On Tuesday after the start of the summer term, Ramasu halted Arram on his way out of the infirmary and handed him a document. “For Thursday, pack for seventeen days—no robes, no good clothes, only plain stuff. Bring both your mage’s workbag and your healer’s kit. A hat, strong sandals. I suppose the bird will come, too. Double-check that everything in your kits is filled and up to strength, the knives and needles sharp, that sort of thing. Meet me at noon at the university’s Arena Gate.”
Arram swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes, Master Ramasu.”
The man smiled and patted his shoulder. “You are ready. I’ve already arranged matters with your teachers.”
Arram frowned. “But—are they going to assign work for the time I’m away? I’ll need my books. Usually—”
Ramasu said gently, “They will not. They know you will be unable to do it. Now, off with you. I have packing of my own, and time to spend with my man.”
Arram bowed and left as ordered. Walking to the dining hall, he pondered the days to come with discomfort. He didn’t want to let Ramasu down. He also didn’t want to vomit on any of his patients-to-be. What if he made a serious mistake? He had yet to do so, but as Tristan was so very fond of saying, “Everyone gets a first time.” Preet murmured softly and groomed Arram’s hair with her beak, telling him that all would be well. Arram tried to cheer up, both for her sake and because he didn’t want his friends plying him with all manner of questions over lunch.
It didn’t work. The moment Varice and Ozorne joined him at the table, they knew something was on his mind. Tristan and Gissa had come to their own conclusions or, rather, Tristan had.
“He’s not worth bothering today,” the young man told everyone. “He’s in one of his ‘I’m so talented and powerful, I must be doing something wrong’ moods.”
Several of the others, including Gissa, laughed. Even Ozorne hid a smile behind his hand.
Preet said something insulting in sunbird.
Varice glared at the others. “That shows what you know,” she said tartly, running her fingers down Preet’s back. The girl looked at Arram, her blue eyes sympathetic. “It’s the arena, isn’t it? Remember? You mentioned it when we were on the river.”
Ozorne clapped his palm to his head. “Already? Arram, I’m sorry—I’d take your place, I swear, but I don’t have medical training!”
“What about the arena?” Tristan demanded.
Arram ate his long bean and lamb tajine doggedly. He let Varice and Ozorne explain how he was to accompany Ramasu to the gladiators’ camp for two weeks.
“You’ll be there for the games, then!” one of their other companions exclaimed. “What’s to mope for?”
Arram glared at him. “Yes, I’m there for the games,” he retorted. “And while people are cheering as men and women are mutilated, I’ll be in back, trying to keep what’s left of them alive.”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “They’re slaves, Draper. Criminals. They’ve lived longer in the arena than they would in the mines or fields or galleys, trust me.”
“Not all of them,” another young man at the table argued. “There were a few in that last new batch that didn’t know right hand from left. They went down fast.” He smirked at Arram, who clenched his fists on the table. “So you don’t have to worry your pretty head about healing the likes of them. They were dead when they hit the—”
Arram’s palms were tingling. He thought it was because he was clenching them too tightly. Then Varice squeaked. Preet pecked him sharply above one ear. The others, with the exception of Ozorne and Varice, were thrusting themselves away from the table. Ozorne pointed down. Arram looked: small bolts of lightning danced to and fro between his hands. His tajine was now a charred black lump.
The student who had smirked got to his feet, pointing at Arram. “They shouldn’t give you special work if you can’t control yourself!” To Ozorne he said, “Be careful, or your pet might just cook you!”
Ozorne looked up at him, a sweet smile on his lips. “Be careful of what?” he asked. “I saw nothing odd, did you, Varice?”
Varice carefully cut the fish on her plate. “Not a thing,” she replied calmly.
Sergeant Okot, noting the fuss, came over. “Is there a problem, Your Imperial Highness?” he asked.
“I believe some people don’t care for my friends,” Ozorne replied, eyeing those who were still on their feet. Four were already resuming their seats. “We will be fine once they have taken their leave.”
Okot inspected those who were standing. “His Imperial Highness expressed a preference.” His voice was chilly. They gathered their things and left.
When the young man and one of his friends were gone, Okot picked up Arram’s spoon and jabbed the blackened mass on his plate. It crumbled to ash. Putting the spoon down, Okot said, “I’d complain to the cooks. It’s overdone.”
Varice began to giggle. Soon everyone at the table did the same, even Arram.
Ozorne put a hand on Arram’s shoulder as he was about to go for more food. “You have a good heart, but be watchful,” he cautioned. “Gladiators are beaten and starved till they’re little better than animals. You don’t want to turn your back on them.”
Arram nodded. Ozorne knew more about these things than he did. He would be careful. He wanted to come home again with every part of him still in its proper place.
Arram was waiting at the gate at noon on Thursday when he heard someone call his name. He looked up and down the road. All he saw was the distant shape of what he was sure was Ramasu and the cart.
“Arram!” He turned. Varice was running toward him down the broad path from the school. He hadn’t seen her at breakfast, which had disappointed him more than he realized until this moment. His heart lifted. She was beautiful in the sun, her fast pace hugging her blue cotton gown against her curves. Her golden hair streamed out behind her. “Arram, you great dolt, didn’t you hear me call?”
Preet flew into the air before Arram caught Varice up in a strong hug. He thought for a moment that Varice fumbled with his backpack, but then she wrapped her arms around his neck. She even kissed him on the mouth, though he expected that was because she missed his cheek in her hurry.
“I wanted to say goodbye,” she said as he put her down. She straightened her gown and smoothed her hair. “It’s going to be so boring with you away. I know,” she said, holding up her hand when he would have argued. “I have other friends. But Ozorne is forever talking politics with people, and…” She rested her palm on Arram’s chest. “I never know what you will say or do. You make me laugh. You don’t make me feel silly or stupid.”
He put both of his hands over hers. “You aren’t either one. Varice, who has been telling you such things?”
She smiled up at him. “They don’t have to tell me. They laugh and they change the subject, or they say ‘Nobody cares about that, Varice,’ or…you know what I mean.” She looked around him and withdrew her hand. “There’s Master Ramasu. Will you bring me back a keepsake from Musenda? He’s absolutely magnificent.”
Arram smiled. “I shall manage something.” He turned and waved to the master, who was perched on the seat of a loaded cart near the gate. He could feel the tiny bit of her power shimmering there atop all the things that carried his own Gift. “What did you put in my things?”
She looked down, blushing. “A charm to keep you safe and bring you home,” she said. “Goddess bless, Arram.” She returned to the university.
“Goddess bless, sweetheart,” he whispered. He bent to pick up the bag with his clothes. Preet cackled. “I didn’t ask you,” he told the bird, and went to join Ramasu.
To his surprise, the master said nothing about having to wait. He only instructed Arram to put his things in the wagon. Preet chose to sit on Ramasu’s knee and talk to him while Arram disposed of his luggage. Quickly Arram felt under the opening in his extra pack until he found Varice’s charm. He pulled it out and slipped it into his belt purse to inspect later. The rest of his belongings sank under the protective spell that Ramasu had placed on the wagon’s contents.
“You’re afraid someone will steal from you?” Arram asked as he climbed onto the seat next to the master. Preet hopped up to Arram’s shoulder.
“You have not thought the matter through,” Ramasu replied as he clucked to the mules and set them forward. “Ask instead how easy would it be to recover painkilling medicines and surgical knives from those with whom we shall be mingling.”
Arram did not have to think about it for very long. He shuddered.
“By the time we reach the camp, your belongings too will be imbued with my spell. If anyone but you or I touch them, you will feel a sharp blow to your hand. The would-be thief will feel something much worse.” Ramasu glanced at Arram. “Never forget who we deal with here—men and women who have been brutalized for years. Even the soldiers who guard them are crude and vicious. Wariness must be our first principle.”
“Why do you do it, Master, if it’s so dangerous?” Arram asked.
“Because they are not undeserving of care. No one is undeserving of care. It is not their fault that they have become what they are,” Ramasu said, his eyes on the road. “They are slaves, chosen and groomed to become gladiators—which is to say, they are beaten, starved, and punished for their work. They grow old in combat and are slaughtered before their time. You are here because I can show you the wounds and injuries you would otherwise see only during a disaster or a war. You have a talent for healing. You may not care to specialize, but if you are to manage quick healing in an emergency, work at an arena is invaluable.”
Ramasu fell silent, guiding the mules past wagons coming into town. Arram had always thought Ramasu was distant and aloof. Now he saw that not only was the healer a kind man in his way, but he hated the games. Perhaps he even hated slavery. Arram knew Lindhall hated it, but that was to be expected. Lindhall came from the North.
Arram wasn’t sure how he felt. Given a choice, he would have refused the visit to the gladiators’ camp. Those muscled, scarred, roaring, violent people terrified him; he already knew he hated what they did. Perhaps Ramasu had guessed these things, which was why he hadn’t given Arram a choice. Arram also wasn’t certain he would have refused Ramasu, since the man was his teacher. If Ramasu—if any of them—thought he needed to learn something, he accepted their judgment.
He wished now that this time was over, and they were on their way back to the university.
“Has the crocodile god said when he means to return your charge to her family?” Ramasu asked as they turned from the road onto a well-traveled side track.
Arram flinched, then reminded himself that his teachers always knew things he didn’t tell them. “No, sir. He gets very grumpy when I bring it up, or when Sebo does. He says he has to find just the right gift, and he hasn’t yet. Apparently he has to appease the god he offended when Preet hid on his back.”
Preet, who was grooming herself on Arram’s lap, chuckled.
“You are a plotter,” Ramasu told her. “You could have asked your crocodile to foist you on some hapless hero. But you decided to cause trouble for Enzi and poor Arram.”
“She’s no trouble,” Arram murmured. Then it occurred to him that the master was speaking oddly. Ramasu was not in the habit of teasing.
Additionally, he did not usually sound like an elderly woman.
Arram looked at the master and received a shock. The mules’ reins hung in midair, just as if Ramasu were still driving. The master himself had turned to look at the bird on Arram’s lap, but his face was not quite right.
His eyes, normally gray-brown, were black and sparkling. His hair had turned to gray-and-white stubble. His face was creased with wrinkles.
“I’m keeping the teeth,” the goddess inside Ramasu said. “It’s not often I get a mouthful in such condition. He takes good care of himself, this teacher of yours.”
A whimper burbled out of Arram’s throat. He was used to Enzi, who occasionally visited Sebo when Arram was there for his lessons. He had even learned to accept Enzi’s company on their underwater walks. But he had also thought, many times, that he disliked meeting gods. There was just something so overpowering about them. And this god was even more important than Enzi. He knew her, because she had given him a diamond-and-ruby die the day Musenda had risen to become one of the top gladiators in the capital. He’d left the bracelet he wore it on at home.
He tried to bow and nearly squashed Preet, who scolded him fiercely.
“Stop that,” the Graveyard Hag ordered. “You’re frightening your poor birdie. Come here.” Arram felt himself slide closer to Ramasu’s body until they were practically touching. “Much better,” the goddess said. “Stop flinching. I like handsome young lads like you, particularly when I know they’re going to afford me so much entertainment shortly.”
Arram stared into those black eyes. He had the dreadful notion that he could see constellations in them. “E-e-entertainment?” he stammered.
“Oh, all you powerful ones are wonderful when it comes to kicking up a fuss. It’s been deadly dull where I live, but you and your friend Ozorne will soon fix that!” The Graveyard Hag cocked her head to one side, eyeing Arram. It made him nervous to see her wrinkled features slide under Ramasu’s smooth brown ones. “Tell Ozorne for me, always trust those who are your true friends. If you do, you’ll never go astray. He must think carefully about what people want from him.”
Arram bowed his head. “I will, Goddess.”
“And you, birdie—” the goddess said.
Preet, who had settled on one of the reins, chattered at the Hag.
“What sort of name is Preet for one of your kind, and what are you doing here?” the Hag demanded.
Arram started to answer, but the Hag lifted Ramasu’s finger, and Arram found he could not say a word. Instead Preet began to talk, whistling, chirping, and muttering until she came to a halt.
The Graveyard Hag began to laugh. Preet said something else, and the goddess shook her captive’s head. “No, I won’t tell—this is far too amusing. Besides, I never let those snobs at home know anything interesting if I can help it. Your secret is safe with me.” She shifted on the seat and looked at Arram. “Mules, do your job, and I’ll make certain you have an extra good feed tonight,” she ordered. Then she cupped Arram’s face with Ramasu’s hand and lifted it so she could look into his eyes again. “You poor boy,” she said, and grinned. It was a broad grin, the kind Ramasu never made. Seeing it on his calm features made Arram queasy. “You have no idea what my cousins hold in store, do you? No one can tell. Here’s a bit of advice from a wicked old lady, for the sake of those beautiful brown eyes of yours. Watch what you say.”
As quickly as she had arrived, she was gone. Ramasu’s hand fell to his lap; the reins dropped to his knee. Arram seized them before they fell to the road. Preet leaped into the air, shrieking, and the master thrashed.
“Arram, what are you doing?” cried Ramasu.
Arram had one rein but not the rest. He was about to fall onto the road with them. The mules halted and looked back, ears switching.
Arram’s ears roared as Ramasu’s familiar Gift wrapped around him and deposited him on the seat. The reins hovered before him, held by the master’s power. Arram took them up.
Ramasu surrendered the one he still held while he cradled his brow in his hand. “My poor head,” he complained. “Do you have a water flask?”
Arram pointed at his belt. Ramasu took the flask and added something from his own belt pouch, then gulped the water down. “Thank you,” he said. He propped his head on his hands. “It will be a little while before the lozenge does its work. I’ll take the reins back then….Which god was it?”
Arram started, jerking the reins. Both mules glanced back with evil intent in their eyes. “Sir—how did you know?”
“I am not insensate, lad. There is a hole in my memory, you are holding the reins—badly, do not jerk on them like that—”
Arram loosened his pull on the leather straps.
“My head pounds, and everything I see shimmers with innate magic,” Ramasu said, rubbing his eyes. “A god did that. It has happened to me before. Which god? Or are you not permitted to tell?”
Arram saw no reason to keep that information back. “The Graveyard Hag, sir.”
Ramasu frowned. “The Graveyard Hag? Now why…?” Arram glanced at the master, who had fallen silent. Then Ramasu said, “Of course. Ozorne. The goddess wanted to speak with you about Ozorne.”
Arram nodded miserably. He wasn’t sure that he should give the goddess’s message to anyone but Ozorne, and it would be difficult to refuse one of his masters.
“Leave me out of it,” Ramasu said. “Unless the god…?”
“No, sir,” Arram said gratefully. “It’s only for Ozorne.”
“Excellent,” the man replied. “Yes, I am very, very grateful she only used me as her conduit. She loves to make those who have her attention dance to her music.”
“That isn’t very reassuring, Master Ramasu,” Arram said weakly.
The man reached over and took the reins. “The truth so seldom is.” Setting the mules forward at a crisper pace, he said, “Sebo and I have been discussing a trip upriver in August and early September. She would like to visit some of the tributary rivers to the Zekoi, and I would like assistance in gathering medicinal herbs and insects I can find nowhere else. Would you be interested?”
Arram sat up eagerly, the touch of the goddess almost—but not quite—forgotten. “I’ve only been a short way upriver with Her Highness,” he confessed.
They talked about the possibility as the wagon bumped over the narrow trail. Then Arram saw a stone wall rising above the tall reeds and, behind it, the even greater marble heights of the arena. He gulped. They had reached their destination.
When Ramasu had first mentioned the trip to the gladiators’ camp, Arram had studied maps of the arena and of the training grounds until he knew them by heart. Their new workplace was part of a large, military-style camp built on the side of the arena. Behind a stone wall patrolled by hard-looking soldiers stood wooden barracks for men and for women, an infirmary, wide sand training grounds, an armory with its own forge, and a stretch of garden for those who cared to tend one.
To the left of the gate, separated from the world, the training ground, and the barracks by another, shorter stone wall, were the beast pens. Arram could hear lions roar and elephants bellow as the cart approached the outer gate. He hated the practice of driving animals to battle as much as he hated the practice of forcing men and women to do so.
The guards’ barracks were behind a wall on the opposite side of the wild animals’ cages. The arena’s horses were also there, since the sounds and smells of the larger, wild beasts frightened them. Ramasu had told Arram once that there were several gates to connect the guards’ area to the gladiators’ so there would not be a bottleneck of guards if trouble arose in the main compound.
Above it all loomed a big gate through the northern wall of the arena itself. The only openings that Arram could see were ventilation for the audience and were one hundred feet up or more. It was yet another reminder to the gladiators that there was no chance to escape. Only the gate to the arena remained to them, two leaves of locked metal a little over the height of the tallest giraffe.
The place was fairly quiet. This gate was one of iron bars. Four soldiers stood guard on the ground there, as well as on the wall over it. The man in charge greeted Ramasu cheerfully and led him inside the guardhouse to sign forms. Arram accepted the reins from the master and looked around, sweating. He could hear the thwacks of wood on wood and men’s shouts from inside. He also glimpsed two women in leather shirts and very short breeches fighting with spears.
“I dunno, Blaedroy, he’s awful scrawny for the ring.” A soldier walked over to lean against Ramasu’s side of the seat. “Might make a decent meal for one of the cheetahs, though. Put her and the cubs in with him, there’s a good bit of fun.”
Arram tried to ignore the man, but Preet was having none of this. She roused from her nap on Arram’s shoulder, fluffing out all of her feathers, and told the soldier what she thought of his idea of “fun.”
“Hag’s dice, what manner of bird is that, anyway?” the other guard shouted over her noise. He was white, blond, and blue-eyed, plainly a descendant of Scanrans. “Tell it to quiet down or we’ll feed it to the lions!”
“Preet, stop,” Arram said, trying to wrap a hand around her. She batted at him with her wings, telling him in Preet that a good peck or two would teach these buffoons manners.
“Lookit this,” Blaedroy said, grinning. “He can’t even make a wee bird mind ’im. He’s arena bait for certain.”
Ramasu walked up behind the man. “He is my assistant,” the mage said coldly. “I require his services in the infirmary. Should you become injured while he is here, you may wish you had reconsidered your jokes.”
“You two, get to the gate,” growled their captain, who had followed Ramasu outside. The guardsmen hurried to undo the locks and shove the leaves of the gate open, inward toward the training ground. “Escort Master Ramasu and the cart to the infirmary and unpack it when he lifts the magic. Then stand guard there,” he added. He whistled sharply in two bursts. Another pair of guards trotted over. “Escort the cart to the infirmary and guard it while these two pieces of gallows bait unload. You may then take the cart and horses to our camp. Master Ramasu, I hope you and your assistant will be so good as to take supper with me this evening?”
“I am pleased to do so,” the master said. “Now tell us, what do we face?”
“We got two new loads of fighters yesterday,” the captain replied as he walked to the gate beside Ramasu. “A third from other arenas, the rest New Meat.”
Arram urged the mules forward. He kept his eyes on their shoulders as he heard the clank of chain and the scrape of metal on dirt as the gates were opened. A handful of gladiators were idling in the yard, moving slowly toward them, seemingly without plan.
A hard crack brought his head up. A guard on the gate had produced a whip: four feet of rigid stick tipped by several tapering feet of braided leather. He raised and snapped it at the gladiators. They halted, their eyes going from the mages and their wagon to the guard and back. One of them had new red stripes on his arm. After a long pause the group broke up and returned to training.
“We are perfectly able to defend ourselves, guardsmen,” Ramasu said, his voice at its most gentle. “There is no need for the hard whip.”
“The New Meat don’t know that, Master,” the whip wielder said. “They ain’t been broke in. Once they learn the stick, we can teach them rules and they’ll obey.”
“Yet if those stripes you just made get infected, you will have created more work for your healers, which means me,” Ramasu replied.
Goosebumps rippled along Arram’s arms. There was a touch of iron in the master’s voice.
“Should that happen, I shall feel it incumbent upon me to teach you the folly of using your hard whip when it is not absolutely necessary,” Ramasu continued. “That would be unfortunate, but not for me.” He walked on, the captain at his elbow. Arram noticed that the captain glanced at the whip-bearing soldier but said nothing to him.
Arram followed the two men and the guards to a long, one-story brick building with barred windows and shutters. It sported a wooden porch over the entry, which had a barred door. The regular healer waited there, a satchel by his feet.
“Ramasu, welcome, welcome!” he cried, embracing the mage.
Ramasu smiled and returned the embrace. Then he indicated Arram. “Healer Daleric, may I present my student, Arram Draper? Arram, Daleric and his assistants will rejoin us in time for the games.”
“And we will be the better for that wonderful time away,” Daleric said, nodding to Arram. “Before I go, let me offer you a taste of the best Maren red wine I’ve had in years. Your Arram can help the boys unload the cart. Captain, will you share a glass?”
The captain refused the offer of a drink and returned to his headquarters. “Let me supervise,” Ramasu insisted. “Arram is new. He has to learn to watch for nimble fingers. Then we can relax.”
“Very well,” Daleric said. “I shall assist.” The healer drew Ramasu into the infirmary.
Once the cart was unpacked the two healers retreated into Daleric’s small office, a box-like room set on one side of the infirmary. Inside the main room, Arram inspected the healer’s stillroom and its tidy shelves of supplies, each spot neatly labeled. He stowed their own medicines, ointments, and bandages, appreciating that Daleric kept the place clean and orderly. Only the magical creations and poisons were left unshelved. He suspected they went behind a door that had a number of magical locks on it. Most, if not all, of them he could undo, but it seemed polite to wait for the healer or Master Ramasu to take care of that.
He heard voices in the main room. He emerged in time to hear Daleric tell Ramasu, “And I am off.” He nodded to Arram. “The goddess’s good luck, youngster.” He bowed to the figure of Hekaja, whose small shrine occupied the western corner of the room. “Don’t let them trap you. They’re beasts, when all’s said and done.” He picked up a packed bag and walked out to the waiting wagon.
Ramasu closed the door behind the healer. “Daleric will talk about them as human beings by the time he returns from his holiday,” he said. “They wear him down over the course of a year, but he is dedicated to working with them, or he wouldn’t stay.” He walked over to the shrine, bowed to the figure of the goddess, and lit some orris incense with a touch of his finger.
Arram did the same, though he lit his incense from the master’s, not trusting his ability with a touch of fire. “How long has he—Daleric?—been here?”
“Five years. Most last two years or less, but Daleric has family in Thak City. Some of them are healers, some guards. Let’s see how you managed.” Ramasu only glanced over the shelves where Arram had placed supplies already. “I expected you to do this well,” he explained. “You could have entered the locked room yourself.”
“It didn’t seem polite to do so without permission,” Arram said.
“You can never fail with good manners,” Ramasu commented, pleased. “Go ahead. Without damage, open the room now.”
Arram touched a bit of the oil he carried in a vial in his belt purse to his eyelids. It allowed him to see magic without spending his own Gift. A couple of blinks showed him the spell letters on the locked door. They weren’t the signs of complex spells, but he undid them carefully, in case anything nasty was hidden under a mild sign.
He and Ramasu had just finished stowing the magical and poisonous supplies when Preet came flying in, crying out in alarm. Arram followed her into the main room and heard the unmistakable sound of a man screaming. It was drawing close.
“Master!” he called as Preet flew up to a perch on a roof beam. Looking around, he spotted a cupboard on the wall with the word “Linens” burned into the front. Beside it was a second cupboard labeled “Bandages.” Arram threw open the linen cupboard and grabbed one of the bundles. He shook it out to get an idea of the size of the cloth, quickly folded it double, and placed it on a table. While he was in the front room, he opened the door.
He grabbed a tray from a stack of them and returned to the bandages cupboard, placing four on it. That would be enough until they learned what was coming. Ramasu stood in front of the closed door to the stillroom, cleansing himself with his Gift. His medical kit was open beside him on the floor, also awash in his power.
Four dirty, muscled men hurried in with a screaming man on a rope stretcher. Arram had no problem guessing what was wrong: the heavier of the two main bones below the patient’s knee had snapped and was thrusting out of his flesh.
“Ol’ Daleric off to see the wife and kiddies?” a stretcher bearer shouted to Arram, panting. “Miggin here’s got the best of luck!”
Miggin, the screamer, took a breath and made several rude suggestions about what the man could do with his luck.
“Very inventive,” Ramasu said, waving the men forward to the edge of the waiting table. “Arram, I will do painlessness. You will raise our friend Miggin and set him down when these fellows move the stretcher. At a count of three?”
Arram fumbled for the right spell and chose the most basic. “One,” he said, walking up to the stretcher. “Two.” Arram cast the signs for an equal lift all around Miggin. “Three.” Palms up, he raised his hands, and the patient, as Ramasu let a wave of his Gift flow over Miggin. With the experience born of practice, the bearers slid the stretcher out from under the injured man. Miggin was now breathing rather than shrieking. He hardly noticed what was going on. Arram gently used his own spell to push Miggin forward until he was over the sheet-covered table, then carefully set him down.
“This one’s good,” the man who’d asked about Daleric told Ramasu. “We’ll keep him if you don’t want him.”
“That’s very kind, but there are masters who wish to keep him,” Ramasu said. “Tell me what happened to your friend.”
The men chuckled. “He’s not a friend,” replied one, a bearded Kyprish islander with a fearsome set of tattoos on his back and arms. “He’s fresh. Some funny man told New Meat here that if he went two falls with Anaconda he’d get respect. This is what happened in his first fall.”
“Now Anaconda’s sad because we took his toy,” another gladiator said. “You’ll see more New Meat today, Master Ramasu.”
“Then you had best go out and collect it, lads,” Ramasu told them. “Though I would appreciate it if you first told Anaconda that I am here. Any extra work he gives me will be paid for, by him, when I see him next.”
“Very good, Master Ramasu,” the tattooed gladiator replied. “It would be nice to have some New Meat left alive for the arena.”
The man who had first spoken to Arram shoved past him toward the door. “We’re glad you’re back, Master,” he told Ramasu. “Daleric’s all right, but he’s not you.” All four of them bowed, then trotted outside with their stretcher.
“We see them at their best in here,” Ramasu told Arram. “Now, tell me about Miggin’s injury.”
Arram looked at the gladiator’s leg. “It’s a compound break of the main bone of the lower leg,” he said, using a spell on his eyes that showed him the bones. “We’ll have a bad time reseating it without snagging flesh on the bone.”
Ramasu twitched his fingers, murmuring a short spell. One of several small tables tucked under the window counters skidded across the floor to his side. “Here is where you learn about compound fractures, and about multiple fractures of bone that do not break through the skin,” he said quietly. “We are likely to see a great many of them. If you will look…”
After several tries, Arram got the knack of drawing all the torn flesh out of the way. Ramasu was working a cleansing over both ends of the bone when Preet landed on the head of their worktable, fluttering her wings. “Understood, Preet, but we cannot rush,” the master said absently.
Arram heard the approach of someone else howling in pain. His hands trembled for a moment before he forced himself to concentrate on his patient.
“Very good,” Ramasu told him. “Now.” Both ends of the bone shifted together. “Is the lower part of the bone seated against the upper part? Don’t use your vision—it isn’t accurate enough.”
Arram set a portion of his awareness in his Gift and wrapped it around the damaged bone. It was fitted back together as well as it could be. Ramasu had left no jags or tiny splinters to dig into muscle or flesh. “It’s very well seated, Master, except for what had to be removed.”
“Release the muscle first, then the skin to their former places,” Ramasu ordered. “Gently.”
Arram released the two spells he had worked to keep both parts of the injured man’s body clear of the damage. He could feel the veins, and the muscles, sigh in relief as they relaxed into their former beds. The skin was slower. “I think the skin is hurt some,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Either you forgot from your earlier work that the skin is the most easily damaged, or you haven’t held it off its natural form for so long before,” Ramasu replied. “This is normal. You’ve done well. I shall finish with this man. Prepare the next table and send our newest guest to sleep. The second level of his mind only, Arram. He must be unaware of his pain, not dead to it.”
Since he had eased pain before in Ramasu’s infirmary, Arram only smiled at the master’s mild joke. He had never put so much power into a painlessness spell that the patient could not feel anything for a day, though he knew a student who had. Carefully he drew his Gift away from the sleeping gladiator. He recovered it all just as three of the men from earlier and a fresh stretcher bearer came through the door. Arram rushed to seize a sheet and throw it over another waist-high table. By the time the gladiators reached it, he had the lifting spell ready to shift the injured man onto the table. This one had a dislocated shoulder.
“Worst pain in my life,” he whispered, his eyes bulging out. “Worst pain”—he was trying to control himself, but his voice was rising in volume—“in MY—”
Arram hurriedly sketched the symbols he needed to use in order to release a victim from pain, unlike Ramasu, who could do it with a softly whispered phrase. The man fell silent, though his lungs pumped his chest like a bellows. Arram drew a breath and descended into his Gift, where he could deepen the spell enough that his patient would not feel his pain for the time being. He glanced over his shoulder at Ramasu, who nodded.
Arram had dealt with two dislocations before, one hip and one shoulder. Using the man’s own sweat, he wrote the necessary signs for painlessness in the shoulder joint first, before he wrote the sign of the closing lock, and poured his Gift into it. There was the dreadful sound of gristle and muscle returning to their proper place; the shoulder resumed its normal shape. Carefully Arram ran his fingers over it to ensure that the joint was whole once more before he looked at the gladiators. They were dipping drinks of water for themselves from the bucket by the door.
“Dare I ask—the Anaconda again?” he said quietly, wiping his hands clean of sweat and dirt with a damp towel.
“Oh, no, if that’d been the Anaconda, his whole backbone would’ve been all twisty,” said the Kyprish gladiator. “No, this piece of offal thought one of the girls was there for double duty: fighting and”—he caught Ramasu’s eye and obviously changed the word he’d been about to use—“canoodling. Her never having made him an offer, nor any man, for that matter, she explained his error to him.”
“She shoulda knowed he’d never been in a camp where the lasses might be sisters of the game, too,” the new stretcher bearer said.
“He shoulda knowed to ask before layin’ a hand on her,” replied the tattooed gladiator. “He could ask any of us fellows.”
“Argue it outside,” Ramasu ordered. “It’s near to supper. I will send a messenger when this man is ready to return to camp.”
The men nodded and left.
“It wasn’t so long ago that more than a scant handful of women could defend themselves like warriors,” Ramasu mused as he covered their newest patient with a sheet for warmth. Arram had already noticed, and been grateful for, the coolness spells placed on the infirmary by generations of healers. “Only two hundred years it’s been since all women could be soldiers, sailors, enforcers of the law. It wasn’t only gladiators, Shang, and some of the Southern tribes as it is now.”
Arram smiled. He was always amused by the different view of time held by most of his masters. To them, two centuries was a short period, just a small part of the ages of history and magic that they knew. And he knew what Ramasu was thinking of. “The rise of the aspect of the Gentle Mother.”
“The Gentle Mother.” In Ramasu’s soft voice it sounded like a curse. “They took a goddess with a scythe in her hand, striding the rows of grain, and turned her to present the self of a housebound creature. I wonder when she will show her true face again.”
“Did they ever try to do that to the Graveyard Hag?” Arram asked. He couldn’t imagine the old lady with any other face than the one she currently bore.
Ramasu chuckled. “Oh, yes. It was amazing, the change of luck that struck any priest who attempted to make her into a kindly grandmother spinning by the fire. There is a book in the Faiths section of the library, The Hag Speaks. You may read it and write it up for me for the beginning of autumn term.”
Arram sighed. Why did a good conversation with a master always seem to end in more work for him? Still, he had to say, “Perhaps the Great Goddess prefers the face of the Gentle Mother, or she would have done something like that.”
“I prefer to think that the Three-Fold Mother has not noticed, time being so different in the Divine Realms.” Ramasu was placing jars of ointment and bandages on a counter. “I think that when she does discover what is being done in her name, she will let us know it.”
The doors flew open. Two men entered, one with a clumsy bandage on his chest, the other with one on his thigh. “Worm-eaten, scum-lollin’ country guard let one of his New Meats come in with a knife!” the man with the chest wound cried.
Ramasu pointed them each to a bench. He took the chest wound, a shallow diagonal slice, and Arram the thigh wound, which had just missed an important vein. “And where is this New Meat with the blade?” Ramasu asked as he and Arram wet cloths and washed the injuries with a cleansing balm.
“He won’t be coming here,” the gladiator with the chest wound said offhandedly. “The lads settled his account.”
Arram’s mouth suddenly went dry. He thought he knew what the man meant. He glanced at Ramasu, who gave a tiny shake of his head. Fingers trembling, Arram got back to the work of spelling the veins and arteries whole again, then turned to the muscles that had been sliced.
“Arm and torso work for you for two days,” Ramasu ordered Arram’s patient when he was released. “No full-strength blows, no running. Tell the cooks plenty of meat. And you, weapons repair for three days, then light sparring for the rest of the week,” he said, pointing to his patient. “If your mentor has questions, he may see me. Off with you—I hear others on their way.”
The afternoon continued in this manner: a broken jaw, cuts, lesser broken bones, head blows that resulted in two more sleeping gladiators in the infirmary. Things slowed down at last: Arram realized he hadn’t heard the thwack of wooden blade against wooden blade for a while. They released their last patient when he woke shortly before the evening meal. The other patients had returned to their quarters earlier.
Ramasu and Arram cleaned the infirmary, though Arram protested he could do so on his own.
“Things are less formal here,” Ramasu said gently. “Today was actually fairly calm. There will be a few days while the gladiators torment the New Meat, particularly those who are here only because they look strong or were troublesome to their former masters. They will not be killed if it can be helped. They are meant to die in the arena.”
Arram made the Sign against evil on his chest.
Ramasu sighed. “Even so. But some will live, if we make them whole enough when they face the arena. When the gladiators tire of the New Meat, they will turn to those who trained in lesser arenas, men and women who believe they are as good as the fighters of Thak City. I will need all of your strength then, so don’t waste it in housekeeping. We share the labor here.”
The room was clean and the stillroom locked by the time a guard came to sit watch over the infirmary. Two army slaves took charge of Ramasu’s and Arram’s belongings, with the exception of their mage workbags. Those remained with their owners. Together they crossed to the military side of the camp.
Arram, to his shame, fell asleep at the table, to be woken and escorted to his room.