“I’m afraid I am, sir,” DeWar admitted to UrLeyn, ignoring BiLeth. “I’m telling him about kind giants and pleasant monsters, when everybody knows that giants are cruel and monsters are terrifying.”
“Preposterous,” BiLeth said.
“What’s that?” RuLeuin asked, also turning round. UrLeyn’s brother sat beside him on the other side from Perrund. He was one of the few generals who had not been sent off to Ladenscion. “Monsters? We have seen monsters on the screen, haven’t we, Lattens?”
“Which would you rather have, Lattens?” UrLeyn asked his son. “Good giants and monsters, or bad ones?”
“Bad ones!” Lattens shouted. He drew his wooden sword from its scabbard. “So I can cut their heads off!”
“That’s the boy!” his father said.
“Indeed! Indeed!” BiLeth agreed.
UrLeyn shoved his wine goblet at RuLeuin and then reached over to pull Lattens up off his feet, depositing him in front of him and making to fence the child with a dagger still in its sheath. Lattens’ face took on a look of great concentration. He fenced with his father, thrusting and parrying, feinting and dodging. The wooden sword clicked and clacked off the sheathed dagger. “Good!” his father said. “Very good!”
DeWar watched Commander ZeSpiole get up from his seat and shuffle sideways towards the aisle. DeWar excused himself and followed, meeting up with the other man in the privy beneath the theatre, where one of the shadow players and a couple of guards were also making use of the facility.
“Did you receive your report, Commander?” DeWar asked.
ZeSpiole looked up, surprised. “Report, DeWar?”
“About my and the lady Perrund’s trip to her old hospital.”
“Why should that occasion a report, DeWar?”
“I thought it might because one of your men followed us there from the palace.”
“Really, who was that?”
“I don’t know his name. But I recognised him. Shall I point him out the next time I see him? If he was not acting on your orders you may wish to ask him why he has taken to following people going about their honest and officially sanctioned business in the city.”
ZeSpiole hesitated, then said, “That will not be necessary, thank you. I’m sure that any such report, supposing it had been made, would state only that yourself and the concubine concerned paid a perfectly innocent visit to the said institution and returned without incident.”
“I’m sure it would, too.”
DeWar returned to his seat. The shadow players announced they were ready to begin the second half of their show. Lattens had to be calmed down before it could be resumed. When it did, he squirmed in his seat between his father and Perrund for a while, but Perrund stroked his head and made quiet, shushing, soothing noises, and before too long the shadow players’ stories started to reclaim the boy’s interest.
He had the seizure about halfway through the second half, suddenly going rigid and starting to shake. DeWar noticed it first, and sat forward, about to say something, then Perrund turned, her face glowing in the screen light, shadows dancing across it, a frown forming there. “Lattens…?” she said.
The boy made a strange, strangling sound and jerked, falling off his seat at the feet of his father, who looked startled and said, “What?”
Perrund left her seat and sank down by the boy.
DeWar stood up and turned to face the rear of the theatre. “Guards! The shutters! Now!”
The shutters creaked and light spilled down the banked rows of seats. Startled faces peered out of the sudden light. People started looking round at the windows, muttering. The shadow players’ screen had gone white, the shadows disappearing. The man’s voice telling the background story halted, confused.
“Lattens!” UrLeyn said, as Perrund started to set the boy into a sitting position. Lattens’ eyes were closed, his face grey and sheened with sweat. “Lattens!” UrLeyn lifted his child up into his arms.
DeWar remained standing, his gaze flitting about the theatre. Others were standing too, now. A bank of worried-looking faces were arranged before him, all looking down at the Protector.
“Doctor!” DeWar shouted when he saw BreDelle. The portly doctor stood blinking in the light.
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.