"Banks, Iain M - Inversions 2.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Banks Iain M)

Coinless and hopeless, to be short about it, and even the Doctor might have had the sense to refuse but for the fact that she had, bizarrely, heard of this sickly urchin. 'She has a voice from another world,' she'd told me as she'd swirled on her cloak, as though this was all the explanation required.
'Please hurry, mistress!' wailed the whelp who'd come to summon us. Her accent was thick and her voice made irksome by her disease-dark snaggle teeth.
'Don't tell the Doctor what to do, you worthless piece of shit!' I told her, trying to be helpful. The lame brute ducked and hobbled away in front, across the glistening cobbles of the square.
'Oelph! Kindly keep a civil tongue in your head,' the Doctor told me, grabbing her medicine bag back from me.
'But mistress!' I protested. At least, though, the Doctor had waited until our limping guide was out of earshot before chastising me.
She screwed up her eyes against the lashing rain and raised her voice above the howl of the wind. 'Do you think we can get a cab?'
I laughed, then turned the offending noise into a cough. I made a show of looking around as we approached the lower edge of the Square, where the lame child had disappeared down a narrow street. I could just make out a few scavenging people scattered along the eastern side of the Square, flapping back and forth in their rags as they collected the half-rotted leaves and rain-sodden husks which had been blown there from the centre of the Square, where the vegetable market had been. Not another soul to be seen. Certainly not a cabbie, rickshaw puller or chair carrier. They had more sense than to be out in weather like this. 'I think not, mistress,' I said.
'Oh dear,' the Doctor said, and seemed to hesitate. For one wonderful moment I thought she might see sense and return us both back to the warmth and comfort of her apartments, but it was not to be. 'Oh well,' she said, holding the top of her cloak closed at her neck, settling her hat more firmly on her gathered-up hair and putting her head down to hurry onwards. 'Never mind. Come on, Oelph.'
Cold water was creeping down my neck. 'Coming, mistress.'
а
The day had passed reasonably well until then. The Doctor had bathed, spent more time writing in her journal, then we had visited the spice market and nearby bazaars while the storm was still just a dark brew on the western horizon. She had met with some merchants and other doctors at the house of a banker to talk about starting a school for doctors (I was consigned to the kitchen with the servants and so heard nothing of consequence and little of sense), then we walked smartly back up to the palace while the sky clouded over and the first few rain squalls swept in over from the outer docks. I fondly and quite mistakenly congratulated myself for escaping back to the comfort and warmth of the palace before the storm set in.
A note on the door to the Doctor's rooms informed us that the King desired to see her and so it was off towards his private apartments as soon as we'd put down our bags full of spices, berries, roots and earths. A servant intercepted us in the Long Corridor with news that the King had been wounded in a practice duel and hearts in our mouths we made quickly for the game halls.
а
'Sire, a leech! We have the finest! The rare Emperor leech, from Brotechen!'
'Nonsense! A burn-glass veining is what is required, followed by an emetic!'
'A simple letting will suffice. Your majesty, if I may'
'No! Get away from me, you wittering purple rogues! Away and become bankers the lot of you admit what you really love! Where's Vosill? Vosill!' the King cried up the broad stairs as he started up them, left hand clutched round his right upper arm. We were just starting down.
The King had been injured in a duelling round and it seemed as if every other doctor of repute in the city must have been in the duelling chamber that day, for they were clustered round the King and the two men at his side like purple-coated chasers round a beast at bay. Their own masters followed at their heels, holding duelling swords and half-masks, with one large, grey-faced individual isolated near the rear presumably being the one who'd cut the King.
Guard Commander Adlain was to one side of the King, Duke Walen on the other. Adlain, I will record only for posterity, is a man the nobility and grace of whose features and carriage are matched only by our good King, though the Guard Commander's appearance is swarthy where King Quience's is fair a faithful, loyal shadow ever at the side of our splendid ruler. But what monarch could wish for a more glorious shadow!
Duke Walen is a short, stooped man with leathery skin and small, deeply recessed eyes which are slightly crossed.
'Sir, are you sure you won't let my physician tend to that wound?' Walen said in his high, grating voice, while Adlain shooed away a couple of the harrying doctors. 'Look,' the Duke cried, 'it's dripping! The royal blood! Oh, my word! Physician! Physician! Really, my lord, this doctor fellow is quite the best. Let me just'
'No!' the King bellowed. 'I want Vosill! Where is she?'
'The lady would appear to have more pressing engagements,' Adlain said, not unreasonably. 'Lucky it's just a scratch, eh, my lord?' Then he looked up the steps to see the Doctor and myself descending. His expression became a smile.
'Vo!' the King roared, head down as he bounded up the curve of steps, briefly leaving both Walen and Adlain behind.
'Here, Sir,' the Doctor said, stepping down to meet him.
'Vosill! Where in the name of all the skies of hell have you been?'
'I'
'Never mind that! Let's to my chambers. You.' (And the King addressed me!) 'See if you can hold off this pack of bloodsucking scavengers. Here's my duelling sword.' The King handed me his own sword! 'You have full permission to use it on anyone who looks remotely like a physician. Doctor?'
'After you, sir.'
'Yes of course after me, Vosill. I am the King, dammit!'
а
It has always struck me how well our glorious King resembles the portraits one sees displayed of him in paintings and in the profiles which grace our coins. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to study those magnificent features that mid-Xamis, in the King's private apartments, while the Doctor treated the duelling wound and the King stood, clad in a long gown with one sleeve rolled up, in silhouette against the luminous expanse of an ancient plaster window, face raised and jaw set, as the Doctor worked at his out-held arm.
What a noble visage! What a regal demeanour! A mane of majestically curling blond hair, a brow of intelligence and stern wisdom, clear, flashing eyes the colour of the summer sky, a sharply defined, heroic nose, a broad, gracefully cultured mouth and a proud, brave chin, all set on the frame both strong and lithe which would be the envy of an athlete in his prime (and the King is in his most magnificent middle-age, when most men have started to go to fat). They do say that King Quience is excelled in his appearance and physique only by his late father, Drasine (whom they are already calling Drasine the Great, I am happy to report. And rightly so).
'Oh, Sir! Oh dear! Oh my goodness! Oh, help! Oh, what a calamity! Oh!'
'Leave us, Wiester,' the King said, sighing.
'Sir! Yes, Sir. Immediately, Sir.' The fat chamberlain, still alternately waving and kneading his hands, left the apartments, muttering and moaning.
'I thought you had armour to stop this sort of thing happening, sir,' the Doctor said. She wiped the last of the blood away with a swab which she then handed to me for disposal. I handed her the alcohol in exchange. She soaked another swab and applied it to the gash on the King's bicep. The wound was a couple of fingers long and a couple of pinches deep.
'Ouch!'
'I'm sorry, sir.'
'Aow! Aow! Are you sure this isn't some quackery of your own, Vosill?'
'The alcohol kills the ill humours which can infect a wound,' the Doctor said frostily. 'Sir.'
'As does, you claim, mouldy bread,' the King snorted.
'It has that effect.'
'And sugar.'
'That too, sir, in an emergency.'
'Sugar,' the King said, shaking his head.
'Don't you, sir?'
'What?'
'Have armour?'
'Of course we have armour, you imbecile Aow! Of course we have armour, but you don't wear it in the duelling chamber. In the name of Providence, if you were going to wear armour you might as well not duel at all!'