After she was dressed and had eaten breakfast with the family, Selemei assured the children she’d be home soon—with extra kisses for Aven and Pelli—and she and Grivi walked across the gravel paths of the Residence gardens to the Conveyor’s Hall. Selemei winced with every step. Thirty-seven should have been too young to walk like an old woman. It should have been too young to be widowed, too. Her former self dragged at her—the Selemei who had run and hidden behind that carefully tended hedge on her right, joined by a handsome man who gently kissed her amid the voluptuous scent of imported surface soil. It made her too conscious of the effort Grivi must be expending to keep her steady, to keep her moving. And conscious, too, of strange glances he cast toward her.
Was he unhappy?
She watched him. In the Conveyor’s Hall, Grivi seated her in a chair by the stone wall. He left the green-carpeted reception zone, crossing the road that passed under the Hall’s massive entrance arch and ended against the wall to her left. The zone beyond was crowded with vehicles of varying sizes; Grivi procured a one-passenger skimmer from the Household staff, and adjusted its control column to upright for a standing driver. Then he came and fetched her to it, slowing attentively at the spot where carpet met stone. He was always thoughtful—he didn’t engage the skimmer’s repulsion until she was fully settled. If he had some complaint, she couldn’t detect it.
Driving felt quite normal. The skimmer hummed; the cool wind of their passage refreshed her; and outside the gate of the Residence grounds, broad circumferences busy with vehicles and colorful Lower pedestrians made a pleasant distraction. Grivi accelerated up a steep rampway of reinforced limestone that lifted them above slate roofs, and through the bore to the fourth level.
In this neighborhood, the cavern roof hung much lower. Grivi turned their skimmer into an outbound radius, and then into a circumference where the building façades formed a continuous wall on either side. The road ended against a melted limestone column as broad as a storefront. Above the roofs of the buildings, the slope of another level rampway was visible, passing up and behind the column’s ancient mass. Grivi brought the skimmer to a stop. Its hum faded, and it sank to rest on the stone. The front wall of their destination had high oblong windows and bore chrome script identifying doctors Wint, Albar, and Sedmin. A bright globe lamp, green as the sphere of Heile, goddess of health, hung above glass front doors.
Selemei took Grivi’s arm, passing a pair of wysps that drifted along the sidewalk, and entered through the glass doors that parted before them.
The crowd in the room within plunged into silence. Only a small boy with the castemark necklace of a Melumalai merchant continued to run in circles until he nearly tripped over Grivi’s feet, then looked up and bawled in terror. His father rushed up, gaped helplessly at Selemei for a second, then turned to Grivi and blurted, “May your honorable service earn its just reward, Imbati, sir,” before scooping the boy up and hiding behind a large group of thick-belted Venorai. The Venorai had the look of farmers—all were muscular, with striking sun-marked skin. One older man looked bright red, and a couple young women were covered with brown spots, and the rest were solid brown—they were all embracing each other, and she couldn’t guess which one was here to see a doctor. Maybe the red one?
An inner door opened. Two Kartunnen men emerged: both wore green lip-paint and gray medical coats. The taller of them made a deferent approach to two Imbati mothers and their child; the shorter one came up to Selemei, and bowed.
“Lady Selemei, if you will please follow me.” He made a second bow to Grivi, but did not greet him. He led the two of them back through the door, paused a moment to key a sequence on a wall panel, then took them down a long bare hall and opened a numbered door.
Doctor Kartunnen Wint stood in the room within. Selemei recognized her instantly, though this time the style of her gray coat was more functional. She had the same red hair, tied in a knot behind her head. She bowed. “My practice is honored by your patronage, Lady Selemei.”
“Doctor Wint. I was surprised not to find you at the Medical Center,” Selemei admitted. “Grivi, you may undress me now.”
“Yes, Mistress.” He began undoing her buttons.
“Lady, I did work at the Medical Center,” Wint replied. “But after the death of Lady Indelis, I couldn’t bear to stay. Administrator Vull nonetheless has maintained his family’s relationship with me, for which I’m grateful.”
“I’m sure. That was a terrible tragedy.” That Vull would continue to bring his family to her spoke eloquently for the doctor’s skills. Selemei pulled her hands out of her sleeves and raised them over her head.
“May I ask what brings you here, Lady?”
“My leg. I fell yesterday.” Grivi lifted the gown off her; she lost the doctor for a moment behind layers of silk. When Selemei glimpsed her again, Wint still looked inquisitive. “Well, I stepped back on it, and fell. I’d been overusing it. Pushing through pain earlier in the day. And you said, at the party, that I should see a Kartunnen therapist.”
Wint blushed, and glanced at Grivi. “I did, Lady.”
“So.” She indicated her own body. “Please proceed.”
“Lady, would you consent to lie facedown on this table?”
“Of course.” With Grivi’s help, she climbed up to the padded surface. The slick material was cold on her right cheek, and all down her body.
“What kind of injury was this, Lady?”
“Birth injury.”
“All right, that’s what I thought. How far down your leg does the pain go? Does it go below your knee?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had any bowel problems or incontinence, Lady?”
“No, thank Heile.”
“Fever or weight loss?”
“No.”
“What forms of treatment or testing have you previously pursued, Lady?”
“Grivi, please tell her.”
While Grivi explained the tests and treatment she’d received in the Medical Center and the therapies thereafter, the doctor examined her back, rear, and legs. She pressed firmly, but did manage to avoid the bruises from the fall. Then she followed that up with some kind of pricking tool.
“Thank you, Imbati, sir,” Wint said, when Grivi had finished. “May your honorable service earn its just reward. Lady, can you please stand for me?”
Once she was standing, Wint asked her to lift her leg, straighten her knee, lift her big toe, and stand on her toes. It went decently. It was hard to know if she should hope to perform better or worse.
“Doctor,” Selemei asked, “what do you think? Can you fix it?”
The doctor pinched her own forehead with her thumb and forefinger. “I’m afraid it’s too early to say, Lady. I’d like to recommend a course of exercises, and request that you undergo further tests.”
Selemei’s mouth fell open in dismay. “But this is like starting over! I thought—” What had she thought? That Wint would have Heile’s hands, to heal with a touch? That if her leg could be fixed, it would change the past? Nothing would erase the sight of her fall from the cabinet members’ memories! Nothing could bring Xeref back!
The truth tried to drown her. Selemei gulped air, struggling to stay above it, and covered her face with both hands. It was dark in the space behind them, warm, and damp. She did not want to cry in front of the doctor.
Grivi said softly, “I’m here to protect you, Mistress.”
Selemei swallowed hard. “Doctor,” she managed, “I’d like to get dressed.”
“Of course, Lady.”
The layers of silk gave her a moment’s privacy; she could focus on her hands and her sleeves, and speak as if this were about someone else. “Of course you’d want tests, doctor; here I am walking in, and you don’t know me or my case. I’m sure Grivi could have the Medical Center send over what we’ve already done. I probably should resume therapy—probably never should have stopped, childish of me, really…”