“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.