Lord Ashe stood waiting in the corridor outside the Leechhall for one of the doctors, a small, elderly woman who was blessed with the Talent. More Importantly, Doctor Veda was blessed with keen skills of observation, and a sharp mind prone to deeply studying mysteries that she might be confronted with. It was refreshing.

He had received a terse note slipped into his hand by a serving woman, one of his many trained “Watchers,” at breakfast that morning. The note had outlined a disturbing issue that he may want to look directly into. An hour’s research later, and Lord Ashe now had a few questions he needed answered, and most of the doctors working in this wing of the palace were as grass-headed a group of the supposed “Learned Society” as any he had ever seen.

Doctor Veda was a thorn covered rose amongst a field of blunt stones and ugly weeds. She stepped out of the door to the Leechhall with three students all carrying bundles of medical equipment following closely behind her. Ashe detached himself from the shadows along the opposite wall from the door and addressed the tiny doctor, “A moment of your time, if i may, Doctor?”

This sudden appearance of Lord Ashe caused two of her three students to scream in surprise, one dropping his bundle of bandages. Ashe slowly turned his head to stare directly at the young man, and wondered where he had left his dignity so early in the morning.

Veda Kaule calmly turned to face him, unflappable in her professionalism, or possibly in her advanced age, turned to the gray man dressed elegantly in black and silver, and with a sigh asked “How may I help you, Lord?” She looked at Lord Ashe through slightly squinting eyes, and completely ignored her students who now scurried and scrambled to pick up the dropped items.

She stepped forward, her crisp edged white and yellow robes gently swaying about her legs as she stepped toward Ashe. Looking hard at the taller man, her eyes taking in his gray skin, and slightly darker gray hair. “Is it a rash, an ache?” She looked hard at the stoic man. “Hrrm… or is it an unwanted ‘something’ you've gotten on… or from, a woman?”

He leaned toward the elderly woman, putting his expressionless face close to her own. “Veda.” He spoke softly, his deep voice nonetheless resonating in the hallway.

“Yarpa, Baem, Kolinse,” the little doctor snapped at her students where they now stood at attention behind her. “Continue on to the Guards’ Yard. Kolinse, you are in charge of stitches. Beam, bleeding. Yarpa…” she sighed. “Yarpa, take notes, and help where you can until I rejoin you all.”

The three students stood, staring at Lord Ashe over the shoulder of their mistress.

“Ah. I don't hear any footsteps, you must have all mastered the ancient arts of those fiercest of assassins… “ She slowly turned back to the younger medical trainees. “Go heal the guard that fell. Now. Or go retrieve shovels from the stable yard, and bury the man. Either way, you WILL attend to his needs. GO!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

And off the three ran. At speed.

Ashe was a little impressed. In his experience only the children of the wealthiest of land holders could afford to study things like medicine, and as such tended to be unable to do things like “run.” Or “be effective.” He realized that he might possibly have become biased.

Veda and Ashe turned back to one another from the sight of the quickly retreating trio.

Veda spoke first. “I thought you may have been the son of that man I knew when I was a young girl just stepping from that carriage into the palace courtyard all those years ago. But, no. It is you.” She looked down at her own long fingered, articulate, wrinkled, scarred hands. “You told me you would not age. I thought you were just boasting. A young man in his cups, saying whatever charming nonsense he could to get under my shift.”

“Veda. It is me, yes. Just as I told you it would be. And I asked you to come with me when I left. And you said you would rather be a doctor in the palace in Ghlow, than…”

“...than be a hedge witch or a midwife out in the countryside. I remember.” Veda finished for him, her voice shaking with anger, or sadness. She paused then, tilting her head as she looked up at him. “But, you came back. As the royal tutor. To Myol and his brother and sisters. And then you stayed to be Myrl’s tutor, when his father… well. Yes. That was you, too. Wasn’t it?”

She turned her head back up to look more closely at Ashe, her eyes now wide.

“When Queen Mysella needed an instructor for Myol that she could trust, she remembered me. When I was one of her father’s Circle of Mages, I used to answer all of her questions. When no one else here at court would. No matter what she asked. I always told her the truth. She sent for me. I came.” He sighed, and looked up and down the corridor uncomfortably. “When I came back, you were married, and had moved on. I didn’t want to ruin anything you had built for yourself, I was not, could not be that selfish.”

“You could have been a little selfish… I wouldn’t have minded. My marriage was politics for my parents. And for his parents, too, as far as that goes.” She looked wistfully into a past that ended forty years ago or more. “My oldest inherited my husband’s estates. My youngest inherited my own family’s estates twenty years gone now. And I have my students. And my patients. And now… You have returned.” She grinned. “Are you still good at giving foot rubs at the end of long days?”

He laughed at that. “I could be convinced, certainly, Veda.” With that, his face broke into a broad smile. “But, right now, I have some questions that I think only you might be able to help me with.”

Ashe glanced down the hall in the direction the students had gone. “You are busy now, but could I come by to talk to you, privately? We could have dinner together. Catch up. and you could help me with a puzzle I have been handed, and I could help your poor feet feel not quite so abused after a long day serving His Majesty.”

She laughed then. And spat a quick “You charming snake… I’ll see you this evening.” And then turning, the petite woman strode down the corridor to catch up with her students.