“Dare I ask—the Anaconda again?” he said quietly, wiping his hands clean of sweat and dirt with a damp towel.
“Oh, no, if that’d been the Anaconda, his whole backbone would’ve been all twisty,” said the Kyprish gladiator. “No, this piece of offal thought one of the girls was there for double duty: fighting and”—he caught Ramasu’s eye and obviously changed the word he’d been about to use—“canoodling. Her never having made him an offer, nor any man, for that matter, she explained his error to him.”
“She shoulda knowed he’d never been in a camp where the lasses might be sisters of the game, too,” the new stretcher bearer said.
“He shoulda knowed to ask before layin’ a hand on her,” replied the tattooed gladiator. “He could ask any of us fellows.”
“Argue it outside,” Ramasu ordered. “It’s near to supper. I will send a messenger when this man is ready to return to camp.”
The men nodded and left.
“It wasn’t so long ago that more than a scant handful of women could defend themselves like warriors,” Ramasu mused as he covered their newest patient with a sheet for warmth. Arram had already noticed, and been grateful for, the coolness spells placed on the infirmary by generations of healers. “Only two hundred years it’s been since all women could be soldiers, sailors, enforcers of the law. It wasn’t only gladiators, Shang, and some of the Southern tribes as it is now.”
Arram smiled. He was always amused by the different view of time held by most of his masters. To them, two centuries was a short period, just a small part of the ages of history and magic that they knew. And he knew what Ramasu was thinking of. “The rise of the aspect of the Gentle Mother.”
“The Gentle Mother.” In Ramasu’s soft voice it sounded like a curse. “They took a goddess with a scythe in her hand, striding the rows of grain, and turned her to present the self of a housebound creature. I wonder when she will show her true face again.”
“Did they ever try to do that to the Graveyard Hag?” Arram asked. He couldn’t imagine the old lady with any other face than the one she currently bore.
Ramasu chuckled. “Oh, yes. It was amazing, the change of luck that struck any priest who attempted to make her into a kindly grandmother spinning by the fire. There is a book in the Faiths section of the library, The Hag Speaks. You may read it and write it up for me for the beginning of autumn term.”
Arram sighed. Why did a good conversation with a master always seem to end in more work for him? Still, he had to say, “Perhaps the Great Goddess prefers the face of the Gentle Mother, or she would have done something like that.”
“I prefer to think that the Three-Fold Mother has not noticed, time being so different in the Divine Realms.” Ramasu was placing jars of ointment and bandages on a counter. “I think that when she does discover what is being done in her name, she will let us know it.”
The doors flew open. Two men entered, one with a clumsy bandage on his chest, the other with one on his thigh. “Worm-eaten, scum-lollin’ country guard let one of his New Meats come in with a knife!” the man with the chest wound cried.
Ramasu pointed them each to a bench. He took the chest wound, a shallow diagonal slice, and Arram the thigh wound, which had just missed an important vein. “And where is this New Meat with the blade?” Ramasu asked as he and Arram wet cloths and washed the injuries with a cleansing balm.
“He won’t be coming here,” the gladiator with the chest wound said offhandedly. “The lads settled his account.”
Arram’s mouth suddenly went dry. He thought he knew what the man meant. He glanced at Ramasu, who gave a tiny shake of his head. Fingers trembling, Arram got back to the work of spelling the veins and arteries whole again, then turned to the muscles that had been sliced.
“Arm and torso work for you for two days,” Ramasu ordered Arram’s patient when he was released. “No full-strength blows, no running. Tell the cooks plenty of meat. And you, weapons repair for three days, then light sparring for the rest of the week,” he said, pointing to his patient. “If your mentor has questions, he may see me. Off with you—I hear others on their way.”
The afternoon continued in this manner: a broken jaw, cuts, lesser broken bones, head blows that resulted in two more sleeping gladiators in the infirmary. Things slowed down at last: Arram realized he hadn’t heard the thwack of wooden blade against wooden blade for a while. They released their last patient when he woke shortly before the evening meal. The other patients had returned to their quarters earlier.
Ramasu and Arram cleaned the infirmary, though Arram protested he could do so on his own.
“Things are less formal here,” Ramasu said gently. “Today was actually fairly calm. There will be a few days while the gladiators torment the New Meat, particularly those who are here only because they look strong or were troublesome to their former masters. They will not be killed if it can be helped. They are meant to die in the arena.”
Arram made the Sign against evil on his chest.
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.