Rosemarked

by Livia Blackburne

  “They’re not going to leave us up here forever, are they?” I tug desperately at the rope around my hands and go faint with relief when they start to loosen. It takes a bit of finessing, but eventually I work my way out. Naudar’s not far behind, and we clamber down the side of the building. A commandeered oilcloth from an unattended booth restores some of our dignity, and we run as fast as we can back to the palace. We were supposed to be in the training fields at dawn.

  At the barracks, we find our clothes folded neatly on our cots. But try as we might, we can’t scrub the markings from our skin.

  “It’s no use,” moans Naudar. “We just have to go train like this.”

  Arxa, to his credit, doesn’t crack the barest hint of a smile when he sees. He just takes one long look at us and waves us in. “Ten-man formations,” he says.

  Walgash is the first to greet us as we stumble onto the field. “Fun time last night?”

  His grin only widens at our stony glances.

  “Oh, come on, don’t be so glum. When I first joined, the old-timers rolled me down a hill in a barrel. At least you came out without bumps and bruises. And really, they did you a favor. What young woman of the city will resist you after that display?” He tugs on his beard. “Though I suppose the chilly morning did you no favors.”

  Naudar makes a sound like a choking cat. I give an incoherent groan. And we shuffle into place to do our drills.

  I try not to laugh when I see Dineas, I really do. He’s so embarrassed standing in the examination room with markings all over his face and arms that it seems cruel to prolong his misery. My lips twitch, and I turn my head. But a chuckle escapes, and from there it’s a lost cause.

  “I’m so sorry,” I choke out between gasps. “I really do feel bad for you.”

  Dineas gives a martyr’s sigh. “I suppose I should be used to it by now.”

  I step in for a closer look. I can’t tell what kind of dye his fellow soldiers used, but it has a while to go before it disappears. A surprisingly artistic sketch of a well-endowed woman disappears beneath the sleeve of his tunic.

  I gesture toward his torso. “I’m curious…”

  He pulls his tunic over his head. “The rest of Sehmar’s seen it. You might as well too.”

  “Ampara’s finest,” I read. I force the corners of my lips down. “Let me see if I have anything that might take it off quicker.”

  I rummage through my drawers and settle on a root soap that I rub onto a rag. I take a firm grip on his arm and start scrubbing at the woman’s legs. He flexes his bicep at my touch, and I smack his shoulder.

  “Stop showing off. I’m just here to clean.”

  “Walgash says I might have more luck with the maidens after this. Think he’s right?”

  “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask them.”

  “You’re a maiden.”

  “I’m a healer.”

  “Are healers always so hard to impress?”

  “You’re not dying of fever, you’re not oozing blood or pus, and you’re not jaundiced. So yes, I’m pleased with how you look today.” Despite my words, my gaze drifts over the rest of him. The past weeks of good food and exercise have filled out and defined the muscles of his chest and shoulders quite nicely. It’s hard to ignore.

  He sees me looking, and the edge of his mouth quirks up. I quickly redirect my gaze to a bruise on his stomach. “How did you get that?”

  “Spear butt to the ribs.” The pure delight in his smile makes me think he didn’t quite buy my change of subject.

  I cluck my tongue. “Seems you have some new injury every time you come in.”

  “Ah, but you should see my sparring partners.”

  You could almost say we’re flirting. The thought strikes me mid-scrub and I turn away for a moment. I fold up the rag and take it to the water basin for a chance to gather my thoughts. No, it’s just friendly banter. Though it would do no harm to change the topic, or things will get uncomfortable when the other Dineas comes back.

  “The soap doesn’t seem to be working,” I tell him. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait until the dye wears off on its own. But shall we start with your treatment for today?”

  He pulls his tunic on as I fetch his potion, but just then I hear yells from the window. There’s someone weeping outside—no, weeping is too weak a word. These are harsh, desperate sobs, the sound of someone whose sorrow threatens to strangle them.

  I look at Dineas, and then we both run out the door.

  We follow the sounds to the compound gates, where a small crowd has already gathered. As we come closer, a rosemarked woman glances at Dineas with distaste. “What are you doing here, umbertouched? Come to gloat over your good fortune?”

  Dineas looks at her in shock. Before he can react, I take his hand and pull him around the edge of the crowd. “Don’t listen to her,” I say. “She’s just one bitter woman.” Though the glares from others around us belie my words.

  Finally, we get close enough to see through the gate. There’s a parade outside led by two women in dark flowing gowns. They carry bowls of incense, and their cheeks are streaked with soot. I know enough about Amparan gods to recognize them as priestesses of Zenagua, the goddess of death. Both these priestesses are umbertouched, and I wonder if a priestess of the goddess of death would consider it an honor or a snub from Zenagua to survive a bout of rose plague. Behind the priestesses are four umbertouched soldiers wearing cloaks of loosely woven red fabric, like plague veils dyed red. And marching under their guard are three rosemarked: two older men and a boy of perhaps eight. The boy’s plague veil is too big for him, and he gets tangled up in the cloth every few steps.

  The wailing comes from a woman trailing the procession. There’s a man holding her around her shoulders, and three children at her side. All of them wear coarse homespun robes covered in patches.

  As I watch, the woman lunges toward the condemned. “Who will feed him? Who will look after him?”

  Her husband grabs her around her waist, even as he himself stares after his son. The woman’s other children look terrified. The soldiers remain stone-faced, staring ahead as if the woman wasn’t there.

  My heart squeezes. This family’s certainly too poor to buy any help or protection for their son. The mother looks as if she would move into the colony herself if she could.

  I feel a touch on my elbow.

  “Can I help?” says Dineas, strain clear in his eyes as he watches the woman. “I can go speak with her.”

  His words bring me some relief. “Can you go out the gate and tell the woman we’ll look after her son?”

  The guards remove the condemned’s plague veils and wave them in after a cursory inspection. The boy walks in a daze I remember well from my first days after waking up rosemarked. He stumbles into the open space beyond the gate, looking uncertainly at the faces of illness around him. Some people look back with pity, while others simply walk away. I wonder how many scenes like this they’ve witnessed before, and how many it’s possible to see before becoming completely numb.

  I hurry toward the boy, and I see two other women doing the same. One I recognize as Estir, the woman who’d helped settle Marzban in the compound, but it’s the other woman who reaches the boy first. She’s older than Estir, almost matronly looking. She looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her until I notice her limp. And then my steps gain urgency.

  The older woman crouches in front of the boy and wipes tears from his face. “Come now, it will be all right.” She hands him some kind of sweet bun. “Fill your stomach and you’ll feel better.”

  “Don’t take Anahi’s food, boy,” says Estir, coming to stand next to them. “You go under her roof, you’ll be sold into slavery by the end of the week.”

  The boy jumps away from the older woman, who shakes her head in disappointment.

  “I find it sad that some will throw accusations so freely.” She addresses the boy. “That woman is the one who would harm you. You must be careful who you tru
st.”

  The boy has gone pale, and he clutches the sweet bun so tightly that it’s all but crushed in his hands. Not for the first time, I wonder how it was that I ended up in a place such as this.

  Finally, I reach them. “Leave him be,” I tell Anahi.

  For the first time, Anahi loses her grandmotherly glow. “You’re the commander’s pet healer, aren’t you? You’ll do better to stay in the hospital.”

  There’s real threat in her voice, and I wonder how many of her gang are here with her. I’m tempted to look around for Dineas, but I don’t dare show fear. “You don’t want a fight right now, Anahi. It would be too damaging for all involved. And don’t forget that you and yours will be in need of a healer’s help someday.”

  Anahi sneers. “You don’t take the gods seriously, if you’re a healer who would withhold her skill.”

  I give her an icy smile. “My Goddess commands me to heal, that’s true, but she doesn’t require me to make it comfortable for the patient.”

  Anahi glares at me, and I fight the urge to step back. She wouldn’t resort to force in the middle of the day, would she? But then she simply turns and walks away.

  I take in a shaky breath. “It’s all right,” I tell the terrified boy. “Estir’s people are honorable. You’ll be safe with them.”

  Estir offers a hand to the boy, looking more like a soldier greeting a comrade than a woman welcoming a child, but after a moment’s hesitation the boy takes it.

  “Thank you,” I tell Estir.

  “I only wish we could save all of them,” she replies.

  My pulse starts to quiet as Estir leads the boy away, but still I’m finding it hard to breathe. The mother’s cries echo in my head, and her raw grief wrings me dry. It makes no sense. I see illness all the time. Why should this boy affect me so much? But I’m shaking now, and I know that I must get out of this crowd. Lowering my head, I flee to the hospital, sweeping past the front rooms and ducking into a quiet corner where I bury my face in my hands. In my mind’s eye, I hear my own mother’s cries as I moved into my bamboo cottage. I see Alia and Leora clutch each other in their grief. I feel sobs building in my throat, and I hold my breath to keep them in.

  “Zivah?” Dineas steps around the corner.

  I hastily wipe my eyes. “Dineas, I’m sorry I abandoned you at the gate.”

  His eyes flit over my face. “I spoke to the mother. They mourn, but we’ve laid their worst worries to rest.” He steps cautiously closer. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just the usual business of the day tiring me out.”

  He frowns. “I may not have your healer’s senses, but I don’t need them when you’re in this state.”

  I avoid his eyes. “You’re very kind, but—”

  “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong. What kind of friend do you think I am?”

  “Friend” is not a word I’d expected to hear in Ampara. It unravels me, and I realize I don’t have the energy to put up more of a fight. “Something about that woman today. It made me think of my mother and my sisters.”

  “You miss them,” he says quietly.

  “Very much.” Saying the words somehow makes me feel it more deeply. I draw a breath and hold it when it hitches at the top.

  “Do you wish to go back to Dara?”

  Do I? “I don’t know. It’s not the same as it was before I was marked. The only place for me is on the outside, watching their lives from afar. Even if I were right there in Dara, I could never really go back to them.”

  I don’t know if I’ve ever said those thoughts out loud. They leave me feeling empty, and I let the words drift and settle around us.

  Dineas steps closer, and I feel his hands on my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” he says softly. Then he puts two fingers under my chin and tilts my head up, as I’ve done so many times to him when checking his pupils. It catches me off guard at first. The feel of someone’s skin against mine is rare enough, much less a touch given solely for comfort. I’d forgotten how much I missed it.

  “I wish I could do something,” Dineas says, his frustration plain in his voice. “But I can’t.”

  “It’s all right,” I say. “You’ve already done more than you know.”

  For a moment, we stand facing each other. I watch his chest rise and fall, and I’m aware of him, the smell of leather and root soap on his skin, the heat radiating off his arms.

  A jolt of realization hits me. I back away, perhaps a little too quickly, because his eyes widen slightly.

  I smile, trying to smooth over the moment. “Thank you, Dineas. You’re a good friend.”

  I’m not sure if I imagine the flash of disappointment in his eyes. “Of course,” he says. “As you are to me.”

  My hands feel awkward at my side, and I can’t quite look him in the eye. I clear my throat. “We haven’t done your treatment yet today. Shall we try again?”

  He’s slow to respond, but finally he nods. “Yes. Yes, we should.”

  I’m getting more used to the transition now, that feeling of memories washing back, realizing I’m more than what I thought, much more. That waterfall of understanding that paints my recent days in a different light.

  As usual, the first moments overwhelm me. All I can do is hold my head in my hands as the fragments of my life come together. I see Zivah sitting in the corner, her hands in her lap and her face tight with strain, but it’s one image among a thousand. Only after the flood slows down can I finally look at her.

  “Eventful day,” I say.

  She sweeps up her skirts and walks to the table. “Yes, it was.” I can’t tell if she’s avoiding my eyes on purpose, or if she’s holding herself more stiffly than usual. She’s probably embarrassed by her show of emotion this morning. I do feel bad for her, and I suppose it’s good that my other self cared enough to comfort her.

  I think back to the conversation, and my thoughts linger over the last few moments. The tense silence, her backing away. You’re a good friend, Dineas. A slight sting of rejection still lingers.

  Wait, were we…? No, I’m just imagining things. This is Zivah. Anything between us would just be too bizarre.

  “Are the crows around? I have things to report.”

  She puts on gloves, fetches me a pen and ink, and opens a window to whistle for the crows. As I watch her cross the room, I realize that I don’t notice her rosemarks nearly as much as I used to. Instead, I notice how large her eyes are, and the bow of her mouth. Gods, my mind is more muddled from the potion than I realized.

  I shake it off as the crows fly in. Slicewing struts back and forth just out of my reach, clicking her beak.

  “What’s wrong, crow?” And then I remember what happened at the Neju’s Guard trials. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  She ignores me.

  “Zivah, do you have bread for the birds?”

  She glances at me, confused, but fishes out some scraps from her apron pocket.

  “Thanks. And you should introduce me to the crows when my memory’s gone. Prevent any more confusion if they find me again.”

  Slicewing tries to ignore me, but she can’t resist the bread for long. Soon she’s on my shoulder again, and I turn my attention back to Zivah.

  “Things are moving faster with Neju’s Guard than expected,” I say. “We’re going on a mission next week, escorting Prince Kiran on a tour of the northern territories.”

  Zivah straightens. “North? Will you go to Monyar?”

  “No, we’ll stay south of the strait.” For that I’m extremely grateful. “I have a feeling this mission is part work and part training. Arxa’s eager to get us battle ready, and I’m guessing this is practice for something bigger. I’ll try to keep my eyes and ears open while I’m gone.”

  She nods. “Be safe on your journey.”

  I grin. “Try not to give the other me too warm of a send-off. Don’t want to give him the wrong message.”

  I meant nothing by it, but she stiffens. “I wouldn’t d
o that. It wouldn’t be right.”

  I put up my hands disarmingly. “Just joking.”

  “Don’t.”

  I whistle out of the corner of my mouth. “Prickly today?”

  She doesn’t respond, and I start to pen my report.

  One good thing comes out of seeing the rosemarked boy enter the compound. It spurs me to write Leora back. I’d read her letter countless times, but I’d resisted writing a reply. Somehow, I feared that doing so would undo the tourniquet I’d pulled tight around my thoughts and feelings about home. Tonight though, I’m ready.

  It’s not as hard as I fear. After the first few greetings, the words flow easily. Though Leora doesn’t know about my mission, there’s still plenty to describe. I tell her about Mehtap’s villa, the harp music that floats from her room every night and the passersby who linger outside her window to listen. I describe the rows of the sick inside Jesmin’s hospital, the constant scramble for clean blankets and bandages. I tell her about the screams I hear outside the villa walls at night, and how helpless it makes me feel. I even tell her about Dineas, though to Leora, he’s just a patient who was abandoned at the compound wall.

  Spending so much time with Dineas has made me think about the experiences that make us what we are. What would any of us be like without our past? If I could no longer remember my years growing up with you and Alia, if my training as a healer was erased, would I still be me? If I started a new life, made new friends, fell in love, decided to apprentice in farming instead of healing, which version of me would be real? Would it matter?

  I put down my pen and think of Dineas this morning, the one who chased me down and wouldn’t let me go until he knew why I was upset. The one who was frustrated that he couldn’t take away my pain. And I think of the other Dineas, the one who carries a shadow with him, whose remarks always have a caustic edge.

  And I wonder.

  Jesmin’s medical texts give me numerous new ideas for cures. Unfortunately, none of them are any more effective than the attempts I’d made in Dara, and their side effects are just as unpleasant. Several times, I get sick at the hospital and have to duck into a back room to lie down or run out the back to be ill.