“Quite,” the King said, drawing himself up and putting his head back to have his hair combed before it was gathered into a knot.
Ulresile looked at Ormin as though he was going to spit. “Practical experience is all very well when a man makes tables or has to control a haul pulling a plough,” he said. “But we are concerning ourselves with the governance of our provinces, and in that it is ourselves who have the whole part of the experience.”
The Doctor admired her handiwork on the King’s bandaged hands, then stood back. The breeze brought a distinct smell of flowers and grain-dust billowing in across the bowed fabric walls of our temporary courtyard.
The King let Wiester slide his thick stave-gloves on to his hands and then lace them up. Another servant placed stout-looking but richly decorated boots in front of the King and carefully guided his feet into them. “Then, my dear Ulresile,” he said, “you must teach the burghers of the towns what you know, or they will make mistakes and we shall all be the poorer, for I hope we can all expect a better crop of taxes from such improvements.” The King sniffed a couple of times.
“I’m sure the ducal estates’ share of any increase will not be unappreciated, should it materialise,” Duke Ormin said, with the look of one experiencing an attack of wind. “As indeed I am sure it will. Yes, I am.”
The King looked at him quickly, with the heavy-lidded gaze of one about to sneeze. “Then you would be prepared to put the reforms into effect first in your province, Ormin?”
Ormin blinked, then smiled. He bowed. “It would be an honour, sir.”
The King took a deep breath, then shook his head and clapped his hands together as best he could. He cast a victorious look at Ulresile, who was staring at Ormin with a look of horror and disgust.
The Doctor knelt at her bag. I thought she was going to help me put the various bits and pieces away, but instead she took out a clean square of cloth and rose to stand before the King just as he sneezed mightily, jerking his hair out of the grip of the flunky combing it and sending the comb catapulting forward on to a brightly coloured rug.
“Sir, if I may,” the Doctor said. The King nodded. Wiester looked discomfited. He was only now getting out his kerchief.
The Doctor gently held the cloth up to the King’s nose, letting him sniff into it. She folded the cloth and then with another corner dabbed softly at his eyes, which had moistened. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said. “And what do you think of our reforms?”
“I, sir?” the Doctor said, looking surprised. “It is no business of mine.”
“Now, Vosill,” the King said. “You have an opinion about everything else. I assumed you would be more in favour than anybody here. Come, you must be happy with this. It’s something like what you have in your precious Drezen, isn’t it? You’ve talked about such things at inordinate length before now.” He frowned. Duke Ulresile did not look happy. I saw him glance at Walen, who too appeared troubled. Duke Ormin appeared not to be listening, though his face bore a surprised expression.
The Doctor folded the cloth away slowly. “I have talked about many things to contrast the place I chose to leave with the place I chose to come to,” she said, with a deliberateness equal to that she gave the folding away of that cloth.
“I’m sure nothing we could do would be good enough for the lady’s high standards,” Duke Ulresile said, with what sounded like bitterness, perhaps even contempt. “She has made that clear enough.”
The Doctor gave a brief, small smile like a wince, and said to the King, “Sir, may I be excused now?”
“Of course, Vosill,” the King said, with a look of surprise and concern. She turned to leave, and he held up his gloved hands as a servant brought forward the silver and gold inlaid staff he would fight the false monster with. In the distance, horns sounded and a cheer went up. “Thank you,” he said to her. She turned back briefly to him, bowed quickly and then walked away. I followed.
My Master knows already what took place when the surprise that the old Duke Walen had spent most of a year preparing was finally visited upon the Doctor, but I shall say something of the event, in the hope of completing the picture he will already have.
The court had been back at Haspide for only two days. I had not yet finished unpacking all the Doctor’s belongings. There was to be a diplomatic reception in the main hall, and the Doctor’s presence had been requested. Neither she nor I knew who had made this request. She went out early that morning, saying that she was going to visit one of the hospitals she had paid regular visits to before we had left on the outer part of the Circuition earlier that year. I was instructed to stay behind and continue with the process of getting her apartments in order again. I understand that my Master had one of his people follow the Doctor, and discovered that she did indeed go to the Women’s Hospital and attend some of the sick and confined there. I spent the time removing racks of glassware and vials from straw-packed cases and making a list of the fresh ingredients we would need over the next half-year for the Doctor’s potions and remedies.
She returned to her apartments at about a half past the morning’s third bell, bathed and changed into more formal wear, and then took me with her to the great hall.
I cannot recall there being any great air of expectation in the place, but then it was a crowded scene, with hundreds of courtiers, foreign diplomats, consular people, nobles and traders and others milling about, all no doubt concerned with their own business and quite convinced that it was more important than anybody else’s and merited, if it would help them, the particular attention of the King. Certainly the Doctor seemed to have no premonition that anything strange or untoward was about to happen. If she seemed distracted it was because she wanted to get on with the matter of getting her apartments, her study and workshop and her chemical machinery back together. As we made our way to the hall, she had me note down several ingredients and raw materials she suddenly realised she would be needing in the near future.
“Ah, my dear Doctor,” Duke Ormin said, pressing his way through an exotically garbed knot of incomprehensibly jabbering foreigners. “I’m told there’s somebody here to see you, ma’am.”
“Is there?” the Doctor asked.
“Yes,” Ormin said. He stood straight for a change, and looked out over the heads of the crowd. “Our new Duke Walen and, ah, Guard Commander Adlain said something.” He squinted into the distance. “Didn’t catch it all and they seemed… Ah, there they are. Over there.” The Duke waved, then looked at the Doctor. “Were you expecting anybody?”
“Expecting anybody?” the Doctor repeated as the Duke led us to one corner of the hall.
“Yes. I just… well, I don’t know…”
We approached the Guard Commander. I missed whatever the Doctor and Duke Ormin said next because I was watching the Guard Commander talk to a couple of his guard captains, two intimidatingly large, stern-faced men armed with double swords. As he saw us approach, the Guard Commander nodded to the two men. They stepped away to stand a few paces off.
“Doctor,” Guard Commander Adlain said in an open, friendly manner, putting his arm to one side of the Doctor as though to grasp her far shoulder, so that she had to turn to one side. “Good day. How are you? Unpacked? Are you happily reensconced?”
“I am well, sir. We are not yet quite fully settled in. And you?”
“Oh, I’m…” The Guard Commander looked behind him, then a look of some surprise came upon his face. “Ah. Here’s Ulresile. And who can this be?”
He and the Doctor both turned round to face Duke Ulresile and a tall, bronzed-looking man of middle age dressed in strange, loose-fitting clothes and a small tricorn hat. Duke Ulresile was smiling with a curious eagerness. Behind him stood the new Duke Walen, his head down and his dark eyes looking half closed.