– Frances Cornford, “The Watch,” Collected Poems
Resa didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, just .sitting in the dimly lit, dark cave where the strolling players slept, holding Mo’s hand. One of the women players brought her something to eat, and now and then one of the children crept in, leaned against the cave wall, and listened to what she was telling Mo in a quiet voice – about Meggie and Elinor, Darius, the library and its books, the workshop where he cured books of sickness and wounds as bad as his own .. How strange the strolling players must find her stories of another world that they had never seen. And how very strange they must think her, to talk to someone who lay so still, his eyes closed as if he would never open them again.
Just as the fifth White Woman appeared on the steps, the old woman had returned to Capricorn’s fortress with three men. It had not been so very far for her to go. Resa had seen guards standing among the trees as they entered the camp. The people these men were guarding were the cripples and the old folk, women with small children, and obviously there were also some in the camp who were simply resting from the stress and strain of life on the open road.
When Resa asked where food and clothing for all these people came from, one of the strolling players who had come to fetch Mo replied, “From the Prince.” And when she asked what prince he meant, he had put a black stone into her hand by way of answer.
She was known as Nettle, the old woman who had so suddenly appeared at the gate of Capricorn’s fortress. Everyone treated her with respect, but a little fear was mingled with it, too.
Resa had to help her when she cauterized Mo’s wound. She still felt sick when she thought of it.
Then she had helped the old woman to bind up the wound again and memorized all her directions. “If he’s still breathing in three days’ time he may live,” she had said before leaving them alone again, in the cave that offered protection from wild beasts, the sun, and the rain, but not from fear or from black, despairing thoughts.
Three days. It grew dark and then light again outside, light and then dark again, and every time Nettle came back and bent over Mo, Resa sought her face desperately for some sign of hope. But the old woman’s features remained expressionless. The days went by, and Mo was still breathing, but he still wouldn’t open his eyes.
The cave smelled of mushrooms, the brownies’ favorite food. Very likely a whole pack of them had once lived here. Now the mushroom aroma mingled with the scent of dead leaves. The strolling players had strewn the cold floor of the cave with them: dead leaves and fragrant herbs
– thyme, meadowsweet, woodruff. Resa rubbed the dry leaves between her fingers as she sat there cooling Mo’s forehead, which was not cold anymore but hot, terribly hot. . The scent of thyme reminded her of a fairy tale he had read to her long, long ago, before he found out that his voice could bring someone like Capricorn out of the words on the page. Wild thyme should not be brought indoors, the story had said, bad luck comes with it. Resa threw away the hard stems and brushed the scent off her fingers onto her dress.
One of the women brought her something to eat again, and sat beside her for a while in silence, as if hoping that her presence would bring a little comfort. Soon after that three of the men came in, too, but they stayed standing at the entrance of the cave, looking at her and Mo from a distance. They whispered to one another as they glanced at the pair of them.
“Are we welcome here?” Resa asked Nettle on one of her silent visits. “I think they’re talking about us.”
“Let them!” was all the old woman said. “I told them you were attacked by footpads, but of course that doesn’t satisfy them. A beautiful woman, a man with a strange wound, where do they come from? What happened? They’re curious. And if you’re wise, you won’t let too many of them see that scar on his arm.”