40
The night wore on. Bradamante moved from tent to tent, holding first Jara’s hand, then Astolpho’s.
Neither of them was conscious. They jerked and shivered, at the mercy of the disease, their bodies still releasing blood and waste, but neither of them ever opened their eyes.
Bradamante spoke to them, as if they could hear.
“You’ll be all right,” she assured them time and again. Even though she wasn’t so certain herself.
She became accustomed to the stench, although she wished now that she had asked Martel to return with a bucket of water and some rags. She didn’t dare leave her friends for even a short while to go bring up water from the stream herself.
Jara would have been horrified if she knew. She always took such care to be clean, even in the griminess of camp.
But Bradamante
