Master, it was now about the time of year when the Court works itself into the most excited and febrile State as everyone prepares for the Circuition and the move to the Summer Palace. The Doctor was busy with her preparations just as everybody else was busy with theirs, though of course in her case there might have been expected to be an added excitement given that this would be her first Circuition. I did all that I could to help her, though I was constrained in this for a while by a slight fever which kept me in my bed for a few days.

I confess I hid the symptoms of my illness for as long as I could, feeling that the Doctor would think me weak, and also because I had heard from the apprentices of other doctors that however kindly and pleasant their masters might be with their paying patients, when their own devoted helpers took poorly they were, to a man (which naturally they all were), notoriously brusque and unsympathetic.

Doctor Vosill was, however, a very agreeable and understanding doctor to me while I was ill, and tended to my needs as though she were my mother (which I do not think she is quite old enough to be).

I would not record anything beyond my brief infirmity, and might even have skipped over it entirely, save to explain to my Master why there was a gap in my reports, but for the following, which struck me as possibly shedding some light on the Doctor's mysterious past before she appeared in the city two years ago.

I was, I freely confess, in a strange state at the height of my sickness, devoid of appetite, sweating freely and falling into a state of semi-unconsciousness. Whenever I closed my eyes I was convinced I was seeing odd and vexatious shapes and figures who tormented me with their manic and incomprehensible shiftings and cavortings.

My greatest fear, as may be imagined, was that I might say something that would reveal to the Doctor the fact that I had been charged with reporting on her actions. Of course, given that she is obviously a good and trustworthy person from all that I have seen and reported so far (and so evidently devoted to our good King), it may be that no ultimate damage would result from such a revelation, but however that may be I will of course heed my Master's wishes and keep my mission a secret.

Be assured then, Master, that no word or hint of that assignment was transmitted by me, and the Doctor remains none the wiser regarding these reports. Still, while that most precious confidence remained locked well within myself, other of my normal inhibitions and self-constraints had slackened off due to the influence of the fever, and I found myself on my bed in my cell one day, while the Doctor — who had just returned from treating the King (he had a bad neck around this time, I think) — was washing my muchsweated 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-?"

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."