by Iain Banks
DeWar felt himself rock back slightly, as though afflicted by the force of the gaze from those blue-flecked gold eyes. "Though none of this is to say that he is not still a good and loyal follower of the Protector," Perrund said. "If one is determined to find fault then looking hard enough will produce reason to distrust everybody." She looked down again.
"Of course," DeWar said, and felt his face grow warm. "Still, I would rather know such things than not."
Perrund moved one piece, then another. "There," she said.
DeWar continued with his analysis of the game.
13. THE DOCTOR
Master, the masked ball took place six days later. The King still had a slight cold, but the Doctor had given hire a preparation made from flowers and mountain herbs which dried up his «membranes» (by which I think she meant his nose) for the duration of the dance. She advised him to avoid alcohol and to drink copious amounts of water, or better still fruit juice. However, I believe that during the ball he was quickly persuaded, principally by himself, that the definition of fruit juice might include wine and so drank a deal of that during the ball.
The Grand Ballroom of Yvenage is a dramatic circular space half of whose circumference is taken up with floor to ceiling windows. In the year since the court had last visited Yvenir, the windows had been refashioned throughout their lower quarter. The great pastel-green plaster panels had been replaced with a grid of wood holding smaller panes of thin, colourless glass. The glass was almost crystal in its perfection, affording a barely distorted view of the moonlit landscape of forested hills across the valley. The effect was extraordinarily eye-catching and it seemed, from the expressions of wonder I heard uttered and the extravagance of the estimates made within my earshot concerning the cost of such a project, that people could hardly have been more impressed had the new windows been made of diamond.
The orchestra sat on a low circular stage set in the centre of the room, each player facing inwards to watch their conductor, who swivelled towards each" section of the musicians in turn. The dancers swirled round this focus like fallen leaves caught within a spiralling wind, the intricate sets and patterns of the dances providing an order within that apparent chaos.
The Doctor was one of the more striking women present. Partly the effect was achieved through her height. There were taller women there, yet still she seemed to shine out amongst them. She possessed a bearing that was in all senses naturally elevated. She wore a gown that was plain by comparison with most. It was a dark and lustrous green, to set off the wide, netted fan of her carefully arrayed red hair. Her gown was unfashionably narrow.
Master, I confess I felt excited and honoured to be there. The Doctor having no other escort, it fell to me to accompany her to the ball, and so I was able to think with some pleasure of my fellow apprentices and assistants, most of whom were banished downstairs. Only the senior pages were permitted to attend, and the few of those not expected to act purely as servants were all too aware of their inability to shine in a company containing so many junior noblemen. The Doctor, in contrast, treated me as her equal, and made not one demand on me as an apprentice the whole ball long.
The mask I had chosen was a plain one of flesh-coloured paper painted so that one half looked happy, with a big smile at the lips and a raised brow, while the other side looked sad, with downcast mouth and a small tear at the eye. The Doctor's was a half-face made of light, highly polished silver treated with some sort of lacquer. It was, I thought, the best and perhaps the most disconcerting mask that I saw all that night, for it reflected the observer's gaze right back at them and so disguised the wearer — for whatever that was worth, given the Doctor's unmistakable form — better than the most cunning creation of feathers, filigreed gold or sparkling gems.
Beneath the mirror-like mask, the Doctor's lips looked full and tender. She had coloured them with the red oil-cream that many of the ladies at court use for such occasions. I had never seen her adorn herself so before. How moist and succulent that mouth looked!
We sat at a great table in one of the ballroom's anterooms, surrounded by fine ladies of the court and their escorts and looked down upon by huge paintings of nobles, their animals and estates. Servants with drinks trays circulated everywhere. I couldn't recall having seen a ball so well staffed before, though it did seem to me that some of the servants looked a bit rough and ready, handling their trays with a degree of awkwardness. The Doctor did not choose to stay in the ballroom itself between dances and seemed reluctant to take part at all. I formed the impression she was only there because the King expected her to be, and while she might have enjoyed the dances, she was afraid of making some error of etiquette.
I myself also felt nervous as well as excited. Such grand balls are opportunities for much pomp and ceremony, attracting from all around scores of great families, Dukes and Duchesses, rulers of allied principalities and their entourages and generally producing a kind of concentration of people of power and circumstance one sees seldom enough even in the capital. Little wonder that these are occasions when allegiances, plans, alliances and enmities are formed, both on the political and national scale of things and at the personal level.
It was impossible not to feel affected by the urgency and momentousness of the atmosphere and my poor emotions felt tattered and frazzled before the ball was properly begun.
At least we ought to remain safely on the periphery. With so many Princes, Dukes, Barons, Ambassadors and the like demanding his time — many of whom he would not see from one year to the next, save for this single event — the King was unlikely to concern himself with the Doctor and myself, who were at his beck and call during every day of the year.
I sat there, immersed in the hum of conversation and listening to the distant sound of a dance tune, and I wondered what plots and schemes were being hatched, what promises and enemies were being made, what desires stoked, what hopes squashed.
A group of people were passing us, heading for the ballroom. The small figure of a man at their head turned towards us. His mask was an old one made of blue-black feathers. 'Ah, the lady doctor, unless I am grievously mistaken," came the harsh, cracked voice of Duke Walen. He stopped. His wife — his second, much younger than he, and small and voluptuous — hung on his arm, her golden mask dripping with gems. Various junior members of the Walen family and their retainers arranged themselves in a half-circle around us. I stood, as did the Doctor.
"Duke Walen, I assume," she said, bowing carefully. "How are you?"
"Very well. I would ask you how you are, however I assume that physicians look after themselves better than anybody else, so I shall ask how you think the King is. How is he?" The Duke seemed to be slurring his words.
"The King is generally well. His ankle still needs treatment and he has the remains of a slight-"
"Good, good." Walen looked round at the doors leading into the ballroom. "And how do you like our ball?"
"It is most impressive."
"Tell me. Do they have balls in this place Drezen, where you come from?"
"They do, sir."
"And are they as fine as this? Or are they better and more glorious and put our sad and feeble efforts into the shade? Does Drezen entirely out-do us in every matter as it does, by your claims, in medicine?"
"I think the dances we hold in Drezen are rather less splendid than this, sir."
"Are they? But how can this be? I had become quite convinced through your many comments and observations that your homeland was in advance of ours in every respect. Why, you talked of it in such glowing terms that sometimes I thought you were describing a fairytale land!"
"I think the Duke will find that Drezen is quite as real as Haspidus."
"Faith! I am almost disappointed. Well, there we are." He turned to go, then stopped again. "We shall see you dancing later, shan't we?"
"I imagine so, sir."
"And will you perhaps undertake to demonstrate for us a dance from Drezen, and teach it to us?"
"A dance, sir?"
"Yes. I cannot imagine that Drezeners share all our dances and possess none that we would not recognise. That is not feasible, surely?" The Duke's small, slightly hunched figure turned jerkily from one side to the other, seeking endorsement.
"Oh yes," his wife purred from behind her gold and gem-stone mask. "I should think that in Drezen they have the most advanced and interesting dances."
"I regret that I am no dance instructor," the Doctor said. "I wish now that I had been more assiduous in learning how to comport myself at a ball. Sadly, my youth was spent in more academic circles. It is only since I have had the good fortune to arrive in Haspidus that I-"
"But no!" the Duke cried. "My dear woman, you cannot be claiming that there is some aspect of civilised behaviour in which you have nothing to teach us! Why, this is unheard of! Oh, my dear lady, my faith is shaken. I beg you to reconsider. Search your doctorly memories! At least attempt to drag up for us some recollection of a physician's cotillion, a surgeon's ballet, at the very least a nurses" horn-pipe or a patients" jig."
The Doctor appeared unruffled. If she was sweating behind her mask, as I was behind mine, she gave no sign of it. In a calm and even voice she said, "The Duke flatters me in his estimation of the breadth of my knowledge. I shall of course obey his instruction but I-"
"I'm sure you can, I'm sure," the Duke said. "And pray, what part of Drezen was it you said that you are from?"
The Doctor drew herself up a little more. "From Pressel, on the island of Napthilia, sir."
"Ah yes, yes. Napthilia. Napthilia. Indeed. You must miss it terribly, I imagine."
"A little, sir."
"Having no one of your own kind to talk to in your native language, unable to catch up on the latest news, lacking compatriots to reminisce with. A sad business, being an exile."
"It has its compensations, sir."
"Yes. Good. Very well. Think on, about those dances. We shall. see you later, perhaps, high-kicking, whirling and whooping, eh?"
"Perhaps," the Doctor said. I for one was glad I could not see her expression behind the mask. Of course, being a half-face mask, her lips were visible. I began to worry how much aspersion a pair of full red lips could convey.
Just so," Walen said. "Until then, madam." He nodded.
The Doctor bowed subtly. Duke Walen turned and led his party towards the ballroom.
We sat down. I took off my mask and wiped my face. "I think the Duke was a little the worse for wine, mistress," I said.
The mirror-mask faced me. My own visage looked back; distorted and flushed. Those two red lips gave a small smile. Her eyes remained unreadable behind the mask. "Yes. Do you think he will mind that I cannot provide him with a Drezeni dance? I really am unable to recall any."
"I think the Duke was being rather rude to you, mistress. The wine was doing most of the talking. He sought only to — well, I am sure as a gentleman he would not seek to humiliate you — but he was perhaps having a little sport with you. The detail of the matter was not important. He will probably forget most of what has passed here."
"I hope so. Do you think I am a poor dancer, Oelph?"
"Oh no, mistress! I have not seen you put a step wrong so far!"
"That is my only goal. Shall we…?"
A young man in a hide and gem-stone mask and wearing the dress uniform of a captain in the King's Own Frontier Guards appeared at our side. He bowed deeply. "Master Oelph? Madam Doctor Vosill?" he asked.
There was a pause. The Doctor looked at me. "Yes!" I blurted.
"The King commands me to invite you to dance with the royal party during the next figure. It starts directly."
"Oh, shit," I heard myself say.
"We are delighted to accept the King's kind invitation," the Doctor said, rising smoothly and nodding to the officer. She held her arm out towards me. I took it in mine.
"Please follow me," the captain said.
We found ourselves arranged in a figure of sixteen with King Quience, a small, buxom young princess from one of the Sequestered Kingdoms in the mountains beyond the land of Tassasen, a tall brother-and-sister prince and princess from Outer Trosile, Duke Quettil and his sister Lady Ghehere, the Duke and Duchess of Keitz (uncle and aunt to Guard Commander Adlain), their startlingly proportioned daughter and her fiance, Prince Hills of Faross, the Guard Commander Adlain himself and Lady Ulier, and, lastly, a young lady I was introduced to and had seen about court but whose name escaped me then and now, and her escort, the brother of Lady Ulier, the young Duke Ulresile we had first encountered at the King's table in the Hidden Gardens.
I noticed that the youthful Duke wade sure that he positioned himself in our half of the figure, so ensuring that he would have two opportunities to dance with the Doctor rather than one.
The introductions were made and the dance was named by a very impressively dressed Wiester, wearing a plain black mask. We took our places in two lines, male facing female. The King took a last drink from a goblet, replaced it on a tray, waved away the servant carrying it and nodded to Wiester, who in turn nodded to the conductor of the orchestra.
The music began. My heart was beating hard and fast. I was reasonably familiar with the figure we were engaged upon, but still concerned that I might make a mistake. I was just as concerned that the Doctor might commit a serious misstep. I did not think she had danced so formally complicated a figure before.
"You are enjoying the ball, madam?" Duke Quettil asked as he and the Doctor advanced upon each other, bowed, held hands, circled and stepped. I was similarly engaged with the lady Ghehere, who gave every impression through her carriage and bearing that she had no interest whatsoever in conversing with the assistant to a woman who claimed the honourable but un-noble title of doctor, and so I was at least able both to dance without treading on her toes and to attend to what passed between my mistress and the Duke.
"Very much, Duke Quettil."
"I was surprised when the King insisted that you be invited to join us, but then he is most… most merry this evening. Don't you think?"
"He does appear to be enjoying himself."
"Not too much, in your opinion?"
"It is not my place to judge the King in any aspect, sir, save that of his health."
"Quite. I was granted the privilege of choosing the figure. Is it to your taste?"
"Entirely so, Duke."
"It is perhaps a little complex."
"Perhaps."
"So much to remember that is not entirely natural, so many opportunities to make a mistake."
"Dear Duke," the Doctor said with some concern. "I hope this is not some subtly disguised warning."
I happened to be circling my immediate partner with my hands clasped behind my back and was facing.the Duke Quettil at this point. I got the impression that he was momentarily taken aback, unsure quite what to say for the moment before the Doctor went on, "You are not preparing to step on my toes, are you?"
The Duke gave a small, high laugh, and with that the timeous demands of the dance took both the Doctor and myself away from the centre of the figure. While our other four-set took the centre, we stood alongside each other, our hands clasped or on hips as appropriate, marking time with one foot then the other.
"All right so far, Oelph?" the Doctor said. I thought she sounded slightly breathless, and even as though she was enjoying herself.
"Aye, so far, mistress. The Duke seemed-"
"Were you teaching Quettil extra steps there, Doctor?" Adlain asked from her other side.
"I'm sure that there is nothing I could teach the Duke, Guard Commander."
"I'm equally sure he feels just the same way, madam, and yet he appeared to lose his way for a moment in that last turn."
"It is a complicated figure, as he himself pointed out to me."
"Yet one he chose."
"Indeed he did. Does Count Walen dance it as well, do you think?"
Adlain was silent for a moment. "I fancy he might, or at least fancy that
he fancies he might." I saw him glance at the Doctor. His half-mask allowed him to show a smile. "However I myself find it takes all my concentration just minding my own steps without attempting to scrutinise somebody else's. Ah, excuse me…"
Another set. "Good Doctor," young Duke Ulresile said, meeting her in the centre. His companion, the young lady whose name I forget, seemed no more inclined to talk to nee than Lady Ghehere.
"Duke," the Doctor replied.
"You look most striking."
"Thank you."
"That mask, is it Brotechian?"
"No, sir, it is silver."
"Ah. Indeed. But does it originate in Brotechen?"
"No, in Haspide. I had a jeweller fashion it."
"Ah! It is your own design! How fascinating!"
"My toe, sir."
"What? Oh! Oh, I'm sorry."
"And your mask, Duke?"
"What? Oh, ah, some old family thing. Do you like it? Does it please you? There is a companion one for a lady. I would be honoured if you would accept it with my compliments."
"I could not possibly, sir. I'm sure your family would object. Thank you, nevertheless."
"But it is nothing! That is, it is very — it is, I should say, regarded as most elegant and graceful, the one for a lady, I mean, but it is entirely mine to gift. It would be an honour!"
The Doctor paused, as though considering this offer. Then she said, "And an even greater one for me, sir. However, I already possess the mask which you see and have admired, and I find I can only wear one at a time."
"But…"
However, with that it was time for the two to separate, and the Doctor returned to my side.
"Are you getting all this, Oelph?" she asked, as we caught our breath and executed the marking-time steps.
"Mistress?"
"Your partners appear to become mute in your presence and yet you had the look of somebody concentrating on a conversation."
"I did, mistress?" I asked, feeling my face redden under my mask.