Wynn paused at the cellar door. Smoothed his waistcoat—having foregone a jacket in the heat—and rerolled a shirtsleeve that had slipped. He chided himself for being so ludicrous. He was here as a physician. Nothing more. Before he could question the shine on his shoes, he entered.
Voices rose to meet him on the descent into the cool chamber. People milled about in states of boredom and all the variations that took on individual characters. Children running about, women folding and refolding their meager belongings, and men in heavy discussion among themselves. People caught in limbo as war raged around them. They couldn’t take up arms nor could they go about the ordinary duties of hearth and home. It was a demoralizing existence of waiting while one’s fate was determined elsewhere.
The whispers and stares intensified the farther he waded in. He caught snatches of one word rising with reverence above the rest: printsessa. Svetlana. He’d never given much thought to titles. Nobles and peasants bled alike on the operating table, but these people had stared at her yesterday in awe. He’d witnessed a few crossing themselves—not in a devil-get-thee-behind-me way, but more as if seeing the Almighty’s chosen. All of which had been wiped away the second they spotted him trailing behind.
“Good afternoon.” He smiled at a little girl staring boldly at him. Her mother yanked her away. Was there something about him that Russians didn’t like?
Stepping over what he assumed to be the line into aristocratic territory, disgruntled voices shifted between the blanket dividers. Svetlana, her mother, sister, and four other agitated adults stood at the far end of the last row in what could only be described as a full-blown disagreement complete with gesturing and finger-pointing. Why did they all speak French?
Unaffected as a cliff against howling winds, Svetlana stood in the center of the warring parties speaking calmly and keeping her mother from leaping forward like a pepped-up rabbit. She caught Wynn watching and hurried over. “I will be with you shortly, Doctor. Excuse us.”
A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind and yanked him into a blanketed chamber littered with vials and tin pots. Mrs. Varjensky smiled up at him. “Oy, smotrite kto prishol to. Golubchik.” She pushed him onto a folded blanket serving as a cushion and bent over one of the pots with ladle in hand while prattling away. Spooning what smelled like an earth broth into a small wooden bowl, she pushed it into his hands and stared at him with spare eyebrows raised in expectation.
He wasn’t the least bit hungry and by the looks of things the occupants of the cellar needed the nourishment more than he did, but manners were manners. He lifted the bowl to his lips and took a deep swallow. “Very good.”
Mrs. Varjensky gestured for him to eat more, and he obliged. She quickly ladled in more soup.
After three more sips, Wynn put down the bowl. “It’s delicious, but I’m too full to take another bite.” He gestured to indicate a full belly.
Clucking, she patted his cheeks, his forehead, and his stomach, then shook her head and ladled in more. “Kushai, golubchik.”
“On ne goloden.” Svetlana stood in the doorway. Hair twisted off her neck, she was still dressed in the clothing from yesterday, but the tear in her skirt had been repaired with dainty stiches that put his own suturing to shame. Then again, material was different from skin.
Wynn scrambled to his feet. “Good afternoon.”
She didn’t look at him as she continued in back-and-forth Russian with Mrs. Varjensky. Wynn stood awkwardly as the conversation flowed around him without bothering to include him. Mrs. Varjensky patted his stomach again, to which Svetlana finally looked at him.
“She thinks you’re too thin,” she said, those pale blue eyes with the slight tilt at the outer corners taking in everything.
“That’s something I’ve never been accused of. Handsome, funny, and charming, yes. I concede to those accusations, but never thin. My mother used to chide me for eating everything in the pantry before Cook had a chance to restock. I once ate an entire platter of game hens that were supposed to be reserved for a dinner party. Cook chased me around the kitchen for an hour with her wooden spoon.”
Her expression never changed but for a slight flicker behind her eyes calculating his words. At last she clasped her hands in front of her in the tell-tale sign of a polite apology. “I am sorry we do not have meat to offer you.”
So far he was losing the smile challenge. Miserably. “No, that’s not what I meant. Your hospitality has been very gracious. How do you say ‘thank you’ in Russian?”
“Spasibo.”
“Spasibo, babushka.”
Mrs. Varjensky grinned, revealing a gold tooth in place of her left canine. “Pozhaluysta.”
Steering back to safer waters, Wynn emptied out his pockets. “I’ve brought medicine and extra bandages, as my true purpose is to check on both of you.” Taking the ladle from Mrs. Varjensky before she had a chance to wield it further, Wynn directed her to the cushion.
Svetlana put out a graceful hand as if to stop him. “Doctor MacCallan. Your dedication is appreciated, but we can no longer indebt ourselves to your courtesy.”
“If that’s a polite way to say ‘get lost,’ I respectfully decline. At least until I’ve examined you both. If you get an infection, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me whether you want to or not.” He unwrapped the older woman’s hand and slanted it toward the tiny window for better light. A touch of red, but not like before. Reaching into the muslin bag he’d brought, he took out a swab and dipped it in the small bottle of iodine, then blotted it across the wound. She winced but let him finish without complaint.
“Did you manage with a pain relief of tea last night?” he asked as he bandaged the hand with fresh linen.
“Yes. We found the ingredients in the church’s garden. Mrs. Varjensky is very good at determining plants.”
“I suspect a healer would be. You are done, my lady.” Wynn patted the older woman’s wrist and helped her stand before turning to Svetlana. “Your turn.”
Sitting straight-backed on an overturned bucket, her head erect as if wearing a crown, Svetlana lifted her skirt as high as modesty would allow. Wynn knelt in front of her and pondered the best way to go about the examination. There was nothing for it now. Taking her foot, he propped it on his knee so that her leg was straight. She inhaled sharply but said nothing.
As a first-year medical student he couldn’t cease blushing when examining a female patient, but he’d quickly grown accustomed to the professional intimacy afforded between a physician and his patient. The human body was a wondrous creation of bone, sinew, muscle, and blood that moved in a rhythm designed to perfection. A miraculous universe contained within a single entity that he gave his life to study and heal. He’d examined limbs, arteries, and tissues in all manner of construction, but never had he seen one so lovely formed as the woman sitting before him now, inducing the tiniest bit of nerves to shoot through him.
Doing his best to ignore the slender ankle and well-defined calf muscle that was anything but a professional examination, he unwrapped the bandage. A bit more red than he would’ve liked, but it wasn’t spreading. No purulent discharge. Guilt stabbed him anew. If he hadn’t called out and frightened her, she never would have been hurt. Then again, he may never have met her either.