Matter

by Iain M. Banks

  The Hicturean-Anjrinh Scholastery sat on a low hill a day’s ride from the Hicturean Tower in the direction of nearpole, so that the great column was almost directly between it and Pourl. Like most Scholasteries, the place was forbidding-looking, even if technically it was unfortified. It looked like a long, low castle with its curtain wall removed. It had two turrets, but they housed telescopes rather than guns. The visible walls actually looked quite jolly, painted in all sorts of different colours, but it still appeared somehow grim to Ferbin. He had always been rather in awe of such places and the people who inhabited them. To give yourself up to a life of study, thought and contemplation seemed like, well, such a waste. He tipped continually between contempt for anyone who could cut themself off from so much that made life fun just to pursue this abstraction they called learning, and something close to reverence, deeply impressed that seriously clever people would willingly choose such an abstemious existence.

  It was to one of these places that he knew Djan Seriy would have wanted to go, had she been free to choose. She hadn’t been, of course, and anyway the Culture had made off with her. Some of her letters home to her family after she had gone with them had spoken of places of learning that sounded a lot like Scholasteries. Ferbin had formed the impression that she’d learned a great deal. (Far too much, in the snorting estimation of their father.) Later letters seemed to hint that she had become some sort of warrior, almost a champion. They had worried about her sanity at first, but woman warriors were not unknown. Everybody had thought they belonged firmly in the past, but – well – who knew? The ways of the aliens – the superior, mentor and Optimae races, and who could say what others – were beyond knowing. So much of life went in great circles, in wheels of good and ill fortune; maybe woman warriors were part of some utterly strange and incomprehensible future.

  Ferbin hoped she was a warrior. If he could get to her, or at least get word to her, Djan Seriy might be able to help him.

  The Rollstar Obor was spreading a slow, reluctant dawn to their right as they approached. They passed apprentice scholars leaving the Scholastery compound to work in the fields, orchards and streams around the jumble of gaily painted buildings. They nodded, helloed, waved hats. Ferbin thought they looked almost happy.

  An increasing number of the cities of the Sarl were becoming host to something like a Scholastery, though these urban institutions offered more practical instruction than the ancient, usually remote and rural Scholasteries. Many merchants and even some nobles were starting to send their sons to such modern varsities, and Ferbin had heard of one in Reshigue that accepted only girls. (Though that was Reshigue, and everybody knew the people of that thankfully distant city were mad.)

  “No telegraph connection that I can see,” Holse pointed out, casting his gaze about the jumble of buildings. “That may be to the good. We’ll see.”

  “Hmm?” Ferbin said.

  Ferbin rarely prayed. It was a failing, he knew, but then a noble one, he’d always told himself. Even Gods, he felt sure, must have limited patience and even attention. By not praying he was leaving the floor of the divine court that little bit less crowded and so free for more deserving, less fortunate people whose own prayers would therefore stand by that same increment more likely to be heard above whatever hubbub must surely fill said assembly. In fact, he took comfort in the fact that, being a prince, his entreaties would of course have been given priority in the WorldGod’s petitionary court – he would have had a naturally louder voice, as it were – and so by his modest, self-effacing absence, he did far more good than a fellow of more limited importance would have done by such an act of self-sacrifice.

  Still, the WorldGod was there, and – while going to see it, as Holse had suggested, was patently ridiculous – prayers were assuredly listened to. Sometimes, indeed, the WorldGod was said to intervene in the affairs of people, taking up the cause of the good and just and punishing those who had sinned. It would, therefore, positively be dereliction of princely duty not to entreat the deity. Even if it did – as it surely would – already know of the terrible events that had befallen Ferbin and which might be about to befall the Sarl people as a whole with a usurper in their midst and indeed in charge, the WorldGod might not feel able to act until it had received a sort of formal request from him, the rightful king. He wasn’t sure exactly how these things worked, never having paid attention in Divinity classes, but he had a feeling it might be something like that.

  “Dear God, God of the World. Support me in my cause, let me escape my pursuers, if, ah, assuming there are pursuers. If not, then let there continue not to be any. Aid my getting out of the World and finding Xide Hyrlis and my dear sister Djan, that she may succour me. Let her be not turned away from her brother by the luxuries and, umm, luxuriances of the Culture people. Please, God, visit the most terrible and disgusting tribulations and humiliations upon the filthy usurper tyl Loesp, who killed my father. There is a foul fiend indeed, God! There is a monster in the form of man! You must have seen what happened, God, and if not, look into my memory and see it seared in there like a brand, burned and fixed for ever – what more awful crime has there ever been? What ghastliness committed between your skies can outdo that atrocity?”

  Ferbin found he was growing breathless, and had to stop to collect himself. “God, if you punish him most severely, I shall rejoice. If not, then I shall take it as a sure and certain sign that you grant him not even the honour of divine retribution but leave his punishment for human hand. That hand may not be my own – I am, as your good self knows, more of a man of peace than of action – but it will be at my instigation, I swear, and it will be a sorry tower of anguish and despair that bastard suffers beneath. And the others, all who helped him; all them too. I do swear this, on the violated body of my own dearly loved father!” Ferbin swallowed, coughed. “You know I ask this for my people, not for myself, God; I never wanted to be king, though I will accept this burden when it falls to me. Elime; he should have been the king. Or Oramen might make a good king one day. I . . . I’m not sure I’d be very good at it. I never have been sure. But, sir, duty is duty.”

  Ferbin wiped some tears away from his tightly closed eyes. “Thank you for this, my God. Oh; also, I would ask you to make my idiot servant see where his true duty lies and get him to stay with me. I have no skill negotiating the base vulgarities of life, whereas he has and, argumentative wretch though he may be, he makes progress the smoother for me. I’ve hardly dared let him out of my sight since I began to worry he might run off and I cannot think how daunting my way would be without him. Please also let the Head Scholar here, one Seltis, be well disposed to me and not remember that it was I who put the tack on his seat that time, or the maggot into his pie on that other occasion. Actually, twice, come to think of it. Anyway, let him have a Tower travel warrant thing that he doesn’t mind letting me have so that I can get away from here. Grant me all of this, WorldGod, and on my father’s life I swear I shall build a temple to your greatness, mercy and wisdom that will challenge the Towers themselves! Umm . . . Right. With all my – ah, well, that’s all.” Ferbin sat back, opening his eyes, then closed them and went on one knee again. “Oh, and ah, thank you.”

  He had been given a small cell in the Scholastery after they’d arrived and announced themselves as a gentleman traveller and his assistant (a title – a promotion, even – that Holse had insisted upon) who had need of an audience with the Head Scholar. Ferbin found it strange to be treated like an ordinary person. In a way it was almost fun, but it was also a little shaming and even annoying, despite the fact it was this disguise of ordinariness that might well be all that was keeping him alive. Being asked to wait while anybody other than his father found time to see him was a novel experience, too. Well, not that novel, perhaps; certain ladies of his knowledge were prone to such tactics too. But that was a delicious sort of waiting, even if, at the time, seemingly intolerable. This was not delicious at all, this was frustrating.

  He sat on the s
mall sleeping platform in the little room, looked round the bare, sparsely furnished space and briefly took in the view towards the Hicturean Tower – most Scholastery windows looked towards Towers if they could. He looked down at his clothes, stolen from a dead man. He shivered, and was hugging himself when the door was struck loudly and almost before he could say, “Enter,” Choubris Holse had swung into the room, looking unsteady, his face flushed.

  “Sir!” Holse said, then seemed to collect himself, drawing himself up and producing a nod that might have been the remnants of a bow. He smelled of smoke. “The Head Scholar will see you now, sir.”

  “I shall be there directly, Holse,” Ferbin said, then, recalling that the WorldGod allegedly helped those most given to helping themselves – a treatise Holse himself most obviously lived by – he added, “Thank you.”

  Holse frowned and looked confused.

  “Seltis! My dear old friend! It is I!” Ferbin entered the office of the Head Scholar of Hicturean-Anjrinh Scholastery and held his arms open. The elderly man in slightly worn-looking scholastic robes sat on the far side of a broad, paper-littered desk, blinking behind small round glasses.

  “That you are you, sir, is one of life’s great undeniables,” he replied. “Do you apply for position by stating such truisms and claiming them profound?”

  Ferbin looked round to make sure the door had been closed from outside by the serving scholar who had let him in. He smiled and approached the Head Scholar’s desk, arms still outspread. “No, Seltis, I mean, it is I!” He lowered his voice. “Ferbin. Who once was your most exasperating yet still I hope most loved pupil. You must pardon my disguise, and I am glad that it is so effective, but it is most assuredly me. Hello, old friend and most wise tutor!”

  Seltis rose, an expression of some wonder and uncertainty on his withered face. He made a small bow. “By God, I do believe it might be, too.” His gaze searched Ferbin’s face. “How are you, boy?”

  “No longer a boy, Seltis,” Ferbin said, taking a comfortable seat to one side of the desk, in a small bay window. Seltis remained at his desk, looking over a small cart full of books at his former pupil. Ferbin let a serious, even tormented expression take over his features. “Rather a young man, old friend, and a happy, carefree one at that, until a few days ago. Dear Seltis, I saw my own father murdered in the most obscene circumstance—”

  Seltis looked alarmed and held up one hand. He turned away from Ferbin and said, “Munhreo, leave us, please.”

  “Yes, Head Scholar,” said another voice, and, somewhat to Ferbin’s horror, a young man dressed in the robes of a junior scholar rose from a small, paper-piled desk set in one alcove of the room and – with a fascinated glance at Ferbin – went to leave the room.

  “Munhreo,” the Head Scholar said to the youth as he was opening the door. The young scholar turned round. “You heard nothing, do you understand?”

  The young scholar made a small bow. “Indeed, sir.”

  “Ah. He must study the art of hiding, that one, eh?” Ferbin said awkwardly after the door had closed.

  “He is trustworthy, I believe,” Seltis said. He drew his own seat over and sat by Ferbin, still studying his face. “Remind me; my assistant at the palace – who would that have been?”

  Ferbin frowned, blew out his cheeks. “Oh. I don’t know. Youngish chap. Can’t recall his name.” He grinned. “Sorry.”

  “And did I ever implant the name of the capital of Voette sufficiently well for it to take root?”

  “Ah. Voette. Knew an ambassador’s daughter from there once. Lovely girl. She was from . . . Nottle? Gottle? Dottle? Something like that. That right?”

  “The capital of Voette is Wiriniti, Ferbin,” Seltis said wearily. “And I truly do believe you are who you say.”

  “Excellent!”

  “Welcome, sir. I have to say, though, we had been informed that you were killed, prince.”

  “And if the wishes of that murderous, scheming turd tyl Loesp made such things so, I would be, old friend.”

  Seltis looked alarmed. “The new regent? What’s the cause of this hatred?”

  Ferbin related the fundamentals of his story since the moment he and his party had crested the Cherien ridge and looked out over the great battlefield. Seltis sighed, polished his glasses twice, sat back, sat forward again, stood up at one point, walked round his seat, looked out through the window and sat back down again. He shook his head a few times.

  “And so myself and my unreliable servant are here to ask for your help, dear Seltis, firstly in getting a message to Oramen and also in getting me away from the Eighth and from the great World itself. I have to warn my brother and seek my sister. I am that reduced. My sister has been with these Optimae the Culture for many years and has, by her own account, learned such things that even you might find impressive. She may even have become a sort of female warrior, as I understand it. In any event, she might have – or can call upon – powers and influences that I myself cannot. Help me make my way to her, Seltis, and help me warn my brother, and my gratitude, I swear, will be great. I am the rightful king even if I am not the anointed monarch; my formal ascension lies in the future, as must your reward. Even so, one as wise and learned as yourself no doubt understands even better than I the duty a subject owes to their sovereign. I trust you see that I ask for no more than I have every right to expect.”

  “Well, Ferbin,” the old scholar said, sitting back in his seat and taking his glasses off again to inspect them, “I don’t know which would be the more confounding; that all you say is true, or that your skills in fictive composition have suddenly improved a million-fold.” He placed his glasses back on his nose. “Truthfully, I would rather that what you say is not so. I would rather believe that you did not have to witness what you did, that your father was not murdered, and our regent is not a monster, but I think I have to believe that all you claim is true. I am sorry for your loss, Ferbin, beyond words. But in any case, I hope you see that it is as well I attempt to restrict your stay here to a minimum. I will certainly do all I can to assist you on your way and I shall depute one of my senior tutors to take a message to your brother.”

  “Thank you, old friend,” Ferbin said, relieved.

  “However. You should know that there are rumours against you, Ferbin. They say that you deserted the battlefield shortly before your death, and that many other crimes, large and small, domestic and social, are being piled against you, now that you are thought safely dead.”

  “What?“ Ferbin shouted.

  “As I say,” Seltis said. “They seek, by the sound of it, to make you ill-missed and, perhaps – if they suspect you are not dead – to make it the more likely that you will be betrayed by anyone you reveal yourself to. Take all care, young man that was boy, and prince that hopes to be king.”

  “Inequity upon infamy,” Ferbin breathed, his mouth drying as he spoke. “Injustice piled upon outrage. Intolerable. Intolerable.” A terrible anger built within him, causing his hands to shake. He stared at his trembling fingers, marvelling at such a physical effect. He swallowed, looking at his old tutor with tears in his eyes. “I tell you, Seltis, at every point at which I feel my rage cannot conceivably grow any further, having reached the outermost extremity of that possible for a man to bear, I am propelled further into indecent fury by the next action of that unspeakable puddle of excrement tyl Loesp.”

  “Taking account of all you say,” Seltis said, rising, “that is hardly to be wondered at.” He went to a sash hanging by the wall behind his desk. “Will you have something to drink?”

  “Some respectable wine would not go amiss,” Ferbin said, brightening. “My servant favours stuff you’d hesitate to rinse a rowel’s arse with.”

  Seltis pulled on the sash. A gong rang distantly. He came and sat down with the prince again.

  “I take it you wish me to recommend you to the Oct, for enTowerment, for transportation to the Surface.”

  “Whatever you call it,” Ferbin said eage
rly, sitting forward. “Yes. Naturally there are, in theory, royal prerogatives I might use, but that would amount to suicide. With a pass from you, I might hope to evade tyl Loesp’s spies and informants.”

  “Rather more than just spies and informants; in potential, at least, the whole of the army, and even all of the people,” Seltis said. “Everyone, thinking themselves loyal, will be turned against the one they ought to be loyal to.”

  “Indeed,” Ferbin said. “I must trust to my own wits and those of my irritating but wily servant.”

  Seltis looked concerned, Ferbin thought.

  A servant came to the door and wine was ordered. When the door was closed again, Ferbin leant forward and said solemnly, “I have prayed to the WorldGod, good Seltis.”

  “That can do no harm,” the Head Scholar said, looking no less concerned.

  Someone rapped loudly on the door. “Enter!” Seltis called. “The kitchens are not usually so—”

  Choubris Holse lunged into the room, nodded briefly at the Head Scholar and to Ferbin said, “Sir; I fear we are discovered.”

  Ferbin leapt to his feet. “What? How?”

  Holse looked uncertainly at Seltis. “Little scholar fellow on the roof, sir; heliographed a passing patrol. Three knights on caude just coming in to land.”

  “Munhreo,” the Head Scholar said, also standing.

  “Maybe they’re just . . . visiting?” Ferbin suggested.

  “In the circumstances, assume the worst,” Seltis told him, moving to his desk. “You’d best get going. I’ll try to detain them as long as I can.”

  “We’ll never outrun them on mounts!” Ferbin protested. “Seltis, do you have any flying beasts?”