“And yet Drohzne allowed you to bring this woman to a healer?”

The little man looked doubtful. │思│兔│網│

“No, he wouldn’t have let us, I’m sure,” Elena said flatly. “But

please—she’s bleeding and she’s going to have a baby….”

Dr. Meggar’s eyebrows went up and down. But without asking

anyone to leave while he treated her, he pulled out an old-fashioned

stethoscope and listened carefully to Ulma’s heart and lungs. He smelled

her breath, and then gently palpated her abdomen below Elena’s bloody

camisole, all with a professional air, before tipping to her lips a brown

bottle, from which she drank a few sips, then sank back, her eyes

fluttering closed.

“Now,” the little man said, “she’s resting comfortably. She’ll need

quite a bit of stitching of course, and you could use a few stitches

yourself, but that’s as your master says, I suppose.” Dr. Meggar said the

word master with a definite implication of dislike. “But I can almost

promise you that she won’t die. About her babe I don’t know. It may

come out marked as a result of this business—striped birthmarks,

perhaps—or it may be perfectly all right. But with food and rest”—Dr.

Meggar’s eyebrows went up and down again, as if the doctor would

have liked to say this to Master Drohzne’s fac