Worried—marble was far less vulnerable to his sort of mistake than a human body would be—Arram glanced at Gerb.
The older student shrugged. “It’s how he dunked me into the river of healing,” he said. “I didn’t drown, and I hear you’re clever.” He grinned.
“You just experienced a small sample and lived,” Ramasu pointed out.
Daka glared at Arram. “If you might get on, boy?” he demanded. “I have chores at home.” He looked at Ramasu. “I’ll be able to do me chores?”
That settled Arram. He knew as well as the farmer that the loss of a day’s work might mean the loss of some part of his family’s meals. Besides, there was a baby coming. “What must I do?”
Ramasu glanced at Gerb. “I will have a poultice, the emphasized honey—”
Before he could finish, Gerb said, “Turmeric, and olive leaf extract, boiled linen poultice, cotton bandage.” He looked at Arram and explained, “He thinks I never remember anything. It’s his favorite mixture for an open wound. In a month you’ll be saying it in your sleep.”
As he walked out, Ramasu muttered, “I do not get my proper portion of respect.”
“Me, I like a youngster with spice,” Daka told him. He was a little gray and beginning to sweat. Without instructions, Arram began to clear the table of the things they had placed there before. One of the shelves was stacked with blankets. Arram took two and placed the first on the table. To his awe, Ramasu picked Daka up in both arms and gently set him on the blanket, then took the other from Arram and covered the farmer with it. Arram kept the wounded arm clear of the cloth and placed it across Daka’s chest when Ramasu was done.
“Now you let us work,” Ramasu told Daka. “When you wake, your wound will be clean and bandaged, and in two days you may remove the bandage.”
Arram yawned and glanced at Daka. The farmer was asleep. “Not you,” Ramasu ordered. “Let us link together.”
It began that way. At the end of the morning Ramasu handed Arram a battered volume titled Master and Student. “It is so slow, the other way,” Ramasu told Arram as the youth leafed through the volume. “I have perhaps a handful of students a year who I can teach this way, and not all of them care for it. We reinforce what we learn through magic with studies you will undertake using this volume and in the infirmaries. You can learn just as much from the nurses and the senior students.” Arram nodded, remembering the staff at the typhoid infirmary. “And it may be that you will decide the medical arts are not for you. If that is the case, I must know right away. I do not have so much time that I can waste it on someone who dislikes the work.”
“Oh, no, Master!” Arram replied, shocked. “This is so much better than things like battle magic, or studying what will earn me a place among the wealthy!”
Ramasu smiled. “You are young. You may change your mind—and if you enter Ozorne’s house, you will labor for him as much as for the sick, remember.” He urged Arram through the door closest to the university’s main entrance. “Have a good meal. You will need it after all you have done today. And read that material tonight!”
When Arram returned to the infirmary in the morning, it was to the knowledge that Daka’s wife had presented him with a new son.
—
The next month was something of a blur in his memory until he got used to his new schedule. The infirmary and Lindhall kept him moving, and Hulak was all too happy to step up his learning with regard to medicinal plants. Yadeen decided that he’d done so well in making spells that came from magical jewelry that he increased Arram’s studies in that area at the same time that Cosmas began to teach him about the uses of fire in the university kitchens. Dagani brought their small class of three to the next step, that of simulacra of small animals, but Ozorne, Varice, and Arram expected that. There the difficulty lay in the creation of believable simulacra of living creatures. They had done well with birds, but small animals, particularly pets, were more difficult. And Urukut decided that Arram was ready to learn magic from tribes that had vanished centuries before, leaving only their statues and stone markers behind.
Worst of all from Arram’s point of view, Varice was angry with him for three weeks. She told him it was because he had snubbed two girls she had introduced to him. Ozorne told him privately that he simply wasn’t paying attention to her the way he had before that term.
“I think it’s the falling asleep over supper, frankly,” his friend added with a grin.
Arram tried to scowl at him but couldn’t. “What do you suggest?”
Ozorne consulted with the gold bead at the end of one of his braids—that week’s color scheme was gold, dark blue, and black. “She has been admiring the bracelet you wear, and the necklace you made for Faziy.”
Arram looked at the prince with admiration. “Where would I be without you?”
Ozorne chuckled. “Surely it goes the other way.”
A week later Arram gave Varice the most delicate silver necklace he could fashion. Three small gems hung from it. He presented it to her in a silk bag after Hulak’s class one August day. “For love, prosperity, and protection,” he told her as she drew it out. “And there’s no magic on it, because I know you don’t like magic things on your skin.”
Varice untangled the chain and held the necklace up. “You made this for me?” Her eyes were wide and filled with amazement.
He nodded, looking at the ground. “I tried to find a blue stone with the properties I wanted, but this seemed better.”
“Would you fasten it?” she asked, nudging him. “So I can wear it.”
He knew she must fasten her necklaces all the time, but he couldn’t resist her request. He stepped behind her to do up the hook, breathing in her scent as he did so. She wore woods-lily scent today, just the lightest touch. It made him a little giddy.
“There,” he said, facing her once more.
She had taken a mirror from her bag and was examining herself in it. “It’s lovely!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck. Before he knew what was happening, she had kissed him firmly on the mouth. Preet sang, flying around them, before Varice let Arram go. “I can’t wait until Gissa sees it!” Varice told him. “She’ll die of envy!”
“No, don’t,” Arram said, his head still spinning from her kiss. “She might want me to make her one, and…they’re special, that’s all. It takes strength to make them.”
Varice looked at him. “You said there isn’t magic in it. I don’t feel magic in it.”
He shrugged. “There isn’t, but…I think about them, when I work on them. About the power that naturally goes with the stone, and the metal. Jade and silver for money and protection, silver for the moon—”
“I knew that,” Varice interrupted. “Silver for the goddess, remember?”
He smiled at her. “And jade for love.”