Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey

the injured and aggrieved party, was looked over carefully with an eye to possible concussion, and had his ribs bound up as skillfully as anyone up at the Collegia could do.
    :Where are you?:
he asked Dallen, as he gingerly made his way toward the inn where his disguises were kept.
    :Back at the inn. If you’d been—:
    :In any danger, I know, you would have rescued me. And I’d have been mad at myself for losin’ all the work I put into Harkon.:
    :So let’s be glad that I’ve arranged for Nikolas to bring a set of your Whites to Flora’s.:
    Mags sighed with relief. Flora, the titular madame of “Flora’s,” would help him out of his disguise and into his Whites, then smuggle him out again through one of the exits she used when gentlemen wanted their visits to her girls to be utterly confidential. And Harkon was a known patron of the place, and since he had no known female relatives, it would not be at all out of character for him to look for some female cosseting at the brothel. Not everything Flora provided had to do with sex.
    In fact, the door-guard summoned one of the Houseservants as soon as he realized Harkon was in rather battered condition. That servant deposited him in an empty parlor and returned with Flora herself, and two of her girls, one of which was in a very racy version of Healer’s Greens. The neckline was cut practically down to her navel, and the robes were slit up to the waist on both sides.
    This was Cilla, the House Healer. She actually
was
a Healer; there were three brothels in Haven that had House Healers that Mags knew of, but Cilla was the only one of the three who also served as one of the House girls. Mags didn’t ask why, and she had never volunteered the information; he didn’t reckon it was any of his business, and since
none
of Flora’s girls worked under duress, he knew it had to be because she wanted to, and that was all that mattered.
    â€œWhat on earth did you do to yourself, boy?” Flora scolded, as the three of them helped him get stiffly to his feet, and led him down a hall to what turned out to be a lovely, warm bathing room. It was very welcome; the Watch Healer hadn’t really cleaned up anything but his cuts before taping his ribs and sending him on his way.
    â€œDidn’t do it to m’self,” he said, as they undressed him, untaped him, and got him into a bath so hot it was just short of painful. He hissed as the water hit his bruises and relaxed while they washed up his face and got the blood out of his hair. “Seems some’un didn’t like m’methods of business, and set six bully-boys on me.”
    â€œSix!” Flora exclaimed. “Surely not—”
    â€œThey was carryin’ clubs,” Mags pointed out. “Still wouldn’t hev got off this easy ’cept—” he chuckled, and explained.
    A candlemark later, he was clean, his cuts were sealed, his bruises faded to a pale green, and his ribs, while still sore, were about two weeks-worth healed more than they’d been when he walked in. He was also in his Whites, and the servant was conducting him down a tunnel that looked nothing at all like a tunnel—it was beautifully polished wood, floor, ceiling,and walls, and lit by lanterns with topaz glass shades. “Where are we goin’?” he asked the servant, with mild curiosity.
    â€œThe White Horse Tavern,” the servant replied. “This is how all our hot meals are brought over. We could hardly carry them through the streets, and Madame Flora prefers not to have more than a minimal kitchen. She says the smell of cooking food is vulgar, and the lingering aroma of cooked food is distasteful. And if this tunnel serves some of our patrons who would rather not be seen entering and leaving by the front door, you won’t find any of us naming names.”
    â€œRight-oh,” Mags said genially. The White Horse Tavern was perfect; he could stop