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returned from treating the King (he had a bad neck around this time, I think) - was washing my
much-sweated upper body.
`You are too good to me, Doctor. A nurse should do this.'
`A nurse will do this if I am called away to the King again.
`Our dear King! How I love him!' I cried (which was sincere, if a little embarrassing).
`As do we all, Oelph,' the Doctor said, squeezing water from a cloth over my chest and - with what
seemed like a thoughtful look - rubbing my skin clean. She was crouched at the side of my bed, which is
a very low one due to the constraints of space within my cell.
I looked into the Doctor's face, which seemed sad just then, I thought. `Don't fear, Doctor. You will
keep him 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- ?'
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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.'
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`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.'
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