by G. P McKenna
“He’s not dead,” Ilya stated without looking up from the parchment, “he’s just not here.”
“Oh, right. I see.”
I didn’t see, but Ilya didn’t explain. He read the letter once, twice, thrice. The vein in his forehead became more prominent with each flip of the pages until he simply dropped them onto the mattress and reclaimed his book. He wasn’t reading, his eye still and unfocused upon the page. I probably should have said something, asked if anything was wrong, but I’d apparently slept through the crash course on comforting bedside manner. Consoling wasn’t something I had experience in, and so I did what had always been modelled. I wordlessly picked up my own book and read.
That was how Melly found us an hour later when she delivered our dinner trays. Ilya quietly thanked her before picking up his spoon to dribble the detestable gravy into the bowl. Unsure of what to do or what he wanted me to say, I set my own tray on the table and pulled the flimsy chair out so it faced the wall.
“My mother has left for Swannanoa with Lord Issak,” Ilya said, “She isn’t expected to return for at least a month.”
Oh. That explained why Lady Ilana’s visits had become sporadic. That day she hadn’t visited at all. I turned to him with a smile I hoped was sympathetic but was probably just awkward, “Is that a bad thing?”
“Not inherently. It’s just,” he scooped another spoonful and let it dribble, “when my mother is gone the treatment we receive tends to rapidly deteriorate. Basic courtesy seems to leave with her. It’s never an easy time for us.”
“As my mother would say, screw them.”
Ilya looked at me for a long moment before giving a hollow laugh and tugging at the material covering his face. Had gravity allowed it I’m sure my jaw would’ve hit the floor. He had the same strong facial features as his mother, only with the sharp angles still smoothed out by the softness of youth which left him reminiscent of those fancy porcelain people rich ladies displayed on their mantels. Ilya smiled as I continued staring. It was strange to watch his mouth emote with his eye, “is there something on my face?”
Unwilling to blink, lest he be covered up once more when my eyes reopened, I shook my head, “sorry, you’re just really pretty.”
His smile shattered like a vase, “I’m a boy.”
“I know.”
“Boys are handsome.”
“Boys can be pretty.”
Huffing, Ilya picked up his spoon and shoved some stew into his mouth. I was awed at how his jaw moved while he chewed. He looked up as he swallowed, red eye burning into mine, and I was finally forced to look away. Tapping my glass, I cleared my throat, “why did you remove your mask? I’m not a member of your family if you didn’t know.”
“I know, and I’ll get in an indescribable amount of strife if my family ever discovers that I removed it, but we’re sharing a small space, and I spend most days thirsty because I cannot drink. With my mother gone nobody will have time to come and check on me. Besides, I trust you won’t tell everybody what my face looks like,” the smile returned, a beautiful, soft smile that didn’t reach his eye, “so please, don’t.”
“They wouldn’t believe me if I tried,” I said and quickly sculled my water. Trust. Such vast responsibility laced in such a small word. Why should he trust me when I couldn’t trust myself? Once the glass was empty, I stood and went to the foot of his bed, cautiously raising my hand to touch those beautiful sun-bleached strands at his crown. He didn’t pull away like I’d expected him to, and something fluttered in my chest. The corners of my mouth turned upright, encouraging me to ask the one thing I’d desired since his arrival, “can I braid your hair?”
The great philosopher T.L Rial once claimed that the secret to happiness was nothing more than a roof over your head, warm food in your belly and a good friend with whom to share it with. Frankly, Rial was a liar. Sure, those things made life comfortable, but they did nothing to stop the buzzing as my brain ate away its own fibres due to lack of stimulation.
“Do you have any kings?” Ilya asked.
I shook my head. Go-flippin-fish. He inhaled deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose before picking up a card and adding it to his hand without looking, “how many times are we expected to play this?”
“We can play blackjack again,” I offered and squinted at my cards, “any aces?” He flicked a card before placing his hand down on the table and leaning back on the chair. I picked the card up. Ace of hearts. Nice.
“I don’t want to play blackjack again,” Ilya said as he pulled down his mask. He still insisted on wearing the thing, claiming he felt naked without it, having worn one since he was a toddler. I suspected he just didn’t like me saying how cute he looked without it, “I don’t want to play cards at all. I want to go outside. My muscles are wasting away. At this point, I’m going to require another two weeks of re-training before I’m able to resume my duties.”
“I know, but Doctor Kira will never allow it. She’s worried you’ll infect the camp,” I said.
“But I’m not sick. I don’t even have a cold anymore. How long does Doctor Kira expect-” Ilya paused and leaned forward to look at me, “Kilco, where is Doctor Kira?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s approaching noon,” Ilya said and pointed at the skylight in the ceiling above, “Doctor Kira should have come by already this morning to examine me, so where is she?”
Frowning, I looked at the sky. He was right. Doctor Kira had taken to examining him once every morning, and again come night for the two weeks he’d been awake. Likely because she enjoyed how much she frightened him. She wouldn’t miss it. I went to the flap and pushed it open to peer into the central infirmary. Melly was busy taking some man’s temperature, and I waved my arm to get her attention before ducking back inside.
It was lucky neither of us was dying, for it took the better part of ten minutes for Melly to make her way to our room. She looked around with her lips paused, “what’s wrong? Is he feeling sick again?”
“Who would know considering how nobody has bothered to check on him today,” I retorted.
Melly sighed and looked at the roof for a brief moment before giving Ilya a soft smile, “are you alright? Doctor Kira mentioned that you vomited during the night.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“That’s good. If there’s noth-”
“Where’s Doctor Kira?” I asked.
Melly gave me a tired look before turning back to Ilya with another soft smile, as if he’d been the one to ask, “Doctor Kira has decided to take the day off today, but don’t worry, it will be back to business tomorrow as usual.”
My heart plummeted to the floor. My mother didn’t take days off work willy nilly. Even when sick herself she soldiered on in denial, claiming rest was for the weak. Really, rest was for those who didn’t enjoy any excuse to get off their face on painkillers. No, my mother only took days off for the latest edition releases of general infirmary, and to get blind drunk after something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
“Who died?” I asked.
“Four patients, back-to-back last night.”
Yep. That would do it.
“Why would that bother her enough to take the day off?” Ilya asked, looking between Melly and me, “it isn’t as if she has a heart.”
All newly developed feelings of affection for the Ilvarjo bolted so quickly that there wasn’t a chance to close the gate. How dare he? He didn’t know my mother. He wouldn’t like it if I insulted his mother, and Deities knew there was plenty to choose from if the rumours around camp could be believed. I opened my mouth, but luckily Melly spoke before I could say something I’d regret, “on the contrary, Doctor Kira is the most caring person I’ve ever met.”
“Honestly?” Ilya asked.
“Honestly,” Melly said as a loud retch came from the central infirmary. She frowned and turned around, “excuse me a moment.”
As she left the room, Melly seemed to take the heat with her, leavin
g only a cold and oppressive atmosphere in her wake. I could feel Ilya’s eye on me as I stood to scrape our plates.
“I apologize for what I said,” he finally broke the uncomfortable silence, “it’s just difficult for me to imagine Doctor Kira upset by death. She’s always so collected. I don’t understand why she’d react like that.”
“Of course you don’t understand. You’re Ilvarjo. You kill people. That’s the opposite of what we do.” I said while glaring at him over my shoulder.
His brow creased, “we don’t all kill-”
“My mother has to be the way she is,” I interrupted, uninterested in buying whatever weaselling he was selling. No, he wasn’t going to make me feel sorry for him. Not when he’d just insulted my family name, “you don’t know what it’s like to save somebody, to give it your all, only for them to die anyway. You have to be cynical in medicine. It’s the only way you will survive.”
“That I can understand because my mother’s the exact same,” he said quietly.
Oh, please.
I spun around with my hands on my hips, “your mother kills more than anybody else in this stupid camp. You all do. It’s sort of a family trait. It’s not the same.”
“We don’t all kill, Kilco,” Ilya repeated in a tone that dared me to interrupt again, “At least, not before the war. There wasn’t any need to. Or rather, we weren’t permitted to. Our debt to Ascot must always come first, but that isn’t always easy because most people in Ascot despise us. There are entire villages who believe that every incurable illness or unexplained tragedy is a result of the blood-eyed curse,” he swallowed heavily as the slur left his mouth, “we’re fortunate that Goonawarra Valley is not easily accessible to outsiders. Still, it’s not impassable either, and well, things happen. Unfortunate things. Because of our debt, my mother cannot react how any other leader would react under those circumstances, but as our free leader we are always her responsibility. Believe me when I tell you that I understand.”
The confession made me uncomfortable. It was too close to the lines of secret sharing, and I didn’t share secrets. All it took was one slip of the tongue and secrets spread more rapidly than a fleshpox outbreak, and before long everybody knew your business, even when they didn’t. I dropped my hands from my hips and strolled over to take his arm, “come on,” I said, “Doctor Kira isn’t here to stop us. Let’s go.”
Eleven
Genuphobia
Fear of sharp objects
Being kept captive inside an infirmary for weeks on end should be classified as a specific form of torture. So long had we been there that I’d almost forgotten that oxygen didn’t smell of disinfectant with the slightest twinge of rotten flesh. No, oxygen was smooth and sweet and everything scrumptious in life. I ravelled in the freedom of such wide-open spaces by swinging my arms around like a windmill, simply because I could. People turned and stared with undisguised disapproval, and had I been any less preoccupied with filling my lungs with sweet, sweet life I might’ve flipped them off, but alas I was too busy basking in the glory of being outside to care. Outside. Until I noticed it wasn’t me they were glaring at.
If Ilya noticed, he didn’t show it as he busied himself adjusting the infirmary supplied clothing of white linen which had obviously been made with a much larger man in mind. They drowned his skinny figure so thoroughly that rope was required just to keep him from flashing any unsuspecting onlookers his family jewels, though judging by the looks they gave him he might as well have let it hang loose. I glared at a pair of busted faced medics before turning to Ilya, unsure of what to say.
“You didn’t throw up last night.”
He looked up and blinked, “pardon?”
“Melly said you vomited, but you didn’t.”
“No, I did,” he said and continued rolling up his sleeves, “you’d already fallen asleep, and so Doctor Kira cleaned it up. She wasn’t particularly kind about it either, but I feel better now.”
Kira was never kind. Especially not in the middle of the night. Still, the fact that he had been sick and I hadn’t known unnerved me. He’d told me that he wasn’t sick not an hour prior, “what made you throw up?”
Ilya froze and slowly raised his hand to massage the left side of his neck. The jaw of his mask shifted just so, and I could imagine that he was frowning, then he did what he always seemed to do when he didn’t want to answer: he walked off. I scrunched my brow and speed after him. If he wanted the subject dropped, I could drop it.
For the moment. “You shouldn’t be walking around without shoes on. It’s a good way to lose a toe, or at least gain a nasty fungal infection,” I eyed an unidentifiable pile of droppings on the path, “where are we going anyway?”
“I want to find the Shield,” he said, and looked around as if Pogue would materialize from the tree line. Knowing him, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if he did, “but I have got to find my own clothes first.”
Fair enough. I pointed towards the infirmary cloakroom, which in actuality was little more than a rickety shack by the meadow’s entrance which I avoided at all costs, “I’m not sure about your clothes, but your shoes will be in there. That’s a good start.”
Ilya nodded and stepped forward, only to pause when I didn’t fall into step, “you’re not coming with me?”
Definitely not. The good doc had taken great offence at the idea that some nameless authority had declared that she couldn’t be entrusted to safeguard her patient’s belongings, necessitating them to be locked away. When Doctor Kira got mad, she got loud, but as nobody knew which wheathead had enacted the policy, she’d gone to the nearest available victim to bully into submission. The quatermistress had put up a good fight, but Kira had been in fine form that day. She’d verbally pulverized her without breaking a sweat. That beef-cake hadn’t worked up the courage for a rematch yet, so instead had found a convenient target to make her displeasure known. Me.
“You’re a big boy, perfectly capable of picking up some shoes alone,” I said and resumed my windmilling, “I’ll wait here.”
And I waited.
Waited so long that my arms grew sore from the unorthodox movements that had caused more than one person to glare like it was my fault when they strayed too close to rhe firing range. After almost breaking one whinging healer’s nose, I decided to find out what the hold up was. I should’ve known.
“I don’t care if you’re the blessed Sword himself. No ticket, no backpack. Not breaking that rule for nobody, especially not the likes of you,” The quatermistress shrieked with such an imminent boom that it echoed above the loud noise of camp life. Already people had stopped to stare at the scene the beefy woman was causing. I wanted nothing more than to back away, pretend to know nothing of anything, and avoid all inevitable gossip that was sure to spread like herpes at Yule. Only, Ilya was standing with his back to me, fists clenched but unmoving, and damn it if he wasn’t still my patient. And a physician never leaves a patient behind. I pulled my shoulders back, trying to make myself as big and cocky as possible. I’d make my mother proud yet.
“What’s this dribble about tickets?” I strutted up to the storage shed and placed my hands on my hips, “never heard about such a system. Ah, good morning Quatermistress.”
“I have a name,” the quatermistress spat while glaring at me like I was little more than dung on a well-loved boot, then turned back to Ilya with a glare that was somehow even dirtier, “and what’s good about a morning with an Ilvarjo banging on your door, trying to steal stuff?”
Huh. I wasn’t aware thieves were in the habit of knocking and asking. I was about to point that out, but Ilya spoke first, “I’m not trying to steal anything. If I was you wouldn’t know until I was long gone,” okay, he wasn’t helping his case, “if you open the front pocket it has my name stitched inside, and the blue sword has the eye of the true path engravings. Who else but an Ilvarjo would carry such a sword?”
The quatermistress scoffed, making no move to verify Ilya’s claims. I groan
ed under my breath. Kira wouldn’t stay gone forever, we didn’t have time for this, “I will take full responsibility if anything goes missing, okay?” I said.
The quatermistress turned on me, her eyes ablaze as her thin top lip turned up in an ugly snarl like that of a drooling hound, “you would, wouldn’t you?” spittle projected from her mouth as she spoke, “don’t think I haven’t heard all about you, missy. Typical of thieves to flock together.”
My own lips twisted into a snarl that couldn’t have been any more attractive than hers. That was precisely what I had wanted to avoid. How dare that potato of a woman say such things, in front of Ilya of all people. He didn’t need to hear such dribble. My chest was heating up again, and I could barely part my teeth to say, “don’t take my word then. I’ll go get Doctor Kira and she can tell you herself, but be warned, she woke up in a real, real foul mood this morning.”
The quatermistress glowered, staring me dead in the eye in an unspoken challenge that the burn in my chest was too severe to lose, and though the ugly expression remained plastered on her face, her eyes dulled a bit, “what’s its name?”
“Ilya Lukasiak,” Ilya said.
The quatermistress turned so fast that her joules jiggled. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she snarled before looking back to me, her scowl somehow uglier than before, “name?”
“He just told you his name,” I said, still unable to part my teeth, “and unless you’ve developed an acute case of deafness, I know you heard him.”
Huffing, the quatermistress slithered her way into the hut, appearing moments later with a leather backpack and two sheathed swords. She threw them across the bench at Ilya before leaning over and carefully, deliberately, spitting at his feet. My face screwed up, “that’s disgusting,” I said, “this is in an infirmary. If my mother hears about you doing that she’ll spay you with a rusty object. I’m in half a mind to tell her myself.”
