Chapter 10
Ten
Atlas
For once in her life, Dorotèa was at a loss for words.
Nothing came to mind as a suitable question, jab, or plea.
Her tongue had all but vanished when she entered Oste and al-Anezi’s shared office, a private room for this situation, she was told, because one of their own deserved that much.
She was glad she’d cleaned it spotless the day before, because it was wholly polluted now by the reality that had set in from inside the little space.
She’d not have been able to forgive herself if it was anything less than pleasant when they decided to make use of it and tarnish her work.
No, there was nothing to say, because Oste was supposed to look like what Dorotèa saw him as: extraordinary. Instead, there were too many pillars of wrongness holding up a shaky foundation and making the horrible last twenty-four hours even worse.
Oste was unclothed on the cot the men used for long nights, and this wasn’t what Dorotèa imagined when she yearned to see his anatomy up close to assess his fighting fitness.
He wasn’t supposed to be coated in a thin layer of sweat, wasn’t supposed to be trembling faintly, wasn’t supposed to have such violent scars in the places two men now prodded and touched.
She’d never seen them before, only caressed where she thought they’d be from under a duelist’s glove.
The extent of that awful night was laid clear in front of her, and she wandered to his bedside, haunted.
The immediacy of his decision had been a bloody figure in the snow, cloak splayed like angel wings.
The aftermath was what she wished he hadn’t judged him for.
Boudiou! He was even more of a saint. That could have been her. It was almost her. Stupid, stupid man!
Small shot. That’s what she’d heard the cause called, but there was nothing small about what it had done to his body, his life.
Brutal striations atop his chest, shoulder, and arm still bore the discoloration of the misdeed recently passed, and had left his skin taut and dimpled in a handful of places.
Though a thin blanket covered his legs, she knew she’d have noticed a similar wound there too.
While some spots were but the small shape of what had pierced him, Dorotèa noticed, along his ribcage and down his arm, longer scars with the crooked symmetry of old stitches.
She saw beneath the larger one on his chest that small dip of concave crookedness that she’d felt beneath her hand where, she’d heard, his ribs had cracked.
She knew it had been gruesome, but she’d not seen how far it went.
She didn’t know why it rarely crossed her mind that they’d have cut him open to treat him, too. Plenty of men never survived that.
Dorotèa didn’t know how his handwriting was still moderately neat.
She didn’t know how he could use that arm at all, or breathe without his ribs hurting.
Maybe everything did, and he’d stayed silent.
Horror crept into her as she recalled her impatience with him.
More horror came when she felt an excited thrill at such tangible visibility of his endurance and strength.
It pained her to want to study his body in full, for her fascination with what had doubtless brought immeasurable pain was surely some sort of sin.
If he could survive that, he could likely survive just about anything, which made his condition now all the more frightening. Boulders didn’t roll from breezes.
The two men leaned in different directions when Dorotèa bent at her waist to look close enough to see if he was awake. Behind his long eyelashes, she hadn’t been able to tell.
She recognized Maistre Sinan al-Anezi on the near-side, who was constantly linked to Oste through work but was ultimately easy to spot anyway; his wizened face and Arab heritage stood out in the Bourg and subsequent university grounds, and even left some people presuming Oste was his own son on account of sharing similar features.
Dorotèa supposed the uphill climb they both experienced drew them together, and not the knowledge and translations of coveted medical texts that the university had been after when he’d been hired.
Oste had become familiar with that side regardless; she’d watched him pick up Arabic just for the chance to learn from him and help with translations.
Al-Anezi was a stark contrast from the hospital director on the other side, and Dorotèa realized with some amusement that both men from their separate approaches to medicine had to be responsible for why Oste scandalously involved himself in both.
Dorotèa at least got her answer on his lucidity when al-Anezi pressed upon the scars on Oste’s chest. This garnered a wince and a moan from her ordinarily stoic and sarcastic charge.
Now that she was looking there, too, she noticed there was less hair there than she assumed, not like her father had, and—
“Mademoiselle Galoup,” Balac drawled. “It is delightful to see you, unsurprisingly, alive and freshly laundered.”
“Dorotèa!” Oste gasped and jerked in the cot. Al-Anezi, already with a hand on him, easily pushed him back down.
This snapped Dorotèa out of her hollow silence. She shook her head and slid as close to the men as possible. “What,” she heaved, “happened?”
“A predictable outcome to an unfortunate trajectory,” said Balac.
“He has taken ill,” said al-Anezi.
There are two kinds of people, Dorotèa thought to herself, and, finding she was already irritated with both of them, wordlessly planted herself into a crouch next to the anatomist and drew up Oste’s good hand.
It was hot and clammy; fever, she realized, and racked her mind on whether it had been there when they were at Borvo’s or strolling afterward.
The cough—she knew about the cough. Was she blind? Stupid?
“Dorotèa,” Oste repeated. He looked at her, and only her.
“I’m here. I’m here, you wretch,” she uttered, linking her fingers into his and drawing his well-manicured hand up to her lips, where she grazed it with a tender kiss.
Holy God. Was she mad, too? Raving? Had the fever spread to her?
She’d done it once before, yes, but those were ludicrously different circumstances.
She didn’t kiss people’s hands outside of honorable rivalries.
What had gotten into her? “I am deeply upset with you. I am deeply upset with me. You wanted to go, and I… I let you. I thought it was the right thing. I—had you been so unwell all along?”
“He performed his duty admirably right up until he collapsed in the hallway,” said Balac helpfully.
“Oh, God.” Dorotèa shook her head. “Oh, this was not the plan.”
Al-Anezi stroked a coarse thumb over Oste’s cheek. “He feared something had happened to you, so I am glad we have put an end to that.”
“Why would you think that?” she asked Oste breathlessly.
“I—” he began, but coughed again. Both older men flicked their eyes to his chest like perfect mirrors of each other. She didn’t know what anything meant, and couldn’t be bothered to ask. She kept staring at his green eyes instead. “The women.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. No one can get me, and I’ve a mind to teach the women how no one can get them ei—” Dorotèa caught herself. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m the last woman you ought to worry about.”
“If I may…” al-Anezi interrupted. His brown eyes moved from Dorotèa to Balac, who looked as serious as ever. He stroked his skin as he watched Oste, fearsomely appearing as though someone had snatched his favorite scalpel.
“Yes, but not so much,” Balac agreed to whatever the unspoken question was. “We must still rethink the benefits and disadvantages of larger volumes.”
“No, no, I am in agreement. I prefer a conservative approach.”
Dorotèa frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Walk with me, Mademoiselle Galoup.” Balac stood up and revealed his unusually tall frame in full. “Just outside the door, if you please.”
“Why?”
“I will appraise you there.”
Dorotèa looked back at Oste for confirmation, some kind of sign that she ought to. A respectable man like Balac telling her should have been enough, and would have, in most cases, but parting from him already made her stomach feel heavy, and her own hands sweat.
Oste drew in a deep breath, then gave her a weak nod. “Trust him.”
She drew back immediately. If he had simply told her to go, she’d have protested, still. But she’d seen him grow the Saint-Mitre gaggle, and if she believed in anything, it was his faith.
Dorotèa nodded, then rose and followed Directeur Balac outside the room.
He closed it quietly behind them and strayed a few steps away, where she was grateful they didn’t move off very far at all.
She could’ve been back inside in seconds, and that was a comfort as she eyed the door incessantly, and, again at a loss for words, waited for the hardly personable physician to speak.
It was like a small drip of honey accompanied him now, some sugar; part of his edge had come off, and she realized he was intending to be comforting.
How many times did he have to do that for families of patients, she wondered?
How many did they lose?
“Maistre al-Anezi is performing a small bloodletting,” he told her. “It is not always pleasant to watch.”
She raised her brows. “But I’ve seen worse than that.”
“It’s different when it’s someone you care for.”
Dorotèa set her jaw at that and looked down. Her voice had become very small. “Why… why is he doing that?”
“How familiar are you with his injuries, Mademoiselle? Or perhaps, such inflictions in general. I am aware your father is the master swordsmith; it has occurred to me you may already know some of the indelicacies of war.”