Infection

Ennis’s back became infected. He tossed and raved and it was all we could do to keep him held down so he did not do something terrible to his injuries. Amira, the medic, told me not to pick the maggots out of the worst parts, for they help to clean the wound, though they look horrid. Instead, she packed the rest of the burns with a foul-smelling compound made, I think she said, from minerals found by the bogs to the North, mixed with a few herbs for relief. He screamed when we applied this, before the herbs numbed his pain, and I held his arm with my teeth clenched. It was not until the herbs had stopped the pain and he was sleeping that I found that my face and the front of my dress were wet. I must have been weeping unnoticed.

Amira took me aside afterward and complimented me on my fortitude. She charged me with the care of the infected parts, giving me a solution with which they must be bathed every four hours; and the maggots were not to be disturbed in their work.

Sure enough, today the wounds are looking cleaner. Most of the maggots had crawled away and cuccooned themselves in small, brown pellety things, which I brushed away, and the blood was coming clean and bright. I applied some of the salve Amira had left, and Ennis groaned. He opened his eyes and looked at me, and his gaze was clear.

He said, “Here she is, my heart is easy,” and closed his eyes, and did not open them again.