Chapter 1 #4
Panic fluttered into Ephraim’s throat. Had he, in fact, mistaken his guest? Was this not the fae bone-setter? How much of Hull’s true form was revealed, visible over his own shoulder even now, to a stranger—?
“Well met, Grytha,” said Hull in a cheerful-if-strained tone.
Ephraim supposed that settled the matter.
Grytha, who ‘til now had stared down at Ephraim none-too-approvingly, raised her eyes to meet Hull’s over his shoulder. In a deep and rumbling voice, she intoned. “Good morrow, Hull.” A pause ensued as her dark gaze returned to Ephraim. “And to you.”
“Mr Ephraim Grigsby, Esquire, at your service,” he told her, all-too-late recalling his manners. He withdrew and held the door open for her entrance. “Pray come in out of the chill.”
Bemusement glinted in her eyes as she accepted his invitation with a nod and crossed the threshold. To Hull, she said, “We’re among friends, then?”
Hull nodded.
She cast a wary glance back at Ephraim. Before he could think how to reply to it, she turned away again and, with a roll of her shoulders like two millstones grinding together, shrugged off her glamour.
The garb and bag remained the same, as did the hair. The flesh bloomed to a blue-grey shade, and her brow bore spiralling horns like Hull’s. Her hooves, broad as those of a horse, just barely peeked out beneath the hem of her skirt, and her tufted tail lashed.
All told, Ephraim found Grytha far from ethereal. She was perhaps the most solid woman he’d ever beheld. He supposed he oughtn’t have expected otherwise; as Hull was not a satyr, she was clearly not a nymph.
But as Hull seemed at ease in her presence, Ephraim would strive to feel likewise.
Meanwhile he found himself torn between his desperate desire to stay close to Hull and his worry of getting in the bone-setter’s way while she puts his precious Hull back to rights.
He determined that standing by Hull’s head would permit him to take Hull’s hand without making an obstacle of himself.
Hull shot a grateful glance and a brave smile up at him in return.
Ephraim belatedly realised his free hand was absent-mindedly brushing the dark curls back from Hull’s brow.
Grytha did not hesitate to make herself at home in their office. Her bag came down atop Ephraim’s desk with a definitive thud.
“Have you been dosed?” she asked Hull.
“Yes,” Hull replied.
“By yourself or your companion?”
Despite the dire circumstances, a curious and quiet euphoria bloomed beneath Ephraim’s breast-bone. No one had ever called him Hull’s companion before.
“By my companion,” Hull told her, which only made Ephraim’s pulse flutter more.
Grytha turned to Ephraim. “What have you given him?”
“Laudanum.” Belatedly, Ephraim realised he’d do better to explain. “It’s—”
“Opium extract?” Grytha supplied for him.
“Ah,” said Ephraim. “Yes. Precisely so.”
She took his solipsism with far more grace than he felt he deserved. “In what concentration, what quantity, how often, and how recently?”
Ephraim appreciated the exactitude of her accounting and answered her enquiries in kind.
Grytha absorbed this with a brisk nod. Then turned her full attention upon Hull.
Ephraim lacked the benefit of a medical education, but even so, he could draw certain conclusions from the title of “bone-setter.” Given the masterful bulk of the lady in question, he assumed her methods would have a great deal in common with those of a mortal in the same vocation.
He reminded himself that what a layman might term brutality was absolute necessity in this case and braced accordingly.
However, when Grytha descended upon his Hull at last, rather than grasp him with brute force and twist him about, her hands alighted on his bruised flesh as lightly as Ephraim’s own, and while her enquiries to the invalid retained a certain military efficiency in their grammatical construction, her voice lowered and softened to something approaching gentleness.
Given this, Ephraim quickly determined he liked her.
“You’ve done well for him thus far,” Grytha said, raising her voice to speak to Ephraim rather than her patient. “The swelling is admirably contained.”
The direct address was almost as surprising as the reassurance. Ephraim demurred and thanked her.
“However,” she added, “we require leeches to drain the blood if I’m to set the bones properly.”
“Oh!” said Ephraim.
Before he could add that he hadn’t the least idea where one might find leeches at this hour in London but would certainly do all in his power to acquire them, Grytha had reached into her bag and withdrawn a jar full of the creatures in question.
Dr Hitchingham had used leeches in the very early days of his practise, but switched over to the modern medical marvel of the multiple-bladed scarificator as soon as he could afford it.
(He had explained its form and function to Ephraim precisely once, over dinner, after which Ephraim had begged off hearing any more of the matter, and Dr Hitchingham, being a very dear friend indeed, had obliged him.) Still, Hull didn’t seem in any way put off by the prospect of leeches, so Ephraim raised no objections.
Though he could not quite bring himself to watch as the wriggling wet shadows took hold of his dear Hull.
A few moments passed in silence save for the ticking of the mantel-clock.
Contrary to his fears Ephraim could not actually hear the helpful little beasts drinking his beloved’s blood.
This did, however, leave him without a hint as to when it might prove safe to watch Grytha work again.
Only when he heard the soft plunk of, presumably, a leech returning to the jar did he dare to glance again.
The swelling had reduced considerably. Where once had appeared a superfluous joint was now just an errant nub.
He tried not to see the scarlet drops trickling down his beloved’s slate-blue flesh.
He beheld the merest glimpse of how fat the wriggling ink-blots had become before he had to turn his gaze away lest he become even more unhelpful than he felt at the present moment.
It was remarkable how smoothly, swiftly, and quietly Grytha put her little helpers away in their jar, placed the jar in her bag, and withdrew a leather belt. This last she folded over and held up to Hull’s face.
Without any further instruction required, Hull opened his mouth. She slipped the leather betwixt his jaws. He bit down. Hard.
At this moment, Ephraim arrived at the disquieting conclusion that Grytha’s methods would prove far more manual than magical.
“Now, Mr Grigsby,” she said, much to Ephraim’s surprise, “if you would be so kind as to hold him down.”
This command gave his heart a jolt of alarm.
It went against all of his instincts; though rationally he understood that one must sometimes injure in order to heal—what was surgery, after all, if not a controlled wounding?
—and had the leeches before him as example, their blood-sucking having relieved the painful swelling in Hull’s flesh and enabled the bone-setter to do her work—still, he had never in his life been looked to as an example of strength.
Certainly no one had considered him made of the stuff required to overpower another man.
And now, old as he was and mortal to Hull’s fae, there seemed no possibility his own paltry efforts could suffice.
He glanced down at his Hull for guidance.
Hull returned his gaze with a tight-yet-encouraging smile.
Determination blossomed anew beneath Ephraim’s breast-bone.
If Hull believed in him, required him, needed him, he could do no less than rise to the challenge.
He steeled his nerve and planted his palms on Hull’s shoulders.
While the strength of his arm might not account for much, he knew he was certainly not a slender man, and perhaps the sheer weight of him would make up the lack.
“Just so,” said Grytha approvingly, surprising Ephraim again.
Without further ado, she took Hull’s limb in her two strong hands and—
A strangled groan escaped Hull’s throat.
Ephraim, who hadn’t the nerve really to watch the actual bone-setting, instantly looked to his beloved’s face; the jaw clenched in pain, the eyes screwed shut, the brow knit.
His heart couldn’t bear the sight. And yet he forced himself to watch, for if his dear Hull had courage enough to withstand the necessary agonies, Ephraim could hardly do less than bear witness to his stalwart example.
Only once did Hull rear up against his grasp—and Ephraim, determined to do right by him, to do what he needed, to do what he must—leant down with his full weight, and this, mercifully, sufficed.
Hull gazed up at him afterwards with a dazed, pain-stricken, yet unmistakably grateful look, and Ephraim’s heart performed a discomforting acrobatic manoeuvre.
“You may release him now,” said Grytha, startling Ephraim a third time.
Ephraim dared a glance at her handiwork.
The limb was splinted and wrapped tight, so straight and clean one might suppose no bone had ever broken and Hull merely wore a curious sort of stocking.
No trace of blood remained, for which Ephraim felt most grateful.
And Hull, when Ephraim met his gaze again, appeared very much relieved.
Ephraim resisted the urge to press his lips to the beads of sweat blooming on his brow.
“Have you crutches or a cane?” Grytha asked, jolting him out of his reverie.
“I’m afraid not,” Ephraim regretfully informed her. Privately, he resolved to make himself more prepared for unfortunate accidents in the future.
At present, Grytha seemed unbothered by this lack. She withdrew from her bag a length of wood. A considerable length of wood. A length of wood that no mortal bag of such dimensions could possibly hold.
“Ah,” said Ephraim.