The girl stared at him, dumbfounded.
‘Jimmy,’ Flora said between her teeth, ‘turn around.’
‘Oh!’ he said and did so. As if I care, he thought. He heard Flora suck in her breath. ‘What?’
‘It’s bad,’ she said. ‘A really deep, nasty cut. I need you to go and get some things.’
‘Now wait a minute,’ he said, starting to turn around. The two girls immediately made such a fuss he stopped and kept his back to them. ‘What do you need?’ he asked, his tone surly.
‘Some powdered woundwort, some powdered yarrow and yarrow leaf tea, tincture of lady’s mantle, some willow bark tea, and—’ he could tell she hesitated, ‘—some poppy juice. And a fine needle and thread. Catgut, if you can get it. Waxed linen, if you can’t.’
‘What,’ he said after a moment, ‘nothing else? No dancing girls, no elephants, no . . .’
‘No poppy juice,’ Lorrie murmured. ‘I have to find my brother.’
‘You’re not going anywhere with that wound on your leg,’ Flora said. ‘Not today. Go!’ she snapped at Jimmy.
He went, considerably annoyed. He’d already bought this Lorrie wine and bread, now he had to buy out an apothecary for her? What else was he going to be expected to do? Poppy juice! Did Flora know what poppy juice cost? Although Lorrie had said she didn’t want any. He thought about that as he walked along. No, better get it. With all that blood she must be hurting badly. Jimmy sighed. Why did good deeds always turn out to be so expensive?
When he returned Lorrie was asleep again and Flora was looking thoughtful; she glanced up as Jimmy swung easily through the window.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking the medicines. Then after a pause: ‘Thank you a lot, Jimmy. Nobody’s ever been as kind to me.’
‘Nothing,’ he said gruffly, shrugging.
Princess Anita, what have you done to me? he asked himself, feeling that it was only half a joke. I was never one to stint help to a friend, but this is ridiculous! Flora doesn’t need help, she’s landed in the honey pot, and I barely know this bumpkin! Even if she does look like you—like you would if you’d been born a bumpkin, that is.
He noticed that Flora had made an effort to mop up the blood: there was a pile of soaked cloth in one corner, and the bandages on Lorrie’s leg were fresh. The smell was still there, faint against the musty mildew and dust of the warehouse, but at least now they didn’t have to worry about someone noticing it dripping through the floorboards. She’d also gone for water, which was essential to someone who’d lost a lot of blood.
Flora laid out the medicines and the needle and thread. Lorrie woke, though she seemed muddle-headed; Flora had probably given her the whole bottle of wine for the pain.
‘Help me turn her over,’ she said.
He did, wincing as she uncovered the wound and went to work; he supposed modesty was less important when all that was bared was a section of thigh that looked as if it were on the way to a butcher’s shop. But he looked aside anyway.
In a way it was less grit-your-teeth to have a wound of your own sewn up than to watch it done to someone else, unless you could just think of them as meat.
Lorrie bore it well, not having to be held, just shivering and panting, and his initial good opinion of the girl went up several notches. Besides, he reflected, it would go on hurting her a lot longer than it would him.
Flora’s doing a good job of work there, too, he thought: she wasn’t quite digit-agile enough to make a pickpocket, but she had neat hands for needle and thread.
‘We have something we have to ask you, Jimmy,’ Flora said, not looking up, as she tied off the last running stitch and cut the catgut with a small sharp knife.
‘No,’ he said to the wall. ‘I was thinking on my way back that you’d ask me for something else and the answer is no.’
Lorrie opened her eyes and looked at him.
‘No!’ he said, looking away. Lorrie’s sad eyes were far too much like the Princess’s for comfort. It was hard to believe that he might be susceptible to a girl’s eyes, but he was very much afraid that he was.
‘My brother has been kidnapped,’ Lorrie said, her voice husky. ‘He’s only six years old.’ She took a deep breath, obviously trying to stop herself from crying. ‘They killed my parents and burned down our house and barn. There isn’t much left, but the land has value, and there’s still some stock and a wagon. I’ll give it all to you if you’ll help him.’