a fever involved – quite a high one – and profuse sweating.’
‘These two don’t match, little lady. With a fever, the skin is dry.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Have you a medical background?’
‘I’m familiar with certain folk remedies.’
He snorted. ‘My experience tells me that folk remedies kill more than they cure. What other symptoms did you notice?’
Sephrenia meticulously described the illness that had rendered Ehlana comatose.
The physician, however, seemed not to be listening, but was staring instead at Sparhawk. His eyes narrowed, his face became suddenly alert and his expression sly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said when Sephrenia had finished. ‘I think you’d better go back and take another look at your friend. What you just described matches no known illness.’ His tone was abrupt, even curt.
Sparhawk straightened, clenching his fist, but Sephrenia laid her hand on his arm. ‘Thank you for your time, learned sir,’ she said smoothly. ‘Come along then,’ she told Sparhawk.
The two of them went back out into the corridor.
‘Two in a row,’ Sparhawk muttered.
‘Two what?’
‘People with bad manners.’
‘It stands to reason, perhaps.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘There’s a certain natural arrogance in those who teach.’
‘You’ve never displayed it.’
‘I keep it under control. Try another door, Sparhawk.’
In the next two hours, they spoke with seven physicians. Each of them, after a searching look at Sparhawk’s face, pretended ignorance.
‘I’m starting to get a peculiar feeling about this,’ he growled as they emerged from yet another office. ‘They take one look at me, and they suddenly become stupid – or is that just my imagination?’
‘I’ve noticed that, too,’ she replied thoughtfully.
‘My face isn’t that exciting, I know, but it’s never struck anyone dumb before.’
‘It’s a perfectly good face, Sparhawk.’
‘It covers the front of my head. What else can you expect from a face?’
‘The physicians of Borrata seem less skilled than we’d been led to believe.’
‘We’ve wasted more time, then?’
‘We haven’t finished yet. Don’t give up hope.’
They came finally to a small, unpainted door set back in a shabby alcove. Sparhawk rapped, and a slurred voice responded, ‘Go away.’
‘We need your help, learned sir,’ Sephrenia said.
‘Go and bother somebody else. I’m busy getting drunk right now.’
‘That does it!’ Sparhawk snapped. He grasped the door handle and pushed, but the door was locked from the inside. Irritably, he kicked it open, splintering the frame.
The man inside the tiny cubicle blinked. He was a shabby little man with a crooked back and bleary eyes. ‘You knock very loudly, friend,’ he observed. Then he belched. ‘Well, don’t just stand there. Come in.’ His head weaved back and forth. He was shabbily dressed, and his wispy grey hair stuck out in all directions.
‘Is there something in the water around here that makes everybody so churlish?’ Sparhawk asked acidly.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ the shabby man replied. ‘I never drink water.’ He drank noisily from a battered tankard.
‘Obviously.’
‘Shall we spend the rest of the day exchanging insults, or would you rather tell me about your problem?’ The physician squinted myopically at Sparhawk’s face. ‘So you’re the one,’ he said.
‘The one what?’
‘The one we aren’t supposed to talk to.’
‘Would you like to explain that?’
‘A man came here a few days ago. He said that it would be worth a hundred gold pieces to every physician in the building if you left empty-handed.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘He had a military bearing and white hair.’
‘Martel,’ Sparhawk said to Sephrenia.
‘We should have guessed almost immediately,’ she replied.
‘Take heart, friends,’ the messy little man told them expansively. ‘You’ve found your way to the finest physician in Borrata.’ He grinned then. ‘My colleagues all fly south with the ducks in the fall going, “Quack, quack, quack.” You couldn’t get a sound medical opinion out of any one of them. The white-haired man said that you’d describe some symptoms. Some lady someplace is very ill, I understand, and your friend – this Martel you mentioned – would prefer that she didn’t recover. Why don’t we disappoint him?’ He drank deeply from his tankard.
‘You’re a credit to your profession, good doctor,’ Sephrenia said.
‘No. I’m a vicious-minded old drunkard. Do you really want to know why I’m willing to help you? It’s because I’ll enjoy the screams of anguish from my colleagues when all that money slips through their fingers.’
‘That’s as good a reason as any, I suppose,’ Sparhawk said.
‘Exactly.’ The slightly tipsy physician peered at Sparhawk’s nose. ‘Why didn’t you have that set when it got broken?’ he asked.
Sparhawk touched his nose. ‘I was busy with other things.’
‘I can fix it for you if you’d like. All I have to do is take a hammer and break it again. Then I can set it for you.’
‘Thanks all the same, but I’m used to it now.’
‘Suit yourself. All right, what are these symptoms you came here to describe?’
Once again Sephrenia ran down the list for him.
He sat scratching at his ear with his eyes narrowed. Then he rummaged through the litter piled high on his desk and pulled out a thick book with a torn leather cover. He leafed through it for several moments, then slammed it shut. ‘Just as I thought,’ he said triumphantly. He belched again.
‘Well?’ Sparhawk said.
‘Your friend was poisoned.
