The envelope lay atop the wet gloves.
The messenger could come no farther than the entrance of the medical tent. He stood holding a single envelope impressed with wax, the dried gray mud around his boots cracked and flaking. It bore neither the mark of the Third Army nor that of headquarters. Orte noticed that first.
“The sender is blank.”
Ruan lifted the cloth from a feverish soldier’s forehead. He checked the heat with the back of his hand and asked Sera for water. The envelope was set on the table beside him, but the patient’s breathing was closer.
“We bring down the fever first.”
“It has your name on it, Medical Officer.”
Orte’s voice lowered. On the front of the envelope, the name Ruan Hesse was written in a neat hand. Neither his rank nor affiliation was wrong. The letter’s path was scattered, yet the name alone was far too precise.
Karen blocked the messenger.
“Who sent it?”
“I received it at an intermediate relay station. I don’t know whose hand it first came from.”
“The seal?”
“Unconfirmed. But it had an inspection cord from the royal capital.”
At those words, the air inside the tent shifted slightly. The soldiers did not know what was inside. Even so, the single phrase royal capital was enough to lower their eyes. Ruan supported the patient’s neck and trickled the medicine in. The soldier coughed while swallowing, and thin blood stained his lips.
“Turn his head to the side. Sera. Dry cloth.”
Sera moved at once. On the damp table, the envelope slowly took on moisture. Orte opened his record board, then stopped. He had to write down the sender. But the sender was blank. The empty field was a greater problem than the written name.
Only after the patient’s coughing subsided did Ruan wipe his hands. His wrist beneath the bandage followed a beat too late. Without picking up the envelope, he looked at Orte.
“Please read it.”
Orte split the wax with a small knife. There were two sheets inside. The first contained formal sentences. A request to verify unexplained cases of recovery. A comparison of testimony from surviving troops after the West Gate Shield Line. Submission of records regarding recovery speed and the condition of the medical officer in charge.
On the second sheet, smaller letters had been added.
Among abnormal recovery cases, prioritize those involving Ruan Hesse.
Sera caught her breath. Karen’s hand stopped at her scabbard. Ruan looked at the paper, then looked back toward the cot. The soldier whose fever had just come down had his eyes closed. The child’s name tag had slipped beneath the cot, its string broken.
Ruan bent down and picked up the name tag.
“Retie this patient’s name first.”
“This document is more urgent right now.”
Orte spoke directly, which was rare. Ruan threaded the name tag’s wet cord with new string and answered.
“If the name tag falls off, the medication gets mixed up.”
“It seems your name has already been entered into another ledger as well, Medical Officer.”
Those words lingered in the tent for a long time. Outside, stretcher wheels scraped against the earth. Someone called for the next patient, and Sera opened the entrance. A cold wind came in with the smell of wet blankets.
Aizen arrived as the sun was sinking. He turned the envelope over and examined it for a long while. One by one, he pointed out the unconfirmed seal, the royal capital inspection cord, and the marking of a civilian evacuation route.
“There are copies.”
Orte asked, “How do you know?”
“Paper like this doesn’t move only as an original. It must have been copied at least three times along the way.”
Ruan did not answer. He was examining the ankle of a newly arrived soldier. It was a transport soldier who had fallen from a horse. The sensation in his calf was dull, and he could not properly describe the pain below his waist. Ruan told two people to secure the stretcher.
Aizen did not fold the document.
“Can you remove my name?”
Ruan asked.
“A name that has already gone out does not come back. All we can stop is the next sentence.”
“Then please put only the patient records in the next sentence. Leave out the condition of my body.”
Aizen’s gaze touched the ends of Ruan’s white hair, then descended.
“That will be difficult.”
Karen spoke in a low voice.
“Commander.”
“Hidden records sell for a higher price. At the very least, we have to bind them within the corps.”
Ruan cut the patient’s bootlaces. The water-soaked leather parted. The swelling was severe. With two fingers, he checked the line of sensation.
“Do not move the patient’s leg.”
Aizen fell silent for a moment. Ruan’s instruction reached the patient before the document. That natural order now looked less like protection and more like a weakness. Because whenever someone thrust a document at him, Ruan would be bound instead to the pain closest at hand.
Orte took out a new record sheet. In the sender field, he wrote unconfirmed. In the request field, he wrote verification of recovery cases. His pen stopped at the field where Ruan’s name was to go.
“You have to write it.”
Ruan said.
“I know.”
Orte wrote Ruan Hesse. While the letters dried, no one added a word. The soldiers outside did not know the contents of the envelope. But the fact that a document that bore neither the headquarters messenger’s authority nor the Third Army’s seal had come for Ruan was enough. In the evening ration line, the rumor that the royal capital was looking for a military physician circulated in low voices.
Ruan did not hear those words himself. Sera heard them. Karen heard them too. Neither allowed them into the tent. But words seeped even beneath tent cloth.
When night deepened, the envelope went into a small iron box. Aizen’s adjutant wound a sealing cord around it, and Orte attached a storage number. The procedure was orderly. That made it all the more ominous.
Ruan retied the last patient’s name tag. His fingertips slipped once. He bit the thread off with his teeth and pressed down the knot.
The iron box closed with a sound.
The papers were trapped inside it. But Ruan’s name was already outside the box.
Before dawn, Orte found one more copy ledger. It was a thin sheet tucked behind a receipt book for supplies. It did not seem that someone had hidden it on purpose. It appeared to have been mixed in by mistake as it passed through many hands. But the same expression was on that sheet as well. Recovery case. Person in charge: Ruan Hesse. Verification required.
Orte did not show it to Ruan immediately. First, he looked at the time the ink had dried. It was a copy written before the document ever reached the medical tent. The sender was blank, but the destination had been divided among several places. Headquarters records office. Evacuation management office. Royal capital checkpoint. The simplified marks of three places were faintly stamped upon it.
Karen stood beside him.
“There’s more?”
“Yes.”
“How many sheets?”
“More than what we’ve seen.”
Karen did not curse. Instead, she looked toward the inside of the tent. Ruan was supporting a cloth behind a patient’s back. The soldier, drunk with fever, was looking for his mother. Ruan asked his name, gave him water, and checked his pulse again. He did not know that his own name had branched into three separate streams of documents.
“Should we tell him?”
Orte asked.
Karen was silent for a while. If they hid it, Ruan would be angry. If they told him, Ruan would look at the patient again and pretend nothing was wrong. Neither choice would let him rest.
“The commander first.”
“Medical Officer Ruan has the right to know.”
“I know. That’s why I want to tell him later.”
Orte folded the paper. The crease crossed Ruan’s name. Disliking that line, he unfolded it again. It was ominous to leave a crease over a name.
Sera passed by carrying a water bucket and looked at the two of them.
“Another document?”
No answer was needed. Sera set down the bucket and took out a sealing cord. It was the cord used to tie medicine bottles. It was too thin for documents, but it was all they had right now.
“At least bind them all in one place inside the tent. If one gets lost, it will become worse.”
Orte accepted the cord. At that moment, Ruan was bent over the patient. The patient’s name was Veil. On the name tag, the ink had run, making it hard to tell whether it was Vain or Veil. Ruan did not attach a new name tag until he confirmed it from the man’s own mouth.
“Is it Veil?”
The soldier nodded with difficulty.
Ruan wrote Veil on a new wooden tag. The letters were short and straight. Orte looked at that hand. Even as the documents carried Ruan’s name away, Ruan was still fastening other people’s names back where they belonged.
Outside, the first shift-change bugle sounded. Beside the iron box, the bundle of copies tied together caught the dawn light. There were already too many to put inside the box.
Before sunrise, Aizen had the sealed box opened again. The papers inside and the copies tied outside were separated and numbered. The adjutant asked why they were recording the same document twice. Instead of answering, Aizen pointed to the blank field.
No sender.
As long as that blank field did not disappear, the document would continue to grow. Someone would try to fill the blank, and someone would use it to summon Ruan.
“No removal outside.”
Aizen said.
Orte wrote down the order. The hand that took it down was heavy. Because the moment the words no removal were driven into the paper, he thought of all the things that had already been removed. Orders always arrived later than events.
In the meantime, Ruan checked Veil’s name tag again. The new cord was not wet. He tied the name tag to the head of the cot and wrote down the time for medication.
“Do not get the name wrong.”
Sera nodded.
Listening to those words, Orte looked at the bundle of documents. Ruan was trying not to get another person’s name wrong, while the documents outside were taking Ruan’s name as they pleased. The difference between the two was too great.
When the day fully brightened, Veil opened his eyes. He touched his name tag and asked in a very small voice,
“Am I alive?”
Ruan lifted the water bowl and brought it to his lips.
“You are still under treatment.”
Veil was relieved by that answer. The small words under treatment were more trustworthy than the grand word alive. Even after seeing that face, Ruan did not turn back toward the documents. But Orte did. The sealing cord atop the iron box had loosened a little overnight. He brought a new cord and tied it once more. Records often failed to protect people. Even so, he could not simply leave a loosened cord as it was.