John Carr - Siege of Tarr-Hostigos

"Sorry to be so much trouble, girl," the soldier said between clenched teeth. "But I wanted to look at something pretty."

Sirna grinned. "With the gods' favor and no fester devils, you'll have two eyes to look at pretty girls. And a fine scar to attract the ones you want."

The scar would be a lifelong disfigurement-no reconstructive surgery here-and-now. Still, if the soldier was able to contemplate life with it…

She'd thought she'd been used to what people on Fourth Level could face, after almost three years with the University Team. It was a lot different to live alone among such people, with the nearest person who would have ever heard of First Level at least a hundred miles away-farther if Sain had kept on running. Not to mention the possibility of spending the rest of her life on Aryan-Transpacific.

On top of everything else, Styphon's soldiers! It wasn't easy to accept that men who fought for something as silly, irrational, even barbaric, as Styphon's House could be like other men. But they fought just as bravely; cried out just as loudly for their mothers when they hurt and made just as many bawdy jokes that could still turn her face brighter than her cropped hair.

Or rather, it hadn't been easy to accept this at first. Now it sometimes seemed that she'd never believed anything else.

No more sick or wounded seemed to be coming, so Sirna sent one of the women with the knife and the salvaged bandages off to the kitchen to boil them clean. She also made at least her twentieth mental memo: Borrow some better instruments from a priest of Galzar, or have the Iron Band's armorers make them.

Another woman, face streaked with makeup, wiped down the table with a bucket of boiling water. Menandra herself brought Sirna a cup of hot turkey broth. "You'd better eat something solid, you know," the madam said. "Even if it's only an omelet. Won't do, having you faint on top of men too hurt to enjoy it!"

"Oh, I'll eat something tonight." At the moment, the mere thought of solid food made her gag.

"Tonight…" Menandra began, then lowered her voice to a whisper so that none of the wounded on pallets along the other side of the room could hear.

"The talk in town is that it's tomorrow they go for the castle. So you'd better eat and sleep tonight, or by Yirtta's dugs I'll turn you over my knee and spank you!" She ruffled Sirna's hair with one large greasy hand.

Sirna gulped her broth with both hands clasped tightly around the cup so Menandra wouldn't see that they were shaking. Seventeen wounded men in one day was bad enough. If they stormed the castle, it could be more like seventy or seven hundred! Although she might have more help from the priests of Galzar if the promised reinforcements came up. Had they? She was trying to think of a tactful way to ask when the door to the street opened and a suit of armor wearing dusty leather breeches and boots strode in.

The suit of armor also had a brown beard and wide gray eyes, but it wasn't until the high-crested helmet came off that Sirna realized there was a man inside. When she saw that the man had a high forehead and a long scar across his right cheek, she knew who'd come to visit his wounded. She'd seen his picture often enough at the Foundry, during their briefings.

Grand Captain-General Phidestros waved the men trying to rise back on to their pallets with his free hand, set his helmet on the table and took off his mud-caked gloves. Then he grinned at Sirna.

"You randy bastards! You've been keeping secret the best thing this wreck of a town has to offer. Where's your loyalty to your commander, you-?" The term would have been insulting as well as obscene in any other tone. The men replied in kind, except for General Geblon, on light duty today because of an attack of dysentery.

"She is Menandra's healer, Captain-General," Geblon said, trying to look and sound innocent. "She has been marvelously chaste."

"I'm sure she has," Phidestros replied. "But has she been caught? If she hasn't, you aren't the men I thought you were!"

Sirna stopped blushing and started giggling. Phidestros bent down and gripped her by one arm, pulling her to her feet as easily as if she'd been a child. Seen close up, his long face showed deep lines, apparently gouged with a blunt chisel, then filled with dust. Upon closer view, he was much younger, late-twenties or early thirties, than he appeared from a distance. He's probably quite handsome when rested and bathed, popped into her head. Then she put her hand over her mouth before realizing the words were unspoken.

By the time he'd led her into the hall where no one could see her, she was trying to stop giggling. Somehow she wanted to impress him favorably, and not only because he had the power of life and death over her.

"To speak plainly-what is your name, by the way?"

"Sirna."

"Speaking plainly, Sirna, I owe you for a good thirty of my men helped, and at least two saved outright. Where did you learn to treat burns like Aygoll's?"

"My father had some skill in healing; and was always quick to learn anything someone else would teach. One year we lived not far from a smithy. They knew how to heal burns from molten metal."

"Curious. What you did for Aygoll is very much like what Kalvan is said to have taught, about driving out the fester-devils."

"Is it not possible that the gods can send wisdom to both good and evil men, and leave it to them how it shall be used?" She looked up to meet his eyes as she spoke, and she thought she kept her voice steady.

"It's not only possible, it happens all the time," Phidestros said. "Only don't try arguing the point with Holy Investigator Roxthar. He's threatening to purge the hosts of Styphon once he's finished with Hostigos."

"Aren't you speaking a little freely, if he's that suspicious?" she asked. Like most of the surviving population of Hostigos Town, Sirna had stayed indoors. Those whom urgent business or the search for food drove outside too often found themselves confronted by white-robed Investigators or squads of Styphon's Red Hand. Few of those returned. Now only soldiers, rats and fools strayed outside; rumor had it that the Investigators were making house-to-house searches in east Hostigos Town.

"Afraid you won't be paid, Sirna?"

"That's not it at all! I just-I'm not like Menandra, you know. I'd feel sorry for a thrice-convicted rapist facing the Investigation."

"So would I, believe me." He grinned, displaying a mouthful of almost intact white teeth, which meant not only good health but good luck in battle.

"Menandra is no worse than the gods made her, but they were drunk that day and perhaps a little careless. No, Sirna. I'm in no danger. Not unless the Archpriests decide they don't need good soldiers anymore. That won't be until Kalvan's dead, and somehow I think that man is going to take a lot of killing."

Sirna would have kissed Phidestros if she hadn't known he would misinterpret the gesture. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did," she said.

"I agree. Which means that Roxthar is going to be dealing lightly with soldiers for a while. Healers who may be tainted with heresy aren't quite as indispensable. Remember that, and you may live to be paid for your work with the Iron Band. Fifty silver rakmars, is that enough?"

Fifty ounces of silver! she thought, that would be enough to set her up in a small business as a seamstress, or pattern maker-there'd be a lot of those jobs until the war was over. "Yes, and thank you, Captain-General!"

"Call me Phidestros," he said with a wink. "It's fair pay for good work. Oh, and I'll pay it right into your hands. And two gold pieces, if the Styphoni pay their victory bonus! If Menandra asks for a single brass piece, tell me. We'll roast our victory ox over her furniture."

The way Phidestros' voice and face changed in those last words made Sirna want to flinch away from his touch. She forced herself to stand still as he put a hand behind her back and urged her back toward the main room.