Fic: Tidewrack, Chapter 2 (Esca/Marcus)

[beederiffic]

Title: Tidewrack, Chapter 2
Pairing: Esca/Marcus
Length: 7k
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sickness
eagle_rbb prompt: Movie verse; canon era; AU - On the way to Britain, Marcus's boat sinks; meanwhile Marcus is the sole survivor and is rescued/captured by Esca and his clan
Art by: The wonderful bassino, who has been a joy to collaborate with.



The strength of the storm was growing, building beyond fear or hope, his hands slipping, palms and knuckles raw from hauling on wet ropes. He was somehow back on the boat, each wave breaking across them carried him further, bile flooding his mouth as pain sliced across his ribs. The deck tilted beneath his feet, slick as a fresh fish, bucking and surging, plunging, an unbroken horse off its lead rope bolting for freedom, uncontrollable and unpredictable. His feet slipping now, the raging of the storm deafening his ears and blinding his eyes, the taste of panic bitter at the back of his tongue and each thrust of the sodden wood beneath his soaked feet battering through his knees and spine, the pain growing to the point of agony as the side of his body hit the wale, ice wrapping around him until his blood became thick and his throat became fire, black and salt nothingness and cold . . .

“Get his arm again, he's twisting . . . Li', you've got to hold him pinned if I'm to finish this.”

“But why does he fight us?” Lieven levered more of his bulk over the prone Roman, meaty hands digging into each muscular arm as he raised his voice and slowed the pace of his words for ears that were deaf to him. “We're trying to heal you. Stay still, Esca wouldn't hurt you more than he must.”

“There's no use to that. He couldn't hear you, not even if he spoke the same as us. The fevers are on him.”

“I suppose I know that. I remember when I got the tick pox. Not a word anyone said to me sounded nothing but like the howling of a beast come to carry me away.”

“Exactly that, Li'. His thoughts aren't with us.”

Esca continued strapping the foul poultice to the Roman's side where one deep gash had turned bad, the flesh a hot red, swollen with putrescence. Everything else on the man had begun to heal well and fast, scratches from whatever wreck or fall he'd suffered becoming the beginnings of smooth skin over firm muscle and bone, but this one wound would not weave itself back into health no matter what Esca tried or whatever advice the awd man gave him. Which wasn't much, considering the Roman had to be back at the edge of death again, his forehead slick with a diseased sweat, lips dried and cracked with fever as he jerked and pulled at their hands, muttering fractious words that made no sense.

“I can smell the stink coming off that dog clearway across the fire. Allow him to go meet his savage gods if he's so eager, much as you should have in the first instance.”

“No, awd man, I've told you.” The sound of Cawrie coming into the small house and settling into a low crouch behind him made Esca's shoulders stiffen, the skin on his back itching like it did for the two weeks after his mother proudly presented him with a newly-woven cloak. “I've fought five days and nights over this. I've looked into his eyes and been seen by him. I'm responsible for his life, so I cannit let him go easy.”

“You'd rather him rot? That's fair.”

“Go pick at your arse. I'm trying, aren't I? And they're your tricks that aren't working.”

“Aye, Mac Cuno', you're trying, I'll give you that. You're not seeing, but you're trying.”

The clay beads of Cawrie's bracelets rattled against each other as he poked at the fire. Esca fought to keep his temper, Li's docile eyes as stupid as a sheep's as they stared back at Esca in worry that a battle was about to take place in front of him. The Roman's hip was fit close against Esca's kneecap, a shivering overtaking the big body as a fresh sweat started to gleam across the bare expanse of his chest and stomach, the dark curls in his armpits as soaked as if Esca had been bathing him.

The fever wasn't breaking and, even on such a lum of a man, three days was too much for anyone to bear much longer. After all this, humbling himself to Cawrie and fussing over a grown man's nakedness like a new wife, the Roman was going to be lost to him anyway. Esca sat back and shook his head in defeat, as discouraged as he'd ever been.

“I admit it. I dunno what I'm supposed to be seeing. I've done all you've asked me to, everything you've ordered, and nothing helps him.”

“Y'have at that, son. You've done all I've said.”

The Roman grunted, the ridges of muscle over his belly standing out as Esca finished binding the poultice into place before sitting back on his heels, nodding to Lieven that he could let go. “I shouldn't have to remind you that I'm not your son.”

“Thank the Mother. I'd hope any wain of mine would know better than to trust only the word of any another where matters of the spirits are concerned.”

Esca bit down on his anger as it near spilled from his lips, breathing it out and paying mind to something else, anything but Cawrie and his aggravating habit of making half-statements that Esca was sure were supposed to confuse more than they were to inform. “You're a good help, Li', thank you. Get on, now, your mam'll be waiting for her wood.”

“You're certain? I can wait awhile longer if you need me.” Li's eyes flickered back and forth from Esca to the awd man, the storm brewing in the small, smoke-filled house clear enough for the half-blind to see.

“No, get on with you. I'll come find you before dark.”

“As you say. Uh, on your honour, awd man?”

“Good day to you, Lieven Mac Balloch.”

The awd man could've out-stared his own reflection. Esca tried not to look away but Cawrie's eyes were twin pits of smoking charcoal burning their way into him, and another sickly moan from the Roman gave him the excuse he needed to look down and anywhere else but into the awd man's face.

“You keep poking at me. You always have.”

“And you never asked yourself the why of it.”

“I do, I have! There's no use. You're too fond of having us all in bewilderment over your mysteries to take the time to explain a single thing to a single person and have them understand it.”

“I'm not talking to any single person, though, am I, Mac Cuno'?” Cawrie finally stopped spearing Esca with the power of his eyes alone, poking at the fire again before settling his warming plate into the ashy embers beneath. “I'm talking to you, and wasting my breath.”

“But . . .” The helplessness stung as Esca internally sought for anything he might've missed. There wasn't anything. “I've done it all. Everything you asked of me, and more besides, and still he's dying.”

“Aye, you've done everything I've asked.” A handful of tansy leaves were stuffed into the pot and prodded down with a gnarled finger, the beginnings of rising steam carrying the familiar, stinging scent to Esca's nose. “But you've done no further, and so he dies.”

“Is that what you're supposed to be teaching me? To watch a man's life end while I feel it mark my spirit as he goes, because his life lay in my hands only?”

“No. You'll learn that soon enough. Sooner than I'd hope.”

Esca covered the Roman over with the blanket, hoping the extra warmth would help chase the shivers out of him. He looked more peaceful now, cheeks flushed pink as his cracked lips, his hair black with sweat and spiked with the same. “You talk in circles.”

“Does the wind not circle the tree?”

“But - I - What are you on about? I don't know what the wind does, other than blow. And that's all you do, blow wind, like some big useless fart. Why will you not speak to me and tell me, is he done? Not the wind, but him, here, right here in front of your eyes. If he's not done, what else must I do? Should I already have the lads out there preparing a grave for him?”

“You'd tend to his body like that of a kinsman? I'd say it was better to let him burn, let the skies carrying his stench all the way back to Rome.”

“That's not what I was asking!” Frustrated beyond grace, Esca got to his feet and shook the life back into them, tempted to kick Cawrie's stewing pot over into the fire before marching himself out of the healer's house never to return. Leave the awd man to deal with the Roman, that's what he should do. “You know, I should wish his sickness on you, that's what I should do. It might help more than anything you've suggested.”

“Don't get to hopping. By the Mother's womb, pup, sit yerself down.”

“For what? So you can enjoy yourself by setting me more riddles I'll fail to master?”

“No, and you can knock that mood out of yourself while you're about it. Sit, and hear me with those flapping ears of yours.”

“Alright, here, I'm sitting.” Esca flopped back down, his hand immediately drawn to his prone charge, tucking the blanket tighter around one strong shoulder where the Roman's fevered movements had caused it to slip away. Perhaps he should begin to dress the man again, ready to be carried back to the main house for the evening. “I'm listening. Tell me how to help him.”

“No.”

“I'll take my knife to your throat, if you'll not just do as I ask, just the one time . . .”

“Settle your balls. I mean to tell you that it's not my advice you need, or that I've had you waiting for.”

“No more puzzles, awd man.”

“Aye.” Cawrie fished his pot out of the fire with one hand wrapped in oil cloth, pouring himself a steaming cup before holding it out to Esca, who refused it with a shake of his head. “Take a cup. It'll calm your blood and help you open yourself to what I have to say.”

“You're healing me, now?”

“Perhaps. And you'd not thank me for it, would you, whelp?”

It made him grin, Cawrie's eyes twinkling at him over the flickering fire. “I never would. I'm sorry, I know others would whip me for saying it.”

“It's of no matter. Thank me for what I do, or don't, it changes nothing.”

That wasn't true. The awd man was his elder, his father's trusted soothsayer, his kin's healer and a leader that deserved Esca's respect. He should know better than to be so free with his tongue. The brew was sour and in need of some honey, the warming resin of the tansy withering the insides of Esca's cheeks as he sipped at it. “So, I'm listening. Will this help me hear you speak plainly?”

“Let's hope so, eh? I've got a tale to tell you, one I'd hoped you'd come to yourself without my guidance. But you young lads, you're too thick in the head and too heavy in the groin, wanting the feel the weight of spear and knife in your hand, wishing to prove yourself a man before you've earned it. It's not like when the fathers of your fathers were boys. We listened, we watched and waited. You rush and hurry, and fight, charging towards your end like it's all you want.”

Esca snorted into his cup, all his determination to be respectful forgotten. “Is this the tale? Because it's not a very good one. You'd never make much of a singer.”

“And still, you don't listen.”

“I'm drinking my drink, see?”

The hint of a smile glimmered across the pattern of deep lines etched around each of Cawrie's features, the twin strands of clay beads hanging each side of his beard knocking against his withered cheeks as he shook his head. “Your father never beat you enough, which I fear is partway my fault.”

“You? How?” The bitter brew wasn't helping Esca make the slightest sense of Cawrie so far.

“That's the tale I'm trying to tell you. Some years ago there was a night I hadn't forseen. No omens leading to it, no pattern in the songs from ages before, no lights in the sky, nothing to tell of its coming. Nothing in fowl nor beast, nor sea nor sky.”

The Roman chose that moment to groan heavily, a horrible sound of deep pain. Esca immediately placed his drink down and stroked his thumb across the Roman's heavy brow to help settle him. The heat pouring off the man was incredible, the fever at its highest point. “Hush now. Rest. That's right, sleep. I'm sorry, continue on.”

“Ah, you won't truly believe my words, because you weren't there to see it, and those of us that were hardly trusted our own eyes.” Cawrie sucked a strand of tansy leaf out of his back teeth and spat it into the fire with a sizzle, stroking his beard back with his knotted fingers. “Grown men quaked at the sight of fires tracing the stars across the skies, and the women wept. It weren't like anything seen before, trails of fire in colours you can't imagine, colours I don't have the words for. The wild beasts were silent, and ours wouldn't settle but instead tugged at their collars and kicked at their pens all night long. Hounds whimpered and hid their heads in the legs of their masters like the children who hid in their mothers' skirts. None slept. The sky of flames continued all night and I tried every way I knew to ask for guidance, in the bones and the guts, the embers I burned my hands on, the blood I soaked myself in. Nothing worked.”

Cawrie wasn't only staring into the fire any more, his eyes dazed as they looked beyond what was in front of them. Esca waited, then coughed gently around a mouthful of tansy water to draw Cawrie's mind back to the story.

“I'm getting to it, am I not? So impatient. You'll learn to wait, one day.”

“I doubt it. Well? What happened?”

“At the height of it, when the light of the flames was so bright it turned the night into day, I heard a noise coming from over by the main house. It was the cry of a falcon, shrill and hungry. I didn't stop to clean myself, just covered my bloody nakedness in my cloak and ran, following the cries as more came.”

Maybe it was the drink, or the heat of the fire and the fever pouring off the Roman close to Esca's thigh, but Esca felt his heart quicken, his breath catching in his throat. “. . . And?”

“It was your mother.”

His breath stopped, his lungs frozen. “Mam?”

“Aye.” Cawrie was looking at Esca now, but not seeing him, eyes wide as he watched what had happened all the way back then. “She was a moon's cycle from you being ready to drop, but you chose the night of flames to come into the world and your mother, strong as she is, was trying her best to stop you. When I got to the house, the women were tending to her as your father held her hand and swore to the Mother that he would not let her go. I tried to hold you in, we all did, but on the night of flames you pushed us all aside, small and weak as you were. The next time your mother cried out, she roared like a dragon in full flight and you came out, appearing fully in one push, screaming your head off as if you were furious and cursing us for trying to deny your rebirth.”

Esca's nose stung, a fluttering in his chest and a dull humming within his ears telling him that the spirits were pulling tight around him. Since he'd been a child he'd felt this, his eyes growing wet sometimes and the hairs lifting all over his skin as those things in the other world noticed him and drew near, the fine shawl of cloth between those living and those somehow not becoming too thin to properly keep them separate in that moment. He was noticed and attended to now, his body felt it all over. He felt the tears drop from his eyes to soak twin lines down his cheeks as he stared at Cawrie, who looked back at him, nodding, knowing Esca was beginning to see the truth.

“You see? Why I've watched you?”

“I didn't . . .”

“Aye, you did. Some part of you. You hear the Mother. She speaks to you, I see her touch all over you. I have since you were born.”

Esca shook his head, rubbing the tears from his face with the back of his hand. “No, that's not right. I'm not . . . whatever it is you think I am.”

“You're the next, son, as you've been before. You've the gift. Your father knows it much as I do, or he has since I spoke to him of it the night of your birth, when the Mother lit the sky itself to say she was bringing you to us. You're old enough now to learn the ways once more, ready to take your place beside your father when my time comes. Which won't be too many moons from now. This one getting thrown into your arms is enough of a portent of that.” The awd man clicked his tongue in disgust, shaking his head as he glared up at the roof. “Had to be a Roman, eh? You can't say the Mother doesn't like to have a laugh at us, now and then, the old bitch.”

“Cawrie, no . . . you're well, you're strong.” He'd always resented the awd man's attention, so why were the tears flowing more freely now? Esca tried to sniff them back, his lips wobbling inwards on each gaspy breath as he fought to settle himself, the whispers of unseen mouths cold around his ears and neck. He shivered his way out of them. “You'll outlive us all.”

“Naw. I've tried to keep my hold, advising you with thissun, but it's slipping. It's for you to take hold of, and it's why he won't heal, not by my word. It's the Mother telling us it's your time and that I can rest. As if that's what I'd chose, to be made useless.”

“No, awd man, I don't know a thing, I need you, I wouldn't have the first idea of how to . . . well, do anything, without you. Belatu's balls, Cawrie, I'm not the next awd man, I'm truly not!” At least the rising panic butterflying its way around his belly had stopped Esca's tears. “I promise you, I need you, your time's not done and you're not useless. Not even close.”

“I don't need your pity, third son.” It was sharply said, Cawrie's tone a thin blade jabbed in under Esca's ribs. “I've held more lives in my hands than you've seen in your lifetime. I've danced with the gods, lain with the spirits of the forests, I've faced giants with no weapon but a word, and had wild beasts kneel to bow at my feet. I know the stars and what lies beneath the hills. If you want to turn your back on that, then you're more of a fool than either of your mutton-headed brothers.”

Esca was shaking his head, not ready to hear any of it. “I don't pity you and I don't know if I can believe you. I mean, I'm not magical. I'm not, I swear. I'd know a thing like that, wouldn't I?”

A hefty snort shook Cawrie's beard beads. “I dinnit say you were magical, you bemmit. I said you've got the gift for hearing what needs doing, that's all. So, with this great poisoned lump,” He poked at the Roman, who gasped and gave a dry retch, his skin blanching white beneath the fever's flush, “You've got to trust what you hear, and trust your eyes to see beyond what's in front of them. Take him out into the hills to a place that you've chosen. Keep your ears and eyes and wits about you, and you'll know what to do.”

-

He was sinking down and down, unable to stop, the water's weight hanging too heavy on his limbs to fight against it any longer. The cold this deep sometimes burned with the heat of a brand, the sickness a physical blow as he felt his gut heave, his mouth open and crying out but nothing came from it, no bile, no shout, because he was alone and sinking to the bottom of this muddied foreign sea. The water burned his skin and held him down, tugging and pulling like hands over his body, and he forced his eyes open and saw a flash of green like the underneath of trees but it was the weeds pulling him deeper down into a bed of salt. The hands became the mouths of fish, biting at his ribs, opening a hole in his body to swim within and start to devour him from inside, and Mithras was lost to him, and he had failed, and he was dying.

“You're sure?”

“Aye. I know it seems a bit off, but the awd man says this is what needs doing.”

Ceane and Alwden raised their eyebrows at each other in silent judgment as Brice shook his head, fingers twisting at his wispy scraps of beard in uncertainty. “You'll never be able to carry him back, nor dig a grave big enough, and there's been too much rain to build a fire. You'll have to leave him to the beasts once his spirit's gone.”

“No, Li', prop his head up enough so he won't swallow his own puke. That's it. And he's not going to die.” Perhaps if Esca said it aloud often enough then the spirits would listen and provide him with some actual assistance.

“He's most way there already, Esc'. He stinks of rotting muck.”

“My mam said all Romans stink anyway because they're all sticking their you-knows into each others' back-eyes and spilling their seed where it's not needed, and then that rots them from the inside out, all the old seed gone to mold. What?” Lieven wrinkled his nose as the rest of them started laughing. “Is that not right?”

“I don't think it is, Li', no.” Esca was the first of them to get his laughter under control, thinking again of how good his father was with those not blessed with wisdom as much as the rest of them. “Even if that is what Romans do with their time, they'd crap all the old stuff out before it set to rot, don't you think?”

“Unless Romans don't shit. Do you think they don't shit, Li'?”

“Li' knows Romans shit, same as the rest of us.”

“I do know that, so you shouldn't tease or I'll tell my mam on you and she'll thicken your ear, Ceane Mac Oein.”

“That's quite a threat, as she's big and ugly as you.”

“That's enough, all of you. You'd better get on, go find some food and get back before the rains hit.”

“But you're sure? You're crazy to listen to that awd cunt and do as he says, and you'll get soaked through with no fire to warm you, or to keep the wolves away.”

“I've told you, I'm sure, and it's not that far back. I thank you for all your help, lads. See you after the dawn.”

Esca coiled his legs beneath him and sat, and listened to the wheels of Lieven's cart parting the hill's long grasses, the muffled footsteps of the others on their horses shambling off into the distance along with their talk. Esca's horse Aicright was being led behind Brice, complaining to all who could hear that they were leaving his master behind. But the sounds died away on the wind, even Aicright's more peevish reproaches, and now Esca was alone here with the Roman, whose skin was pale now and dry as a fallen leaf, eyes spinning back in his head.

The Roman had seemed to grow stronger that day after Esca has first spoken to him around the fire, as those deep-set eyes had watched his father covering his mother. The words he'd spat out each day had been enraged and wrathful, and he'd fought against his bonds, refusing to take any of the food Esca forced into his mouth. His wounds had been bad enough then to make him drop and curl into a wretched, agonised curl of man each time he'd pulled at them while trying to struggle to his knees, but then the sickness had started to grow and Esca had watched his fighting become weaker and less often, his eyes less angry and sharp. The words became slurred, the Roman's eyelids dropping. It had been like watching a stallion slowly succumb to the coughs.

He missed the Roman's voice. It had been the fourth night that Esca had admitted it to himself, that the shape and sound of the Roman's rage when directed at Esca had plucked a harp string deep inside of him. He'd grown used to tending to this broad body with its skin and its freckled shoulders, its shivering and sweating, its muscle and heft. Its flat brown nipples was each something Esca wanted to touch his tongue to like he would've a sea-damp pebble when he was a boy. The Roman's cock was something he knew he looked at more than he should. He had no reason to tend to it anyway, as the Roman had stopped pissing himself now he was puking up most of the water or broth Esca carefully fed into his mouth.

It was the fourth night Esca had lain awake beside the groaning, shuddering body and known that the Roman's death would mark him in black, a death on his own spirit that wouldn't leave him. The Roman had gasped that night, his body taut with pain against Esca's shoulder, and it had hardened Esca's prick. Esca knew he had much to learn but he was certain beyond doubt that an aching, drooling cock wasn't the reaction his Da would've experienced on witnessing an enemy in the grasp of death. He'd rolled away and lain on his side in the dark of the slumbering house and tugged himself to release, staring at the Roman's profile etched in the firelight after he was done.

“Hope you're comfortable. I'm not able to much move you alone unless you wake and help me out.” The Roman lay there, barely breathing, a sickly flush creeping up the same side of the thick neck as the bad wound on his ribs, red streaks growing out of the flush to wrap around his throat and creep over his jaw. “You're not much of a one for conversation. I suppose I'm alright with that. Everyone always wants to share what they think, back home.”

Esca blew out a long breath, his nerves as skittery as a new mount not yet broken. Chatter wasn't helping. He looked up from where he was sitting beside the Roman, up into the tree branches above and the light beyond the hazy clouds. The day was cool but with a pale, weak sun breaking through, hanging low and yellow as winter grew closer, the wind beginning to pick up. It caused the few remaining leaves on the wittern trees surrounding them to spin down in coils, a fluttering, charming dance as light flickered overheard, the tree branches whispering between themselves.

“Is this it? Is this what you wanted, him and me, alone, all the way out here?”

Esca looked around him into the silence of the woods, the gentle slithering of the breeze as the leaves silently finished their dance and settled around them both, a few landing on the prone figure before him. Then he near shit himself in terror as a fat grouse exploded out of a bush nearby, casting a fearful look at Esca as it hurriedly threw itself into the air and away from him, wings clapping in its rush. Esca had fallen onto his backside in shock, his heart fighting to escape his chest as he lay a hand over it and breathed out hard.

“Oh, Mother, don't do that to me. Cawrie's right, you're vicious in your humour.”

He knew these woods, knew each branch low enough for a boy to swing himself up onto or beneath, each split oak where the horned owls would roost then glide out of at dusk to divide the reeling swarms of darting bats. It's why he'd chosen this place, as he'd always imagined it to be full of magic, of fairy folk tucked into the oldest tree roots and of spirits more stag and vine than man. He'd never been afraid here, not that he remembered. But the wind tugged at his hair and his cloak, whispering words he couldn't quite hear, and again Esca felt his eyes begin to burn and smart, his nose stinging and the skin on his arms becoming rough with raised hairs.

“Are you here? I thought you might be. I hoped.”

The breeze picked up further, maybe simply a sign of the coming rains, but its touch seemed specific, questing like fingers beneath the folds of his cape to pull at his brooch, lifting his hair away from his neck and throwing it into his eyes. It made him think of his mother, how she'd undress him as a child before having him stand while she doused him from his head down, scrubbing his skin with water and a cloth next to the fire while his brothers, drying in their blankets from their turn, laughed and teased him over how small his prick had been. They still called him Wee Prickle when they wanted to torment him, which was less often now he was grown enough to beat them with fists or staff.

“You want me to undress?” Esca looked around the woods, and down at the Roman, then up again at the branches overhead. “I dunno. It's mighty cold for me to get all bare-arsed.”

Did he imagine it? Was the wind gusting stronger? His cloak flapped back over his shoulder and Esca laughed, a bubble of joy rising up his throat as he let himself believe that the wind itself had heard him and provided him with an answer.

“No, I'm keeping warm. Typical woman. I mean, you'll know that I've not fucked anything but my own hand, but I've listened to the married men when they've been at the wine, so I know what you're all about. But I'm not Cawrie and you'll not get me dancing around with my stones out hanging free to the cold.”

Esca ignored how the wind started whipping his hair into his face, and he chewed on his bottom lip as he looked down at the Roman, wondering what he should do. He didn't believe for a moment that he was gifted and the next awd man, no matter how convinced of it Cawrie seemed to be. He knew he was different to others somehow, in whatever small way made him himself rather than somebody else, and he'd had known it since he was a child, but he had no powers or special sight that would help him here.

“Would it help if I begged?” The wind wove around Esca's face, teasing his eyelids as he closed them and breathed deep, smelling rain on its way. He should probably start making them a shelter. “I'll beg, if I need to. I'm not sure why I would, but I would.”

The gold of the dying winter sun flickered like fire between the twisted tree boughs where the clouds hadn't quite managed to catch it up, the dancing patterns caressing the Roman's pale face and broad cheeks as if it were in thrall to his beauty. But Esca wasn't a singer and he was too practical to waste time on poetry, or on admiring how something as simple as a fringing of long, dark eyelashes against shadowed skin could make a heart feel a tenderness that it shouldn't.

Keep your ears and eyes and wits about you. He hadn't been doing much of anything. All he'd done so far was ignore what his few wits had told him needed doing.

“Let's get some air to you. Burning the fever off hasn't helped, so we'll see if the Mother herself can help cool you off.”

Whenever Esca had touched the Roman before this day, he'd been answered in grunts, shivers and protests, his hands shaking off or the skin beneath them tensing at his touch. But since the dawn he'd been met with silence, no response at all, as if the Roman was already halfway to the next world. Esca unclipped the old cloak of his father's he'd kept wrapped around the bulky body, his fingers quivering as he unlaced the tunic beneath and pulled it open, pushing the thin vest within up until the Roman's full torso was uncovered to the air, the sour scent of his wound rising like smoke on morning mist.

“You make me afraid. Look at me - I'm supposed to be a warrior, and I'm shaking. Bastard Roman.”

The poultice was sticking to the swollen wound as Esca pried it away. The man didn't move or moan, although his dried lips opened on a short breath, and the way his head edged back as if in the slightest discomfort was the only thing that told Esca the man retained a pinch of life. The wound itself was dark, mottled yellow, deep red and purple, angry-looking and as wide as Esca's hand. Esca placed his palm on the man's ribs above, pulling the skin tight and wincing in empathy as the wound bulged. The whispers of the wind grew in volume around Esca's ears and lashed his hair into his mouth, and Esca blinked, frowning and drawing closer to the Roman's side as he bent to examine the wound closer still, shaking his hair back out of his eyes.

“What's that? It cannit be bone, I don't think. I mean, I'm not a healer, whatever the awd man thinks, but that's a strange and funny shape to be sticking out of your side.”

Although the sun's beams were short this late into the year, and although the shadows of the witterns cast them half into darkness, it was easier out here to see the wound properly. Maybe it should've been obvious to him, but Esca hadn't thought of examining the Roman outside of either the great house or Cawrie's small hut, relying on lamp light and the flames of the fire. In the day's light, a sloping, seed-shaped protrusion close to the size of Esca's thumb jutted out from the wound's other distension, only obvious now that the sun shone down on it, still dancing its dance through the leaves above as if Esca was someone to impress.

The putrid stench was eye-watering this close up, but Esca was barely breathing, caught up in his inspection as he experimentally poked at the side of the odd lump. Instantly the skin bulged out further, and the big body stiffened in response.

“It pains you, I know. But there's something in there that I think shouldn't be, and I confess I have no idea if I should use my knife to cut it out or what . . .”

This was the answer. This thing that shouldn't be there had to be removed, Esca knew it in his gut and his bones as a distant snarl of thunder sounded far off across the hills. In spite of the wind and the cool of the day, Esca felt himself breaking a sweat, his hair starting to cling to his forehead and his vest plastered to his skin beneath his blouse and cloak. He shrugged out of the latter, tossing it down beside the blanket that the Roman was resting on so he could lie fully down on it and tend to the wound without breaking his back as he had been, crouched and bent as an old woman.

“This will hurt. I think that's a promise. 'Least it's not a threat, eh?”

Throat dry, lying on his side and lifting both hands, Esca pressed his fingers into a firm line beneath the lump, testing for where the edge of the skin seemed most tender. As he pushed, the wound protruded out further, but nothing came forth from it but a thin trickle of colourless fluid.

“Ach, come on. There's got to be something in there, so let's try harder. You ready?”

This time he lay one hand flat over the burning skin above the cut, pressing downward with the flat of it as his fingers pushed up in a sharp jab rather than the sustained push of his last try. The bloodied mass of the wound bulged out further, near as round and fat as a goose egg, but nothing seemed ready to give until Esca gritted his teeth and used all the strength of his arms, feeling like he was trying to push his way into the Roman's body itself as he grunted and tried harder. He was one breath from giving up when another growl from the approaching storm echoed around the clearing they were lying in, the flesh beneath Esca's hands giving an answering rumble as something inside shifted.

“Ooh, I think we're ready. One more try. Here we g- my boggy arse, what was that?”

Something had exploded out of the Roman's flesh along with a gurgle of pain, an eruption of fluid, stink and a pointed, jagged dark thing that first looked to Esca like a crow's beak ripped from its body. Esca tentatively reached out for it, screwing up his face in revulsion as he poked at where it lay on the blanket a full foot's distance from the man's body.

“Is that wood? Why would you have a piece of wood stuck in you? Is that what's been poisoning you? And I think I might as well burn that blanket soon as we're done here.”

The torn flesh was soaking the Roman's side and colouring the skin beneath red with what looked like clean blood, the sickness pouring out of him. The wind had died down as the air grew thick with the rain, and the storm grumbled down at them, getting closer, and Esca couldn't stop himself from crying out in surprise as he looked from the weeping wound up into the Roman's face to find two eyes staring back at him in confusion, clouded with pain and the madness of sickness as a bound hand wrapped its long fingers around Esca's wrist.

“You're awake? You're not dead? You made me jump. Do you hear me, Roman? You'll need water. I'll fetch you a drink.”

The cracked lips parted as if to speak, the Roman's eyes looking back and forth from each of Esca's. But the hold of disease was too strong on him, the pain too great as his fingers dropped from Esca's skin, the white undersides of his eyes showing as he fell backwards into the sleeping skies. Esca tried to feed him a few drops of water, watching most of it slip from the slack mouth.

“What now? Did we do it, Mother? It seems too arrogant to hope you'd help me, or answer my questions, but I don't know if he's healing or closer to death than he was. Will you tell me?”

He could no longer hear whispers in the touch of the breeze, light as it was as rain began to rattle across the leaves on the branches above and rotting beneath the cloak where he was kneeling. They were both going to get soaked through, and Esca was shivering with the end of it, too tired and his limbs too weary to try to much prevent it, or to wonder whether the storm would help the Roman or be the absolute end of him. Could rain kill a man? The cold could, certainly, but the rain wasn't the harsh sting Esca would've expected this late in the year after the harvests.

Instead it was close to warm as he closed his eyes and raised his face skywards, allowing it to begin to wash his skin clean of sweat. The wet spatter of raindrops hitting the Roman's naked chest sounded in precise, measured beats in Esca's ears, almost like a far-off drum heard from a valley away, or the sound of the boys practising with their staffs, wood on wood across the morning's mists and the smell of bread baking on the fire. And when the thunder sounded, it was logs splitting with the strike of a small axe, or children playing stones and laughing.

Esca covered his Roman over with the old cloak, drawing his own around his shoulders and over his head, laying down beside the man on the other side of him as they'd slept together the last four nights. He was so tired although he couldn't begin to think why, but the woods grew dark and the birds fell silent, and the thick air of the coming storm swelling the air in his throat until all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, and the distant drums of the rain.