The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart Page A

remember what he called it, but he swore his grandmother used it for practically everything, from abortions to snake-bite, so you’d think—’ He stopped on a sharp intake of breath.
    â€˜I’m sorry, but it’s stuck a bit. Hang on, this will hurt.’
    Mark didn’t answer, but lay there with his head turned away, examining the rock above the ledge with apparent interest. I gave him a doubtful look, bit my lips together, and started to sponge the stuff loose from the wound. Eventually, it came.
    The first sight of the exposed wound shocked me inexpressibly. It was the first time I had seen any such thing, and the long, jagged scoring where the bullet had ploughed through the flesh looked sickening. Mark had been lucky, of course, several times lucky. Not only had the murderer, aiming at his heart, scored a near miss, hitting nothing that would matter, but the bullet had gone cleanly through, ploughing its way upwards for about four inches through the flesh of the upper arm. To me, on that first shrinking glance, it looked awful enough. The edges were not lying cleanly together, and the jagged scar looked inexpressibly raw and painful.
    I blinked hard, braced myself, and looked again. This time, to my surprise, I was able to see the wound without that slight lurching of the stomach. I put the dirty wrappings aside, out of sight, and concentrated.
    Find out if the wound was clean; that was the main thing, surely? These dried smears and crusts of blood would have to be washed away, so that I could see . . .
    I started gingerly to do this. Once, Mark moved, uncontrollably, and I faltered, cloth in hand, but he said nothing. His eyes seemed to be following the flight of the kestrel as it swept up to the nest above us. I went doggedly on with the job.
    The wound was washed at last, and I thought it was clean. The flesh surrounding it looked a normal enough colour, and there was no sign of swelling anywhere. I pressed gentle fingers here and there, watching Mark’s face. But there was no reaction, except that almost fierce concentration on the kestrel’s nest over our heads. I hesitated, then, with a hazy memory of some adventure novel I had read, bent down and sniffed at the wound. It smelt faintly of Mark’s skin, and the sweat of his recent climb. I straightened up, to see him smiling.
    â€˜What, no gangrene?’
    â€˜Well,’ I said cautiously, ‘hope on, hope ever, it takes some days to set in . . . Oh, Mark, I don’t know a damned thing about it, but it honestly does look clean to me, and I suppose it’s healing.’
    He twisted his head to look down at it. ‘It looks all right. Keep it dry now, and it’ll do.’
    â€˜All right! It looks just awful! Does it hurt terribly?’
    â€˜That’s not the thing to say at all, didn’t you know? You should be bright and bracing. “Well, my lad, this looks wonderful. On your feet now, and use it all you can.” No, really, it does look fair enough, and it is clean, though heaven knows how. Maybe those herbs did do the trick; queerer things have happened. Though if I’d been in a fit state to know that it was Lambis’ old shirt, that he’d worn at least since we left Piraeus—’
    â€˜These tough types. It just shows what you can do when you leave it all to Nature. Who’d want silly little modern things like antiseptics? Lie still, will you? I’m going to tie it up again.’
    â€˜What with? What’s that?’
    â€˜Nicola’s old petticoat, that she’s been wearing ever since Athens.’
    â€˜But look here—’
    â€˜Lie still . Don’t worry, I washed it this morning. It’s been drying like a flag of truce over that bush just inside the cleft.’
    â€˜I didn’t mean that, don’t be silly. But you can’t shed any more clothes, my goodness. I’ve got your jersey, and now your