Ramasu sighed. “Even so. But some will live, if we make them whole enough when they face the arena. When the gladiators tire of the New Meat, they will turn to those who trained in lesser arenas, men and women who believe they are as good as the fighters of Thak City. I will need all of your strength then, so don’t waste it in housekeeping. We share the labor here.”
The room was clean and the stillroom locked by the time a guard came to sit watch over the infirmary. Two army slaves took charge of Ramasu’s and Arram’s belongings, with the exception of their mage workbags. Those remained with their owners. Together they crossed to the military side of the camp.
Arram, to his shame, fell asleep at the table, to be woken and escorted to his room.
Ramasu woke him before dawn to a good-sized breakfast. “Eat,” the master said, digging into his own meal. “Now that we are here, they will cease to go easy on the fresh arrivals to the fighting force.”
Arram tried to speak past the lump in his throat. “Easy? They went easy on those men?”
“Yes. Today the new warriors, who believe they are practiced, will learn that this arena is harder than they ever dreamed. As for the New Meat…” Ramasu shook his head. “Let us hope they have enough native ability to survive their first four games. If they can do that, their chances are better than half that they will live past their first year.”
Ramasu was not joking about the sudden quickening of business. The gladiator with the compound fracture was even drafted to soak cloths. Arram quickly showed him to teach those who could walk how to wash their injuries in water that was treated to clean out dirt and infection.
Arram took charge of those with broken or cut arms and legs. Ramasu cared for those with more serious injuries. Preet, scolded away from the work down on the floor, perched in the rafters and sang, her voice soothing the wounded.
On their third day Arram was smearing salve into a new man’s sunburned back when a shadow fell over them. “If you don’t mind?” he asked the shadow’s owner politely. “I can’t tell what I’ve gotten and what I’m missing.”
The shadow moved.
Arram finished the job and told the gladiator he had treated, “You’ll be fine when you go to bed. You shouldn’t burn like that again with the charm I gave you earlier. Now,” he said, looking for the shadow’s owner. “What may I do for—” He recognized the large black man leaning against the wall nearby. “Musenda!” he cried, grinning and holding out his hands. The big man clasped them warmly. “It’s wonderful to see you!”
The gladiator smiled. “Good to see you. You’ve grown, haven’t you?”
Arram was shocked: he was now just half a head shorter than the gladiator. “I must have done so, though it was not my intention,” he said as the patients close enough to hear chuckled. “Now I see why the seamstresses keep complaining about lengthening my clothes.”
“Arram, you know this man?” Having finished with his patient, Ramasu came over to see who was talking to his student. “Mithros guard us all, Musenda! Or may I still call you Sarge?”
Musenda shook his head. “You can always call me Sarge, Master. It’s the others I must remind I’ve never been a soldier. Even the soldiers do it, once they hear me speak out.”
“You mean screech,” said a man with a sprained wrist.
“You mean bellow,” added a woman with a broken rib.
“However it is,” Musenda said, looking at the injured gladiators, his right eyebrow raised, “I can’t make them stop, so I live with it.”
“How is your sister-in-law? How are the children?” Arram inquired. He motioned for the woman with the broken rib to sit up straight. She did so, wincing, and he cast the painkilling spell for her.
As Arram lay a wrapping of his power on her to see if she had more hurts, Musenda said, “My sister-in-law is well. She’ll be pleased that you asked after her. I won’t have the chance to see her much longer, though. They leave for Tortall next month.”
“Do you begrudge her?” asked the female gladiator as Arram gently placed his hands over the broken rib. Seeing her broken bone in his mind, he murmured the brief words of the spell to mend it, making sure that each splinter fit into its former place. Finished, he glanced at the woman and at Musenda.
“Of course I don’t begrudge her,” Musenda replied. “She is happy. Her new husband is a good man. I’ll miss them, though, and the little ones.”
“Tortall?” Arram asked. “Why?”
“Her man works for horse dealers. They want to open a new branch there. They asked him to go—he’s one of the best trainers they have.” Musenda shrugged. “They offered him a fine wage and a house of his own. I should have such luck.”
“Oh, remind me, I brought some toys for the children. Not much, just some little things,” Arram told the big man. To the woman he said, “Meat, as much as you can eat, milk, and cheese.” She raised and lowered the arm on the side of the once-broken rib. “Light work today and tomorrow. Nothing with that arm. You should do well after that.”
The woman smiled. “If you were but a few years older, I’d give you a proper thank-you,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll wager those eyes are breaking the girl mages’ hearts.” She kissed Arram on the cheek and left, cackling gleefully.
“Don’t be looking for no kiss from me,” growled the man with the sprained ankle.
Arram blushed and tended to the gladiator’s sprain. Later, when he returned from getting a drink of water, he found Ramasu speaking with Musenda. The infirmary was empty of patients, so he collapsed on a bench and relaxed among the cooling spells.
“I had no idea that you two knew one another, or I would have sent word when we arrived,” the master was saying to the big gladiator.
“We met at the games, when he fell off the railing and nearly hit the sands,” Musenda explained. He grinned at Arram. “I’ll wager anything you like that Ua will remember you. Elephants remember everything. She took him in her trunk, stood on her hind legs, and handed him up to his family, as pretty as you please,” he explained to Ramasu. “Arram, you were what?”
“Young,” Arram muttered, blushing.
“That’s how Ua became the most popular elephant here,” Musenda told Ramasu. “They won’t even make her fight anymore. She just marches in the parades and pats the children at the rail. And has little ones who become champions.”
Arram’s stomach cramped. It was wonderful to know that the glorious creature didn’t risk her life in the battles now, but how could she stand giving her children up to the arena? He had worked often with Lindhall’s elephants, many of them too old or injured to fight, and the master had taught Arram everything he knew of the great creatures. They were more intelligent than most animals, and they had their own culture.
Musenda looked at Arram. “Are you all right, lad?”
Arram shook his head. “I never understand why people are so happy to see humans and animals chopped up in the arena. Isn’t life brutal enough? The waste is indecent. So is the—the joy the audience takes in the killing of innocent people.” Thinking about the conversations he’d heard at school about the various gladiators, he added, “Mostly innocent people, and innocent animals. It should be stopped.”
“Plenty of us would like that. Or we’d like it if contests were declared over before someone was killed,” Musenda said. “Time was, a fight to the death was rare. Not anymore. Our master emperor likes the sight of blood. So does his heir. That’s to be expected, I suppose, being a general and all.” He shrugged. “And who cares? We’re only slaves, when all’s said and done.”
“Valuable ones,” Ramasu said.
“Valuable? Not enough to let us live on a day nobles bet their gold on your opponent making a kill. Or when the crowd is crazed with blood lust and the ruler of the games knows he’d best sacrifice some gladiators or there’ll be a riot, like there was in 402.” Musenda smiled crookedly. “At least we got a new stadium out of that one.”
A gladiator poked his head in the door. “Sar
ge? Shrike and Wild Dog are brawlin’ again!”
Musenda sighed. “If anyone dies in these games, I pick those two. Good to talk with you both. I’ll come for the toys later, and my thanks.” He left at a fast trot.
As the days passed, Musenda—Sarge—became a regular visitor, whether he came with injured fighters or on his own. Arram often found Ramasu and the gladiator in conversation, walking around the exercise yard during quiet periods. Those came more frequently in the second week, when the newest gladiators had learned something and those from lesser arenas had been taught respect for their place in this one. As they learned, so did Arram. He also listened.
Most told him how they became gladiators. One woman, Quomat, broke Arram’s heart. She’d been married at ten, a practice among many of the empire’s tribes. After several miscarriages before she was fourteen, her village healer declared her barren. Her husband sold her to pay the bride price for his new wife.
“A merchant bought me. I was fine at his house at first,” she told Arram as he worked on a deep cut in her left thigh. Across her golden-brown stomach, left bare by the brief shirt that was part of her practice gear, was the tattoo “Not for You.” “They hardly beat anyone, and I could do any chore they gave me,” she said. “The meals was good. Then I started to grow, up top and my bum. The men—not just slaves!—they fought over me. Mistress decided I was too much trouble and sold me. The master of fighters at the local arena saw me on the block, and here I am.”
Arram finished and gave his usual care instructions. “Would you leave if you could, Quomat?” he asked, curious. She had a scar from her right temple across the bridge of her nose, and she had lost a breast to the gods of battle.
She slid off the table and stood, wincing as she put weight on the healed leg. “Sonny, maybe you’re trying to trick me or maybe you’re just green, but what you asked can get a girl killed. I’m a slave. I don’t have choices, only owners.” She patted his cheek with a brown hand knotted from years of wielding sword and spear. “I’ll give you credit and say you’re green. There are worse ways to live than this. Like being pounded by an old man when you’re only ten.”
She was barely out the door when two more patients came in. Arram turned away to scrub a tear from his eye before he settled them.
Not all tales were sad. Three men sold themselves to the arena “for the glory,” they said. Arram didn’t understand. A six-year veteran of the games was a soldier who had killed a fellow soldier: he’d been given a choice of death or the arena. One female gladiator, Gueda, came from a tribe where women and men alike were fighters. She had been caught by enemies and sold to the arena, where she liked the life.
“I’m one of four women as’ll take on a man,” she told Arram as he cleaned and mended claw marks in her side. She cackled gleefully, causing him to make a puzzled noise. She explained, “A’ course, I do me own fightin’ with a trained tiger at me side, against three to five gladiators!”
“It seems to me working with a tiger is as dangerous as fighting against a man,” Arram murmured, touching the skin next to her longest wound. His Gift spilled into it.
“Tacuma was just testy this mornin’,” Gueda explained, twisting to watch Arram work. “I’ve told them and told them don’t give ’im mutton, it makes ’im mean, but do they listen? I’m only the handler. Mayhap next time I’ll feed a sheep t’ Tacuma, aye. I’ll turn ’im loose in the shed when they fix the cats’ meals, see if the butchers like Tacuma when ’is belly aches, me poor big boy.”
“That seems ill-advised,” Arram said absently, using the spell to bind each layer of skin and muscle evenly. Her “poor big boy” had cut all the way down to her ribs.
“I suppose you’re right. Bad t’ give ’em a taste for human. They’re ruined if that happens.” She fell silent, only to stiffen a few moments later. “What’s that noise?”
During her silence Arram sealed her wounds. Now he placed a cream on the welts to fight infection. “What noise?” he asked. A distant roar reached his ears.
“Lady of the Cats, that’s Tacuma! Are you near done?” She rose to her knees. “If they handle ’im when I’m not there, they’ll get more than a scratch!”
“Give me a moment and listen to me,” Arram said, trying not to be impatient. Realizing that she was not listening, he wrote instructions on a sheet from his workbook and ordered her to wait. He rushed into the stillroom to put up a jar of infection-fighting ointment, since she was plainly the last person who would go easy on her wounds. When he returned he saw that she had taken a light tunic kept for those who wore shirts, and had it half over her head. The moment she was dressed she swiped the ointment from Arram’s hand, glanced at the instructions, and kissed his cheek.
“Nice work, youngster,” Gueda said with a grin. “If you ever visit with your girl, tell the guards I said you could come see me and Tacuma, no charge.”
The afternoon was filled with lighter injuries than Gueda’s. Other visitors assured Arram that Tacuma quieted down once his human had come into view, before he could do serious damage to those who had fed him mutton. Gueda herself brought her cat around to meet Arram and Ramasu after the noon meal, before the animal settled for his afternoon nap. Both healers acknowledged the cat’s splendor, Ramasu at a somewhat greater distance than Arram.
“But I thought you liked cats,” Arram teased his master gently after Gueda and her companion had left.
Ramasu lifted his eyebrow. “If you like him, you may play with him. I will keep the kind of distance that shows so large a creature proper respect. Perhaps even a little more distance, so there are no misunderstandings.”
Arram grinned and turned to greet their next patient, a cook with a burned hand.
As things quieted near the supper hour, Ramasu left him in charge and went to take a nap. Preet chose the same time to fly outside.
Arram cleaned the infirmary, then sat out front, chin in hand. Gueda’s mention of “his girl” that morning had stayed with him. He missed Varice more than he had thought he would: her laugh, her teasing, her perfumes, her touch on his shoulder when she wanted to say something personal. He missed her, and Ozorne, and his masters. He missed the university gardens and the quiet libraries, the breezes that blew cool over the fountains, and the comfort of his room. He knew he would see his friends soon, but in the time between, the day of the games loomed like a thousand years.
He was occupying himself by rolling fresh bandages when a shadow fell over his work. He looked up. A burly gladiator stood in the open doorway. “Where’s the master?” he demanded.
“Out until after supper, but what is the problem? I am able to handle most injuries,” Arram replied.
The gladiator snorted. “You? You’re naught but a pup.”
Arram straightened. “I was healer enough to look after Gueda’s wounds,” he retorted.
The man snorted a second time and walked farther into the infirmary, drifting around as he surveyed the contents of the countertops. His eyes flicked too often toward the stillroom. “What kind of injury do you have?” Arram asked. “Or is a friend the injured one?” The stranger made him uneasy.
“What’s in there?” the man asked, pointing his thumb at the stillroom.
“Nothing of interest to you,” Arram said, frowning. Was this fellow trying to find the more serious medicines? “And the room is locked.”
“But you have a key.” The gladiator looked him over, sizing him up.
“I do not.” It was a lie; Arram knew the spells that would open the room. Now he really disliked this man. “Unless you are hurt or seriously ill, I must ask you to leave.” He moved until he stood directly in front of the stillroom door. He fumbled for a protection spell that would be just enough to send this man on his way. He was terrified that he would use the wrong thing.
“I have a headache.” The man took a few steps toward Arram, a smile on his mouth. Arram recognized the expression in his eyes: it was contempt, something he knew all too well from school. “Give
me something for it,” the gladiator ordered.
“Your training chiefs have headache medications,” Arram replied. Ramasu had explained that on the first day.
“But I want healing from you, boy.” The man shook his arms out in front of him, as boxers and masters of unarmed combat did. He clenched his fists, making the joints crackle. His muscles bulged.
Arram called a ball of glittering black fire to his hand. “Go to your training master, please,” he said calmly, glaring. “Before I help you outside.”
“Kottrun, what are you doing here?” Musenda walked in. “The practice chief is looking for you.”
“I have a headache,” the other gladiator snapped as Arram slowly absorbed his Gift. Kottrun added, “And this piece of arena bait—”
Musenda cut him off. “You’ll have it worse when the practice chief gets his hands on you. Besides, you know the chiefs carry what’s needful for the usual things.”
Kottrun glared at Arram. “You’ll regret this,” he said, his voice so quiet only Arram would hear. He walked out, passing too close to Musenda for politeness. Arram watched him go.
“What was he really after, youngster?” Musenda asked. “You’re standing by the room with the serious medicines.”
“We had only reached the headache area of our conversation,” Arram explained. He silently cursed the bone-deep school tradition of never reporting bad behavior to instructors. Besides, the way days in the camp went, he might never have to deal with Kottrun again.
Musenda slapped the doorpost casually. “Well, if he bothers you, let Ramasu or me know. Why don’t you lock up and go get something to eat?”
“I’ll do that, as soon as I’ve finished my chores,” Arram assured the older man. “Thank you. Oh, and wait!” He ran into the stillroom and retrieved the sack with the toys he had gotten for Musenda’s family. “They aren’t much, but I thought the children would like them,” he explained as he gave the sack to the gladiator.
Musenda looked at the little doll, the lion, and the gorilla, all with moving wooden limbs. “You’re a good-hearted fellow,” he said gruffly. “If I can ever do anything for you…”