Shift Seven: A Routine of Pruning

The shears in Jala's bucket were heavy, rusted along the pivot, and smelled of vinegar and dried marrow.

Pima kept her hand on her apron pocket, where the packet of warm dirt rested against her hip. If Jala noticed her lagging behind, he did not show it. He had turned back to cot nine, where Muka lay propped against the stained ticking.

The wooden leverage peg was still seated between Muka's molars, keeping his tongue clear of his throat. His chest rose with a dry, papery rattle, but his eyes were rolled back beneath half-closed lids. Along the edge of the mattress, three dark, fibrous shoots had crept from the skin above his right ankle, wrapping twice around the iron bedrail like creeping ivy.

"Fourth time this week," Jala said. He pulled the long-handled shears from the brine. "The south bay damp gets into the marrow fast. If we leave them anchored, the morning bell pulls the joint out when we roll him."

He set the iron jaws against the lowest shoot, right where the root met living skin. The flesh around the junction was gray, taut, and weeping a clear, scentless resin.

"Wait," Pima said.

Jala paused with his thumbs locked over the handles. "Sari wants the south bay cleared before third bell. We snip, we cauterize with salt mash, we move to cot ten."

"Those jaws are dull," Pima said. "You'll crush the vein before you shear the fiber. The tear will travel up the shin."

Jala let out a short breath through his nose. "Four years at Lanu Academy to learn five hundred plant names, and now you want to teach an orderly how to prune a bedpost."

"I learned it on harbor dray horses with dock rot," Pima said. "Let me use my blade. Hand me the salt cloth."

Jala hesitated, then lowered the shears into the bucket with a dull clink. He stepped back, folding his thick arms over his stained leather apron. "Go on, then. If he bleeds out, Sari writes the incident slip on your name."

Pima set her wooden kit on the foot of the bed. She pulled her curved paring knife from its oiled sheath.

The tendril was thick as a man's thumb, tough and fibrous beneath the resinous skin. She did not hack at the middle. Instead, she pressed her left thumb hard against the nerve junction two inches above the ankle, feeling for the pulse beneath the thickening hide. When the muscle twitched and went limp under her pressure, she slid the thin edge of the blade flat against the cold iron rail.

She sliced upward with a single, controlled draw.

The fibrous shoot gave way with the crisp crunch of raw ginger. The root snapped free of the iron without tearing the gray skin beneath. A drop of dark, sap-like fluid beaded on the cut surface, smelling faintly of turned river mud.

Pima took a square of linen soaked in brine and pressed it firmly over the stump. She tied it down with a strip of split reed, sealing the sap inside.

She repeated the cut twice more on the remaining rungs. Each stroke was clean, leaving the iron rail bare and the patient's leg free. Muka did not flinch; his breathing only slowed, settling into a steady, shallow rhythm.

Jala picked up a fallen root snippet with the tip of his tongs. He squeezed it. The wood-hard fiber yielded a single smear of black oil onto the zinc tray.

"Clean work," Jala muttered. He wiped the tongs on his apron. "Most new hands panic and butcher the meat. Sari usually spends half the shift stitching up torn shins."

He reached into his pocket and unhooked a brass ring carrying three small iron keys. He tossed it onto Pima's tray.

"Linen lockers, south supply bin, and the wash sink," Jala said. "You take cots ten through thirteen. Don't touch cot fourteen—that one is sealed until doctor rounds. When you finish the dressings, empty the wash buckets down the cliff chute."

Pima closed her fingers around the keys. The cold metal bit into her palm, giving her unrestricted access to the south supply corridor for the rest of the night. "What about the lower stairwell?"

"Stairwell stays locked," Jala said, turning his cart toward the next row. "Nobody goes below during shift seven unless Sari holds the brass tally. Just do the dressings."

He wheeled the heavy cart down the aisle, the squeaking iron casters echoing against the stone vaults.

Pima carried her basin to the copper sink at the far corner of the bay to rinse her blade. The water from the brass spigot ran brackish and tepid, carrying the mineral tang of the cliffhead cisterns. She worked the whetstone across the paring edge until the resin washed away in dark, oily streaks.

A wet rasp sounded behind her.

She turned. Muka was leaning sideways over the mattress, his head hanging past the iron rail she had just cleared. The wooden peg had slipped from between his teeth and lay on the stone floor.

His gray fingers reached across the narrow gap between the bed and the wash basin, clutching the hem of her apron with surprising force. His skin felt like dried cedar bark.

"Don't let them... pack the lime," Muka wheezed, his voice bubbling with thick fluid.

Pima stepped closer, catching his shoulder before he rolled off the ticking. "Lie back, Muka. The roots are cut. You're clear."

Muka's eyes fixed on her face, milky and wide in the lantern light. A spatter of dark silt flecked his dry lower lip.

"The tall one... with your eyes," Muka rasped, his grip tightening until the linen groaned. "He told me... the salt only makes it hungry. Tano said... beneath the stone... it eats."