“You all right?” Gabe was well aware of the irony. Usually it was her asking him.
As if his concern reminded her she was the strong one, Dina straightened. “I’m fine.”
Gabe had tried to get to know Dina. She was the one he worked most closely with, after all, but she resisted all attempts at casual conversation, keeping their relationship professional and correct, Named citizen to noble, Sacerdio to Bone Mage. She was the same with everyone in the camp. Though she was pretty in a tidy way, always dressed neatly, dark brown hair pulled back, Gabe knew if she relaxed a fraction, if she just laughed uncontrollably, then she would be extraordinary.
“So, the one...” he prompted.
“Of course. He wasn’t terribly hurt in the crash, just a few burns to his hands I saw to myself, but...” She stared into the distance.
“But what?”
Something flashed through Dina’s dark eyes but she hid it quickly, though her voice trembled a little as she spoke. “He doesn’t have a recognition stamp.”
Cup stalled halfway to his mouth, Gabe cocked an eyebrow. “Interesting. Did you ask him about it?”
“No. I thought it best if you asked him.”
Of course she would. He was the mage, she was just the Sacerdio. Gabe drank, sighed and said, “I’ll chat with him in the morning. Right now, I’d like to fall unconscious, if that’s all right.”
“I’ve made up a bed for you in the ward.”
“Luz bless you, my child.”
Dina stood and was about to leave when Gabe said, “Dina, if you need to talk to someone, I’ll listen.”
She paused at the door. “I’m fine, but thank you.”
Alone, Gabe finished his coffee and knew Dina wasn’t fine. He also knew she wouldn’t admit it. Maybe she needed to pick a fight with Tonio, too.
#
Sleeping in the hospital with the patients had its benefits. There was no pesky sunlight in the morning, no whump whump whump of wind buffeting the tent and something that more closely approximated a bed to sleep on. Yet, as with all things, it had its drawbacks as well. Namely, the patients.
“Thank you,” the solider said, clutching Gabe’s hand to her chest. “I thought I was going to die on that dirigible.”
“Well, there’s three other mages who did more work toward saving you than I did.” Gabe wished even one of them would show their face in the hospital so he could deflect some of the adoration. It would never happen, though. Dina had informed him first thing that Ruben, Ofelia and Vendaval had spent the night celebrating their heroic efforts with much of the camp’s rum supply.
“I know, but you healed me so I can still fight. Thank you.”
She was a pretty woman, in a tough, soldiery manner. Trim and taut but still distinctly female. He’d heard it paid to put the more buxom women in strategic places as the Alarians, who didn’t let women into their army, were often so distracted by the curves and heaving bosoms they failed to see the sword swinging or the rifle aiming at them. This woman could probably stand weaponless before the enemy and defeat them all with a thrust of a hip. When Gabe had first seen her, much of the soft tissue of her nose had been burned away, one eye completely blinded and the other popped out of her skull and dangling on her melted cheek. He’d reconstructed her nose and cheek and healed her eyes but she’d been one of the last he’d worked on. Battling exhaustion while healing burns on her left temple, he’d accidentally sent a patch of her short, black hair grey. When he’d seen it this morning, he’d offered to fix it, but she said she didn’t mind. Made her look distinguished, she’d joked. All that mattered to her was that she could see to aim straight—a soldier through and through.
Her thanks annoyed Gabe, but not as much as it would have several days ago, a fact both calming and upsetting. Maybe he was gaining the distance everyone seemed to think so vital. At the same time, he didn’t want it, didn’t want to be so inured to the idea of killing for a cause he forgot why he was there.
“It’s just my duty,” he said. “And speaking of which, I’d better see to the others before they think I’m going to run off with you.”
She laughed and eyed him up and down. “I wouldn’t object, to the running away part, that is.” She let his hand go, but not before she gave it another press against her breasts.
With an odd sense of regret Gabe left her and went to the next patient on Dina’s list. He thought of Evellia, of the last time they’d woken up together and he’d asked her, half joking, half serious, to run away with him. She’d laughed and said of course she would, as soon as she’d done this and that and fetched something or other for her mistress and washed those things and taken that thing there. Then she’d dressed and done exactly that. It hadn’t been the last time he’d seen her, but it would have been much better if it had been.
The soldier’s unsubtle suggestion wasn’t the first he’d received since Evellia, and like those others, it sent a pang of hurt through him for his lost lover. Yet the regret wasn’t for what he’d lost with Evellia. It damn sure wasn’t regret for what he’d done in the bloody, horrible aftermath of the fight in the stable. It was, rather, a regret for the fact that while it still hurt, it didn’t hurt as much now.
Was it the distance he needed? Was it a natural healing? Or was it the touch of a willing, beautiful woman that lessened the pain? Was it all of those things?
Forcing the unanswerable questions to the back of his mind, he concentrated on his patients. By the time he’d finished with Dina’s list the rest of the hospital was empty. The only one he missed seeing was the solider without the recognition stamp. Not really caring about a failure in military protocol, Gabe decided breakfast was in order.
Outside, he stood for a moment in the sun, stretching the last of the aches from his body. Another bright day, the harsh, hot light unrelieved by a single cloud, the air still. The camp was quiet, subdued after the near tragedy of the day before. No ringing from the smithy, no whine of engine tests from Pio’s tent, no sounds of an impromptu game of hoop-ball from the yard, not even any music from the Valleymen. But, faintly, very faintly, he could hear a boom or two from cannons in the next valley, perhaps the heavy thwack of a catapult releasing an oil-bomb.
It was very easy some days to forget just how close the war was. A half hour flight, an hour’s journey by land-yacht, a four hour ride by fast horse. It was just there, just over those hills to the west. Too close for comfort, if he let himself think about it. So close, he feared, that if the Alarians broke through, Tejon Company wouldn’t have time to evacuate before they were overrun. Ruben assured him that would never happen. An Earth Mage sending would beat the enemy to them by several hours and Captain Meraz had a thorough and efficient plan for evacuation.
An argument much closer to Gabe caught his attention. Two soldiers stood in the shadows between the hospital and barracks tent. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, just the angry buzz of tone. The taller of the pair had a fistful of the other’s brigandine; a leather jacket lined with steel plating for protection and covered with pockets to carry spare ammunition, fire-bombs, a brace of knives and a small survival kit. Both wore military sabres; unadorned, basic and brutal. On the opposite hip was a pistol and a rifle strung across the back.
The shorter snapped something to the other, breaking his hold with a quick twist and swipe of his wrist. He stepped back into a fighter’s crouch, hands ready for another advance. The taller man straightened, hands held up as if surrendering, though his stiff shoulders and growling expression said he wasn’t done arguing.
It wasn’t the first fight to break out in camp and it wouldn’t be the last. Gabe was thankful neither man seemed ready to pull a weapon on the other. Still, he moved back against the hospital wall to watch without being too obvious. Tensions were high and a misunderstanding could turn into something worse. From his new position, he could make out their words.
“—too risky,” the taller was saying, voice low. “It was just lucky it was a Sacer
dio who healed you and not the mage. Let’s leave it at that and thank Luz it wasn’t anything worse.”
“No. We can’t just leave it at that. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. I think the Sacerdio knew I don’t have a recognition stamp.”
Ah. Dina’s troubling young soldier.
“Did she say anything to you about it?” the other soldier demanded.
“No.”
“Then let it go.”
“I can’t. She didn’t say anything but there was a look in her eyes when she walked away. What if she’s reported me to Captain Meraz?”
“Then they would have come for you already.” He let out an anguished growl, but his shoulders sagged and when he spoke again, his tone was softer. “Rafe, don’t do this, please. If you’re discovered here...” The words trailed off with devastating portent.
Rafe held his position a moment longer, then relaxed. “I know what it would mean for you if he found us here. When we decided to do this, I never would have thought a faulty dirigible engine could come so close to ending it.”
“But that’s just it,” the other man said, some of his anger returning. “It did come close. Too close, and you marching up to that mage is only going to make it worse. If you ask him to give you a recognition stamp he’s going to want to know why you didn’t get one when you went through training. It’ll be minutes before the captain finds out, hours before the general learns of it and mere days before we’re right back where we started, and in far greater trouble than we were before.”
“Dem, think about it. This is our only chance, right here, right now, to make this thing worthwhile. I need that recognition stamp if we’re to have any chance. If anyone else discovers I don’t have a stamp, it will be as you say and I don’t want that. Not for you, not for Ibarra. But it’s Mage Castillo. He’s not de Ibarra, he’s not military. If I have a chance of success, then it’s because he’ll be less likely to report me.”
For the past two months the fact Gabe was neither de Ibarra nor military had been the bane of his existence. Now someone wanted him precisely for those reasons, and it didn’t sound like it was something he should be involved in. His mind made up to demand an explanation, he was stopped by Rafe’s next move.
The young man stepped up to Dem and put a hand on his chest. “You know it’s the only way.”
Dem stared into Rafe’s eyes, then nodded.
Rafe slid his arms around Dem’s shoulders, leaning against the taller man in a very intimate and familiar way. After a moment, Dem wrapped his arms around Rafe and lowered his cheek to the top of the shorter man’s head.
Gabe backed away. This wasn’t a moment to interrupt, but as he retreated into the hospital, he vowed to find out just what Rafe and Dem were up to.
Chapter 6
“Mage Castillo?”
Gabe opened his eyes. The young soldier, Rafe, stood in front of him.
“You’re in my sunlight, soldier.” Gabe took a long draw on his cigarillo.
“My apologies, sir,” Rafe said and moved. “I was wondering if we might speak, sir.”
Blowing smoke rings, Gabe said, “Speak, and please, dispense with the ‘sirs’. I’m not your commanding officer.” He managed to restrain himself from adding, ‘I’m not military or de Ibarra, either’. “Call me Gabe.”
After witnessing Rafe and Dem’s discussion, Gabe had waited in the hospital for an hour, wondering when Rafe would approach him. The earthquake-like rumblings from his stomach eventually forced him out and to the mess tent, where the last of the soldiers from the troop carrier were busily demolishing the food supplies. Escaping the ravening horde Gabe had eaten with Kimotak.
Knowing the respite from receiving wounded from the front would be well and truly over, he’d decided to rest up before the afternoon influx. Arse planted on an empty barrel, legs stretched out, he reclined against the side of his tent. The canvas gave just enough to make sitting in the sun a sleepy affair.
“Gabe,” Rafe began, then sighed. “Mage Castillo, I was wondering if I could have a private word with you.”
Gabe glanced around. The camp had come to life after lunch and all the usual noise had returned to cover up the distant sounds of war. Thanks to the addition of soldiers from the troop carrier, there were more people wandering around uselessly than usual, but still no one much came near Gabe’s tent. He didn’t have a lot of friends dropping by, less now Ruben had experienced the joys of bedding a Water Mage. They could do things.
“Pull up a barrel,” he said, indicating the second one generally reserved for Ruben.
Rafe looked at the barrel dubiously, then checked to see just how much privacy they would have.
“I can guarantee no one will overhear us,” Gabe assured him. “Bone Mage. I can tell when people are close by.”
Still, Rafe didn’t seem too confident when he grabbed the second barrel and rolled it closer. He pulled out his gun-cloth and cleaned it off before sitting.
Gabe hid a smile in a long pull on his cigarillo. Rafe was a handsome boy, his black hair thick and fashionably long, the ends curling around his neck, eyes a piercing blue, nose straight and mouth a touch too wide. He was probably just shy of his twentieth year, the right age to be fresh out of training and on his way to his first conflict. Shame it had to be this one. Not exactly the most honourable of battles, despite Duke Ibarra’s posturing.
“What’s your problem, soldier?” Gabe stubbed out his cigarillo on the side of his barrel.
Rafe hesitated, all the confidence he’d expressed earlier gone. “It’s going to sound a bit odd, and I would have your promise it go no further before we begin.”
“I promise.”
The young man sat back. “That easily?”
“I’m a Bone Mage, son,” Gabe said. “People come to me with private problems all the time. And most of them don’t want me discussing them with other people. Shall we go to the hospital so you can show me the problem?”
“Show you?” Rafe blinked several times.
“I presumed you wouldn’t want to drop your pants out here.”
Rafe jumped up, ready to either run or fight. “Drop my pants?”
Gabe laughed. The poor boy looked so scandalised.
“I’m a joke to you?” Rafe asked, voice tight with anger.
His amusement dying, Gabe stood and spread his hands in apology. “No. You’re not a joke. I’m sorry. It’s this place, this war, it’s making me insensitive.”
Rafe didn’t relax. “Not a good thing for a Bone Mage.”
“Exactly. Maybe you could go tell Meraz. She’s not listening to me.”
Still not mollified, Rafe took another step back, eyeing Gabe warily. “I thought I could trust you to help me.”
“And you can. I’m sorry for laughing, but you have to know most of the problems soldiers come to me with are rather personal in nature. Come on, we’ll go to the hospital so we can talk somewhere you’re more comfortable.”
He turned and began walking, not bothering to wait for Rafe. After a moment, the soldier followed him.
Nacio was in the hospital changing the sheets. Gabe asked him to leave and the Sacerdio exited, giving Rafe a quick nod. Rafe didn’t return it, striding past the other man as if he wasn’t there. At first Gabe wondered if Rafe simply didn’t want to acknowledge anyone else even mildly associated with his private matter, but the slight had nothing of embarrassment about it. It was more that Nacio was below Rafe’s consideration, unimportant and therefore invisible.
Gabe’s father was a Viscount Grandee of Roque and thanks to his common born mother’s inheritance, they were richer than most noble families in Roque. Gabe had grown up in a manor to rival some royal palaces with servidors enough to ensure he needn’t tie his own shoes if he wished. Yet Mother had taught Gabe to take none of it for granted. Still, his friendship with the ducal family of Roque and his exposure to the royal household of Ibarra had shown him most of the Second Estate wasn’t the same as his family. Servidors
were tools, barely people. They worked in the shadows, behind closed doors, unseen by those they served—even when they stood beside them.
During his first days in Ibarra, working in the Grand Hospital alongside some of the finest Bone Mages in Delaluz, Gabe had been introduced at the duke’s court. As a Grandee, his father had rank and recognition equal to a Marquis and Gabe carried that honour as his son. At court, his father’s title meant more than his status as a mage and he was paraded about like a rare specimen from far across the sea. The polite society of the Second Estate ignored the fact he was a Bone Mage, more interested in his money and title. They’d sat him beside their daughters, organised hunting excursions with their sons, dinners with their dames and dances with their cousins. A dozen gorgeous and suitably highborn girls had fluttered their fans in his direction, while all around them, servidors had done all the hard work to make their lives easy.
Surrounded by the eligible daughters of Ibarra, Gabe had looked past their lace and silk and found Evellia. She was heartbreakingly beautiful, pure sunshine poured into a sweet, soft body, glorious hair, blue eyes and a laugh that could clear a cloudy sky. How she’d gone unnoticed in Duke Ibarra’s palace had baffled Gabe. Even when he’d pointed her out to the circle of noble sons that had engulfed him, they’d noted her beauty and then dismissed her. A friendly tumble, they agreed, but that was all. She was of the Third Estate and therefore insignificant.
Rafe was Second Estate, and not just some poor baron’s second son off to war to make use of his life. Rafe had had a good education, a privileged upbringing and possibly professional tutoring in weapons and fighting. He should have been an officer, an Under-Lieutenant at the very least, yet here he was, a mere private, heading to the frontline in a bloody, pointless war.
Gabe showed Rafe through to the surgery and offered him a chair. Rafe took it like it was his by right of birth.
“So,” Gabe began. “We’re alone. What’s your problem?”
Rafe was quiet for a moment, studying his hands. “I’m not a true soldier.”
Dead Bones Page 8
