Elizabeths Eyes

  Elizabeth had learned, long ago, that the only way to survive in Ar was to slide a veil between her heart and her eyes.

  She stood in the slaver’s examination room with her hands folded neatly behind her back, the  soft green linen of her physician’s tunic crisp against her dark skin, and watched Caleb, the slaver, pace before the line of girls. Twelve of them. Barefoot on the stone floor, a simple cord circled each throat, marking them as property. The room was functional rather than grand: stone walls, a drain in the center of the floor, a heavy wooden table with iron rings at its edges. A barred window let in a gray light that made everything look colder.

  “Physician,” Caleb rumbled, turning to face her. His beard was coarse, streaked with gray. His tunic, once red, had faded into a dull rust. “You know what I need.”  Elizabeth inclined her head. “A complete assessment of each girl. Health, fertility, scarring, and any signs of long-term damage. Written on your standard forms.”

  Caleb’s gaze flicked to the young woman standing slightly behind Elizabeth. “The assistant is new.”

  “This is Samantha,” Elizabeth said. “She will write what I dictate. She’ll need to see everything I see.” Her tone was cool, professional. As always. “You approved this arrangement last week.”

  Caleb shrugged, unconcerned. “As long as you sign the papers. The buyers trust your hand, Physician.” He looked at Samantha again, a slow, appraising stare. “You’re certain she understands discretion?”  Samantha stiffened. She was tall, pale, and plainly dressed in gray, her dark hair braided and pinned at the nape of her neck. Her fingers tightened around the leather folder she carried, the one that held Caleb’s forms and her ink.

“She understands,” Elizabeth said before Samantha could speak. “We’re here to work, not to judge.”  Caleb smirked, satisfied enough. He turned to the girls. “You heard the Physician. You’ll do as you’re told. Eyes front, backs straight.”

  Eyes lifted. Some frightened, some dull, some oddly distant. Elizabeth felt the old, familiar tightening behind her ribs, the one she never allowed to reach her face.  Samantha swallowed hard, her throat moving. Elizabeth saw it from the corner of her eye and filed the detail away. She would need to watch her closely.  “Shall we begin?” Elizabeth asked.

  Caleb waved a hand. “They’re all brought in yesterday from the northern holdings. I want them ready for tomorrow’s market.”

  Elizabeth stepped forward, her voice lowering. “We’ll need privacy. Just myself and my assistant. No overseers.”

  His brow furrowed, but he nodded after a moment. “Fine. I’ll be with them at the door if you need us.”  The door closed behind him with a heavy thud. The air shifted, suddenly more quiet, though not more gentle.

Elizabeth turned to the first girl in line.  “Step forward,” she said.  The girl obeyed, small feet silent on the stone. She looked perhaps eighteen. Her fair hair was hacked short, uneven. There was a fading bruise at her cheekbone, hues of yellow and green. She kept her eyes down.

“Name?” Elizabeth asked.  “She... she was called Fara,” the girl whispered.  “Fara,” Elizabeth repeated. “Samantha, write that. Lot number one.” She reached out, careful, fingers practiced, and tilted Fara’s chin up. “Look at me.”

 Green eyes, rimmed red. No jaundice. Pupils equal. She noted the eyelids, the tension around the mouth, the way the girl flinched when Elizabeth’s fingers brushed the fading bruise.  “Report: surface bruising, resolving, no fracture of zygomatic arch,” Elizabeth said. “No apparent infection. Teeth next. Open.”

  Fara obeyed. Teeth straight enough, one chipped. No obvious rot.  When Elizabeth moved her hands toward the girl’s tunic ties, Fara’s shoulders twitched, a tiny shudder.

  “Samantha,” Elizabeth said quietly, without looking back, “note that all examinations are at the request of the slaver, for assessment of sale value.”  Samantha’s quill scratched against paper. “Recorded,” she muttered.

  Elizabeth untied the tunic, folding it down with clinical care. The girl’s ribs were too visible. There were faint lash marks across her back, mostly old, some newer.  “Malnourished, but reversible with steady food,” Elizabeth said. “Scarring on the back, superficial. No keloid formations.” She moved, her touch light, never lingering longer than necessary. Fingers at the girl’s wrist, feeling the pulse. A hand at the abdomen, the curve of the hip, checking for masses. “Cycles?”

  “What?” Fara whispered.  “Your bleeding,” Elizabeth clarified. “Regular?”  The girl’s cheeks flushed. “I… think so. When I can count the days. It comes… usually every moon.”

“Note: probable fertility intact,” Elizabeth said. “Age estimate, eighteen to twenty summers.”  She stepped back and retied the tunic. “You may return to the line.”  Fara nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as if she could hold her fear in with her own hands.

Elizabeth moved to the second girl. Dark hair, olive skin, eyes hard and flat. A scar along the left forearm, pale and old.  “Name?” Elizabeth asked.

“I don’t have one now,” the girl said. Her voice was steady. “They took it." Elizabeth met her gaze. “Did you have one before?”  The girl hesitated, then said, “Lysa.”

  “Lysa,” Elizabeth said. “Lot number two. Samantha?”

  “Noted,” Samantha replied, but Elizabeth heard something shaky, almost hoarse, in the single word.

  Elizabeth examined Lysa, methodical, moving through the same pattern: eyes, mouth, limbs, back, abdomen. She found nothing that would lower a price: muscle tone good, scars minimal, cycles irregular but present.  “Healthy,” she dictated. “No visible disease. One healed scar on the left forearm, non-disfiguring. No visible evidence of chronic injury.”  Lysa’s jaw tightened. “You talk like we’re animals.”

  “We’re talking like we’re alive,” Elizabeth said quietly, just for Lysa. “And we intend to keep it that way.”  Lysa’s stare flicked to Samantha, then back. She said nothing more.

By the sixth girl, Samantha’s writing had become tense and cramped. Elizabeth noticed every change: the sharper breaths, the slight tremor in the hand that held the quill.  The sixth girl was small. Maybe fifteen. Her eyes were enormous in a narrow face, blue and glassy with unshed tears. She flinched at every move, even before Elizabeth touched her.  “Name?” Elizabeth asked.

“Eira,” the girl whispered.  “Lot six. Eira,” Samantha echoed as she wrote.

  Elizabeth reached for the girl’s hand, intending to check the nails, but Eira recoiled so abruptly she almost fell backward. A choked sound escaped her. Elizabeth paused. “Eira,” she said softly. “I am a physician. I’m not here to hurt you. I need to check your body so we can record your condition. It will be quick. I will tell you before I touch you.”  Eira’s lips trembled. “They said that before.”  Samantha’s quill stopped, mid-stroke. Ink blotted the paper.

  Elizabeth’s stomach tightened, cold. She kept her face neutral. “I won’t say it twice,” she said instead. “I will just do it, and I will be done.”

  Samantha’s breath came sharper.  Elizabeth moved more slowly, her touch even lighter than usual. She spoke each step aloud, not just for Samantha’s notes but for Eira’s understanding.

  “Eyes clear. No visible infection. Samantha, note that.” She tilted Eira’s face gently. “Bruising on the lower jaw, resolving. No fracture.”

  She reached for the ties of the tunic. Eira’s hands came up, reflexive.  “Please,” Eira whispered.  Elizabeth met her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, as softly as she dared. Then she untied the tunic.

  What the cloth had hidden made Samantha gasp almost before Elizabeth took in the full pattern. The girl’s torso was a mess of purple and yellow, layered bruising over older scars, some thin, some jagged. There were burns, round and small, scattered along the ribs. Elizabeth had seen them before. Hot iron, pressed and removed before the flesh could melt. Proof of discipline, in some circles.  The back was worse. Long welts, some nearly healed, some still angry and red. On one hip, the skin was shinier, warped where deeper tissue had once been torn.

  Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. She kept moving, cataloguing. There was no luxury of silence.  “Samantha.” Her voice was precise. “Write: Extensive bruising in various stages of healing across torso and back, indicating repeated beatings over at least several weeks. Multiple small, well-defined burn scars on lateral ribcage. Likely from iron or similar instrument.”  Samantha’s quill scraped furiously. “Extensive… bruising… burns…” She broke off, voice thickening.  Elizabeth continued. “Note: Old tearing on right hip, scar tissue present. No current infection. Muscle function largely intact, but possible pain with exertion.” Her fingers moved clinically over the hip, the thigh, measuring range of motion. Eira whimpered, trying not to cry.

 “She’s a child,” Samantha burst out suddenly. “This is—”  Elizabeth turned sharply, her gaze cutting through Samantha’s words like a blade. “Assistant.”

  Samantha snapped her mouth shut, breathing hard. A flush spread across her cheeks. Her eyes were bright, furious. She had dropped the quill; it lay on the floor near her boot.  Elizabeth held her stare for one measured heartbeat, then another. “Pick up the quill,” she said evenly. “And write exactly what I say.”  Samantha bent, fingers clumsy, and retrieved it. Her eyes flicked, unbidden, to the girl’s bruises. Rage burned there, unmasked.

  Elizabeth’s voice lowered, not enough to be tender, but enough to be a warning. “Mask your expression,” she said. “Now.”  Samantha’s jaw clenched. She struggled, but she forced her features into something more neutral, more blank. It looked brittle, but it was effort, and effort would have to be enough.

  Elizabeth turned back to Eira. She finished the examination, noting that despite the abuse, the girl’s organs appeared intact, her cycles likely ongoing, her body still resilient under the violence.  When she pulled the tunic up and tied it again, Eira’s shoulders shook.

  “Lot six: high risk for psychological trauma, but physically functional,” Elizabeth dictated. The words tasted like ash. “Potential issues with obedience due to fear response. Mark accordingly.”  Samantha wrote, ink scratching with barely controlled pressure. Elizabeth heard the tiny curses Samantha bit back behind her teeth.  When Eira stepped back into the line, Elizabeth’s gaze slid quickly along the remaining girls. Some looked wary, some resigned. A few looked at Samantha, sensing something in her that was not yet completely covered by training or fear.

  Elizabeth moved to the seventh, then the eighth. She found signs of rough handling, but nothing as comprehensive as Eira’s torture. Worn shoulders, occasional lash scars, malnutrition, worry. She spoke each finding, never mocking, never kind. Neutral. The only safe tone.

By the ninth girl, Samantha’s breathing had steadied again, but her eyes were sharper, colder. The ninth girl’s wrists bore raw chafing; she had likely been bound tightly for days. Elizabeth dictated, Samantha wrote. The air in the room thickened, heavy with the sense that all of them were holding something in.

The twelfth girl, at the end of the line, was older than the rest. Perhaps twenty-five. Broad shoulders, callused hands. Her hair was streaked with lighter strands at the temples. A faint scar traced her jawline.

“Name?” Elizabeth asked.  The woman smiled, a thin, crooked thing. “I was called Mira,” she said. “You may call me whatever makes your ink flow more smoothly.”  Samantha hesitated before writing. “Mira,” she said, almost softly.

  Elizabeth studied her. There were fewer scars, but they were deeper. A broken finger that had healed crooked. A rib that had once cracked and now sat slightly uneven. Her eyes were clear, and watchful.  “Lot twelve,” Elizabeth dictated. “Age estimation, mid-twenties. Multiple healed fractures: right index finger, left rib, probable nose fracture, well-healed. Overall health good. Strong muscle tone, likely used to labor.”

  Mira watched her hands. “You sound bored,” she said.  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I sound efficient.”  Mira’s gaze flicked to Samantha. “She doesn’t.”

  Samantha’s hand faltered. “I’m—”  “—writing what is necessary,” Elizabeth cut in. “We’re almost done.”

  Mira’s eyes narrowed. “You two walk free,” she said. “You measure us like cattle, but you walk out that door alone.”  Samantha’s lips parted. The words were there, waiting, hot and reckless.  Elizabeth laid a hand, light but firm, on Samantha’s forearm. “That’s enough,” she said, keeping her tone within professional bounds. “We’re not here to discuss station. We’re here to provide a medical assessment for the records.”

  Mira studied her, something like curiosity flickering. “Do you ever fail them?” she asked. “The ones who buy us? Do you ever say no?”  Elizabeth’s eyes leveled with Mira’s..”Thats enough girl, you walk on thin ice with me. My duty is to truth,” she said. “Truth in what I see, truth in what I write. I do not control what happens after.”  Mira’s jaw tightened. After a heartbeat, she nodded once, as if recognizing something in Elizabeth she couldn’t quite name.

  The examination finished, Elizabeth stepped back, surveying the line of girls. Twelve sets of eyes. Twelve bodies measured and recorded. Twelve lives that would be bought and sold tomorrow, and maybe broken, or maybe not, depending on the hand that claimed them.

“Samantha,” she said, her voice a notch lower. “Summarize.”  Samantha swallowed, then spoke, reading from the pages she had filled. Her voice was steady, the anger tucked between the spaces of the words.

  “Lot one, Fara: mild malnutrition, healing facial bruising, no fractures, fertility probable, minimal scarring,” she began. “Lot two, Lysa: healthy, one non-disfiguring scar, cycles irregular but present. Lot three...” She continued, moving down the list, repeating the details Elizabeth had dictated.

   When she reached Eira, she hesitated only for a fraction of a second. “Lot six, Eira: extensive bruising in multiple stages of healing, multiple small burn scars, old tearing on right hip, no current infection, physically functional but high risk for psychological trauma, potential obedience issues due to fear response.”  Her voice barely trembled. It was a victory, small and bitter.

  Elizabeth nodded once. “Good.” She turned toward the door and called, “Caleb.”  The heavy door opened, and the slaver stepped back inside with two overseers behind him. His eyes swept over the girls, then the papers in Samantha’s hands.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  Elizabeth took the pages, signed each in the lower right corner with precise strokes, then held them out. “All twelve are viable for sale,” she said. “Some will need improved food and a period of gentler treatment if you want them to maintain condition for long. Lot six will fetch a lower price if the buyer is particular about markings and temperament. Her injuries are recent.”

  Caleb took the papers, scanning them quickly. “I’m not worried about markings,” he said, shrugging. “Some buyers prefer them broken. Fear keeps the line tight.” He gave a small, humorless laugh. “Your job is to tell me if they’ll live long enough to make my coin back.”

  “They will, if they’re not damaged further,” Elizabeth said.

  Caleb snorted. “We all take some damage in Ar,” he said. His gaze slid to Samantha, lingering again. “The assistant did well enough. I was watching. She didn’t interfere.”

  “She understands her place,” Elizabeth replied. Her tone did not waver.  Caleb’s lips curled slightly. “Make sure she keeps understanding it,” he said. “Passion is expensive in this city.”

  Elizabeth inclined her head. “We’re finished here,” she said. “You’ll have the formal copy by evening. And these girls are to receive slave wine, I’ll make sure of it before your sales, if they cannot become heavy with child that of course drives your price up, correct?”

  Caleb grunted and smiled at the thought of being able to ask a higher price. He half turned toward the girls. “Back to the holding pens,” he told them. “You’ll be washed again before dawn. Market opens early. And bring the slave wine Physician before dawn.” With the thought of extra coin on his mind and nothing more.  The overseers moved in, herding the line out. Eira glanced once over her shoulder, eyes searching. She caught Samantha’s face for a split second—saw the tight jaw, the barely smoothed anger—and then she was pushed onward.

  Mira looked back too, briefly. She met Elizabeth’s eyes, held them, then gave a minute nod, more a concession than a thanks. Elizabeth inclined her head in return, the smallest of acknowledgments—a wordless admission that she saw, and could do almost nothing.  The door closed, the sound echoing in the suddenly emptier room.

  Samantha exhaled, a ragged sound, and leaned back against the stone wall, fingers gripping her folder so tightly her knuckles blanched.

  “They tortured that girl,” she said, the words low, harsh. “They burned her. They tore her. And you just—”

  “—documented it,” Elizabeth finished. She watched Samantha’s face, now freed from the mask. Anger, horror, helplessness. All dangerous. All honest.

  Samantha pushed away from the wall, pacing once, twice. “There has to be something,” she said. “We’re physicians. There has to be something we can do besides helping men like him sell them.”  Elizabeth’s expression remained composed, but her voice softened—a fraction, enough that only someone who knew her well would notice. Samantha had known her only three months, but it was still something.

  “There is something we can do,” Elizabeth said. “We can keep them alive. We can make sure the ones who buy them know what they’re getting, so they don’t demand miracles from broken bones and burned ribs. We can do small things, in quiet ways, when no one is looking.” She paused. “We cannot do those things if we become property ourselves.”  Samantha turned on her. “So we just pretend.” Her voice sharpened. “We pretend we don’t care. We pretend we don’t see.”

“We never pretend we don’t see,” Elizabeth said. Her gaze held Samantha’s, steady, unflinching. “We simply do not show that we see. There’s a difference.”

  Samantha’s throat worked. “They’d enslave me for a look,” she said, almost disbelieving.  Elizabeth nodded once. “They would,” she said. “Caleb, or another like him. An assistant who glares at a slaver, who speaks out in anger, is an assistant who forgets who holds the chains on Gor. And an assistant without status papers, without protection, becomes a girl in that line.”

  The room went very quiet.

  Samantha’s fingers loosened slowly around the folder. “You’re telling me to be a coward,” she said, but there was less heat in it now. More confusion. More pain.

  “I’m telling you to be clever,” Elizabeth said. “Cowardice is refusing to see, refusing to know. You have seen. You have written. You will remember their names.” Her eyes softened. “If you want to help them, you must survive long enough to learn how.”  Samantha looked away, jaw clenched. “I hate this.”

  Elizabeth allowed herself a small, breath-thin smile. “Gor doesn’t care if you hate it,” she said. “But it will punish you if it sees that hate. Hide it. Shape it. Make it into something useful.”

  Samantha shook her head, but her breathing had steadied. She looked at the door where the girls had disappeared, then back at Elizabeth.  “You were angry too,” she said quietly. “You were. I could tell.”  Elizabeth glanced down at her own hands. Steady. Clean. The nails short, the skin unmarked. “I was,” she admitted. “I am. But anger, shown, gets us chained. Anger, contained, can be used.”

  “For what?” Samantha asked, not quite mocking.  “For the day one of those girls comes to my clinic with a fever, and I treat her without charge,” Elizabeth said. “For the day a buyer asks my opinion and I tell him a girl like Eira will falter under harsh discipline, so he chooses a gentler hand, because his coin is on the line. For the day I sign a paper that marks a girl as unfit, because I know she won't survive another season if they try to break her again.”

  Samantha looked at her for a long moment. Something shifted in her eyes—not acceptance, not yet, but the beginning of understanding that survival and surrender were not always the same.  “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said.

   Elizabeth’s gaze remained kind and implacable at once. “You can,” she said. “Or you will leave Ar. Those are the options. If you stay, you learn to bend. Not break.”

  Samantha’s shoulders dropped slightly. “Those twelve,” she said. “You think any of them will be all right?”  Elizabeth thought of Eira’s bruises, Mira’s scarred strength, Fara’s haunted eyes. She let herself feel the weight of them. Then she set it down, carefully, where it would not be visible.

  “Some will find kinder owners than Caleb,” she said. “Some will not. Some will live long enough for the world to change. Some won’t.” She looked at Samantha. “You can’t save them all. You can’t even save most. But you can make sure their suffering is counted, not invisible. That matters.”

  Samantha nodded once, slowly. “I’ll keep my face under control,” she said. “Next time.”

  “There will be a next time,” Elizabeth said. “Caleb will call us back. Others will too. The reputation of a physician with steady hands and a neutral expression is valuable.”  Samantha huffed out a breath that was half laugh, half bitter release. “Neutral expression,” she said. “I’ll practice in the mirror.”

  “Do,” Elizabeth replied. “Practice, and remember that every word you write, every bruise you record, is a piece of truth in a world built on lies.”

  Samantha looked at her, the beginnings of respect mingling with the anger.  “Why are you still here?” she asked suddenly. “Why do you stay in Ar?”

  Elizabeth turned toward the door, her hand on the iron latch. “Because leaving would mean abandoning everyone who cannot follow,” she said. “And because there is work to do. Not enough, never enough. But some.”  She opened the door. Noise from the hall spilled in—the sounds of men laughing, chains clinking, boots on stone. Ar’s voice, rough and indifferent.

  “Come,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll drop a copy of the report at Caleb’s office and then go back to the clinic. There are patients there who chose to come.”

  Samantha gathered her papers, tucking them carefully into the folder. She took one last look at the now-empty room, at the drain in the center, at the table with the iron rings. Then she followed Elizabeth into the hall.  She walked a half-step behind, eyes lowered enough to be safe, raised enough to see. Behind them, the examination room door closed, hiding its harsh secrets. Ahead of them, Ar stretched like a beast asleep with one eye open, waiting.

  Samantha’s face was almost calm.  Inside, a new resolve crystallized alongside the anger: she would stay. She would learn. She would watch Elizabeth’s hands, her words, her control. And she would remember every name she wrote, every scar she recorded.

  Elizabeth, sensing rather than seeing the shift in Samantha’s step, allowed herself a single, unseen relief.

  The slaver had his ledger of flesh. The city had its chains.  They would have their own ledger, too—of wounds and truths—and they would keep it as physicians, as women still walking free.

  For now.