"I was very glad your majesty sent for me," the Doctor said quietly, binding the wound.
"It was an abscess that killed my father, you know," the King told the Doctor.
"So I have heard, sir." She smiled up at him. "But it did not kill you."
The King smiled and looked ahead. "No. Indeed." Then he grimaced. "But then he did not suffer from my twisted guts, or my aching back, or my other aches."
"He is not recorded as mentioning such things, sir," the Doctor said, rolling the dressing round and round the King's mightily muscled arm.
He looked at her sharply. "Are you suggesting I'm a whiner, Doctor?"
Vosill looked up, surprised. "Why, no, sir. You bear your many unfortunate ills with great fortitude." She kept on unwinding the bandage. (The Doctor has bandages specially made for her by the court tailor, and insists
upon the cleanliness of the conditions of their manufacture. Even so, before she will use then she boils them in already-boiled water which she has treated with the bleaching powder she also has specially made for her, by the palace apothecary.) "Indeed your majesty is to be extolled for his willingness to talk of his ailments," the Doctor told him. "Some people — taking stoicism, manly pride or simple reticence beyond its fit limit — suffer in silence until they are at death's door, and then promptly pass over that threshold, when a word, a single complaint at a much earlier stage in their illness would have let a doctor diagnose the problem, treat it and cause them to live. Pain, or even just discomfort, is like the warning sent by a frontier guard, sir. You are free to choose to ignore it, but you should not be unduly surprised if you are subsequently over-run by invaders."
The King gave a small laugh and looked on the Doctor with a tolerant, kindly expression. "Your cautionary military metaphor is duly appreciated, Doctor."
"Thank you, sir." The Doctor adjusted the bandage so that it would sit properly on the King's arm. "There was a note on my door which said you wanted to see me, sir. I assume whatever that was about must have predated your fencing injury."
"Oh," the King said. "Yes." He put one hand up to the back of his neck. "My neck. That stiffness again. You might look at it later."
"Of course, sir."
The King sighed, and I could not help noticing that his stance altered, so that he was less upright, less regal, even. "Father had the constitution of a haul. They say he once took on a yoke and pulled one of the poor beasts backwards through a paddy."
"I heard it was a calf, sir."
"So? A haul calf weighs more than most men," the King said sharply. "And besides, were you there, Doctor?"
"I was not, sir."
"No. You weren't." The King stared into the distance, a look of sadness on his face. "But, you're right, I think it was a calf." He sighed again. "The old stories talk of the kings of old lifting hauls — adult hauls, Doctor — lifting hauls above their heads and then throwing them at their enemies. Ziphygr of Anlios ripped a wild ertheter in half with his bare hands, Scolf the Strong tore off the head of the monster Gruissens with one hand, Mimarstis the Sompolian-"
"Might these not be simply legends, sir?"
The King stopped talking and looked straight ahead for a moment (I confess I froze), then he turned as far round towards the Doctor as he could with the bandage still being wound. "Doctor Vosill," he said quietly.
"Sir?"
"You do not interrupt the King."
"Did I interrupt you, sir?"
"You did. Do you know nothing?"
"App-"
"Do they teach you naught in this archipelago anarchy of yours? Do they instil no manners whatsoever in their children and their women? Are you so degenerate and impolite that you have no conception of how to behave towards your betters?"
The Doctor looked hesitantly at the King.
"You may answer," he told her.
"The archipelagic republic of Drezen is notorious for its ill manners, sir," the Doctor said, with every appearance of meekness. "I am ashamed to report that I am considered one of the polite ones. I do apologise."
"My father would have had you flogged, Vosill. And that was if he'd decided to take pity on you as a foreigner and therefore unused to our ways."
"I am grateful that in your sympathy and understanding you surpass your noble father, sir. I will try never to interrupt you again."
"Good." The King resumed his proud stance. The Doctor kept on winding the last of the bandage. "Manners were better in the old days too," the King said.
"I'm sure they were," the Doctor said. "Sir."
"The old gods walked amongst our ancestors. The times were heroic. Great deeds could still be done. We had not fallen from our strength then. The men were greater and braver and stronger. And the women were more fair and more graceful."
"I'm sure it was just as you say, sir."
"Everything was better then."
"Just so, sir," the Doctor said, tearing the end of the bandage lengthwise.
"Everything just gets.. worse," the King said with another sigh.
"Hmm," the Doctor said, securing the dressing with a knot. "There, sir, is that better?"
The King flexed his arm and shoulder, inspected his bulging arm, then rolled the gown's sleeve down over the wound. "How long till I can fence again?"
"You can fence tomorrow, gently. Pain will let you know when to stop, sir."
"Good," the King said, and clapped the Doctor on the shoulder. She had to take a step to one side, but looked pleasantly surprised. I thought I saw a blush on her face. "Well done, Vosill." He looked her up and down. "Shame you're not a man. You could learn to fence too, hmm?"
"Indeed, Sir." The Doctor nodded to me and we started to put away the instruments of her profession.
The sick brat's family lived in a pair of filthy, stinking rooms at the top of a cramped and rickety tenement in the Barrows, above a street the storm had turned into a rushing brown sewer.
The concierge was not worthy of the name. She was a fat drunken harridan, a repulsively odoured toll-taker who demanded coin from the Doctor on the pretext that our coming in from the street with such filth on our feet and hose would mean she'd be put to extra work removing it. Judging from the state of the hallway — or as much of it as could be made out in the one-lamp gloom — the city fathers might as well charge her for bringing the muck of its interior out on to the streets of the city, but the Doctor just tutted and dug into her purse. The harridan then demanded and got more coin for letting the crippled child up the stairs with us. I knew better than to attempt to say anything on the Doctor's behalf, and so had to content myself with glaring at the obese nag in the most threatening way I could.
The way up the narrow, creaking, alarmingly pitched staircase led us through a variety of stenches. I experienced in turn sewage, animal ordure, unwashed human bodies, rotting food and some foul form of cooking. This medley was accompanied by an orchestration of noises: the buffeting screech of the wind outside, the wail of babies crying from what seemed like most of the rooms, the shouts, curses, screams and thuds of an argument behind one half-splintered door and the woeful-sounding lowing of beasts shackled in the courtyard.
Raggedly dressed children ran up and down the stairs in front of us, squealing and grunting like animals. People crowded on to the cramped and ill-lit landings on each level to watch us pass and make remarks about the fineness of the Doctor's cloak and the contents of her big dark bag. I kept a handkerchief to my mouth all the way up the stairs, and wished I had soaked it in perfume more recently than I had.
Achieved by a final flight of stairs even more fragilelooking and shaky than those we had encountered on the way up, the top floor of this cess-pile was, I swear, swaying in the wind. Certainly I felt dizzy and sick.