Inversions

9. THE DOCTOR

Master, I thought it right to include in my report mention of the events which took place in the Hidden Gardens on the day Duke Quettil presented Geographer Kuin’s latest map of the world to the King.

We had arrived at the summer palace of Yvenir in the Yvenage Hills on schedule and were happily settled into the Doctor’s quarters, in a round tower of the Lesser House. The view from our rooms took in the scattered houses and pavilions set within the wooded lower slopes of Palace Hill. These buildings gradually increased in number while the distances between them shrank until they merged against the ancient walls of Mizui city itself, which filled the flat bottom of the valley immediately beneath the palace. On the valley floor to either side of Mizui could be seen numerous farms, fields and water meadows, while behind these climbed gently forested hills, themselves surmounted by the round, snow-covered mountains in the distance.

The King had indeed fallen off his mount while hunting near Lep-Skatacheis (though it had been on the last day of our stop there, not the first) and had been hobbling round since then on a badly twisted ankle. The Doctor had strapped the ankle and done what she could, but the King’s duties were such that he could not rest the limb as much as the Doctor wanted him to, and so it took a while to heal.

“You. Yes, more wine. No, not that stuff. That. Ah. Adlain. Come and sit by me.”

“Majesty.”

“Wine for the Guard Commander. Come on. You have to be quicker than that. A good servant acts to carry out a master’s wishes even as the wish is still being formed. Isn’t that so, Adlain?”

“I was about to say that myself, sir.”

“I’m sure you were. What news?”

“Oh, mostly the woes of the world, sir. Hardly fit to be revealed in a fine place like this. It might spoil the view.”

We were in the Hidden Gardens behind the Great Palace, almost at the summit of the hill. The red, creeper-covered garden walls hid all but the highest towers of the palace. The view from the little hanging valley which contained the gardens led the eye down to the distant plains, which were blue with distance and faded out into the light of the sky at the horizon.

“Any sign of Quettil?” the King asked. “He’s supposed to be giving me something or other. All has to be arranged of course, being Quettil. Can’t just happen. No doubt we’re due to get the full pomp.”

“The Duke Quettil is not one to murmur when a shout might attract more attention,” Adlain agreed, taking off his hat and setting it on the long table. “But I understand the map he intends to present to you is a particularly fine one, and long in the making. I expect we shall all be most impressed.”

Duke Quettil occupied the Duke’s Palace within the grounds of Palace Hill. The Province and Dukedom of Quettil, of which the city of Mizui and the Yvenage Hills were but a modest part, was entirely his to command, and he was, by repute, not shy about imposing his authority. He and his retinue were due to enter the Hidden Gardens shortly after the midday bell to present the King with his new map.

“Adlain,” the King said. “You know the new Duke Ulresile?”

“Duke Ulresile,” Adlain said to the thin, sallow youth at the King’s left side. “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you,” the boy said. He was barely older than I, and less substantial, more wispy. The fine clothes he wore looked too big for him, and he appeared uncomfortable. He had, I thought, yet to take on the look of a powerful man.

“Duke Walen,” Adlain said, bowing to the older man, who sat to the King’s right.

“Adlain,” Walen said. “You look as though the mountain air suits you.”

“I have yet to find air that does not, thank you, Duke.”

King Quience sat at a long table set within a shady pergola, attended by the Dukes Walen and Ulresile, a smattering of lesser nobility and various servants, including a pair of Palace serving girls who were identical twin sisters and to whom the King seemed to have taken a particular shine. Each had gold-green eyes, yellow-white tangles of hair and seemed to be almost but not entirely in control of tall, sinuous bodies that in places appeared to defy the law of gravity. Each was clothed in a cream-coloured dress edged with red piping and ruffled with lace, which, if not exactly what a rustic shepherdess might wear, was perhaps what a famously handsome and well-endowed actress might have worn if she was taking part in an expensively produced Romantic Play which featured rustic shepherdesses. One such creature might have caused a normal fellow’s heart to melt into his boots. That there were two such beauties capable of occupying the same world at once seemed unfair. Especially as both seemed quite as taken with the King as he did with them.

I confess that I had been unable to take my eyes off the two golden-brown globes which bulged like swollen fawn moons at the lacy cream horizon of each girl’s bodice. The sunlight poured down over those perfect orbs, highlighting the nearly invisibly fine down there, their voices tinkled like the fountains, their musky perfume filled the air, and the King’s very talk and tone taunted and teased with the implication of romance.

“Yes, those little red ones. Some of those. Mmm. Delicious. How one does enjoy those little red ones, eh?”

The two girls giggled.

“How’s it looking, Vosill?” the King said, still smirking. “When can I start chasing these girls?” He made to lunge at the shepherdesses and tried to grab them, but they yelped and danced out of the way. “They keep getting away from me, dammit. When can I start hunting them properly?”

“Properly, sir? How would that be?” the Doctor asked.

The Doctor and I were there tending to the King’s ankle. The Doctor changed the strapping on it every day. Sometimes she changed it twice a day if the King had been out riding or hunting. As well as the swelling from the sprain, there was a small cut on the ankle which was taking its time to heal, and the Doctor was scrupulous in keeping this cleaned and treated, nevertheless it still seemed to me that any common nurse or even chamber-servant could have performed this function. However, the King appeared to want the Doctor to do it each day herself, and she seemed quite happy to acquiesce. I cannot think of any other doctor who might have made an excuse not to treat the King, but she was quite capable of it.

“Why, properly in the sense of having a decent chance of catching them, Vosill,” the King said, leaning forward towards the Doctor and using what is, I believe, called a stage whisper. The two shepherdesses laughed tinklingly.

“Decent, sir? How so?” the Doctor asked, and blinked, it seemed to me, more than the flower- and leaf-shaded sunlight called for.

“Vosill, stop asking these childish questions and tell me when I may run again.”

“Oh, you may run now, sir. But it would be most painful, and your ankle would probably give way within a few dozen steps. But you most certainly can run.”

“Aye, run but fall over,” the King said, sitting back and reaching for his wine glass.

The Doctor glanced at the two shepherdesses. “Well,” she said, “perhaps something soft would break your fall.”

She sat at the King’s feet with her back to Duke Walen, cross-legged. This odd and unladylike position was one she adopted often, seemingly without thinking, and which made her adoption of men’s clothes, or at least some part of them, almost a necessity. For once, the Doctor had changed out of her long boots. She wore dark hose and soft pointed shoes of velvet. The King’s feet rested on solid silver footstools topped with plump cushions, vividly dyed and patterned. The Doctor washed the King’s feet as usual, inspected them and, on this occasion, carefully trimmed his toe-nails. I was left to sit on a small stool at her side, holding her bag open while she lost herself in this labour.

“Would you break my fall, my lovelies?” the King asked, sitting back in his chair.

The two girls dissolved into laughter again. (The Doctor, I think, muttered something about being most sure to if he landed on their heads.)

“They might break your heart, sir,” Adlain observed, smiling.

“Indeed,” Walen said. “With one to pull in each direction, a man might suffer terribly.”

The two serving girls giggled and fed more little pieces of fruit to the King, who made to tickle them with a long feather from a fan-tailed tsigibern. Musicians played on a terrace behind us, fountains plashed melodiously, insects hummed but did not annoy us, the air was fresh and full of the scent of flowers and freshly tilled and watered earth, and the two servant girls bent and leant to pop fruits into the King’s mouth, then squealed, jumped and jiggled when he lunged at them with his feather. I confess I was glad I did not have to pay too much attention to what the Doctor was doing.

“Do try to keep still, sir,” she muttered as the King stabbed at the two girls with the tsigibern feather.

Chamberlain Wiester came panting up the path beneath the flowers and vines, his splendidly buckled shoes glinting in the sunlight and crunching on the semi-precious path stones. “Duke Quettil, your majesty,” he announced. A blare of trumpets and a clash of cymbals sounded from the garden gates, followed by the roaring scream of what sounded like a fierce and angry animal. “And retinue,” Wiester added.

Duke Quettil arrived with a bevy of maidens scattering scent-crushed petals in his path, a troupe of jugglers tossing glittering clubs back and forth across the path, a band of trumpeteers and cymbalists, a pride of chokered, growling galkes each with its own grim, oiled and muscled handler straining to keep his charge in order, a school of identically dressed clerks and retainers, a clutch of beefy-looking men clad only in loin cloths supporting what looked like a tall thin wardrobe on a bier, and a pair of tall, pitch-skinned Equatorials holding a tasselled parasol over the Duke himself, who was transported on a litter glittering with precious metals and cut stones by an octet of toweringly statuesque golden-skinned balnimes, each bald and naked save for a tiny cache-sex and accoutred with a huge long bow slung over their shoulder.

The Duke was dressed, as they say, fit to embarrass an Emperor. His robes were predominantly red and gold, and his ample frame displayed them to some effect as the balnimes lowered his litter, a step-stool was placed by his slippered feet and he stepped on to a gold-cloth carpet. Above his round, full, eyebrow-less face, his jewelled head-dress sparkled in the sun and his many-ringed fingers were heavy with gems as he made a sweeping if awkward bow to the King.

The trumpets and cymbals fell silent. The musicians on the terrace had given up trying to compete with the trumpeteers and cymbalists as soon as they’d entered, so we were left with the sounds of the garden itself, plus the galkes’ growling.

“Duke Quettil,” said the King. “An impromptu visit?”

Quettil smiled broadly.

The King laughed. “Good to see you, Duke. I think you know everybody here.”

Quettil nodded to Walen and Ulresile, then to Adlain and a few others. He couldn’t see the Doctor because she was on the far side of the table, still tending to the King’s feet.

“Your majesty,” Quettil said. “As a further token of our honour at being allowed to play host to you and your court here again for the summer, I wish to make a presentation.” The oiled muscle-men brought the bier in front of where the King sat and set it down. They opened the richly carved and inlaid doors of the thin container to reveal a huge square map easily the height of a man. Set within the square was a circle, filled with the shapes of continents and islands and seas and embellished with monsters, drawings of cities and small figures of men and women in a huge variety of dress. “A map of the world, sir,” Quettil said. “Prepared for you by the Master Geographer Kuin from the very latest intelligence purchased by your humble servant and passed on to him by the most brave and reliable captains of the four waters.”

“Thank you, Duke.” The King sat forward in his seat, peering at the map. “Does it show the site of Anlios of old?”

Quettil looked at one of his liveried servants, who stepped forward quickly and said, “Yes, your majesty. Here.” He pointed.

“What of the lair of the monster Gruissens?”

“Believed to be here, your majesty, in the region of the Vanishing Isles.”

“And Sompolia?”

“Ah, home of Mimarstis the Mighty,” Quettil said.

“So people claim,” the King said.

“Here, your majesty.”

“And is Haspide still in the centre of the world?” the King asked.

“Ah,” said the servant.

“In every sense but the physical, sir,” Quettil said, looking a little discomfited. “I did ask Master Geographer Kuin for the most accurate map it might be possible to draw up with the latest and most trustworthy information, and he has chosen — one might almost say decreed — that the Equator must be the waist-band of the world for the purposes of accurate mapmaking. As Haspide lies some goodly distance from the Equator, it cannot therefore assume the—”

“Quettil, it doesn’t matter,” the King said airily, waving one hand. “I prefer accuracy to flattery. It is a most magnificent map and I thank you sincerely. It will sit in my throne room so that all may admire it, and I shall have more utilitarian copies drawn up for our sea captains. I think I have never seen a single object which contrives to be at once so decorous and yet so useful. Come and sit by me. Duke Walen, will you kindly make room for our visitor?”

Walen muttered that he would be glad to, and servants scraped his chair away from the King’s, leaving room for the balnimes to swing Quettil’s litter round the table and set it by the King. The Duke resumed his seat. The balnimes smelled strongly of some animalistic musk. My head seemed to spin. They retreated to the rear of the terrace and squatted on their haunches, long bows aslant behind.

“And what is this?” Quettil said, looking down from his fabulous seat at the Doctor and myself.

“My physician,” the King told him, smiling broadly at the Doctor.

“What, a foot-doctor?” Quettil asked. “Is this some new fashion of Haspide I’ve not heard about?”

“No, a doctor for all the body, as any royal physician must be. As Tranius was to my father. And to me.”

“Yes,” Duke Quettil said, looking around. “Tranius. What of him?”

“He fell prey to shaking hands and blurred sight,” the King told him. “He retired to his farm in Junde.”

“Apparently the rural life suits him,” Adlain added. “For by all accounts the old fellow has made a full recovery.”

“Ormin recommended Doctor Vosill without reserve,” Quience told the Duke, “save that for the loss of her services to himself and his family.”

“But… a woman?” Quettil said, letting one of his servants taste his wine and then accepting the crystal. “You entrust more than one organ to a woman’s care? You are a brave man indeed, sir.”

The Doctor had sat back and twisted a little so that she had her back to the table. In this position she was able to face both the King and Quettil. She said nothing, though there was a small, tight smile on her face. I began to be alarmed. “Doctor Vosill has been invaluable this last year,” the King said.

“What’s that? Without value? Valueless?” Quettil said with a humourless smile, and reached out with one slippered foot to prod the Doctor in the elbow. She rocked back slightly and looked down at the place where the jewelled slipper had touched her. I felt my mouth become dry.

“Indeed without value because she is beyond value,” Quience said smoothly. “I value my life above all else, and the good doctor here helps to preserve it. She is as good as part of me.”

“Part of you?” Quettil scoffed. “But it is a man’s part to be part of a woman, sir. You are, as ever, far too generous, my King.”

“I have heard,” Guard Commander Adlain said, “people say something of that nature. That the King’s only fault is that he is too indulgent. In fact he is precisely as indulgent as he needs to be to discover those who would take advantage of his sense of fairness and his desire to be tolerant. Having so discovered them—”

“Yes, yes, Adlain,” the Duke Quettil said, waving a hand towards the Guard Commander, who fell silent and looked down at the table. “I’m sure. But even so, to let a woman look after you… Your majesty, I am only thinking of the good of the Kingdom which you inherited from the man I was privileged to regard as my best friend, your good father. What would he have said?”

Quience’s expression darkened for a moment. Then it brightened and said, “He might have let the lady speak for herself.” The King folded his hands and looked down at the Doctor. “Doctor Vosill?”

“Sir?”

“I have been given a present by Duke Quettil. A map of the world. Would you care to admire it? Perhaps you can even give us your thoughts on it, as you have travelled over more of the globe than the rest of us.”

The Doctor rose smoothly from her cross-legged sitting position to stand and swivel and look at the great map displayed on the far side of the table. She gazed at it for a moment then reversed her earlier motion, turning and folding herself down again and taking up a small pair of scissors. Before she applied them to the King’s toe-nails, she looked at the Duke and said, “The representation is inaccurate, sir.”

Duke Quettil looked down upon the Doctor and gave a small, high laugh. He glanced at the King and looked as though he was trying to control a sneer. “You think so, madam?” he said in an icy tone.

“I know so, sir,” the Doctor said, busying herself at the quick of the King’s left big toe and frowning mightily. “Oelph, the smaller scalpel… Oelph.” I jumped, dug in her bag and handed her the tiny instrument with a shaking hand.

“What do you know of such matters, might I ask, madam?” the Duke Quettil asked, glancing at the King again.

“Perhaps the lady doctor is a Mistress Geographer,” Adlain suggested.

“Perhaps she should be taught some manners,” Duke Walen said testily.

“I have travelled round the world, Duke Quettil,” the Doctor said, as though addressing the King’s toe, “and seen the reality of much of what is shown, rather fancifully, on your map.”

“Doctor Vosill,” the King said, not unkindly. “It might be more polite if you were to stand and look at the Duke when you address him.”

“Might it, sir?”

The King withdrew his foot from her hand as he sat forward and said sharply, “Yes, madam, it might.”

The Doctor gave the King such a look I began to whimper, though I think I was able to turn the sound into a clearing of the throat. However, she paused, handed me back the small scalpel and stood smoothly again. She bowed to the King and then the Duke. “With your permission, sirs,” she said, then took up the tsigibern feather which the King had left lying on the table. She dropped, ducking under the long table and appearing on the far side. She pointed at the lower part of the great map with the feather.

“There is no continent here, only ice. There are island groups here and here. The Northern Isles of Drezen are simply not as shown. They are more numerous, generally smaller, less regular and extend further to the north. Here, the westernmost Cape of Quarreck is shown twenty sails’ or so too far to the east. Cuskery…” She tipped her head to one side, considering. “Is shown fairly accurately. Fuol is not here, it’s here, though the whole continent of Morifeth is shown… slanted to the west here. Illerne is north of Chroe, not opposite it. These are the places I know of from personal knowledge. I have it on good authority that there is a great inland sea… here. As for the various monsters and other nonsenses—”

“Thank you, Doctor,” the King said, and clapped his hands. “Your views have been most amusing, I’m sure. Duke Quettil has doubtless gained great insight from watching his splendid plan suffer such correction.” The King turned to a grim-faced Quettil. “You must forgive the good doctor, my dear Duke. She is from Drezen, where their brains seem to suffer from being upside-down all the time. Obviously all is topsy-turvy there, and the women think it fit to tell their lords and masters what is what.”

Quettil forced a smile. “Indeed, sir. I quite understand. Still, it was a most diverting display. I always held with your father that it was both unseemly and unnecessary that women be allowed on to a stage when castrati were so readily available, however I see that women’s fanciful and imaginative nature may be put to good use when it comes to providing us with such humorous vignettes. I see now that such frivolity and such licence is indeed most welcome. As long as one does not take it too seriously, of course.”

I was watching the Doctor closely and with great trepidation as the Duke spoke these words. Her expression, much to my relief, stayed calm and untroubled. “Do you think,” the Duke asked the King, “that she holds similarly picturesque views regarding the location of the organs within the human body as she does the features of the globe?”

“We must ask her. Doctor,” the King said. “Do you disagree with our best physicians and surgeons as you so obviously do with our most esteemed navigators and map-makers?”

“On location, no, sir.”

“But from your tone,” Adlain said, “you disagree on something. What would that be?”

“Function, sir,” the Doctor told him. “But that is mostly to do with plumbing and so not perhaps of paramount interest.”

“Tell me, woman,” Duke Walen said. “Did you have to leave this land of Drezen to escape justice?”

The Doctor looked coldly at Duke Walen. “No, sir.”

“Strange. I thought perhaps you might have tried the patience and forbearance of your masters there, too, and so have had to flee to escape their punishment.”

“I was free to stay and free to leave, sir,” the Doctor said evenly. “I chose to leave to travel the world and see how things are elsewhere.”

“And found little you agree with, it would seem,” Duke Quettil said. “I am surprised you have not returned to wherever it was you came from.”

“I have found the favour of a good and just king, sir,” the Doctor said, laying the feather back on the table where she had found it, then looking at the King as she put her hands behind her back and drew herself up. “I am privileged to be able to serve him as best I can for as long as it pleases him. I consider that worth all the hardships my journey entailed, and everything that I have found disagreeable since I left my home.”

“The truth of it is that the Doctor is far too valuable to let go,” the King assured Duke Quettil. “She is practically our prisoner, though we don’t let her know that or she would at the very least go into the most awful huff, would you not, Doctor?”

The Doctor lowered her head with a look that might almost have been demure. “Your majesty might banish me to the ends of the world. I would still be the prisoner of his regard.”

“Providence, it can be almost civil at times!” Quettil roared suddenly, slapping one hand on the table.

“She can even look handsome, in the right clothes and with her hair done properly,” the King said, picking up the tsigibern feather again and twirling it in front of his face. “We shall have a ball or two while we are here, I dare say. The Doctor will put on her most feminine finery and amaze us all with daintiness and grace. Won’t you, Vosill?”

“If it please the King,” she said, though I noticed that her lips were tight.

“Something we can all look forward to,” Duke Ulresile said suddenly, then appeared to blush and quickly busied himself with cutting a piece of fruit.

The other men looked at him, then all smiled and exchanged knowing looks. The Doctor looked at the young man who had just spoken. I thought I saw her eyes cross for a moment.

“Just so,” the King said. “Wiester.”

“Your majesty?”

“Music, I think.”

“Certainly, sir.” Wiester turned to the musicians on the terrace behind. Quettil dismissed most of his retinue. Ulresile concentrated on eating enough to feed both the departed galkes and the Doctor returned to the King’s feet, rubbing fragrant oils into the harder parts of the skin. The King sent the two shepherdesses away.

“Adlain was about to give us some news, were you not, Adlain?”

“I thought we might wait until we were inside, sir.”

The King looked round. “I see nobody we cannot trust.”

Quettil was looking down at the Doctor, who looked up and said, “Shall I go, sir?”

“Have you finished?”

“No, sir.”

“Then stay. Providence knows I have trusted you with my life often enough and Quettil and Walen probably don’t think you have the memory or the wit to be an adequate spy, so assuming that we trust young…”

“Oelph, sir,” the Doctor told the King. She smiled at me. “I have found him an honest and trustworthy apprentice.”

“… young Oelph here, I think we can talk with reasonable freedom. My Dukes and Guard Commander may choose to spare you their more spicy phrases, Doctor, or they may not, but I suspect you would not blush to hear them anyway. Adlain.” The King turned to the Guard Commander.

“Very well, sir. There have been several reports that someone in a Sea Company delegation tried to assassinate the regicide UrLeyn, about twelve days ago.”

“What?” the King exclaimed.

“I take it we must conclude that sadly this attempt did not succeed?” Walen said.

Adlain nodded. “The ‘Protector’ escaped unharmed.”

“What Sea Company?” the King asked, eyes narrowed.

“One that probably does not really exist,” Adlain said. “One that several of the others fashioned specifically to make the attempt. A single report has it that the members of the delegation died under torture without revealing anything except their own sad ignorance.”

“This is due to all the talk of forming a navy,” Walen said, looking at Quience. “It is foolishness, sir.”

“Perhaps,” the King agreed. “But foolishness we must appear to support for now.” He looked at Adlain. “Contact all the ports. Send a message to each of the Companies that enjoy our favour to the effect that any further attempt on UrLeyn’s life will meet with our most profound and practical displeasure.”

“But sir!” Walen protested.

“UrLeyn continues to enjoy our support,” the King said with a smile. “We cannot be seen to oppose him, no matter how much his demise may please us. The world is a changed place and too many people are watching Tassasen to see what happens there. We must trust to Providence that the Regicidal regime fails of its own accord and so convinces others of its wrongness. If we are seen to intervene to bring about its downfall from without we shall only persuade the sceptical that there must have been some threat — and therefore, by their way of thinking, some merit — in the enterprise.”

“But sir,” Walen said, leaning forward and looking past Quettil so that his old chin was almost on the table, “Providence does not always behave as we have the right to expect. I have had too many opportunities to observe this in my life, sir. Even your dear father, a man without peer in such matters, could be too prone to waiting for Providence to accomplish with most painful slowness what a quick and even merciful act could have achieved in a tenth of the time. Providence does not move with the alacrity and dispatch one might expect or desire, sir. Sometimes Providence needs to be given a nudge in the right direction.” He looked defiantly round the others. “Aye, and a sharp nudge, at that.”

“I thought older men usually counselled patience,” Adlain said.

“Only when that is what is required,” Walen told him. “Now it is not.”

“Nevertheless,” the King said with perfect equanimity. “What will happen to General UrLeyn will happen. I have an interest in this that you may guess at, my dear Duke Walen, but neither you nor anybody else who holds my favour worth the having may anticipate it. Patience can be a means of letting matters mature to a proper state for action, not just a way of letting time slip away.”

Walen looked at the King for a good few moments, then seemed to accept what the King had said. “Forgive an old man for whom the furthest scope of patience may lie beyond that of his own grave, your majesty.”

“We must hope that will not be so, for I would not wish you such an early death, dear Duke.”

Walen looked reasonably mollified at this. Quettil patted his hand, which the older man seemed not so sure about. “The regicide has more to worry about than assassins, in any event,” Duke Quettil said.

“Ah,” the King said, sitting back with a contented look. “Our eastern problem.”

“Rather say UrLeyn’s western one, sir.” Quettil smiled. “We have heard that he continues to send forces towards Ladenscion. Simalg and Ralboute, two of his best generals, are already in the city of Chaltoxern. They have issued an ultimatum to the barons that they must open the high passes and allow the Protectorate’s forces free passage to the inner cities by Jairly’s new moon, or suffer the consequences.”

“And we have reason to believe that the barons’ position might be more robust than UrLeyn believes,” the King said, with a sly smile.

“Rather a lot of reasons,” Quettil said. “In fact, about…” he began, but the King held up one hand and made a sort of half-patting, half-waving motion and partially closed his eyes. Quettil glanced round about us and gave a small slow nod.

“Duke Ormin, sir,” chamberlain Wiester said. The stooped figure of the Duke Ormin came awkwardly up the path.

He halted by the tall map case, smiling and bowing. “Sir. Ah, Duke Quettil.”

“Ormin!” the King said (Quettil gave the most perfunctory of nods). “Good to see you. How is your wife?”

“Much better, sir. A slight fever, no more.”

“Sure you don’t want Vosill here to take a look at her?”

“Quite sure, sir,” Ormin said, raising himself up on his feet to look over the table. “Ah, Doctor Vosill.”

“Sir,” the Doctor said to the Duke, bobbing briefly.

“Come and sit with us,” the King said. He looked around. “Duke Walen, would you — no, no.” Duke Walen’s face had taken on the look of a man told a poisonous insect has just fallen into his riding boot. “You moved before, didn’t you… Adlain, would you make room for the Duke?”

“With pleasure, sir.”

“Ah, a most magnificent map,” Duke Ormin said as he took his seat.

“Isn’t it?” the King said.

“Sir? Your majesty?” the young man to Walen’s right piped up.

“Duke Ulresile,” the King said.

“Might I go to Ladenscion?” the young Duke asked. He appeared at last to be animated and even excited. When he had expressed his anticipation at seeing the Doctor dressed for a ball he had seemed only to make himself more callow. Now he appeared enthused, his expression passionate. “I and a few friends? We have all the military means and a good number of men. We would put ourselves under the authority of whatever baron you most trust and would gladly fight for the—”

“My good Ulresile,” the King said. “Your enthusiasm does you no end of credit, but grateful though I am for the expression of such an ambition, its fulfilment would lead only to my fury and contempt.”

“How so, sir?” the young Duke asked, blinking furiously, his face flushing.

“You sit here at my table, Duke Ulresile, you are known to enjoy my favour and to accept my advice and that of Quettil here. Then you go to fight the forces of one I have pledged to support and must, I repeat, be seen to support, at least for now.”

“But—”

“You will find in any event, Ulresile,” Duke Quettil said, glancing at Quience, “that the King prefers to rely on his paid generals rather than his nobles to command forces of any significance.”

The King gave Quettil a controlled smile. “It was the custom of my dear father to trust major battles to those trained from an early age in war and nothing else. My nobles command their lands and their own leisure. They gather harems, improve their palaces, commission great works of art, manipulate the taxes that we all benefit from and oversee the improvement of land and the furbishment of cities. In the new world that exists about us now, that would appear to provide more than enough — indeed perhaps too much — for a man to think about without having to concern himself with the exigencies of war as well.”

Duke Ormin gave a small laugh. “King Drasine used to say,” he said, “that war is neither science nor art. It is a craft, with elements of both the scientific and the artistic about it, but a craft nevertheless, and best left to craftsmen trained to it.”

“But sir!” Duke Ulresile protested.

The King held up one hand to him. “I have no doubt that you and your friends might carry many a battle, all on your own, and be easily the equal of any one of my waged generals, but in winning the day you might lose the year and even jeopardise the reign. Matters are in hand, Ulresile.” The King smiled at the young Duke, though he could not see it because he was staring tight-lipped at the table. “However,” the King continued, a tone of tolerant amusement in his voice that had Ulresile look up briefly, “by all means keep that fire stoked and your blade sharp. Your day will come in due time.”

“Sir,” Ulresile said, looking back at the table.

“Now,” the King began, then became aware of some sort of commotion at the gates to the palace.

“Majesty…” Wiester said, frowning in the same direction and drawing himself up on tip-toes to see better.

“Wiester, what can you see?” the King asked.

“A servant, sir. Hurrying. Indeed, running.”

At this point, both the Doctor and I looked round, under the table. And indeed, there was a plump youth in the uniform of the palace footmen, running up the path.

“I thought they were not allowed to run for fear of scattering the stones over the flower beds,” the King said, shading his eyes against the sunlight’s new slant.

“Indeed so, sir,” Wiester said, and assumed his most stern and censorious expression as he stepped to the end of the table and walked purposefully down to meet the lad, who stopped before him and bent over to lean his hands on his knees while he panted, “Sir!”

“What, boy?” Wiester bellowed.

“Sir, there’s been a murder, sir!”

“A murder?” Wiester said, taking a step back and seeming to shrink in on himself. The Guard Commander Adlain was on his feet instantly.

“What’s this?” Quettil asked.

“What did he say?” Walen said.

“Where?” Adlain demanded from the youth.

“Sir, in the questioning chamber of Master Nolieti, sir.”

Duke Quettil gave a small, high laugh. “Why, is that unusual?”

“Who is murdered, boy?” Adlain said, walking down the path towards the servant.

“Sir, Master Nolieti, sir.”