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"Hum ha. And how fares your leg? Your good wife says there's no change."

Exalted was a little roused by this.

"Aye, but there's great change since you came last. I had an issue of putrid humours for an hour on Tuesday. Michal and Condemnation were for ever upon the stairs with clean linen, and now there's a darkness gathering round the sore which I take to be a gangrene."

He spoke cheerfully, even hopefully, and to Gervase's disgust, pulled down the linen bandage that wrapped his leg, showing him the wound and its sullen edges. It had been caused three months ago by his fall from a tree when he was cutting off a rotten branch, and it certainly looked worse to-day than it had looked at the start, but Gervase could not pity the man, because of his evident pleasure.

"See, there's broken bits of bone in it: My wife brought one out last week as big as a walnut."

"Cover it now," said Gervase shortly.

Plague on the fellow! he thought to himself. He loves sickness and sores both of body and of soul. He's as proud of his broken, rotting leg as I'll warrant he's proud of his bastard.