Guy Kay - Lord of Emperors

"Crescens declared his undying love for me and then hammered me half to my grave when I told him I preferred you. Hadn't you heard?"

She laughed. "No. Come, what happened?"

"Various things." The chariot-driver hesitated. Rustem could feel the man's heartbeat. He said nothing. "Tell me," Scortius murmured, "Cleander Bonosus, is he still in trouble with his father? Do you know?" Shirin blinked. Clearly not the question she'd expected. "He did me a great service when I was hurt," Scortius added. "Brought me to the doctor."

The man was being subtle. This wasn't, Rustem surmised, the real question he wanted answered. And because he had been under the Hippodrome stands he had an idea what that real question was. Something occurred to him, rather too late.

Scortius was undeniably clever. He was also clearly unaware of something. Rustem had certainly never brought it up, and it seemed evident no one else had. It might be part of the city's talk, or forgotten in a time of uttermost turbulence, but it hadn't penetrated this room.

The Greens" dancer said, "The boy? I really don't know. I suspect all'schanged there, after what happened in their house."

A heartbeat. Rustem felt it, and winced. He'd been right, after all.

"What happened in their house?" Scortius asked.

She told him.

Thinking back, later, Rustem was impressed, yet again, with the strength of will the wounded man displayed, continuing to speak, expressing conventional, polite sorrow at tidings of a young woman's untimely, self-inflicted death. But Rustem had had his hands on the man's body, and he could feel the impact of the woman's words. Caught breath, then measured, careful breath, a tremor, involuntary, and the pounding heart.

Taking pity, Rustem finished his dressing change more swiftly than usual (he could do it again, later) and reached for the tray of medications by the bed. "I have to give you something for sleep now, as usual," he lied. "You'll be unable to entertain the lady in any proper fashion."

Shirin of the Greens, by all evidence unaware of anything untoward having just transpired, took her cue like an actress and rose to go. She stopped by the bedside and bent down to kiss the patient on the forehead. "He never entertains any of us in a proper fashion, doctor." She straightened and smiled. "I’ll be back, my dear. Rest, to be ready for me." She turned and went out.

He looked at his patient and, wordlessly, poured two full measures of his preferred sedative.

Scortius stared up at him from his pillow. His eyes were dark, his face quite white now. He accepted the mixture, both doses, without protest.

"Thank you," he said, after a moment. Rustem nodded.

"I'm sorry," he said, surprising himself.

Scortius turned his face to the wall.

Rustem reclaimed his walking stick and went out, closing the door behind him, to leave the man his privacy.

He had his speculations but he quelled them. Whatever the man in the bed had said before about his doctor knowing all, it wasn't the truth, ought not to be the truth.

It occurred to him, going down the corridor, that they really needed to assert more control over Shaski's movements here. It was not at all proper for a child, the doctor's son, to be part of the disruption in patients" rooms.

He would have to speak with Katyun about it, among other things. It was time for a midday meal, but he paused to look for Shaski in his put-together treatment rooms in the next building. The boy was more often there than anywhere else.

He wasn't now. Someone else was. Rustem recognized the Rhodian artisan-not the young one who'd saved his life in the streets, but the other, more senior fellow who had dressed them in white and taken them all to a wedding feast.

The man-Crispinus was his name, something like that-looked unwell, but not in a fashion likely to elicit Rustem's sympathy. Men who drank themselves into illness, especially this early in the day, had only themselves to blame for the consequences.

"Good day, doctor," the artisan said, clearly enough. He stood up from the table he'd been sitting upon. No visible unsteadiness. "Am I intruding?"

"Not at all," Rustem said. "How may I…?"

"I came to visit Scortius, thought I'd confirm with his doctor that it was all right."

Well, wine-smitten or not, at least this man knew the protocol in matters of this sort. Rustem nodded briskly. "I wish there were more like you. There was just a party with dancers in his room, and wine."

The Rhodian- Crispin was the name, actually-smiled faintly. There was a line of strain above his eyes and a degree of unhealthy pallor that suggested that he'd been drinking for longer than this morning. It didn't square with what Rustem remembered of the decisive man he'd encountered that first day here, but this wasn't his patient and he made no comment.

"Who would drink wine this early in the day?" the Rhodian said wryly. He rubbed his forehead. "Dancers entertaining him? That sounds like Scortius. You threw them out?"

Rustem had to smile. "Does that sound like me?"

"From what I've heard, yes," The Rhodian was another clever man, Rustem decided. He kept a hand on the table, supporting himself.

"I gave him a soporific just now, he'll sleep awhile. You'd do better to come back later in the afternoon."

"I'll do that, then." The man pushed himself away from the table and swayed. His expression was rueful. "Sorry. I've been indulging… a sorrow."

"May I help?" Rustem said politely.

"I wish, doctor. No. Actually… I'm leaving. Day after next. Sailing west."

"Oh. Going home? No further employment here for you?"

"You might say that," the artisan said after a moment.

"Well… a safe journey to you." He really didn't know the man. The Rhodian nodded his head and walked steadily past Rustem and out the door. Rustem turned to follow him. The man stopped in the hallway.

"I was given your name, you know. Before I left home. I'm… sorry we never had a chance to meet."

"Given my name?" Rustem echoed, bemused. "How?"

"A… friend. Too complicated to explain. Oh… there's something in there for you, by the way. One of the messenger boys brought it while I was waiting. Apparently left at the gate." He gestured towards the innermost of the two rooms. An object wrapped in cloth stood on the examining table there.

"Thank you," Rustem said.

The Rhodian went down the short corridor and out. The sunlight, Rustem thought, was probably an affliction for him just now. Indulging a sorrow. Not his patient. They couldn't all be his concern.

He was interesting, though. Another stranger, observing the Sarantines. A man he might have liked to know better, actually. Leaving now. It wouldn't happen. Odd, about being given Rustem's name. Rustem walked into his inner room. On the table beside the parcel he saw a note, his name on it.

First, he unwrapped the cloth from the object on the table. And then, entirely overcome, he sat down on a stool and stood staring at it.

There was no one about. He was entirely alone, looking.

Eventually he stood up and took the note. It had a seal, which he broke. He unfolded and read, and then he sat down again.

With gratitude, the brief inscription read, this exemplar of all things that must bend or they break.

He sat there for a very long time, becoming aware of how rare it was for him to be alone now, how seldom he had this silence or calm. He stared at the golden rose on the table, long and slim as the living flower might have been, golden petals unfurling, the very last one, at the top, fully opened, rubies in all of them.

He knew then, with that frightening, other-worldly certainty that Shaski seemed to have, that he would never see her again.