4th August, afternoon

"Is she watching us? And listening?" Charcot did not want to accidentally say anything improper again and ruin Paol's attempts at friendly diplomacy. He was out of practice, but he would have to watch what he said.

"I think so." There was a faint chink as a small stone landed the ground in front of them. Paol smiled and leaned forward to pick it up. "Or spotting for artillery..." He made a show of looking around for the source of the projectile, finally cocking his head to look up at the sky in feigned bewilderment. There was a giggle from behind them and he grinned.

"Martita," her father called ominously. "Are you throwing rocks?"

For  a moment there was total silence, then Martita called innocently, "No, Papa." She glanced ruefully at the stone in her hand, then dropped it into the dirt. She was growing tired of that game, anyway; the Frenchmen were not very interesting to spy on.

Leaving Isabella to stand guard beneath the bush, she emerged from hiding and hurried over to the two prisoners. She inspected the ground at their feet where the rock had landed, then narrowed her eyes at Paolo and held out her hand.

He gave her a questioning look, then opened his hand -- the stone seemed even smaller cupped in his large palm -- only to pull away as she reached for it. With a sound half laughter, half surprise, she sprang forward, snatching at his fist, but he kept moving it out of her reach.

He was laughing now, but she didn't mind. "Give it back!" she cried, scrambling up onto the small wall so that she could reach.  At the last moment, however, he leaned forward, darting his hand in front of Domingo and she went leaping after it, missing in her haste the slight pause as he tucked the stone into Domingo's waistcoat pocket.

Down off the wall, then back up again until with a little squeal of triumph, she caught hold of Paolo's hand and prised open his fingers. The stone wasn't there.

Laughing, she hopped off the wall and circled round to his injured side, but his other hand was open and empty. "Where is it? What did you do with it?" she demanded curiously, but he just grinned and shrugged. She was about to command him to tell her when another idea occurred to her and she danced sideways, seizing the blind one's hands. "Domingo!" she cried in a tone of merry accusation, trying to uncurl his fingers.

Charcot opened his hands, bewildered but laughing. "What? What's she doing, Paol?"

Across the courtyard, the carpenter looked up from his work with a frown. "What is it, Martita? Did they take your doll?"

"She's looking for the rock she threw over here," he laughed, "It's in your pocket."

His laughter stopped abruptly at the call from across the courtyard. It did not help that Martita did not seem to hear her father, or at least was far too engrossed in the game to answer him.

"I think we'd best—" he broke off suddenly as Martita lunged at him. She had seen the faint bulge of the laudanum bottle in his own pocket and before he realized what was happening, she was dancing back out of reach, the small, glass vessel clutched in her hands.

Horrified, he lurched forward, but he dared not rise or try to take it back from her. Anything he did would be perceived as aggression. "No, Martita, please! Give it back. Please, it's not for playing with," he pleaded, but she was positively gleeful, skipping back and forth just out of reach, oblivious to his distress. She held the bottle up to the light, chattering in admiration. By now she had discovered that there was something inside and she shook it, laughing as she asked her incomprehensible questions.

"Please, Martita, it—it's poisonous."

She stopped suddenly and stared at him. "Toxico?" she murmured, a note of fascinated awe creeping into her voice.

"Si. Toxico. Now—" But the devilish glint was back in her eyes and grinning broadly she went speeding off across the courtyard towards her father.

This was much better than a rock! "Look what I found!" she burst out, skipping to a halt in front of her father and thrusting the bottle at him. "It's poison," she added knowingly.

"What did she find?" Charcot asked in alarm. He could picture the girl devouring some poisonous fruit or mushroom and then keeling over dead right in front of her father. Who would then immediately kill them. "Stop her! No, señor, help, it's poison!"

The carpenter put down his tools immediately and snatched the little bottle from her hand. "Where did you get this?" But the answer was obvious. He looked across the courtyard at the big Frenchman's face. "Did you touch or drink any of this, Marta?"

Martita stared wide-eyed at her father as he seized her arms. "N-no," she said tremulously. She didn't understand. To her the little bottle was something plucked from a song or story; that there might be real world applications and real consequences never occurred to her. It was all just part of the game. "He wouldn't give me my rock back."

"It's the laudanum bottle from -- Oh, Christ." He pushed himself to his feet, relief and fear churning together. "It's fine," he muttered distractedly, "He took the bottle away. I'll go fetch it."

He started across the courtyard. "It was my fault, Señor," he managed to stammer as he drew close, "I'm sorry. I--I never-- I didn't--" He broke off, swallowing hard; he wasn't even sure what he was trying to say.

How could an innocent game have gone so terribly wrong? But that was it, wasn't it? It wasn't innocent; he wasn't innocent. He could never go back to that and he was a fool to have thought otherwise, even for a moment.

"What's going on?" called a voice from an upper window.  Manuela looked out.

The carpenter glared up at her as if she too were guilty.  "This Frog gave a bottle of poison to Martita!"

Manuela gave Kerjean a look of shock before vanishing from the window to hurry downstairs.

The carpenter was thankful that at least Martita had not opened the bottle or touched its contents.  What would a prisoner want with a bottle of poison anyway?  At least he had not had a chance to poison any of their food.  Then the man's eyes glinted.  "The figs!"  He grabbed the little girl by the shoulder.  "Did you eat any figs from this man?"

Martita started to cry. "No. Or....yes," she whimpered, "But Manuela said it was alright!"

"It's not poison!" Charcot cried from across the courtyard.  He had stood and was trying to feel his way forward, moving as rapidly as he dared.  "No poison, it's medicine.  It's my medicine, it's laudanum.  Fichtre!"  He barked his shin on the little stone wall around the fountain and lost balance.  As he pitched forward and put out his hands to catch himself, one hand grazed on the stone while the other met nothing until he was in the water.

No. No. Paol whirled around, just in time to see his friend pitch headfirst into the fountain. "Charcot!" Hell. But he did not seem badly hurt, thank Christ. "Stay there, alright? It'll be fine, just stay there." Stay where he'd damn well left him! He was trying to keep Charcot out of this.

By now Manuela had emerged into the courtyard, and she helped the blind Frenchman extricate himself from the water.  She tried to make him sit on the wall around the fountain, but apparently he did not want to sit.

She looked at the big Frenchman again.  "What is going on?" she repeated.  "Poison?"

"It's medicine," he said helplessly, "Laudanum." But it might as well have been poison if she'd drunk too much of it, and small as she was, that probably wouldn't have needed to be much.

By now the carpenter had uncorked the bottle and taken a sniff. He sighed and stoppered it again. "It is laudanum. At least it smells like it, just like what they gave the young English captain after his leg." With a look of exasperation, he held the bottle out for the big Frenchman to take. "Why in holy heaven did you say it was poison?"

Paol stared stupidly at the bottle, then up at the carpenter. The situation had diffused so rapidly that he was lost. Half dazed, he reached for the bottle, too bewildered to grasp more than the final word of the man's question. "I don't understand. I'm sorry."

The carpenter sighed again, but he no longer seemed angry. At least not at the Frenchmen. They had obviously not wanted the girl to take the bottle, and so he knew where the blame belonged. "Martita, don't take people's things! Don't ever take someone's medicine, or any kind of strange bottle!"

Martita swiped her sleeve across her nose and hung her head, risking a furtive scowl at Paolo. This was the second time he'd got her in trouble! And then mumbling something apologetic, he withdrew towards where Domingo stood by the fountain. Leaving her to take all the punishment herself, she thought resentfully and under her breath muttered the word she'd heard Domingo use.

"Martita!" Her father recognized that word, and he grabbed her by the arm and marched her to the kitchen door, leaving the Frenchmen with Manuela who had observed this denouement in a daze.

"You alright, mate?" he asked, coming up to Charcot. The younger man was sopping wet, but did not appear badly hurt.

"I think so," he answered, feeling his hand. It was scraped and bleeding, but he could not tell because everything felt wet. "So this is going to be my life - walking into things and getting bruised and soaking wet." For some reason, it made him laugh. It was the absurdity of it all, and relief that the situation with the neighbor had resolved itself.

Manuela looked at them both with confused concern.

"No. No," he repeated, watching Charcot in mounting alarm, "Your hearing came back, didn't it? Your sight'll come back as well. It just needs time. You – Let me see your hand," he interrupted himself, seizing upon the concrete problem in desperation.

He glanced up at Manuela. If they had shared a common language, he could not have answered the question in her looks and he simply held her gaze for a moment, like a hand clasp, before turning back to Charcot.

Manuela looked at his hand as well. "Come inside," she said, gesturing to Paol. "We'll bandage it up in there. Bandages. Come."