He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, but I expect it will come in time.’
‘So what we ought to call you ’til then?’
‘I’ll tell you what, boy, why don’t you pick a name until I can remember my real one?’
Cor sniffed and wiped his face with his other sleeve. He smiled and said, ‘How about Oskyr?’
‘Oskyr?’
‘Was the name of a cliff-hawk I had when I was real young. It was my friend until it bit me then flew away.’
The old man laughed, the sound thin and reedy, but full of genuine amusement. He nodded and said, ‘Oskyr. Yes, that will do.’
The old man stood, testing his bruised and swollen leg. It held his weight and seemed to satisfy him. Drawing himself up to his full height, Cor was struck by how tall he was.
The old man smoothed his long shirt down and cleared his throat.
‘The children in this room? They are all suffering from blight?’
‘Most of them, yeah.’
‘Then we must get to work,’ said Oskyr. ‘Tell me, Cor, do you have any medicae supplies in the building?’
Cor shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe Sister Caitriona has some. Won’t be much, though.’
‘Then you must ask, boy! We will need supplies if we are going to heal these souls!’ cried Oskyr, with a sudden burst of energy. ‘I’ll not have such kindness as you and your Sister Caitriona have shown me go unrewarded.’
‘Are you a medicae?’ asked Cor. ‘Can you heal them?’
Oskyr grinned and gave a curt bow.
‘I believe I may have some skill in such matters,’ he said.
Cor and Oskyr set to work immediately.
Sister Caitriona had been sceptical at first, but when the old man outlined his plan for the care of the sick children, she reluctantly allowed Oskyr to stay.
There had never been credits enough to keep a proper medicae on staff, so the prospect of Oskyr’s help was too good to forego. The children set to work sweeping the back dormitory and warming it with fires banked in the grates. Blankets were washed in boiling water and Oskyr prepared a list of supplies he required.
Sister Caitriona excused herself from the room whenever supply runs were discussed, claiming she couldn’t know the details of how they planned to obtain what was needed.
As the days and weeks passed, Oskyr’s health improved markedly, though his memory remained clouded and no hints of how he had come to be lying bloody returned to him.
Cor and Zara went out together, hitching lifts up into the upper reaches of the hive on the exterior risers, and swinging from the bridge chains to reach the glassed-in commercia. The victory celebrations following the Archenemy’s defeat on Gandor’s Providence were winding down, and Agri-Hive Osleon was suffering a collective hangover.
The storekeepers were tired and less vigilant, but pilfering their goods was dangerous work and the hive wardens were still out in force. Everyone in the up-spire districts knew to look out for guttersnipes from below, and the shopkeepers were wary as soon as a sun-starved face showed itself. The children worked in pairs, one distracting the shopkeeper while the other darted in to steal what they needed.
Strang and Pasco hit the Mechanicus yards in the forge levels, making off with rubber tubing, glass beakers and flasks, crucibles, mortar and pestles, as well as a host of items whose purpose was a mystery. Other children procured ingredients from a variety of other sources, many of which seemed strangely at odds with the notion of healing. Over the course of five days, the progena of Saint Karesine’s stole a small fortune in equipment and ingredients.
Then the real work began.
Saint Karesine’s became a hive of activity, with a fully stocked infirmary of sorts set up in a section of the basement that wasn’t completely flooded. Fluid from bubbling vats was drawn through yards of pipes and filters, dripped into spherical beakers and boiled before being mixed with powders, tinctures and acrid chemicals. The schola progenium was filled with sweet vapours that cleared throats and kept the occasional algal-blooms at bay where it vented into the outside world.
Cor acted as Oskyr’s assistant, mixing vials of strangely coloured liquid and grinding powders with the mortar and pestle. He laboured night and day, and often the old man would carry Cor to his bed in the upper dormitory with paternal affection and lay him to rest.
Oskyr himself was no less tireless in his researches, working long hours to find the perfect balance of medications. By this time, Oskyr – or Papa Oskyr as he was now known – was as much part of Saint Karesine’s as Sister Caitriona.
Progress was slow, but over the course of only a few weeks, the children in the back dormitory began to respond to Papa Oskyr’s treatments. First in ones and twos, then in ever greater numbers they began to recover until, at month’s end, the last child was given a clean bill of health.
Finally, the schola progenium didn’t feel like a sick joke.
Cor woke one morning to the weak glow of light reflecting on the underside of pipework outside the cracked glass of his window. His head was pounding with a splitting headache and he groaned as he sat up in bed. The dormitory was deserted, every bed except his and Zara’s empty and with the sheets pulled back. Zara sat on the bed across from him, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
‘Morning,’ Cor said, his tongue struggling to form the words, and his thoughts moving sluggishly, as if through a thick fog.
‘It’s morning?’ she said, blinking and rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
‘I think I see light,’ said Cor, wiping a clear patch in the window’s grime and peering out.
She nodded and said, ‘Damn, it’s hot in here.’
Cor leaned down and put a hand out towards the wire-mesh grille on the wall next to his bed. Warm air blew softly from the vent, sickly sweet and curiously fragrant. Cor coughed and spat a mouthful of thick, gummy saliva into the chamber pot beside his bed.
‘Feels like I spent too long in a chem-fug last night,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ said Zara, wiping sweat from her brow.
‘Did we?’
