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“I trust the Cumbrian theologists,” said Mordaunt.

“I don’t,” said Aurienne. “A few pages later, their recommended remedy for wet gangrene is to suck it out of the affected appendage.”

“Wet gangrene?” repeated Mordaunt.

“Yes.”

“Sucking?”

“Yes.” Aurienne enumerated a few examples for his edification. “Fingers. Toes. A penis, in one unusual instance.”

Mordaunt stiffened. “I will vomit yoghurt on you if you continue.”

“I would’ve thought you’d have a strong stomach for this sort of thing: gore and viscera and assorted nastiness.”

“Gore, yes; viscera, yes. Gangrene gobjobs, however, are not part of my repertoire.”

They waited for the sun to set. The first midges of spring discovered them. Aurienne and Mordaunt swatted them away.

The sun sank a bit lower. Aurienne stood still; Mordaunt shifted from foot to restless foot. Approximately a billion midges deployed their next sortie and decided to hover at nostril height. Aurienne and Mordaunt twitched and slapped at them. The midges left again.

They watched the dance of the swallows.

Suddenly, Mordaunt looked as though he’d experienced a Thought.

“What?” asked Aurienne.

Mordaunt pushed the toe of his boot into the mud and drew out some lines.

“Fancy a game of noughts and crosses?” he asked.

Aurienne stared at him. After the lapse of a suitably lengthy silence to convey how inane she thought this question was, she said, “No.”

Mordaunt shrugged and began to play noughts and crosses against himself.

The sun sank a little more. A breeze played across the pool and sent ripples dancing around the reeds. The smell of last autumn’s rotting plant matter wafted up from damp earth.

Mordaunt stalemated himself.

The midges came for round three and were beaten back again.

Mordaunt began some impatient pacing along the pool’s edge.

The sun reached the skyline at the far end of the field. Finally, the light gentled, softened, and turned golden.

“Hood and neckcloth off,” said Aurienne, sanitising her hands.

Mordaunt did as he was told immediately. An improvement from the last time. Good: Aurienne did not like repeating herself.

Under his scars, the Fyren had arranged his features into something neutral, bordering on indifferent. This was belied by the expectant flicking of his gaze from the pool to the setting sun. He really had some level of hope.

The hum of the fat bumblebees quieted. A warbler sang its soul into one last song. The swallows netted the softening skies and faded into gathering dusk. Stillness reigned.

Aurienne, fool that she was, strained her senses for some kind of change as the sun set and they reached the moment between day and night. A shift in the winds, perhaps, or a distant Druidic chanting, or the portentous flight of a murder of crows.

None of these things happened, of course. Everything remained perfectly ordinary.

Mordaunt had removed his neckcloth. There was something of entreaty in his manner, in the way he clasped it between his joined hands, in the way he bowed his pale head as Aurienne came near.