continue to sup at the well of learning? Hmm?”
Oramen smiled. He was used to adults asking about favourite school subjects when they could think of nothing else to talk of or wished to get off an awkward subject, so he replied perfunctorily and made his escape.
“They say the dead look back at us from mirrors, don’t they, Gillews?”
The royal physician turned round with a startled expression on his face, and then staggered and nearly fell over. “Your – that is, Prince Oramen.”
The doctor was a small, tense, nervous-looking man at the best of times. He seemed now positively abuzz with energy. Also, from his continued swaying and the glassy look about his eyes, quite drunk too. He had been staring at his reflection in one of the mirrors that covered half the walls of the drawing room. Oramen had been looking for him, moving amongst the throng, accepting sympathies, dispensing solemn pleasantries and trying to look – and be – grieving, brave, calm and dignified all at once.
“Did you see my father, Gillews?” Oramen asked, nodding to the mirror. “Was he in there, looking down on us?”
“What’s that?” the doctor asked. His breath smelled of wine and some unsluiced foodstuff. Then he seemed to catch up with what was going on and turned, swaying again, to look into the tall mirror. “What? The dead? No, I see no one, saw nobody. Indeed not, prince, no.”
“My father’s death must have affected you deeply, good doctor.”
“How could it not?” the little fellow asked. He wore a doctor’s skullcap, but it had slipped to one side and come forward, too, so that it was starting to droop over his right eye. Wispy white hairs protruded. He looked down into his near-empty glass and said, “How could it not?” again.
“I’m glad I found you, Gillews,” Oramen told him. “I have wanted to talk to you since my father was killed.”
The doctor closed one eye and squinted at him. “Uh?” he said.
Oramen had grown up with adults getting drunk around him. He didn’t really enjoy drinking – the sensation of being dizzy, as though you were about to be sick, seemed an odd state to pursue with such determination – but he quite liked being with drunk people, having learned that they often gave away the true natures they otherwise contrived to hide, or just let slip some item of information or gossip they would not have parted with so casually when sober. He already suspected he had got to Dr Gillews too late, but he’d give it a try anyway. “You were with my father when he died, obviously.”
“It was a most obvious death, sir, true,” the doctor said, and, strangely, attempted a smile. This dissolved quickly into an expression of some despair, then he dropped his head so that his expression was unreadable and started muttering what sounded like, “Well, not obvious, why obvious? Gillews, you idiot . . .”
“Doctor. I’d know how my father was in those last minutes. This is a matter of some importance to me. I feel I can’t put him fully to rest in my mind until I know. Please – can you recall?”
“To rest?” Gillews said. “What rest? What rest is there? Rest is . . . rest is beneficial. Renews the frame, redefines the nerves, resupplies the muscles and allows the mechanical stresses on the greater bodily organs to abate. Yes, that is rest, and crave it we might. Death is not rest, no; death is the end of rest. Death is decay and rotting down, not building up! Don’t talk to me of rest! What rest is there? Tell me that! What rest? Where, when our king lies heavy in his grave? For whom? Eh? I thought not!”
Oramen had taken a step back as the doctor raved at him. He could only wonder at the depths of emotion the poor man must be feeling. How he must have loved his king, and how devastating it must have been for him to lose him, to be unable to save him. The doctor’s two principal assistants moved in on either side to take Gillews’ arms, supporting him. One took his glass and pushed it into a pocket. The other looked at Oramen, smiled nervously and shrugged. He mumbled something apologetic-sounding that ended in “sir”.
“What?” Gillews said, head tipping from side to side as though his neck was half broken, eyes rolling as he tried to focus on the two young men. “My pall-bearers, already? Is it to