00:00:00:09 - 00:00:03:09
The road swallowed another hill, and we started down it.

00:00:03:12 - 00:00:07:24
I stared between my horse’s ears and felt generally ill-used.

00:00:08:01 - 00:00:11:14
Paris, when we left, had been in full glory.

00:00:11:16 - 00:00:16:22
Much is made of springtime there, but for my money,
a warm autumn is just as spectacular

00:00:16:22 - 00:00:19:22
and you don't trip over nearly as many poets.

00:00:20:03 - 00:00:24:17
The window boxes of red geraniums
glow like embers, and if it rains,

00:00:24:17 - 00:00:29:06
it only makes the sunlight glitter
more beautifully off the window panes.

00:00:29:06 - 00:00:32:16
Not a week earlier, 
I had been leaning on the window sill,

00:00:32:16 - 00:00:36:16
the smell of fresh bread wafting up
from the bakery below my apartment,

00:00:36:18 - 00:00:40:13
listening to the sound of two coachmen
fighting over a fare.

00:00:40:15 - 00:00:43:07
They had called each other the most extraordinary names,

00:00:43:07 - 00:00:45:10

but because they were screaming in French,

00:00:45:12 - 00:00:49:15
it sounded like a declaration of love
delivered in the heat of a grand passion.

00:00:49:17 - 00:00:53:08
Truly, Paris was the city of my heart.

00:00:53:10 - 00:00:56:02
And now I was here, back in Gallacia.

00:00:56:03 - 00:00:58:18
The country of my birth, such as it was.

00:00:58:18 - 00:01:03:08
Riding down a road that made me feel as if I was being swallowed whole.

00:01:03:10 - 00:01:05:11
We started up another rise.

00:01:05:11 - 00:01:09:18
Hob, my horse, sighed as only a disaffected
horse can sigh.

00:01:09:20 - 00:01:11:05
I patted his neck.

00:01:11:05 - 00:01:14:04
Hob was an old trooper, but technically so was I

00:01:14:04 - 00:01:16:10
and I didn't enjoy it either.

00:01:16:10 - 00:01:20:15
“Don't worry, boy. There'll be a nice hot mash at the end for you.”

00:01:20:19 - 00:01:22:14
I hoped there would be, anyway.

00:01:22:14 - 00:01:28:00
I'd written to Codrin, the man who kept up the hunting lodge,
to tell him that we were coming.

00:01:28:02 - 00:01:30:13
He hadn't written back.

00:01:30:13 - 00:01:35:08
I was hoping that it was just because Codrin had never been terribly easy
with his letters.

00:01:35:17 - 00:01:40:06
But between the grim gray road and the grim gray trees and the grim gray sky—

00:01:40:13 - 00:01:43:00

not to mention the profound lack of Paris—

00:01:43:04 - 00:01:47:01

I was starting to feel distinctly worried.

00:01:47:03 - 00:01:49:24
“Don't sulk”, said Angus.

00:01:49:24 - 00:01:52:02
“I'm not sulking”.

00:01:52:02 - 00:01:56:01
I didn't want to admit to baseless anxiety, so I added,

00:01:56:01 - 00:01:58:12
“It's my tinnitus”.

00:01:58:12 - 00:02:01:02
This was true, so far as it went.

00:02:01:02 - 00:02:03:06
Changes in altitude always set it off,

00:02:03:06 - 00:02:07:16
and the train from Paris to the capital had been nothing but altitude changes.

00:02:07:18 - 00:02:12:16
I lost most of the trip to the high-pitched whine somewhere inside my head.

00:02:12:18 - 00:02:15:10
Still, it could have been much worse.

00:02:15:10 - 00:02:18:22
According to the doctor who told me
the name of that ringing in my ears,

00:02:19:01 - 00:02:24:02
a few hundred years ago, they thought that it was caused by the wind getting trapped in your ears.

00:02:24:04 - 00:02:29:05
They used to treat it by drilling a hole in your skull to suck the trapped wind out.

00:02:29:07 - 00:02:35:14
Now they just said, “Can’t help you, sorry,” and prescribed laudanum to help you sleep.

00:02:35:16 - 00:02:37:24
Laudanum sounded lovely about now.