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'Indeed, sir, but you should not. How is your ankle today? Let's take a look
at it, shall we?'
'I believe it is getting better. Will you change the dressing?'
'Of course. Oelph, would you . . . ?'
I took the dressing and a few instruments from the Doctor's bag and arranged
them on a cloth on the King's huge bed. We were in the King's private chamber,
the day after
Nolieti's murder.
The King's apartments at Yvenir are arranged within a splendid domed cupola
set high at the rear of the palace, upon what is the roof to the main part of
the great building. The gold-leaf-covered dome is set back from the terraced
edge of the roof and separated from it by a small formal garden. As the roof
level is just above the height of the tallest trees on the ridge behind,
marking the summit of the hills on this side of the valley, the view from the
northfacing windows which bring light into the most spacious and airy
apartments is of nothing but sky beyond the clipped geometrical perfections of
the gardens and the white tusk balustrade at their edge. This lends the
apartments a strange, enchanted air of detachment from the real world. I dare
say the clear mountain air contributes to this effect of isolated purity, but
there is something most especially about that lack of sight of the mundane
disorder of the landscape of men which gives the place its singular spirit.
'Will I be well enough for the ball at the next small moon?' the King asked
the Doctor as he watched her prepare the new dressing for his ankle. In truth
the old dressing looked spotless, as the King had taken to his bed with a
tingly throat and sneezing fits shortly after the news of Nolieti's demise had
been communicated to us in the Hidden Gardens the day before.
'I should imagine you will be able to attend, sir,' the Doctor said. 'But do
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try not to sneeze over everybody.'
'I am the King, Vosill,' the King told her, sniffing into a fresh
handkerchief. 'I shall sneeze over whom I please.'
'Then you will spread the ill humour to others, they will incubate it while
you grow well again, they will perhaps subsequently inadvertently sneeze in
your presence and consequently reinfect you, who will play host to it again
while they recover, and so on.'
'Don't lecture me, Doctor. I'm in no mood for it.' The King looked round at
the slumped pile of pillows propping him up, opened his mouth to call a
servant but then started to sneeze, his blond locks bouncing as his head went
back and forth. The Doctor stood up from her chair and, while he was still
sneezing, pulled the King upright and rearranged his pillows. The King looked
at her in some surprise.
'You are stronger than you look, are you not, Doctor?'
'Yes, sir,' the Doctor said with a modest smile as she went back to undoing
the dressing on the King's ankle. 'And yet still weaker than I would be.' She
was dressed as she had been the day before. Her long red hair was more
carefully prepared than was usual, combed and plaited and hanging down her
long dark jacket almost to her slim waist. She looked at me and I became aware
that I was staring. I looked down at my feet.
Poking out from under the great bed's valance was a corner of cream-coloured
clothing that looked oddly familiar. I wondered at this for a moment or two
until, with a pang of jealousy for the right of Kings, I realised it was part
of a shepherdess's costume. I pushed it further under the valance with my
shoe.
The King settled himself back amongst his pillows. 'What is the news on that
boy who ran away? The one who killed my chief questioner?'
'They caught him this morning,' the Doctor said, busying herself with the old
dressing.
'However, I do not think he committed the murder.'
'Really?' the King said.
Personally, Master, I did not think he sounded as if he particularly cared one
way or the other what the Doctor thought on this matter, but this was the cue
for the Doctor to explain in some detail especially to a man, however
exalted, who had a cold and had just eaten a light breakfast exactly why she
had convinced herself that Unoure had not killed Nolieti. I have to say that
the consensus amongst the other apprentices, assistants and pages, arrived at
in the kitchen parlour of the palace the previous evening, was that
the only perplexing aspect about the whole business was how Unoure had been
able to put off the dark deed for so long.
'Well,' the King said, 'I dare say Quettil's fellow will get the truth out of
him.'
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