Jenny: Indignity

Master Lucius jerked at the anxious shouting, at first indistinct, then distilling into a call for help. Not bothering to ask himself what he could possibly do, he go up from the rock and rounded the curve of the villa wall. He saw Domitia's big dog and a young man in the path ahead, crouched over a twitching body that could only be Domitia. He was breathless with the exertion, and the edges of his vision were hazy and faintly red by the time he came abreast of them and knelt down. At first he could say nothing to the anxious young man, seized as he was with a coughing fit. But he gestured the man's hands away and took hold of the girl's jaw. She was shivering and shuddering with such force that he could not pry her mouth open. A small spot of blood showed up on the girl's white cheek. Coughing, forcing himself to see clearly, Master Lucius tried harder. The young man, misunderstanding, perhaps, tried to pull his hands away.

A shadow loomed over them, and Wulf was there, there when he was needed. He pushed them both aside and bent over the girl, effortlessly unlocked her jaw. A trickle of blood came across her lips. Without ceremony he wedged a hawking glove into the mouth, which sprang shut again as soon as he let go of her. She continued to kick and shiver like a rabbit in a snare, but the three of them leaned back, watching, unable to do anything else.

Having finished coughing, Master Lucius said, "She'll come round in a moment. This happens sometimes."