“Where’s Chastellain?” he said.

“Upstairs,” I said. “The doctor—”

Before I could finish, the doctor came down. He stopped short, hands bundled in a rag, clothes stained with blood.

He stared at the King’s Men, at their leather tabards emblazoned with the king’s coat of arms. Then he spotted Lord Ashcombe—and turned to me, stunned.

He’d recognized the King’s Warden. With the man’s distinctive black style, scar, eye patch, and injured hand, it was hard not to. I made introductions anyway.

“Lord Richard Ashcombe, Marquess of Chillingham,” I said. “And Doctor…” It finally occurred to me that I’d never heard the man’s name.

“Kemp,” the doctor said, with a slight bow of the head. “John Kemp, of Newcastle.”

That explained the northern accent. He gave me a small, bemused smile. I could imagine what he was thinking. A masterless, pistol-wielding apprentice, and the king’s right-hand man. What have I stumbled into? I’m glad he didn’t ask.

“What news?” Lord Ashcombe said.

“Good, I think,” Dr. Kemp said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Your friend has an excellent chance of recovery.”

“I thought he had a dagger in his back.”

“Aha. Yes. Normally does little to improve a man’s lifespan. But in this case, I’d say he has the luck of the angels.”

The doctor finished wiping something in the rag, then held it out for us to see.

It was the dagger. Lord Ashcombe took it, turned it over.

The weapon was an odd shape I’d never seen before. It had a large conical pommel and a smooth cylindrical grip. There wasn’t much of a hilt; the grip simply rounded up to where it held the steel. As for the blade itself, it was long and flat—though the point was badly bent.

I stared at it. “This didn’t kill him?”

“Like I said, luck of the angels. When our would-be murderer stabbed— What was your friend’s name again? Simon? Simon’s spine got in the way.”

The doctor took the dagger back to demonstrate. “The tip of the blade bent when it hit the vertebra, and so couldn’t penetrate farther. It slipped sideways instead—stuck in him at an angle, you see? It never got through to the innards.”

Lord Ashcombe studied the dagger as Dr. Kemp continued. “There’s damage to the muscle, of course, and he’ll be in quite a bit of pain for a few weeks, but as long as we stave off infection, he should recover. And thank his heavenly guardian. An inch up or down, he’d be paralyzed. Right or left, he’d be dead.”

Lord Ashcombe nodded, then turned to me. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Simon just came in and collapsed.”

“Did you check for witnesses?”

I flushed. “I didn’t think to… I was worried about… No.”

Lord Ashcombe commanded the King’s Men to search outside. Then he asked the doctor, “Can we speak to him?”

“You can try, but you won’t get much of anything out of him today. I administered a heavy dose of our young friend’s poppy, so he’ll be addled beyond reason. If not already asleep.”