Habrunt's entire body was in ruins, covered in a maze of criss-crossed
wounds and caked with blood both dried and oozing. If he did not die
first before the night was out, he would still almost certainly be
crippled for life from wounds like that, if only by the very number of
them. The underlying muscle, and not the skin only, had been slashed
innumerable times by the cruel bite of the bull whip.
"Come!" said old L'acoci, her wizened eyes beckoning to Si'Wren
urgently. "We have only a little borage tea, such as this one treated
you with before. It can work it's own miracles, but in his case, I
fear--"
Ominously, she did not finish her sentence.
Si'Wren was determined to do her utmost to try to help old L'acoci, and
set immediately to work as she began to gently bathe Habrunt's wounds
with the simple herb tea, which was all she had since being banished
from the spice tent. She began dipping it up into successive pads of
old rag-weave pasted with lard, and layering it onto Habrunt's ravaged
skin and flesh before finally wrapping him up in dandelion leaves and
covering it over with a bandage of coarse burr lap.
* * *
Later that same day, a messenger came riding his horse at a full gallop
through the front gates and sending stray chickens and goats scattering
madly for their lives in all directions as he lurched his snorting
horse to a stop directly before the front steps of the House.
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