Aymery was standing by, looking down at them as though stunned. His helplessness maddened Marpasse, and she turned and stung him.
“Fool, will you let her bleed to death?”
She had laid bare the wound in Denise’s bosom, a narrow mouth from which the red life was ebbing slowly.
“Fool! Have you such things as hands? For God’s love, something to staunch the flow!”
Her words were like cold water dashed into his face. Aymery ripped his surcoat, tore a great piece away, folded it, and gave the pad to Marpasse. She pressed it to the wound with one hand, and with the other beckoned Aymery to take her place.
“Shall we give in without a fight?” she said, “you are better with a sword than with a sponge, lording. I have some linen on me, though it might have come white out of the wash.”
She turned up her blue gown, and tore strips from the shift beneath.
“Blood stops blood, they say,” and she ran back between the trees to where the dead man lay with the spear through him. The stuff and her hands were red when she returned.
“Lift the pad, lording.”
He obeyed her, and she pressed some of the linen into the wound.