During all the years he had been working without companions, Aran had amassed a certain number of rules that came from behaviour he had observed. One of the rules stated that only people who had something to hide would look around to see if they were being followed.
Nataniel Bargess made his way through the grubby streets of Wallsen without once looking over his shoulder. On occasion, some rough types would give him a glance, but the man reacted much as Aran himself would, by staring back sternly and putting a hand on his weapon in the promise of a fight. Most people in Wallsen were desperate in one sense or another, but few were suicidal, and robbing a man who could defend himself was rarely worth the risk.
On the way through the city, Nataniel stopped at a street vendor to buy some bread and then continued on his way, eating as he went, with Aran following calmly at a distance.
They reached the south-eastern end of Wallsen, and Nataniel calmly turned down the broader street running the length of the city wall and continued east until he reached the large, imposing building known as Margan Elfslayer’s Hospital. He walked in through the open front gates and Aran had to hurry to not lose sight of him.
The building itself was by far the largest and sturdiest in the area. Build from robust stones, its symmetrical main building with two wings rose three stories tall and largely dwarfed any of the surrounding timber-frame tenements. The main yard had a small colonnade all around the building where patients sat on benches in the shade.
All the patients were dressed in the same simple but clean linen shirt and trousers. From where Aran stood, seemingly just paused at the entry gates, he could see a reception desk in the main building through the open double doors.
There were a few patients in the open yard before the building, sitting at a table in the bright sun. When Aran quickly glanced over them, they seemed rather strange. One was rocking back and forth; one old woman was picking incessantly at her long, tangled braid; and another was even sucking his thumb. A plump, kindly-looking human woman with a green armband tied over the sleeve of her dress and her dark, silver-streaked hair in a careless bun was watching over the patients, seemingly trying to get the group to relax and enjoy the springtime weather with somewhat mixed success.
Aran sighed inwardly and walked towards the main building, going through the most common names he’d heard in Wallsen in his mind. He quickly considered saying he was a friend of Nataniel’s to be given leave to follow him, but that would include the risk of staff members asking the man if he’d caught up to him and giving a description, which he had no doubt Nataniel would recognise instantly.
When he entered the cool, shaded hall in the hospital, Aran quickly scanned the area for Nataniel, but he was nowhere in sight. There were only three ways he could have gone, however. Down one of the corridors to the wings of the building or up the stairs dominating the hall. He considered just walking in like he knew where he was going, but a young man at the desk looked up at him and gave a polite nod, so that was out of the question.
“Hello,” Aran said, smiling calmly at the young man. “I’m here to see Basil. I understand visits are allowed?”
“Of course,” the young man said, leafing through a large book on the desk, closely written with names and numbers in columns. “He came here three days ago?”
“That’s right, as far as I know. I just heard it, so I thought I’d go and cheer him up.”
The young man shook his head and looked Aran over. “If you could, that would be appreciated. He has given the staff quite a heap of problems. Are you family?”
“Yes, second cousin, twice removed.” Aran shrugged. “But who’s counting.” He gave the young man a grin. “I’m sorry to hear he’s been trouble, though. I’ll see if I can help calm him down.”
“Upstairs, first floor. Go right, and he’s in room fourteen.”
“Thank you,” Aran said and took the stairs two at a time. He looked down the corridor he’d been shown to and then quickly down the corridor of the other wing. There were windows spaced at intervals, giving a rather sad view of the city wall just a narrow alley away, benches under each of them, and a long row of doors down the other.
Several people in the garb of patients were walking to and fro. Most seemed afflicted by injuries of different kinds, and a few doctors were there as well, all marked by a green armband over their civilian clothes, but Nataniel wasn’t in sight. A few of the doors along the corridor stood open, so Aran casually strolled down the row, casting glances into the rooms, all senses alert. It was as good a place to start as any other.
Thanking Kaela, the goddess of thieves and lost things, in his mind, Aran heard a voice he was certain was Nataniel’s from the room two doors down at the end of the corridor. The door was slightly ajar, and though he didn’t dare look in for fear of being spotted, he took a seat under a window near the door. Noting a room close by where the door was open if he needed to get out of sight quickly, he listened.
“I don’t believe this…” he heard Nataniel say. He sounded almost exasperated. “I know it was a hard journey and the sickness was painful, but snap out of it. Gods!” The scrape of a chair being pushed back was heard and Aran calmly got to his feet again. He walked next to the door to lean against the wall, staring out of the window as he continued to listen.
“Talk to me!” Nataniel demanded from inside.
Aran thought he heard a sigh. Then Nataniel’s voice became calmer. “I talked to the Captain yesterday. She’s been reluctant to leave without her quartermaster, but business is business, you know.” There was a pause. “We’ll set sail again for the Far Isles in three days. Everyone is skittish about it, but the Captain says we have to turn our luck around. This time with extra provisions…”
There was a new pause. “Eli…” Nataniel said and then faltered. “Captain Ara named Jareth as our new quartermaster; can you believe it? …Good for him, I suppose. But she’d rather have you at your post.”
Again, there was silence from inside, and Aran imagined the strain of carrying the conversation alone was wearing on Nataniel. He’d hardly seemed the chatty type. “Well, I… I have to go to the Herradine now and see if something needs doing,” he said, sighing. “If you won’t, or can’t, talk to me, I suppose I will go. Oh, here. That sugar-bread from the bakery in Wallsen.” A little bit of a rustling sound and some footsteps were heard. “Me bringing the quartermaster food, isn’t that at least a little entertaining?” Nataniel asked. No response seemed forthcoming.
Footsteps were heard, and Aran quietly turned and looked into the room close by. He hovered there a moment, looking at the man inside, lying in bed, his back turned. From the room of the patient called Eli, footsteps were heard. Aran quietly slipped into the room where he was out of sight of Nataniel in the hall and listened as his footsteps, quick and regular, vanished down the corridor. Aran leaned out to confirm his identity, watching him go around the corner to the stairs out of the hospital.
It seemed Nataniel had a friend who refused to speak to him, and Aran wasn’t sure if he thought this had anything to do with the investigation into the murders. Still, he had come this far. It wouldn’t make sense to leave without either looking in on Nataniel’s friend or following Nataniel for the rest of the day until he did something more interesting than visiting a sick friend. Nataniel didn’t seem to Aran to be hiding anything, regardless of what mystical itches Naia felt. And besides, he could always go to the harbour and take a look at the Herradine if he wanted to catch up with Nataniel. He quickly decided and slipped out of the room, over to the one Nataniel had just left.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The door was ajar, and Aran pushed it open. The room was like the others he had seen along the corridor; a bed, a small chest for personal belongings, and a narrow table and two chairs. In one of the chairs, placed by the window, a man was sitting, hunched over to stare at the floor, his face in his hands as he rubbed his temples. He was dressed like the other patients at the hospital in linen shirt and trousers and cloth shoes. Though he was tall and well-muscled, clearly used to hard work in the same way Nataniel was, he seemed fatigued, and his light brown hair fell into his face in uncombed tufts.
For a few seconds, Aran stood and watched him, but then the man started as if suddenly realising he was being watched and looked up. For a second, his tired and sunken green eyes were sharp and piercing, but as quickly as the vigilant look appeared, it vanished again to be replaced with an empty stare.
Aran stood for a while, observing the man who Nataniel had called Eli. The man just kept up the blank stare, as if fixing a disinterested gaze at Aran’s hairline, never actually making eye contact. Then he leaned back in his chair and just looked out of the window instead.
“Hello,” Aran said.
The man didn’t respond, and Aran looked around the small room for any kind of touch of something personal that might be of use. A pair of boots stood under the bed by the wall and an open cloth bag of sugar-bread was left on the table, presumably by Nataniel. Everything else was as blank as the man’s stare.
“I’m lost, maybe you can help me?” Aran asked.
Eli still didn’t respond and just sat calmly by the window, looking at nothing.
Aran evenly approached, taking care not to seem threatening. The man didn’t flinch at his presence now, and Aran started doubting if the look in his face had really been vigilance. Perhaps it had rather been sudden shock at seeing a stranger?
“Are you alright? Can I help you in some way?” Aran asked, placing himself so he could see the man in profile, but out of immediate reach, just in case. “Your name is Eli, right? I heard your friend say it.”
“I don’t know you…” the man said softly, still not moving his gaze.
“I know, I’m sorry to barge in here like this. What happened to you?” Aran asked, observing Eli closely.
For a while, he didn’t respond. Then he just repeated himself, “I don’t know you…” he said as if it was a deeply uninteresting fact.
Aran looked around again. The boots under the bed looked sturdy and had a bit of dried mud on them. There was no lock on the chest for the patient’s belongings.
“It’s a nice spring we’re having, huh?” Aran said, not expecting much of a reply but hoping he could annoy Eli into dropping the ruse if it actually was. “It’s nice how it only rains at night.”
Eli, predictably, said nothing.
Aran went to stand next to him where he sat in the chair, and gazed out of the window overlooking the main gates and yard in front of the hospital. “There seems to be a bit of a party going on down there, huh?” he said conversationally, nodding down at the table in the sun where the strange patients he had seen when he entered were sitting. He knew that Eli wouldn’t be able to see them from where he sat and was hoping for a reaction, though not expecting one.
“You’re not Enna…” Eli just said tonelessly and then fell silent again.
“No, I’m not. Who is Enna?”
Eli didn’t respond.
Aran gave a sigh. “Alright, I suppose it is weird having a stranger in your room for no good reason… Why was the door open?” he added, opportunistically, but didn’t receive a reply to that either. He waited a few moments, studying the man’s exhausted, blank stare. Then he said, “I’ll go find Enna for you.” There was still no response. Eli’s tired eyes kept staring out the window emptily.
Quietly, Aran left the room, softly shutting the door after him. He waited a few moments in the hall to see if the patient named Eli would come and open it again, but he was either still staring blankly in there or too smart to react promptly.
Shaking his head, Aran went back to the reception area and found the young man who had directed him to ‘Basil’s’ room. “That didn’t go exactly as planned,” he prefaced. “He kept asking about someone named Enna; do you know who that is?”
“Oh, she’s one of the doctors here. I didn’t know she had been by to see your… cousin, was it? She’s out on the lawn for a session with some of the patients.” He nodded outside.
Aran looked outside. “By the table?” he asked.
The young man nodded and got to his feet, but Aran just gestured for him to sit. “I’ll let her know and ask her a bit about how I can help. Thank you,” he said and walked into the bright sunlight outside, knowing that Eli’s room overlooked the yard; he’d be able to look in on their conversation if indeed there was a mystery that gave him a reason to. Which Aran rather doubted. Nataniel’s reaction to finding four strangers milling about suspiciously in his building was perfectly reasonable, and his visit to a friend and colleague who had fallen gravely ill was the same.
“Excuse me, are you Enna?” he asked, smiling at the doctor who was tending to the patients at the table.
She turned and gave him a motherly and sincere smile that almost took him aback. “Yes. Can I help you?”
“Eh… I was just visiting someone here and I talked a bit with a patient who asked for you.”
“Oh, who was it? I’ll go look in on them as soon as we are done here.” She looked at the people at the table. “No, sweetie. No,” she said to the patient who had been sucking his thumb and was now putting the old lady’s braid in his mouth. The old woman’s eyes were wide in what was either panic or anger and she looked about to scream until Enna put a gentle hand on the shoulders of the two would-be rivals. “Shh, it’s alright, Gallimima. I think Gar just got a little confused for a moment,” she said softly.
“Confused,” Gar said, neither confirming nor denying anything, and popped his thumb in his mouth again.
“My cat can paint,” another patient at the table interjected, as still another drew her feet up on the bench so she could hug her knees and start rocking back and forth, mumbling, “Silly, silly, silly, silly…”
Aran looked at the party, torn between staring at it out of morbid curiosity and simply giving up and leaving. Enna was gently calming everyone, signalling to one of the other doctors who summoned more staff. They began escorting the strange patients back into the hospital.
On the way, the old woman with the chewed-on braid grabbed Aran’s jacket. “Sacrifice a goat to the sleepy demon under the city when the full moon comes,” she said conspiratorially.
“Ehm, alright. Thank you, I’ll be sure to do that.” Aran nodded as the old woman was led away. He looked after the retreating group, wondering who had the easier job: Enna, in dealing with clearly not sane people for some reason, or himself, in dealing with Naia. Probably Enna. She presumably got paid for it.
“There.” Enna smoothed her apron and smiled at him. “Well, an hour a day is about as much as the patients can realistically handle.” She smiled. “Sorry to keep you waiting; who was it that was asking for me?”
“Oh,” Aran snapped back to reality. “It was a guy named Eli,” he said, seeing Enna’s eyes widen in surprise. “I was wondering what’s wrong with him?”
“Did Eli speak to you? Did you have a conversation?” Enna asked, a note of excitement in her voice.
“Well… It was mostly me doing the talking, to be honest. But he said something about a ship, and it piqued my curiosity,” he lied.
“Really? That’s wonderful news.” Enna clapped her hands together in a gesture of excitement that almost seemed Naia-like. “Perhaps that means he’s finally beginning to recover a bit.”
“What has been wrong with him? He seems strong and not at all ill. Except for the strange mood.”
“Well, there was an incident during his last voyage. He’s a sailor. His friend and his captain told me he had fallen into madness for no reason they could discern after they had been in rather threatening circumstances at sea. But the madness seemed to befall him after the calamity had passed, which is strange, don’t you think?” she said, largely rhetorically, it seemed. “I theorise that something he can’t express gave his emotions a shock if you will, and all of his feelings revolted against him at once. I just need to get him to trust me enough to tell me what it was, so I can help him through it.”
“His… feelings revolted?” Aran asked.
“Why, yes. Sicknesses don’t just attack the body, they can also attack the mind and the feelings,” Enna said kindly. “My work here is largely about treating those. Although it’s a little-known field of study, and frankly, most of my colleagues here are somewhat sceptical though it’s quite obvious. Those people you just saw-” She gestured at the now-empty table behind her. “-are obviously suffering from diseases of the mind and feelings, and they deserve to be cured as much as anyone else,” she finished passionately.
Aran just nodded. “…So, you don’t know what happened to him? I noticed the door to his room was ajar, is that …significant in some way?” he asked hesitantly, not really certain how to proceed.
“Oh… yes. The poor dear gets quite upset at too-closed spaces. He went into a fit a few days after he came here. We’d been out on a small excursion to the festival that day. I thought it might help him to see something familiar. But maybe that was too much of a shock for him. Normally we lock the rooms of the patients at night, so they don’t wander around when the staff is quite sparse, but for him, we had to make an exception.”
“Oh, I see,” Aran nodded. “Well, I hope he gets better,” he finished and turned to leave.
“If he did indeed speak to you, perhaps you could come back tomorrow and try to talk with him again?” Enna asked opportunistically.
“If I have time, I will,” Aran said without promising anything and left Margan Elfslayer’s Hospital to go to the harbour district.