Tris's Book
Page 56"Shriek?"
"That's what I'm calling him - because he does."
"I see." Rosethorn dusted a speck from a tomato. "Why the infirmaries?" she asked.
About to refuse to answer, Tris thought better of it. "Lark said they took the pirate wounded. It's because of me some of them are here, so - I should help out."
"You'll hate it," commented Rosethorn. "There's smells - vomit, rotting flesh - a lot of them are burned. They won't thank you."
Lark had said the same. It wasn't that Tris didn't believe them - she did. It just didn't change the fact that she had to do something to lay the ghosts of the floating dead who came in her dreams. "The first time in my life anybody thanked me for anything was after I came here. I'm not so used to it that I expect it from people."
Rosethorn adjusted a tie on a plant. "Just afternoons?"
Tris nodded.
"All right. Tonight you and I will talk about what happens to Shriek - Mila, what a name! - to Shriek next. He'll be ready to fly soon."
"Well, go on. Leave him in my workshop. I'll hear him just fine when he wants to be fed."
Rosethorn and Lark were right: it was not pretty in the infirmaries. The smell on the hot afternoons sent Tris out to be sick over and over. Burns had to be cleaned, the dirty bandages laundered in boiling water and hung out to dry. She carried buckets of water until her back, legs and arms ached. The harsh soap they used reddened and cracked her hands. Every night Daja had to wake her when she fell asleep in her tub at the Earth temple baths. No one thanked her except the healer-dedicates, and that only rarely. The pirate captives, who had the Duke's justice to look forward to once they were better, snapped and taunted and yanked her curls, or knocked things out of her hands. The few slaves they had rescued only stared at the ceiling, wordless.
Three boom-stones had made it past the shields while Tris and her friends attacked the fleet. One had landed on a wing of the girls' main dormitory. The Water temple dedicates finally barred Tris from working in that infirmary ward: she sparked lightning every time she set foot inside it.
On her eighth day of service, the dedicates sent their healed criminals to the Duke's court in Summersea. Once they were gone, less than half of all the patients remained. With plenty of healers now to care for them, Tris was put to scrubbing the floor of a newly-emptied room. She was half done when she heard a step. Looking up, she saw Niko.
"Are you ready to begin lessons again?" he asked.
She pushed her spectacles up on the bridge of her nose. "After I finish this floor."
"Have you any ideas about what area of your talents we should concentrate on?" It seemed like an idle question.
Her answer was not at all idle. "I need to learn control, Niko - for real. With everything. I think the rest has to wait." Swirling water fiercely in the bucket, she stared at soap bubbles to keep him from seeing her mouth tremble. She was beginning to fear she would dream about the drowned slaves for the rest of her life. "I don't want this to happen again - not ever."
She looked up at him, her grey eyes sharp. "The other mages - were they all slaves? Aymery said as long as Enahar bound him with blood, he had to do what he was told. But - he liked the money, too, Niko - the money and the power. I could tell."
"Most of the mages served him willingly," was the quiet reply. "And had Aymery tried to disobey Enahar, he would have paid for it with even more of his blood."
"Dirty jishen," whispered the girl, scrubbing hard.
Niko tracked down a second brush, and helped her to finish the room.
Late that afternoon, Tris was about to give Shriek a feeding at the big table when Briar carried a small, covered dish to her. Sandry and Daja followed - he'd hinted that a treat was in store.
"Rosethorn says to start giving him some of these," he informed Tris, offering her the container.
"Rosethorn?" Tris called.
"That's his natural food," was the reply from the workshop. "He won't survive when you set him free if you don't start him on this now."
Shriek, still under the handkerchief on his nest-box, squalled.
"Drop them in his nest," Tris suggested to Briar.
"Can't. Rosethorn says they gotta go in his beak, same as the rest." Briar offered a small pair of metal tongs in the size that ladies used to pluck their eyebrows. "These'll help. Come on, bird-dam - he wants his supper."
"I hate bugs," insisted the girl. "They're - Shurri defend me, they wiggle."
"Come on, merchant-girl," said Daja with a grin. "You faced pirates, an earthquake, Rosethorn - what's wrong with a bug or two? Did she get any locusts?" the Trader asked Briar. "They're better fried, but still good when they're fresh."
Tris gagged.
"Nothing that flies is in there, or it'd be gone by now," Briar said. "Get to work, Four-Eyes. We haven't got till the end of time."