Nell raised an eyebrow. “She’d better. For her sake.”
~
Shrike didn’t expect to hear back from the Court of Bells and Candles before the se’en-night was out.
Which made the knock at the door the very next morning all the more confounding.
Nell, still in the midst of breaking down her hammock, shot a raised eyebrow at Shrike. The wolf likewise leapt to its feet and looked to him.
Shrike left off stroking Wren’s hair and went to answer the door.
And before him stood a mortal.
She stood shorter than he or Nell, though not so short as Wren. Her hair likewise surpassed his chestnut locks to burst into the true colour of flame, though she cropped it just as close, if not closer. Her clothes appeared plainer; a hooded robe covered all but her head and hands in rough brown wool. One hand rested on the leather satchel she’d slung over her shoulder. The other braced against the thick neck-ruff of the pack-stag who followed a half-step behind her, laden with two leather cases balanced on either side with straps across its back.
“The Oak King, I presume?” she said, after the silence had stretched for a long moment.
“Aye.” Shrike’s voice creaked with disuse.
“My Lady Aethelthryth has sent me to tend the Holly King,” the mortal continued.
Shrike blinked. “You are her chirurgeon?”
“Aye,” she replied with more patience than Shrike thought his due. “And bone-setter besides. You may call me Everilda.”
Shrike bowed and set about unpacking her steed.
Released of its burden, the stag looked to Everilda. At her nod it wandered off towards the back of the cottage where Shrike could just glimpse its joining the goat herd in gnawing at the briars surrounding Blackthorn. The goats didn’t seem to mind their strange companion.
Shrike led the way into the cottage with a leather case under either arm—one considerably heavier than the other. Everilda took in the singular round room in a sweeping glance which came to rest on Wren. Nell, Shrike couldn’t help noticing even in his distracted state, never took her eyes off Everilda. The wolf slipped out the door into the garden.
Everilda approached the nest. Shrike followed and, at her indication, set down her leather cases beside her. From the heavy one she took out a gyrdel-book. From the other she withdrew a gilded heart’s-vine and glass fever-wand—tools Shrike had seen used on other wounded fae after tournaments or hunts, yet never had the privilege of himself. She slipped the fever-wand between Wren’s lips. The brass bell of the heart’s-vine she pressed against Wren’s ribs, then lowered to the rude bandage wrapped ‘round his waist. She listened intently through the prong in her ear all the while. Nothing her instruments told her seemed to surprise her. At length she turned to Shrike.
“What tonic has he taken?” Everilda asked.
“A draught of suspended sleep.” Shrike strode to where his cloak hung on the wall-hook beside Wren’s and dove into its pocket to retrieve the empty vial.
Everilda accepted the vial from him. She uncorked it and sniffed the residue, then nodded, much to his relief.
“It’ll keep him peaceful through the chirurgy,” she assured him. “Where shall we lay him out?”
Shrike glanced between her and Wren already lying peaceful in the nest.
“A hard surface would serve better,” she added in answer to his unspoken question. “Something to brace against while I work. Easier to clean before and after.” Her gaze flitted over the room and landed on Shrike’s work-bench. “Would you object to the use of…?”
Shrike strode to the work-bench and cleared it off in three sweeping armfuls.
Everilda raised her brows. “That’ll do nicely. Have you a cauldron?”
Shrike leapt to fetch it. At her bidding he filled it with scalding water from the hollow stump and hung it over the fire to grow still hotter. When it boiled, he tossed it over the work-bench. Steam hissed up from the cleansed wood.
Everilda glanced at Nell. “Can you carry him between the two of you?”
Shrike felt as if he could carry Wren on a journey through all the realms and fight off any foe who dared to cross their path. He did, however, bear a great appreciation for Nell’s assistance in gently lifting Wren from their nest and conveying him to the work-bench.
As they laid him down, Shrike kept his hand against the back of Wren’s head to shield it from the unyielding boards. Laid out on the bare wood, he appeared still more frail than he had when swathed in quilt and fur. At the chirurgeon’s bidding, they set him on his left side, for the wound ran down his right flank. Shrike withdrew his palm from beneath Wren’s skull, and the sight of him lolling across the oak in the wake, even for but a moment, plunged a knife into Shrike’s ribs and sent him scrambling for something, anything, to support his helpless frame. Wren’s own scarf hung on the wall hook. Shrike snatched it up and rolled it into a pillow to slip beneath Wren’s head. Perhaps he imagined it, but he thought a slight sigh of relief escaped Wren’s barely-moving chest.
Everilda, meanwhile, had set her kit down on the stool and opened it to reveal a set of gleaming silver tools. Then she went to wash her hands and arms up past her elbows in the scalding spray of the hollow stump. At a significant glance from her, Nell did likewise, and shot the same glance back at Shrike. With some reluctance, Shrike followed their lead. It took him but two strides from Wren’s sleeping form. Those two strides felt like a thousand leagues. The warmth of the water he hardly felt at all. He hastened to return to his post by Wren’s head.
