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for, to love and be loved by the man who had possessed all of her, even her very soul.
    She wanted to cry out to the blue arc of the sky, to the soft breezes that caressed her, to the gods, never to take this away from her. She was weak with love, and desire was only part of the magic of the moment.
    Later she lay in the shade of the hedge and watched Jamie back at work cutting the field, and marvelled at his apparent feeling of renewed vigour. The gleam in his eyes was because of her, she told herself; one day, slowly perhaps, she would replace Katherine in his life, and then Jamie would be all hers.
    When Patrick woke, Fon wiped the crumbs from his face and hair, and packed the remains of the food into the basket. She waved farewell to Jamie, who was too far away to hear her voice, and led Patrick back across the fields.
    Fon decided she had better call at the small cottage where Tommy lived; she was anxious about the young farm-hand. It wasn’t like him to miss a day’s work. But if he had to, today was as good a time as any, she thought, smiling.
    â€˜Come in, Mrs O’Conner, ’tis good of you to call.’ Tommy’s mother was a plump woman, looking every inch a farm wife with her apple cheeks and sun-kissed hair. But now there were lines of anxiety around Mrs Jones’s mouth.
    â€˜Come about my Tommy, have you?’ she said, without preliminary, as she pushed the blackened kettle on to the fire. Fon nodded, watching as Mrs Jones put out the thick, earthenware cups and poured in the milk, drawn fresh from the cows by Jamie that very morning.
    â€˜Right sick, he is,’ Mrs Jones said. ‘Something the matter with his belly; complains of cramps, he does, and him normally a strong healthy boy. Perhaps you’ll go through to the back room and take a look at him later,’ she said beseechingly. ‘I put him in there so I could hear if he called.’
    Fon drank the tea as quickly as the hot liquid would allow, for Patrick was sitting on the floor pulling the ears of the patient collie dog which crouched beside him.
    â€˜Don’t tease the poor animal, Patrick,’ Fon said reprovingly. ‘He might bite you.’
    â€˜Bless you, our Sheeba wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ Mrs Jones said, rising to her feet and putting down her cup. Clearly she was too anxious about her son to pay much attention to anything else.
    Fon followed her to the back room, where the curtains were drawn against the sun, and the smell of sickness hung like a pall in the air.
    Fon aproached the couch and looked down at the sleeping boy. He was browned by the weather, but now his face had an unhealthy tinge, as though, somehow, he was an apple turning bad.
    â€˜Perhaps you’d better fetch the doctor to Tommy,’ Fon said slowly. ‘He does look very poorly.’
    When Mrs Jones didn’t reply, Fon looked up at her. ‘I’ll stay with Tommy until you come back, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
    â€˜Lordy me!’ Mrs Jones said softly, ‘I can’t afford no doctor, my love. Can’t you do something for him? I’ve heard my boy praise you to the skies many times what with those herb things you use on the sick animals.’
    â€˜Me?’ Fon said in surprise. ‘But I don’t know anything about sickness in men; animals are different, you must see that.’
    Mrs Jones frowned. ‘You know enough to suit me,’ she said reasonably, ‘and folks is same as animals, get the same sickness they do, mind.’
    Fon moved closer to where Tommy lay and rested the back of her hand against his skin. It was burning hot to the touch. It was clear he had some sort of fever. She opened his shirt and saw an area of reddened flesh spreading to his waist. The problem was in the region of the abdomen, and reluctantly Fon lifted the shirt and exposed Tommy’s thin shanks.
    She stifled a gasp at the angry flesh just above his pubis and