wore their white and pink blossoms bravely despite the day’s chill. The groundskeepers had been at work: all the fallen branches from the winter storms had been tidied away and the greens manicured to velvet.
I had to pass one very large flowerbed where precisely spaced ranks of bulb flowers had pushed up their green spikes of leaves; soon there would be regiments of tulips in bloom. I looked away from them; I knew what lay beneath those stalwart rows. They covered the pit-grave that had received so many of my comrades. A single gravestone stood greyly in the middle of the garden. It said only, Our Honoured Dead. The Academy had been quarantined when the plague broke out. Even when it had spread through the city beyond our walls, Dr Amicas had maintained our isolation. Our dead had been carried out of the infirmaries and dormitories and set down first in rows, and then, as their numbers increased, in stacks. I had been among the ill. I had not witnessed the mounting toll, nor seen the rats that scuttled and the carrion birds that flocked, despite the icy cold, to the feast. Dr Amicas had been the one to order reluctantly that a great pit be dug, and the bodies be tumbled in, along with layers of quicklime and earth.
Nate was down there, I knew. I tried not to think of his flesh rotting from his bones, or about the bodies tangled and clumped together in the obscene impartiality of such a grave. Nate had deserved better. They had all deserved better. I’d heard one of the new cadets refer to the gravesite as ‘the memorial to the Battle of Pukenshit’. I’d wanted to hit him. I turned up my collar against a wind that still bit with winter’s teeth and hurried past the groomed gardens through the late morning light.
At the door of the infirmary I hesitated, and then gritted my teeth and stepped inside. The bare corridor smelled of lye soap and ammonia, but in my mind the miasma of sickness still clung to this place. Many of my friends and acquaintances had died in this building, only a couple of months ago. I wondered that Dr Amicas could stand to keep his offices here. Had it been left to me, I would have burned the infirmary down to scorched earth and rebuilt somewhere else.
When I tapped on the door of his private office, the doctor peremptorily ordered me to come in. Clouds of drifting pipe smoke veiled the room and flavoured the air. ‘Cadet Burvelle, reporting as ordered, sir,’ I announced myself.
He pushed his chair back from his cluttered desk and rose, taking his spectacles off as he did so. He looked me up and down, and I felt the measure of his glance. ‘You weren’t ordered, Cadet, and you know it. But the importance of my research is such that if you don’t choose to co-operate, I will give you such orders. Instead of coming at your convenience, you’ll come at mine, and then enjoy the pleasure of making up missed class time. Are we clear?’
His words were harsher than his tone. He meant them, but he spoke almost as if we were peers. ‘I’ll co-operate, sir.’ I was unbuttoning my uniform jacket as I spoke. One of the buttons, loosened on its thread, broke free and went flying across the office. He lifted a brow at that.
‘Still gaining flesh, I see.’
‘I always put on weight right before I get taller.’ I spoke a bit defensively. This was the third time he had brought up my weight gain. I thought it unkind of him. ‘Surely that must be better than me being thin as a rail, like Trist.’
‘Cadet Wissom’s reaction to having survived the plague is the norm. Yours is different. “Better” remains to be seen,’ he replied ponderously. ‘Any other changes that you’ve noticed? How’s your wind?’
‘It’s fine. I had to march off six demerits yesterday, and I finished up at the same time as the other fellows.’
‘Hm.’ He had drawn closer as I spoke. As if I were a thing rather than a person, he inspected my body, looking in my ears, eyes, and nose, and then listening to my heart and breathing. He made me run in place for a good five minutes, and then listened to my heart and lungs again. He jotted down voluminous notes, weighed me, took my height, and then quizzed me on all I’d eaten since yesterday. As I’d had only what the mess allotted to me, that question was quickly answered.
‘But you’ve still gained weight, even though you haven’t increased your food intake?’ he asked me, as if questioning my honesty.
‘I’m out of spending money,’ I told him. ‘I’m eating as I’ve eaten since I arrived here. The extra flesh is only because I’m about to go through another growth spurt.’
‘I see. You know that, do you?’
I didn’t answer that. I knew it was rhetorical. He stooped to retrieve my button and handed it back to me. ‘Best sew that on good and tight, Cadet.’ He put his notes on me into a folder and then sat down at his desk with a sigh. ‘You’re going home in a couple of weeks, aren’t you? For your sister’s wedding?’
‘For my brother’s wedding, sir. Yes, I am. I’ll leave as soon as my tickets arrive. My father wrote to Colonel Rebin to ask that I be released for the occasion. The colonel told me that ordinarily he would strongly disapprove of a cadet taking a month off from studies to attend a wedding, but that given the condition of our classes at present, he thinks I can make up the work.’
The doctor was nodding to my words. He pursed his mouth, seemed on the verge of saying something, hesitated and then said, ‘I think it’s for the best that you do go home for a time. Travelling by ship?’
‘Part of the way. Then I’ll do the rest by horseback. I’ll go more swiftly by road than on a vessel fighting the spring floods. I’ve my own horse in the Academy stables. Sirlofty didn’t get much exercise over the winter. This journey will put both of us back into condition.’
He smiled wearily as he settled into his desk chair. ‘Well. Let’s pray that it does. You can go, Nevare. But check back with me next week, if you’re still here. Don’t make me remind you.’
‘Yes, sir.’ I dared a question. ‘How is your research progressing?’
‘Slowly.’ He scowled. ‘I am at odds with my fellow physicians. Most of them persist in looking for a cure. I tell them, we must find out what triggers the disease and prevent that. Once the plague has struck, people begin to die quickly. Preventing its spread will save more lives than trying to cure it once it has a foothold in the population.’ He sighed, and I knew his memories haunted him. He cleared his throat and went on, ‘I looked into what you suggested about dust. I simply cannot see it being the cause of the disease.’ He seemed to forget that I was merely a cadet and, leaning back in his chair, spoke to me as if I were a colleague. ‘You know that I believe the onset of the plague and the swiftness of its spread mean that sexual contact cannot be the sole method of contracting it. I still believe that the most virulent cases stem from sexual contact …’
He paused, offering me yet another opportunity to admit I’d had carnal knowledge of a Speck. I remained silent. I hadn’t, at least not physically. If cavalla soldiers could contract venereal disease from what we dreamed, none of us would live to graduate from the Academy.
He finally continued, ‘Your theory that something in the dust that the Specks fling during their Dust Dance could be a trigger appealed to me. Unfortunately, while I did my best to gather data from the sickened cadets before they became too ill to respond, the disease took many of them before they could be questioned. So we shall never know exactly how many of them may have witnessed a Dust Dance and breathed in dust. However, there are several flaws in your theory. The first is that at least one cadet, Corporal Rory Hart, witnessed the Dust Dance and had absolutely no symptoms of plague. He’s an unusual fellow; he also admitted to, er, more than casual contact with the Specks themselves, with no ill effect. But even if we set Rory aside as an individual with exceptionally robust
