He gasped deeply, as I grasped one of the hemorrhoids and pulled it toward me. There were three, a classic presentation, at nine, two, and five o’clock. Bulbous as raspberries, and quite the same color.

“Oh! Y-yes, mum.”

“Oatmeal,” I said firmly, transferring the forceps to my other hand without lessening the grip, and taking up a needle threaded with silk thread in my right. “Porridge every morning, without fail. Have you noticed a change for the better in your bowel habits, since Mrs. Bug has been feeding you parritch for breakfast?”

I passed the thread loosely round the base of the hemorrhoid, then delicately pushed the needle up beneath the loop, making a small noose of it, and pulled tight.

“Ahhh … oh! Erm … tell ’ee truth, mum, it’s like shitting house bricks covered with hedgehog skin, makes no matter what I eat.”

“Well, it will,” I assured him, securing the ligature with a knot. I released the hemorrhoid, and he breathed deeply. “Now, grapes. You like grapes, don’t you?”

“No’m. Sets me teeth on edge to bite ’em.”

“Really?” His teeth didn’t look badly decayed; I should have a closer look at his mouth; he might be suffering from marginal scurvy. “Well, we’ll have Mrs. Bug make a nice raisin pie for you; you can eat that with no difficulty. Does Lord John have a capable cook?” I took aim with my forceps and got hold of the next one. Now accustomed to the sensation, he only grunted a bit.

“Yessum. Be an Indian, he is, named Manoke.”

“Hmm.” Round, up, tighten, tie off. “I’ll write out a receipt for the raisin pie, for you to carry back to him. Does he cook yams, or beans? Beans are quite good for the purpose.”

“I b’lieve he does, mum, but his Lordship—”

I had the windows open for ventilation—Bobby was no filthier than the average, but he was certainly no cleaner—and at this point, I heard sounds from the trailhead; voices, and the jingle of harness.

Bobby heard them, too, and glanced wildly at the window, hindquarters tensing as though to spring off the table like a grasshopper. I grasped him by one leg, but then thought better of it. There was no way of covering the window, bar closing the shutters, and I needed the light.

“Go ahead and stand up,” I told him, letting go and reaching for a towel. “I’ll go and see who it is.” He followed this direction with alacrity, scrambling down and reaching hastily for his breeches.

I stepped out onto the porch, in time to greet the two men who led their mules up over the last arduous slope and into the yard. Richard Brown, and his brother Lionel, from the eponymously named Brownsville.

I was surprised to see them; it was a good three-day ride to Brownsville from the Ridge, and there was little commerce between the two settlements. It was at least that far to Salem, in the opposite direction, but the inhabitants of the Ridge went there much more frequently; the Moravians were both industrious and great traders, taking honey, oil, salt fish, and hides in trade for cheese, pottery, chickens, and other small livestock. So far as I knew, the denizens of Brownsville dealt only in cheap trade goods for the Cherokee, and in the production of a very inferior type of beer, not worth the ride.

“Good day, mistress.” Richard, the smaller and elder of the brothers, touched the brim of his hat, but didn’t take it off. “Is your husband to home?”

“He’s out by the hay barn, scraping hides.” I wiped my hands carefully on the towel I was carrying. “Do come round to the kitchen; I’ll bring up some cider.”

“Don’t trouble.” Without further ado, he turned and set off purposefully round the house. Lionel Brown, a bit taller than his brother, though with the same spare, almost gangly build and the same tobacco-colored hair, nodded briefly to me as he followed.

They had left their mules, reins hanging, evidently for me to tend. The animals were beginning to amble slowly across the yard, pausing to crop the long grass that edged the path.

“Hmpf!” I said, glaring after the brothers Brown.

“Who are they?” said a low voice behind me. Bobby Higgins had come out and was peering off the corner of the porch with his good eye. Bobby tended to be wary of strangers—and no wonder, given his experiences in Boston.

“Neighbors, such as they are.” I lunged off the porch and caught one of the mules by the bridle as he reached for the peach sapling I had planted near the porch. Disliking this interference in his affairs, he brayed ear-splittingly in my face, and attempted to bite me.

“Here, mum, let me.” Bobby, already holding the other mule’s reins, leaned past to take the halter from me. “Hark at ’ee!” he said to the obstreperous mule. “Hush tha noise, else I take a stick to ’ee, then!”

Bobby had been a foot soldier rather than cavalry, it was clear to see. The words were bold enough, but ill-matched with his tentative manner. He gave a perfunctory yank on the mule’s reins. The mule promptly laid back its ears and bit him in the arm.

He screamed and let go both sets of reins. Clarence, my own mule, hearing the racket, set up a loud bray of greeting from his pen, and the two strange mules promptly trotted off in that direction, stirrup leathers bouncing.

Bobby wasn’t badly hurt, though the mule’s teeth had broken the skin; spots of blood seeped through the sleeve of his shirt. As I was turning back the cloth to have a look at it, I heard footsteps on the porch, and looked up to see Lizzie, a large wooden spoon in hand, looking alarmed.

“Bobby! What’s happened?”

He straightened at once, seeing her, assuming nonchalance, and brushed a lock of curly brown hair off his brow.

“Ah, oh! Naught, miss. Bit o’ trouble with tha sons o’ Belial, like. No fear, it’s fine.”

Whereupon his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell over in a dead faint.

“Oh!” Lizzie flew down the steps and knelt beside him, urgently patting his cheek. “Is he all right, Mrs. Fraser?”

“God knows,” I said frankly. “I think so, though.” Bobby appeared to be breathing normally, and I found a reasonable pulse in his wrist.

“Shall we carry him inside? Or should I fetch a burnt feather, do you think? Or the spirits of ammonia from the surgery? Or some brandy?” Lizzie hovered like an anxious bumblebee, ready to fly off in any of several different directions.

“No, I think he’s coming round.” Most faints last only a few seconds, and I could see his chest lift as his breathing deepened.

“Bit o’ brandy wouldn’t come amiss,” he murmured, eyelids beginning to flutter.

I nodded to Lizzie, who vanished back into the house, leaving her spoon behind on the grass.

“Feeling a bit peaky, are you?” I inquired sympathetically. The injury to his arm was no more than a scratch, and I certainly hadn’t done anything of a shocking nature to him—well, not physically shocking. What was the trouble here?

“I dunno, mum.” He was trying to sit up, and while he was white as a sheet, seemed otherwise all right, so I let him. “It’s only, every now and again, I gets these spots, like, whirring round me head like a swarm o’ bees, and then it all goes black.”

“Now and again? It’s happened before?” I asked sharply.

“Yessum.” His head wobbled like a sunflower in the breeze, and I put a hand under his armpit, lest he fall over again. “His Lordship was in hopes you might know summat would stop it.”

“His Lord—oh, he knew about the fainting?” Well, of course he would, if Bobby were in the habit of falling over in front of him.

He nodded, and took a deep, gasping breath.

“Doctor Potts bled me regular, twice a week, but it didn’t seem to help.”

“I daresay not. I hope he was of somewhat more help with your piles,” I remarked dryly.

A faint tinge of pink—he had scarcely enough blood to provide a decent blush, poor boy—rose in his cheeks, and he glanced away, fixing his gaze on the spoon.