Balin and Columbine (A Children of the May Novella - Book 1.5b)

Chapter Eight: Garnish of the Mount

Garnish’s horse was too surly to take another body on its back, so Columbine led him to Balin on foot while he rode. Although she could run for a long time, she was very out of breath by the time they got back to the clear pool. To say that Garnish was not a graceful rider was an understatement; his dismount involved a four-stage tumble from his saddle. She grabbed his arm to stop him going flat on his face.

‘This is the patient then?’ said the lad from north of Vellion, when his feet were firmly on the ground.

Columbine fought to get her breath back. ‘Aye.’

Garnish removed his dented helmet and let it drop to the squelching ground. He tried to kneel, but the lower part of his bent breastplate dug into his chunky thighs. ‘Here, help me off with this, will you?’ he said, trying to reach the ties at his shoulders that held his armour in place. Columbine’s nimble fingers soon removed the thin metal. Garnish’s sweat glistened through his thick leather undershirt, giving a shine to the links of his much-holed chainmail vest. Freed from the plate metal, Garnish took off his gloves and knelt by Balin.

‘Gods be good,’ he said, as he looked at Balin’s bearded face, ‘I know this bloke. He doesn’t look very well.’ Int he time she’d been away Balin’s face had gone from the deathly grey to a marbled white. The fine veins in his face ran black.

Garnish pulled the pigeon cloak from the injured boy and recoiled from the festering leg. ‘He’s got the gangrene. It’s spread into the blood.’

‘Can you do anything?’

Garnish sat back on his heels. His big arse almost swallowed his feet. ‘What’s that sword all about?’ He nodded at the Dolorous Stroke.

‘Can you save him?’ said Columbine impatiently.

‘I could try taking the leg, but that would probably kill him more quickly rather than do any good.’ The portly lad met her eye. ‘I can make a potion to lessen his pain, but that’s probably all. There’s a woman – no, not her.’

‘What woman?’ she snapped.

‘No, no. She’s... too dangerous.’

Columbine felt Balin’s forehead. It was now something between hot and cold. His eyes were still working beneath his eyelids in a feverish dream, but his pulse raced in his neck and his breathing was very shallow. The girl from Vellion sat cross-legged beside the boy from the isles. If only she had been brave enough to take the leg when they were still by the riverside. This was her fault.

‘Do it, Garnish. Make him more comfortable.’

‘My herbs are all back in my hut. Let’s strap him to War-Strider’s back.’ 

Columbine looked at the horse’s miserable expression, and the way it eyed its master with contempt. Only Garnish could look at that beast and decide it was either ready for war, or that striding was its defining feature.

      

* * *

For all it was little more than a wooden hut, Garnish had made a comfortable home for himself at the very top of the mount. As they stepped inside the cosy little house she was reminded strongly of the cottage the dented boy had kept with his forester father and medicine woman mother in the woods north of Vellion. She and Lily had often visited the place on their tours her uncle’s lands, always enjoying the herbal smells that wafted out of its windows. The same scent permeated the planks of Garnish’s new house. Tartan cushions and hangings gave the place the same colourful softness.

They carried Balin to the bed, and Columbine tucked several heavy blankets over him as Garnish lit a fire to boil water. She held Balin’s hand, watching the shallow rise and fall of chest. Every breath pained him, even in his sleep.