Morning mist still hung low over the river barges when Seyun walked through Oran’s lower market gate carrying an iron digging mattock slung over his uninjured right shoulder and a clean linen burial cloth inside his canvas bag. Outside Mina’s ground-floor clinic, the street cobbles were damp with night dew. The cedar license plaque beside the flat threshold gleamed softly in the early lantern light.
Inside the consultation room, the canvas privacy curtain was drawn halfway back. Nara Soth sat on the low pine check bench with her grey woollen road coat folded across her knees and the upper back of her linen shift unlaced. Her white hair was tied back in a plain cord at the nape of her neck. Her empty left sleeve was pinned neatly to her shoulder seam with a horn clasp.
Behind her stood Mina, her sleeves rolled to the elbows and her fingers cool and dry as she traced the long slanted ridge of scar tissue crossing Nara’s shoulder blades. At the side intake desk, sixteen-year-old Halin sat with his watching slate, recording the final discharge notes without touching the patient.
“Lift your right arm to shoulder height and turn your ribs twenty degrees to the right, Master Nara,” Mina instructed in the exact, unrushed cold and exact tone she used with sixty-year-old barge haulers.
