Inversions

He watched her clean out the wound for a while. 'Still, perhaps you ought to be wary of him, eh?'

The Doctor looked up. I believe she might have been surprised. 'If your majesty says so.'

'And Duke Wen,' the King said with a grunt. 'Your ears should burn when he talks about women being doctors, or for that matter women being anything other than whores, wives and mothers.'

'Indeed, sir,' the Doctor said through gritted teeth. She looked to me to ask for something, then saw that I already held the appropriate jar in my hand. I was rewarded with a smile and a nod of appreciation. I took the alcohol-soaked swab and dropped it in the rubbish bag.

'What's that?' the King said, brows furrowed in suspicion.

'It's an ointment, sir.'

'I can see it's an ointment, Vosill. What does it- Oh.' 'As you feel, sir, it dulls the pain. Also it fights the particles of ill humour which infest the air, and aids the healing process.'

'Is that like the stuff you put on my leg that time, on the abscess?'

'It is, sir. What an excellent memory your majesty has. That was the first time I treated you, I believe.'

The King caught sight of his reflection in one of the great mirrors which adorned his private resting chambers and drew himself up straighter. He looked at the footman by the door, who came over and took the wine goblet from him, then the King lifted up his chin and pushed his hand through his hair, shaking his head so that his locks, which had been flattened by the sweat under his duelling half-mask, fell bouncing free again.

'That's right,' he said, inspecting his noble outline in the looking glass. 'I was in a poor state, from what I can recall. All the saw-bones thought I was going to die.'

'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