“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 fumbl
ed 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.”