In Dreaming Bound Page 12

  “Brown, do you need assistance?” he asked when he’d gotten close enough that she could hear the fabric of his uniform move.

  It was a perfunctory question. Browns rarely went anywhere alone unless it was to a duty station. “No, sir. I’m headed to infirmary duty.”

  “Very well,” the man said and went on his way.

  The man was a chaplain, she was sure now. It was likely he knew her name and where she was going; he’d simply wanted confirmation. Or he wanted to see what she’d say.

  Shaking her head, Shironne walked on. She reached the junction for Hall Eight and turned left toward the infirmary. The hallway itself wasn’t a challenge, but once she reached the door of the infirmary, she would need someone to lead her. Or at least give her hints. She’d been there before but hadn’t memorized the layout then. There were rows of beds, much like at the army hospital, and she didn’t want to stumble over one.

  She passed other doorways as she went along the hall. Each one had a guideline, a strip of the floor rough enough that she could follow it across to the opposite side of the doorway. The Founders had designed the Fortress to be navigable in pitch blackness in the case the lights failed. A fortunate circumstance for her, since that made it easier for a blind person to find their way here. She didn’t use the guidelines, though. Most of the doorways were narrow enough that she didn’t need to bother to feel her way across; she just followed her trajectory until her outstretched hand touched another wall. Once she had this area memorized, she wouldn’t need that, either, but for now she kept her fingers on the chevrons.

  After crossing eight doorways, she reached the wide entry that led into the infirmary. Unlike some of the other rooms she’d passed, the infirmary was busy at this hour, voices speaking inside. It wasn’t a large enough space to have an echo like the commons or the sparring floor, but it was going to take her a while to get her bearings. Shironne stopped and listened.

  A child’s voice could be heard to her left, along with a pair of adults. One of the doctors and perhaps a sponsor, judging by the concern Shironne sensed. Perhaps a parent, if the child was under eight.

  Were there beds on both sides of the doorway? She listened harder, trying to judge the pattern of air moving about in the room, where she sensed others, how things smelled.

  “Why don’t you come join us?” Deborah’s voice came from ahead of her. “There’s a clear path if you come straight toward me.”

  Shironne considered that a test. She walked toward the infirmarian’s voice, confident that someone would worry loudly if she was about to fall over a bed.

  “Good,” Deborah said from only a few feet away. “I suppose one of the things that you’ll need to do is take some time to familiarize yourself with the layout here, but I have someone I’d like you to meet with first.”

  Shironne felt her brows drawing together. “Um, I thought there might be a request from the army.”

  She could sense the doctor’s clever mind turning that statement over and over. “There was a request made last night, but it was withdrawn this morning.”

  “Oh,” she said in a whisper. Mikael must not know that last bit, since he still expected her to go out there. Had the army simply decided she was no longer useful? Or was it too much trouble to transport her from the palace with a dozen guards? “Did they say why?”

  “I was told the case isn’t in the army’s jurisdiction.”

  And therefore she wasn’t needed after all. But Mikael had been so certain. . . .

  Deborah’s hand touched her sleeve, drawing her attention back. “Why don’t you follow me? There’s someone I’d like you to look at. Think of it as your first lesson here.”

  She led Shironne by the sleeve through the beds. “Ruth, I’d like you to meet Shironne Anjir. She’s in the sixteens, so she knows Gabriel.”

  There was a woman before her, possibly seated. She was curious about Shironne, but more tense about something else. “I am pleased to meet you,” she said in a mild voice, and added, “Gabriel is my son.”

  “Ah,” Shironne said. “He’s very nice.”

  The woman laughed softly. “He is.”

  Shironne turned her head in the direction she thought Deborah had gone. “So what am I supposed to do?”

  A scraping sound approached them, something dragging on the floor. Deborah took Shironne’s gloved hand and laid it on the back of a chair. “Why don’t you sit down, dear? I have no idea how long something like this will take. Ruth, why don’t you move closer? This is to be an exploration of sorts.”

  Ruth moved closer, and Shironne’s nose caught a pungent tang about the woman’s uniform that suggested someone had been violently ill. Ruth sighed, tiredness spilling about Shironne’s perception of her. It had to have been her. “What’s wrong?” Shironne asked. “Is that what I’m supposed to find out?”

  “That’s what I’d like you to try,” Deborah said from somewhere behind Shironne. “Why don’t we start with you touching Ruth’s arm?”

  Shironne tugged off her right glove and laid it in her lap. “Um, if I touch you, I’ll pick up some of your thoughts. It’s not intentional, but it will happen.”

  “I don’t have secrets,” Ruth said with a merry laugh. “Go ahead.”

  Well, I warned her. Shironne reached forward and located the woman’s forearm. Her shirtsleeve had been rolled back, baring skin that spoke to Shironne’s fingers only for an instant before the woman’s active mind overwhelmed that sensation.

  She’s going to tell me I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant again. She’s going to tell me I’m pregnant, I know it. . . .

  The woman’s mind rattled on and on, and Shironne withdrew her hand. “Can you still your thoughts, ma’am? I know what you think this is, but I need to make that judgment myself.”

  Embarrassment flared around the woman, quickly calmed. “I’ll do better.”

  The Family prided itself on control—a well-earned pride.

  This time when Shironne laid her hand on the woman’s arm, the woman counted in her head. Firmly. Repetitive, so Shironne could ignore it. Instead of listening to the woman’s thoughts, she pushed her senses through her light touch into the woman’s skin. She’d only encountered a handful of pregnant women in her work for the army, but there had been something about their skin, a specific quality in them being more intense than before, although she had no name for it. There was often more blood flowing through their bodies as well.

  Shironne sensed that combination of factors in this woman’s skin. It could mean she was pregnant. But Captain Kassannan had always warned her against jumping to conclusions, particularly when she had little basis for comparison. “It seems likely that she’s pregnant, ma’am,” she hedged.

  Ruth seemed pleased with that verdict.

  “I see,” Deborah said. “Can you think of a way to make a better guess?”

  “Well, I could try touching her belly, if she doesn’t mind. To see if I can actually sense the child.”

  “I’m willing to give that a try,” Ruth said to Deborah. “I’m curious now.”

  Deborah must have given her some signal because the woman moved, and Shironne heard the creak of a metal frame shifting. The woman was lying down on one of the beds. Shironne waited until the movement stopped and then moved her chair closer. Once Shironne settled, her knees snugged up against the frame of the bed, Deborah grasped her sleeve and guided her bare hand toward the woman’s belly.

  Ruth was, fortunately, accustomed to being examined. Shironne was sure of that, given the woman’s lack of consternation over having her bare belly touched by a stranger.

  The woman’s mind fluttered, her thoughts thrusting their way into Shironne’s mind, asking loudly what Shironne sensed but quickly fading as she controlled herself. Shironne extended her senses through the woman’s skin. She could sense the baby now. A tiny heart fluttered. Shironne explored the baby’s undeveloped body, fascinated by the delicate, still-incomplete structure. “It’s a girl.”

&
nbsp; In her glee, the mother lost control again, her thoughts blaring through the contact of Shironne’s hand on her belly. Shironne jerked her hand away.

  “Are you certain?” Deborah asked.

  “I think so. The baby feels female to me.”

  “How do you tell the difference?”

  “I don’t know,” Shironne admitted. “When I touch a corpse, I can tell if it’s male or female just by feel. Mostly.”

  Deborah’s mind spun quickly, and Shironne heard the scratching pen, caught a hint of the scent of ink. “What do you mean by mostly?” the doctor asked.

  This is as much a test for me as it is for Ruth. “Uh, sometimes you have people who are not . . . absolutely male or female. With most people I can tell, but every once in a while, I can’t.”

  “Interesting,” Deborah replied, the pen continuing to scratch.

  “It is a girl, then?” Ruth asked eagerly.

  “Yes,” Shironne told her. “I’m fairly sure.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Ruth breathed. “Nik will just have to be disappointed.”

  “Does he know yet?” Deborah asked.

  “I told him I suspected.”

  “Well, by now you should definitely recognize the symptoms, Ruth.”

  The woman laughed again. “They sent me up here because I became ill,” she admitted. “Just to be certain it wasn’t something catching.”

  Ruth was a carer, Deborah explained to Shironne, one of the people who worked with the youngest children, watching over them and teaching them while their parents served duty in the Fortress or palace. A contagious illness would have been worrisome.

  “Ruth, it would be very helpful for us,” Deborah continued, “if you could come in regularly, perhaps once a week or so? That way Shironne can become more familiar with how the child develops.”

  Ruth agreed to that proposal. On further questioning, Deborah determined she must be between six and eight weeks into her pregnancy. Shironne stored that information away in her mind, hoping she could recall how the baby seemed.

  When the woman left, Shironne sat down on the bunk. “I didn’t know, ma’am, but the baby isn’t . . . um, complete, yet.”

  “It’s early yet, dear. Ruth has had so many children, I’m honestly surprised it’s taken her so long to come see me.”

  “This will be her eleventh?” That seemed like an excessive number, although she had known Larossan families with that many children in the past.

  “Terrifyingly enough, yes. You’ll find out as we go along that childbirth and pregnancy is very easy for her, as it’s not for some other women.”

  “Was it difficult for you?” Shironne asked, and then wished she hadn’t. She felt a flash of sorrow from Deborah, something the doctor rarely allowed to escape her control.

  “Not unusually so,” Deborah admitted, her voice calm.

  Shironne had known the first time she’d touched Deborah Lucas’ skin that the doctor had once borne a child herself. Something about a woman’s body changed once that happened, although Shironne couldn’t pinpoint what—there were so many things about the human body for which she simply didn’t have names. From Mikael’s mind, she knew Deborah’s daughter had died young, of influenza.

  “I don’t know that I’d want to have eleven children,” Shironne finally said, changing the topic.

  Deborah’s hand touched Shironne’s face, stroking back her shorn hair. Through the contact, she could sense the doctor’s steadfast refusal to fret over what might have been. “Well, we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Definitely not eleven,” Shironne told her.

  Deborah chuckled, her earlier distress fading away. “Family boys are notoriously prolific, dear.”

  Shironne didn’t know that word, but a quick foray into Mikael’s mind told her the meaning.

  “Oh, dear.” Shironne clapped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed she’d let that slip out.

  “I was only joking,” Deborah said. “Also, in the future it might be prudent not to compare our patients with corpses. Some might find it disturbing.”

  She’d spent the last few years studying with Captain Kassannan, but the army hadn’t been keen on letting a girl treat their mostly male patients in the hospital. Therefore, the vast majority of her experience was with dead bodies, not living ones.

  The living ones were a lot finickier.

  Chapter 15

  * * *

  THERE WERE NO BODIES.

  Mikael stood just inside the basement doorway of the morgue, nose twitching at the scent. No matter how much Kassannan and his orderlies scrubbed, the place never quite smelled clean. The white-plastered walls held the smell within.

  The main room of the morgue had a counter running along one side with several tall benches pushed up under them. Hooks by the door held clean aprons and sleeve covers. One apron down at the end was far shorter; Kassannan must have ordered a set specifically for Shironne.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway, alerting him that someone was coming. A moment later, Captain Kassannan opened the other doorway to the main room, saw Mikael waiting there, and shook his head. He crossed to join Mikael at the landing. “I’m just going up to the offices, Mikael. Would you walk with me?”

  Mikael opened the stairwell door and preceded Kassannan up the steps. Outside, the crisp air didn’t carry the scent of decay. “Can I presume something happened?”

  Kassannan locked the morgue doors. “We sent both bodies to the police.”

  Mikael held back his annoyance. Kassannan had likely never done a capricious thing in his life, so there had to be an explanation. “Why?”

  “Why don’t I take you to see the colonel?” Kassannan said in lieu of telling him.

  Mikael blew out a breath in frustration but followed Kassannan across Army Square toward the administration building where Cerradine had his office.

  “How is she adapting?” Kassannan asked, his dark eyes flicking toward Mikael’s face.

  The investigations corps with whom Shironne had worked all knew about Mikael and his relationship with her, so he didn’t need to be circumspect in his answers here: a relief.

  “I haven’t spoken with her,” Mikael admitted. The light snows so far hadn’t lasted, so the green in the center of the square showed through—brown but still soft underfoot—the ground not yet fully frozen. “I have a slight sense of her. There’ve been a few moments of panic, but otherwise I haven’t caught anything.”

  “Good,” Kassannan said after a moment of consideration.

  “So why did you not send for her today?”

  “Better let the colonel explain it.” Kassannan stared down at the winter-dry grass underfoot as he walked. He didn’t sound happy about ceding jurisdiction. “It wasn’t my decision.”

  And pressing him wouldn’t win Mikael any favors. He let the subject drop. “How is Aldassa’s wife doing?”

  The previous month, Mikael had dreamed the death of Colonel Cerradine’s aide, David Aldassa. Mikael particularly hated the times like those, when he dreamed the death of someone he knew, especially a friend, because he never could stop their deaths. He merely witnessed them, and even then, he often couldn’t recall much from those dreams. Fortunately, Shironne could. They hadn’t been able to save David Aldassa that night, but they had managed to catch his murderer before he killed Elisabet Lucas, the woman who’d been the killer’s target all along. Aldassa had been in Elisabet’s yeargroup, and his murder had been a feint meant to draw her out of the Fortress.

  Kassannan clasped his hands behind his back as they walked across the road to the administration building. “She’s doing well enough. We’re all helping to take care of their children.”

  Aldassa had rented an apartment in the same building as Kassannan and several other members of the colonel’s office personnel. That made it simpler for them to share work. Many of them had been raised in the Fortress by the Lucas family, and thus were more accustomed to living in a group. Aldassa’s wife, though, wasn�
��t one of the former children of the Family. “Does she have family in the city?”

  “We’re her family now,” Kassannan said. They’d reached the edge of the square and crossed the paved road to the headquarters. “I . . .”

  Mikael could sense Kassannan’s consternation. “What?”

  “Her father has already demanded she return to his household,” he said. “She doesn’t want to go. It’s been suggested that I should marry her, so she’ll keep her independence.”

  In Larossan society, authority fell to the household’s male members. By simple virtue of being male, they were accorded the upper hand over their wives and daughters, just as Madam’s Anjir’s uncles were. It had never quite made sense to Mikael, but Larossan society was a different world than he’d grown up in. He walked up the granite steps of the headquarters building at Kassannan’s side. “How do you feel about that?”

  Kassannan heaved out a sigh, breath steaming as he opened the door. “I haven’t decided. I’m the only man in the building without a wife now, so the others think it’s an obvious solution, but I have no idea how Liana feels about it, and it’s only been a month since David’s death, so it feels . . . improper.”

  What an awkward situation. Mikael suspected that Madam Anjir could similarly have married Colonel Cerradine to keep her uncles at bay—surely she’d considered that—but Shironne wouldn’t have automatically received Anvarrid status that way. How frustrating it must be for women to have to make such choices just to maintain some freedom.

  Their conversation stalled, he and Kassannan walked along the wood-paneled hallways toward the office labeled Intelligence and Investigation, boots ringing on the marble floors. It was a stately place, meant to show the new power of the Larossan populace, with paintings of military figures of the past, prayer pennants hanging about them.

  Kassannan opened the door and Mikael followed him inside, through the anteroom with its busy workers—most of whom barely spared Mikael a glance, he came here so often—then along a narrow wood-paneled hall to the colonel’s office. Kassannan leaned through the open door to seek the colonel’s permission, and then gestured for Mikael to go inside. Kassannan nodded once to the colonel . . . and left.