Finally, we reach a large building with light coming through the windows. I glimpse rosemarked patients through a crack in the shutters, but no healers. Like the hospital in Sehmar City, care of patients during the night is probably left to one or two assistants.
Dineas cocks his head at me, asking if I want to go in. It’s a good question. Baruva’s probably not there now, but we might find something useful. I push on the nearest door. It swings open, and the scene inside is familiar in the worst way. Fevered patients lie on pallets along the walls, the occasional delirious cry piercing the underlying layers of moans. As I walk through the room, their suffering seeps into me. One patient, a small boy, wails piteously as he tosses back and forth on the floor. I crouch next him and lay a hand on his forehead. His wails die down to a whimper.
It doesn’t matter where I am, or which people are involved, the rhythm and language of illness stays the same. Though this group of patients isn’t as badly struck as those in the other outbreaks I’ve seen. I remember, back in the Sehmar City rosemarked compound, the cries would be so loud that Jesmin and I often had to leave the room to converse.
I long to tell these people everything will be all right, but it would be a lie. The vast majority of people who contract rose plague die within days. Only one in ten beat it completely, becoming umbertouched like Dineas. And then there are those, like me, who survive the first bout of fever but don’t expunge the disease from our bodies. Our rash stays red, and we live a few more years before the fever comes back to claim us. Those years must be spent in isolation, because our touch remains infectious.
The patients need care, but I dare not stay long. I catch Dineas’s eye, and we go out to the corridor, then into the next room. This one too is filled with the plague-stricken. It amazes me how many there are. In the crowded Amparan cities, one infected person is enough to sicken dozens.
The unmistakable sound of a door opening and closing echoes down the corridor, and multiple footsteps come toward us. I stop in my tracks. Are the healers still here? I cast around. There’s a small storeroom along the wall next to me, and I step inside. It’s a musty space crammed with tables, chairs, and bolts of cloth. This place must have been a weaver’s shop before it became a makeshift hospital. There’s barely enough room in this closet for me to fit, and when I look for Dineas, he signals for me to close the door before ducking out into the corridor. A few patients watch our exchange, but without comprehension.
In the closet, I hold my breath, listening for any hint of what’s happening outside. I can see a sliver of the room through a crack at the edge of the door, but nothing of the corridor or Dineas.
The footsteps come closer, and three people walk in. One is a tall, thin man with a narrow face, sharp eyes, and a flat, wedgelike nose. He wears a rich blue robe with a gold overcoat. The other two, a man and a woman, wear rough homespun tunics and carry themselves as if to take up less space. Slaves.
The rich man walks down the center of the room as the two slaves start to work, going from patient to patient, giving them water and wiping their brows. They’re very skilled—not as adept as a full healer, but certainly as comfortable with the sick as a good apprentice. The patients seem genuinely calmer after their ministrations. My eyes linger on the slaves’ plague gloves, and that’s when I realize that neither they or the rich man have any marks of plague.
He gives the type of instructions a healer would. Extract of bukar root for one feverish patient. Valerian root for another who’s so panicked from his hallucinations that he can’t sleep.
He has many slaves to help him with the more dangerous aspects of his work.
Those words, spoken by a physician in Sehmar City about Baruva, run through my head. And I know that I’ve found the empire’s leading scholar of rose plague. It’s hard to contain the wave of disgust I feel at the sight of this healer who avoids danger, who wears fine robes instead of plague gloves and forces others to take the risk that should be his.
Baruva and his slaves remain in that room until my muscles ache from staying still. Finally, after close to an hour, Baruva speaks again. “We’re done for today. The assistants should be able to care for the patients overnight.”
Quickly, efficiently, the slaves pack up their supplies, empty the water basins out the window, and extinguish all but one lamp.
I wait until the footsteps fade before I step out. I’m standing in the middle of the room, trying to shed my lingering disgust for Baruva, when there’s a shuffling at the doorway. I jump, only to sigh in relief at the sight of Dineas.
“That was him,” I say. “Baruva.”
Dineas wrinkles his nose. “Fancy fellow. He left in the direction of some tents. Do you think he lives there?”
“Probably. Let’s search his quarters tomorrow.”
In the closet where I’d hidden, we find some tunics that resemble the homespun worn by the slaves, then find a place to lie low for the rest of the night. Dineas pries open the shutters of a nearby house, and we settle down in a room with six pallets on the floor and a child’s cloak hanging on the wall.
“I wonder if this family was in the hospital, or if they fled the quarantine,” I say. Or if they’re already dead. It feels wrong to be thinking this as I curl up on their floor.
“Better not to wonder,” says Dineas.
He’s probably right. There’s a steady throbbing just behind my temples, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Just tired.”
He makes a skeptical noise in his throat and removes his weapons for sleep. His swords go on one side of him, and his bow and a small quiver on the other. He runs his thumb over the top curve of his bow. I’ve seen him do it before, and I lean surreptitiously closer for a look. A Shidadi letter is carved into it. The weapon itself is old, with chips and dents in the wood.
“That bow looks well loved,” I say.
“It was my mother’s,” he says simply.
I’d never thought about what Dineas’s mother and father might have been like. I’m curious, but he’s already laid his head down and closed his eyes. A few moments later, his breathing becomes slow and even. The moonlight through the shutters bathes him in gray light. His brown hair curls lightly over his eyes, and he wraps his elbow around his head. I’m struck by how relaxed he looks in his sleep, how much more at peace. This was how he’d looked in Sehmar City, when he’d had no memory of his past. In the capital, I’d gotten a glimpse of the man he might have been, had he not suffered so much at the hands of the empire.
When I restored Dineas’s memory for good, we’d both felt the loss of his other self. For him, it meant a return to facing his demons. As for me, I lost a friend. Or, if I’m honest, someone who might have been more. It’s for the best—nothing good can come of a friendship with half a person, even if the half removed had endured more than his share of pain. Still, life as a rosemarked person is lonely, and for a brief while in Sehmar, it had been less so.
Dineas flinches and startles awake with a hoarse cry, casting around to get his bearings until he realizes where he is. His breaths rasp against the darkness.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
He pauses before answering. “A fly landed on me.”
It wasn’t a fly. It was the beginning of a nightmare, and perhaps in another time, he would have told me what ghosts had chased him out of sleep. I wonder how much longer we’ll keep dancing around each other like this, pretending we don’t know each other as well as we do. Pretending that we hadn’t been in love.
Dineas groans and stretches before settling down again. “Why are you frowning?” he asks.
“Thinking about how best to search Baruva’s quarters.” The lie comes glibly, sliding out with the ease of practice.
He nods, turns over, and goes back to sleep.
I suppose I can’t blame Dineas for lying if I also lack the courage to tell the truth.
Morning brings voices and footsteps from outside.
When I peek through the shutters, I see the occasional healer, assistant, or slave walking the road. One of the slaves is rosemarked, and I wonder if he was assigned to quarantine work after he fell ill. Dineas and I share a quiet meal of dried fruit and put on the tunics I’d found at the hospital. Then he opens the shutters a crack and whistles for the crows. Scrawny lands on the windowsill first, only to be knocked off by Preener. Slicewing settles on the ground outside, too dignified to join in the fray.
Dineas clouts Preener across the wings, eliciting an indignant squawk. “No more horseplay. We’ve a mission to do.”
We pick a moment when the street’s empty to leave the house, then hurry along as quickly as we can. I’d thought the quarantine would be less disturbing during the day, but somehow it’s worse. Bright sunlit streets should be crowded with merchants, wagons, and children, but everything is empty. A few times, we pass healers on our way, but they hardly notice us in our slave clothes. The crows trail us to the edge of the quarantine, where several tents had been set up. One is twice the size of the others. We crouch close and listen intently. No sounds coming from within. Rather than untie the entrance flap, Dineas pries up one of the tent stakes.
“Scout,” he tells the crows. And then we duck inside.
The interior of the tent is as opulent as Baruva’s clothes. A plush maroon rug covers the ground, and colorful tapestries hang on the tent walls. A sturdy bed and chest stand on one side of the tent, across from a desk of fine hardwood and a shelf stacked with scrolls.
“What are we looking for?” asks Dineas.
“Records, notes, anything that will tell us what he knew. What he did.” I pull on a pair of gloves and start toward the shelves.
Dineas gives my gloves a funny look. “Even for him?”
“It would be against my vows,” I say, somewhat defensively.
Dineas shrugs.
To be honest, I’m not even sure myself why I insist on putting on gloves. It’s tempting, knowing what I do about Baruva, to touch his possessions with my bare skin and leave his fate to the gods. Besides, I’ve broken plenty of my healer’s vows already, vows made to a Goddess who allowed me to fall ill the same month I dedicated my life to serving the sick. Sometimes I wonder if I keep the remaining ones out of habit rather than deep conviction.
I start at one end of the bookshelf, unrolling the scrolls one by one and shuffling through stacks of clay tablets, cringing at the occasional clink. One set of tablets turns out to be letters to his brother in the capital. Another long scroll looks like a daily journal. I put that aside, as well as a scroll of medical notes.
“Nothing much on this side,” says Dineas. “Just treatises from the imperial library.”
A crow caws, and I freeze. Footsteps sound in the distance, as does Baruva’s voice. “I don’t like her poking around in our work. She’s not a physician. Rosemarked or not, she has no business here.”
I snatch the two scrolls I’d set aside and we move toward the back of the tent, away from Baruva’s voice. I put my ear between two of the tapestries. Muffled voices come through that side as well. We can’t slip away unnoticed.
Baruva’s voice comes closer. “You’ll likely travel the same path as her caravan. Stop and talk to them if you can. See if we can catch them in a violation—incorrect travel papers from Sehmar, forbidden foods in their wagon. Her father’s stature can’t protect her from everything, especially with his recent disgrace.” The door flap shakes as someone pulls out the ties that hold it closed. Dineas sets his jaw and moves to the far side of the flap as I duck behind one of the tapestries. Then the door opens, revealing Baruva and another healer, though Baruva’s the only one who comes in.
Dineas elbows Baruva in the ribs before the tent flap has fully dropped. He doubles over, and then Dineas is behind him with a hand over his mouth and a knife to his throat.
“No noises,” he says to Baruva. And then to me, “Rope.”
Rope? Sometimes Dineas forgets he’s not on a mission with his fellow equipped-to-the-teeth soldiers. But I rummage through the chest at the foot of Baruva’s bed and strip the sashes from two of Baruva’s silk robes. Dineas gags him with one and uses the other to tie him to a chair. Baruva looks from Dineas to me, and recognition dawns on his face. I suppose there aren’t many travelers who fit our descriptions.
Dineas moves closer, brandishing the knife. “You’ll be quiet, won’t you?” Baruva nods, eyes rolling in panic, and Dineas eases his gag.
“My bodyguards will come looking for me,” he says.
“You don’t have bodyguards,” I say.
The healer’s mouth presses tightly together. I have to give him credit, as he’s already suppressed most of the panic I saw just a moment ago.
Dineas turns to me. “Is there anything you want to ask him?”
I look at Baruva. “We know you poisoned the Monyar battalion under Kiran’s orders.”
If he shows any surprise at my words, it passes quickly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dineas takes a menacing step toward him, and Baruva sneers. “You want to beat the answer out of me? Try to do that quietly in this tent.”
“I don’t have to hit you to do you harm,” says Dineas. “Zivah simply has to take off her gloves.”
I glance at Dineas’s face. He certainly looks like he believes I’d carry out that threat.
Baruva dismisses the threat with a sideways glance at me. “She wouldn’t break her vows. And if not for her vows, then to save her own skin. I’m the last chance she has at life.”
Last chance at life? Dineas looks at me for an explanation, but I just shake my head.
A crow caws again, and we hear more footsteps. A calculating look crosses Baruva’s face.
“Dineas—” I say.
Dineas lunges for the healer, but it’s too late. Baruva draws a quick breath and shouts, “Help me! Intruders!”
Scars, I’m a fool. I raise my arm to clout Baruva over the head. He flinches, but I let my hand drop. The damage is done.
“To the back!” I hiss. I slash a gouge in the wall. Zivah slips through first, and I squeeze out after her. Then we’re sprinting away.
A gruff voice shouts behind us, “There they are!”
I risk a look back, thinking maybe it’s just a few healers, but no such luck. Looks like the quarantine guards have returned from chasing the Rovenni.
A parade of miniature stick animals watches us flee. The sandy dirt-packed road is slippery under our feet as we race down a narrow side street. We near the next main road, but shouts sound from the other direction, and we skid to a stop. As the footsteps behind us get louder as well, my eyes fall on a supply wagon by the side of the road, its open back covered by an oilcloth. Most of it’s tied down, but I flip up the end. Zivah climbs in, and I dive after her, hitting the bottom of the wagon with a hollow thud and yanking the oilcloth back over.
Yellow light filters through the cloth into the wagon. It’s mostly empty, though burlap sacks and a handful of dried beans scattered across the bottom give a clue as to what it was used for. We crawl up against the far end of the wagon bed and curl up as small as possible. I stuff the burlap sacks between our feet and the opening we came through. It’s not good cover at all. Anyone could brush aside those sacks in a few heartbeats.
Zivah lies completely still next to me, her eyes fixed on the cloth above us. I can feel the heat from her body and sense her trying to quiet her breathing. As footsteps come closer, I reach for my dagger and hold it between us. Zivah’s eyes flicker to my knife, and a hint of a smile pulls at her lips. I wonder if she’s thinking of our first meeting, when I threatened her with a knife and she turned the tables on me with that wretched snake of hers.
When I first met Zivah, I’d thought her rosemarks disfiguring. Slowly, though, as my other self had fallen in love with her in Sehmar, she’d become beautiful. Now that my memory’s been restored, I keep expecting my old impression of her to return. But I still catch my gaze
lingering on her profile, the curve of her lips.
The footsteps pass without slowing. We stay there, stock-still, as others run by. Gradually, the sounds become more distant. Zivah looks at me, her features aglow in the strange light. I’m about to breathe easier when a movement catches the corner of my eye. I bite back a curse when the movement resolves into a hairy palm-sized spider lowering itself from the oilcloth above.
Sweat breaks out on my skin. Scars, I hate these things. It’s all I can do not to move as the spider dangles less than a hand’s width away from my face. Crawl back up. Crawl back up. Give me a dozen soldiers any day. I glance at Zivah. The hint of a smile I’d seen earlier is more than a hint now. She reaches her hand up, slowly, until it’s right below the spider. The disgusting creature sets one spindly leg onto Zivah’s palm, and then another, until Zivah closes her hand around it. Slowly, she withdraws her hand and rests it back by her legs.
I give her a sheepish grin, and her eyes crinkle. Funny that the first time we share a joke after Sehmar would be under circumstances like this. She got along far better with the other version of me—I suppose he was easier to get along with. It’s a strange feeling, to be measured against yourself and found wanting.
A door closes. More footsteps. My stomach plummets as I hear the click of horse hooves. The wagon creaks and shifts as someone gets in the front.
Well, this wasn’t part of the plan, but it might not be a bad thing if the wagon leaves the quarantine. After some more creaking and shifting, the wagon starts rolling. I strain my ears for clues about where we are.
Umbertouched Page 3
