“He is! He is!” The girl jumped up and down, excited. Two smaller boys ran over. She told them, “He knows Uncle!” They grinned up at him, urchins in rags, one clutching a wooden doll painted like a gladiator. Their sister told Arram, “Uncle Musenda started to watch over us when Da died. He was going to buy us a new place to live, but then Ma got sick.”
“I will pray to the goddess to spare your mother, and that one day you will have your new house,” Arram said.
“Will you come back and do tricks some more?” asked the older of the two boys. The other children in the room echoed his request, begging so frantically that Arram promised. He shook hands with Musenda’s nephews and hurried back to his tasks.
—
The next time he was ordered to take the morning off, he surrendered to the cold bath, ate a sitting-down meal, and took a walk through the building. Then, as promised, he returned to the children’s waiting room. He was delighted to see Musenda, still wearing the spell-mark that kept him in the plague area, seated cross-legged on the floor. He had a nephew on each knee and a cluster of children before him. They were intent as he told them a story of those who trained tigers in the gladiators’ camp.
The moment he finished the tale, his niece flew across the room to Arram. “Uncle,” she cried, “this is our friend Arram. He juggles.” She seized Arram’s hand and pulled him over to the big gladiator, who was rising to his feet. “He says he knows you!”
Musenda offered his hand in greeting. “We do know each other, Binta. You surprise me, youngster. I did not think you would manage so long.”
Arram smiled weakly. “Neither did I.”
“I owe you my gratitude for amusing my niece and nephews,” Musenda said. “They have been telling me of the light you bring to this place.”
Arram busied himself by taking some of the toys the children were offering him. “They’re too kind,” he told Musenda. “If I make them laugh, it’s when I drop things. Hitting myself on the head is a big favorite.” He smiled at a little boy who offered his stuffed elephant, and accepted it. “It’s good practice.” He began to send the first couple of toys spinning through the air. Musenda’s niece, Binta, stood by, offering up each new item for Arram to juggle as he let them rise and fall in the air.
“I must go,” Musenda said quietly, understanding a loud voice would startle Arram. “Only remember, I feel a debt to you for my family.”
Moving gracefully, he made his way out of the crowded room.
Arram looked down at the girl and her brothers as he changed the pattern of the toys he sent into the air. “He’s a nice man, your uncle.”
Binta nodded. “He says someday he’ll live with us, but Ma says he can’t. Gladiators aren’t allowed to live with people.”
It’s not right, Arram thought as he watched the children. Keeping a man from his family is not right. And why? So he can die in the arena for people to wager on? For people to applaud? That’s no life for anyone!
His hands wobbled, and a rain of toys fell on his head. The children and the watching members of the staff applauded. Arram sighed and gathered the toys again. If Ozorne were emperor, he thought, he would do something about it. He shook his head and began to juggle again. There were too many princes ahead of Ozorne, and by all reports, they liked the gladiators and games just as they were.
—
He had been working at the infirmary for four days—or was it five?—when he heard an unusual stirring in the work area. Nazaam came bursting through the door, practically crackling with energy. A man in a naval uniform with a silver chain around his neck walked on her right; another who wore an expensive robe and drape walked on her left. Both shimmered from caps to boots with strong protective magic.
“It is not as if you have been granted a choice in the matter, Master Nazaam,” the man in the robe and drape told her. “His Imperial Highness learned that a number of his sailors or their families are in these places, and he will see them.”
“I cannot promise his safety,” Nazaam snapped. “Nor that of his minions.”
“But Master Tajakai can and does,” the naval officer retorted, naming the imperial court’s official mage. “Will you gainsay him?”
Outside Arram could hear the muffled blasts of trumpets.
The robed man drew a parchment from his drape and offered it to Nazaam. “A writ, signed by the emperor and Tajakai, with the imperial seal, which absolves you of responsibility should His Imperial Highness or any in his train take harm.
“Now, stop whining, woman, and—” The naval officer stopped talking. His mouth moved, but no sound emerged. His face turned red; his eyes bulged; his body trembled. He was frozen in place. Arram walked over, not to help the man, but to back up Nazaam should she need it. Laman followed, and with him every worker in sight. Gieyat walked up behind the officer, his hands bunched into fists.
“Don’t be a fool, Captain,” the other messenger said. “She is the mage most trusted with the emperor’s personal health.”
“I will not have disrespect in my own infirmary, understand?” Nazaam asked, leaning in and speaking softly. “If you do not understand that, Davrid, perhaps you would prefer a few weeks at your beak head after every meal, surrendering what you eat.”
Arram remembered crossing the Inland Sea at seven. His father had been forced to clutch Arram’s shirt to keep his son aboard as the boy walked out onto that rocking point of the ship, positioned his bare behind over a hole that revealed the sea, and tried to make his poor bowels work. He promised himself to never offend Nazaam. “Why does she hate the captain?” he whispered to Laman.
“Former lover,” his fellow student murmured in reply.
Nazaam released the captain, who staggered and choked. “Get this folly over with,” she told the two visitors. “His Imperial Highness and his mage may enter the sickrooms. No one else. Gieyat will serve as your guide. I am not to be disturbed; my workers are to be allowed to perform their tasks. No bowing and scraping, no audiences in the halls.” She walked off, and those who had gathered to watch moved hastily out of her way.
“After you, my lords,” Gieyat told the strangers, bowing politely.
Arram turned back to his desk, shaking his head as he thought about romance and revenge. Falling in love with a mage plainly had its hazards if things did not go well. Still, he admired Nazaam’s inventiveness when it came to thinking of suitable revenge.
“What a woman!” Laman said with admiration as he, too, went back to work.
Arram stared at him. “You must like to live dangerously.”
Laman grinned. “If the punishment was different, it might be a glorious way to die.”