by Celia Lake
"Talking to Harry." She said it quietly, for his ears only. "He said the Brigadier had been here a bit, and he wasn't sure why."
"Asking why I'm not able to do the dog and pony show three times a day. I did not care for him."
Nurse Morris blinked at him, and then made a curious sound that he realised a beat later was a strangled giggle. "I didn't either. Not at all. He loomed."
It was not a bad word. Roland felt like a rag that had been soaked and wrung out, and he was suddenly very glad he was not alone with that feeling.
Chapter 10
Friday, April 9th, on the wards
Elen did not get a chance to discuss the outing with Major Gospatrick. Nor did she get a chance for another one as soon as she’d hoped.
The morning after their outing, there was an influx of new patients. Despite the fact she had been told she was assigned solely to Major Gospatrick’s needs, one of the Healers came by and crossly demanded she come and assist.
There was no getting out of it. She was swept up into the maelstrom, trying to get the patients settled. And of course, ducking the glares from other nurses, when she didn’t know where something was, or the current techniques for fresh injuries.
No one told her anything, of course, that would be far too easy. But she was able to piece things together, a bit. There were new injuries, ones that no one could make much sense out of, some sort of magic, or some sort of chemical. Men had died in the casualty clearing stations and field hospitals, and others had awful burns to their skin, blinding injuries, all manner of things. Quite different from her Major, she realised, whatever else there was.
The flurry of activity not only kept her busy, but it took her into wards she wasn’t remotely familiar with. They had cleared out one of the buildings that was normally used for contagious illness quarantine. The orderlies and cleaners were going through with bleach and mops and charms to make sure everything was spotless.
The housekeeping staff followed with carts of blindingly white bedlinens. Behind them came the squeak of the gurneys, and the slow thumping of those men who could walk with the aid of cane or crutch.
The nurses who had largely accompanied them wore uniforms that Elen was not entirely familiar with and had to take a moment to place. Not nursing uniforms of the kind she knew, but rather pinafores over a dark dress. Voluntary Aid Detachments, then. She’d not had a chance to work with any of them previously, not more than very briefly in passing, before she’d been injured herself. Posh women, mostly. Like Major Gospatrick. She could hear it in their voices.
“Sister, pardon.”
One of them was at her elbow. The woman who had caught her arm was perhaps a little younger, right around thirty, with the sharp and somewhat horsy features of one of the well-bred families.
“Yes?” She turned. Sister wasn’t precisely the right term for her, but it wasn’t completely wrong, either.
“Can you show me where we can get clean things? These men, it’s been a very long trip for them. Towels, clean clothing for them.”
Elen shook her head. “I don’t know what they have.” Then she straightened. “How many?”
The woman peered at her, and said, “Eighty. Twenty officers, sixty men. Are you new here?”
“Fairly, yes. But I know who to ask. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Elen went off, at a sharp pace, dodging through the hallways. Then she could cut down the back stair, and down to the front of the ward, and the nurses’ lounge. There were several senior nurses in there, talking in undertones.
“Pardon, Sisters.” She cleared her throat. “Therapeutes Morris, helping out for the moment. One of the V.A.D.s asked if there are clean pyjamas and towels and such for the men coming in.”
The three of them turned as one, and the second, a sister had never seen before, peered at her over wire-rimmed glasses. “Morris.” She said it as if she’d already heard half a dozen things, not to Elen’s credit. “Which V.A.D.?”
Elen considered. “I didn’t get a name, Sister. About thirty, dark hair, looked like one of the First Families, a country sort?”
“Huh.” There was a little hum of the three sisters, the eldest nodded. “Come along. Where are you normally assigned?”
“Major Gospatrick, Sister, in Ward A. I’ve not been here long, though I apprenticed here.”
“So if I send you to the laundries, you’ll know where to go.”
She bobbed her head. “Yes, Sister.”
“Go find the V.A.D. who asked you, and show her where the laundries are. You may need to wait, but they’ll be finishing linens and a start on clean clothing for our new patients. Get the things back, and then you can go back to your duties.”
Elen bobbed again. “Yes, Sister.”
There was an expectant pause, as Elen turned to go, then the voice came behind her. “If your patient does not need you, come find me, I can give you a few tasks to help settle yourself in.”
Elen turned back, a little startled. The eldest sister gestured at her throat, and the small charm, then at the one at her own throat with a pendant of a male face surrounded by the rays of the sun. “Blessings of Apollo Grannus on your work, Sister. Ask for Sister Pomona if you’ve time.” She knew the imagery. He was often connected with her own beloved Sirona.
It earned her a sharp nod. “Go on. Plenty to be doing.” While brisk, though, it felt like a companionship, rather than Sister Almeda’s sharpness. There had not been much camaraderie for her, shut away in the corner with the Major, and the offer felt like sunlight and fresh water.
Part of her wanted to turn back and ask more, talk more, not be so alone, but the nurses had turned back to their conversation already. Elen turned and walked briskly back to the ward, looking around to find the V.A.D. who’d asked her earlier.
She was in one corner, helping someone move a bed, to a better location. “Miss? Sister asked if you’d come with me to the laundry. We can get the towels and some clean clothes there. If you come with me, then someone on this ward will know how to get there.”
The V.A.D. looked up. “Oh. Me? Are you sure?”
Elen shrugged. She didn’t particularly care, but she had her orders. “That’s what Sister said. This way?” She gestured with her chin. “I’m Therapeutes Elen Morris.”
“Aemilia Patrick-Lynes.” The ‘Patrick’, so similar to Roland’s last name, caught her for a moment, but it wasn’t that close, even at first glance. A posh family, though, clearly, with a double-barrelled name. Her mum had always thought that a sign to mind your ps and qs and several other letters. Elen at least felt she had the upper hand here, in knowing the layout.
Elen nodded, and gestured with her left hand. “This way, then. The laundries are out past the back wall, I’ll show you the fastest way there.”
They went along at a good clip, dodging past people in the hallways, helping get things ready. It wasn’t until they’d gotten downstairs and nearly to the back covered walkways that Elen could say anything. She turned into the covered hall that divided the temple proper from the essential but somewhat less obviously sacred spaces like the laundries and warehouses. “How many are coming in in all, do you know?”
“A hundred and fifty on the train arriving this afternoon. Another train in a few days, most likely.” Miss Patrick-Lynes was keeping up with her, the nurse’s pace that covered ground quickly, but was agile enough to stop suddenly if they came upon a patient. “Have you been here long?”
“I trained here, my apprenticeship, but I’ve been elsewhere. I was reassigned here two weeks ago. Long-term care.”
“Is that your specialty?” Oh, she was a talker. Not that Elen minded, it might get her a bit more information, if she could figure out how to ask.
“Yes, I’m dedicated to Sirona. Long-term care and rehabilitation.”
“Ah.” There was a sort of wistfulness to her voice. “You’re lucky, knowing what you want to do, to focus on. We have to do - well. A bit of everything. But you’re not at th
e front.”
That was rather more delicate. “I was, but I was hurt, and they sent me back here. I can be quite a bit of use, of course. You?”
“They didn’t let us close to the front. Just seeing to the canteen and rolling bandages, and such, until they needed extra hands for the train back. They’ve treated most of these men, best they could, but they need people seeing to them, don’t they?” It was a rather earnest question.
“They do, and good nursing takes time. Changing a dressing properly takes a bit, or helping a man walk to the end of the room, or write a letter. The way I was trained, that’s as much a part of recovery as the Healers.”
The other woman was silent for a dozen steps, then Elen gestured. “Here, see the sign here, this is the way to the laundry. Storehouses that way, they’re labelled by what they have, there’ll be a clerk to help you.”
“What sorts of things are in the stores?”
“Start with the laundry for linens and pyjamas and such. But if there are specific things needed, pitchers or tea canisters for the ward, vases, that sort of thing, the store rooms have it. Mostly, I suspect you’ll want the bandages - that’s the green storehouse - or items for the wards, those are in the yellow one.”
“Green for bandages, yellow for ward supplies. Where are potions and such?”
“From the ward sister, they go through her inventory lists.”
Elen glanced up, to catch a sharp look from Miss Patrick-Lynes, as if she knew something Elen didn’t. Something about the nursing hierarchy that Elen had missed, perhaps. But then they were at the laundry. There were a good five minutes of figuring out what was needed right away, and what would be needed in a few hours. The laundry supervisor piled things on carts, and grabbed orderlies to help bring them up.
They found themselves parading along back to the ward with three full carts of supplies. When they got back, Elen coughed. “I should get back to my ward. I hope everything goes well with the transfers.”
Miss Patrick-Lynes nodded once, precisely. “Perhaps I will see you again, Nurse Morris.” It was not a dismissal, but there was a quality Elen couldn’t place, something that felt out of place.
Elen managed a smile and added, “Blessings of Sirona, and all the healers,” and fled back to her own ward. She did not understand it, precisely, but at least she knew what her role was there.
Chapter 11
Friday evening, Roland’s room
Roland didn’t remember when he’d nodded off. Sometime before supper, he guessed, as he jerked awake, muzzy with sleep, and not sure what had woken him.
The first thing he realised was that the room was nearly dark, lit only by the bedside lamp. For a long moment, he thought he was alone, he couldn’t see Elen or even her shadow.
Then he heard a gasp, from somewhere to his left, and he shifted, peering. The second thing he realised was that Elen was pressed tightly into the corner. Her hands were down against her thighs, as if she’d been willing herself to become one with the wall. Her breathing was shallow, he could hear it and see the way her shoulders were jerking.
Her chair had been pushed back by the wall against the window, almost a barrier between her and the rest of the room.
“Nur- Elen?” His voice cracked, as he spoke, and he couldn’t make sense of that.
There was a shudder, then she straightened herself, in what he recognised had to be a tremendous force of will. “Major.”
“Are you all right?” He suddenly was terrified that she wasn’t. That it would be like one of the men in the King’s Bays. He was a man Roland had only nodded to in passing. He had looked fine, no injury to be seen. Then he’d died in Roland’s arms, of a bullet wound that had been entirely hidden until they moved him. She had that same look, like those moments, the paleness and the stillness. Like some part of her knew any movement would be fatal.
She let out a shaky breath. “Are you?”
It came at him like a challenge, with a sharpness he didn’t expect from her. Certainly not in this moment. He almost replied before he thought, wanting to defend himself, then he stopped. “Should I not be?”
Elen jerked her head, a tiny shake, a negative.
He tried again. “What happened?”
She gestured with one hand, and he could see the trembling, now, the shift of the light against her hand. She pointed at the table on the far wall. He blinked at her, then at the table, and he couldn’t quite see. Something about the shape was different. Then she pointed at the chair. It was different than the usual, and he remembered they’d taken her padded chair for cleaning. He could see something on the seat, a shadow or a blotch.
“You’ll have to help me. Please. What happened?”
There was another one of those uneven breaths, near a sob, something he’d never heard from her. “You - you were asleep, Major. And then something... You did something.” Finally, she pushed herself away from the wall, and walked over to the far table. She picked an object up in her hands, and turned back toward him.
It was the metal pitcher, or what had been a pitcher. Now, the metal was collapsed, twisted in upon itself, into a ball that had rested on a frail flat edge. It was as if some tremendous force had taken it up in a massive hand, and crushed it, as simply as he might crumple a piece of paper.
“May I?” Roland held out his hands to her.
Elen placed the metal in his hands, and he could feel a decided warmth to it, though perhaps fading. Roland turned it, one way, then the other, peering at the shadows in the lamplight. Everything was bent inwards.
Elen had moved to do something with the chair, he wasn’t paying attention to that, until she let out a sudden squeak, and backed up several steps. She had moved it, pulling it back into place, and it had near enough split in half, as if it had been barely held together by splinters. As he watched, it tottered, and one half fell over, leaning against the wall, as Elen grabbed the other.
Roland set the twisted metal in his hand on the bed, and then asked, “I did that?”
Elen was wide-eyed, and she was barely breathing. He could see the little jerks of her shoulders at each breath. Then she nodded. “You.” Her voice was a harsh whisper. “Your magic.”
He took a breath, then risked a deeper one, before saying, as carefully as he could, “I’m awake now. It doesn’t happen when I’m awake.”
She blinked at him, but she didn’t move. At least she wasn’t fleeing out the door. Roland looked around, desperate to find some solution for the moment. “Will you trust me? Lean the chair, and sit on the end of the bed?”
It was forbidden to nurses, he suspected, the way her head turned, as if she’d been ignoring the fact the bed was there. Slowly, though, she moved, leaning the other half of the wooden chair against the wall. Then she perched on the bed, her feet braced on the floor right under her, as if she were a hare ready to spring away at the slightest hint of danger.
Roland swallowed. He desperately wanted a glass of water, but the pitcher was a ball of metal. And Elen certainly didn’t want to come any closer to him than she had to. So he let out the breath he’d been holding. “I am sorry I scared you.”
It didn’t help much, but he hadn’t expected it to. And on the other hand, apologising for something he had no control over, that happened only when he was a particular kind of exhausted, seemed wrong, too. But he was sorry she was scared. He had done the thing that scared her, and she was sensible to be scared.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just looked at him. Then, carefully, as if the sound were as fragile as the chair, she nodded. “What do you know about it?”
Roland had to look away for a moment. He could have stood her yelling or crying or screaming much more readily than the way she looked. It was as if she had been betrayed, or had the rug yanked out from under her feet.
“When I have been upset...” Once he began, it poured out of him. “When I do one of the presentations. Or today, with the Brigadier, I assume. It - something feels wrong. Jagged, u
neven, unstable. And it’s happened before, that I’ve done things like that. It’s why other nurses left.”
He heard her inhale, and then she let out the breath, slowly, almost inaudibly. “Have you hurt anyone?”
Roland swallowed. “I - don’t know. I don’t know if they’d tell me. I’m sorry, you must be so scared. I understand if you want to leave.” He fully expected her to nod, that sharp little nod, and walk out, close the door. For the orderlies to come back with a dose that would leave him senseless for a day or more.
Elen hesitated, then nodded. “It’s not uncommon, with younger people, who are ill. Especially those right around the age to make the Pact. That the magic comes pouring out. Yours is a tad different, but - the same sort of thing.” She tapped her thumb on her leg, a nervous tic. “Your evening potion?”
He blinked at her, at the end of the bed. “I assume it’s meant to help that. Stop that, rather.” He moved his hands, to resettle in the bed sitting up. He wasn’t sure what to do, what he could offer. She wasn’t leaving, she was still perched there.
“You don’t like taking it, though.” She was puzzling through something, he was sure now.
“I don’t. It makes me feel awful. Why?” He wanted to work up the energy to be irritated, but being irritated at her was wrong, and the people he wanted to be upset at, throw things at, weren’t coming near him.
“What sort of awful?” She was working through something, not that she was explaining herself.
“Muzzy headed, stupid, clumsy, not myself.” He waved a hand. “I can’t explain it better.”
She let out another breath, more of a sigh this time, but dropped that line of questioning. “Right. Let me get a cloth so you can wash up a little. I’ll figure out a way to sneak the pitcher and the chair out. Somehow.”
They both looked at the window at the same time, having had the same thought. They were on the ground floor, he suspected there was a bush outside. Then she grinned, her teeth flashing. “I can probably drop it behind the bush. See if I can liberate something more comfortable to sit on from the nurse’s lounge.”
