Tomas

Tomas was a guard at Koschmark, eastern corridor, second post from the stairwell. He had been at the fortress long enough for his stubbornness to be established among the household. He treated his own wounds, badly, and resented the suggestion that this was insufficient. He nearly lost his leg to an infected shin he had wrapped in a strip of his own shirt and not changed for four days. When Yara cleaned it, packed it with yarrow, and told him to find her if the redness spread, he said he would have handled it. He walked back to his post without thanking her.

Stubborn. Stoic. Direct on the rare occasions he spoke. The soldier who wrapped his own wounds in his own shirt and did not change the bandage for four days. The kind of man who looks at a healer the way she has just suggested he wear a dress to his post, and then takes the cloth she offers him because she is right and putting it in his pocket is its own form of yes. Beneath the resistance there was a quiet decency. He admitted that the cloth worked. He told Zlata that the healer had steady hands. He never told the healer himself. His respect was expressed through action and the absence of speech, and Yara learned to read both. He was the opposite of Luka in everything except where it mattered.