“Well, and here I am.”
“No doubt, you wish to know of my patient’s condition?”
“You have guessed the precise nature of my errand.”
“Then I will tell you what you wish to know.”
“And you will be right to do so.”
“In the first place, you must know he has been badly wounded.”
“That much I had already deduced.”
“Moreover, I am unable to cast the usual spells to prevent mortification.”
“How, unable?”
“Exactly.”
“But, what prevents you?”
“I am uncertain. Yet my efforts have failed.”
“Well, and then?”
The physicker frowned, the creases in her forehead deepening. “I have used older, more primitive methods of cleaning the wounds, and if these are successful, I would expect him to live.”
“Is he awake?”
“Not as yet.”
“Can you tell when he will regain consciousness?”
“No more than I can prevent mortification; that spell, too, fails.”
Khaavren frowned. “Then I will wait here until—”
He was interrupted by a sound not unlike that the wind makes when passing through a hollow cavern—a sound which seemed to emanate from the other side of the door near which they stood. Without another word, the physicker opened the door and entered, Khaavren at her heels.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
How the Captain Spoke
to the Easterner, and the
Easterner Received a Visit
Inside was a high, thin bed, upon which lay the Easterner, covered by a sheet and a blanket. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but opened as Khaavren and the physicker approached. He looked at the black silken scarf about her neck and whispered, “If you have something for the pain, I would be not ungrateful.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My spells will not work on you.”
He closed his eyes again. “Opium?” he said.
The physicker frowned. “I am not familiar with this term.”
The Easterner appeared to sigh. “Of course you are not,” he said, putting something of a sarcastic twang to his voice. His eyes then turned to the captain and he said, “To what do I owe the honor, my good lord, of a visit from—” He stopped here, coughed, winced, and then continued. “—such a high official of Her Majesty’s elite personal guard?” We should add that, to judge from the tone, this question was also not devoid of a sarcastic, or at least an ironic, element.
Khaavren, for his part, ignored the tone, and merely responded to the words, saying, “It is of some concern to Her Majesty when an Imperial nobleman is found to be injured, and questions naturally arise.”
“How,” said the other, “then I am not under arrest?”
“Not at all, I assure you,” said Khaavren coolly.
The Easterner squeezed his eyes shut again, then opened them once more. “I know you,” he said. “You are Lord Khaavren, are you not? Brigadier of the Phoenix Guards?”
“Captain,” said Khaavren, both by way of affirmation and correction, thus conveying the maximum amount of information in the fewest possible words; a custom of his, and one that this historian has, in fact, adopted for himself, holding efficiency of language to be a high virtue in all written works without exception.
“Captain of the Phoenix Guards,” agreed the Easterner. “Brigadier of—”
“We’ll not speak of that,” said Khaavren.
“Very well.”
“But if I might know your name, my lord?”
“Vladimir, Count of Szurke. If you wish for conversation with me—”
“I do, if you are able to talk.”
“I will make the effort.”
“Very well, then. We have met before, have we not?”
“Your memory is excellent, Captain. Although at that time, I was called by another name.”
“Vladimir of Taltos, was it not?”
“If you will permit a small correction, there is no ‘of.’ It is a patronymic; a custom of my people.” The Easterner, we perceive, did not follow the captain’s maxim of efficiency in use of language, a fact we will endeavor not to hold against him.
“I understand,” said Khaavren.
“What is it you wish to know?”
“What do I wish to know? Why, I wish to know what happened to you! You perceive, an attack on an Imperial nobleman is not a matter about which there can be any question of joking. I wish to know who attacked you, and what led to it.”
“I understand.”
“So then, if you would, tell me precisely what happened to you.”
“I would be glad to do so, only—”
“Yes?”
“I have not the least idea in the world, I assure you.”
“How, you don’t know what happened to you?”
“I do not.”
“What is it you remember?”
“I was walking north along the riverbank, and then I was here.”
“And so, you do not know how you became injured?”
“I suspect I was set upon.”
“Yes, that is my suspicion as well. And, if that is so—as seems almost certain—it is my duty to find the miscreants and see them brought before the justicers.”
“Captain, I note you say, ‘them.’”
“Well, and is it not a perfectly good word?”
“Oh, I have nothing whatever against the word, depending upon its use.”
“Well then?”
“But to me, it seems to imply that there are more than one of these, as you call them, miscreants.”
“Yes, that is true,” said Khaavren, struck by the extreme justice of this observation.
The Easterner continued, “Do you, then, believe there were two or more?”
“I put the number at four or five,” said Khaavren.
“So many? I am astonished that I survived such an attack.”
“Well,” said Khaavren laconically.
“If, as you say, you know nothing of this incident—”
“I do say that, and, what is more, I even repeat it.”
“—then how is it you know the number of attackers?”
“From the number and the nature of your wounds, as well as certain rents in your clothing, which I took the liberty of inspecting.”
“Ah. Well, in your place, I should have done the same.”
“No doubt that is true.”
“Speaking of my weapon—”
“The weapon that fits the scabbard was not found.”
“But other weapons?”
“Your belongings are in the trunk under the bed.”
“Very good.”
“But, to return to the subject—”
“Yes, let us do so, by all means.”
“You say that you have no memory of what befell you.”
“None whatsoever. In fact, it would be good of you to tell me what you know.”
“You wish to know that?”
“It concerns me greatly, I assure you.”
“I can see that it would. Well, this is what happened, to the best of my belief: You were attacked, you defended yourself, and, as you were nearly overwhelmed, you threw yourself into the river to escape. You did manage to escape, but lost consciousness shortly thereafter, no doubt from the loss of blood, and the exertion, and perhaps the shock of the cold water.”