“All of us fourth-year students who study healing have to work the plague breakouts,” the most senior of the students replied to Arram’s question. “It’s how we get experience. Mages with only a credential will do a lot of that. But any of us who want to make coin, real coin, we contend for our mastery—”
“And when we have that,” the only young woman of their number said, “we can find work where we’ll be paid what all this muck-groveling qualified us for. Then you’ll never see us tending the flea-bitten and stinking again!”
As the carts made their way deeper into the slums, through Sweet Hollow and into Riverfront, the odor thickened with the rain. So did the mud. Down here no one filled the deeper gaps with stones. Over and over students and masters had to get out of the carts and lift them free of mudholes. The few people out and about made the Sign against evil and hid as they passed.
“Why do they make the Sign?” Arram demanded, outraged. “We came to help!”
“Peasants,” a master said, and sniffed. “They think our work carries the disease.”
Children watched them, too starved or despairing to move. Occasionally one or several would rush the carts, only to get their fingers stung by the protective spells on the goods inside.
“Can we give them food?” Arram asked. “We have plenty. They’re skin and bone!”
“We would have nothing if we gave handouts to every street urchin,” the master who’d sniffed replied. “Criers go about telling folk where to go for soup and bread each day. We have more important things to do.”
Arram looked down. Had any of them tried to live on one meal a day? He hoped that he would never be as hard and cynical as these people, or as cruel.
Finally they stopped at the last of a series of warehouses. Over its door someone had set a shelf with a figure of Hekaja, the Carthaki goddess of healing. Arram kissed his fingertips and touched them to his forehead in salute. Silently he prayed that he would make his teacher proud. He looked for Ramasu for instruction or farewells, but the master was already being hurried inside by two acolytes of Hekaja.
Arram wondered what he should do. He tried to ignore the stench that made his stomach roll. With the other students he began to carry goods to the door, but realized almost instantly he would not make it inside.
A man took the jars in his grip. “Around the side is the midden. Try to make it that far,” he said, not unkindly.
Arram ran, slipping in the mud. Several times he nearly skidded into a line of scantily clad, muscled men and women who carried bundles in their arms: they were going in the same direction. Once he stumbled and would have fallen if a big arm had not gripped his and hauled him to his feet. Arram didn’t dare to speak his thanks. Waving to his rescuer, he continued his flight around the edge of the long building.
Even in the bad light and rain he saw too much of the midden for his unhappy nose and belly. Men in rags stood around it with rake-like devices, shoving the outside material toward the center so it would burn. The strong folk were tossing their bundles directly onto the fire.
When Arram reached the edge of the piles of rotten food, blood-and pus-stained bandages, and other unspeakable things, he began to vomit and kept doing so until he thought the next thing to come from his mouth would be his belly. At last he stopped, clutching his aching ribs and breathing with his mouth open. Now he sent a prayer up to Hekaja on his own behalf, so he wouldn’t stumble and fall.
Someone put a ladle of water up to his mouth. “Don’t worry, it’s safe,” said a deep rumble of a male voice. “?’Specially if you’re already medicked against the plague.”
He nodded and gulped the water down. “Thank you,” he gasped when the ladle was empty. When he looked ahead, he saw scarred black legs the size of tree trunks and gnarled feet in straw sandals.
“Thought your head might come off there, youngster. Hold this,” his savior instructed, shoving the ladle into his grip. Arram obeyed. Brisk hands slapped a thin cloth scented with mint over his nose and mouth and tied it firmly behind his head.
“See if that don’t make it easier.”
Arram straightened, taking tiny sniffs of air. It was still bad, but the mint kept it from overwhelming him. Suddenly a woman tripped. Her bundle fell, spilling its contents into the mud and trash. She had been carrying a child’s body.
Cursing, she bent and covered her burden with the cloth, then picked it up again. Arram stared, gape-mouthed, noticing the differing sizes of the bundles. These people carried the dead to the fire. His stomach heaved again. Quickly he pushed the mask away from his mouth, not wanting to soil it. After a few moments while his belly writhed, he straightened and lowered his mask. He’d had nothing left to bring out.
“Arram, what are you doing here, boy?” boomed his new friend. “You’re young for this, seems to me.”
Startled, Arram looked up into a familiar scarred face.
“Musenda!” he cried. “What are you doing here?”
The gladiator smiled and waved a muscled arm to indicate the midden and the people working there. “This. Why aren’t you at school?”
“I study medicines,” Arram said, and hiccupped. “First time working in a plague.”
His friend gave him a fresh ladle of water. “First mouthful, rinse an’ spit,” he advised. “Then little sips. All the students I seen are older.”
Arram drank the last of the water and returned the ladle. “Master says I grind herbs well,” he explained. He eyed the gladiator. He wore only a loincloth, which left his scarred chest bare. On his right shoulder was a branding scar: the image of a circle around two crossed swords. The mark of the arena. “Aren’t you cold?”
Musenda chuckled. “You learn to ignore it. Look at you. First you break up rocks; now you work with the healers. What next—will you fly?”
Arram smiled. “Forgive me for asking—how are you here? I thought you weren’t allowed to leave coliseum grounds without guards.”
“Oh, they’re around, somewhere dry,” Musenda told him. “We can leave the coliseum sometimes. Especially when we are privileged to offer service to the crown.”
Arram looked at the line of muscular people of all colors who came around the corner, each carrying a limp, sad bundle. “You mean when there’s a plague.”
“Especially when there’s a plague.” The man shrugged.
“Aren’t they afraid you’ll escape?”
The man chuckled. “Oh, no, boy. No, no.” He turned to show Arram his left shoulder. A twist of sigils written there in yellow ink shone in his magical vision. “If I go more than one hundred paces from this building, my heart starts to slow down. The farther I go, the slower it gets. They clean the mark off once we’re back in the arena, but the next plague…” He glanced at his companions. “I need to work. Are you going to be all right?”
Arram nodded. “I should work, too.” He offered his hand. “I’m glad I saw you, Musenda, even here.”
The gladiator looked down, then said, “Not many people offer a hand to a gladiator and a slave.” He took Arram’s hand in his callused grip. “We keep meeting. I start to think it’s fate. Stay well, Arram Draper.”
“Stay well. Thank you for the water and the mask.” Arram watched the big man join the slaves who were returning for more of the dead.