Chapter Text
Patient is… unknown.
“Name, please. And I mean your real one this time.”
“Sandhya Bhakta,” she says, not looking him in the eye. She’s fully dressed, sitting cross-legged on the table, with the cloth gown laid out on her knees. Still squinting. “I usually wear glasses…”
“Where are they now?”
“Still in Tatary. Güneş- I mean, the princess didn’t want to risk contact lenses. In case- In case somebody found them.”
Loshadkin raises an eyebrow. “ ‘Somebody’ as in his highness?”
She looks down guiltily. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t- I mean, I never wanted to… Nobody was supposed to get hurt!”
He doesn’t dignify that with a response. “Where’s the real Zaria Samaant?”
“I don’t know,” she says flatly. “Probably dead.”
“Probably?”
“His majesty didn’t tell me. He took her away, and… Whatever he’s done, it’s not good.” She shivers and rubs her arms. “I hope he didn’t give her to his daughter.”
“His majesty being…?” The immediate thought is Vladimir, the man of the hour as it were, but he’s a “highness” at the very most. He doesn’t have a daughter anyway.
“Tyrek-kehan,” she says. “He wanted… He and Güneş-begum had some kind of agreement. I just… I wanted to leave. I’m sorry.”
“Leave? Leave where?”
“You haven’t met Qalbinur-begum, have you? That child is a monster.”
“That child is ten years old.”
“He started teaching her early.”
“Right,” Loshadkin isn’t buying a word of this. “And how did the two of you become…” He trails off. He can’t speak. Not looking at that. At her.
He saw her naked during the initial checkup. The parts he thought he ought to be concerned with anyway. Nobody bothered to check the inside of her mouth. Or the bottoms of her feet.
“What on earth…?”
“Horseshoes,” Sandhya says. “Basically. These were specially made. Eventually the skin started to grow around them. And… and I think the nails fused to the bone.”
“Wh-why?”
“He told her she couldn’t bring real ponies into her room.” She unclips two partial dentures from her mouth, one on each side. “These were for the bit and bridle.”
“Dear Ladies.”
“The bruises have all faded by now. She had a little whip that wouldn’t cut the skin too deeply. No scars. Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“When she got bored, I guess, he still wanted to sell me.”
“Sell you?”
She shrugs and hugs her knees against her stomach. Her stomach…
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“No. Qalbinur was awful, but she never… and anyway, she was a girl. His majesty wasn’t interested in me, and his highness Vladimir, well, he wasn’t either. Even if they were…” She goes to adjust non-existent glasses. “I haven’t even started on my period.”
“What? But that can’t be- How old are you?”
“Fourteen makes the most sense, physically speaking. Any younger seems unlikely, at this point in my physical development. No more than fifteen, I’d wager.”
“What?!”
“It’s not that bad. I knew already that Vladimir-beg was rumoured to see his marital duties as a, well, duty, if you understand. I calculated I would be safer with him than Tyrek-kehan.” She swallows hard. “But… I found a pregnancy test in Zaria-begum’s bathroom. She hadn’t used it yet…”
“And that’s why you… I see.”
“I went to Güneş-begum first. I was… worried. I asked her if anyone knew and she- Well, she was never very close with his majesty. We got scared. And Luna-begum told us-”
“Luna-begum was involved?!”
“… She said your people were hurting her mom.”
Loshadkin raises one hand in a “stop” motion, pressing the fingers of the other into his temples. “Alright. I think you’re going to have to speak to Selesta-khatun and the guard captain-” Zaria’s brother, of course, this couldn’t possibly be straightforward. “-and start from the beginning. But first, I can at least look at those wounds. I’m probably going to have to book you in for surgery.”
“Okay,” she says, nodding. “Surgery for…?”
“Your feet. You… you should sit down. Let me look at your feet.”
“Oh. They don’t hurt that much anymore. At least… I’m used to it.”
That might be worse. They could be looking at nerve damage. He helps her sit again and examines the twisted flesh. “Since the prince wasn’t responsible, may I ask what happened with, ah, the injuries I looked at last time?”
“That was Güneş. She didn’t hurt me- well, it did hurt but I mean… I was okay with it. With her.” She buries her face in her hands. “Is that illegal here?”
“No…”
Loshadkin thinks that should really be the least of her worries.