"Yes. You are a physician. It will die if something is not done."

I did not know what time it could be, for I had forgotten to wind my timepiece (if I had been the King, I would have had a diversity of clocks to choose from). I knew only that it was the very middle of the night and so cold that I could see my breath by the light of the candle.

Having given her message, Celia fled from my room, taking the candle with her so that I was left in utter darkness. As I struggled to light a lamp, find my wig and my stockings and wrench a blanket from the bed in which to wrap myself, I wondered why in the world Celia had been looking at my bird at this peculiar hour-she who, with the griping Farthingale, habitually retired to her room no later than nine o'clock. I was more puzzled by this than filled with worry for my bird, until that is I reached my Withdrawing Room at last and saw the poor thing.

Celia had placed the cage on the carpet in front of a fire upon which new logs had been laid. I knelt down.

"Look," said Celia. "It has fallen over."

It was lying on the floor of the cage, its legs in the air, one wing feebly flapping.

"What is to be done, Merivel?"

I looked up at Celia. I had detected in her voice a note of great sadness, of despair even. I was so utterly astonished that she should appear to care so much for something that, I, too, cared about that I was speechless, thus causing her to say once more:

"Merivel, what is to be done?"

I looked again at the nightingale. Its marigold eye, usually such a bright thing, appeared clouded, almost as if a membrane obscured it, but though I diligently searched what remained of my medical mind, I could not recollect what this might signify. I rubbed my eyes. Starved of sleep, wearied by drawings of Russians, I could discover no sensible path to follow.

"I do not know what is to be done, Celia," I said.

"You mean you do not care if the creature dies?"

"On the contrary! I am most attached to it."

"Then try something! Get out your instruments and your remedies!"

I cannot. I cannot. So I wished to say. And yet I understood that I must be seen to do something, that whereas Celia considered me to be inadequate at every human activity from oboe playing to discussions of Dryden's rhyming couplets, from painting to powdering my wig, she wrongly believed that in this one area – medicine – I possessed considerable skill. If, therefore, I could save the bird, I would no doubt earn a little respect from her.

Noting somewhat wryly that this was the second time that some part of my future appeared to depend upon my saving the life of a dumb creature, I took my candle and went to my closet. I returned with a strong physic, a senna and rhubarb preparation dubbed among apothecaries Pill Fortis, some clean linen bandages and the set of surgical instruments so recently sent to me by the King.

"Very well," I said to Celia. "I am going to purge the bird. When I have administered the physic, I shall perform a phlebotomy on the upper leg."

Celia did not flinch. "How may I help you?" she enquired.

"Well… if you would hold it in your hands, stroking its head so that it is not afraid, while I attempt to get the medicine down its throat…"

"Yes," she said. "But shall we not bring a table near to the fire and work upon it?"

"A good idea. And I will lay linen on it."

We thus, in this strange dead of night, prepared the walnut card table as an operating tray and Celia gently lifted the bird from the cage and laid it down. We worked by the light of three candles and, as I saw my poor bird placed before me, I was reminded for a few shadowy seconds of the body of the starling in the coal cellar. How much easier is dissection, I reflected, than cure.

Celia sat opposite me. A stranger entering the room would have assumed we were at cards or dice, except that I was bizarrely clothed in a blanket and Celia in her winter cloak.

"Now," I said, "if you would hold the bird as still as you can. I am going to open its beak and hold it thus with the spatula and with my dropping-glass here dribble some Fortis down its gullet."

The nightingale kicked its legs, but once within Celia's hands did not struggle, only regarded us with its sad clouded eye. It swallowed the physic and we would have to wait upon its passage through the body.

"Very well," I said. "Now I shall do the phlebotomy. The sight of a little blood will not upset you, I hope?"

"No," said Celia. "I am only concerned for the bird, for if it should die, I cannot but feel some misfortune may follow."

"Why so?"

"Because it was a gift to you, was it not?"

"Yes."

"And from the King. And if what the King has given away should come to harm, then I fear for you – and for me."

I was, as you may imagine, about to inform Celia that the bird had been a present – nay, a bribe – from that soi-disant portraitist, Elias Finn, and had nothing to do with the King whatsoever, but then I decided not to. For, unhappy as I was to see my Indian Nightingale so ill, I also recognised that I had begun to enjoy the little escapade and did not wish Celia to desert me in the middle of it.

I began without more ado on the blood-letting, finding at last a faint pulse on the feathered thigh and making a small incision with the scalpel inscribed Merivel, Do Not Sleep. Dark veinous blood spurted out onto the linen. Never having thought to perform a phlebotomy on a bird, I had no idea what quantity to let out before staunching the flow. After some few minutes of seepage, however, Celia looked at me piteously. Some blood had fallen onto her hands, and it was my anxiety to wipe this away as quickly as possible that made me reach for a bandage and begin to bind the wound. Its leg wrapped, the nightingale did look most exceedingly tragic. Celia picked it up and held it close to her face, trying to feel its heartbeat. Then I folded more linen and laid this on the floor of the cage and she put the bird in and I began to clean my instruments with a little spirit and put them away.

"We have done all we can," I told Celia. "By morning, when the purge has worked, we shall see if it appears a little stronger."

"Will you let more blood tomorrow?"

"Possibly. Although I really don't know what quantity of blood is in it."

Celia stood up. "Why are you no longer a physician, Merivel?" she said.

I shall spare you the little discourse that followed, in which I attempted to explain to Celia my vision of her father's skull when he played at our wedding and the despair into which my knowledge of bone and sinew had been ready to let me fall. I knew as I spoke that Celia did not believe me. She accused me of not knowing where my own salvation lay and called me cowardly. Greatly vexed, I was about to retire once more to my bed and was picking up my instrument box, when Celia reached out and touched my hand.

"Pray don't go, Merivel. Forgive me if I spoke of matters that do not regard me."

I did not know what to reply. To Pearce I would have delivered myself of some insult to George Fox or to the soup ladle but, angry as I was, I did not wish to wound Celia. I suggested at last that we retire to our rooms but Celia, it seemed, intended to stay and watch over the bird and wished me to stay with her.

I felt mightily tired. The very act of picking up the scalpel had affected me. I wanted to lie down and dream I was a Russian in a coat of weasel-skin, carefree in the snow. But what could I do? On this peculiar January night, my wife wished to be with me – for the first time since she'd come to Bidnold. I could not refuse her.

I decided at once that we must have food to sustain us through our vigil. I hadn't the heart to wake Cattlebury, so carrying a candle and holding my blanket close about me, I walked the cold corridors to the kitchen and returned with a tray of meats: a cold game pie, a cold roasted guinea fowl and some charred pork sausages – and a flagon of sack.