Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) (10 page)

Grant whispered to the man, “Joe, you’ll feel much better soon,” and then raised his eyes to her. “Thank you.”

“Just my job.” Urgent cries called her to another corner of the infirmary. “Must go.” She went to take care of the ones in more pain, meticulously assessing their wounds and what could be done for them. Once or twice she had to ask Rane about the best line of action, but for the most part, it only took a bit of common sense to be of help. Madame Carla’s teaching came handy once or twice. Hours passed; more men arrived. Some of them showed signs of torture. Marie didn’t rest the whole night. She kept moving from one bed to the other, and when the beds were all taken, she crouched on the floor from one thrashing form to the other. She crossed paths with Grant several times. He too had been moving from one man to the next, helping the two women. He wasn’t the only worker doing so; others followed his example as soon as they got back on their feet.

Feeling rather worn out, Marie glanced at the clock on the wall and discovered breakfast had already passed. Her eyelids were heavy and she struggled to keep them open. Even her ears weren’t properly working because all she could hear were muffled sounds. She scanned the room, looking for Rane. “Doctor?” She couldn’t see her anywhere. “Rane?”

“You should sit.” Grant was at her side, a worried look on his face.

Marie swayed and steadied herself by reaching for the back of a chair standing nearby. “Can you see where the doctor is?”

“She left a few minutes ago.” He reached for the chair as well and turned it for her. “You should sit.”

Losing her fight to keep upright, Marie fell back on it. “Where did she go? Why didn’t she tell me she was leaving?” The questions were more for herself. She didn’t expect him to answer.

 “She went to talk to the captain.”

 “Why?”

“She needed to know which gas was used during the last attack.” His eyes went to a corner of the room where several men curled in balls or held their chest in pain. They were still and gray looking; none of them cried out or even whimpered. At Marie’s raised eyebrows, he added, “Nothing she’s given them is working. She’s worried it must be something lethal.”

She tried to remember when those men had arrived, but the events of the previous hours had blurred together. At one point, there had been a constant stream of guards escorting workers, who in turn carried other workers on stretchers. She had heard Rane screaming orders and she had seen men running to help her. At the same time, Marie—per the doctor’s direct order—was too busy washing wounds, calming patients, and looking for clean dressings to pay any attention to anything else. “Are they dying?”

“Yes, they are. If Rane doesn’t find out what they used… They don’t have much left.” His voice was sad and his expression resigned.

Her head was light, and the rest of the room turned upside down, but she forced her tired body to respond and slowly stood on her legs. “Help me there.” She pointed at the men. She couldn’t bear to let them die alone.

Grant opened his arm and slightly bowed to her. “After you.”

Rane must have thought the dying men couldn’t stand the light because the corner where the men lay was dark. But Marie saw their puffy faces and the way their bodies seemed to be frozen in the most unnatural positions. She repressed a sob and sat on the floor by one of them, a young worker, maybe her age or slightly older, and without thinking, she took his hand in hers. “I’m sorry this happened to you. To any of you.”

The young man’s eyes misted and two fat tears rolled down his otherwise still face. Marie felt anger building at such sufferance and being unable to do anything. She instinctively turned toward the medicine cabinet, but Grant shook his head.

“The doctor has already given him three or four times the amount you gave Joe.” He passed his hand through his hair and sighed. “She said it’s too dangerous to give him more.”

She wanted to scream. Any options she had to help these men had been stripped from her. Marie slouched against the wall. Her body was so tired it ached and her mind couldn’t articulate a single thought anymore. The night had drained her. A loud noise echoed through the room and she opened her eyes, her heart pumping against her ribcage. A second later, she realized it was the infirmary door swinging on its hinges after Rane had kicked it.

“I thought she would listen to reason.” Rane paced like a caged animal, back and forth on the same three tiles. “She doesn’t even care the farm is under the minimum number of required workers—” She kept blathering, probably used to being alone in the infirmary and too distressed to realize she was talking out loud before an audience.

Everything appeared to move in fast-forward. Marie’s ears and vision were adjusting to the new level of volume and activity. “Did the captain tell you what gas she used?” Marie saw a halo of dark spots around the edges of her sight when she tried to get to her feet.

“Callista said, ‘Let them be an example.’ She prefers to lose good workers.” Rane had stopped pacing but was now tapping her clog on the floor.

Marie hoped she would stop soon but didn’t dare ask her to settle down. “What can we do for them?” She checked on the young man; he had his eyes closed now and his breathing was shallower.

“Nothing. We can do nothing but watch them die.” Rane finally stopped and Marie saw she had been crying. The doctor went to slump beside her and let her head fall backward against the wall. Eyes to the ceiling, tears falling down on her scrubs, she whispered, “I’m so tired of watching them die.”

Marie couldn’t say anything. There were no suitable words for a moment like that.

Grant left them and then came back with a few pillows and blankets he had probably taken from more fortunate patients. “We can make their last moments more comfortable.”

“You’re right.” Rane left the infirmary before Marie could ask where she was going.

Grant gave Marie a puzzled look and then proceeded to rearrange the men so that their heads were pillowed and their bodies were covered with the blankets. Then he sat by the young man and took his hand as Marie had done, and he started talking to him.

Lulled by his voice, Marie closed her eyes and fell asleep. When she woke, she felt disoriented and slightly nauseous. Meanwhile, the doctor had come back with some medicine she was injecting the dying men with. “Something stronger to ease their passing,” Rane answered Marie’s silent question.

Almost immediately, they seemed to drift into a peaceful slumber. Grant silently thanked Rane and then resumed his tale. Marie listened as he told the boy about the last time they went to the cellars to steal food and the steak they ate that night. Rane didn’t move the whole time Grant reminisced about their criminal endeavors. Marie noticed the doctor didn’t seem surprised, and when Rane gave her a knowing look, Marie realized she hadn’t acted surprised or shocked either. She was past caring though. The pain she was witnessing trumped every last bit of her propriety.

Grant talked for hours, his voice remaining even and soft while he recounted every single episode he had shared with those unfortunate men. Now and then, he even chuckled at something he had just said. “Remember when Rufus turned sixteen and we dared him to touch a guard’s baton when she wasn’t looking?”

There were lots of stories like that, and while Marie failed to see how most of those situations could be funny under any circumstance, she was grateful Grant could do something for those men. The young man had become completely unresponsive after the first hour and his eyes had rolled to white. She gently lowered his eyelids and couldn’t help but hope he was beyond physical pain and misery.

Rane took his wrist between her fingers and sighed in relief. “He’ll be gone soon.”

Marie had never thought wishing someone’s death would be an act of mercy and wondered if working in the men’s infirmary meant mostly that. How could anyone maintain her sanity? No wonder the doctor appeared so unstable. What would be of her in a month or so?

A few hours later, the young man’s body wilted on the floor, the last remnant of life slipping through him. She had the unsettling feeling she saw the moment he died and the realization chilled her to the bone. The young man’s face relaxed before her eyes, and in death, he looked even younger, no more than thirteen.

Grant stopped his stream of words and for a moment was unable to tell the next story, his effort at not crying visible through his clenched jaw and red eyes. He breathed slowly, waited a moment, then resumed his talking for the other men until, one by one, they were gone. Only then did he howl to the ceiling, a sound so sad and so haunting, every movement in the infirmary ceased at once.

Marie realized through her stupor that the rest of the men had kept tending to the wounded, carrying on their job while she and Rane took care of the dying. The silence stretched as every standing man slowly walked to give their mates their last salutes. Nobody said a word, but each man placed his right hand over his heart. Grant was the last one; he stood up on uncertain legs and repeated the salute, his eyes moving from body to body, then dropped to his knees and covered them with their blankets.

A sound coming from outside invaded the sanctity of the moment. A loud voice was calling for Rane, but she didn’t react. The doctor’s eyes were fixed on the covered bodies, and her lips were moving. Marie didn’t understand what she saying, but it sounded repetitive, like a prayer. The yelling became louder and closer. The door was unceremoniously opened by an irate Captain Callista, who was immediately followed by a handful of her women.

“I told you not to mettle with me.” In a few strides, Callista had walked by Rane’s side and was now pointing a manicured finger at her. “I told you before I wouldn’t tolerate your interfering one more time.” Despite her authoritative tone, her finger trembled, betraying how angry she was. “Didn’t I tell you?” She moved closer to Rane, her body towering over the doctor, who hadn’t yet acknowledged her presence. “Did you think you could get away with it?” Finally, she forced Rane to look at her by pulling her hair and tilting her face up. “I’ll make you pay for this act of insubordination.”

Rane kept silent and still. The only exception was her eyes that, for the briefest of moments, wandered toward the men being herded at the back of the room by the captain’s guards.

Callista noticed though, and her free hand balled in a fist, but she didn’t move it from its resting place on her hip. Instead, after a moment of awkward silence, she released the hold she had on the doctor and turned to face her guards. “Round them up and take them to the court. Then put them in a straight line. One every three will be flogged. The second in line will go without food for five days. The third will be sent to a waste plant tonight.”

Marie dared a look at Grant, and she saw the fear in his face. The captain turned on her heels and Marie lowered her eyes to the tiles while the men were escorted out in complete silence. She raised her chin, but Grant had already exited the room. Her attention was diverted toward Callista, who made a scene to remove dust from her immaculate pants.

“Where were we?” Callista walked closer to Rane, until she was invading her personal space once again, but she kept her hands to herself this time. “Oh, yes. Now I remember.” She smiled and spoke slowly and close to Rane’s face, but Rane still didn’t flinch.

Marie didn’t understand how Rane could be so composed while she was on the verge of throwing up. She was worried for Grant, for the doctor, and for herself. There was something in the captain’s maniacal calm that promised more unpleasantness to come.

Callista took Rane’s face between her hands, and for a moment Marie thought she was going to kiss the doctor, but she didn’t.

“When I realized what you had done, I thought of a way to repay you and decided a change of air would do you great. I’m sure you’ll like it there. Won’t you, Rane?” Callista lowered one hand to Rane’s jaw and tilted her chin left and right. “Always the savior you were. But in reality, you are garbage and I think it’s only fitting you should end your days amongst garbage.”

Rane had the audacity to smile. Just her upper lip curved up, but a smile nevertheless. That simple gesture brought the captain over the brink and she slapped Rane with such strength her head lolled back and hit the wall behind her.

“You’ll die there, you know that? But, at a waste plant, death is never fast or merciful. It’s slow and shameful, and you deserve every painful bit of it,” the woman spat with a low hiss, her demeanor altered by the confrontation, her eyes wild and cruel, her breathing ragged.

It took several seconds for Marie to fully understand what the captain had just said, but when she finally did, she cried out loud, “You can’t send her to a waste plant!” Her plea managed to attract Callista’s attention and she wished she could disappear under a rock when the woman’s eyes focused on her. “Please—”

“Please what?” The Captain smiled at her, a cold show of perfect, white teeth.

Marie shivered, knowing Callista was playing with her. “Please, she’s a good fathered woman.”

Callista seemed to think about that for a moment. “A good fathered woman, you say.”

Marie felt Rane’s hand touching her arm, warning her to stop talking, but she went ahead anyway. “Yes, I’m begging you—”

“Don’t—” Rane started saying, but Callista interrupted her.

“Yes, listen to her, child. Don’t interfere in adults’ business.” Callista turned toward Rane once more, but kept talking to Marie in her haughty tone, as if imparting a moral lesson. “You see, a good fathered woman, as you erroneously called her, would have never ignored precise orders from a pure breed. She would’ve never gone behind my back and asked for medicine I didn’t order. And I didn’t order them because they’re expensive and wasted on workers. And what did she need those medicines for?” She paused.

Marie didn’t know if she was expected to respond.

Callista resumed before Marie could decide. “This fool needed the medicine to ease the passage of a few workers who were dying because of their stupidity. And she signed the order on my behalf. Did you not think I would discover your betrayal sooner or later?”