Master Olivar frowned, putting his hand on her shoulder. “She is my guest, Mandar, not an acquisition. And I am afraid she is having some pain today that I would ask you to help with.”
The doctor continued looking at her, but he took a step backward, gesturing for them to enter. Her heart raced as the door latched and he led them into a room in the back. She was anxious, her steps reluctant, and she wanted nothing more than to bolt back outside and hide.
But that would only serve to upset Master Olivar, and she didn’t want to do that.
Even if this encounter terrified her.
“You do not need to look at me that way, child,” the doctor told her. She flinched, as she had thought it safe to peek at him as his back was turned.
Did Olivar’s people have more than one set of eyes?
She shivered, hugging her arms to herself and wishing to be anywhere but there.
But he was patting a low bench. “Let us tend to that foot first, shall we?”
Her head jerked upright in surprise, and he smiled at her. “You cannot blame me for noticing,” he answered her silent question, glancing back down at the floor. “There is blood on my floorboards, after all.”
Her eyes widened in horror, and even Master Olivar looked severely displeased. She hung her head, words lumping in her throat. She would clean it, she was sorry, she hadn’t meant to make a mess...
But she bit them back as she hadn’t been given leave to speak. He patted the bench again and though she tried to get her limbs to move, they felt frozen and uncooperative.
What was wrong with her?
Usually she was able to obey first, her mind scrambling to catch up with whatever her body was already beginning, but now...
Olivar was suddenly grasping her by the arms and lifting her stiff form, depositing her on the bench himself with seemingly little effort. “You should have said something if you were hurt, Ness,” Master Olivar chastised her. “Did you think I would be upset?” He shook his head, his expression conflicted.
She hadn’t gasped when he lifted her, even though the action surprised her, and now she only stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before settling her eyes back on the floor where they belonged.
Where there was a smudge of blood from where she stood, a subtle trail showing her way back to the front door.
He wanted her to mention when she was injured? It seemed as if everything he wanted was in direct opposition to all she knew, and it made her head hurt at the conflict.
The doctor patted her arm before turning to a cabinet at the side and pulling out numerous items. She tried not to look, knowing that whatever he acquired would soon be used on her, maybe even in her and she did not think she could bear to dwell on that for any length of time.
“It’s not my place to complain,” she explained to him quietly, glancing at him quickly. He’d asked for her help, and she would give it, even if it was sometimes hard.
If the doctor thought their exchange at all strange, he did not say so. He merely brought over a tray with his instruments and took hold of her foot, sitting on a low stool so he could better examine the abrasion. She flinched at his touch, but he was not necessarily rough—though his grip was enough to ensure she could not readily jerk her appendage away from him.
“Well, maybe it is your place now!” Olivar exclaimed in some frustration. “Maybe... maybe I am telling you that... that here with me, it is your place to complain and speak up when you are hurt and I am too oblivious to notice for myself...” his words faded with a deep frown and a growl, and the doctor gave him a placid look.
Master Olivar glared in return.
“I was not going to chastise you, Olivar,” the other man assured him, wiping a stinging substance against the sole of her foot. She yelped, not expecting the sudden flare of pain, but she clapped a hand over her mouth to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
Both men glanced at her, both a little apologetic, the doctor frowning slightly at the jar in his hands. “My apologies, child. This is not known to cause discomfort or I would have warned you.”
So apparently ready apologies were not limited to Master Olivar. She wondered if that meant she was free to give her own whenever she felt the impulse. They hadn’t slapped her yet for her thoughtless tongue, so perhaps it really would be acceptable.
But it was so difficult to know for sure.
It did not sting nearly so badly the more he wiped at her foot, and with some mortification she noticed that the cloths he used were coming away dirty. She looked away, unable to offer to wash them, to do anything to make this right, and that allowed her humiliation to settle hotly over her.
“It is not terribly deep,” the doctor told her—or more likely told Master Olivar. He was her keeper after all, and her wellbeing shouldn’t matter to her. “But it is an inconvenient spot and should be covered so she does not get anymore dirt inside while it is healing.”
Master Olivar did not seem pleased, whether by the bandaging or because she had not answered his earlier proclamation, she wasn’t entirely sure.
But he nodded to the man before looking rather uncomfortable. For the first time he purposed to shift the language he used, and her nervousness grew. She didn’t trust this doctor, didn’t trust that something horrid or invasive would not take place, and Master Olivar shielding his words did not help her believe otherwise.
She scooted back on the bench a little, the doctor’s grip on her ankle keeping her from escaping very far. He glanced at her when she moved, his eyes flitting over her body again, settling briefly at her lap. His attention made her distinctly uncomfortable and she whimpered, unable to contain all of her fear that was beginning to eke out.
He must have noticed her discomfort for he patted her leg lightly before releasing his hold entirely. “Such bleeding is not unheard of, Olivar,” he told her master, pointedly returning to the Naradian tongue. “Surprising, I suppose, but it is not as uncommon as you might think.”
There was the green tinge to Olivar’s skin again. “Truly?”
The doctor chuckled. “Why would you bring her if you were going to doubt my knowledge?” Master Olivar looked away, his expression still showing that he was deeply embarrassed. The doctor smirked at him. “The Arterians females do it. The Releski too. Would you have them feel strange for what they cannot control?”
Master Olivar’s eyes widened. “I do not want her to feel anything of the sort!” he retorted forcefully. “I... that is to say... it pains her, and I merely wished to...”
“Ah,” the doctor mused, the good humour he’d displayed at Master Olivar’s expense fading as he learned of her discomfort. “Then you were right to come. I would not want you playing with potions on your own. Not when we know relatively little about her people.”
Master Olivar huffed out an annoyed breath. “Relatively little? We know nothing at all! And yet I need to know what she needs and when and...”
The doctor looked at him sharply. “Mind your tone, Olivar, as you are frightening her.” She bit her lip as she felt both men looking at her again, but she couldn’t bear to face either of them. She was shaking, Master Olivar’s tone and words indeed troubling her, and the doctor sighed, his voice already weary. “You decided to bring her to our lands, and now she is your responsibility. Did you think this would be simple? It will not be. But just remember that as confused as you feel, she feels it even more so.”
Olivar blinked at him and Ness did similarly. The man shook his head sighing again deeply. “I am certain the prospect is overwhelming at times. Especially if she is as uncommunicative as she appears to be.” He glanced at her and she flushed. She was trying—had spoken more with Master Olivar than she had with any master before in her entire life. But apparently it still wasn’t enough. Her shoulders slumped and the doctor patted her leg again, and she realised he was trying to give comfort. She just wished that she could accept it as such and not feel the crawling tinge of nerves as she waited to see just how terrible this
examination would become.
“I do not hear a single word of your regret, Olivar. This is what you chose, and you will be faithful to her care.”
“I do not regret it,” Olivar answered him, his voice much calmer than it had been. “But I am... I feel lost, sometimes, on how to help her. Any advice you could give me would be... most welcome.” He bowed his head a little, and she recognised the supplication that was offered.
The doctor waved it away easily with a gesture of his hand. “I will help you in any way that I can, but I am afraid I know only some of the physical. There was one of her kind here for a time, many years ago, so I have at least some notes on their care and treatment...”
He frowned, leaving the room without a word.
She would have thought that his absence would have made her relax, but it didn’t. Not when there evidently had been one here before her.
Who evidently had endured enough doctoring for there to be notes.
She shivered uncontrollably, her breath short, her heart racing almost painfully. Master Olivar looked at her sharply, crossing to stand beside her, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder as he stared at her in alarm. “Ness? What is wrong? Has something happened?”
She was supposed to speak up with her hurts, but did that include her worries too? She didn’t know. Didn’t know anything at all, she decided.
But she did not want to become a doctor’s study, for there to be notes about her as well.
She’d heard of such things with the Narada, and to know that such things transpired here as well...
But what she wanted never really mattered.
Except that it had. Just once. Just... just with Olivar.
She hadn’t wanted to displace him, hadn’t wanted to share his bed either. And he’d listened.
And perhaps he would listen now.
She made herself look at him, certain her eyes were wide and panicked, and he was still staring at her with such concern. “Please,” she pleaded with him, a little hopelessly. “I don’t... I don’t want to be his experiment.”
7. Doctor
“Experiment?” Olivar’s alarm turned to confusion. “Ness, I am not familiar with that word.”
She blinked up at him, though it was hard not to simply curl up and try to make him forget she had spoken at all. She shouldn’t have said anything, it wasn’t her place, yet she had, and it would be rude not to clarify. “The Narada had doctors,” she reminded him. “And... they had to learn about the thralls somehow. So if someone was too old, or not very useful, they got used for... for tests. To learn how our bodies worked.”
She shivered. She’d never seen any of those people again, but there were horrified whispers that made it through the thralls’ ranks that made it abundantly clear that experimentation led to all sorts of terrible deaths.
When she was younger, she liked to pretend that they were simply stories—cautionary tales to keep children like herself well behaved as they waited to begin fulfilling their purposes. But as she’d grown older, when she’d seen the first of the executions, groups of thralls charged with the removal of what remained...
She had come to recognise that someone would have to clean up the bodies.
And when they talked...
Stories would spread.
She was shaking, if just a little, and suddenly Master Olivar’s large arm was wrapped about her shoulders. “Ness,” he murmured soothingly. “I... cannot say that I remember the person he is referring to, but I am sure they were treated kindly.” He shook his head, clearly frustrated, and she shrank back just a bit, even though there was nowhere to go but closer to his side. “I think what I can promise even more so is that nothing bad is going to happen to you.” She should have expected him to tap her chin to remind her that he liked to be looked at, but her nerves were raw and still she startled, looking at him with wide, fearful eyes.
He smiled at her sadly. “You are here so that you can feel better. I am not leaving you for tests or anything that will hurt you. Do you believe me?” He was staring at her so there was no mistaking that he intended for her to answer.
Ness swallowed, her mouth dry and her breath too quick, and she sniffled, just a little, but hoped he didn’t notice.
But of course he did.
He sighed, so she hurried to force the words past her reluctant throat before he could grow angry with her silence. “I want to,” she managed, hoping that was enough. They were truthful ones. Master Olivar did not seem to understand that all these men were her master too. The Caern appeared to have settled on him being her keeper for now, but that could easily change. Perhaps she would be allowed to go home with him today, but the doctor could petition for her charge instead, and then...
She shuddered, closing her eyes.
Master Olivar sighed again. “This is not needed, Ness,” he told her tiredly, though he rubbed her arm lightly. There was a bruise close to his thumb from where her old master had pushed her, but she did not mention the dull ache. It did not hurt overly much, and she... rather liked his comforts, even if she knew it was dangerous and wildly inappropriate. “We are not the Narada. We are the Onidae, and I... I would appreciate if you could learn the difference.”
The Onidae? If she had heard the old masters speaking of them, she couldn’t remember. That was unsurprising given how low her rank had been. Perhaps a household thrall would have overheard more, learned more about other peoples and their ways.
Master Olivar deserved one of those for him to save.
Not her.
She was slow, and fearful, and useless, and...
The doctor reappeared, a sheaf of paper bound loosely with string held in his hands. “I apologise for the delay,” he told Master Olivar. “I have not had cause to look at this since my apprenticeship. And I do not need you to give me any reminders of how long ago that was, Olivar.”
Ness looked at her master worriedly, hoping that the doctor was not truly upset with him. That would not bode well for her, as she would be the one to bear the brunt of any disgruntlement, and it made it even harder to simply sit there and wait for him to begin.
Master Olivar must have felt her increased tension for he gave her a peculiar look. “Mandar,” he began, his tone a bit strained. “How did... how did your predecessor come by that information?”
The doctor stopped his rifling and glanced up at Olivar bemusedly. “Pardon?”
Master Olivar continued his little touches to her shoulder, and she bit her lip. It felt even more wrong for them to be witnessed, and shame warred with the knowledge that she was his and he could do whatever he liked to her. “Ness knew of... that is to say, the Narada were apparently quite... cruel as they gathered information about her people. She is concerned for whoever those notes are about.”
“Oh.” He coughed, shaking his head before coming and sitting down beside Ness. She hadn’t expected it and felt immediately alarmed at his proximity, but there was nowhere for her to go. Master Olivar had brought her here, and she would behave.
Even when it was hard.
He held the pages open and directed her to look at them, and she warily obliged. She did not understand the words, but the sketches were clear enough. They were of her kind, male and female, the outside and... with widening horror, she began to realise that the others were the insides.
Muscle, bone, each intricately sketched and catalogued, every piece that fit together so perfectly to create an entire person.
She whimpered, flinching back, certain now that these doctors were just as the Narada had been, but this current doctor took hold of her arm, gripping at it until she calmed enough to listen to his words. “There were a few, you see. Only one was alive. She... she did not live for very long, I am afraid, despite our best efforts. Something happened to her mind and...” he patted her arm. “We did examine the bodies. But I can assure you they were treated with dignity, and were buried honourably. No one was hurt to acquire any of this. And most importantly, you do not have to fear be
ing added to this book.”
They... they just examined the bodies?
She did not know what it meant to give an honourable burial. Honour was something earned in life, through the begetting of many thralls and a lifetime of servitude to a proper house. It might be a kindness for death to be witnessed, for a thrall to live on in memory, but even that was unnecessary.
A dead thrall was a useless thrall. So it mattered little if they were studied and their innards recorded on a page.
The doctor shifted the papers in his hands, shuffling them so the pictures were hidden, but he was quick to return his focus to her. He seemed to be in earnest, his eyes were warm, and Master Olivar wanted her to learn the differences between what had been and what was here now...
He kept looking at her expectantly, and she realised he was waiting for some sort of acknowledgement from her. She glanced quickly to Master Olivar, trying to gauge his reaction, and he gave her a thin smile in return. It was a poor replica of the ones he usually gave her, which meant he truly was upset by all of this. Or was it just at her?
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed, peeking at the doctor so he would feel properly addressed. “I shouldn’t... shouldn’t have assumed.” The last thing she wanted was him to be angry with her, to be insulted by her worries. But he patted her leg again with a smile of his own.
“It is understandable, child,” he assured her, getting up and returning to his own seat, ruffling through the papers again, falling silent as he did so.
Ness sat miserably, wanting to leave but knowing she couldn’t. Master Olivar remained by her side, but he made no attempt at conversation with her or the doctor. It was odd for him to be so silent, and she could not say that she found it an improvement. She found his prattle to be... comforting, in its way. It made him seem more open, less nefarious, at least for a master.
“Right, then,” the doctor finally declared, putting aside the papers, and smiling at her again. Did all of these Onidae do that so much? Every time she tried to mimic the expression, her cheeks felt frozen with disuse. But then, she’d rarely had cause to smile before. “There does appear to be something I can give to help with your pains, if you are willing to try it.”
Thrall (Deridia Book 3) Page 11