Elin Hale did not wait half a heartbeat when she heard Nell’s cough on the upper landing.
Checking once with her fingertips that the thick pad of willow-bark linen was strapped tight over Sir Cael Ardent’s sleeping chest so the wound could not bleed out while she left his side, Elin stepped clean across the triple boundary of cold-iron filings and river salt, snatched the earthenware pitcher of clean well-water off the side stool, and sprinted into the smoke-filled corridor.
“Stay on the top step away from the pantry wall, Nell!” Elin called up the stairwell in her clear, commanding field-hospital voice, soaking her linen apron towel in the pitcher water as she ran and tossing the wet cloth up the steps into her daughter’s hands. “Press that wet linen over your nose and mouth, pick up Button’s basket by the top handle, and come straight down the outer stringer where the oak is cool! Do not touch the chimney wall!”
Through the open door of the treatment room, Jon watched over the frosted rim of the pewter basin as eight-year-old Nell appeared out of the grey smoke curling down the stairwell.
The little girl had wrapped the wet apron towel across her mouth and nose just as her mother had taught her during the siege drills of earlier mornings. In both arms she clutched the round willow basket where Button sat hunched on the wool scraps, the lame rook’s glossy black feathers puffed out in alarm and its crooked…
