Atennesi Cohen has had to be many things to survive his peers' scrutiny for over a century and a half. Wary is one of them.
But a snake with a mirror for a head suddenly appearing in his office and sweeping its mirror-face at him? That, he wasn't prepared for.
"What were they arguing about?"
"One of them wanted more crew. The other one said that no one on board was trained to make people well and having an outsider do it would hurt the ship's unity."
"Did they give you a job on the ship?"
"I think the one who made me wanted to, but the other one was very angry and pushed me off."
"Were you docked at the time?"
"On this round?"
"- oh dear. Okay, I think you might need medical attention for your head injury. Do you think you can stay on a horse all right?"
He dismisses the lavender farmer, who turns around and heads back down to her farm, and finds a suitable escort to bring "Ataran" on horseback to the next village, where there is a doctor.
On the way, "Ataran" carefully does magic to his head to mimic the symptoms of a head injury that's had about a day to heal, making sure not to actually harm his brain in any way.
The doctor is completely fooled by this although she is an exceptionally good doctor. She tests him for brain damage with quizzes - since she can't expect any particular common knowledge it's simple arithmetic and watching her finger move across his field of vision and asking him what she said five minutes ago.
She looks at his throat. They don't have electric lights but they have got a cunning mirror arrangement so she doesn't have to stick a candle in his face.
He presents symptoms almost exactly like he choked on some dust a couple of hours ago!
She gives him some water and advises him on how to most usefully cough up the rest of the dust.
"Thank you," he says, giving her a not totally unfeigned grateful smile. He doesn't really need her help, but the fact that she would offer it thinking he does means a lot more than nothing.
"Of course!" she says. "I'd like to keep you here while you sleep and check on you again in the morning."
"No, no, please rest. Is there anything you want to know about where you are?"
"The village is called Mill Dock and the round is called Springround. The village the farmer brought you to was called Sorvay Village."
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