Page 6 of Remmen
If they wouldn’t come to me, I’d go to them and ask where it hurt.
Otho’s practice was the one building in town that always had somebody in it, which told you everything.
It sat off the market end of the street, and I could smell it from ten feet out, that clean bite of antiseptic under something herbal I didn’t have a name for. Inside, a bull the size of a doorway sat on a bench holding his own hand like it had personally betrayed him. Another had a strapped ankle up on a stool. Otho moved between them without hurry and without stopping, and there was a gray cast to him, around the eyes, that I recognized. I’d worn it. It was the look of someone who wasn’t allowed to be tired.
I bet Remmen knew the look too.
Don’t think about the mayor.
He clocked me the second I came in and didn’t stop what he was doing.
“Counselor.”
“You can call me Anne.”
“If you’re hurt, sit. If you’re not, I’m busy.”
“You’re always busy.” The bull with the betrayed hand was trying to hold a pad to a split knuckle and pull his own wrap tight with fingers and teeth, making a mess of it. I crossed over, took the loose end, and set my thumb where the pressure needed to be. “Keep still,” I told him, and he did, blinking down at me. To Otho: “That’s actually what I came about.”
Otho watched me work for a second, then went back to the ankle. “You want to mend split knuckles?”
“I came about you having four jobs and two hands.” I tied the wrap off clean and tucked the end. The bull flexed his fingers, grunted what might have been thanks, and took himself off. “This town’s got one healer for hundreds of men, and half of what walks through your door isn’t the thing that’s actually wrong with them. You know that better than I do.”
He finally looked at me straight. Up close the tiredness was worse, and my hands itched to take something off him.
“I’m not interested in talking around the point,” he said.
“You see all of them. Sooner or later, everybody in this town ends up in front of you.” I kept it plain. “I’m asking if there’s anyone you’re worried about. Not the arms and the ankles.” I wanted to say more, but doing so when I could still feel the impression of the bull’s wrap seemed a bit imprudent.
Look at me, being all professional.
“No.”
“Otho.”
“I mean it kindly, counselor.” He picked up a cloth and started wiping down the bench, giving his hands a job so they wouldn’t have to be still. “You’ve got good hands. I saw them on the dock. If a man’s bleeding, I’d hand him to you tomorrow.” He set the cloth down. “But I won’t force any of them to split their heads open to make them more palatable to a human bride.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s exactly that. They know what you are. They can smell the Agency on you.” He said it flat, no insult in it. “These men were bought and sold, handled their whole lives, and now they’re free.” He shook his head. “Some of them won’t touch the Agency with horns or hooves. And if they start to distrust me? A man can survive hurt feelings; I won’t let one of them bleed out because they don’t trust me.”
I stood there and took it. He was right.
“I’ve been told it’s a bit more serious than hurt feelings.”
“That’s not mine to solve.” But he said it without heat. “Good day, counselor.”
I left before I made it worse.
I was still chewing on Otho’s words with my head down when I walked straight into a warm wall of muscle and mayor.
I knew whose it was before I looked up, which was humiliating enough on its own. Heat flashed through me, the same full-body flush I’d had on the dock, dropping low and stupid and unasked-for, and I hadn’t given it permission then either.
“Mayor.”
“Please, call me Remmen.” He steadied me with one hand at my shoulder and took it back the instant I had my feet, like my skin was slimy or possibly diseased. Even that half-second of it went through me. He was in his fancy coat again, horns capped in silver that begged me to reach up and leave smudgy fingerprints, and there was just more of him than the street had room for. “You don’t look happy.”
“I just got very politely told off by your doctor.”
