Ozorne pulled Arram’s arm around his shoulder, steadying his friend. “I see—I smell—that you too got the cleansing bath.”
“It makes us safe to come home,” Arram retorted. “Preet, you’re going to make me deaf.” The bird was telling Ozorne what she thought of his remarks.
“Oh, that’s the way it is?” Ozorne said to the bird. “I’m your best friend for days, but the moment he returns…” He looked at Arram. “You’re taller. I just noticed.”
Arram was sliding down again, but not before he realized Ozorne’s eyes were level with the bridge of his nose. He gave the only reply he could think of: “Oops.”
“Here, lad.” The carter had secured his reins and given his horses feed bags. “I’d best help with yon sapling.”
“But your cart, and the animals,” Ozorne protested.
“Can’t you see the spell?” the man asked.
“I can see a spell,” Ozorne said. “Not the manner of it. It’s very good.”
“I can’t see anything,” Arram added, and yawned. He was struggling to stay on his feet. “I’m all used up.”
The carter got under his free arm and draped it over his own brawny shoulders. Preet walked over on the arm until she had a closer look at the man’s face. “The bird won’t peck me, will he?” the carter asked.
Preet began to trill, coaxing a smile from him. “She likes you,” Ozorne said. “You should be honored. She doesn’t like many folk. So what kind of spell is it, that we only see there is a spell, but we can’t see what it’s for?”
“They put it on us that work during the big sicknesses. Folk think the wagons and horses belong to Players,” the man explained as they walked Arram through the gate. “Everyone knows there’s a curse from them that steals from Players. The spell turns clear when we go where there’s plague, and ordinary folk know we’re bringing help.”
“Clever,” Ozorne said with admiration.
“The healers have been here ages,” the carter said as they halted before their dormitory. “Long enough to work it out. Is this it?”
“In a way. Now there’s four flights of stairs,” Ozorne said cheerfully. “Look, you don’t have to do this. I can go get some of the others if they’re around.”
“It’s no bother,” the carter replied as they walked Arram inside. “This is my last trip. I’m off home to my old woman and the grandchildren.”
“How is the situation in the city?” Ozorne asked as they began to climb. Arram did his best to help, but his knees were so wobbly. It wasn’t just his body that was tired, Gieyat had explained as they bundled him into the cart. It was the draining of his Gift.
He hadn’t known his Gift was so entwined with his bones. He would have to do something about it later.
The carter in the meantime was telling Ozorne that the death rate wasn’t anything like the typhoid of 435. He remembered the smoke from the burning of the dead in that epidemic. The university had been safe from typhoid, but the smoke had drifted in the air for weeks. It was said plagues were the toy of the Queen of Chaos, tossed into the Mortal Realms when she was bored. Arram wished that he might one day do the Queen of Chaos an ill turn to even the score.
They had reached his door. Ozorne opened it, and together he and the carter eased Arram through and lifted him onto his bed. Arram tried to raise his head to thank them, but Preet hopped onto his forehead. Somehow her weight was too much. He sank back against his pillow.
Ozorne fumbled in his belt pouch for coins, but the carter shook his head. “Not a copper will I take, youngster,” he said with a smile. Arram realized that the man had no idea that Ozorne was a member of the imperial family. “I’d’ve helped your friend for nothing. Whenever they gave him time away from his work, he’d go where they kept the youngsters what was waiting t’see family, and juggle.” The man chuckled. “The young folk loved ’im. Even the workers. He’d juggle for the sick, if they were awake enough to watch. It’s no wonder he’s falling over on himself.”
Arram turned away. What good had any of it done? So many of the children had lost their fathers, or their mothers, or any family they had.
Preet settled in the hollow between his shoulder and the free ear and produced a soft, slow trill that lured him to a deep and dreamless sleep. He didn’t see the carter shake hands with Ozorne, to that prince’s bemusement, and tell him, “Look after that long friend of yours. He’s a good ’un,” or hear Ozorne murmur, “He is indeed.”
—
The next morning, still half asleep, Arram and Preet joined Ozorne on his way to breakfast. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?” the prince asked, looking at him suspiciously.
“I have until Sunday classes next week to come about,” Arram told him, and yawned. “Master Lindhall left the note pinned to my door this morning. He said to enjoy it. I won’t get so much time to recover as I grow older.”
“How noble of them,” Ozorne said drily. “Listen, I wanted to warn you, Varice is unhappy that you disappeared the way you did. I tried to explain, but…” Ozorne shrugged. “Girls.”
Arram winced. “I wasn’t given a choice, you know! One moment I was chopping herbs, and the next I was up to my elbows…” He swallowed, a ghost of the smell haunting his nostrils. “I was not enjoying myself,” he said weakly. “And if there was a mail courier, no one mentioned it.”
“What, you didn’t make a simulacrum of one to carry a note to us?” Ozorne asked wickedly.
Arram elbowed him and Ozorne elbowed back, while Preet scolded them both. “It’s good to have you home, friend,” Ozorne said as they walked into the dining hall.
While Arram went straight to the arrays of food, Ozorne went to their table. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his friend bend to whisper in Varice’s ear.
Varice squealed Arram’s name. A moment later a number of pounds of agreeably shaped female pounced upon him. Ozorne rescued the indignant Preet before Varice wrapped her arms around Arram’s neck.
“You horrible thing!” Varice cried. “Not a word to say goodbye, and I missed you so much!” As her weight pulled him down so she could reach his face, she kissed him first on his left cheek, then his right cheek, then a third time, very firmly, on his mouth.
Arram stood stock-still until she released him and said, “Let’s have breakfast.”
He fumbled as he picked up a tray. He would spend the rest of the day touching his mouth from time to time when no one was looking, still feeling the pressure of her lips, or thinking he did.
“I was worried sick,” Varice said as she briskly placed an egg dish on Arram’s tray. “There was no word of when you were coming home….Goddess save us, you’re a rail. What did they feed you?”
“Soups and porridges, mostly, like they fed the patients and their families,” Arram replied, smiling. It was so comfortable to see Varice picking out his meal for him again. “Perfectly decent food, you know.”
“Then you weren’t eating much of it.” She added plums and hothouse berries.
From their table, Preet squawked.