well! He worries that his father was the stronger man and he died young, but you'll keep him well, won't you?'
'What? Yes, yes, of course.'
'Oh! You weren't worried about me, were you?' (And I confess my heart gave a little leap within my hot and breathless chest, for what young man would not be taken with the idea of a good and handsome woman, especially one tending so intimately to his bodily needs as at that point, worrying about and caring for him?) 'Don't worry,' I said, putting out a hand. 'I'm not going to die.' She looked uncertain, so I added, 'Am I?'
'No, Oelph,' she said, and smiled kindly. 'No, you're not going to die. You're young and strong and I'll look after you. Another half-day and you should start to come round again.' She looked down at the hand I had extended to her, which I now realised was on her knee. I gulped.
'Ah, this old dagger of yours,' I said, not so fevered that I could not feel embarrassed. I tapped the old knife's pommel where it protruded from the top of the Doctor's boot, near where my hand had rested. 'It has, ah, always fascinated me. What sort of knife is it? Have you ever had to use it? I dare say it cannot be a surgical tool. It looks too dull. Or is it some ceremonial token? What-?'
The Doctor smiled and put one hand over my lips, quieting me. She reached down and pulled the dagger from its sheath in her boot, handing it to me. 'Here,' she said. I took its battered-looking length in my hands. 'I'd tell you to be careful,' she said, still smiling, 'but there's little point.'
'Nor much in the way of edge,' I said, running one sweaty thumb along it.
The Doctor laughed loudly. 'Why, Oelph, a joke,' she said, clapping me gently on the shoulder. 'And one that works in many a language too. You must be getting better.' Her eyes looked bright.
I felt suddenly shy. 'You have looked after me so well, mistress…' I was not sure what else to say, and so I studied the dagger. It was a heavy old thing, about a hand and a half long and made of old steel which had become minutely pitted with small rusty holes. The blade was slightly bent and the tip had been broken off and rounded with time. There were a few nicks on each blade-edge, which truly were so dull one would have to saw away with some force to cut anything much more robust than a jellyfish. The tusk grip was pitted too, though on a larger scale. Around the pommel and in a trio of lines down the length of the grip down to the stop there were a few semiprecious stones each no bigger than a crop grain, and many holes where it appeared similar stones had once rested. The top of the pommel was formed by a large dark smoky stone which, when I held it up to the light, I could just see through. Round the pommel's bottom rim what I mistook at first for some wavy carving was really a line of little pits which had lost all but one of the small pale stones.
I ran a finger down them. 'You should have this repaired, mistress,' I told her. 'The palace armourer would oblige, I'm sure, for the stones do not look expensive and the workmanship is not of the first order. Let me take it down to the armoury when I am well. I know the deputy armourer's assistant. It would be no trouble. It would please me to do something for you.'
'There is no need,' the Doctor said. 'I like it well enough just as it is. It has sentimental value. I carry it as a keepsake.'
'From whom, mistress?' (The fever! Normally I would not have been so bold!)
'An old friend,' she said easily, mopping off my chest and then putting the cloths aside and sitting back on the floor.
'From Drezen?'
'From Drezen,' she nodded. 'Given to me the day I set sail.'
'It was new then?'
She shook her head. 'It was old then.' The thin light of a Seigen sunset shone through a cracked-open window and reflected redly on her netted, gathered hair. 'A family heirloom.'
'They do not take very good care of their heirlooms if they let them fall into such disrepair, mistress. There must be more holes than stones.'
She smiled. 'The stones that are missing were used to good effect. Some bought protection in uncultured places where a person travelling alone is seen more as prey than as guest, and others paid my way on some of the sea passages that brought me here.'
'They do not look very valuable.'
'They are more highly prized elsewhere, perhaps. But the knife, or what it carried, kept me safe and it kept me moving. I have never had to use it — well, I have had to brandish it and wave it around a bit — but I have never had to use it to hurt anyone. And as you say, that is just as well for me, for it is quite the dullest knife I have seen since I arrived here.'
'Quite so, mistress. It would not do to have the dullest dagger in the Palace. All the others are so very sharp.'
She looked at me (and I can only say, she looked at me sharply, for that was a piercing gaze). She gently took the dagger from me and rubbed a thumb down one blade. 'I think perhaps I will have you take it to the armoury, though only to have an edge put on it.'
'They might re-point it too, mistress. A dagger is for stabbing.'
'Indeed.' She put it back in its sheath.
'Oh, mistress!' I cried, suddenly full of fear. 'I'm sorry!'
'For what, Oelph?' she said, her beautiful face, so concerned, suddenly close to mine.
'For — for talking to you like this. For asking you personal questions. I am only your servant, your apprentice. This is not seemly.'
'Oh, Oelph,' she said, smiling, her voice soft, her breath cool on my cheek. 'We can ignore seemliness, at least in private, don't you think?'
'May we, mistress?' (And I confess my heart, fevered though it was, leapt at these words, wildly expecting what I knew I could not expect.)
'I think so, Oelph,' she said, and took my hand in hers and squeezed it gently. 'You may ask me whatever you like. I can always say no, and I am not the type to take offence easily. I would like us to be friends, not just Doctor and apprentice.' She tilted her head, a quizzical, amused expression on her face. 'Is that all right with you?'
'Oh, yes, mistress!'
'Good. We'll-' Then the Doctor cocked her head again, listening to something. 'There's the door,' she said, rising. 'Excuse me.'
She returned holding her bag. 'The King,' she said. Her expression, it seemed to me, was half-regretful, halfradiant. 'Apparently his toes are sore.' She smiled. 'Will you be all right by yourself, Oelph?'
'Yes, mistress.'
'I'll be back as soon as I can. Then maybe we'll see if you're ready for something to eat.'
It was a five-day later, I think, that the Doctor was called to the Slave Master Tunch. His house was an imposing one in the Merchants' Quarter, overlooking the Grand Canal. Its tall, raised front doors sat imposingly above the sweeping double staircase leading from the street, but we were not able to enter that way. Instead our hired seat was directed to a small quay a few streets away, where we transferred to a little cabin-punt which took us, shutters closed, down a side canal and round to the rear of the building and a small dock hidden from the public waters.
'What is all this about?' the Doctor asked me as the punt's shutters were opened by the boatman and the vessel bumped against the dark timbers of a pier. It was well into summer yet still the place seemed chilly and smelled of dankness and decay.
'Mistress?' I said, fastening a spiced kerchief round my mouth and nose.
'This secrecy.'
'And why are you doing that?' she asked, obviously annoyed, as a servant helped the boatman secure the punt.
'What, this, mistress?' I asked, pointing to the kerchief.
'Yes,' she said, standing up and rocking our small craft.
'It is to combat the evil humours, mistress.'
'Oelph, I have told you before that infectious agents are transmitted in breath or bodily fluids, even if they are insect body fluids,' she said. 'A bad smell by itself will not make you ill. Thank you.' The servant accepted her bag and laid it carefully on the small dock. I did not reply. No doctor knows everything and it is better to be safe than sorry. 'Anyway,' she said, 'I am still unclear why all this secrecy is required.'
