Harem System novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Ward

Liriel ordered him to bed at midnight.

He lay on a cot in the corner of the Ward for less than an hour.

Then he got up and went to find a bucket.

The Hunger Ward held thirty beds, and twenty-six of them were full.

The women in them were thin and gray and shaking.

Most of them had been paired and then left, or paired to men who would not sign.

A night nurse found him in the long room at two in the morning, wringing out a cloth.

"You're not on the roster," she said.

"The woman in bed nine has a fever."

"We know."

"Then she needs her forehead cooled, and her sheets changed, and somebody to sit with her until it breaks."

The nurse stared at him.

"We have four nurses for thirty beds."

"Then you've got five now."

He did not stop until dawn.

He changed sheets, held basins and spooned broth into mouths that could not hold a spoon.

He talked to every woman in a low voice, about the weather and the food and nothing important.

By sunrise the long room had gone quiet.

The shaking in bed nine had stopped, and the woman in it was asleep with her hand curled around his sleeve.

Ruenna slept on a bench by the door with her boots on.

Liriel found him at the water barrel, splashing his face.

"I told you to rest."

"I did."

"For less than an hour."

"It was a good hour."

She leaned against the wall and folded her arms.

She looked as if she had not slept either.

"Do you know what the Ward's death rate is?" she said.

"No."

"One in six, every winter."

"The women starve because there's nobody to sit up with them."

"The ones who have men don't come here, and the ones who don't can't afford the staff."

She shook her head slowly.

"You've fed eleven of them tonight."

"Somebody had to."

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