Arram took charge of those with broken or cut arms and legs. Ramasu cared for those with more serious injuries. Preet, scolded away from the work down on the floor, perched in the rafters and sang, her voice soothing the wounded.
On their third day Arram was smearing salve into a new man’s sunburned back when a shadow fell over them. “If you don’t mind?” he asked the shadow’s owner politely. “I can’t tell what I’ve gotten and what I’m missing.”
The shadow moved.
Arram finished the job and told the gladiator he had treated, “You’ll be fine when you go to bed. You shouldn’t burn like that again with the charm I gave you earlier. Now,” he said, looking for the shadow’s owner. “What may I do for—” He recognized the large black man leaning against the wall nearby. “Musenda!” he cried, grinning and holding out his hands. The big man clasped them warmly. “It’s wonderful to see you!”
The gladiator smiled. “Good to see you. You’ve grown, haven’t you?”
Arram was shocked: he was now just half a head shorter than the gladiator. “I must have done so, though it was not my intention,” he said as the patients close enough to hear chuckled. “Now I see why the seamstresses keep complaining about lengthening my clothes.”
“Arram, you know this man?” Having finished with his patient, Ramasu came over to see who was talking to his student. “Mithros guard us all, Musenda! Or may I still call you Sarge?”
Musenda shook his head. “You can always call me Sarge, Master. It’s the others I must remind I’ve never been a soldier. Even the soldiers do it, once they hear me speak out.”
“You mean screech,” said a man with a sprained wrist.
“You mean bellow,” added a woman with a broken rib.
“However it is,” Musenda said, looking at the injured gladiators, his right eyebrow raised, “I can’t make them stop, so I live with it.”
“How is your sister-in-law? How are the children?” Arram inquired. He motioned for the woman with the broken rib to sit up straight. She did so, wincing, and he cast the painkilling spell for her.
As Arram lay a wrapping of his power on her to see if she had more hurts, Musenda said, “My sister-in-law is well. She’ll be pleased that you asked after her. I won’t have the chance to see her much longer, though. They leave for Tortall next month.”
“Do you begrudge her?” asked the female gladiator as Arram gently placed his hands over the broken rib. Seeing her broken bone in his mind, he murmured the brief words of the spell to mend it, making sure that each splinter fit into its former place. Finished, he glanced at the woman and at Musenda.
“Of course I don’t begrudge her,” Musenda replied. “She is happy. Her new husband is a good man. I’ll miss them, though, and the little ones.”
“Tortall?” Arram asked. “Why?”
“Her man works for horse dealers. They want to open a new branch there. They asked him to go—he’s one of the best trainers they have.” Musenda shrugged. “They offered him a fine wage and a house of his own. I should have such luck.”
“Oh, remind me, I brought some toys for the children. Not much, just some little things,” Arram told the big man. To the woman he said, “Meat, as much as you can eat, milk, and cheese.” She raised and lowered the arm on the side of the once-broken rib. “Light work today and tomorrow. Nothing with that arm. You should do well after that.”
The woman smiled. “If you were but a few years older, I’d give you a proper thank-you,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll wager those eyes are breaking the girl mages’ hearts.” She kissed Arram on the cheek and left, cackling gleefully.
“Don’t be looking for no kiss from me,” growled the man with the sprained ankle.
Arram blushed and tended to the gladiator’s sprain. Later, when he returned from getting a drink of water, he found Ramasu speaking with Musenda. The infirmary was empty of patients, so he collapsed on a bench and relaxed among the cooling spells.
“I had no idea that you two knew one another, or I would have sent word when we arrived,” the master was saying to the big gladiator.
“We met at the games, when he fell off the railing and nearly hit the sands,” Musenda explained. He grinned at Arram. “I’ll wager anything you like that Ua will remember you. Elephants remember everything. She took him in her trunk, stood on her hind legs, and handed him up to his family, as pretty as you please,” he explained to Ramasu. “Arram, you were what?”
“Young,” Arram muttered, blushing.
“That’s how Ua became the most popular elephant here,” Musenda told Ramasu. “They won’t even make her fight anymore. She just marches in the parades and pats the children at the rail. And has little ones who become champions.”
Arram’s stomach cramped. It was wonderful to know that the glorious creature didn’t risk her life in the battles now, but how could she stand giving her children up to the arena? He had worked often with Lindhall’s elephants, many of them too old or injured to fight, and the master had taught Arram everything he knew of the great creatures. They were more intelligent than most animals, and they had their own culture.
Musenda looked at Arram. “Are you all right, lad?”
Arram shook his head. “I never understand why people are so happy to see humans and animals chopped up in the arena. Isn’t life brutal enough? The waste is indecent. So is the—the joy the audience takes in the killing of innocent people.” Thinking about the conversations he’d heard at school about the various gladiators, he added, “Mostly innocent people, and innocent animals. It should be stopped.”
“Plenty of us would like that. Or we’d like it if contests were declared over before someone was killed,” Musenda said. “Time was, a fight to the death was rare. Not anymore. Our master emperor likes the sight of blood. So does his heir. That’s to be expected, I suppose, being a general and all.” He shrugged. “And who cares? We’re only slaves, when all’s said and done.”
“Valuable ones,” Ramasu said.
“Valuable? Not enough to let us live on a day nobles bet their gold on your opponent making a kill. Or when the crowd is crazed with blood lust and the ruler of the games knows he’d best sacrifice some gladiators or there’ll be a riot, like there was in 402.” Musenda smiled crookedly. “At least we got a new stadium out of that one.”
A gladiator poked his head in the door. “Sarge? Shrike and Wild Dog are brawlin’ again!”
Musenda sighed. “If anyone dies in these games, I pick those two. Good to talk with you both. I’ll come for the toys later, and my thanks.” He left at a fast trot.