Tormina: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

  “What are you doing?” Beckah hissed.

  “Quiet. The cloak will help conceal us.”

  Sam looked out from under the hood. Where they stood had enough shadows that she thought they might go unnoticed. At least here, she could look out over the ward and see exactly what it was that Alec was experiencing.

  It took a moment for her to find him. He stood in the middle of the room next to a row of beds. A dozen—maybe more—people were arranged around him, and they were asking question after question of him.

  “Is this the testing?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen a testing before. I thought it was only questions, and was surprised that they brought him down to the ward,” Beckah whispered.

  They were too far away for Sam to easily hear. She started forward, pulling Beckah with her. Beckah tried to resist, but Sam shoved her along, not letting her slow her down.

  Thankfully, everyone’s attention seemed to be focused on the center of the room—and on Alec.

  When they were closer, Sam ducked down, getting beneath one of the cots. From here, she could listen. She wasn’t able to necessarily see everything, but if she could hear the voices, she was hopeful she could identify which one was the man that had captured her.

  “Tell me, Mr. Stross, what do you know of this person?”

  It was a woman’s voice.

  “This was a glandular issue. I simply made a few suggestions in the record.”

  “You made some suggestions?”

  Sam couldn’t tell who spoke, but there was definitely irritation in the voice. It seemed to come from someone near Alec, and she risked poking her head up to see. When she did, she identified Master Carl immediately. He was enormous, and he stood exactly as Alec had described, with his hands clasped behind his back, his belly thrust forward. He glared at Alec, but there was an almost eager expression on his face.

  Sam dropped back down.

  “I made some suggestions. They were treating this as an infection when it’s clearly glandular.”

  “What made you think that it was glandular?” This was from the woman again.

  Sam poked her head up, recognizing the voice. It was Master Helen. Her hair was done up as primly as it always was, and she stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her lips pursed, and she questioned Alec.

  “I have seen glandular illnesses before. It’s the protrusion of the eyes. There is a sheen of sweat over the body. There is the swelling in the neck. If you listen to her heart, you will hear a rapid heart rate as well.”

  “That could be dehydration,” another voice said.

  “It’s not simply dehydration, not in combination with the other symptoms the woman presents.”

  Sam was proud of Alec. He was confident in his knowledge. That didn’t surprise her. She had seen that confidence before, but she wasn’t sure how he would react to being tested in this manner. Hearing him gave her hope that he might succeed. If he could manage to withstand the questioning, she was optimistic that he might be able to prove himself worthy of promotion to physicker.

  And while he was being tested, she needed to complete her task.

  She motioned to Beckah, indicating that she should stay near the cot. At least where she was, she was hidden and didn’t risk discovery. Sam needed to creep around and see if she could get close enough to hear better.

  She moved silently, trying to use every bit of her training as a thief. Never had the stakes been quite like this. Never had she needed to move around so many people who could catch her. And if they did? What would the consequences be?

  Likely severe. There would be Scribes among these master physickers, and they would get word back to Elaine, and then what? What would Elaine do to her?

  Sam didn’t want to think about it.

  “What of this one?” she heard. They had moved on, switching places, now standing before a different cot and a different person.

  Sam struggled forward, trying to see if there was any way to inch even closer. All she needed was some way to get close enough to see—and hear—who was testing Alec. So far, she was certain that it wasn’t Master Carl. With the irritation he displayed toward Alec, she thought she would have recognized that tone used on her, and she hadn’t. That meant there was someone else at the university not in attendance today. There had to be.

  She had to find him.

  “This is a more basic infection,” Alec was saying. “With the fever and the rapid heart rate, as well as the cough, I suspected a lung infection, and would treat with…”

  Sam moved, less concerned about trying to listen when Alec was doing the talking.

  “That is an interesting choice,” someone said. This was a woman, and though she had a deep voice, it wasn’t the same person that had held Sam captive. “Typically, one might try pastin oil for such an infection.”

  “You certainly could, but when I studied under my father, we found that oil was difficult, and often times quite a bit more costly than using something that was less expensive. Less expensive doesn’t necessarily mean it’s less effective, from what I have observed.”

  “No,” Master Helen said. “But there is something to be said about the perception of value.”

  “I think the perception of value is only critical if you think people doubt the master physickers are capable,” Alec said.

  Sam popped her head up, looking for Alec, tempted to try to catch his eye, but now she was blocked by the line of master physickers.

  If this started early this morning, and he was still going at it, how many questions was he subjected to? He seemed to give good answers, and she suspected that they had to believe he knew what he was talking about, especially considering what he’d told her about the junior physickers, and that few of them seemed to know everything. They relied on the master physickers to guide them still.

  “Next,” came a deep, rumbling voice. This was from a bearded man, and he was solid, muscular, but didn’t seem to have the same tenor to his voice as the man who’d held her.

  “This was a complicated fracture,” Alec said. “There would be several options for treating this, but I think that setting the bone and giving it time would be the best option.”

  “What other options would you consider?”

  Sam couldn’t tell who was talking. The voice was soft, but it didn’t sound quite right. How many had she heard speaking? Maybe half a dozen. Still, none of their voices were familiar. She had to find Marin’s Scribe.

  “There would be a surgical option, but it would be difficult and would raise the risk of ongoing infection.”

  “Some would argue that with the nature of this injury, an infection is all but guaranteed,” someone said. Another soft voice. A woman. Sam looked around and spotted a very slight woman. She had thick glasses and a drab dress that hung all the way to the floor. Surprisingly, a flower was tucked behind her ear.

  “That’s true,” Alec said. “An injury like this, especially when the bone pierces the skin, is often infected. It’s good that this person was brought to the university in time to be treated. There are a variety of compounds that all would help reduce the likelihood of infection, but of greatest importance is splinting in such a way that there is no long-term deficit.”

  “And how would you splint this?”

  “Strips of cloth caked in hardened sand is often used, but even that would not necessarily be critical. You could use any one of the pre-formed metal splints, wrapping it with cloth. At least that was what we used to do when splinting this kind of injury.”

  “Archaic,” Master Carl said.

  Alec looked over to him. “Not archaic. The metal was easy to clean and unlikely to contribute to infection. The cloth could be steamed to ensure cleanliness, adding to the process, and limiting the likelihood of infection.”

  “Very good,” someone said.

  Sam poked her head up. There was something about that voice that was familiar.

  She saw a man with bushy eyebrows a
nd a slight smile to his face. No. That man seemed too happy. It was almost as if he beamed at Alec, as if approving that he had come for testing. Whoever had abducted her would have been upset by him doing this.

  “Moving on,” she heard. It was Master Carl again.

  Alec coughed. Sam poked her head up and could see his face flushing. He was uncomfortable, but why?

  “This one is a little more challenging. I had asked Master Carl about his presenting symptoms, but he did not reveal anything.”

  The others in the room all turned to Master Carl, and he only shrugged. “If he wants to be a physicker—even a junior physicker—then he needs to make a diagnosis based on the facts available to him.”

  “And if the facts included a presenting complaint?” Master Helen asked.

  “That’s not always the case.”

  “But in this case, it was.” She turned to Alec and thrust a notebook into his hands. Alec flipped it open and scanned the pages, nodding to himself. He removed the sheet covering the man and shifted the gown to perform a visual assessment. “Yes. It appears he came in with shoulder pain and was dosed with a sedative.”

  He started listening, leaning his head down to the man’s chest, before shifting to listen to his lungs and then to his stomach. He moved again and pressed on the man’s stomach. The man moaned.

  Alec leaned over the cot and traced his fingers over something on the man’s stomach.

  What was it that he observed?

  Sam wished she had a better view, wishing there was a vantage from where she could see exactly what Alec saw, but doing so would only put her in view of the master physickers, and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself and distract from Alec’s testing. If she were caught, and if it disrupted his testing, she worried it would cause more problems for him.

  “The shoulder pain could be referred from the stomach,” Alec was saying.

  “And I have told you that such a referred pain as you call it is unlikely. This is most likely an infection in this man’s shoulder. We found a puncture wound on the skin of his back near the shoulder,” Master Carl said.

  “There might’ve been a puncture, but I suspect that was misleading,” Alec said. “This would be an abdominal source. You see this bluish discoloration on his belly?” Alec asked. He grunted as he attempted to twist the man. “And the bruising along his flanks. This all signifies a fairly severe infection in one of his upper abdominal organs. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done for such an infection.”

  Alec’s voice trailed off toward the end, and Sam could tell that admitting that bothered him. If Alec had his way, he would use easar paper to heal as many people as possible, but there was a limit to its availability, so there was a limit to how many could be helped.

  “Those weren’t evident when he presented,” Master Carl said. “It’s likely from the aggressive palpation of the junior physickers. And he has improved.”

  Alec tapped something on the notebook. “I don’t know that he’s improved, only stabilized. It has been my experience—”

  “Your experience as an apothecary? Or your experience as a student at the university?” Master Carl asked with a sneer. “If it’s the latter, you have very little experience. You have not been here long enough to gain the adequate experience, which was why your requesting this testing makes this entire day a farce.”

  Sam watched as Alec controlled his breathing. “My experience as an apothecary has placed me in a great many situations where I get to observe the body’s response to treatment. Unfortunately, there are far too many times when treatment fails. This is one of them.”

  Sam started to move, shifting around to improve her view, when she felt a hand across her mouth.

  She tried to bite, tried to kick, but someone held her tightly and dragged her from the room. She shook her head, trying to twist away, but the person who held her did so with much more strength than she had, at least without augmentation. She was dragged from the healing ward, and out into a hallway, away from Alec and Beckah.

  The person carried her down a set of stairs and then into darkness. A door opened and she was thrown inside.

  “What do we have here?”

  The voice was familiar. This was Marin’s Scribe.

  He must’ve seen her.

  “It seems as if your Scribe is distracted at the moment. I doubt there will be any escape this time.”

  Sam shivered.

  “And now, you will help me find her.”

  29

  Recapture

  A lantern flicked on, and Sam craned her neck to see the master physicker with the bushy eyebrows staring at her. The playfulness to his expression was gone. Now, he glared at her with a hard-eyed stare, his mouth pressed together in a tight line.

  She was in an otherwise empty room. She suspected he had brought her deep into the university, far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to make enough noise to draw anyone’s attention. Her only hope was that Alec would realize she had been there—and was now missing. Would Beckah be able to help?

  First, she would have to want to help, and Sam wasn’t sure that she would.

  “Who are you?”

  “I think we’ve already discovered our roles.”

  “No. Who are you here?”

  “Here?” He raised his hands and smiled. It was strange the way that his features shifted, the edge disappearing, replaced by something that almost appeared happy. Were it not for the darkness on his face only moments before, it would’ve been believable. “Here I am known as Master Jessup. Your Scribe has confided in me far more than I expected. I’ll admit that he was easy to manipulate into such a daring request. I thought it would be more difficult to get him expelled from the university. Then again, I thought it would be more difficult to capture you, especially after you escaped from me the first time.”

  “Even if Alec is expelled, he will still continue his training.”

  “Perhaps, but he will do so without any formalized education about what it means to be a Scribe. And he will do so without his Kaver.”

  “Why do you think that I know where Marin is?” Sam asked. She needed to buy time. Every minute that passed was one minute closer to his testing being over. One minute closer to Beckah telling him she’d been there but had disappeared. She needed to believe Beckah would want to help her. Hadn’t she risked herself by coming across to the palace?

  “I was there when you defeated her. I know that Trayson carried her away, and I know that he must’ve done so under your direction.”

  “I can take you to Tray,” Sam said.

  “Oh, I know you can—and will,” he said.

  “What’s your intention with Tray?”

  “My intention? I will let Marin decide what happens with him.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Who? She would have some believe that he’s her son, but…” The man grinned, shaking his head. “As it no longer matters that you know, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to share with you that he is not Marin’s son.”

  Sam swallowed. If he wasn’t Marin’s son, then she had continued to deceive Sam. How deep did Marin’s deception go? What would be the point of raising her with one lie—that Tray was her brother—and then presenting yet another lie, calling him her own son?

  “No? Then who is he related to?”

  “You already know that he is part Theln.”

  “That would be obvious just taking one look at him,” Sam said.

  “It’s the other part that is less obvious, isn’t it? It’s seeing the Anders in him that makes it more challenging.”

  Anders? If true, that meant that Tray was related to one of the royal family. But did she dare believe this man? Why would he tell her this? How could it even be true?

  But then, it would make sense why Elaine was so intent on finding him now. It would make sense that she had pursued him the way that she did. And it would make sense why Ralun wanted him.

  Not because he was part Kaver
and part Theln, but because he was related to the royal family—and part Theln.

  That made far more sense than any other information she had been given about her brother.

  “I know someone who might have information about him.”

  “You know someone? I’m afraid that is of little value to me. Now, on the other hand, if you knew where to find him…”

  If only she did.

  Where was Alec?

  She needed to get free of here, and she needed to get an augmentation, but since Alec likely presumed she was at the university, watching his testing, he’d have no reason to think she was in any danger.

  She jerked at her bindings, trying to get herself free, but they were tight, even tighter than they had been the last time he had bound her, confining her to a chair.

  He grinned at her, darkness on his face. “Marin will be most pleased that I managed to capture you.”

  “Marin the deceiver?”

  “You know so little,” he said.

  “I know that you have betrayed the Scribes. I know that you have betrayed those who you vowed to work with. I think that’s enough.”

  “No,” he said. “What you know is only the edge of the truth. You know only that the Kavers and the Scribes have battled with the Thelns, but you know nothing about that battle, nothing about the history behind it, and you know nothing about the reason that we are isolated here, hidden away from the rest of the world, only those with permission granted access to the city. Have you ever thought to question?”

  Sam stared at him. She hated that he was making sense, but she couldn’t deny that there was something to what he was saying. The city was isolated, and she didn’t know anything about why the Kavers and the Thelns were at war. Of all the things she had learned from Elaine so far, that was not one of them.

  “What is it? Why are they at war?”

  “It might be too bad that you won’t live to have that question answered.”

  She jerked on her restraints again, trying to loosen them. Could Alec get free and place an augmentation?

  But he couldn’t. They hadn’t drawn any blood from each other in days, possibly even longer. Even if he discovered that she was missing, there was nothing he could do to help her. She was truly trapped.