Extreme measures - CHAPTER 21

Dragonblade

	None of the druid’s books were in the Royal Library. Jane wasn’t surprised. The king concerned himself with history and epic ballads, not herb-lore and alchemy. The queen had brought with her volumes on the myths and legends from her homeland, and little else. Jane used the covered way above Rake’s garden to reach the upper floor of the knight’s quarters. The door to the captain’s room was closed. Jane knocked and entered without waiting for a response. Sir Theodore was out. Amongst his books on the side table Jane found two written in Greek. It wasn’t a language she was fluent in, but from the drawings they seemed to cover anatomy and metallurgy.
          Jane grabbed them, hurried down to the yard, and ran across to Jester’s room in the corner tower. She tried not to look around at all his things, but just being there made it hard to breath. She pulled all the books from his shelving and sorted out seven that might have come from the druid’s tower. Then she saw the Scholar King’s book on dragon lore. So, Jester had brought it up from the catacombs. Of course he had, Jester was a master squirrel at gathering and hoarding knowledge. 
          ‘Are you mended?’ Dragon’s large head pushed in through the door.
          ‘Not mended. I won’t be until Jester is awake and walking. But I am ready for duty. I’ll take these books to the druid then I must go and search Gunther’s house.’
          ‘I’ll take you.’
          ‘It’s a short walk.’
          ‘I’ll take you!’
          Jane and the Dragon swooped down over the market square. It was just a few hours after sunrise but the heat was building and the townsfolk were hard at work, trying their best to steal a march on the midday heat to come. Sir Theodore had posted a guard in front of the Merchant’s house where a small crowd had gathered.   
         Jane landed a short distance away and watched for a moment. They townsfolk sounded angry and were venting their feelings on the poor guard. It was to be expected, the Merchant had fled overnight, leaving unpaid bills and broken promises. Jane climbed down and walked up to join them. They turned to her.
         ‘Where is he, Jane?
         ‘I don’t know,’ she said, raising her voice just a little, ‘but I mean to find out.’ She pushed through them and stopped at the door. She expected the sentry guard to step aside. He didn’t.
         ‘I need to go in,’ she said quietly, trying to keep the conversation from the crowd.
         ‘Sorry Jane. Sir Theodore was very clear. No one goes in to disturb the place.’
         ‘I’ve just come from Sir Theodore. I’ve been ordered to go after the Merchant. For that I need my sword! The princess had it with her when she came here.’
         ‘We searched the house with Sir Ivon last night and found nothing!’
         ‘What were you looking for?’
         ‘Some sign of Gunther. He was one of us Jane, a Knight of the King’s Guard. Whatever he’s done, he’s still one of us.’
         ‘I know. I mean to find him before his father does, but I must have my sword!’
         ‘Sorry,’ the guard straightened his back. ‘You have your orders. I have mine.’
Jane gave up and climbed back on Dragon. They flew over the house and landed in the large courtyard at the back. A window on the second floor was hanging open. 
        ‘Get me up to that window,’ said Jane, ‘someone broke in after Sir Ivon secured the house last night.’ Dragon obliged, stretching his neck for her to use as a ladder. Jane climbed to the window and surveyed the room. It was a mess of overturned furniture, and clearly the Merchant’s own bedchamber, for it was well appointed with a four-poster bed, tapestries on every wall and rugs on the oak floor. There was also blood, a great deal of it. Had he tried to dress his injury in here? Had he overturned the furniture in a rage? Perhaps Gunther had come in here looking for something? 
         Jane climbed down from the sill and searched the room. The large bed wasn’t square to the wall, someone had pushed one corner. Not far, but enough to reveal a gap where a single floorboard had been lifted. Jane reached into the space below. Nothing. Whatever secrets the Merchant had been keeping down there were gone.
         Gunther’s chamber was at the front of the house, a small room overlooking the street. Jane had seen it once, years ago, when Sir Ivon had escorted her there to make an apology to Gunther. It felt like a lifetime ago. She couldn’t even remember what had prompted it. 
         She crossed the upper landing, found the room and went in. Now it looked more like a storeroom than bed chamber. Hardly surprising. In the last few years Gunther had chosen to spend more his nights in his hammock in the guard quarters. There was no sign of a struggle in this room, no last minute scramble to gather clothes. Gunther must have run after stabbing his father, or else he had been grabbed by one the henchmen. 
         Jane hurried from room to room, searching for her sword, but there was no sign of it. Had Gunther taken it? Or his father. She went back to the Merchant’s room. Dragon was at the window rapping his front claws with impatience. Jane climbed out, swung into her riding position, and in three strides Dragon was in the air. They flew upward in a tight circle above the yard and cleared the roof of the house.
        ‘Pig boy needs you!’ said Dragon. Jane looked across at the castle. Smithy was waving to them from the battlements. Dragon dipped, turned, and in a few wing beats was above the castle. He extending his back feet and landing awkwardly on the narrow walkway a short distance from the blacksmith.
	‘Jane!’ yelled Smithy, ‘the druid wants to see you, urgently.’
	‘Is Jester..?’ she stopped, unable to finish her sentence. Smithy’s eyes were red and raw. Was he blinking back tears? Jane jumped down and raced along the battlements to the far stairwell. Smithy ran to keep up.
	‘Not the Catacombs,’ he shouted, ‘the dungeons.’
	Jane almost tripped as she ran full tilt down to the courtyard. Moved him? Why would they do that? She raced across the yard and reached the top of the dungeon steps. The air felt as thick as pitch in her throat and she had to put one hand on the wall to steady herself. Dragon landed behind her. 
	‘Slow down,’ he growled, ‘you’re still mending.’
	‘I know,’ she snapped. Then she ran down the steps. She heard Smithy calling out to her, urging her to slow down. She didn’t. At the bottom, the door to the dungeons stood open and four faces turned towards her. Cathgin the druid, Master Gorga and Sir Theodore were standing beside the central workbench. Robert was sitting on a stool reading a book, a candle in one hand to light the pages. Laid out on the central bench was Jester. 
	‘You were right, Jane,’ said Cathgin, his voice calm and measured, ‘my apprentice is trapped on the road to our ancestors.’
	‘Not dead,’ Jane felt her legs begin to buckle. Smithy arrived in the doorway behind her. He stepped forward to catch her, wrapped his arms around her waist.
	‘Sit her down,’ said the druid. Smithy helped Jane to a stool near the bench and stood behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders. Jane looked at Jester’s body. There was still no movement that she could make out, no rise and fall of the chest, and his skin was still the waxen texture of candles.
	‘Sir Theodore and I are of one mind,’ said Cathgin, ‘if we are to save the young man we must act soon, yet it is no small thing we need to do. He placed a hand on Jester’s head and rolled it gently to the side. The skin on the back of the skull had a dark purple bruise. The area had been shaved and washed. It looked no worse than the bruises Jane and Gunther had worn with pride throughout their years of training. 
	‘Blows to the head, Jane,’ said Sir Theodore, ‘We have talked about these, about the consequences. Remember?’ Jane did. A glancing blow could leave nothing but a heavy bruise on the skin, yet under the skull blood might be running from a rupture, blood that could form a growing pool with nowhere to go.
	‘I have the terebra serrata to drill the hole,’ said the druid,’ and I have the texts of the great Hippocrates to guide my hands.’ He tapped a scroll that lay open on the bench. ‘Plus I will have the skills of Master Gorga to aid me.’
	‘And you have me!’ Jane took one of Jester’s hands and gripped it tightly. It was limp and cool, but not as cold as stone.
	‘No, Jane,’ said Sir Theodore, ‘you must place your trust in us, there is no role for you in this. Your duty is to find Gunther and his father. You have delayed long enough.’
	‘But I have to be here..’
	‘You do not. I have tasked Robert with fetching the many herbs we need for a poultice, and for pine tar to cork the hole we must make.’
	‘Perhaps there is a role for Jane,’ said Robert. Sir Theodore turned to him and raised one eyebrow. Robert held up the book he had been studying. It was the Scholar King’s work on dragon lore. ‘Your late king wrote on this matter, on the procedure you mean to conduct. ‘First, drill a hole to release the pooled blood. Next, pack the hole with a poultice to ward off foul humours that will seek to enter. Finally, seal the hole with pine tar and cap it with a scale cut from a dragon's hide.’ 
	‘Interesting,’ the druid crossed over to Robert and studied the open page. He read in silence, then nodded and looked up. ‘Dragon scales were much prised for their ability to bind to human bone. But this is old knowledge, passed down from long ago. It might be conjecture or superstition.’
	‘And yet it might be true,’ said Robert.
	‘Certainly it might, and I see no harm in using one. We will place it before we seal the wound with the pine tar.'
	‘I’ll ask Dragon to pull one from his hide,’ Jane got up to leave.
	‘Very well,’ said Sir Theodore, ‘but give the scale to Robert, you cannot delay another minute in you pursuit of the Merchant.’ 
	‘And Gunther,’ Jane said as she hurried from the room. Robert caught up with her on the steps, urging her to slow down. She didn’t.
	‘Jane, wait. Please. You need to leave me the dagger from your sword. The scale needs to be trimmed.’
	‘What?’ She stopped and turned to him. 
	‘I read the whole passage. The scale can’t just be placed across the wound. It must be trimmed to size and placed into the hole like a peg into a child’s toy.’ 
	‘I don’t have my sword,’ Jane leaned back against the wall. ‘The Princess had it with her when she was abducted.’ 
	‘So the Merchant has it?’
 	‘Or one of his men. They would know it’s value. Go to the tavern and ask questions. Pretend you want to buy it.’
	‘First I need to get the herbs.’
	‘Give me the list, I’ll fetch them. The herbalist lives in the Birch Forest. That’s an hour on horseback. On Dragon I can be there in minutes. You go to the boat yards for the pine tar, then go the tavern. By the time you return, I’ll be back with the herbs.’
	Dragon was pacing the yard when Jane came up into the sunlight. She clambered onto his back and he could smell the salt of her tears.
	‘We might yet bring him back to us, Dragon. But I need a favour. One of your scales, I wouldn’t ask but..’ Jane didn’t finish the sentence. Dragon scratched at a spot on the top of one foot, hooked a claw under the lip of scale and pulled it free.’
	‘One enough?’
	‘One is plenty, thank you,’ she took it and handed it to Robert who had just stepped up from the stairwell. ‘Now we must fly, Dragon. Spare nothing, I will hold on tight as a tick.’
	‘Where?’ Dragon sprang into the air.
	‘The forest of giant birch, west of the marshes,’ Jane had to shout to be heard above the rush of air. ‘There’s a set of caves on the forest edge. We went there to fetch herbs for your toothache. Remember?’
	‘The shortlife with all the flowers?’
	‘She has herbs that can aid Jester,’ Jane stopped trying to talk into the wind. Instead she pressed her cheek into Dragon’s neck, closed her eyes, and tried not to picture what was to be done back in the dungeons. Sir Ivon had witnessed such a procedure. He had spoken of it one evening in the tavern, or rather, he had started to speak of it. Gunther and Jane had been listening politely as they always did, expecting one of his dramatic stories of blood and gallantry. Then Sir Ivon had stopped abruptly, his eyes staring into a memory he no longer cared to visit. He had reached for his tankard, thumped the table and demanded a song to change the mood.
	Don’t think of it. Focused on what must be done. Jane forced herself to picture Jester at his happy carefree best. Her dancing Jester. Her best and dearest friend. Yet all she could see now was his pale, waxen face. 
	‘Jester,’ she whispered, ‘come back to me.’ She opened her eyes and stared down. The marshes were speeding past below, a blur of tussock and reed. Then they were slowing. Jane lifted her head and saw the birch forest spreading out before them like the hide of a giant hedgehog. The river and the cart-track beside it were visible from time to time, flashes of reflected sky in the dense green. Then she saw the lake up ahead, and gripped all the tighter to Dragon’s neck to signal she was ready for the sudden drop that could leave her floating for a moment, suspended as Dragon’s body fell away beneath her.
	Dragon folded his wings, wrapping them close to his sides. Jane felt her own body start to float as she hung on. Dragon loved to drop from the sky like this when he was out on his own, but rarely when Jane was with him. The wind-speed tugged at her hair and clothes, then Dragon unfurled his wings, spreading them out like blankets. Their rapid descent slowed and Jane was pressed flat onto Dragon’s back as if her weight had doubled.
	‘Almost down,’ Dragon’s voice was low and measured, Jane could feel it more than hear it, a deep rumble passing from his body to hers. She opened her eyes again. Dragon was aiming for an open meadow beside the small lake. A cart track ran through the clearing towards a rise in the ground marked by a crown of larger trees. It was there the old herbalist lived with her apprentice in their forest cave.
	They landed a dozen yards from the forest edge and Jane scrambled to the ground.  Dragon’s arrival was usually the cause of delight or consternation wherever they went, so she expected to see the herbalists young apprentice stepping out to greet them. Not today.
	‘Odd,’ said Jane. She drew her patrol sword from its sheath and they made their way across the open meadow the trees where the herbalist’s dwelling in a limestone cave, one of many dotted throughout the hill. A river sprang from the largest cave, a loud guttering rush of pure spring water, a place where spirits of the deep conversed with spirits of forest and cave. It was the reason herbalists had lived in this cave system for centuries, all of them spinsters, all passing on their knowledge to an apprentice. Nothing written down. A wealth of knowledge shared with one yet gifted to all, a beaded necklace of ancient wisdom.
	Dragon spread one wing above Jane like a shield, a manoeuvre they’d practised so often that no words were exchanged. Whenever she drew her sword, he would spread a wing to cover her. They advanced into the forest and the birdsong stopped. Jane was used to it, birds always fell silent when Dragon came near. Apart from the background rumble of the river rising from deep in one of the caves, the forest was silent.
	They made their way to a clearing in front of the caves. Signs of life were everywhere. A basket of clothes stood ready to be washed. Freshly picked lavender lay drying on a frame of willow. An outdoor hearth stood ready for a fire, wood and dry tinder stacked beside it. The clearing formed a terrace in front of herbalist’s cave, its entrance visible between the roots of ancient trees that hugged the rock face. The door was open.
	‘I’ll look first,’ Dragon stuck his head through the open door, and pulled it out a moment later. ‘No one inside.’
	Jane stepped across the threshold and spotted something on the ground. Not good! She realised what it was, and what it meant. She ignored it for the moment, getting the herbs for Jester was all that mattered. The dwelling was small and neat. The was only the one door, with one small round window of tree resin that lit the interior with a soft orange glow. Bunches of dried herbs hung from roots above her head, and shelves were cut into the limestone walls. Every shelf was stacked with clay jars. Jane took it all in at a glance, yet her training focused her attention onto one essential detail. There had been a struggle. Not a fight, for there were no broken jars, just one overturned foot stool. She stepped back into the open doorway and looked out. Dragon was standing guard and had his back to her. Good. She bent down and picked up a short length of iron, one half of a simple latch. The other half was still attached to the door. The latch, which had bolted the door from the inside, had been sliced cleanly in two. A sword had been pushed between door and frame, cutting through the iron latch as if it was butter. Only one blade was sharp enough to do that. Her blade. 
	‘Are you ready?’ said Dragon, looking back over his shoulder. ‘Speed. Remember?’
	‘One more minute,’ The storage jars were all neatly labelled. Jane found every herb she needed from the druid’s list, packed them into an empty jar, went back out and handed it to Dragon. ‘Speed is everything, take them and come back for me.’
	‘What! No. We go together.’
	‘You will be faster without me on your back. The sooner the druid has these herbs the sooner he can work to save Jester. I will use this time to find the herbalist and ask her to use her skills on me.’
	‘You’re not mended?’
	‘Mostly mended. Pepper is very good, but this herbalist is the best healer in Kippernia.  Please go, Dragon. Every minute can make a difference!’
	‘She said please, there’s a novelty!’ Dragon sprang into the air, his wings beating hard. The gap in the canopy above was small, and Jane was showered in leaves as Dragon flapped his way through to the open sky. Jane let out a sigh of relief. She’d done everything she could for Jester, now she had done her best to protect Dragon from whoever had her blade. She went back inside, righted the stool and sat down.
	‘Never go to battle without the right weapons,’ Sir Theodore’s words. ‘Preparation is the key to victory, and the best weapon is knowledge,’ How many times had she listened to this advice? A dozen at least. ‘Knowledge is the greatest weapon you can carry, without it you are fighting in the dark.’ Jane closed her eyes and pictured herself sitting in Jester’s room as she had so many times before, walking him through her lessons as he sat listening patiently. She spoke to him now.
	‘The Merchant will have planned for a day such as this,’ she said, ‘a day when all his schemes might fall apart. An escape plan. Sending his ships out on different headings is a smart ploy, increasing his chance of getting away. Dragon and I could chase all three ships down in time, but we could hardly pluck the Merchant from the deck, and he would set odds that I wouldn’t burn the boats and kill so many hapless crew. At best I might burn the sails to slow the boats, and report their new headings back to Sir Theodore. So it was a good plan.’ She paused, her eyes still closed. In her mind, Jester was nodding encouragement. ‘Yet all that went awry when Gunther stabbed him. Lavinia said the blood was a dark red, a thick syrup from deep in the body. A mortal wound if left untended. So he came here.’ 
	She opened her eyes, got up from the stool and stretched. There was nothing more she could do for Jester. The torment that had been filling her heart like a scream had softened to a peculiar emptiness, as if the pain had burnt through her like a forest fire, consuming her emotions. Yet there was relief too, she realised. She had become so conflicted in her duties to Dragon, the King, her parents, her friends. Now here duties were aligned. She would bring the Merchant to justice and at the same time recover the one blade she had to have in order to help Jester now and Dragon in the future. One clear path of action, and she knew where the Merchant would be. The water cave.
	She stepped outside and set off along a rising track that led up to the main caves and the source of the nearby spring. Jane had been to the water cave once before, long ago, as a child of six or seven. She had accompanied her mother to take part in some obscure ritual, the meaning of which had escaped her. All she could remember was dancing wildly in wet mud and the smell of rich pungent smoke.
	Would the Merchant set one of his men to watch the entrance? Jane decided he would, and she left the direct path, climbing instead up the outer margins of the hill. She made good time, and was soon looking down into the cutting the water had made, a place where track and spring wound side by side from the mouth of a large cave.
	She was right. The Merchant had placed a guard, but he was lying face down. Was he drunk? Jane jumped down and rolled him onto his back. She knew all the Merchant’s crew and this man had been in his service for ten years or more. Jasper, a simple man and fiercely loyal to Magnus Breech. He wasn’t drunk, or asleep. He was concussed. A large bruise was blooming above one eye. There was only one person who could have done this. One person who would be tracking the Merchant to this cave. His son.
	Jane searched the man for weapons, found a short knife, tucked it into her own belt, and set off into the cave system. The path was easy to follow. It ran beside the spring, a strip of smooth rock, polished over thousands of years by feet and by cascading flood water that thundered through after days of heavy rain. Jane could see from the cave walls how high the water could reach. How many people had perished here over the years, trapped by the rising waters? Right now, after so many weeks of drought and summer sun, the spring was a docile creature, chattering and gurgling its way through a series of shallow pools. She knelt and took a drink. The water was cold and pure. It tasted like a distant memory of water, a moment from childhood, a picnic perhaps, long forgotten. She sat back on her heels wondering how many precious memories one small head could hold? Did they sit in there, gathering dust like books on a shelf? Did they fade in time? Would she remember Jester? 
	Enough! Jane cursed and plunged her face into the water, relishing the shock of it, then set off again, up the path. At first, her way was lit from the mouth of the cave behind her. That changed as she ventured deeper into the system where beams of light fell from above through fissures in the limestone. She knew from her visit here all those years ago, that she was getting close to the main chamber where the spring emerged from the ground.
	Then she heard voices. They came from up ahead, and were raised in argument, though it was impossible to make anything out above the sound of the water. In front of her was a steep rock face. The track wound through a narrow gap carved by the flowing water over countless centuries. Jane stepped off the path and climbed the rock face to her right. It was steep, but pitted with small gaps she could push her fingers and toes into. She reached the top, pulled herself over the lip, and crawled forward. It was a good spot, cloaked in shadow, a secure vantage point to survey the scene below. 	
	A wide cavern lay before her, a natural amphitheatre with a ground of smooth stone that curved away on every side like the shell of a giant turtle. High above, the cave walls were home to small trees, drooping ferns and blankets of thick moss. Centuries ago, a large part of the hill above had collapsed. Now the cavern was lit by pillars of daylight that pieced though a woven lattice of branches. Trees competed for the precious sunlight, trees that had taken root in the soil and debris that had fallen during the collapse. 
	On the far side of the amphitheatre was a fissure in the ground where the water came bubbling up from the depths. Yet its appearance here was fleeting. It gushed from the fissure, gurgled into a carved hollow no bigger than a horse trough, then disappeared again into a second fissure. It returned at the very edge of the clearing, and from there continued it’s journey above ground. 
	Jane felt both reduced and uplifted by the place. It was no wonder that generations of herbalists, teachers and druids had come here collecting water for their sacred rituals. 
She would bring Jester here one day. The thought rose fully formed in her mind, a clear picture, as if it was a precious memory. Jane saw them standing together by the gurgling spring, weaving lengths of coloured wool into bracelets of commitment as they swore oaths to each other. Where had that come from? She blinked, wiping the image from her eyes, and studied the scene below. 
	Brigid and her young apprentice were crouched beside the Merchant, no doubt tending to his injury. The man was roaring insults at them, cursing and chastising as they laboured to help him. He sat, propped up, against a boulder, and next to him lay Jane’s sword, its handle inches from his right hand. Gathered nearby, nine of his men sat in a close circle, passing round a flagon of liquor and talking in hushed voices. Jane knew them all. These men were loyal to only one thing: money. They had burnt any bridges that might have taken their lives on a different journey. They had attached themselves to a man who they must now keep from dying if they were to get their hands on any wealth he had promised to them.
	Of Gunther there was no sign. Had she misread the scene back at the entrance to the cave? Had one of the Merchant’s men doubled back and taken out the watchman? An act of self-interest, one less to share in the promised spoils? It would make things a lot easier if she knew for certain where Gunther was. Was he watching them from the shadows? To what end? To seek forgiveness, or to kill his father?’
	Jane crept back from the rim, settled into a hollow in the rock and closed her eyes. She went through her next moves, picturing each alternative and counter move. The first step was simple. Rest for a moment to gather her strength and to give the henchman time to drink. The more they drank, the more sluggish they would be. If she could retrieve her blade, their swords would be no match against it, she could render their weapons useless without taking a life. If they were drunk enough, she could take Brigid and her apprentice and out run the lot of them. Except for Pincher Bates. She had never seen that man drink himself into a stupor. He was strong and shrewd. Sir Theodore believed he was a trained fighter well versed in war. So, Bates might have to be despatched.
	Dispatched! It was a term Sir Ivon always used. He never spoke of killing. Though in truth, neither did Sir Theodore. The old knight always spoke in terms of chess. Taking players out of the game. Knocking them off the board. Jane had grown accustomed to such talk in the barracks. Once, Gunther had called them out for it. 
	‘If you mean kill them, then say so. Don’t dip your words in honey!’ 
	‘On the contrary,’ Sir Theodore had replied, his voice quiet and measured. ‘I mean exactly as I say. Taking a life is no small thing. It might be the right action, but a fatal blow is hard to deliver. Many blows might be needed to end a life. If a man is down, leave him and look to the next. It is not mercy that we are talking about, it is expediency.’
	Jane edged her way back to the lip of her ridge and studied the players again, for that is how she had been taught to see them. The Merchant had fallen silent, his eyes were closed now, his breathing shallow. Had Brigid soothed his pain with one of her tinctures? She was skilled in her art, and life was sacred to her, but which life? What steps might she take to save her young apprentice? 
	One of the henchman started to sing a mournful ballad. Pincher Bates slapped him into silence. They did seem the worse for their drinking though, one of them had slumped onto his side and looked to be asleep. Another was swaying where he sat like a young child. Jane studied the far reaches of the cavern. There was more cover to her right, more areas of shade behind the twisted limbs of fallen trees, their trunks thick with moss and lichen. She could circle the open ground and come up behind the rock where Merchant was sitting.
	She set off, moving slowly, always in the shadows. She completed half the circle in relative safety, crossing a deep channel in the rock where the spring came gurgling back up from it’s fissure. Then came an area of open ground a full six paces before the cover of a fallen tree. The Merchant would have a clear line of sight if his eyes were open, yet his head was slumped forward, his chin resting on his vast chest. Jane looked back at the ground behind her, at her escape route if this should go wrong. She could outrun the men, she was sure of it. 
	Jane kept low, took one step into the open space, and froze. The young apprentice had spotted her. The girl was no more that twelve and must have been scared, but without a moment’s pause she moved round to check the Merchant’s arm, blocking his view. Jane didn’t hesitate. She slipped across the open space into the shadow of a fallen tree. From this position she was close enough to hear the Merchant’s laboured breathing. The man reached out to push the apprentice away.
	‘Leave it, girl!’ he growled. 
	‘My apprentice has a name, Master Breech,’ Brigid eased the girl aside. ‘Have the common courtesy to use it. Young Peony must remove the poultice.’
	‘And I said to leave it,’  
	‘Your arm has soured. The humours have changed,’ Brigid’s voice was gentle, like a mother reassuring a child. ‘The poultice must be removed and so must your arm. That is the only way I can save you.’
	‘Save me? Salvation is it? Ha!’ He forced a laugh, a show of strength. ‘Hear her boys? This crone says her lore might yet save me,’ he lunged with his good hand, grabbing the old woman’s wrist. ‘My men will be mighty sore with you if I die,’ he paused, catching his breath from the exertion. ‘Not out of sorrow for me, but their payday will die with me.’
	‘Send one of them back to my dwelling with Peony.’
	‘No one is going anywhere.’
	‘She must collect what I need. When your arm is gone I will dress the stump with comfrey root, nettles and honey.’
	‘Best send the girl,’ Pincher Bates came striding over. ‘Wain can escort her. Like you say, we have to keep you in good fettle. Or you could make things right by us and sign the papers of credit over to me now. What do you think?’ 
	‘I’m taking leave of one arm, Bates, not my senses.’
	‘Give it time,’ Pincher Bates laughed and turned back towards the huddle of men. One of them addressed him, short man with a taste for fine clothes.
	‘Since when do you give the orders, Pincher?’ he said. Jane didn’t know the man’s real name, the others always called him by his nickname, Coats.
	‘Since the need arose, Coats. You want to take issue?’
	‘I do,’ another of the men stepped forward. ‘I’m not walking that girl back through the cave, not with all her lore and learning. Something’s wrong with her eyes.’
	‘Tell you what, Wain,’ Pincher Bates grabbed the man by his collar. ‘Something will be wrong with YOUR eyes if you don’t get going.’ He turned to the other men. ‘As for the rest of you. Go and find wood for a fire. Good and dry!’ he pointing to the holes in the cave roof. ‘I don’t need smoke telling half the kingdom of our whereabouts.’ 
	Jane cursed quietly. She had counted on the men staying in their group, sharing their liquor. If they came this far searching for dry wood they would fine her easily enough.  She kept her head down and watched Wain set of with Peony, then listened to the men as they shared gleeful stories of how amputations could go wrong. Pincher laughed along as he crossed back to the Merchant and picked up Jane’s blade.
	‘Nothing will go wrong. There’ll be no need for sawing and chopping when we have this little beauty,’ he drew the blade from its scabbard. ‘Wasted on that Turnkey girl. I’ll do the honours Master Breech, your arm will be off before you know it. One quick swish and it’s gone. I’ll keep the blade as payment.’
	‘That blade stays with me,’ growled the Merchant.
	‘Is that so. Well I reckon only a foolish man negotiates with his sawbones,’ Pincher Bates sheathed the sword and strapped it across his back. ‘There we go. Suits me too.’
	Jane watched him swagger back to the other men and take charge of the fire they were building. Maggots! Retrieving her blade would have to wait till she returned with Sir Theodore. Her duties now were to rescue the two women and keep Dragon away from the Pincher Bates. The man knew the power of the blade he was carrying, as a child he would have grown up hearing tales of swords forged in dragon fire. 
	‘Fine tinder box you have there, Coats,’ Bates held his hand out. ‘Let me see that!’ He took the tinderbox and started the fire, then pocketed the box, daring Coats to challenge him for it. He didn’t. 
	‘Hello father.’ 
	Jane froze, her stomach clenching tight. Gunther? She felt a brief surge of relief that he was alive, then anger swept in. Gunther was going to mess things up. Again! She peered out and tried to see him. Bates and the other men were looking off to the left, back across the open floor to where the flowing water disappeared back into a fissure in the rock. There was Gunther, stepping out from a deep vein of shadow in the cave wall.
	‘Come to fish the job?’ said Bates. He turned to face Gunther but didn’t make a move towards him. ‘Or apologise?’ He held one hand out to his men, ordering them to remain still.
        ‘None of your business, Pincher,’ Gunther stayed where he was, a good twenty paces distant. He put his hands on his hips and smiled. A typical display of Gunther arrogance. Yet Jane knew him too well. It was bluster. She could see he was terrified.