I keep my eyes trained in front of me, but I do see enough to know that there are all types here. An almost-portly older man strolls down the street, while nearby, a beggar girl reaches out to him with skeletal arms. I stop and search my bag for a scrap of bread and hand it to the child as my escort turns to hurry me along. What do people do for food here? What will I do once my supplies run out? The soldier ahead of me keeps walking, paying them no mind. I wonder if his rosemarked comrades from his battalion are here. Does he think about how narrowly he avoided this fate?
Finally, we approach a tall villa with walls of well-formed bricks, and polished wooden beams in the roof. To my surprise, I see two rosemarked soldiers standing guard. My escort salutes them and enters.
Compared to the shabbiness of the rest of the compound, this place is another world. The front door opens into a simple gardened courtyard. An old woman digs beneath one of the trees, working at its roots. A gardener? There is even a pool of water in the middle, lined with smooth blue and green tiles.
We pass through a second door into a sitting room, where the soldier gestures for me to sit. I sink gingerly into a chair, and then relax more freely as I remember that everyone who enters this room is already ill. The furniture is plain but smells of fine cured wood that must have been imported from somewhere farther north. I’m about to ask after Commander Arxa when a voice sounds from above.
“Is that you, Healer Zivah?”
The speaker is young, with the cultured tone of well-bred Amparans. I finally spot a young woman at the top of the stairs.
She looks to be about Alia’s age, just a couple years younger than me. Her skin is almost as fair as my own, which makes her rosemarks all the more prominent. Her dark blond hair is bound up in intricate braids.
The girl breaks into a smile. “It is you! I’m so glad you’re here!” She gathers her skirts and runs the rest of the way down. I get the impression I should be standing in her presence.
She takes my hands, and I’m glad I had the foresight to put Diadem back in her cage. “You must have had a long journey.” Then she notices my confusion and adds, “I am Mehtap, Commander Arxa’s daughter.”
Mehtap. So this is the girl whose name Arxa called constantly in his delirium. I’d guessed before that he loved her dearly. If this fine house, complete with servants, is any sign, I guessed rightly.
“Lady Mehtap,” I say, curtsying. “I did not know you were afflicted as well.”
Her face falls for the briefest moment before she summons another smile. “Yes. I’m afraid I fell ill slightly before my father. But I apparently did not have his fighting spirit.”
“Do not be unfair to yourself. The disease is unpredictable in the best of us.”
“Yes, so they say. You are kind to remind me.”
The air between us is sober for a moment. But then she claps her hands. “Father will be here shortly. You’re to live in this house with me. We’ve prepared a room for you upstairs.”
I’m ashamed at the lightness that floods through me at her words. I’d been steeling myself for the prospect of building my own hovel in an abandoned corner of the compound, though it feels wrong to rejoice when others have had to do that very thing.
Mehtap bids me to follow her on a quick tour of the house. She tells me it was constructed for a general’s lover a few years back. That man died, and other rosemarked aristocrats cycled in. Most recently, Mehtap lived here with a cousin of hers who fell ill in the same outbreak as Mehtap, but the cousin died last month.
“So soon?” I ask. Usually the disease grants us a few years before returning.
“I suppose she gave up,” Mehtap says. Again, she is silent for a moment before shaking off her gloom. “It will be nice to have company again.”
I follow quietly, unsure what to make of this talkative young woman, and unsure what she makes of me. She seems so glad for my company, and I wonder if she’s truly thought about our differences. Does she realize that her father and those like him control the fate of my village? I wonder how I am to carry out my mission with her so close.
Thankfully, Mehtap doesn’t seem to notice my silence. She points out the gardens, the storeroom and simple kitchen, the sitting room, and the living quarters upstairs. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see that my room does not directly neighbor hers. I also have a window, which will make it easier to manage the crows. Beyond that, it’s comfortable—more comfortable than what I was used to in Dara. The bed is piled with thick blankets. There is also a desk, a chair like the ones downstairs, and a small chest.
Mehtap has stopped speaking, and I realize she’s waiting for my reaction.
“Thank you,” I say. “It’s wonderful.”
At that moment, a voice echoes from downstairs. “Commander Arxa has arrived.”
Mehtap’s face lights up. “Father would like to see you.” With a quick glance over her shoulder to see if I’m coming, she runs for the stairs. I follow more slowly, trying to quiet my sudden nerves. Here in the heart of Ampara, it’s all too easy to remember that Arxa is one of the best commanders in the Amparan army. He is intelligent, observant, and ruthless. Who am I to think I can deceive him?
The commander and four of his soldiers are waiting in the sitting room when I arrive at the top of the stairs. He must not be on duty, because he wears ankle-length court robes. His coloring is much healthier than when I last saw him, and he stands as if he’s regained his strength. His umbermarks are as clear as ever and give him a fierce appearance. I try to swallow the bitter taste in my mouth. I thought I’d been careful about wearing gloves and washing myself as I treated him. Where did I go wrong?
“Father!” Mehtap runs into his arms.
Arxa embraces his daughter and squeezes her tight. It’s a show of affection I wouldn’t have thought him capable of, given what I’d seen in Dara. Then he turns his attention to me. “Zivah. I am pleased you decided to come.”
My heart pounds in my ears as I navigate the last few stairs. A panicked certainty arises that his gaze will lay my secrets bare.
“I am grateful for your invitation, Commander.” My voice quavers, and I hope he’ll ascribe it to the stresses of travel.
He studies me, and I know he’s looking at the telltale marks of the disease. I oblige him by pulling my sleeve, revealing the skin there as well.
“I’m sorry to see you like this,” Arxa says. He doesn’t show much emotion, but I do believe he is sincere.
“It is the burden of a healer,” I tell him. “I won’t say I’m happy to be in this state, but it is a risk we take every time we see a patient.”
“Just as my soldiers face death on the battlefield every day. Perhaps our paths are more similar than we think. Indeed, your talents would have been wasted if you’d stayed isolated in your village. A soldier must fight. A healer must heal. You can still do good, for the years you have left.”
It feels strange that I should agree with him, though I am no longer sure what kind of good works I’m meant to do. But a calmness has settled on me now, and I pull it over myself like a mask.
“Thank you, Commander. I hope to serve as I can.”
That night I unpack my things and set up my cages in my room. I also take the first hot bath I’ve had since I left Dara. Then, when the house seems quiet and Mehtap has returned to her room, I open the window. I can see shadows moving in the darkness. I hear people shouting in the distance, and then a scream. The sound sends a shiver up my spine. Arxa had warned me not to wander outside at night without a guard. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of things that might happen in a place as desperate as this.
I glance once more at the door to make sure it’s latched, and then lean out the window and whistle as Dineas taught me. For a long, nerve-wracking moment, nothing happens. But then wings beat the air and Scrawny alights on my windowsill. A few moments later, Preener comes down and nudges him to the side.
“You made it!” I say breathlessly, and then I feel silly for t
alking to birds. Preener, true to his name, starts picking at his feathers. It’s a good thing, for both us and them, that animals aren’t vulnerable to rose plague. To the crows, this place is just a particularly dirty village.
I scribble identical notes on two scraps of leather, using a simple cipher that Gatha had given me to learn. Made it safely into compound. I give the crows some crusts of bread I’d saved from dinner, then tie the messages to their legs.
“Find Dineas,” I say. I wonder if he followed me this morning, and hope that he’s safe.
Preener swallows one last breadcrumb and takes off into the darkness. Scrawny spends a few more moments pecking around before following. Between the noises from outside and the events of the day, I don’t expect to fall asleep quickly, but the blankets are soft, and I’m tired, and I eventually drift away.
The crows are nowhere in sight when I wake the next morning. I try not to think of the myriad things that could have gone wrong. Did the birds get lost? Get injured? Get killed before they could find Dineas? My mind provides no dearth of disasters, and I try to convince myself that it’s too early to expect a reply. Perhaps the birds are simply slower messengers than I’d assumed.
I’m surprised to see Arxa in the dining room when I come down. Perhaps he stayed the night, though I don’t see Mehtap around. He greets me and gestures toward the table, where someone has laid out flatbread and stewed beans. The bread is freshly baked and quite good. I finish the first piece quickly and reach for another.
“Were your accommodations satisfactory?” Arxa asks.
I take a moment to swallow before I answer. “Very much so, Commander. I slept soundly.”
“And how are things at Dara? Your village is expanding their crop terraces, is that right?”
“Yes, sir. It will require extra work, but the additional harvest will help in lean years.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. He puts down his bread and looks straight at me. “Seems like you may have a lean year coming, if the Shidadi keep raiding your village.”
It’s all I can do not to drop my bread. “I’ve heard of a raid or two, but we don’t see much of the nomads.”
“That’s funny. My people have reported increased nomad sightings around Dara.”
It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, and I can’t help but feel that his eyes can see right through my skin. “I’m afraid I’m only a healer, and a rosemarked one at that. Everything I hear is secondhand.”
He’s still watching me. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
Is he toying with me? My breakfast sticks to the roof of my mouth. “I must thank you again for inviting me here, Commander,” I say. “I’m looking forward to being able to work again.”
He brushes some crumbs off the table onto the floor. “I’ll be curious if you still feel the same way after seeing the hospital. Jesmin is in charge there and expecting you. You can have one of the guards at the manor door guide you there.”
It takes all my willpower to walk calmly out into the courtyard. I ask a guard to lead me to the hospital, and my mind is awhirl as I follow him. Was Arxa sending me a warning? Am I jumping at shadows? Again I wish I knew where Dineas was.
We’re almost at the gate to the compound when the soldier stops.
“The hospital,” he says, indicating a door. And then he leaves me.
I linger outside for a moment, taking in the building. It’s not particularly impressive—one story high and constructed of irregular bricks, though it’s not falling down, which is already better than many of the structures nearby. There’s no sign on or above the door. The shutters on the few small windows are open, and I see some shadows moving inside.
When I push the door open, the sight makes me stumble back. In the dimly lit first room, laid out all along the wall on frayed grass pallets, are patients in the active throes of the rose plague. The air is thick with disease. It’s exactly like the outbreak back at Dara—the cries of delirious patients, the blank stares, and the acrid smell of sweat. But unlike at Dara, there’s no one here tending the sick.
After a few moments, I recover enough to go in. I pace down the dirt aisle between the patients, looking about for clues to the physicians’ whereabouts. Near the uneven brick wall is a stand with a water basin and what looks to be clean rags. I soak one in the water, kneel next to a man with graying hair, and wipe down his forehead. He looks at me, uncomprehending, and I whisper for him to rest. I move on from him to a plump middle-aged woman who’s shivering violently. I tuck her threadbare blankets more closely around her, but it doesn’t seem to help.
“You might find more blankets in the back room,” says a voice behind me. “But we may have run out. We’re always short of supplies.”
I jump. Behind me is a lanky older man. Other than Arxa, he’s the first umbertouched individual I’ve seen all day.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m looking for—”
“You’re Zivah?”
I nod.
He regards me calmly. “You got to work right away. It’s a sign of a good healer. I’m Jesmin, physician of this compound.”
Even if he hadn’t told me, I would have known. The man wears no healer’s sash—I suppose the healers here have no such uniform—but he has that same quality Kaylah has, where his very presence seems to dampen the edges of suffering around him. It also doesn’t escape me that he’d said “physician,” not “one of the physicians.”
“You’re the only one?”
His mouth quirks. “Just me.”
I look around, taken aback. “But there must be at least a thousand people living in this community.”
“Indeed. A thousand living here, plus those abandoned outside our gates. Other healers come in from time to time, but they keep dying.” He says this plainly, but I don’t get the sense he’s making light of the plague, just that he’s long ago accepted the realities.
He looks me over, much as Arxa had earlier. “You’re rosemarked,” he says matter-of-factly. “Can you still function?”
It’s strange, talking about myself as if I were a patient. “Other than the obvious, I am in acceptable health. I made the journey here in good time.”
“You traveled a long way for this,” he says. “I imagine most patients would prefer to be near their families.”
Again, I hear the unspoken message. Most people, when dying, would want to be near their loved ones. My chest squeezes at the memory of Alia running off in tears. “I could have stayed, but I’d rather be where I can be of use.” I’m glad my mother does not hear these words.
I can tell my answer pleases him. “Not all healers enter the trade for the same reasons. Some do it for respect, or for the money that it brings. Others do it because they must, because they cannot ignore the suffering of the ailing.” I wonder what category Jesmin falls in. He’s umbertouched, which means he could rejoin the rest of the world if he wanted, but he lives and works here.
“Come,” says Jesmin. “I’ll give you a quick tour of the place.” He gestures toward the patients around us. “As you may have surmised, this room is for the newly fevered.”
That was clear enough. “Is the rose plague not treated in the city?”
“It’s supposed to be. It is a crime, actually, to dump one’s sick outside the compound, but people do it regardless—families who cannot pay for a healer or who fear the sickness in their house.”
There are other rooms as well: some for ailments unrelated to the plague, and others for those whose fever has returned to claim them. As we walk through the dim rooms, I see rosemarked helpers tending the sicker patients. Jesmin tells me they’re hired helpers, untrained in the healing arts except for the simplest tasks.
We circle back to where we started, and he turns to face me. “So, Zivah, what are your impressions?”
What are my impressions? The gods have deserted this place. The hospital is overcrowded, and the conditions are appalling. There aren’t nearly enough caretakers to go around,
even with the hired help. If the rosemarked compound is a waiting chamber for the dying, this hospital is its wounded, stuttering heart.
Jesmin is watching me. I’m sure my thoughts are plain on my face, and he knows the truth about his hospital as well as I do. But his question wasn’t really a question. It was a challenge. And I feel something within myself rise to meet it.
“There is work to be done,” I say.
For the first time today, he smiles. “Plenty of it. How would you like to start?”
The opportunity does not escape me. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to spend my time with the newly fevered. I have some herbs that might help them.”
“Wouldn’t all the patients benefit from your herbs?”
“They will,” I say. “And I don’t plan to neglect the rest. It’s just that…Forgive me. The newly ill may be wretched, but they’re closer to the land of the living than the rest of us. I’d like to be near that, to have a little bit of hope.” It’s a reason I concoct on the spot, but it’s not a lie.
Jesmin’s brows furrow. “There’s not much hope in the front room, I’m afraid. The patients brought in are greatly weakened from their time exposed to the elements. The lucky ones emerge rosemarked. We haven’t had anyone recover completely in years.”
“Still, a little hope is better than none,” I say. “And perhaps I can ease the suffering of the rest.”
He considers my words, and nods. “Very well, then. The choice is yours.”
I trail Zivah at a distance as the soldier leads her to the rosemarked compound, squinting into the sun and trying not to stir up too much sand as I follow. Once she’s through the gates, I turn back. I can’t help her once she’s inside those walls, and I need to be where the crows can find me.
I rest for the first half day, close enough to Sehmar to see it, but far enough so the gate guards are just dots by the wall. I’m twitchy, so close to the capital, and every glimpse of its walls puts an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Slicewing flies back and forth over the hills, and now that I’m alone, worries about the mission start crowding into my head. I can take care of myself out here—as long as I keep my wits about me. But between the flashbacks and the potions, my wits aren’t exactly reliable. There’s nothing to do for it though, except remember to take my potions and stay out of sight.
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