By the time Dapplegrim returned, the boy had managed to get Caewen wrapped in a blanket. Fleat was dabbing water on her brow and whispering quiet words, whilst the boy looked on with worry. She was febrile to touch, the heat radiating off her flesh. Intermittently, waves of shivering passed up and down her body.
“What’s wrong?” said Dapplegrim.”What happened?”
The boy looked at him, embarrassed; a little guilty; even a little afraid of answering. He felt as if he should have known what Caewen was doing when she walked over to the small pool. And he ought have stopped her somehow. He swallowed and said, “She cast another spell. I didn’t even know what she was doing until it was too late. She did it to keep us safe from the boggarts and white warths. And then she said she took power from the tree–not herself–but… but I don’t think it went right. I don’t know.”
Dapplegrim stepped closer and lowered his head and looked at her. He sniffed. “She’s feverish, that’s for certain.” He sniffed again, much more carefully. Slowly, with a heavy voice he added: “She’s done it this time. She’s dying.” Then, after his own long, guilty-seeming silence he said, “Why, lady? Why? I could have kept them off us for a time. Long enough to rest. You didn’t need to do this. Hurm. Always with the risks. Hur. Hurrrum.”
“Is there not any-a-thing we might do?” asked Fleat. “There must be something or another. Herbals, or I do not know… something?” He said, uncertainly, “I’ve a little skill in the herbings.”
Dapplegrim made no answer for a while. “I don’t know. Maybe. I need to think. Gather some curatives if you think it may help. It is worth trying. It likely won’t cause any harm.”
Fleat dashed off.
But with nothing more useful to do, the boy sat down beside Caewen. She sat and he watched, dipping the rag into a leather basin of cold water, wetting her brow. The tiredness within him grew until it was clawing at his eyes from inside his skull. Every now and again, he would jolt awake. When this happened he guessed he must have nodded off for a few moments–but it was not restful sleep, if sleep indeed it was. He felt as if he’d been wide awake all night, staring at her clammy, hueless face, and dwelling on his own sense of gnawing guilt.
Fleat returned after a time. He crushed up handfuls of dark green, red and blotchy leaves, along with some yellow flowers and a couple small tubers. He mixed them all in a bowl of water, and left the pungent cold stew to soak. He looked exhausted. Yawning, he said, “Can’t do no more until the herbs have soaked. Wake me when the water is tinted a good, emerald green colour.” Then, he curled up and went to sleep in a crevice between the roots of the huge tree. The boy couldn’t fault him for it. The young hobbe had been flying most of the day, and changing back and forth, from hobbe to owl, and then back again–which always exhausted him badly.
Dapplegrim spent the hours of evening silent, remote and cold: he sat with his legs folded up at rest, and stared at Caewen, and muttered inaudible words to himself, flaring his nostrils, furrowing the skin around his eyes so that his horse-skullish face looked even more forbidding than usual.
The time passed as relentlessly as the wispy clouds chasing one-after-another, far above them, scouring the stars and the moon. The leaves of the tree rustled in rises and falls. More than once, the boy almost thought he caught a note of purpose in the rustling. He would peer upwards curious, whenever this happened. It was as if something were moving about in the branches. But nothing dropped down out of the darkness on them. In time, he decided it must be a night-bird or some restless squirrel. Besides these susurrations, there was no other sign of movement in the countryside. Caewen’s last spell– if it were to be her last spell–it had done its job. If there were boggarts or white ghaists, sorthemen, sorcerers or other servants of the unkind prince from the dreams, if any such thing were searching nearby, then they did not approach the four travellers, huddled in their own enveloping coldness and darkness, waiting, doing what they could for Caewen, which it seemed was not very much at all.