Free The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart Page B

the icy water out of the pot.
    â€˜Here’s a drink. And if you want a wash of a sort, I’ve a clean hankie . . . No, on second thoughts, I think you’d better let me. Keep still.’
    He made no objection this time, but allowed me to wash his face for him, and then his hands. I let it go at that. Cleanliness might be next to godliness, but the water was ice-cold. He looked like a rather badly-off tramp. I had a feeling that I probably looked a pretty suitable mate for him. Today, I hadn’t had the hardihood to look into the naiad’s pool.
    Breakfast was rather horrible. The bread was as hard as pumice, and had to be soaked in the icy water before he could eat it. The chocolate was better, but was cloying and unsatisfying. The orange had gone soft, like limp suede, and tasted of nothing in particular.
    The effort of will with which he chewed and choked down the unappetizing stuff was palpable. I watched him with anxiety, and a dawning respect. Stubborn and autocratic he might be, but here was a kind of courage as definite as any gun-blazing heroics, this grim private battle with his own weakness, this forcing himself to remain a lay figure for long enough to gather effective strength, when every nerve must have been screaming the necessity of action. To me, it was a new slant on courage.
    When the beastly little meal was finished, I looked at him uncertainly. ‘There was a place where Lambis took me yesterday; it’s a sort of ledge, and there’s plenty of cover, and you can see for miles. The only thing is, it’s a bit higher up. Round that bluff and then up, quite a clamber. There, do you see? If you can’t manage it, I can scout round now, and find something else.’
    â€˜I’ll manage it.’
    How he did, I shall never quite know. It took us the best part of an hour. By the time he was lying, white-faced and sweating, on the ledge, I felt as if I had run from Marathon to Athens myself, and with bad news to tell at the end of it.
    After a while I sat up, and looked down at him. His eyes were shut, and he looked terrible, but the sun was on the ledge, and he was lying with his face turned almost greedily towards its growing warmth.
    I got to my knees. ‘I’m going back for the haversack now, and to cover our tracks at the hut. And when I get back, I don’t care what you say, I’m going to light a fire.’
    His eyelids flickered. ‘Don’t be silly.’
    â€˜I’m not. But first things first, and the essential thing for you is warmth. You must have something hot to drink, and if I’m to do your arm, I must have hot water.’ I nodded towards the cleftlike cave behind us. ‘If I lit a small one, deep in there, with very dry stuff that didn’t make much smoke, we could get something heated. Better to do it now, before anyone’s likely to be about.’
    He had shut his eyes again. ‘As you like,’ indifferently.
    It didn’t take long to cover our traces in the hut. Any shepherd might have left the bedding, and, while it might still look suspicious, I felt reluctant to remove it, in case Mark should need it again that night. I merely ruffled it over, until it showed no signs of having been recently lain on, then, with a broom of twigs, scattered dust over our recent footprints.
    A quick look round, and then I was climbing back to the ledge, a fresh pot-full of water held carefully in my hands, and the bag and haversack over my shoulder, filled with as much dry kindling as they would hold.
    Mark lay exactly where I had left him, eyes shut. I carried my load quietly into the cleft. As I had hoped, this ran back fairly deeply into the cliff, and, some way in, under a smoothed off overhang for all the world like a chimney breast, I built the fire. When it was ready, I made a swift but cautious survey from the ledge. Nothing, nobody, no movement, except of the kestrel hunting along the edge of the ravine. I