The footsteps grew louder. Yes, they were human footsteps, no doubt about it. And then suddenly all was still. Menacingly still. Resa felt the handle in her fingers. She quickly removed the knife from Mo’s pocket and snapped it open. She hardly dared to turn, but at last she did.
An old woman was standing in what had once been Capricorn’s gateway. She looked as small as a child among the pillars that still stood erect. She had a sack slung over her shoulder and was wearing a dress that looked as if she had woven it from nettles. Her skin was burned brown, her face furrowed like the bark of a tree. Her gray hair was as short as a marten’s fur, and had leaves and burrs clinging to it. Without a word, she came toward Resa. Her feet were bare, but she didn’t seem to mind the nettles and thistles growing in the courtyard of the ruined fortress. Her face expressionless, she pushed Resa aside and bent over Mo. Unmoved, she lifted the bloody scraps of fabric that Resa was still pressing to the wound.
“I never saw a wound like that before,” she remarked, in a voice that sounded hoarse, as if it wasn’t often used. “What did it?”
“A rifle,” replied Resa. It felt strange to be speaking with her tongue again instead of her hands.
“A rifle?” The old woman looked at her, shook her head, and bent over Mo again. “A rifle. What may that be?” she murmured as her brown fingers felt the wound. “Dear me, these days they go inventing new weapons faster than a chick hatches from its egg, and I have to find out how to mend what they stab and cut.” She put her ear to Mo’s chest, listened, and straightened up again with a sigh. “Are you wearing something under that dress?” she asked abruptly, without looking at Resa. “Take it off and tear it up. I need long strips.” Then she put her hand into a leather bag at her belt, took out a little bottle, and used its contents to soak one of the strips of fabric that Resa was offering her. “Press that down on it!” she said, handing the fabric back to Resa. “This is a bad wound. I may have to cut or cauterize it, but not here. The two of us can’t carry him on our own, but the strolling players have a camp not far off, for their old and sick people. I may find help there.” She dressed the wound with fingers as nimble as if she had never done anything else.
“Keep him warm!” she said as she rose to her feet again and slung the sack over her shoulder.
Then she pointed to the knife that Resa had dropped in the grass. “Keep that with you. I’ll try to be back before the wolves get here. And if one of the White Women turns up, make sure she doesn’t look at him or whisper his name.”
Then she was gone, as suddenly as she had come. And Resa kneeled there in the courtyard of Capricorn’s fortress, her hand pressed down on the blood-soaked dressing, and listened to Mo’s breathing.
“Can you hear me? My voice is back,” she whispered to him. “Just as if it had been waiting for you here.” But Mo did not move. His face was as pale as if the stones and grass had drunk all his blood.
Resa didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard the whispering behind her, incomprehensible and soft as rain. When she looked around, there stood the figure on the ruined stairway. A White Woman, blurred as a reflection on water. Resa knew only too well what such an apparition meant. She had told Meggie about the White Women often enough. Only one thing lured them, and faster than blood lured the wolves: failing breath, a heart beating ever more feebly . .
“Be quiet!” Resa shouted at the pale figure, bending protectively over Mo’s face. “Go away, and don’t you dare look at him. He isn’t going with you, not today!” They whisper your name if they want to take you with them, so Dustfinger had told her. But they don’t know Mo’s name, thought Resa. They can’t know it, because he doesn’t belong here. All the same, she held her hands over his ears.
The sun was beginning to set. It sank inexorably behind the trees. Darkness fell between the charred walls, and the pale figure on the stairs stood out more clearly all the time. It stood there motionless, waiting.
Chapter 19 – Birthday Morning
“Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city … Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills …”