The Broken Isles

TWELVE

Eir, former Stewardess of the Jamur Empire, sister of Empress Rika, found herself in unusual settings for a lady of her status. The rooms weren’t exactly inviting — the structure had been built using large stones from a collapsed monastery, though apparently the architects had not thought about bringing many of the windows with them. Light came only from cressets, candles and fireplaces. Just a few decorations were littered about the place — a few religious trinkets and some donated rugs that gave off a bad smell, which was only disguised by the worse odours from dried blood or buckets of urine.

Using a cloth soaked in a water and oil mixture, she washed around a man’s wounds; they hadn’t become infected, thanks to the quick work of one of the nurses, so it probably looked far worse than it actually was.

The man smiled through the pain as she dabbed the longest wound that stretched up along his ribs. Water trickled down his torso and he shivered. One of the other nurses briefed Eir earlier: he had become injured in a fight when he intervened in a quayside skirmish. Two women had been assaulted by a gang of youths, and he had stepped in to scare them off. The youths overwhelmed him: two knife wounds under his ribcage had freed him of a lot of blood, but he had been incredibly fortunate to gain the attention of some people nearby, who knew about the hospital.

‘You have good luck on your side, if you managed to find yourself here,’ Eir said softly.

He looked at her, smiled, and then his gaze drifted to the wall behind her. ‘Well, miss, some might argue that my luck was not so good that I was knifed in the first place.’ He was one of the more polite patients here at the hospital — a pleasant-natured forty-year-old, who seemed honest and decent, and that was the most any nurse could hope for.

‘I don’t suppose it’s too much to hope for a few more logs in the stove?’ he asked.

‘I’ll see if one of the nurses can bring some more in,’ Eir replied.

He glanced up at her again. ‘I’ve not seen you around here much.’

‘No,’ Eir replied. ‘I don’t get the chance to volunteer that much.’

‘It’s nice that anyone can really,’ he said, and laid back on the bed. ‘You don’t look much like a nurse.’

‘And you don’t look much like a hero,’ she replied dryly.

He laughed. ‘No, I guess you never quite know that you’ll be the one to step up when you need to.’

Eir placed the pan of infused water to one side and began to rinse the cloth of blood. This was only her third time spent working here, and already it had not panned out quite as she thought it would. For some reason she had imagined rows and rows of beds, clean sheets, fresh water, and nurses tending thankful patients. The reality was starkly different: makeshift beds; reeking donated blankets; water that had to be boiled from melted snow; rats scurrying along the edges of the room before disappearing into shadows; and patients, when they were not being sick or coughing up blood, were either ungrateful, drunk, or the men leered at the nurses and tried to touch them up when they got a chance. Luckily Eir had not so far been affected; she kept a dagger in her boot and, thanks to Randur’s teachings, knew how to use it.

Perhaps things would change. Before Brynd had left for deployment on Jokull, he had told Eir that, because of her request, he had secured a large loan from the banks to fund this hospital. What was more, they would be able to create hundreds of new jobs as well as serve the injured and sick. He said they might be able to build even bigger hospitals — because he would rather have a healthy working population that could help rebuild the city, than more bodies to heap on the pyres.

She headed out of the ward to find Randur, to see what he was up to. Today was the first time he had accompanied her to the hospital.

The corridors were surprisingly airy, a contrast to the dark and depressing wards themselves, and the tall windows facing towards the east brought in deceptively warm sunlight on the stone. She passed a few other nurses on her walk, and none of them could fully accept that Jamur Eir — of the royal lineage — wanted to help out. It had made socializing and blending in difficult. However, she had managed, so far, to keep news of her identity away from any of the injured or sick. It was only the guard, a soldier from the Regiment of Foot who had been sent here against her protests by Brynd, who gave any suggestion that Eir was someone different. Luckily for her, he kept himself mostly out of the way, and decided the best way to waste away the hours was to flirt with other nurses.

Presently she heard a clanking of swords echoing along the corridor, and she quickened her pace to see what was going on. As she entered a small antechamber, two nurses burst past her with expressions of disapproval on their faces.

There, in the antechamber, Randur was demonstrating various moves of Vitassi with his rapier to a group of four young children, each one clutching an old blade. They were mimicking him as he progressed through one of the basic series of moves.

‘Randur!’ she gasped.

‘Ah,’ he replied, and pressed his knuckles to his hips. ‘I’m afraid, my little brothers and sisters, that we must reconvene at another time.’

‘Oh damn,’ one little girl said.

‘Sorry, young maiden. Boss’s orders,’ he replied with a bow.

‘Randur,’ Eir snapped, ‘where did you find these children?’

‘They were hanging about the place waiting for their relatives to get better. They wouldn’t stop bothering some of the nurses, so I thought I’d relieve the ladies, so to speak, and educate these young ruffians in the finer arts of Vitassi. They learn pretty quickly at this age. The moves stick easily.’

‘That is not the point, Randur, it is hardly fitting for them to be running about with blades in a hospital, now is it?’

‘You’ve got a small dagger in your boot.’

‘That is not the point — they’re children, Randur, and it’s dangerous for them to be holding swords. What if they injure themselves?’

‘Well, they’re in the best place for it, eh?’ Randur said. ‘Anyway, these young things need to learn how to fight one day.’ He turned to the kids. ‘Come on, you lot, we can do this again tomorrow.’

Grumbling, the four children filed out, each one handing their rusted blade back to Randur, who then stood them in their rack in the corner of the room.

‘They’re no more than a few winters old,’ Eir said, quieter now.

‘What does winter mean in an ice age? They were grateful enough and they’d just be annoying the nurses otherwise. Besides, they will need to learn to protect themselves some day.’

‘This should only go on if their mothers and fathers are made aware of it.’

‘Sod their parents — what’s better than being able to protect themselves in a tricky situation?’

Eir took a deep breath. ‘What’s wrong, Randur? There’s no need to get angry about this.’

‘I’m not angry.’

‘Yes, you are. What’s wrong?’

Randur sighed and made a flamboyant gesture with his arms. ‘Nothing. It’s all right for you. You’ve got something to focus on now, haven’t you? You’re helping out and I approve. This is quite a change from the spoiled little girl sat inside the pretty castle on the top of a hill.’

‘You can contribute here if you want.’

‘It’s not really what I’m cut out for. I want to help with things, sure, but there’s a lot hanging over me.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Yeah,’ he sighed, ‘for one. I’m scared of heading out there — she’s probably died by now anyway. That poison, even though slow, would have got to her by now. And even if not, what do I do — turn up and say I’ve not got a cure, that I’m a failure?’

‘She never expected you to cure her anyway. She packed you off to Villjamur thinking that was best in an ice age. And it was. You met me of course.’

Randur gave half a smile.

‘You know, your sister should be down here too.’

‘She has other things to think about.’

‘Yeah,’ Randur replied. ‘I’m sure she has.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I saw her, the other night, walking around the corridors of the Citadel muttering to herself. Seems as though she’s gone a bit crazy? It’s all because of this thing with Artemisia — it’s gone too far.’

‘You shouldn’t talk about her like that,’ Eir whispered.

Randur moved a hand to her shoulder. ‘You know as well as I do that she’s not the same woman any more. It’s as if she’s smitten by Artemisia and needs her presence, else she just can’t handle herself.’

‘Has Artemisia put her in some kind of trance, do you think?’

‘Who knows?’ Randur said. ‘We’ll never know what happened on Artemisia’s ship, will we? Rika thought that she was a god — despite the fact that most of what Artemisia stands for contradicts the whole Jorsalir thing. It could be mental — or, yeah, maybe Artemisia did do something to her.’

‘Why would she do such a thing?’

‘To help the alliance between worlds? To make sure Artemisia got what she wanted? It could be anything.’

‘I hope that isn’t the case,’ Eir replied. ‘We need Rika to be on her best form if she’s to take the helm of whatever Empire emerges from all of this.’