Elizabeths Eyes

  When they first told me I would be teaching in the Cylinder of Physicians, I laughed.

Not because it was unthinkable—though for some, it still is—but because I remembered the first time I walked those corridors, a nervous girl with ink-stained fingers and a head full of dreams that did not quite fit the shape the world had made for me. Now, years later, I was being asked to stand where my own teachers had stood, and I could not quite decide if it felt more like triumph or absurdity.

“Elizabeth,” my supervising physician had said that morning, “they’re sending a special cohort up from the lower cylinders. Twenty-two women. Mostly for nursing and assistant roles, they want you to speak to them." There are not many women in the green robes of physicians. Fewer still who have remained long enough to be given authority. I had become, if not a symbol, then at least a curiosity. And in Ar, curiosity is sometimes permitted just enough room to be useful.

“Why me?” He raised a brow. “You truly need to ask?”  So I said yes.

 The classroom they assigned me was on the twelfth level of the Cylinder, a wide, high-ceilinged space with tall, narrow windows that let in slices of morning light. The walls were the pale gray of stone worn smooth by years of passing bodies, and the faint smell of alcohol, herbs, and old parchment hung in the air. I arrived early, as is my habit, the hem of my green robes whispering against the polished floor. I checked the benches, the writing slates, the prepared instruments laid out on the central table: bandages, needles, small brass instruments for probing and cutting, measuring rods, and simple phials for tinctures. Their modest array felt comforting, a language I understood better than many spoken words.

 I had just finished adjusting a stack of wax tablets when the door opened and they began to file in. Twenty-two women. Some young, barely past girlhood; others older, with the lines of labor and life already etched around their eyes. Most wore simple dresses in muted colors—browns, grays, soft blues—though a few had donned aprons, perhaps as a hopeful sign of their future roles. A handful walked with that rigid, self-conscious posture that comes from being acutely aware of being watched.

  They sat on the benches in rows, murmuring to one another, eyes flicking toward me and away again, as though uncertain how long they might safely look at a woman wearing green.

I gave them a moment to settle. Then I stepped to the front of the room, rested my hands on the table, and smiled.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I am Elizabeth of Ar, Physician. Some of you may already know me by reputation. For the others, I promise I am less terrifying than the stories say.” A ripple of quiet laughter moved through the room, though a few faces remained solemn, wary. “Today,” I continued, “you are here as students of nursing and assistantship. You have come, I presume, because you wish to learn how to aid in healing—the dressing of wounds, the care of the sick, the support of physicians in their work. Is that correct?” There were nods, a few soft yeses. One woman near the front, with dark hair braided tightly against her head, answered more firmly. “Yes, Lady Physician.”

   “Good. Then that is what we shall do.” I picked up a strip of linen and held it up. “But first, we must begin with the simplest of truths: no skill, however modest or grand, is above you. There is no task in healing that is ‘beneath’ anyone, male or female. We wash. We carry. We hold basins while men empty their stomachs. We sit through the night listening to breath rattle in a chest. We bind wounds, and we unbind them to see if our work holds. We will speak of needles and stitches. We will speak of fevers and fractures. And we will speak of blood, because there is always blood.”

  That last line, delivered in a deliberately light tone, coaxed a few more nervous smiles.

   Others spoke: one had tended her mother through a difficult childbirth and discovered, to her surprise, that she did not faint at the sight of blood; another had spent years changing bandages for an aging aunt and wanted to do the same for others. A younger girl—Fina, with a smattering of freckles across her nose—admitted shyly that she had no noble story, only that “it seemed good work, respectable, and perhaps better than bending over laundry basins for the rest of my life.”

 “Practicality,” I said approvingly. “Never undervalue practicality. It keeps us alive more reliably than romance.” That earned a few appreciative chuckles.

  We began with basics. How to wash hands properly—yes, properly; how to bind a simple cut; how to recognize when a wound was infected. I demonstrated on a padded wooden arm. “Now,” I said, “I shall learn your names later. For now, I’d like to know why you came.”

  A woman in the second row raised her hand, hesitant but determined. “My name is Lira,” she said. “My younger brother… he died of a fever last winter. The physician never came. He said he had too many patients, that he would send someone else, but no one came in time. If I had known what to do, perhaps…” Her voice trailed off, the unspoken possibility hanging heavily between us. I nodded. “I am sorry for your loss, Lira. You are not alone in wanting to spare others that kind of helplessness. That is a worthy reason.”

Then I called them up in pairs to practice. Some were deft, their fingers quick and sure. Others fumbled, wrapping bandages either too tight or too loose, hesitating to touch.  “Wounds do not bite,” I reminded them gently, guiding one woman’s hands to adjust her binding. “If they did, we would all be missing fingers.” An hour slipped by in this way, the room gradually filling with the low, focused hum of practice. The initial stiffness softened. They began to ask questions—about herbs, about fevers, about the strange sounds lungs make when they fill with fluid. It was only after we paused for a brief rest, when I allowed them to stretch and drink water from the clay jug at the side of the room, that one of them broached the question I had been expecting from the moment I entered.

  The woman who spoke was older than most, perhaps in her late twenties, with a calm, assessing gaze. She rose from her bench and inclined her head. “Lady Elizabeth,” she began, “may I ask you something… not directly about nursing?” I gestured for her to continue.

“You are a physician,” she said. “A full one. In green. We have heard stories, but… we were not sure they were true.”

“They are very likely exaggerated,” I said lightly. “But continue.”

  “In a place like this, in Ar, where most physicians are men… how did you become what you are? And…” Her gaze flicked briefly toward the others, then back to me. “Is it truly possible for a woman to do the same? To be a physician, not only an assistant?” The room quieted. Even those who had been sipping water set their cups down. There it is, I thought. The question beneath all the other questions. I leaned back against the table, crossing my arms loosely, adopting a posture that felt rather casual than formal. “You want to know what it is like,” I said. “The pluses and the minus’. The cost and the reward.”

  A few nodded, some eagerly, others with cautious curiosity. “Very well,” I said. “Let us speak plainly.” I pointed to the windows, where light cut narrow paths across the floor. “You see those beams? They look straight, but they are shaped by where the openings are placed. Society is much the same. Men built this Cylinder, and thus they decided where the doors and windows would be. For the most part, they chose to leave the widest doors open to men.”

I glanced around the room. “But doors are not the only way into a building. There are also side passages, narrow stairs, and, if you are very determined, the occasional window ledge.”

Fina raised her hand, eyes bright. “So you… climbed in through a window, Lady Physician?”

  I laughed. “Something like that, yes. It began with books. My father, unlike many, thought daughters could read without bursting into flame. I read everything he put in front of me and everything he did not. When I became curious about the body—why it breaks, how it heals—I began to ask questions that made some men uncomfortable.”

“Did they try to stop you?” Lira asked. “Oh, certainly. One instructor refused to let me into his lectures because he insisted my presence would ‘distract’ the male students. I told him, very politely, that if his students were so easily distracted by a fully clothed woman holding a notebook, the problem lay not with me but with his standards of admission.”

  A few of the women clapped hands over their mouths, stifling laughter. “And what did he say?” someone called from the back. “He turned a very interesting shade of purple and banned me from his hall for a month. So I stood outside the door and listened anyway. The walls, it turns out, are not as thick as one might think.”

   “So persistence is one of the pluses?” the older woman asked, a faint smile touching her mouth. “Persistence is not a plus,” I corrected gently. “It is a necessity. If you wish to pursue what is not offered freely, you must be prepared to be the stone that water cannot wear down.”

  I let that settle for a moment, then continued. “As for the advantages, there are many. Knowledge, first of all. Understanding the structure of muscles and bones, the rhythm of the heart, the strange, secret ways in which the body tries to heal itself—that kind of understanding changes the way you see the world. It is… empowering, as some might say. You are no longer entirely at the mercy of others. You can look at a fever and say, ‘This is serious,’ or ‘This will pass.’ You can see a wound and know whether it can be closed or is better left open to drain.”

 “And the minus’? The costs?” the same woman pressed.

“Ah.” I tilted my head, considering. “The costs are… layered.” I held up my hand, counting on my fingers. “First, time. Years of study, of sleepless nights. While others marry and have children, you may find yourself bent over a dissecting table at dawn, arguing with another physician about whether a particular vein runs here or here.” I traced a line along my wrist for emphasis. “Second, resistance. You will be underestimated, often. Some patients will refuse to be treated by you because you are a woman. Some male colleagues will insist on supervising you long after you have surpassed them in skill.”

  “That sounds infuriating,” Fina muttered  “It can be,” I agreed. “But endurance is another necessity. You pick your battles. You correct what must be corrected, and you ignore what is merely noise.”

  “And third,” I went on, “loneliness. Not always, but often. When you choose a path few others walk, there are moments when you look around and realize you are very far from where you started, and not many stand beside you. You may miss certain gatherings, certain domestic rhythms. Your friends may speak of their children’s milestones while you are thinking of how a particular patient’s lungs sounded that morning.”

  “So why do it?” Lira asked softly. “If it is so hard, why keep going?”

  I answered without hesitation. “Because once you have seen a person on the brink of death, and you lay your hands on them and apply what you know, and they live… there is nothing quite like that. It is a kind of quiet joy that sits in the bones. You remember their faces. You remember knowing that, without what you have learned, they would not be there to laugh, to argue, to kiss their children. That is worth something. To me, it is worth a great deal.”

   “But,” I added, softening my tone, “you do not need to aim for green robes to matter. This is important. Nursing, assisting, midwifery—these are not lesser callings. A physician may prescribe a regimen, but it is often the nurse who ensures it is followed, who notices the small change in a patient’s breathing, the hint of confusion in their eyes. We do not heal alone.”

   “So…” the older woman said, “if one of us wished to pursue the path of a physician… what should she do?”

 “First,” I said, “she must be certain she wants it for herself, not merely because it is forbidden and therefore tempting. Second, she should begin where she is—here—learning everything she can. Ask questions. Watch closely. Volunteer for tasks that others avoid. Do not shy away from difficult cases. When a physician lectures, listen. When he allows you to assist, observe his hands, his decisions. Learn to read. Learn to write clearly. Learn numbers, because dosages are as much mathematics as intuition.”

 “And third?” Fina asked. I smiled. “Find allies. Men who are not threatened by your mind. Women who understand what you are aiming for. No one climbs through windows alone—you need someone to hold your cloak or your ladder.”

  They laughed again, the sound warmer now. “Now,” I said, straightening, “we have spoken long enough of my path. Let us return to yours.”

   We resumed the lesson, moving from bandages to the preparation of a simple fever draught. I had them crush herbs in mortars, measure carefully, mix with water. We spoke of dosage—how a child’s body is not a miniature adult’s, how the old require gentler measures. I told them stories—not the grand tales of daring surgery, but small, practical anecdotes. The woman who nearly killed herself by drinking an entire vial of sleeping draught because she thought more would be faster. The boy whose “simple” cut turned septic because no one bothered to wash it. As the hours passed, their initial timidity gave way to competence. Fingers that had trembled now worked with steadier purpose. Questions grew more precise: “What if the fever returns after three days?” “How do we know if a wound needs stitching or only binding?” “Can your feelings toward a patient cloud your judgment?

  “To the last,” I answered, “yes. They can. And they will. You must be aware of it, acknowledge it, and account for it. We are not machines. We care, and caring is both our strength and our vulnerability.” By the time the bell from the lower cylinder rang, signaling the end of our session, the room was littered with used bandages, empty herb bowls, and the faint, satisfying mess of a day well spent. I dismissed them with instructions to meet again the following week, promising that next time, we would practice positioning patients, lifting them safely, and maintaining records.

  As they began to file out, a few lingered.

  Lira approached me first. “Lady Elizabeth,” she said, clutching her slate to her chest, “if I… if I do not become a physician, I still want to be as good as I can. For my brother’s sake, and for others. Is that enough?”

   “It is more than enough,” I assured her, placing a hand briefly on her arm. “And who knows? Sometimes the path reveals itself step by step. You may begin as a nurse and find, one day, that you have walked into a physician’s hall without realizing it.”

  Fina hovered nearby, pulling at the edge of her sleeve. “Do you think I could climb a window?” she asked, half-joking, half-serious.

  “Fina,” I said, “if anyone here is likely to do so, I suspect it is you. Just remember to check how far the drop is on the other side.” She grinned, then scurried after the others.

 The older woman—the one who had asked so many pointed questions—was the last to remain. She stepped closer, her expression thoughtful.

“My name is Mara,” she said. “I… have already studied a little, here and there. I will not say more now. But your words… they helped.”

“I am glad,” I said simply. She hesitated, then asked, “Do you ever regret it? Choosing this path?”

  I thought of the nights spent in cold wards, of the arguments with male colleagues who could not see past my sex; of the patients whose names I could no longer remember, but whose faces flashed in my mind when I woke in the dark. I thought, too, of the man whose leg had been saved because I insisted on a different treatment, of the child whose fever broke after three nights of vigil. “Regret?” I repeated. “No. Not regret. Fatigue, sometimes. Frustration, often. But regret?” I shook my head. “I chose this with open eyes. When you choose something with open eyes, it is harder to regret.”

  She nodded slowly. “Thank you, Lady Elizabeth.”

“Come next week,” I said. “Bring your questions. We will need them.”

  When the room was finally empty, I gathered the used bandages into a basket, stacked the instruments, and wiped the table clean. Outside, the light had shifted, the day moving inexorably forward. I paused by one of the narrow windows, looking out over Ar—the towers, the streets, the distant glint of the river. The world beyond those walls remained, in many ways, as it had always been: shaped by hands that did not expect women to climb, much less to build. But inside this room, for a few hours, twenty-two women had bound wounds, measured draughts, and asked questions that bent the light in slightly new directions. It was a small thing, perhaps.

  But we build with small things. A bandage here, a question there. A girl listening at a closed door. A woman in green standing before a room of twenty-two, saying: the doors may be narrow, but they are not entirely closed.

I adjusted my robes, picked up the basket, and headed for the corridor, already thinking about the next lesson.