The pungent smell of dried yarrow, steeped willow bark, and warm cider vinegar filled the low-ceilinged infirmary tent pitched in the sheltered hollow behind the second relay station.
Vella rolled her linen sleeves up past her elbows, fastening them securely with bone pins before inspecting the brass test frame that Ferra had assembled on the rough trestle table beside the cot.
Outside the heavy canvas walls, the distant roar of the mountain river provided a steady, churning background to the quiet murmurs of the medical assistants preparing bandages.
On the narrow canvas cot lay a middle-aged wagon driver named Orin, his left arm resting limp on a folded blanket while faint lilac veins pulsed beneath the weathered skin of his forearm.
Orin had volunteered after Vella explained the separation test, having received one of the poisoned fever draughts recorded in Clerk Gault's journal three weeks earlier during an outbreak of camp chills.
