Page 24 of Elvenbred

“Is there anything else?” he said.

“Yes,” the physician replied, clearly uncomfortable. “I took the opportunity to do an exam on her … a physical. I don’t think she has ever had one before, so explained it was standard procedure when sick. She accepted that at face value.”

“And?” he said, impatient.

She took a deep breath. “She was spell-sculpted as a child. Was never supposed to be this tall, slender, or willowy. Someone broke her legs and arms, very precisely. Then, they Healed her, lengthening the long bones to give her extra height and to make her arms roughly proportionate to that height. Someone also removed her lower three ribs on both sides to give her a longer, slimmer waist, then—and I scarcely believed this when I saw it, but it’s true—then caused each vertebrae in her spine to lengthen a trifle, so the overall effect was that she became much taller. Disproportionately, even freakishly, in our terms.”

The physician seemed quite agitated by all this, but Haldeen’s focus remind on the state of the Machinas. His Machinas, the ones he needed. He tried to summon some reason why he should care, but couldn’t. He waited for her to say her piece, and leave.

She read his silence as disbelief. “I counted the ribs, and felt when I came up short. I can feel the ridges in her legs from where the bone was spell-grown. The vertebrae don’t fit together the way they should. There are other things … subtleties … the eyes were moved apart a bit, and greatly enlarged, the eyebrows lifted, the nose slimmed. She may look grotesque to us, but someone did this as part of a standard of beauty. It’s as if they were crafting a porcelain doll, not a person. As if her sole worth to her society lay in how attractive she was in their eyes. And that ‘attractive’ meant ‘altered in ways only the wealthy could afford,’ and that in turn would result in someone who could not do ordinary labor.”

Haldeen didn’t quite know what to make of this, but he could see the physician’s nervousness by the way she played with the fringe.

“Go on,” he said.

The physician shook her head. “This would have been agonizing. Growing bone that way, reshaping, resculpting, is incredibly painful. And it was done repeatedly.”

“Look,” she said, as much to herself as to him, “I have to report this. This was done to her as a child. It breaks every ethical and legal boundary we have. I used to spell-sculpt before the king declared it anathema except for reparative work, and I could never have done this much, this intensive work to an adult who wanted it, much less to a child. Alter a misshapen nose, yes. Perhaps widen the eyes, or sculpt the cheekbones. Oh, and all this work? It also rendered her useless as a wife. Those hips can’t pass an apple, much less a child.”

He held up his hand. Ah, so that’s where she was headed with this. Took her time about it. He mulled over his options. A report now would draw too much attention to her presence, and with it too many questions. “No one here did this to her,” he said, flatly. “She comes from outside the city and was found here by virtue of an unrepeatable accident. So, there’s no one, no perpetrator, to report.” He smiled thinly. “If I recall correctly, you do have to have someone to point the finger at if you make such a report, correct?”

The physician made a noncommittal gesture. “The report starts the questions, so a culprit isn’t usually necessary, but in general, you are correct … we’d be reporting someone who did this. I’ve heard of cases where a low-born tries to buff up a daughter’s looks to improve her prospects, but nothing even vaguely close to this. My oath is to repair, restore, and reverse … but this, this was butchery. I’m going to have to make a report.”

Haldeen tried a different tack. “Yesss, of course, but we’re still sorting out some things here, and we need a little time. Make sure she’s healthy, perhaps learn a bit about who did this to her, do a bit of our own investigating until we can learn who the renegade is, and hopefully, where he is. That would be the logical way to proceed wouldn’t it?”

The physician looked uncertain.

He pressed his case. “And as someone who once had a thriving practice as a spell-sculptor, you’d be ideal to help us with that inquiry, so that your report would be more detailed, once the time came. And, of course, we’d need to put you on a retainer for that, now wouldn’t we?”

He watched as the physician considered the offer. She licked her lips nervously, biting the lower, a clear sign of her discomfort. The king had wiped out the livelihoods of half the physicians in the city when he banned spell sculpting, and as for them limiting themselves to … ahem, repair, restore, and reverse, Andaleisia certainly came home with a different nose than she left with after her repair. So, clearly more latitude for “adjustments” than the good doctor let on.

This physician was now reduced to tending workers on his estate, dispensing pills and Healing minor injuries for very small rations, since all the more lucrative work she had been doing was gone. Of course there were always a few major injuries that brought in greater rations, but the plain truth of it was, those were a lot fewer than the attacks on the city would indicate, because when the Predators broke through, they generally didn’t leave much behind but the dead.

She would be in a tight space, so he let the silence lengthen, drawing out and knowing that knowing the first to speak would lose. “Yesss,” the physician agreed after the interval had grown too long. No effort to counter and ask for more. She was hungry enough to take the offer.

He smiled. Once she’d compromised herself the first time, the next would be easier, and so forth. One delay would feed the next, and no report would be made. She would frame it up in a way that salved her conscience, but it amounted to the same thing. He thought of a number for the retainer, then halved it. “A ration a day, until your investigation is complete, and a room in the upper servants’ dorm? Something suited to a governess?”

She nodded, once. “I’ll start immediately.”

“No need,” he replied. “She’s still sick, after all. And Kilfenora keeps her pretty busy. Take a few days to get yourself sorted. Then, you can get started.”

The physician bobbed her head. She had gone cheaply in the end. He made a gesture towards the door. The physician got up to leave, then turned, surprising him a bit.

“I’ll still have to make a report eventually,” she said, “no way around that.”

“Of course,” he said blandly.

Once she left, he ran his hand through his thinning hair. The costs for keeping Triana had begun to pinch. The physician would be a drain on his ration store, and his agreement with Nora bit into his resources. Triana still rejected about one potion out three, for various reasons … too much this, not enough that. Food she sent back … food from his own table … wasted, when she wasn’t throwing it up.

He had to remind himself that the cost would be worth it in the end. In the meantime, he needed to keep her under his control while he mined out what she knew. Once he was satisfied she had shared all she knew, then he would have to keep her longer to maintain a monopoly on what he learned. So, more rations expended … and not common rations either, but higher class stuff, with a little bit of naturally grown food to round out the spell-made rations to keep up appearances … damn the cost.

By the stars, though … if they have resources to waste by turning women into freakish “beauties,” how lush is this world they found? How easy is the living there? It boggles the mind.

He became aware of Nora’s cool gaze. He could see her thinking, working something out.

“Yes?” He said, drawing her out.

Nora made it a point to study the hem on the trousers. “You can buy her off for a while, but she has her duty.”