As the days passed, Musenda—Sarge—became a regular visitor, whether he came with injured fighters or on his own. Arram often found Ramasu and the gladiator in conversation, walking around the exercise yard during quiet periods. Those came more frequently in the second week, when the newest gladiators had learned something and those from lesser arenas had been taught respect for their place in this one. As they learned, so did Arram. He also listened.
Most told him how they became gladiators. One woman, Quomat, broke Arram’s heart. She’d been married at ten, a practice among many of the empire’s tribes. After several miscarriages before she was fourteen, her village healer declared her barren. Her husband sold her to pay the bride price for his new wife.
“A merchant bought me. I was fine at his house at first,” she told Arram as he worked on a deep cut in her left thigh. Across her golden-brown stomach, left bare by the brief shirt that was part of her practice gear, was the tattoo “Not for You.” “They hardly beat anyone, and I could do any chore they gave me,” she said. “The meals was good. Then I started to grow, up top and my bum. The men—not just slaves!—they fought over me. Mistress decided I was too much trouble and sold me. The master of fighters at the local arena saw me on the block, and here I am.”
Arram finished and gave his usual care instructions. “Would you leave if you could, Quomat?” he asked, curious. She had a scar from her right temple across the bridge of her nose, and she had lost a breast to the gods of battle.
She slid off the table and stood, wincing as she put weight on the healed leg. “Sonny, maybe you’re trying to trick me or maybe you’re just green, but what you asked can get a girl killed. I’m a slave. I don’t have choices, only owners.” She patted his cheek with a brown hand knotted from years of wielding sword and spear. “I’ll give you credit and say you’re green. There are worse ways to live than this. Like being pounded by an old man when you’re only ten.”
She was barely out the door when two more patients came in. Arram turned away to scrub a tear from his eye before he settled them.
Not all tales were sad. Three men sold themselves to the arena “for the glory,” they said. Arram didn’t understand. A six-year veteran of the games was a soldier who had killed a fellow soldier: he’d been given a choice of death or the arena. One female gladiator, Gueda, came from a tribe where women and men alike were fighters. She had been caught by enemies and sold to the arena, where she liked the life.
“I’m one of four women as’ll take on a man,” she told Arram as he cleaned and mended claw marks in her side. She cackled gleefully, causing him to make a puzzled noise. She explained, “A’ course, I do me own fightin’ with a trained tiger at me side, against three to five gladiators!”
“It seems to me working with a tiger is as dangerous as fighting against a man,” Arram murmured, touching the skin next to her longest wound. His Gift spilled into it.
“Tacuma was just testy this mornin’,” Gueda explained, twisting to watch Arram work. “I’ve told them and told them don’t give ’im mutton, it makes ’im mean, but do they listen? I’m only the handler. Mayhap next time I’ll feed a sheep t’ Tacuma, aye. I’ll turn ’im loose in the shed when they fix the cats’ meals, see if the butchers like Tacuma when ’is belly aches, me poor big boy.”
“That seems ill-advised,” Arram said absently, using the spell to bind each layer of skin and muscle evenly. Her “poor big boy” had cut all the way down to her ribs.
“I suppose you’re right. Bad t’ give ’em a taste for human. They’re ruined if that happens.” She fell silent, only to stiffen a few moments later. “What’s that noise?”
During her silence Arram sealed her wounds. Now he placed a cream on the welts to fight infection. “What noise?” he asked. A distant roar reached his ears.
“Lady of the Cats, that’s Tacuma! Are you near done?” She rose to her knees. “If they handle ’im when I’m not there, they’ll get more than a scratch!”
“Give me a moment and listen to me,” Arram said, trying not to be impatient. Realizing that she was not listening, he wrote instructions on a sheet from his workbook and ordered her to wait. He rushed into the stillroom to put up a jar of infection-fighting ointment, since she was plainly the last person who would go easy on her wounds. When he returned he saw that she had taken a light tunic kept for those who wore shirts, and had it half over her head. The moment she was dressed she swiped the ointment from Arram’s hand, glanced at the instructions, and kissed his cheek.
“Nice work, youngster,” Gueda said with a grin. “If you ever visit with your girl, tell the guards I said you could come see me and Tacuma, no charge.”
The afternoon was filled with lighter injuries than Gueda’s. Other visitors assured Arram that Tacuma quieted down once his human had come into view, before he could do serious damage to those who had fed him mutton. Gueda herself brought her cat around to meet Arram and Ramasu after the noon meal, before the animal settled for his afternoon nap. Both healers acknowledged the cat’s splendor, Ramasu at a somewhat greater distance than Arram.
“But I thought you liked cats,” Arram teased his master gently after Gueda and her companion had left.
Ramasu lifted his eyebrow. “If you like him, you may play with him. I will keep the kind of distance that shows so large a creature proper respect. Perhaps even a little more distance, so there are no misunderstandings.”
Arram grinned and turned to greet their next patient, a cook with a burned hand.
As things quieted near the supper hour, Ramasu left him in charge and went to take a nap. Preet chose the same time to fly outside.
Arram cleaned the infirmary, then sat out front, chin in hand. Gueda’s mention of “his girl” that morning had stayed with him. He missed Varice more than he had thought he would: her laugh, her teasing, her perfumes, her touch on his shoulder when she wanted to say something personal. He missed her, and Ozorne, and his masters. He missed the university gardens and the quiet libraries, the breezes that blew cool over the fountains, and the comfort of his room. He knew he would see his friends soon, but in the time between, the day of the games loomed like a thousand years.
He was occupying himself by rolling fresh bandages when a shadow fell over his work. He looked up. A burly gladiator stood in the open doorway. “Where’s the master?” he demanded.
“Out until after supper, but what is the problem? I am able to handle most injuries,” Arram replied.
The gladiator snorted. “You? You’re naught but a pup.”
Arram straightened. “I was healer enough to look after Gueda’s wounds,” he retorted.
The man snorted a second time and walked farther into the infirmary, drifting around as he surveyed the contents of the countertops. His eyes flicked too often toward the stillroom. “What kind of injury do you have?” Arram asked. “Or is a friend the injured one?” The stranger made him uneasy.
“What’s in there?” the man asked, pointing his thumb at the stillroom.
“Nothing of interest to you,” Arram said, frowning. Was this fellow trying to find the more serious medicines? “And the room is locked.”