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not any worse than the stuff old Manlius had put on his leg when he hurt it before. They smeared his leg with something sticky and stinging, and bound it tightly with strips of linen. Then they moved the swollen ankle, and he watched without much interest as somebody said, "Nothing much wrong here—not even broken.”
    But he snapped out of the dreamy daze when Cynric said, "Brace yourself, youngster; that stake was filthy, but I think we can save the arm, if we burn it out.”
    "Eilan,” the old man commanded curtly, "get out of here; this is nothing for a young girl to see.”
    "I’ll hold him, Eilan,” Cynric said. "You can go.”
    "I will stay, Father. Maybe I can help.” Her hand closed over Gaius’s, and the old man growled, "Do as you like, then, but don’t scream or faint.”
    The next minute Gaius felt strong hands—Cynric’s?—holding him flat and hard. Eilan’s hand was still twined in his, but he felt it quiver a little; he turned his head away, closing his eyes and grinding his teeth lest some shameful cry should escape him. He smelled the approach of the heated iron, and then a frightful agony ripped through his whole body.
    A scream contorted his lips, he felt it escape as a gagging grunt; then the rough touch released him and he felt only the girl’s soft hands. When he could open his eyes, he saw the Druid looking down at him, a bleak smile tight around the greying beard. Cynric, who was still bent over him, was very white; Gaius had seen that look on youngsters in his own command after their first battle.
    "Well, you’re certainly no coward, lad,” the youth said in a choked voice.
    "Thanks,” Gaius said absurdly. And fainted.

TWO
    W hen Gaius came to himself again, feeling as if he had been unconscious for a long time, the rushlights had burned down. Only a little light came from the coals on the hearth, and by it he could just make out the girl Eilan seated beside him nearly asleep. He felt tired, and his arm throbbed and he was thirsty. He could hear women’s voices not far away. His shoulder was done up in thick wrappings of linen—he felt as if he had been swaddled like a newborn babe. The injured shoulder was slick with some greasy salve and the linen smelled of fat and balsam.
    The girl sat silent beside him on a little three-legged stool, as pale and slender as a young birch, her hair combed away from her temples, waving a little; it was too fine in texture to lie perfectly flat. She had a gilt chain around her neck with some sort of amulet. These Briton girls matured late, Gaius knew; she might be as old as fifteen. She was hardly a woman, but just as certainly not a child.
    There was a clatter as if someone had dropped a pail and a young voice yelled, "Then you can go and milk them yourself if you’ve a mind!”
    "And what’s to do with the byre-woman?” a woman’s voice asked sharply.
    "Oh, wailing and weeping like the banshee because those Roman butchers came and marched her man off with the levies, and she left with three babes,” said the first voice, "and now my Rhodri has gone off after them.”
    "The curse of Tanarus on all Romans—” began a voice Gaius recognized as Cynric’s, but the older woman’s voice cut him short.
    "Hush now. Mairi, put the dishes on the table, don’t stand here shouting at the boys. I’ll go and speak with the poor woman—tell her she can bring the little ones here to the house—but someone must milk the cows this night, even if the Romans carry off every man in Britain.”
    "You are good, Foster Mother,” Cynric said, and the voices subsided into a hum again. The girl looked toward Gaius and rose from her stool.
    "Oh, you are awake,” she said. "Are you hungry?”
    "I could devour a horse and chariot and chase the driver halfway to Venta,” Gaius said gravely, and she stared a moment before her eyes widened