sheets from their blanket rolls, they contrived a travois for Trueheart to drag behind her. Jim laid Louisa tenderly on it and picked the smoothest path to lead Trueheart back to the wagons.
Although Louisa laughed from this comfortable bed, and declared it the easiest journey she had ever made, by the time they reached the wagons her injuries had stiffened. When she rose from the travois she hobbled to her wagon like a very old lady.
Jim hovered around her anxiously, aware that any uninvited help he might offer would be rejected. He was surprised and delighted when she placed a hand on his shoulder as she climbed the wagon steps. He left her to take off her torn, soiled clothing while he supervised the heating of the water cauldron and the preparation of the copper hip-bath. Zama and the other servants removed the after chest from her wagon and set up the bath in its place. Then they filled it with steaming water. When all was ready, Jim retired and listened through the canvas tent to her splashes, and winced in sympathy to her small cries and exclamations of pain as the water stung her abrasions and thorn pricks. When at last he judged that she had finished he asked permission to enter her wagon tent. 'Yes, you may come in, for I am as chastely attired as a nun.'
She was wearing the dressing-robe Sarah Courtney had given her. It reached from her chin to her ankles, and down to her wrists.
'Is there aught I can do to ease your discomfort?' he asked.
'I have rubbed your aunt Yasmini's sovereign balm and ointment upon my ankle and on most of my other afflictions.' She lifted the hem of the robe a few inches to show her ankle tightly wrapped in bandages. Dorian Courtney's wife was an adept of Arabian and Oriental medicine. Her famous ointment was the family cure-all. Sarah had packed a dozen large jars of it into the medical chest she had given them. There was an open jar beside Louisa's car dell bed, and the strong but pleasant herbal smell permeated the interior of the tent.
Jim was not sure where these remarks were leading, but he nodded wisely. Then she blushed again, and, without looking at him, murmured, However, I have thorns in places that I cannot reach. And bruises sufficient for two persons to share.'
It did not occur to him that she was asking for his help, and she had
to make it more apparent. She reached over one shoulder and touched her back as far down as she could reach. 'It feels as though I have an entire forest of thorns embedded down there.' Still he stared at her, and she had to eschew all attempts at subtlety and modesty.
'In the chest you will find a pair of tweezers and a selection of needles you can use,' she said, turned her back to him and slipped the robe off her shoulder. 'There is one particular thorn here, just below my shoulder blade.' She touched the spot. 'It feels like a crucifixion nail.'
He gulped as he grasped her meaning, and reached for the tweezers. 'I shall try not to hurt you, but cry out if I do,' he said, but he was well practised in caring for sick and wounded animals, and his touch was firm but gentle.
She stretched out face down upon the sheepskin mattress, and gave herself over to his ministrations. Although her back was scratched and punctured in many places, and pale lymph and watery blood wept from the injuries, her skin was marble smooth and lustrously pale where it was undamaged. Although when he had first met her she had been a skinny waif, since then an abundance of good food and months of riding and walking had firmed and shaped her muscles. Even in her present straits, her body was the loveliest thing he had ever laid eyes on. He worked in silence, not trusting his voice, and except for the occasional gasp or small whimper Louisa said nothing.
When he folded back the hem of her robe to reach another hidden thorn, she moved slightly to make it easier for him. When he peeled back the silk a little further it revealed the beginning of the delicate cleft that separated her buttocks and down so fine and pale that it was invisible until the light fell upon it from a certain angle. Jim stood back and averted his eyes, although the effort required to do so was almost beyond him. 'I cannot go further,' he blurted.
Tray, why not?' she asked, without lifting her face from the pillow. 'I can feel there are thorns that still demand your attention.'
'Modesty forbids it.'
'So you will not care if my injuries mortify, and I die of blood poisoning to save your precious modesty?'
'Do not jest so,' he exclaimed. The thought of her death struck deep into his soul. She had come so close to it this very morning.
'I jest not, James Archibald.' She raised her head from the pillow and regarded him frostily. 'I have no one else to whom I may turn. Think of yourself as a surgeon, and me as your patient.'
The lines of her naked bottom were pure and symmetrical beyond any geometrical or navigational diagram he had studied. Under his
fingers her skin was warm and silken. When he had removed the thorns and anointed her various wounds with the balm, he measured a dose of laudanum to ease her discomfort. Then, at last, he was free to leave her wagon tent. But his legs seemed almost too weak to carry him.
Jim ate dinner alone at the campfire. Zama had roasted a large slice of the elephant's trunk, considered by his father and other connoisseurs to be one of the great delicacies of the African bush. But Jim's jaw ached from the effort of chewing it and it had all the flavour of boiled wood chips When the flames of the campfire died down, exhaustion overtook him. He had just sufficient energy to peep through the chink in the afterclap of Louisa's wagon tent. She was stretched out, face down under the kaross, and sleeping so soundly that he had to listen intently for the faint sound of her breathing. Then he left her and tottered to his own bed. He stripped off his clothing and dropped it on the floor, then collapsed on the sheepskin.
He woke in confusion not sure if what he was hearing was a dream or reality. It was Louisa's voice, shrill with terror: 'Jim, Jim! Help me!'
He sprang from his bed to go to her, then remembered he was naked. While he groped for his breeches she cried out again. He did not have time to don his breeches, but holding them before him, he went to her rescue. He skinned his knee on the tailboard of the wagon as he jumped down, then ran to hers and dived through the curtains of the afterclap. 'Louisa! Are you safe? What troubles you?'
'Ride! Oh, ride with all haste! Don't let it catch me!' she screamed. He realized that she was locked in a nightmare. This time it was difficult to wake her. He had to seize both of her shoulders and shake her.
'Jim, is it you?' At last she came back from the land of shadows. 'Oh, I had such a terrible dream. It was the elephant again.'
She clung to him, and he waited for her to calm. She was hot and flushed, but after a while he laid her back and pulled the fur kaross over her. 'Sleep now, little hedgehog,' he whispered. 'I will not be far away.'
'Don't leave me, Jim. Stay with me for a while.'
'Until you sleep,' he agreed.
But he fell asleep before she did. She felt him topple over slowly and lie full length beside her. Then his breathing became slow and even. He was not touching her, but his presence was reassuring and she let herself slip back into sleep. This time there were no dark fantasies to haunt her rest.
When she awoke in the dawn to the sounds of the camp stirring around her she reached out to touch him, but he was gone. She felt a sharp sense of loss.
She dressed and climbed painfully down from the wagon. Jim and Bakkat were busy at the horse lines washing the scratches and small injuries that Drumfire and Trueheart had received in yesterday's battle with the elephant, and feeding them a little of the precious oats and bran moistened with black molasses as a reward for their courage. When he looked up and saw Louisa struggling down from her wagon, Jim exclaimed with alarm and ran to her. 'You should keep to your bed. What are you doing here?'
'I am going to see to breakfast.'
'What madness is this? Zama can do without your instruction for a day. You must rest.'
'Do not treat me like a child,' she told him, but the reprimand lacked fire and she smiled at him as she limped to the cooking fire. He did not argue. It was a gorgeous morning, bright and cool, and this put them both in a sunny mood. They ate under the trees to the sound of birdsong from the branches above them, and the meal became a small celebration of the previous day's events. With animation they discussed every detail of the hunt and relived all the excitement and terror, but neither mentioned the events of the night, although they were uppermost in their minds.
'Now I must go back to the carcass to remove the tusks. It is not a task I can leave to others. A careless slip of the axe will damage the ivory irrevocably,' he told her, as he mopped his plate with a piece of unleavened pot bread. 'I will rest Drumfire today, he worked hard yesterday, and I will take Crow. Trueheart will stay in camp, for she is as lame as you are.'
Then I shall ride Stag,' she said. 'It will not take me long to don my boots.' Stag was a strong but gentle gelding they had taken from Colonel Keyser.
'You should stay in camp to recuperate fully.'
'I must go with you to retrieve my rifle, which I dropped in the thorn thickets.'
'That is a feeble pretext. I can do that for you.'
'You do not truly believe that I shall not attend the removal of the tusks for which we risked our very lives?'
He opened his mouth to
