“Siam,” said the Doctor, pointing to the mountains.

“I hadn’t realized we were so close.”

“About eighty miles. This is why the War Office is so worried about keeping the Shan States. The Siamese are our only buffer against the French, who already have troops near the Mekong.”

“And these settlements?”

“Shan and Burmese villages.”

“What are they growing?”

“Opium, mostly…although production here is nothing like it is to the north, in Kokang, or deeper into Wa country. They say that there are so many poppies in Kokang that all the bees fall into deep opium sleeps and never wake up. But the crop here is substantial enough…Now you understand another reason why we don’t want to lose the Shan States.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sardine tin. He put a cheroot in his mouth and offered the tin again to Edgar. “Changed your mind yet?”

Edgar shook his head. “But I read about the poppies. I thought it was forbidden by the Indian Opium Act. The reports say—”

“I know what the reports say.” He lit the cigar. “If you read closely, you would know that the Indian Opium Act of 1878 prohibited the growing of opium in Burma proper; at the time we did not control the Shan States. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t pressure to stop. There is much more fuss about it in England than here, which is probably why so many of…us, who write the reports, are selective in what we say.”

“That makes me worry about everything else I have read.”

“I wouldn’t. Most of what is written is true, although you will have to get used to the subtleties, to the differences between what you read in England and what you see here, especially anything to do with politics.”

“Well, I don’t know much, my wife follows these issues more than I do.” Edgar paused. “But I would be interested in what you have to say.”

“About politics, Mr. Drake?”

“Everyone in London seems to have an opinion on the future of the Empire. You must know much more than they do.”

The Doctor waved the cheroot. “I actually think little of politics, I find it rather, how should I say, impractical?”

“Impractical?”

“Take opium, for instance. Before the Sepoy Rebellion, when our holdings in Burma were administered by the East India Company, opium use was even encouraged—the trade was quite lucrative. But there has always been a call to prohibit or tax it, by those who object to its ‘corrupting influences.’ Last year, the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade requested that the viceroy ban the trade. Their request was rejected, quietly. This was no surprise; it is one of our largest cash crops in India. And banning it really does nothing. The merchants just start smuggling the drug by sea. The smugglers are actually rather clever. They put the opium in bags and tie them to blocks of salt. If the ships are searched, they merely drop the cargo into the water. After a certain time, the salt dissolves, and the package floats back to the surface.”

“You sound as if you approve of this.”

“Approve of what? Of opium? It is one of the best medicines that I have, an antidote for pain, diarrhea, coughing, perhaps the most common symptoms of the diseases I see here. Anyone who wishes to make policies on such subjects should come here first.”

“I never knew…” said Edgar. “What do you think then about self-government, it does seem to be the most pressing question…”

“Mr. Drake, please. It is a beautiful morning. Let’s not ruin it with talk of politics. I know that after such a journey, one would be interested in such matters, but I find it dreadfully dull. You will see—the longer you are here, the less such opinions matter.”

“But you wrote so much…”

“I wrote histories, Mr. Drake, not of politics.” The Doctor pointed the smoking end of his cheroot at Edgar. “It is not a welcome subject for me. If you have heard what some have to say about my work here, I think you can understand why.”

Edgar began to mutter an apology, but the Doctor didn’t respond. Ahead, where the path narrowed, Nok Lek was waiting. The party dropped into single file and followed the trail into the forest on the other side of the ridge.

They rode for nearly three hours. Descending from the ridge, they entered an open valley that rose slowly, south of the vertebral hills. The trail was soon wide enough for two ponies, and while Nok Lek again went ahead, the Doctor rode alongside the piano tuner. It became obvious very quickly that Carroll had absolutely no interest in hunting. He spoke about the mountains in whose shadow they rode, how he had mapped the area when he first arrived, measuring altitude with boiling-point barometers. He told stories about the geology, the history, local myths about each outcrop, glen, and river they crossed, Here is where the monks keep catfish, Here is where I saw my first tiger on the Plateau, rare, Here is where mosquitoes breed, where I am doing experiments on the spread of disease, Here is an entrance to the world of the nga-hlyin, the Burmese giants, Here is where Shan sweethearts court, at times you can hear the sound of flutes. His stories seemed inexhaustible, and his tale about one hill only ended when they passed another. Edgar was astounded; the Doctor seemed to know not only every flower but their medicinal uses, scientific classification, local names in Burmese and Shan, their stories. Several times, pointing to a flowering bush, he would exclaim that such a plant was unknown to Western science, and that “I have sent samples to the Linnean Society and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and I even have a species like it that bears my name, an orchid, which they have named Dendrobium carrollii, and a lily named Lilium carrollianum, and another, Lilium scottium, which I named after J. George Scott, the political administrator of the Shan States, a friend whom I admire deeply. And there are other flowers…” and with this he even stopped his pony and looked directly at Edgar, his eyes bright, “my own genus, Carrollium trigeminum, the species name meaning ‘the three roots,’ a reference to the Shan myth of the three princes, which I promise to tell you soon, or perhaps you should hear the Shan tell it…Regardless, the flower in profile looks like a prince’s face and it is a monocotyledon, with three paired petals and sepals, like three princes and their brides.” He stopped occasionally to pick flowers and plants and press them into a worn leather book which he kept in a saddlebag.

They stopped by a bush covered with small yellow blooms. “That one,” he confided, pointing, his shirtsleeve rolled up over a tanned forearm, “has not been given an official name yet, as I hope to send samples to the Linnean Society. It has been quite a struggle to get any of my botanical work published. The army seems to be concerned that somehow my writing about flowers will reveal state secrets…as if the French didn’t know of Mae Lwin.” He sighed. “I suppose I will have to retire before I publish a pharmacopoeia. Sometimes I wish I were a civilian without the rules and regimentation. But then I suppose I wouldn’t be here.”

As they rode further, Edgar’s nervousness and disorientation began to dissipate under the onslaught of the Doctor’s enthusiasm. All of his own questions, mostly about music, about the piano, about what the Shan and the Burmese thought of Bach and Handel, about why Carroll remained, and ultimately why he himself had come, were temporarily forgotten. Oddly, there seemed nothing more natural than marching on horseback to hunt plants without names, trying to make sense of the Doctor’s river of stories, Shan histories, Latin nomenclature, and literary references. Above them, a raptor circled and caught a rising current, and he imagined what the bird must see, three tiny figures winding their way along a dry trail that traced the collar of the karst hills, the tiny villages, the Salween snaking languidly, the mountains to the east, the Shan Plateau dropping to Mandalay, and then all of Burma, of Siam, of India, of the armies gathered there, grids of French and British soldiers blind to each other but visible to this bird, gathered waiting, while in between, three men rode together, collecting flowers.