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The doctor turned to look at Vinaszh. ‘If the commander of the garrison will remain to assist me I would be grateful. I might have need of a soldier’s experience. It is necessary for all the rest of you, my revered and gracious lords, to leave the room now, please.’
Without rising from his knees, the prince said fiercely, ‘I will not leave my father’s side.’
This man was almost certainly about to become the King of Kings, the Sword of Perun, when the breathing of the man on the bed stopped.
‘An understandable desire, my lord prince,’ said the doctor calmly. ‘But if you care for your beloved father, as I can see you do, and wish to aid him now, you will honour me by waiting outside. Surgical treatment cannot take place in a crowd of men.’
‘There will be no . . . crowd,’ said the vizier. Mazendar’s lip curled at the word. ‘Prince Murash will remain, and I myself. You are not of the priestly caste, of course, and neither is the commander. We must stay here, accordingly. All others will depart, as requested.’
The physician simply shook his head. ‘No, my lord. Kill me now, if you wish. But I was taught, and believe, that members of the family and dear friends must not be present when a doctor treats an afflicted man. One must be of the priestly caste to be a royal physician, I know. But I have no such position . . . I am merely attending upon the Great King, at request. If I am to contend with this affliction, I must do so in the manner of my training. Otherwise I can avail the King of Kings not at all, and my own life becomes a burden to me if that is so.’
The fellow was a stuffy prig, greying before his time, Vinaszh thought, but he had courage. He saw Prince Murash look up, black eyes blazing. Before the prince could speak, however, a faint, cold voice from the bed murmured, ‘You heard the physician. He is brought here for his skills. Why is there wrangling in my presence? Get out. All of you.’
There was silence.
‘Of course, my gracious lord,’ said Mazendar the vizier, as the prince, mouth opening and closing, stood up uncertainly. The king had still not taken his eyes from the flames. His voice sounded to Vinaszh as if it already came from somewhere beyond the realms of living men. He would die, the doctor would die, Vinaszh, very probably, would die. He was a fool and a fool, near the end of his days.
Men began moving nervously out into the corridor, where torches had now been lit in the wall brackets. The wind whistled, an otherworldly, lonely sound. Vinaszh saw his captain of the guard set down the doctor’s things before quickly walking out. The young prince stopped directly in front of the slim physician, who stood very still, waiting for them to leave. Murash lifted his hands and murmured, fierce and low, ‘Save him, or these fingers end your life. I swear it by Perun’s thunder.’
The physician said nothing, merely nodded, calmly eyeing the hands of the overwrought prince as they opened and closed and then twisted before his face in a sudden gesture of strangulation. Murash hesitated another moment, then looked back at his father—it might be for the last time, Vinaszh thought, and had a swift, sharp memory of his own father’s deathbed in the south. Then the prince strode from the room as others made way for him. They heard his voice rising in prayer again, from the hallway.
Mazendar was last to leave. He paused near the bed, glanced at Vinaszh and the physician, looking uncertain for the first time, and then murmured, ‘Have you instructions for me, dear my lord?’
‘I gave them,’ said the man on the bed quietly. ‘You saw who was here. Serve him loyally if he allows. He might not. The Lord of Thunder and the Lady guard your soul if that is so.’
The vizier swallowed. ‘And yours, my great lord, if we meet not again.’
The king made no reply. Mazendar went out. Someone closed the door from out in the corridor.
Immediately, moving briskly, the physician opened his linen bag and extracted a small sachet. He strode to the fire and tossed the contents onto it.
The flames turned blue, and a scent of wildflowers suddenly filled the room like an eastern springtime. Vinaszh blinked. The figure on the bed stirred.
‘Ispahani?’ said the King of Kings.
The physician looked surprised. ‘Yes, my gracious lord. I would not have imagined you—’
‘I had a physician from the Ajbar Islands once. He was very skilled. Unfortunately he courted a woman he would have done better not to have touched. He used this scent, I recall.’
Rustem crossed to the bedside. ‘It is taught that the nature of the treatment room can affect the nature of the treatment. We are influenced by such things, my lord.’
‘Arrows are not,’ said the king. But he had shifted a little to look at the physician, Vinaszh saw.
‘Perhaps that is so,’ said the doctor, noncommittally. He came to the bedside and, for the first time, bent to examine the shaft and the wound. Vinaszh saw him suddenly check his motion. A strange expression crossed the bearded features. He lowered his hands.
Then he looked over at Vinaszh. ‘Commander, it is necessary for you to find gloves for me. The best leather ones in the fortress, as quickly as possible.’
Vinaszh asked no questions. He was likely to die if the king died. He went, closing the door behind him, and hurried along the corridor, past those waiting there, and down the stairwell to find his own riding gloves.
RUSTEM HAD BEEN TERRIFIED when he entered, overwhelmed, summoning all his reserves of composure so as not to show it. He’d almost dropped his implements, feared someone would see his trembling hands, but the captain of the guard had moved quickly to take them. He’d used the formal movements of genuflection to speak a calming invocation in his mind.
After rising, he’d been more blunt than he ought to have been, asking the courtiers—and the vizier and a prince!—to leave the room. But he always used a manner of crisp efficiency to suggest authority beyond his years, and this was no time or place to deviate from his customary methods. If he was to die, it hardly mattered what they thought of him, did it? He asked the commander to stay. A soldier would be unfazed by bloodshed and screaming, and someone might have to hold the afflicted person down.
The afflicted person. The King of Kings. Sword of Perun. Brother to the Sun and Moons.
Rustem forced himself to stop thinking in that way. This was a patient. An injured man. That was what mattered. The courtiers left. The prince—Rustem didn’t know which of the king’s sons this was—paused in front of him and made vivid with twisting hands the threat of death that had been with Rustem from the moment he’d left his garden.
It could not be allowed to matter. All would be as had been written.
He’d cast the Ajbar powder into the fire to bring the room in tune with more harmonious presences and spirits, then crossed to the bed to examine the arrow and the wound.
And he had smelled kaaba there.
His mind reeling with shock, he’d realized that the smell had jogged a hovering awareness, and then a second one had emerged and left him very much afraid. He’d sent the commander hurrying for gloves. He needed them.
If he touched that arrow shaft he would die.
Alone in the room with the King of Kings, Rustem discovered that his fears were those of a physician and not a lowly subject now. He wondered how to say what was in his mind.
The king’s eyes were on his face now, dark and cold. Rustem saw rage in them. ‘There is a poison on the shaft,’ Shirvan said.
Rustem bowed his head. ‘Yes, my lord. Kaaba. From the fijana plant.’ He took a breath and asked, ‘Did your own physicians touch the arrow?’
The king nodded his head very slightly. No hint of anger diminishing. He would be in very great pain but wasn’t showing it. ‘All three of them. Amusing. I ordered them to be executed for their incompetence, but they would each