Steelhands - Jaida Jones [55]
Back at home, the local doctor was just like that, and when he came I usually hid in the pantry, then in the barn when my pantry deal was found out. I never got sick anyway. I didn’t have any need for him.
With this damn ’Versity appointment, I didn’t even know what to expect, or who. Even worse, Toverre had his in a few days, so we couldn’t even go together for support. For Toverre’s sake, I’d have to pretend like sitting in the foyer of some stranger’s house while an apprentice took my measurements wasn’t one of the least comfortable things I’d ever done in my life. Considering how many times I’d fallen off a wild horse, put my foot in my mouth at the dinner table, and gotten stuck on the shelves while trying to get myself out of the pantry, that was saying something.
Toverre was going to hate it.
If only Gaeth’d been around, I would’ve pressed him more for details on what it was like—whether they leeched any blood or kept any blood, that kind of thing. I had no idea how it worked in the big city, just heard rumors from the stableboys about what crazy shit they did to you in Thremedon. But I hadn’t seen Gaeth in a few days, even though I’d been keeping an eye peeled for him. For a lad that big, he didn’t have much trouble disappearing on you.
The apprentice checking up on me was a weedy little man, but up close I could see he was even younger than I was, with freckles and thin orange hair. He’d be bald by the time he was twenty.
I had to think mean thoughts about him because he was writing all kinds of things down about me—my height, my age, my weight despite me being a lady, and the day and year I was born—checking my tongue with a flat wooden stick, peering into my ears with some device that was sharp at the tip, which really made my skin crawl.
All this seemed much more complicated than it’d ever been at home and, in my opinion, couldn’t’ve been too necessary.
He just needed to get to the bloodletting and be done with it, I thought, because too much longer steeling myself and I was going to talk myself right back into wanting to run away again.
Not like I couldn’t take care of myself when it came to these little things, of course, and it wasn’t like I was scared or anything. I didn’t like being made to wait, while in the next room I could hear all kinds of things being prepared. It wasn’t going to hurt and even if it did, I didn’t mind. I just hated all the anticipation.
“Can we get on with this?” I said, sharp and exasperated. It made the apprentice jump, and he fiddled with his spectacles nervously.
“I’m sure she’ll be with you in a moment,” he replied, the nostrils of his otherwise thin nose flaring wide. “There’s a lot to prepare in advance.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Like what?”
That, of course, he didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he was as uncomfortable as me and was pretending not to hear so that he could escape as quickly as possible.
Stood to reason one of us got to escape, anyway, and he was probably in a better position for it than I was. I bet Chief Sergeant Adamo—Professor Adamo now; it must’ve been awkward for him, what with people slipping up all the time and calling him the wrong thing—would’ve come up with some brilliant getaway strategy, pants on fire or no.
Then again, if I’d had a dragon to command and call my own, there wouldn’t be anyone making me wait more than five minutes for anything, and definitely not in a cold little physician’s room, either.
A girl had her dreams, and I had mine. I’d heard all about how it was the dragons that did the choosing, and not th’Esar or any magicians from the Basquiat, either. So what if one of the dragons had gone and chosen a woman, just because she liked one better? Probably the only reason that none of ’em ever had was because no woman had been presented to the dragons in the first place, but sometimes when I’d closed my eyes at night back home,