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Tris wasn’t as frightened by this greeting as she would have been a week before. “I’d like to ask a favor, if I may.”
Rosethorn tilted up her wide-brimmed hat in order to see Tris’s face better. “The answer is no.”
Tris half smiled. “Niko says he’ll be in meetings here or in Summersea for a week. I want to help at the infirmaries in the afternoons, until my lessons start again. They need people to fetch water and food and so on. The only way I can do it is if someone looks after Shriek.”
“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 the 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.”
Tris nodded.
“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 from 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.”
“At least you know it,” he said quietly, rolling up his sleeves. “You could have been another Enahar, living off human pain.”
She looked up at him, her gray 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 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.”
Briar removed the lid on the dish with a flourish. Tris looked and shrank back. Inside squirmed one or two earthworms, a handful of grubs, and a small white caterpillar. Little Bear stood on his hind legs to peer into the dish. Grabbing his collar, Daja hung on, in case the pup decided it was time to try bird food.
Shriek, still under the handkerchief on his nest, 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.”
“Will you do it?” Tris begged Sandry. “You’re not afraid of anything.”
Sandry tucked her hands behind her back. “I’m not his mama,” she replied with an evil grin.
“Neither am I!” cried Tris.
Briar put the tongs in her hand and wrapped her fingers around them.
“The caterpillar is crawling out,” remarked Daja. She flicked it back into the dish.
“You do it!” Eagerly Tris thrust the tongs at her. “You like bugs!”
Daja grinned and stepped back. “Sandry’s right. I’m not his mother, either.”
None of them but Little Bear had paid attention to the nest-box as the handkerchief cover bumped, thrashed, and finally slid off. Its inhabitant climbed out. Almost a fledgling, Shriek was now three inches long from head to rump, with another two inches of tail. He was still in dull gray pinfeathers, but his black eyes were alert and wide open. He waddled across the table, yelling.
The dog fled. The four children watched Shriek.
“Maybe he’ll eat from the dish,” suggested Daja. She thrust it into his way.
Shriek walked around it without once shutting up, heading for Tris. When she stretched out her hand to him, he pecked one finger hard.
“Ow! Shriek—”
He screamed and pecked, again. Tris backed up.
Shriek came on and dropped off the edge of the table. Sandry and Tris banged into each other in their rush to catch him, while the bird—cradled in Sandry’s skirt—continued to scream. When Tris gathered him up, he continued to peck her. She kept her hands cupped around him, wincing at the pain. “That beak is sharp,” she complained.
“Anything for peace and quiet.” Picking up the tongs, Briar selected a worm and held it over Shriek. The nestling gave Tris a last jab and sat up in her hands, opening his beak wide. Briar dropped the worm in. Shriek swallowed. He appeared to think about what he’d just eaten.
“Well, that’s better, anyway,” Sandry remarked with a sigh.
Shrie
k screamed.
“My turn.” Daja took the tongs and offered the caterpillar to the bird. This Shriek bit in two, allowing her to keep half while he gulped down the rest. Once that tidbit was in his belly, he snatched the rest out of the tongs.
Sandry picked up an earthworm with her fingers. Shriek accepted this offering as he had the caterpillar, eating it in neat bites.
“Your turn, Mama.” Briar drew the nest-box over so Tris could put her charge back in his bed. Shriek squalled.
Slowly, gingerly, Tris picked up a grub with the tongs, wincing as her firm hold crushed the sacrifice. She positioned the tongs over the nestling’s gaping beak and dropped the grub in.
Everyone applauded. Shriek blinked, sighed, and settled down for a nap.
