Brynd absorbed the sage words of the rumel investigator. Brynd’s time had been spent enforcing a type of law on people in far-off cities, and he had seen the difficulties and scepticism and failures first-hand; the investigator had experience of what happened when a society looked inward, which was the direction Brynd was now having to contemplate.
‘Forgive me for bringing this up, commander — our discussions are rather high level. I hadn’t expected to be discussing the future of the Empire — or whatever’s left of it. I always assumed the Night Guard’s concerns were military strategy. I think what I’m asking is, who’s leading us and who gets to decide how to run a new regime?’
‘Empress Rika,’ Brynd replied curtly.
Fulcrom nodded and appeared to contemplate her reclamation of the throne of the Empire. ‘You don’t seem too impressed with that.’
‘Your powers of observation are acute, investigator,’ Brynd said.
‘It always seems odd that our history is populated with kings or emperors — or in this case, Empress.’
‘She’s not strictly an empress any more,’ Brynd said, ‘for as you can see, there’s very little left of the Empire’s main structures.’
Dawn broke, shadows flittered away as the first light of day rose up from behind, lighting the remarkable view before them.
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
‘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
‘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.’
