by Iain Banks
"You look tired this evening, Doctor," the King said as she massaged his upper back. He lay stripped to the waist on his wide, canopied bed.
"Do I, Sir?"
"Yes. What have you been up to?" The King looked round at her. "You haven't taken a lover, have you, Vosill?
The Doctor blushed, which was not something she did often. I think that every time I witnessed such an event we were in the presence of the King. "I have not, sir," she said.
The King settled his chin back on his hands. "Perhaps you should, Doctor. You're a handsome woman. I can't think that you would have other than a fair choice, if you so wished."
"Your majesty flatters me."
"No, I'm simply speaking the truth, as I'm sure you know."
"I bow to your opinion, sir."
The King looked round, straight at me. "Isn't she, ah…?’
"Oelph," I said, gulping. "Sir."
"Well, Oelph," the King said, raising his eyebrows. "Don't you think so? Isn't the good doctor a pleasing prospect? Don't you think she would gladden the eye of any normal man?"
I swallowed. I looked at the Doctor, who glanced at me with a look that might have been forbidding or even pleading.
"I'm sure, sir," I began, "that my mistress is most personable, your majesty, sir," I mumbled, feeling myself blush now.
"Personable? Is that all?" The King laughed, still looking at me. "But don't you think she is attractive, Oelph? Attractive, comely, handsome, beautiful?"
"I'm sure she is all those things, sir," I said, looking down at my feet.
"There you are, Doctor," the King said, settling his chin on his hands once more. "Even your young assistant agrees with me. He thinks you're attractive. So, Doctor, are you going to take a lover or not?"
"I think not, sir. A lover would take up time I might need to devote to your good self."
"Oh, I'm so well and fit these days I'm sure I could spare you for the time it takes for a quick tumble or two each evening.
"Your majesty's generosity overwhelms me," the Doctor said dryly.
"There you go again, you see, Vosill? That damned sarcasm. My father always said that when a woman started being sarcastic to her betters it was a sure sign she wasn't being serviced properly."
"What a fount of priceless wisdom he was to be sure, sir.
"He certainly was," the King agreed. "I think he'd have said you needed a good tumbling. For your own good. Ouch," he said as the Doctor leant heavily on his spine with the heel of one hand. "Steady, Doctor. Yes. You might even call it medicinal, or at least, ah, what's that other word?"
"Irrelevant? Nosy? Impertinent?"
"Therapeutic. That's the word. Therapeutic."
"Ah, that word."
"I know," the King said. "What if I commanded you to take a lover, Vosill, for your own good?"
"Your majesty's concern for my health is most cheering.
"Would you obey your King, Vosill? Would you take a lover if I told you to?"
"I would be concerned what proof of my obeying such an instruction would be required to satisfy my King, Sir."
"Oh, I'd take your word on it, Vosill. And besides, I'm sure any man who did bed you would be bound to brag about it."
"Really, Sir?"
"Yes. Unless he possessed a particularly jealous and unforgiving wife. But would you do as I told you?"
The Doctor looked thoughtful. "I take it I would be able to make the choice myself, sir."
"Oh, of course, Doctor. I am not determined to pimp for you."
"Then, yes, sir. Of course. With alacrity."
"Good! Now then, I wonder if I should so command you."
I had by this time raised my gaze from my feet, although my face still felt flushed. The Doctor looked over at me and I smiled uncertainly. She grinned.
"What if you did, sir," she asked. "And I refused?"
"Refused to obey a direct order from your King?" the King asked with what sounded like genuine horror.
"Well, while I am entirely in your service and remain devoted to your every good, sir, I am not, I believe, in a technical sense, one of your subjects. I am a foreign national. Indeed, I am not a subject at all. I am a citizen of the archipelagic republic of Drezen and while I am content and indeed honoured to serve you under and within the jurisdiction of your laws, I do not believe that I am bound to obey your every whim as might somebody born within the borders of Haspidus or who was born to parents who were subjects of your realm."
The King thought about this for a good few moments. "Did you once tell me you considered learning the law rather than medicine, Doctor?"
"I believe I did, sir."
"I thought so. Well, if you were one of my subjects and you disobeyed me in such a matter, I would have you locked up until you changed your mind, and if you did not change your mind that would be unfortunate for you, because trivial though the issue itself might be, the King's will must always be obeyed, and that is a matter of the utmost gravity and importance."
"However, I am not a subject of yours, sir. How then would you deal with my mooted intransigence?"
"I suppose I would have to order you to leave my Kingdom, Doctor. You would have to return to Drezen, or go elsewhere."
"That would sadden me greatly, sir."
"As it would me. But you can see that I would have no choice."
"Of course, sir. So I had better hope that you do not so instruct me. Otherwise I had better prepare either to surrender myself to a man, or for exile."
"Indeed."
"A hard choice for one who is, as you have observed with such penetrating accuracy, sir, so opinionated and stubborn as L"
"I am glad you are finally treating the subject with the gravity it merits, Doctor."
"Indeed. And what of yourself, sir, if I may enquire?"
"What?" the King said, his head coming up off his hands.
"Your majesty's intentions in the matter of a wife are of as enormous consequence as my choice of a lover would be trifling. I only wondered how much thought you had given to the matter, as we are on the subject."
"I think we are swiftly leaving the subject I thought we were on.
"I beg your majesty's pardon. But do you intend to marry soon, sir?"
"I think that is none of your business, Doctor. That is the business of the court, my advisors, the fathers of eligible princesses or other ladies of rank to whom it would be sensible and advantageous for me to be attached to, and myself."
"Yet as you yourself pointed out, sir, one's health and demeanour can be profoundly affected by a lack of… sensual release. What might make sense for the political fortune of a state might be catastrophic for the individual well-being of a King, if, say, he married an ugly princess. .
The King looked round at the Doctor with an expression of amusement. "Doctor," he said. "I shall marry whomever I feel I ought to marry for the good of my country and my heirs. If that requires marrying an ugly woman then so be it." His eyes seemed to twinkle. "I am the King, Vosill. The position carries with it certain privileges you may have heard about. Within quite generous limits, I may have the pleasure of whom I please, and I will not suffer that to change just because I take a wife. I may marry the least prepossessing princess in all the world, yet I'll warrant that I'll notice no difference whatsoever in the frequency and quality of my 'sensual release'." He smiled broadly at her.
The Doctor looked awkward. "But if you are to have heirs, sir," she began.
"Then I shall get sufficiently but not incapably drunk, make sure the curtains are tightly closed and that the candles have been snuffed out, and then I shall think of somebody else until the proceedings reach a satisfactory conclusion, my dear doctor," the King said, a look of satisfaction on his face as he returned his chin to his hands again. "As long as the wench is fertile I ought not to have to suffer that too often, wouldn't you say?"
"I'm sure that I could not say, sir."
"Then take my word on it, and that of the girls who have borne me
children — and mostly boys, too, I might add."
"Very well, sir."
"Anyway, I do not order you to take a lover."
"I am very grateful, sir."
"Oh, it's not for your benefit, Vosill. It's just that I have too much sympathy for any fellow you might take to your bed. I don't doubt the principal part of the occasion would be pleasurable enough, but then — Providence protect the unfortunate wretch — he'd have to suffer your confounded conversation afterwards. Ouch!"
I think, then, that there is only one more incident of note to relate concerning our time in Yvenir palace. It was one I only learned of later, some time after our return to Haspide, when news of it was considerably overshadowed by events.
Master, the Doctor, as I said, often went for rides and walks in the hills by herself, sometimes departing at Xamis dawn and staying away until its dusk. This seemed just as eccentric behaviour to me as it did to anybody else, and even when the Doctor had the good sense to ask for my company, I remained perplexed at her motives. Walks were the most strange. She would walk for hour after hour, like some peasant. She took with her small and not so small books which she had purchased at great expense in Haspide and which were filled with drawings, paintings and descriptions of the flora and fauna native to the area, and would watch intently as birds and small animals crossed our path, observing them with an intensity which seemed unnatural given that she was not interested in hunting them.
Rides were less enervating, though I think she only resorted to a mount when the journey she proposed to make was too long to consider undertaking on foot (she would never stay out overnight).
For all my mystifiication at these excursions and my annoyance at being forced to walk all day, I carne to enjoy them. I was expected to be at the Doctor's side, both by her and by my Master, and so felt no guilt that I was doing other than my duty.
We tramped or rode in silence, or spoke of inconsequential things, or about medicine or philosophy or history or a hundred other matters, we stopped to eat or observe an animal or a fine view, we consulted books and tried to decide whether the animals we were looking at were those described, or if the book's author had been overly fanciful, we attempted to decipher the rough maps that the Doctor had copied from those in the library, we stopped woodsmen and bondagers to ask the way, we collected feathers, flowers, small stones and shells and eggshells, and returned eventually to the palace precincts having done nothing of any real consequence, yet with my heart full of joy and my head swimming with a sort of wild delight.
I soon came to wish that she would take me on all her excursions, and only when we returned to Haspide did I wish bitterly that I had done something I had thought about doing often when we were at Yvenir and the Doctor was making her solo expeditions. What I wished I had done was follow her. I wish that I had trailed her, tracked her, secretly kept watch on her.
What I heard, moons later in Haspide, was that two of my fellow palace juniors did chance upon the Doctor while she was alone. They were Auomst and Puomiel, pages to Baron Sermil and Prince Khres respectively, and fellows I knew only distantly and in truth without liking at all. They had reputations as bullies, cheats and rakes, and certainly both boasted of the heads they had broken, the servants they had swindled at cards and the successes they had had with town girls. Puomiel was rumoured to have left one junior page at the brink of death the year before after the young fellow had protested to his master that the elder page was extorting money from him. It had not even been a fair fight. The lad had been jumped from behind and coshed senseless. Brazenly, Puomiel did not even deny this — not to us, anyway — thinking it would make us fear him more. Auomst was marginally the less unpleasant of the two, but by general agreement only because he lacked the imagination.
Their story was that they had been out in the woods, some good distance from the palace, near dusk one particularly warm evening. They were making their way back towards Yvenir with some game in their bags, happy at their poaching and looking forward to their evening meal.
They chanced upon a royal xule, a rare enough animal in any event, but this one, they swore, was pure white. It moved through the forest like a swift, pale ghost, and they, dropping their bags and readying their bows, followed it as quietly as they were able.
Neither could really have thought what they were going to do if they did find themselves in a position to bring the beast down. They could not have told anybody they had killed the animal, for the hunting of the xule is a royal prerogative, and the size of the thing would have prevented them carrying it to a dishonest butcher, supposing one brave enough to risk the royal wrath could have been found. But they moved off after it nevertheless, carried along by some instinct to hunt that is perhaps bred into us.
They did not catch the xule. It startled suddenly as it neared a small tree-surrounded lake high in the hills and took off at a run, putting itself beyond even the most hopeful of bow shots within a few heartbeats.
The two pages, just achieving the summit of a small ridge in time to see this happen through a screen of small bushes, were disheartened at losing the animal. That dissatisfaction was almost instantly relieved by what they saw next.
A startlingly beautiful and perfectly naked woman waded out of the lake and stared in the direction the white xule had taken when it fled.
Here then was the cause of the animal taking off at such a rate, and here too, perhaps, was something even more fit to be hunted down and enjoyed. The woman was tall and dark haired. Her legs were long, her belly was a little too flat to be truly beautiful, but her breasts, while not especially large, looked firm and high. Neither Auomst or Puomiel recognised her at first. But it was the Doctor. She turned away from where the xule had dashed away through the trees and reentered the water, swimming with the ease of a fish straight towards the two young men.
She came ashore just beneath where they lay. It was here, they realised, that she had left her clothes. She stepped out of the water and began to dry herself with her hands, facing out towards the water, her back to them.
They each looked at the other. They did not need to speak. Here was a woman, by herself. She had no escort, no companion, and she was, as far as they both knew, without a husband or a champion at the court. Again, neither stopped to think that in fact she did have a champion at the court, and he was without equal or better. This pale body exposed before them excited them even more than the one they had just lost sight of, and an instinct even deeper than that of hunting flooded their hearts, taking them over and extinguishing all rational thought.
It was dark beneath the circling trees and the birds were calling all around, alerted by the flight of the xule, and so providing sufficient noise to mask even a clumsy approach.
They might knock her out, or surprise her and blindfold her. She might never even see them, in other words, and they might be able to ravish her without risk of discovery and punishment. That they had been led here by the xule seemed like a sign from the forest gods of old. They had been delivered here by a creature close to myth. The opportunity was too good to ignore.
Puomiel took out a pouch of coin he had in the past used as a cosh. Auomst nodded.
They slipped out of the bushes and made their way stealthily down through the shadows between a few small intervening trees.
The woman was singing softly to herself. She completed drying herself with a small kerchief which she then wrung out. She stooped to pick up her shirt, her buttocks like two pale moons. Still facing away from the two men, who were now only a few steps behind her, she held the shift over her head and then let it fall down over her. For a few moments she was and would be blind, pulling the garment down over hers-elf. Auomst and Puomiel both knew this was the moment. They sprang forward. They sensed the woman stiffen, as, perhaps, she heard them at last. Her head might have started to turn, still caught inside the folds of the shirt.
They woke with aching heads in the darkness of a night full save for Foy and Jairly, shining down like
two grey reproachful eyes upon the calm, still waters of the hidden lake.
The Doctor was gone. They each had bumps the size of eggs on the backs of their heads. Their bows had been taken and, most oddly of all, the blades of their knives had been twisted, bent right round and made a knot of.
None of us could understand that at all. Ferice, the armourer's assistant, swore that treating metal like that was next to impossible. He tried to bend knives similar to Auomst and Puomiel's in a like manner and found that they broke almost immediately. The only way to make them behave in such a fashion was to heat them to a yellow-white heat and then manipulate them, and that was hard enough. He added that he had received a boxing about the ears from the armourer for such assiduous experimentation, to teach him not to waste valuable weapons.
I was suspected, though I did not know it at the time. Auomst and Puomiel assumed that I had been with the Doctor, either guarding her with her knowledge, or spying on her without it. Only the testimony of Feulecharo, whom Jollisce and I had been helping to sort through some of Duke Walen's possessions at the time, saved me from a coshing.
When eventually I did discover what had happened I did not know what to think, save that I wished that I had been there, either to guard or to spy. I would have fought both of those miserable ruffians to the death to protect the Doctor's honour, but at the same time I would have gladly surrendered my own for a single furtive glimpse of her such as they had been afforded.
18. THE BODYGUARD