Just for a moment, he thought of lying to her – she was so pretty. But he shrugged and looked at the ground. ‘I was sent with the horses,’ he said. ‘I didn’t strike a blow.’
She smiled at him. ‘Your time will come,’ she said, and he fell instantly in love with her.
Everyone bathed. The knights had soap, of all things, and the women had made some more; the women bathed in the hall and the men in the kitchen, and Helewise started a fashion by wearing her kirtle without a shift under it, because there was still dirty work to do.
Ser Richard attempted to rise and was pressed back into a bed by Amicia. ‘Good knight, the power of my healing, even with God’s help, is greatly aided by careful rest and a great deal of sleep.’
He looked at her with worship. ‘Beautiful sister, why? I feel better than I have in a long time.’
She smiled and smoothed his hair. ‘Shall I tell you? When I heal – when any good healer heals – we knit the tissues just as much as we need to bring them together, and no more. The power used is greater than any other kind of casting.’ She smiled hesitantly, and then shook her head. ‘Think of the power you would use to cut a man’s hand off with a sword. The power to put it back on is many times greater. So we fix what we can, but then we must let God and nature do the rest over time.’ She shook her head. ‘And nature’s healing gives a greater hope of success.’ she said. ‘And, when it comes to healing, I really need more training.’
Ser Richard gazed adoringly at her and said, ‘I’m sure you need no further training.’
Amicia had some experience being a healer – and a woman – and knew when it was time to fluff the pillow and be all business.
Lord Wimarc was moved into Helewise’s solar. The smell of giant began to recede, although it continued to catch at the back of people’s throats for days. Helewise broached a keg of cider, and everyone had a little – there wasn’t that much of it – and Old Gwynn produced a leather flagon of wine that they all drank greedily, and Mag Hasting brought out fresh bread.
Eventually, the excitement faded. Helewise made sure that her daughter went to bed with her friend Jen and not with either of the squires – she didn’t really think her daughter would, but she had to check – and then scrubbed the hall table one more time and helped Old Gwynn wipe down the kitchen where the men had slopped wash water. Amicia had passed out in the hall settle, and Helewise threw a heavy wool blanket over her. She stood in the middle of her hall, and listened to the silence. Gwynn smiled toothlessly and went laboriously up the stairs to the rooftrees, where she had a little garret.