"Are there... demons involved? I mean. Gods other than Him."

"Precisely zero gods or demons are involved. Just someone trained to understand injuries looking at your back, and maybe writing a prescription."

"For... magic?"

"To promote healing or prevent infection." And balance the temperature of the body and yin and yang energy, but not magic. 

Mariam thinks that her confessor or her parents or someone should have told her what to do in a situation where she was talking to someone she neither was supposed to obey nor had power to compel obedience from. Other than dying.

Her confessor hadn't precisely forbidden her from seeing a doctor. It was just self-indulgent and a waste of money that could go to the poor. And if it was just herbs, and it was being paid for by someone who wouldn't give money to the poor regardless, it wasn't a sin.

And she'd already stopped fighting on the food.

"I can see a female doctor if you want me to, sir," she says. 

"I'll let her know when we arrive."

Which they do shortly! 

The Three Judicial Offices looks like an overgrown family residence, with a fair amount of uniformed guards bustling from place to place. 

Mariam has no idea what a brothel looks like and so doesn't know whether to be reassured. There are certainly fewer women than she generally understood brothels to have. 

She waits patiently for the man to tell her what to do. 

He leads her to what looks alarmingly like a repurposed shed. "Chu Chu, I have someone for you to examine. --who's alive. That will be an interesting change of pace." 

A woman is sitting at a table, sharpening a knife on a whetstone. "Oh, it's nice to meet you, miss." 

"It's nice to meet you too," Mariam says, because this seems like the next sort of thing to do.

"What is the problem you are having?"

"I scourged myself this morning and I'm bleeding through my bandages."

Jing Yi takes this as his cue to exit the building.

"I can certainly take a look at that."

"Is the door lockable so no one can come in?"

"Certainly."

Door is closed and locked.

Mariam takes off her dress and underthings. 

She's extraordinarily thin, almost emaciated. Chu Chu could use her as an educational demonstration to teach about the skeleton. Her back is very badly scarred-- more scar tissue than unscarred flesh. Her breasts are also scarred. 

Chu Chu is very good at being professional and respectful, the fact her patients are usually not breathing any more not withstanding.

She undoes the bandages.

Though with this patient-- she's probably going to stay breathing, for awhile. But if she eats any less food, or disease spreads through the capital, or even if she trips and falls badly and breaks a bone--

It's swollen and red and hopefully if she regains her strength she can fight off that infection.

A lot of the scarring is new, and she honestly can't tell if this is because it is all recent, or if the old scar tissue has been scourged off. 

She puts on fresh bandages.

"You can re-dress, miss" she says, as she writes a prescription on a piece of paper. (It's for general good health and strength, and helping restore vitality after losing blood.)

Mariam puts her clothes back on, wondering if this process is to make sure that she doesn't have any diseases that will infect her clients in the brothel. She's not sure why else anyone would care. 

She hands her the prescription, and opens the door for her to leave. 

Jing Yi is no longer hovering outside the door. 

There is no man here, and Chu Chu is unarmed. This seems like the best chance to get away (and so preserve her purity and her chastity and obey her confessor) without... actually... dying in defense of her chastity, a prospect Mariam is broadly against.

(It's probably sinful or at least foolish that she's broadly against it-- if she dies a martyr she will live forever in bliss with God, and if she stays alive she might sin and be cast into Hell-- but she still doesn't want to die.)

And so Mariam makes a run for it.

She lasts about thirty seconds before her vision blacks out and she collapses to the ground unconscious. 

AAAAAAAAAAA

NO

She usually works with dead people, but she would like it if her patients didn't try to help her with that.

She runs back into the autopsy room and grabs the first pillow like object she can find. 

She puts it under Mariam's legs in the vague hope it will get blood going to places it should be,  and checks she hasn't cracked her head open.

Mariam's head continues to contain its contents. 

Well, that's a good start!

Jing Yi comes around the corner, carrying buns (all the better to make sure she actually eats them)--

--and she's on the floor again.

"What happened?"

"I opened the door and she just started running, I'm so sorry, I would have stopped her if I could--"