I have tried in what I have written here not to judge, yet I confess that I hope the Reader — a sort of partial Providence, perhaps — will do just that, and not think badly of us. I freely admit that a specific of my motive (especially in amending and adding to my earlier self's chronicle, as well as in refining the language and grammar of my co-teller) is to try to make sure that the Reader will not think ill of me, and of course that is a selfish desire. Yet still I would hope that such selfishness might lead to good, for the simple reason that otherwise this chronicle might not exist.
Again, the Reader must decide whether that would have been the more fortunate outcome, or not.
Enough. A young and rather earnest man wishes to address us:
1. THE DOCTOR
Master, it was in the evening of the third day of the southern planting season that the questioner's assistant came for the Doctor to take her to the hidden chamber, where the chief torturer awaited.
I was sitting in the living room of the Doctor's apartments using a pestle and mortar to grind some ingredients for one of the Doctor's potions. Concentrating on this, it took me a moment or two fully to collect my wits when I heard the loud and aggressive knocking at the door, and I upset a small censer on my way to the door. This was the cause both of the delay in opening the door and any curses which Unoure, the questioner's assistant, may have heard. These swear-words were not directed at him, neither was I asleep or even remotely groggy, as I trust my good Master will believe, no matter what the fellow Unoure — a shifty and unreliable person, by all accounts — may say.