Duke Ormin gave a distracted, "Hmm." The other two men glared on at the Doctor and the gaan Kuduhn with what looked like disappointment, though in the new Duke Walen's case this required no alteration to his normal expression.

"Fascinating though I'm sure this exchange is in its native language, I have other business to attend to," Adlain said. "If you'll excuse me…" He nodded to the Dukes and walked off, nodding to the two bulky guard captains, who followed in his wake.

"Duke Walen, Duke Ulresile," the Doctor said, still smiling. "Thank you so much. I am most flattered you thought to introduce me to the gaan with such dispatch."

The new Duke Walen remained silent. Ulresile seemed to swallow something bitter. "Our pleasure, madam."

"Is the gaan required for an audience with the King?" she asked.

"No, he is not required for an audience with the King," Ulresile said.

"`Then may I take him from you for a while? I'd so much like to talk with him."

Ulresile tipped his head and gave a small twist of a smile. "Please. Be our guest."

Master, I spent a bell and a half with the Doctor and her newfound friend in an alcove off the Song Court Gallery and learned nothing except that Drezem talk like the world is due to end at any moment and sometimes take their wine with water and a little sugar. The gaan Kuduhn did have an audience with the King later that day, and asked the Doctor to interpret for him, as his Imperial was little better than his Haspidian. She agreed happily.

That afternoon, I was sent by myself to the apothecary Shavine to buy chemicals and other supplies for the Doctor's workshop. The Doctor looked quite radiant when I left, dressing and preparing with great care for her meeting with the gaan Kuduhn and the King. When I inquired, I was told that I would not be needed again until the evening.

It was a fine, warm day. I took the long way to the apothecary's, walking down by the docks and recalling the stormy night half a year earlier when I had come here in search of the children who had been sent for ice. I recalled the child in the cramped, filthy room in the tenement in the poor quarter and the terrible fever that had killed her despite all the Doctor could do.

The docks smelled of fish and tar and the sea.

Clutching a hamper of glazed clay jars and glass tubes all wrapped in straw, I stopped off at a tavern. I tried some wine with water and sugar, but it was not to my taste. For some time I just sat and stared at the street through the open window. I returned to the palace around the fourth bell of the evening.

The door to the Doctor's apartments hung open. This was not like her. I hesitated to proceed further, suddenly filled with a sense of dread. I entered and found a pair of short dress boots and a small formal waist-cape lying on the floor of the sitting room. I put my hamper of chemicals and ingredients down on the table and went through to the workshop, where I could hear a voice.

The Doctor sat with her feet up on the workshop bench, her naked heels resting on a sheaf of papers, her legs exposed to the knee and the neck of her gown unbuttoned over her chest. Her long copper-red hair hung down loose behind her. One of the room's roof-hung censers swung in slow loops above her head, leaving a smoky, herb-scented trail. Her battered old knife lay on the bench by her elbow. She held a goblet. Her face looked red about the eyes. I got the impression she had been talking to herself. She turned to me and fixed me with a watery look.

"Ah, Oelph," she said.

"Mistress? Are you all right?"

"Oh, not really, Oelph." She picked up a jug. "Want a drink?"

I looked around. "Shall I just close the apartment door?"

She appeared to consider this. "Yes," she said. "Closing doors seems to be the order of the day. Why not? Then come back and have a drink. It's sad to drink alone."

I went and closed the door, found a goblet and brought another chair into the workshop to sit with her. She poured some liquor into my goblet.

I looked into the vessel. The liquid did not smell. "What is this, mistress?"

"Alcohol," she said. "Very pure." She sniffed at it. "Though it still has an intriguing bouquet."

"Mistress, is this the distillation you have the royal apothecary make for us?"

"The same," she said, drinking from her goblet.

I sipped at it, then coughed and tried not to splutter it back out again. "It's strong, isn't it?" I said hoarsely.

"It needs to be," the Doctor said in a morose tone.

"What is wrong, mistress?"

She looked at me. After a moment or two she said, "I am a very foolish woman, Oelph."

"Mistress, you are the cleverest and most wise woman I have ever met, indeed you are one of the cleverest and most wise people I have ever met."

"You are too kind, Oelph," she said, staring into her goblet. "But I am still foolish. Nobody is smart in every way. It's as though we all have to have something we're stupid about. I have just been very stupid with the King."

"With the King, mistress?" I asked, worried.

"Yes, Oelph. With the King."

"Mistress, I am sure the King is most considerate and understanding and will not hold whatever you have done against you. Indeed perhaps the offence, if offence there was, seems greater to you than it does to him."

"Oh, it wasn't much of an offence, Oelph, it was just… stupidity."

"I find that hard to believe, mistress."

"Me too. I find it hard to believe. But I did it."

I took the merest sip from my goblet. "Can you tell me what happened, mistress?"

She looked unsteadily at me again. "Will you keep what I tell you…'she began, and I confess that my heart seemed to sink into my boots at these words. But I was saved from a further extension of my perjury and betrayal, or from a wantonly rash admission of my own, by her next words. "Oh, no," she said, shaking her head and rubbing her face with her free hand. "No, it doesn't matter. People will hear if the King wants them to. It doesn't matter anyway. Who cares?"

I said nothing. She bit her lower lip, then took another drink. She smiled sadly at me as she said, "I told the King how I feel about him, Oelph," she said, and sighed. She gave a shrug as though to say, Well, there you are.

I looked down at the floor. "And how is that, mistress?" I asked quietly.

"I think you might be able to guess, Oelph," she said.

I found that I too was biting my lip now. I took a drink, for something to do. "I'm sure we both love the King, mistress."

"Everybody loves the King," she said bitterly. "Or says that they do. It is what one is supposed to feel, what one is obliged to feel. I felt something else. Something it was very stupid and unprofessional of me to admit to, but I did. After the audience with gaan Kuduhn you know I do believe that old bastard Walen thought he was setting me up?" she said, as though interrupting herself. I choked on my drink. I was unused to hearing the Doctor swear. It distressed me. "Yes," she said. "I think he thought that I wasn't… that I was… well, anyway, it was after the audience with the gaan. We were alone. Just him and me. A stiff neck. I don't know," she said miserably. "Maybe I was excited at having met somebody from home."

Suddenly she sobbed, and I looked up to see her bending forward so that her head was lowered towards her knees. She put the goblet down with a thud on the workbench and held her head in her hands. "Oh, Oelph," she whispered. "I have done such terrible things."

I stared at her, wondering what in Providence she could be talking about. She sniffed, wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve, then put her hand out to the goblet again. It hesitated by the old dagger lying nearby, then grasped the goblet and brought it towards her lips. "I can't believe I did that, Oelph. I can't believe that I told him. And do you know what he told me?" she asked, with a hopeless, wavering smile. I shook my head.