The Doctor continued to massage the King's back. "We do say that prevention is better than cure, sir," she told him. "The time to look after the body is before there is anything wrong with it. The time to rest is before you feel too tired to do anything else, and the time to eat is before hunger consumes you.

The King frowned as the Doctor's hands moved over his body. "How I wish it was all so easy." he said with a sigh. "I think the body must be a simple thing in comparison to a state if it can be maintained on the basis of such platitudes."

The Doctor, I thought, looked a little hurt by this. "Then I am glad that my concern is for the health of your body, sir, not that of your country."

"I am my country," the King said sternly, though with an expression which belied his tone.

"Then be glad, sir, that your kingdom is in a better state than its king, who will not lie in a carriage like a sensible monarch would."

"Don't treat me like a child, Vosill!" the King said loudly, twisting round towards her. "Ow!" he said, grimacing, and collapsed back again. "What you don't realise, Vosill," he said, through gritted teeth, "being a woman, I suppose, is that in a carriage you have less room for manoeuvre. They take up the whole road, you see? A man on a mount, why, he can negotiate his way around all the irregularities on the road surface."

"I see, sir. Nevertheless, it is a fact that you are spending the whole day in the saddle, bouncing up and down and compressing the small pads between your vertebrae and forcing them into the nerve. That's what is making your spine hurt. Lying in a carriage, almost no matter how much it shakes and bounces, will certainly be better for you."

"Look, Vosill," the King said in an exasperated tone, levering himself up on one elbow and looking round at the Doctor. "How do you think it would look if the King took to a pleasuring couch and laid amongst the perfumed pillows of a ladies" carriage like some porcelainarsed concubine? What sort of monarch could do that? Eh? Don't be ridiculous." He laid carefully back on his front again.

"I take it your father never did such a thing, sir.,

"No, he… the King began, then looked suspiciously back at the Doctor before continuing. "No, he didn't. Of course not. He rode. And I will ride. I shall ride and make my back sore because that's what's expected of me. You shall make my back better because that's what's expected of you. Now, do your job, Doctor, and stop this damned prattling. Providence preserve me from the wittering of women! Aow! Will you be careful!"

"I have to find out where it hurts, sir."

"Well, you've found it! Now do what you're supposed to do, which is make it stop hurting. Wiester? Wiested"

Another servant came forward. "He's just stepped out, sir."

"Music," the King said. "I want music. Fetch the musicians."

"Sir." The servant turned to go.

The King snapped his fingers, bringing the servant back.

"Sir?"

"And wine."

"Sir."

"What a beautiful sunset, don't you think, Oelph?"

"Yes, mistress. Providence's recompense for the sky falling in upon us," I said, recalling Jollisce's phrase (I was sure it was one he'd heard from somebody else anyway).

"I suppose it's something," the Doctor agreed.

We were sitting on the broad front bench of the covered wagon which had become our home. I had been counting. I had slept in the carriage for eleven of the last sixteen days

(the other five I had been billeted with the other senior pages and apprentices in buildings in one of the towns we had camped within) and I would probably sleep in it again for another seven days out of the next ten, until we reached the city of Lep-Skatacheis, where we would stop for half a moon. Thereafter the wagon would be my home for eighteen days out of twenty-one until we reached Yvenage. Perhaps nineteen out of twenty-two if we encountered difficulties on the hill roads and were delayed.

The Doctor looked away from the sunset, gazing up the road, which was lined with tall trees standing in sandy earth on both sides. An orange-brown haze hung in the air above the swaying tops of the grander carriages ahead. "Are we nearly there yet?"

"Very nearly, mistress. This is the longest day's travel on either leg. The scouts should be in sight of the camp ground and the forward party ought to have the tents erected and the field kitchens set up. It is a long draw, but they say the way to look at it is as saving a day."

Ahead of us on the road were the grand carriages and covered wagons of the royal household. Immediately in front of us were two hauls, their broad shoulders and rumps swaying from side to side. The Doctor had refused a driver. She wanted to take the whip herself (though she used it little). This meant that we had to feed and care for the beasts ourselves each evening. I did not appreciate this, though my fellow pages and apprentices certainly did. So far the Doctor had taken on a much higher proportion of this menial work than I'd expected, but I resented doing any of it at all, and found it hard to believe that she could not see she was exposing both of us to ridicule by taking on such a degrading task.

She was looking at the sunset again. The light caught the edge of her cheek, outlining it in a colour like that of red gold. Her hair, falling loose across her shoulders, was glossily radiant with highlights like spun ruby.

"Were you still in Drezen when the rocks fell from the sky, mistress?"

"Hmm? Oh. Yes. I didn't leave until about two years later." She seemed lost in thought, and her expression suddenly melancholy.

"Did you come by way of Cuskery, by any chance, mistress?"

"Why, Yes, Oelph, I did," the Doctor said, her expression lightening as she turned to me. "You've heard of it?"

"Vaguely," I said. My mouth had gone quite dry while I wondered whether to say anything about what I had heard from Walen's page and Jollisce. "Umm, is it far from there to here?"

"The voyage is a good half a year," the Doctor said, nodding. She smiled up at the sky. "A very hot place, lush and steamy and full of ruined temples and various odd animals that have the run of the place because they are held to be sacred by some ancient sect or another. The air is saturated with the smell of spices, and when I was there there was a full night, when Xamis and Seigen had both long set, almost together, and Gidulph, Jairly and Foy were in the day sky, and Iparine was eclipsed by the world itself and for a bell or so there was only the starlight to shine on the sea and the city, and the animals all howled into the darkness and the waves I could hear from my room sounded very loud, though it was not really dark, just silver. People stood in the streets, very quiet, looking at the stars, as though relieved to find their existence was not a myth. I wasn't in the street just then, I was.. I'd met a terribly nice Sea Company captain that day. Very handsome," she said, and sighed.

In that instant she was like a young girl (and I a jealous youth).

"Did your ship go straight from there to here?"

"Oh no, there were four voyages after Cuskery: to Alyle on the Sea Company barquentine Face of fairly," she said, and smiled broadly, staring ahead. "Then from there to Fuollah on a trireme, of all things… a Farossi vessel, exImperial navy, then overland to Osk, and from there to Illerne by an argosy out of Xinkspar, finally to Haspide on a galliot of the Mifeli clan traders."

"It all sounds most romantic, mistress."

She gave what looked like a sad smile. "It was not without its privations and indignities on occasion," she said, tapping at the top of her hoot, "and once or twice this old dagger was drawn, but yes, looking back, it was. Very romantic." She took a deep breath and let it out, then swivelled and looked up into the skies, shading her eyes from Seigen.