Elin Hale sat on the three-legged milking stool beside the rope bed, her skirts tucked neatly between her knees to keep the hem away from the blood-spotted floorboards.
In her lap she held a wooden trencher lined with fresh dock leaves, upon which lay a paste of pounded comfrey root, dried marigold petals, and sheep tallow. Beside her feet sat a brass bowl of warm water salted with two pinches of sea salt. The steam carried the sharp, earthy scent of crushed herbs into the corners of the warded guest chamber.
On the straw mattress, Sir Cael Ardent lay stripped to his linen breeches.
Without his blued-steel breastplate, his silver spurs, and the stiff leather coat of the Imperial Vanguard, he looked diminished—a gaunt, battered soldier whose ribs stood out like barrel hoops beneath pale, scarred skin. Across his shoulders and arms were dozens of old marks: the white pucker of an arrowhead scar on his left shoulder, the jagged cross-hatching of sabre cuts along his forearms, and the deep, livid bruise across his collarbone where the Returner Seal had festered in his flesh.
Elin dipped a clean strip of coarse linen into the salted water, wrung it out until it stopped dripping, and brought the cloth toward the crater beneath his collar.
