Chapter Two
The Good Doctor
The doorknob of Maria and Piastol's room squeaked gently as I turned it, but I was fairly certain that they were awake. There was a lantern by little Maria's bedside that was still on, puttering in the breeze from the window. On the other side of the room, Maria's older sister Piastol was sat with her back against the wall, reading a thick and heavy book. She was balancing the tome on her knees and holding a small lamp and candle with one of her hands. She was squinting in the semi-darkness, I recognised that if she carried on reading in the dark night after night she would eventually develop eye problems like her father.
In the partial light, she looked a lot older than twelve. She was reading through one of my books that I had loaned her, after the Admiral had expressed a desire for her to learn alchemy and science. I saw her tracing a picture of a medicinal herb with one of her fingernails.
Maria stirred in her cot, and sat up, her pale little face lit by the lantern. "Doc?" she said, sleepily.
Piastol looked up suddenly, as if she had just realised I was there. "Doc!" she said, snapping the book shut and stowing it under her covers. Maria struggled out of bed and ran to hug my legs. "Come on little Miss, to bed," I said gently to her, but she merely giggled and hugged harder. Piastol stretched her legs, got out of bed and reached over to grab her sister and coax her away from me. Maria whined and fussed. I sat down on the edge of Piastol's bed and she began to calm down.
"Story, tell us a story," she chanted in a sing-song voice.
"Please Doc," asked Piastol. "You know she won't go to sleep unless you do." With one arm around her little sister's waist, she slid the medicinal dictionary she had been reading out from under the covers and replaced it on the wooden bookshelf between her bed and the window. The curtains billowed in the night breeze, and a musty smell wafted into the room.
"Well, as you put it that way…" I began, and Maria clapped her hands in delight and squealed. I hushed her gently and cleared my throat for emphasis. I was quite amused to see both girls watching me so intently – Maria was barely three years old and still hero-worshipped her father and I, but Piastol was fast becoming a young lady. She had already started seeing a tutor at her father's insistence, was learning not only alchemy and biology from myself but also how to cook and clean and other such domesticities. All this, and she dreamed to follow in her father's career path. On a previous visit to Valua she had noticed the presence of a young woman in the Armada, a skilled army official not much younger than myself who had gained favour with Galcian and was working her way slowly but surely up in rank.
Piastol had noticed the red-haired young woman and the dark robes of an official and had said to me, "You see? A woman can do just as good a job as a man can."
"Certainly a woman as hard-working and intelligent as you, Piastol," I had assured her. "If your heart is in the right place, you can do anything you choose."
Even now as I was trying desperately to spin a yarn, knowing that my creativity was limited to my experiments with different types of fruit and herb, I realised that soon she would begin to outrank me. Despite this, I felt a swelling of pride behind my ribs. If anyone was going to take over from Admiral Mendoza, I would much sooner have it be his own daughter than the domineering Galcian.
I finished my brief story (it was about two princesses – a sweet and kind one for Maria and a brave and courageous one for Piastol) and began to tuck the girls in. Maria whimpered as I headed for the door. Piastol tutted.
"She's so scared of the dark now. Can I keep the lantern on?" she asked.
"Of course," I said, noticing the open window. "I'll just shut this in case it blows over in the night." I crossed to the window and closed the pretty stained wood frame. Peering out into the night, I recall seeing the calm of the night air, and nothing around save for a dot on the landscape. What was that? Maybe a neighbouring island or another vessel, making passage in the night.
I bid Piastol a good night and made her promise not to strain her eyes in the dark ("I promise, Doc. You do fuss so much!"), and waved goodnight to little Maria, tucked safe underneath the covers. As I shut the door quietly, I realised that there still was an acrid smell in the air, possibly coming from above deck. Assuming it was nothing more than my imagination, I slipped into my room and closed the door for the night.