Chapter 5 - The Line on the Skin
The operation took twenty minutes.
They didn't use the twitch. They didn't use the leather stocks.
Mara remained sitting on the wooden sill with the stallion’s white head resting in her lap, her knees holding his weight while Bernardo held a heavy halogen lamp two feet above the jaw.
The local anesthetic Dr. Rossi had provided was a small glass ampoule of procaine. Mara didn't use the syringe herself—she let Bernardo handle the needle, because her hands needed to stay steady on the horse's cheekbone to keep him from flinching when the cold metal touched his skin.
When the flesh went dull, she took the small, curved scalp blade from the velvet-lined box.
She didn't hesitate.
Her grandfather had taught her three things about leather work and livestock doctoring: make the cut clean, make it low enough for the drainage to follow gravity, and never look at the blood until the work was finished.
She laid the blade edge against the purple center of the swelling.
One smooth, six-centimeter stroke.
The skin yielded with a dry, soft pop.
A cup of yellow-green fluid poured out instantly, splashing across Mara’s apron and canvas shoes, carrying with it a smell so foul Bernardo had to turn his head and cough into his sleeve.
Mara didn't move her lap.
She reached her forefinger into the opening, her nail feeling through the soft, ruined tissue until her knuckle hit something cold, hard, and metallic.
Her thumb followed.
With a firm, twisting pull, she withdrew her hand.
Clamped between her fingers was a two-inch piece of corroded brass—the broken spring tongue of a heavy marine clip, green with verdigris and coated in grey pus.
The stallion let out a long, rattling breath that sounded almost like a human groan of relief. His whole frame seemed to settle three inches lower into the cedar bedding, his eyelids dropping heavy and dark over his clouded eye.
"It's out," she said.
She dropped the piece of brass into the zinc basin.
She reached for the clean linen cloths Bernardo had brought, pressing them firm against the wound to check the red bleeding that followed the drainage.
"The eye will clear in three days," she said, her voice flat with sudden, crushing fatigue. "Use warm salt water twice a day. No leather until the skin closes."
She tried to stand up.
Her legs—cramped from sitting forty minutes on the cold oak sill with two hundred kilos of horse flesh resting on her thighs—refused to hold her weight. Her left knee gave way, her shoulder striking the side of the doorframe with a dull thump.
A hand caught her before she hit the brick floor.
It wasn't Bernardo. It was Cristiano Vicari.
His fingers locked around her upper arm with the firm, unyielding strength of an iron clamp. He didn't pull her up roughly; he held her steady until her right foot found its footing on the gravel, his dark coat smelling of wool, cedar smoke, and a faint, expensive citrus wash.
Mara pulled her arm back instantly.
"I'm sorry, Don Cristiano," she said, her eyes fixed on his second coat button. "I'll clean the apron in the scullery."
Cristiano didn't let go of her sleeve immediately. His thumb rested against the inner seam of her dress, right where her pulse was jumping at ninety beats a minute.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Maria," she said. "Maria Santos."
"No," Cristiano said softly.
The stable went completely quiet again. Even the guards outside seemed to stop their pacing.
"Your name is not Maria Santos," Cristiano said, his voice barely higher than a whisper. "Maria Santos died in a municipal hospital in Mexicali in November 2022. Her death certificate was filed by a Dr. Lorenzo Vance."
Mara’s breath stopped in her throat.
The world seemed to contract until there was nothing left except the cold brass button on his coat and the smell of the cedar shavings at her feet.
"You've been here five weeks," Cristiano continued, his hand finally releasing her arm. "You carry six months of child. You scrub floors with your head down, and you know how to cut a three-million-euro stallion’s jaw without making him kick."
He turned to Bernardo.
"Take her to the library," he said.
May you like
"Don Cristiano," Mara whispered, her fingers clutching her ruined apron. "Please. I have twelve days—"
"You had twelve days," Cristiano corrected her as he turned toward the yard. "Now you have five minutes."
