Carry On

by Celia Lake

  Not only was the Mars cabinet locked, but she could get no leverage with the first lockpick she tried, or the second. There was something slippery about the pins, like they kept twisting out of her reach. Logic told her they were solid metal, and couldn’t do that, but her fingers were sure there was something else going on. After two minutes she stopped, and took a breath.

  Forcing something never helped. She’d learned that long ago in school, in training, even aside from Uncle Dewi. Instead, she stood, cupped her hands, and under her breath, terrified the noise would carry, she gave her heart to the petition.

  “Blessed Sirona, Long-lived Sirona, Star-kissed Sirona, you who hold the tools of healing and renewal, bless me in my work, guide my hands. I seek only to know what my patient, Roland, needs, fearing I may do him harm without this knowledge. He is a good man, a steadfast man, a man who thinks of service and loyalty and duty. Gift me with the knowledge I need, that I may guide his healing.”

  Her breath went out of her in a whoosh, and then she felt a rush of something. It was like the beating of wings, or a burst of wind, twining around her, ruffling her hair and her skirts, before it faded. The picks in her hand felt different now, a faint tingling of some presence or charm. She didn’t know whether to call it power or magic or blessing, but she couldn’t deny it was there.

  There was nothing for it but to try the lock again. This time, the slipperiness eased, when she used the pick that was vibrating most strongly. She felt the pins fall into place, then she could turn the lock, and open the drawer. Inside were file after file, and they were blessedly in alphabetical order. Roland’s was about a third of the way back, and she pulled it out, setting it on the desk as she checked the time again. Ten minutes to read, before she had to put everything back as it was.

  The file was too thick to read in detail, but she opened it, praying for a summary sheet or something of the kind. On the top of the file, there was a brief record. She pulled out her notebook, scribbling down the information. It included his vitals when he was admitted. Finally, the expected scoring of the questions asked to see if he were aware of where he was, who he was, what was going on.

  His scores had been quite poor, similar to someone who had suffered a traumatic injury or a high fever. The notes mentioned he said things that didn’t make sense, That had to be febrile hallucinations, she’d have to look at the reports to see if there were more.

  The summary also had half a dozen potions, only two of which he was listed as currently taking. She wrote as quickly as she could, the complete list and the dates he’d stopped taking them. She hoped Amet would be able to help her understand more about what they did, Amet at least had access to the standard formularies.

  That done, she began turning pages, looking for a few specific things. Nothing in the summary gave a hint of the cause. Finally, she came to his intake record, about ten pages down. It had been placed after a whole set of routine and uninformative records of his movements and vitals every time he was moved to a new location or ward. She skimmed the text as quickly as she could, finding incoherent mentions of some sort of magical damage. The theory most frequently offered was that his magical self had been disarrayed by some unknown attack. It had left him unable to tolerate noises, light, or the presence of most people.

  Elen honestly thought the latter was just good sense, given the attitude of most of the people who’d wanted to see him so far. There were a few mentions, vague unless you knew what they must refer to, about his magic reshaping metal, damaging wood, terrifying previous nurses. She flipped quickly to the back of the file, where previous records from nurses often were, but there was nothing there. That was decidedly unhelpful. Even knowing their names might have been a start.

  The fact there were no reports from his direct nurses, however, was quite unusual. As she flipped through, there were brief reports, from the Healer, one Ozymandius Cole, and several of his juniors, and occasional notations from Sister Almeda. But it was becoming clear that it was the Healers controlling the information, or lack of it, not Sister Almeda herself. There was even a note to that effect, from a few weeks before Elen had started.

  There was only the briefest notation about her own assignment, then the single sentence “Healer overruled by Administrative Sister Florinda. Evening potion to be decreased at Nurse Morris’s discretion. Healer Cole made formal petition, appeal denied by Archiater Hudson.” That was most helpful, it strongly suggested a difference of opinion about treatment, and the fact the senior administrators were willing to use their influence even if they weren’t willing to reassign Roland’s care.

  The problem was why. Elen could think of some good reasons, but also some horrifying ones. Perhaps the senior administrators wanted Roland out of the hospital one way or another, or to force him to be the puppet the Brigadier and other senior officers wanted to make him into. Without knowing more about Healer Cole or perhaps Archiater Hudson, she had no way to tell.

  Another glance at her watch told her she was right at the limit of her time. She made sure the files were all as she’d found them, tucked the folder back into the cabinet, and then locked it, feeling the pins settle into place. Elen looked around one more time, making sure everything was as she’d found it, and then cracked the door open.

  The way was clear, but as she closed the door, feeling it lock, she heard at least two women coming out of the lounge, still chattering away. She hastily pulled out a record she’d brought for the purpose, an excuse to leave something for Sister Almeda.

  It was nothing more than a routine report of temperatures and his potion doses, just as she made them regularly. Where they went, she had no idea, since they hadn’t seemed to be in his file, but it made a good excuse to be standing here. She slipped it into the wooden holder beside the door, then ducked her head at the other nurses.

  “Didn’t hear you come in, dear. Did you need Sister?”

  “Oh, no, I was just dropping something off for her, my regular report. Do you think it will clear up tomorrow? The gardens are coming out nicely, aren’t they?” It was the classic combination of weather and flowers, and she hoped it would distract them long enough for her to be unremarkable. Parting from them, she decided to go make a further offering at Sirona’s shrine before she went back to see how Roland had fared with the Captain.

  Chapter 23

  Saturday, April 24th, the garden shrine

  The next afternoon, thankfully, was sunny again, and once Elen had wheeled him out to the shrine to Sirona, Roland looked her up and down. “You owe me a trip to the temple proper.”

  It wasn’t what she was expecting. Frankly, it wasn’t where he’d been expecting to start, so that was fair. She looked startled, for a moment, like a doe caught in the moment before she fled, but then there was a flash of a smile. “I suppose I do, yes. How was it, in the baths?”

  “You didn’t ask before.” He couldn’t decide if he was relieved she hadn’t, or annoyed.

  Elen shook her head. “I didn’t. I wasn’t.” She stopped, then she looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”

  Roland pushed himself up a bit on his elbows, and then peered at her. Something was not quite right, and the hints of annoyance faded. “I’m not sure what you’re apologising for?”

  “For not asking you. And you were so careful about it. Not sure what you thought.”

  He waved a hand. “I was, but Harry was in and out. And then Cadwell. And you were rather quiet. Are you all right?” He suddenly was more sure something was decidedly odd. Certainly, she seemed more than a little distracted.

  Elen let out a long breath, then she stood, pacing to the end of the paved space and back, then again, looking around. “I, I did something that would get me thrown out, as a nurse. If anyone found out about it.”

  That was not at all what he was expecting, either the admission, or how serious it was. She had seemed, to him, entirely rule-abiding. The kind of woman, if she had been a man in his cohort, who could be relied upon absolutely to follow
orders once given, even if she disagreed. Even when she’d disapproved of his treatment, she hadn’t more than gestured at it, or offered to do more than hide a destroyed chair.

  “I won’t tell anyone.” And then he added, “And I don’t think I’m talking in my sleep anymore.”

  As he’d hoped, that made her turn back, and smile. She settled down on the bench again, closer to him. “Tell me if anyone’s coming. Twenty feet away.”

  “Of course.” He was entirely distracted now, from his own desire to talk about the bath. It was clear to him, though, this was gnawing at her, and in some complex way he couldn’t sort out.

  “I broke into Sister Almeda’s office and looked at your file.” When she said it, it took him a moment to realise what she meant. He hadn’t expected her to take the suggestion that seriously. Certainly, he had no idea she’d risk everything for him. He wanted to take the blame, knew it was his.

  What came out of his mouth though, was a question. “You - wait. You broke into Sister Almeda’s office?”

  “Yes.” Elen glanced at him, and then looked down at the ground again.

  “Did you see the file?” He was tremendously curious about the file, of course, but he was even more intrigued by the idea she’d broken in. “Wait. Wasn’t the office locked?”

  “Yes?” Her voice had gotten softer. “And the cabinet. I have lockpicks.”

  He didn’t know what to say, then found himself repeating her. “You have lockpicks.”

  Elen nodded, a small movement.

  “Well. That’s surprisingly useful. Do you have other skills you’ve not mentioned?” He kept his tone light, wanting to settle her.

  She blinked at him, several times. “Lockpicks, though I’m not very good at a safe. I can tell true gold from false. I can sing in harmony in chapel, if relevant. And I knit. But you knew about the knitting. I’m not bad at herbs, though I’m no herbalist or apothecary.”

  Roland could tell she was beginning to get shaky, and so he held his hand out. She hesitated again, but then put hers in it, and he could feel it was soft, and warm. Trembling, a bit too, so he squeezed once. “There we go,” he said. “You were very brave. Also very clever. You must have had a plan that worked?”

  Elen nodded. “I have an honorary uncle, the locksmith for the mines. He taught me how, gave me the picks. Usually just for getting a trunk open if the mechanism’s jammed, that kind of thing.”

  “Still, it takes quite a bit of dexterity to do that. Adventure novels always have a bit of it. I tried, but I was never at all good at it. I got myself stuck a couple of times. And in trouble more than once.”

  She snorted, looking much more amused now. “It’s not something you just know. You have to learn. And then practice. Rather a lot, actually.” Which also told him something about her life when she learned it.

  Roland stretched slightly, looking for a way to further ease the tension. “A lot of time on your own, then?”

  She nodded. “When I was home from school for the summers. I helped my mother out, of course, and there were things like herb gathering and gardening. But when it rained, I’d be with Uncle Dewi. He had space in his office, and he wasn’t on at me to do things all the time.”

  Roland rather thought they had more in common than either of them had thought originally. “Lonely, and on your own, and for whatever reason, your parents weren’t the solution.”

  Elen glanced up at him, meeting his eyes, then looking down. “They mean well. Just, I’ve always wanted things they didn’t understand. And they’re both very outgoing people, wanting to be in the middle of things. Doing things - quickly. I’m not so good at quickly. It got me in trouble, in France.”

  “It strikes me that battlefield medicine would require a lot of quick decisions,” Roland said, as gently as he could. “Administrative trouble, or something else?”

  Elen shrugged slightly. “A bit of wall collapsed. And I got caught under it, and I should have been faster. I get headaches, still, and.” She looked away again.

  “Hey.” Roland waited until she looked back at him. “You were injured, doing your best to help people, putting yourself in harm’s way, when you didn’t need to. That’s something to be proud of. You weren’t trained to go off to a war, you weren’t trained to be around artillery. And when they invalided you out, you wanted to be here, working, not somewhere quieter.” Elen didn’t say anything. Roland kept watching her, attentive to all the little movements, the set of her shoulders.

  Finally she let out a little breath. “I suppose you’ll win if I keep arguing.” She didn’t precisely sound defeated, more like she was trying to put something heavy and unwieldy down.

  “Quite. Tell me about what you found out, instead.”

  That at least sparked her interest again. “Your file is bizarre.” Then she reconsidered her terms. “Not at all the usual sort of things. Some of it was more or less what I expected. When you were first taken in care, you weren’t making a lot of sense. It sounded like febrile hallucinations, talking about things that weren’t there. They had you on half a dozen potions, rather than just the two now. I need to write to my friend and find out what they all are. I don’t know a couple of them.”

  “Is there a library here? Or something like one?”

  Elen twitched a shoulder. “In theory, yes. If I go looking for it, though, someone might comment. Especially given what I found in the rest of the file.”

  “That does sound unusual.” Roland leaned forward a little, doing his best to ignore a new bloom of nerves. He wasn’t given to collywobbles, but it felt like his stomach was trying to do loops. It was most unsettling.

  “There should have been a lot more notes in your file. From your nurses before me, from me. It’s not as if I haven’t turned things in. Even if I didn’t say much more than your vitals and that you took your potions, or that your appointments wore you out. None of that. What there was...”

  She cleared her throat, visibly gathering her thoughts. “The basic theory is that your magic was damaged, somehow, when you were hurt. But they couldn’t decide if it was because of what hurt you, or the nature of the injury.”

  Elen paused for a moment. “That happens, sometimes, at the Temple of Youth. Especially children on the verge of making the Pact, puberty. I wonder if they thought that’s what the outbursts were, something like that, but with a grown man’s strength.”

  She withdrew her hand, reaching into her apron pocket and pulling out a notebook. He clenched his fingers around the empty space, helplessly. He could scarcely ask her to put it back. “There’s some notes from your senior healer, Ozymandias Cole. A few hints of theories, but there’s no formal plan of treatment.” She paused, then asked. “What do you remember, when you got hurt?”

  “Not much.” Roland shrugged his shoulders. “Being shot - my leg, the thigh. I fell, in the mud, but it wasn’t just the physical, everything felt wrong. Boggy. Then I woke up, I think, in field hospital, but it’s all a haze, until I was here. Had been here a while.”

  “But you felt it then, that it wasn’t just the injury to your body. Right. We’ll work from that principle.”

  “You said there were hints of theories?” Roland wanted to know that, suddenly, very much. He’d felt, from the first, that something had come unlaced in him, disconnected, but he had no idea how to say that. He wondered if it might be improving, between the garden and the bath and Elen’s attentive care. But it might just be an overly-optimistic fantasy.

  “Just vague references to magical injuries. I assume he has a full plan of care, in his own notes, but they’re not in yours, which is, which is horribly wrong. Your file should be together, and accessible to the people providing care, all of us. All that’s in the file is a sort of high level summary. Um. If it were a battle, it would be ‘charge at the enemy, repeat until dead’.”

  Roland sucked in a breath. “That’s not that far from some of the orders they’re giving out. But not how it should be.”

  Elen s
hook her head. “Not at all. Not here. There should be a detailed plan, which potions when, under what circumstances to change them, a plan for increasing stamina and restoring magical vitality. All sorts of things. It’s like…” She frowned. “It’s the kind of thing an author who didn’t know what the real thing looks like would put in a novel.”

  “Do you know anything about him? Cole?”

  Elen shook her head. “No, though I - I did talk to Sister Pomona after my bath, and she had some ideas? She’s much better positioned to find out if there’s gossip than I am. I barely know anyone.” Then she paused, and Roland wasn’t sure what to make of the hesitation. “She brought up the question of his oaths. Whether he’d broken them. She thought - she was going to see if she could find out more - he’d been sworn to Apollo Acestor. Healing, but also defeating evil.”

  “And whatever’s happening to me, there is a touch of evil in it, isn’t there? Neglect is a particular kind of evil.” Roland swallowed, not at all sure what he felt about being the target of something like that. “That was clever of you, talking to her. And brave. She’s a senior nurse, then? Not on this ward, but she knows how things should be done?”

  Elen nodded. “She said - she said there’s some other patients like you. Slow to recover, where Healer Cole is responsible. She was going to find out who. But I don’t know if she’ll tell me. I can’t just call round there on the off chance.”

  “We might beat her there. Cadwell - Captain Deschamps - brought me a list yesterday. Penciled into the books he brought. And he’s going to find out more, if he can.” Roland felt suddenly better about this. The fact that two different independent sources thought there was something weird, that was surprisingly reassuring.