Arram trotted into the hospital, where a healer grabbed his arm. “Where are you supposed to be, youngster?” she demanded. “You don’t look sick.”
“Master Ramasu said I grind herbs and strengthen them well,” he said, unnerved by the fierceness in her eyes.
“Oh, Hekaja, I thank you!” the healer told the ceiling high above, though Arram thought she could also thank Master Ramasu. “Here.” She led him into a large area partitioned off into many small canvas rooms. Looking him over, she pulled a folded length of canvas from one of many piles stacked against the wall. “Go in there, close the flaps, take off all but your loincloth, and throw the old clothes in the barrel,” she said rapidly, as if she’d said it a thousand times before. “That includes your mask. Keep sandals and loincloth, nothing else. If those who sent you didn’t say you couldn’t keep your clothes, take it up with them, not with me. Move, youngster. I have work to do!”
Once he was done, she led him at a fast walk through long rows of canvas-fronted rooms for the sick, some with the canvas lifted wide to reveal plain, empty cots and chamber pots, others with the canvas shielding those who moaned or wept inside. Some chambers were open to reveal stacks of basins, sheets, blankets, buckets, and small tables. Others held those who were clearly well, visiting family or children. Healers, priests, and priestesses moved along the aisles, looking weary and preoccupied.
They reached the far side of the warehouse. Arram’s guide opened a door and thrust Arram through it. “Here we are,” she said. “Healers work on supplies in here. There are cots for naps and food down that way.” She pointed. “And medicines are that way. Good luck.” She left before he could even thank her.
A wave of plant spells, most of them familiar, flowed from behind the section the healer had identified as “medicines.” When he extended a feather of his Gift, he felt the plants he’d ground earlier that day.
“Who did that?” someone nearby asked sharply. “Whose Gift do I feel?”
He wasn’t sure who had spoken out of the identically gowned people, so he raised his hand. A tall, slender black woman swept down on him. “Who are you? You’re much too young to be here.”
“Master Ramasu sent me to grind and strengthen herbs,” Arram replied.
“Are you the one who did the batch that just came in from the university?” she asked, walking Arram into the workroom for medicines.
Arram saw his jars on the floor in their crate, unbroken, the seals still whole. “This is mine,” he told the woman. People never introduce themselves here! he thought. “This crate and the one next to it.”
The new mage produced her Gift, using it to inspect the jars. When she released her magic, she looked at Arram. “Some of the herbs—the plants are dry, but their power is as great as if they were green.”
Arram rubbed the side of his head. Between the journey, the stinks, and the vomiting, it hurt. “I told you, I don’t just grind, I strengthen. That’s why Master Ramasu sent me along. You could ask him, and I could do something about this headache.”
“I’ll do better,” the senior mage said. “Gieyat!” she called, looking over the large space. “I want Gieyat!”
A short Southern man, with the heavy muscles of someone who had worked hard labor all his life, appeared immediately. “To hear your enchanting call is to be wafted to your side, O wise woman,” he said, his eyes twinkling. His head was shaved bald. His sleeveless tunic revealed the scar of the gladiator on his right shoulder, a circle around crossed short swords. Beneath it was a fresher scar, a stylized bird flying up toward the swords: the mark of a freed gladiator.
“Can you and one of your lads carry these to the medicine cooks?” the mage asked. “Just these two crates, special. Have that savage Viya prepare medicine from these, no one else.”
Gieyat picked up the top crate as if it weighed nothing and handed it to a young man. “I will see to it, Nazaam,” Gieyat said. “And you were supposed to go to supper the last time I saw you.”
“As soon as I settle this youngster, I will, Mother,” Nazaam replied. “Get someone to bring the lad the stomach-soft headache tea. The odors do not suit him.” There was less snap in her voice, and a softening in her eyes. She turned to Arram and said, “Let’s get you settled, boy, and me eating supper, or Gieyat will never leave me alone.”
It was plain that Nazaam and Gieyat were lovers. I’d like that, Arram thought as he followed Nazaam. To be comfortable with my lover, and laugh together, even when things are terrible. Like I do with Ozorne and Varice.
“How did you know I’d been sick?” he asked.
Nazaam took him to a worktable, one of many lined up against the chilly rear wall. Workers—mages and older students—stood at each one, pummeling and mixing the contents of mortars. A slate leaned against the big, bowl-shaped mortar where his guide halted. On it someone had written “Arram Draper.” No one was positioned at the table on his right; a much older mage labored on his left. He didn’t even look up.
Nazaam twitched a finger; a man ran up with a sack. He cut it open with his belt knife and poured its contents into the mortar until it was half full. Arram flinched. The herbs were so stale as to be useless. “They’re old,” he said, forgetting his company.
“Really?” Nazaam asked with awful sarcasm. “What a dreadful oversight on our part. You’d think we’d labored for weeks and gone through the fresh stuff.” She leaned close to Arram, her masked face a thumb’s width from his, her gloved forefinger poking his chest. “Now see here, student. If Ramasu foisted you on me, I must hope you have something useful. If you give me extra trouble, I swear to the Black God, granter of peace, you’ll be outside keeping order in the burning pile, understand?”
Arram gulped and nodded.
“And if you slack on work when people are dying…”
Arram straightened and replied stiffly, “I never slack on work, mistress.”
“It’s Master. Master Nazaam. I judge if you slack. When you’ve finished with one mortar’s worth, pour the contents into one of these”—she produced a bowl from a shelf beneath the table—“and start on your next mortar full. If you must stop, tell the next person who asks you if you need anything. Don’t leave until you’ve told that person, understand? We’ll let you know when it’s time for meals, sleep, or a halt.”
“Yes, Master Nazaam,” Arram murmured. He knew who she was now: the director of magic at the university’s School of Medicine. When the emperor panicked, he sent for her. One thing of which Arram was certain—he would not call for her, no matter how panicked he was. She was too frightening.
He worked and worked. Sometimes he would stop to stretch and find a cup of water, or a cup of tea, or a bowl of soup just out of his elbow’s reach. He would consume them all, stretch again, and return to his mortar.
As he worked the stale plants, his power over them grew. His Gift passed through the withered stems, leaves, seeds, and flowers as he ground them to fine powder. He drew out their memories of when they were fresh, drinking water and singing their prayers to the gods of plants. There was Mother Sun and Father Rain, both kind and cruel; Soil, without which there was no life; and the Biting Hordes, savaging their flesh when they were not devout enough. Arram carried away their memories of insects devouring them and made them vigorous once more, filled with the substance in each type of plant that would help bring healing to the sick.
Dimly he felt something grip him by a branch and shake him. He didn’t think he had any ripe fruit to drop.
A voice he remembered—Nazaam?—shouted somewhere, “Pox take her, that idiot Hirusy should have pulled him out of the line at dawn. He’s been here hours past….Boy! Boy! What’s his name?”
“Arram.” That coarse voice, he knew it, too. Gieyat. But what was Gieyat grass, or a Nazaam tree?
“Arram. Arram, let go of the pestle. Hekaja Healer, Gieyat, his fingers are like old roots.”
“Let me, Nazaam. When they’ve been fighting awhile, they can’t always tell when the battle’s done. Here you go, youngster. It’s after sunrise. You need to sleep. You’ve been at it all night.”
But sunrise was the time for waking, wasn’t it?
What had he been at all night?
“I swear, I’ll put Hirusy on chamber pot detail. I’ll take his other side. Good thing his Gift is relaxing. Ramasu would never forgive me if I damaged his boy.” Nazaam put one warm hand on his shoulder, so warm, like Mother Sun. Then Nazaam—Master Nazaam—struggled with his hand until she opened his fingers. They hurt! Great Mother, his fingers hurt!
Once Nazaam got her very warm fingers worked between his, the cramps began to ease. She and Gieyat first helped him to straighten, then to walk a little, then found him a bed. He toppled onto it and slept.
His sore and swollen mortar hand woke him around noon. He did not want to leave his cot. Staff members dragged him and several other swollen-handed young men outside into a cloth-surrounded enclosure. Once the staff dumped large buckets of very cold water on them, he saw the force of their argument. They made it up to him and his companions, once the young men had pulled on fresh shifts and their sandals, by presenting them with bowls of tea and bread rolled around cubes of lamb or beef, eggs, hot peppers, and yogurt sauce. Arram felt nearly human as he approached his post. Even the sight of piled bags of herbs didn’t daunt him.
The place on Arram’s formerly empty side was filled by a young man who worked his mortar full of herbs diligently. Arram extended a touch of his Gift and sighed enviously. His neighbor had much fresher plants than he did. He risked another glance at the young man before he opened his first bag and poured dry, crackling leaves into his mortar. There was something familiar about him, in the light brown shade of his skin and the length of his nose. He should know who it was….His pestle slipped and struck the edge of his mortar. He ought to pay attention to his work.
He’d begun his third bowl when he heard a quiet—and most definitely familiar—voice inquire, “What, no leftover prince at your side?”
He glanced around a moment before he realized the query had come from his mysterious neighbor. He glared at the young man, about to snap at him, when he recognized the face that was now turned toward him. “Laman?”
“I know, you didn’t recognize me without Diop.” Arram’s former roommate smiled at him. “I scarcely recognized you without your friend. And they told me my neighbor thought he turned into a tree during his first shift.”
Arram looked down. “I forgot myself.”
“If I’d known you were here, I’d have worked it out. Aren’t you young for this?”
Arram scowled. “Aren’t you?”
Laman smiled crookedly. “Everyone who specializes in healing magic starts with chores, I’ll have you know. It was this or peeling. I can mash with both hands, but I can’t peel with both. Here I am. I don’t wear out like single-handed crushers.”
Arram covered his mouth so no one passing would hear him chuckle.
Laman pointed at him. “Ha. You can laugh.”
Arram scowled. “I do it all the time. You’re the one who’s so serious.”
“If you came from my homeland, you would be serious, too.” Laman turned away from Arram, staring down the corridor.
Arram asked, “You’ve always lived in Siraj?”
Sighing, Laman turned back to his mortar and pestle. “Until I came here, yes.”
Arram got back to work. “You see,” he began, letting power flow into his herbs, “I was wondering what happened in the Sirajit highlands during the uprising.”
Laman glared at him.
“I’m not—I’m not trying to offend,” Arram told him. “But all I know is from the history books and the very little Ozorne says.”
The older youth snorted. “Oh, yes, the hero’s son.”
Arram wanted to defend his friend, but he wanted knowledge even more. A tutor had once informed him that his curiosity would be his doom. “Please—I would just like to know about Prince Apodan’s last campaign.”
“Campaign!” Laman caught himself and looked around, as if he thought he might be punished. He inspected Arram, then said, “Never say you heard a word from me. It could ruin my family if—”
“I would never tell,” Arram said quickly. “I swear by Mithros, Minoss, and Shakith.”
Laman blinked. “The gods punish oath breakers.”
“I know.” Arram’s books always had reports of what happened to them.
They returned to their work. “The army’s conquest of Siraj ruined my great-grandfather and grandfather. They owned and sailed ships until the empire commandeered them to pay the expenses of the conquest of Siraj.” His face was bitter. “My father restored the family fortune when he became the imperial governor’s personal healer, and the healer for his family. That was his Gift. My grandfather was so heartbroken he took to the mountains, to my grandmother’s family farm. He herded sheep, and did well at it…or he used to.”
He poured himself a cup of water from his pitcher and drank. “My mother took me to visit Grandfather for my birthday. His place was in a northern valley, just outside what was the town of Medyat. We were there when the army came, so we went to see Prince Apodan and the soldiers as they marched through town. They were going to put down a rebellion farther south. Rebellion! A couple of tribes were feuding, and they had pulled more tribes into it. The prince saw his chance for military glory.” Laman looked at Arram and frowned. “Are you Carthaki?”
Arram shook his head. “Tyran.”
“You’re almost dark enough to be one of us.” Laman’s chuckle was a weak one. “Who knows? Maybe our family lines crossed somewhere.” He bowed his head. “Forgive me. This is a hard tale, but I want to tell you. Maybe because you’re such good friends with one of them. You ought to know what they’re capable of. See, we heard from those that could run. It really was just a tribal feud, like they’re always having, over grazing lands, I think. Ozorne’s father, that brave and courageous prince, wiped them out. Even the babies. He said he didn’t want to leave any seed that would grow. Then he came back to Medyat in triumph.” His fists were clenched. “The heads of dead men and women were tied to his men’s saddles. We’d been shopping in town when they came. I saw a girl run to him with a gold cup of wine, and he drank it. Mother and I thought nothing of it, but Grandfather dragged us back to the farm. He made us leave everything and ride. I didn’t want to return to Father—I knew I’d have to resume studying for the university—but Grandfather threw me onto a horse and ordered me to be silent. When I couldn’t open my mouth I found my mother’s father had the Gift, too.
“He took his entire household, down to the last shepherd. We were several miles up into the hills when he told us he knew the girl from his favorite drinking house. She belonged to one of the tribes that were slaughtered. She was only in town because she wanted to earn a good bride price. Grandfather was positive the cup she gave the prince had poison in it—that’s the way of the tribes. Blood for blood. Even though there was no way she would escape the army’s revenge, she’d given up her life to avenge her people. Mother called him an old fool because he’d dragged us away on a guess. He put the silence on her, too. We kept riding.”
Laman took a deep breath. “We’d gone a mile further, maybe more, when Grandfather stopped on a rise and pointed toward town. Medyat was in flames. We met up a day later with some merchants who’d sold supplies to the army. They told us the prince was dead, poisoned. The girl was dead. She’d killed herself.” He wiped his hand over his eyes. “By the time we got to my father’s house, the imperial heralds were proclaiming the whole mess was a military victory. The official word was that Prince Apodan Doroi Tasikhe died tragically in battle. My grandfather told my mother and father this is what happens to people who fight the empire. That’s surely the lesson I learned. Try it, and you get smashed like a bug. I dug into my studies, and now I’m here, a good little imperial. I may pull your friend’s tail a bit for fun, but I won’t go too far. I don’t want my head hanging from anyone’s saddle.” He set a full mortar aside and filled another, then asked, “Is Tyra nice?”
Arram remained silent for a moment, unable to wipe those pictures from his imagination. Then he gulped until his teacup was empty and tried to remember his birthplace. He hadn’t seen it in years. “Lots of canals and trees,” he replied. “Islands connected by bridges, mostly. Plenty of insects that bite. Crocodiles, too.”
“I think I will pass that one by, then,” Laman replied.
They spoke little after that, only worked. Laman had gone off for a nap and Arram had finished his third bag of herbs for the day when Gieyat tapped his shoulder. “Go for a walk,” the older man said. “Loosen up. Talk to people. Don’t come back till you stop thinking like a plant. Ramasu’s orders.”
Arram opened his mouth to say that he wasn’t thinking like a plant, only to find that words did not come to his tongue.
“Aha,” Gieyat said. “There you are. Shoo.”
Arram shooed. He didn’t want to see the other workers. They would make him feel as if he were slack to be away from his post. He did walk briskly up and down the length of the building several times, his head clearing more as he walked. He was about to return to the workroom when he heard children’s voices. The flap on a larger-than-usual area between the sickrooms and the work area was pinned back a little. Curious, he stuck his head inside.
A band of children of assorted ages stared at him. They sat, stood, or knelt among a variety of blankets, mats, and toys, all very battered. Their clothes were in much the same condition.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” demanded a boy with tribal scars on his face.
“This ain’t a Player’s show,” added a girl.
“Have you news of someone’s parents?” asked an older girl.
Arram understood. They were waiting for their parents to heal or to die. Thus the somber faces on all but the infants, who could not be left behind if there was no one at home to care for them.
Something bumped his foot. A toddler grinned up at him. He’d rolled a wooden cart over to Arram in an invitation to play. It gave Arram an idea—a way, perhaps, to cheer these youngsters up. He bent to pick up the hand-sized cart and a nearby ball.
“No, I’m sorry,” he told the girl who had asked for news. “I only work in back, making medicine.” He flipped the ball in the air, catching it one-handed over and over. He had the youngest children’s attention right away. “It’s not the easiest work, because I’m such a clumsy fellow….Oh, no!” In dropping the ball, he threw the cart in the air. The children gasped as he caught the ball while the cart was above his head, then traded it for the cart. He dropped the ball deliberately, making some of them giggle, and chased it across the floor, still juggling the wagon in one hand until he got both up and going once more. Next he invited one of the boys to throw him another ball, so that he had two spheres and the wagon to wield. He finally had to stop. His arms were sore, and he was certain he had to report back to his post. The children’s glowing faces were all the reward he could want. So too were the smiles on the faces of the healers and the workers who filled the doorway to the room.
He was about to leave when a brown-skinned little girl of nearly ten tugged on his sleeve. “Do you know our uncle?” she asked. “He’s a famous gladiator.”
“If he’s famous, how come he hauls dead folk outside?” one of the boys jeered.
“Because he’s strong,” cried the girl. “They want the strong ones to take care of the deaders, that’s why! So just you stuff it in your bum, Atim!”
As a worker came forward to end the quarrel, Arram crouched before the little girl. “I did meet a gladiator,” he said to calm her down. “What’s your uncle’s name?”
“Musenda,” she replied. “He’s very big.”
Arram smiled, glad to be able to please her. “I did meet him, and you’re right, he is very big. He’s also very kind.”
“He is! He is!” The girl jumped up and down, excited. Two smaller boys ran over. She told them, “He knows Uncle!” They grinned up at him, urchins in rags, one clutching a wooden doll painted like a gladiator. Their sister told Arram, “Uncle Musenda started to watch over us when Da died. He was going to buy us a new place to live, but then Ma got sick.”
“I will pray to the goddess to spare your mother, and that one day you will have your new house,” Arram said.
“Will you come back and do tricks some more?” asked the older of the two boys. The other children in the room echoed his request, begging so frantically that Arram promised. He shook hands with Musenda’s nephews and hurried back to his tasks.
The next time he was ordered to take the morning off, he surrendered to the cold bath, ate a sitting-down meal, and took a walk through the building. Then, as promised, he returned to the children’s waiting room. He was delighted to see Musenda, still wearing the spell-mark that kept him in the plague area, seated cross-legged on the floor. He had a nephew on each knee and a cluster of children before him. They were intent as he told them a story of those who trained tigers in the gladiators’ camp.
The moment he finished the tale, his niece flew across the room to Arram. “Uncle,” she cried, “this is our friend Arram. He juggles.” She seized Arram’s hand and pulled him over to the big gladiator, who was rising to his feet. “He says he knows you!”
Musenda offered his hand in greeting. “We do know each other, Binta. You surprise me, youngster. I did not think you would manage so long.”
Arram smiled weakly. “Neither did I.”
“I owe you my gratitude for amusing my niece and nephews,” Musenda said. “They have been telling me of the light you bring to this place.”
Arram busied himself by taking some of the toys the children were offering him. “They’re too kind,” he told Musenda. “If I make them laugh, it’s when I drop things. Hitting myself on the head is a big favorite.” He smiled at a little boy who offered his stuffed elephant, and accepted it. “It’s good practice.” He began to send the first couple of toys spinning through the air. Musenda’s niece, Binta, stood by, offering up each new item for Arram to juggle as he let them rise and fall in the air.
“I must go,” Musenda said quietly, understanding a loud voice would startle Arram. “Only remember, I feel a debt to you for my family.”
Moving gracefully, he made his way out of the crowded room.
Arram looked down at the girl and her brothers as he changed the pattern of the toys he sent into the air. “He’s a nice man, your uncle.”
Binta nodded. “He says someday he’ll live with us, but Ma says he can’t. Gladiators aren’t allowed to live with people.”
It’s not right, Arram thought as he watched the children. Keeping a man from his family is not right. And why? So he can die in the arena for people to wager on? For people to applaud? That’s no life for anyone!
His hands wobbled, and a rain of toys fell on his head. The children and the watching members of the staff applauded. Arram sighed and gathered the toys again. If Ozorne were emperor, he thought, he would do something about it. He shook his head and began to juggle again. There were too many princes ahead of Ozorne, and by all reports, they liked the gladiators and games just as they were.
He had been working at the infirmary for four days—or was it five?—when he heard an unusual stirring in the work area. Nazaam came bursting through the door, practically crackling with energy. A man in a naval uniform with a silver chain around his neck walked on her right; another who wore an expensive robe and drape walked on her left. Both shimmered from caps to boots with strong protective magic.
“It is not as if you have been granted a choice in the matter, Master Nazaam,” the man in the robe and drape told her. “His Imperial Highness learned that a number of his sailors or their families are in these places, and he will see them.”
“I cannot promise his safety,” Nazaam snapped. “Nor that of his minions.”
“But Master Tajakai can and does,” the naval officer retorted, naming the imperial court’s official mage. “Will you gainsay him?”
Outside Arram could hear the muffled blasts of trumpets.
The robed man drew a parchment from his drape and offered it to Nazaam. “A writ, signed by the emperor and Tajakai, with the imperial seal, which absolves you of responsibility should His Imperial Highness or any in his train take harm.
“Now, stop whining, woman, and—” The naval officer stopped talking. His mouth moved, but no sound emerged. His face turned red; his eyes bulged; his body trembled. He was frozen in place. Arram walked over, not to help the man, but to back up Nazaam should she need it. Laman followed, and with him every worker in sight. Gieyat walked up behind the officer, his hands bunched into fists.
“Don’t be a fool, Captain,” the other messenger said. “She is the mage most trusted with the emperor’s personal health.”
“I will not have disrespect in my own infirmary, understand?” Nazaam asked, leaning in and speaking softly. “If you do not understand that, Davrid, perhaps you would prefer a few weeks at your beak head after every meal, surrendering what you eat.”
Arram remembered crossing the Inland Sea at seven. His father had been forced to clutch Arram’s shirt to keep his son aboard as the boy walked out onto that rocking point of the ship, positioned his bare behind over a hole that revealed the sea, and tried to make his poor bowels work. He promised himself to never offend Nazaam. “Why does she hate the captain?” he whispered to Laman.
“Former lover,” his fellow student murmured in reply.
Nazaam released the captain, who staggered and choked. “Get this folly over with,” she told the two visitors. “His Imperial Highness and his mage may enter the sickrooms. No one else. Gieyat will serve as your guide. I am not to be disturbed; my workers are to be allowed to perform their tasks. No bowing and scraping, no audiences in the halls.” She walked off, and those who had gathered to watch moved hastily out of her way.
“After you, my lords,” Gieyat told the strangers, bowing politely.
Arram turned back to his desk, shaking his head as he thought about romance and revenge. Falling in love with a mage plainly had its hazards if things did not go well. Still, he admired Nazaam’s inventiveness when it came to thinking of suitable revenge.
“What a woman!” Laman said with admiration as he, too, went back to work.
Arram stared at him. “You must like to live dangerously.”
Laman grinned. “If the punishment was different, it might be a glorious way to die.”
Arram spent the next hour or more trying to make sense of this as he reduced mortar after mortar of herbs to fine powder. He had moved from the mysteries of romance to the steps necessary to create a simulacrum of a cat when someone nearby boomed, “What goes on here?”
He turned his head. Gieyat was approaching at the side of someone Arram recognized from Princess Mahira’s Midwinter party. Their guest was Prince Stiloit. To Arram’s surprise—and respect—Ozorne’s cousin wore the same tunic and sandals as everyone else in the infirmary. Without the silver-trimmed cap he’d worn at Midwinter, Stiloit revealed tightly curled black hair. His winter’s mustache and short beard were gone, leaving him clean-shaven for the summer. He’d even lost weight.
Arram’s eyes must have lingered on the prince a little too long. Stiloit halted and pointed, the sheer orange veil of his magical protection stretching to keep his finger covered. “Here—I know you! You’re Lady Varice’s friend, Prince Ozorne’s friend, aren’t you?”
Arram, startled, began to kneel, but Gieyat rushed forward and raised him by one arm. “D’you want Nazaam to skin us? Look official!” He winked at Arram and bowed to the prince. Arram fumbled, then bowed.
“It’s Arram-something, do I remember it right?” Stiloit asked.
Arram nodded. He knew he should speak, but his tongue refused to work.
“Come with me, just for a short time,” Stiloit urged. “You can tell me how the lovely Varice fares.” He glanced at Gieyat. “If your mistress grows cross, tell her I placed one thousand thakas in the offering box when I entered. My men are guarding it if you want to collect it right now.”
Gieyat beckoned to Laman and whispered in his ear. Arram placed a cover over his mortar. Laman headed toward Nazaam’s quarters as Arram joined the prince.
“The lady does well?” Stiloit asked. “I was sad to find she had left early at Midwinter.”
“She was still weary from our examinations, Your Imperial Highness,” Arram replied, thinking fast. “We were all three moved to the Upper Academy this year—perhaps Prince Ozorne told you—and we had a great deal of work to do to catch up.”
“Yet I am told that you did quite remarkably, all three,” the prince replied slyly.
Great Mithros, Arram thought. He’s been keeping track of us.
“You look like a startled gazelle, my young friend,” Stiloit joked. “Now, where does this passage lead?”
Gieyat pointed to the larger cubicles on the right. “Here, Your Imperial Highness, and beyond this larger chamber on your left are rooms for families. They are for mothers or fathers who are mending. Their children may stay if there is no one at home to care for them. Such rooms are also for groups of orphaned children.”
“And this room?” the prince asked, pointing to the largest one.
Gieyat grinned. “Healthy children stay here during the day with caretakers. Sometimes Master Arram juggles for them.”
Stiloit grinned at Arram. “This I must see! Come, lad—show me what you do for them! Do you need special tools?”
Gieyat opened the curtain. “He keeps them here,” he said as the adults inside got to their feet. Obviously they had been warned that the prince might visit. All had been supplied with clean robes; everyone’s hair was neatly combed. The staff bowed instantly.
The young people saw Arram first and began to shout his name. Their caretakers swiftly took hold of them and pointed out Stiloit. It took persuasion to get the smallest to release Arram’s hands and robe so they could pay their respects to their imperial guest. Arram helped by gathering up several of them and explaining what they all must do together. They bowed as well as three- and four-year-olds might and said “Good day, Your Imperial Highness,” almost together with nearly all the right words.
“Excellent,” Stiloit cried, laughing and clapping at once. “Very well done! My own nieces and nephews could not do better!” He bent down so he was more on the level of the smaller ones and asked, “Now, shall we see if Arram will juggle for us?”
Arram was so nervous in the royal presence that it took him a number of tries and even more drops to get his usual collection of balls, small hoops—a new addition since his arrival—and children’s toys moving flawlessly in the air. The mistakes delighted his young audience, who thought he did it to make them laugh. Finally he rediscovered his skill and convinced his audience that he truly did know how to juggle.
“Well?” Laman asked when Arram returned to his post.
“He likes children,” Arram mumbled. “What was I doing?”
“Go to bed,” Nazaam ordered. Arram was surprised to find the master working with mortar and pestle three tables away. Now she came over to him. “Dealing with the powerful wearies you as much, if not more, than spellcraft.” To Arram’s shock, she put an arm around his shoulders and kissed his temple. “Hekaja bless you, boy. When he walked out of here, His Imperial Highness put a diamond ring worth another thousand thakas in the donation box! Gods bless him and his voyages! Now go sleep, and we’ll wake you for work tonight.”
The next morning Laman returned to the university, done with pounding herbs for the present. Arram worked for another three days. By then Binta’s mother, Musenda’s sister-in-law, was in a room for healing parents, her children with her. Arram visited for a last performance for her and her youngsters.
Ramasu found him giving his juggling toys to the orphans. When Arram finished, Ramasu called him away.
“You’ll barely manage the journey home,” he said when Arram tried to protest. “You’ve lost weight and need rest.” He rested a hand on Arram’s shoulder. “I’ve heard little but good about you. We’ll speak more once I return.”
“You’re not coming?” Arram blurted.
Ramasu’s smile was wry. “There’s much more for a master to do. Go and restore your strength.” He gave Arram’s shoulder a gentle push. “You will see me soon enough.”
After a hideously scented medicine bath to ensure he carried no disease away from the hospital, Arram crawled into a cart for the journey home. He had only one companion, another student as worn out as he was. For once it was not raining, though neither youth was in a position to care. They wrapped themselves in blankets and went immediately to sleep.
He stirred a little when the other student left the cart, then slept again. He roused to rough shaking and the carter’s amused voice, saying, “Wake up, lad. Here’s a friend waitin’ for you.”
“I’ll help,” Arram heard Ozorne’s familiar voice say. “Mithros, what did they do to him? He’s skin and bone.”
Arram fought to sit, not wanting his friend to see him lying flat like one of the dead, still on his cot, his skin gray. Arram scrambled forward, horrified.
He grabbed the driver’s hands and Ozorne’s to get down, continuing to hold on as the ground swayed under him.
Preet leaped to his shoulder, chattering and running her beak in small touches around his ear and through his hair. “Oh, Preet, I missed you,” Arram said. His legs started to buckle.
Ozorne pulled Arram’s arm around his shoulder, steadying his friend. “I see—I smell—that you too got the cleansing bath.”
“It makes us safe to come home,” Arram retorted. “Preet, you’re going to make me deaf.” The bird was telling Ozorne what she thought of his remarks.
“Oh, that’s the way it is?” Ozorne said to the bird. “I’m your best friend for days, but the moment he returns…” He looked at Arram. “You’re taller. I just noticed.”
Arram was sliding down again, but not before he realized Ozorne’s eyes were level with the bridge of his nose. He gave the only reply he could think of: “Oops.”
“Here, lad.” The carter had secured his reins and given his horses feed bags. “I’d best help with yon sapling.”
“But your cart, and the animals,” Ozorne protested.
“Can’t you see the spell?” the man asked.
“I can see a spell,” Ozorne said. “Not the manner of it. It’s very good.”
“I can’t see anything,” Arram added, and yawned. He was struggling to stay on his feet. “I’m all used up.”
The carter got under his free arm and draped it over his own brawny shoulders. Preet walked over on the arm until she had a closer look at the man’s face. “The bird won’t peck me, will he?” the carter asked.
Preet began to trill, coaxing a smile from him. “She likes you,” Ozorne said. “You should be honored. She doesn’t like many folk. So what kind of spell is it, that we only see there is a spell, but we can’t see what it’s for?”
“They put it on us that work during the big sicknesses. Folk think the wagons and horses belong to Players,” the man explained as they walked Arram through the gate. “Everyone knows there’s a curse from them that steals from Players. The spell turns clear when we go where there’s plague, and ordinary folk know we’re bringing help.”
“Clever,” Ozorne said with admiration.
“The healers have been here ages,” the carter said as they halted before their dormitory. “Long enough to work it out. Is this it?”
“In a way. Now there’s four flights of stairs,” Ozorne said cheerfully. “Look, you don’t have to do this. I can go get some of the others if they’re around.”
“It’s no bother,” the carter replied as they walked Arram inside. “This is my last trip. I’m off home to my old woman and the grandchildren.”
“How is the situation in the city?” Ozorne asked as they began to climb. Arram did his best to help, but his knees were so wobbly. It wasn’t just his body that was tired, Gieyat had explained as they bundled him into the cart. It was the draining of his Gift.
He hadn’t known his Gift was so entwined with his bones. He would have to do something about it later.
The carter in the meantime was telling Ozorne that the death rate wasn’t anything like the typhoid of 435. He remembered the smoke from the burning of the dead in that epidemic. The university had been safe from typhoid, but the smoke had drifted in the air for weeks. It was said plagues were the toy of the Queen of Chaos, tossed into the Mortal Realms when she was bored. Arram wished that he might one day do the Queen of Chaos an ill turn to even the score.
They had reached his door. Ozorne opened it, and together he and the carter eased Arram through and lifted him onto his bed. Arram tried to raise his head to thank them, but Preet hopped onto his forehead. Somehow her weight was too much. He sank back against his pillow.
Ozorne fumbled in his belt pouch for coins, but the carter shook his head. “Not a copper will I take, youngster,” he said with a smile. Arram realized that the man had no idea that Ozorne was a member of the imperial family. “I’d’ve helped your friend for nothing. Whenever they gave him time away from his work, he’d go where they kept the youngsters what was waiting t’see family, and juggle.” The man chuckled. “The young folk loved ’im. Even the workers. He’d juggle for the sick, if they were awake enough to watch. It’s no wonder he’s falling over on himself.”
Arram turned away. What good had any of it done? So many of the children had lost their fathers, or their mothers, or any family they had.
Preet settled in the hollow between his shoulder and the free ear and produced a soft, slow trill that lured him to a deep and dreamless sleep. He didn’t see the carter shake hands with Ozorne, to that prince’s bemusement, and tell him, “Look after that long friend of yours. He’s a good ’un,” or hear Ozorne murmur, “He is indeed.”
The next morning, still half asleep, Arram and Preet joined Ozorne on his way to breakfast. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?” the prince asked, looking at him suspiciously.
“I have until Sunday classes next week to come about,” Arram told him, and yawned. “Master Lindhall left the note pinned to my door this morning. He said to enjoy it. I won’t get so much time to recover as I grow older.”
“How noble of them,” Ozorne said drily. “Listen, I wanted to warn you, Varice is unhappy that you disappeared the way you did. I tried to explain, but…” Ozorne shrugged. “Girls.”
Arram winced. “I wasn’t given a choice, you know! One moment I was chopping herbs, and the next I was up to my elbows…” He swallowed, a ghost of the smell haunting his nostrils. “I was not enjoying myself,” he said weakly. “And if there was a mail courier, no one mentioned it.”
“What, you didn’t make a simulacrum of one to carry a note to us?” Ozorne asked wickedly.
Arram elbowed him and Ozorne elbowed back, while Preet scolded them both. “It’s good to have you home, friend,” Ozorne said as they walked into the dining hall.
While Arram went straight to the arrays of food, Ozorne went to their table. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his friend bend to whisper in Varice’s ear.
Varice squealed Arram’s name. A moment later a number of pounds of agreeably shaped female pounced upon him. Ozorne rescued the indignant Preet before Varice wrapped her arms around Arram’s neck.
“You horrible thing!” Varice cried. “Not a word to say goodbye, and I missed you so much!” As her weight pulled him down so she could reach his face, she kissed him first on his left cheek, then his right cheek, then a third time, very firmly, on his mouth.
Arram stood stock-still until she released him and said, “Let’s have breakfast.”
He fumbled as he picked up a tray. He would spend the rest of the day touching his mouth from time to time when no one was looking, still feeling the pressure of her lips, or thinking he did.
“I was worried sick,” Varice said as she briskly placed an egg dish on Arram’s tray. “There was no word of when you were coming home….Goddess save us, you’re a rail. What did they feed you?”
“Soups and porridges, mostly, like they fed the patients and their families,” Arram replied, smiling. It was so comfortable to see Varice picking out his meal for him again. “Perfectly decent food, you know.”
“Then you weren’t eating much of it.” She added plums and hothouse berries.
From their table, Preet squawked.
Varice finished picking out her own meal. “We are summoned,” she said, smiling up at Arram. “Oh, it’s so good to have you back!”
Arram could feel his cheeks going warm. “So what did everyone else do while I was grinding weeds?” he asked as he settled at the table. Preet hopped to his shoulder.
“Varice and Ozorne were at the hospitals, too,” Tristan said, his voice sharp. “Only in no grand a capacity as a weed chopper.”
“Tristan,” Gissa murmured, resting her head on her hands. “He hasn’t been bragging.”
“That will be enough.” Varice slapped the back of Tristan’s head lightly. “I stewed plants for medicines, and Ozorne helped pack the medicine wagons and oversee their unloading. It was all boring and I want to forget it.”
“Not me, dearest,” Ozorne quipped. “I want to do it every day.”
After chattering in Arram’s ear, Preet hopped to the table to inspect his plate.
“We have to warn you, she’s gotten incredibly spoiled,” Gissa said, obviously trying to change the subject. “Everyone feeds her when they get the chance.”
“Except Master Chioké,” Tristan reminded her.
“But you only have one class with him,” Arram said, scratching Preet’s head. She made a soft growling noise, her angry sound. Since she loved head scratches, Arram suspected it was the mention of Chioké that roused the little bird’s wrath. “It doesn’t matter if she misses a class’s worth of meals.”
“I have two classes with him, O Student Behind the Times,” Ozorne informed him smugly. “Chioké convinced Master Cosmas that it would be suitable for me to study detection of poisons.”
Arram blinked at his friend. At the Tasikhe court a person’s exposure to poisons—whether studying them or their cures—was always watched very carefully. Any student of that area had to be approved by the emperor’s personal mage as well as by Master Cosmas.
“Your uncle must trust you,” he said at last, wondering why this was the first he’d heard of it.
Ozorne shrugged. “He trusts my mother and Master Chioké,” he said. “He thinks I’ll be useful to Mikrom when he ascends to the throne. And I believe his eye is on Chioké as well. The present court mage is starting to dodder a bit.” He laughed. So did the others at the table, except Arram. He couldn’t see anything funny about the aging of a great man who had served the emperor for decades.
“Come, soursop.” Ozorne poked Arram’s shoulder. “You’ve been among the dirty and downtrodden too long. Chin up! You’re home!”
Slowly Arram smiled. Ozorne’s sense of humor could take a cruel turn, it was true, but he meant no harm. And it was good to be back, among pretty girls, eating warm meals, and bathing in hot water. Best of all, he had four days before he had to haul himself out of bed at dawn, ready for school. Who knew? He might even be able to produce some magic by then.