“You seem to know a lot about it.”

He looked a bit ashamed. “I don’t eavesdrop. The walls here are thin and they often shout at one another. They shout a lot, about everything. Today Dowder wanted to bring the sick prisoners here so that they could treat everyone in one place. Frye was angry about that. He says that soldiers shouldn’t have to die alongside felons. Dowder said that three infirmaries for two doctors is ridiculous. And he said that a sick man is a sick man and deserves to be treated as well as they can manage. They fight about the prisoners a lot. Almost all the prisoners who get sick die. They lime-pit the bodies from the prisoner barracks. Dowder says they should be given a decent burial.”

I’d never even stopped to wonder why dead prisoners never arrived at the cemetery. Now I knew. Work on the King’s Road, die, and be flung into a pit full of quicklime. A sordid end for anyone. “Three infirmaries?”

“The officers’ mess is an infirmary now for the visiting delegation from Old Thares. Every one of them sickened. Dowder says they’re all going to die because they haven’t been east long enough for their bodies to adapt to the humors of this region. Frye says they’ll die because the Specks hated them the most.” I was beginning to think that I needed to have a long conversation with Frye. He was disturbingly close to what I perceived as the truth. I wondered if he might lend his weight to my plea that we stop cutting the ancestor trees to end our war with the Specks. Could he make Colonel Haren see that we truly were at war? Then I remembered that Haren was dead. I didn’t have time to feel anything about that. Callously, I wondered if our next commander might be more open to the truth.

“I need to speak to Dr. Frye or Dr. Dowder. Can you take me to one of them?”

He shook his head. “I’m not supposed to leave my post.”

“Can I go in there and look for one of them?”

The boy soldier yawned hugely. “Dr. Dowder took a Gettys tonic and went to bed. You won’t be able to wake him. Dr. Frye is spending the night in the officers’ ward. You won’t be able to get in there.”

“Is there no one else who can help me? Or at least advise me what I should do for Scout Hitch?”

The boy looked uncertain. “There are orderlies on duty, but I am not certain how much they know. And some townspeople have come to help.”

“I’m going to see if there is anyone who can help me,” I announced.

He shook his head at my determination. “As you will,” he conceded. Before the door had closed behind me, his head was pillowed on his ledger again.

The infirmary ward was dimly lit. A few hooded lanterns burned on small side tables between the beds, but the room was still shadowy and dim. I walked into a wall of smell. It wasn’t just sweat and waste and vomit. The plague itself seemed to exude a sour stink of illness from the bodies it consumed, just as a fire gives off smoke as it devours fuel. My nightmarish memories of being confined to a plague ward slammed into reality around me. For an instant, I felt again the fever and disorientation. All I could think of was fleeing. I knew I couldn’t.