Inversions (25 page)

‘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 came 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 herself. 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.

The city of Niarje is conventionally supposed to lie six days’ ride from Crough, the capital of Tassasen. The Protector and his company of fresh troops arrived there in four, and were appropriately tired after their long days in the saddle. It was decided they would rest in the city while they waited for the heavy artillery pieces and siege engines to catch up with them, and for fresh word from the war in Ladenscion to arrive. That word soon appeared in the form of coded messages from Duke Ralboute, and was not good.

The barons’ forces were proving far better trained, more comprehensively equipped and reliably supplied than had been anticipated. Cities would not quickly be starved into submission. Fresh defences encircled almost all of them. The troops manning those defences were not the usual rabble but rather gave every indication of having been drilled to the highest standard. Partisan forces harried the Protectorate’s supply lines, sacking camps, ambushing wagon trains, taking weapons meant to be directed at them for their own use and forcing troops needed at the front to attach themselves to each of the supply caravans. General Ralboute had himself nearly been killed or captured in a daring night raid which had issued from the besieged city of Zhirt. Only luck and some desperate hand-to-hand fighting had prevented disaster. The general himself had had to draw sword and was within one defending aide of having to join the fray.

We are told that one of the situations a soldier craves to engineer for his enemy, and dreads being caught in himself, is that of the pincer movement. So it can only be imagined what UrLeyn felt when he was caught in just such a plight in Niarje, not by the attack of enemy troops, but by information. The intelligence that the war in Ladenscion was going so ill arrived just half a day before news came from the opposite direction that was, if anything, even worse, and also concerned illness.

UrLeyn seemed to shrink in on himself. His hand holding the letter fell, and the letter itself fluttered to the ground.

He sat down heavily in his seat at the head of the dining table in the old Ducal mansion in the centre of Niarje. DeWar, standing just behind UrLeyn’s seat, stooped and picked up the letter. He set it, folded closed, by UrLeyn’s plate.

‘Sir?’ asked Doctor BreDelle. The Protector’s other companions, all army officers, looked on, concerned.

‘The boy,’ UrLeyn said quietly to the doctor. ‘I knew I should not have left him, or should have had you stay with him, Doctor . . .’

BreDelle stared at him for a moment. ‘How poorly is he?’

‘At death’s door,’ UrLeyn said, looking down at the letter. He handed the letter to the doctor, who read it.

‘Another seizure,’ he said. BreDelle dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. ‘Shall I return to Crough, sir? I can start at first light.’

The Protector stared down the table at nothing for a moment. Then he seemed to rouse himself. ‘Yes, Doctor. And I shall come too.’ The Protector looked apologetically at the other officers. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, raising his voice and straightening his back. ‘I must ask you to continue on to Ladenscion without me, for the moment. My son is unwell. I hoped that I would contribute to our eventual victory as soon as you will, but I fear that even if I were to continue, my heart, and my attention, would still be drawn back to Crough. I regret that the glory will be yours, unless you contrive to extend the war. I will join you as soon as I can. Please forgive me, and indulge the fatherly weakness of a man who, at my age, should really be a grandfather.’

‘Sir, of course!’

‘I’m sure we all understand, sir.’

‘We will do all we can to make you proud of us, sir.’

The protestations of support and understanding went on. DeWar looked round the young, eager, earnest faces of the junior noblemen gathered round the banqueting table with a feeling of dread and foreboding.

‘Perrund? Is that you?’

‘It is, young sir. I thought I’d come and sit by you.’

‘Perrund, I can’t see.’

‘It is very dark. The doctor thinks you will better recover kept away from the light.’

‘I know, but still I cannot see. Hold my hand, will you?’

‘You must not worry. Illness seems so terrible when you are young, but these things pass.’

‘Will it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Will I be able to see again?’

‘Of course you will. Have no fear.’

‘But I am frightened.’

‘Your uncle has written to your father, telling him of your condition. I imagine he will be coming home soon, in fact I’m sure of it. He will give you some of his strength. He will drive away all fear. You’ll see.’

‘Oh no! But he should be at the war. I am bringing him home when he should be at the war, to win it for us.’

‘Calm yourself, calm yourself. We could not keep your illness from him. What would he have thought of us? He will want to be sure that you are well. He will want to see you. I imagine he will bring Doctor BreDelle with him, too.’

‘And Mr DeWar?’

‘And Mr DeWar. Where your father goes, he follows.’

‘I can’t remember what happened. What day is it?’

‘It is the third of the old moon.’

‘What happened? Did I start to shake as I did at the shadow-players’ show?’

‘Yes. Your teacher said he thought you were trying to get out of learning mathematics when you fell off your seat. He ran to get the nurse and then Doctor AeSimil was sent for. He is doctor to your uncle RuLeuin and General YetAmidous and very good. Very nearly as good as Doctor BreDelle. He says you will be better, in good time.’

‘Does he?’

‘He does. And he seems a most honest and trustworthy soul.’

‘Is he better than Doctor BreDelle?’

‘Oh, Doctor BreDelle must be better, because he is your father’s doctor, and your father deserves to have the best, for the good of all of us.’

‘Do you really think he will come back?’

‘I am sure of it.’

‘Will you tell me a story?’

‘A story? I’m not sure I know any.’

‘But everybody knows stories. Didn’t you used to be told stories when you were little? . . . Perrund?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure I was. Yes, I have a story.’

‘Oh good . . . Perrund?

‘Yes. Well. Let me see. Once upon a time . . . once upon a time there was a little girl.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. She was rather an ugly child, and her parents did not like or care for her at all.’

‘What was her name??

‘Her name? Her name was… Dawn.’

‘Dawn. That’s a pretty name.’

‘Yes. Unfortunately she was not very pretty, as I have said. She lived in a town she hated with parents she loathed. They made her do all sorts of things they thought she ought to do, which she hated, and they kept her locked up a lot of the time. They forced her to wear rags and sacking, they refused to buy her shoes for her feet or ribbons for her hair and they did not let her play with the other children. They never told her any stories at all.’

‘Poor Dawn!’

‘Yes, she was a poor thing, wasn’t she? She would cry herself to sleep most nights, and pray to the old gods or appeal to Providence to deliver her from such unhappiness. She wished that she could escape from her parents, but because they kept her locked up she could not. But then one day the fair came to town, with players and stages and tents and jugglers and acrobats and fire-breathers and knife-throwers and strong men and dwarves and people on stilts and all their servants and performing animals. Dawn was fascinated by the fair and wanted to see. it and be made happy by it, for she felt that she had no life at all where she was, but her parents hid her away. They did not want her to have fun watching all the wonderful acts and shows, and they were worried that if people saw that they had such an ugly child they would make fun of them and perhaps even tempt her to leave to become an exhibit in their freaks of nature show.’

‘Was she really that ugly?’

‘Perhaps not quite that ugly, but still they didn’t want her to be seen, so they hid her away in a secret place they had fashioned in their house. Poor Dawn cried and cried and cried. But what her parents did not know was that the people of the fair always sent some of their performers round the houses in the town, to do little acts of kindness, or to help out with chopping kindling, or to clean up a yard, so that people would feel beholden to them and go and see the fair. They did this in Dawn’s town, and of course her parents, being very mean, could not pass up the opportunity to have some work done for free.

‘They invited the performers into their house and had them tidy it all up, though of course it was quite tidy already because Dawn had done most of the work. While they were cleaning the house, and even leaving little presents behind, for these were very kind and generous performers a clown, I think, and a fire-breather and a knife-thrower they heard poor Dawn crying in her secret prison, and they released her and made her happy by their antics, and were very kind to her. She felt appreciated and loved for the first time, and tears of joy rolled down her face. Her bad parents had hidden themselves in the cellar, and later on they ran away, embarrassed at having been so cruel to Dawn.

‘The performers from the fair gave Dawn her life back. She even started to feel not so ugly, and was able to dress better than her parents had let her dress, and feel clean and good. Perhaps, she thought, she was not destined to be ugly and unhappy all her life, as she had imagined. Perhaps she was beautiful and her life would be full of happiness. Somehow just being with the performers made her feel pretty, and she started to realise that they had made her beautiful, that she had only been ugly because people had told her she was ugly and now she was not. It was like magic.

‘Dawn decided that she wanted to join the fair and go with the performers, but they told her sadly that they could not let her do that because if they did then people might think that they were the sort of people who took little girls away from their families, and their good name would suffer. They told her she ought to stay and look for her parents. She saw the sense of what they were telling her, and because she felt strong and capable and alive and beautiful, she was able to wave goodbye to the fair when it left and all the kind performers went away to take their happiness and kindness to another town. And do you know what?’

‘What?’

‘She did find her parents, and they were nice and good to her for ever afterwards. She found a handsome young fellow, too, and married him and had lots of babies and they lived happily ever after. And, as well as all that, one day, she did catch up with the fair, and was able to join it and be part of it and try to think of a way to repay the performers for their earlier kindness.

‘And that is the story of Dawn, an ugly, unhappy child who became beautiful and happy.’

‘Hmm. That is quite a good story. I wonder if Mr DeWar has any more stories about Lavishia. They are a bit strange, but I think he means well. I think I ought to sleep now. I oh!’

‘Ah, I’m sorry.’

‘What was that? Water? On my hand . . .’

‘It was just a happy tear. It is such a happy story. It makes me cry. Oh, what are you ?’

‘Yes, it tastes of salt.’

‘Oh, you are a charmer, young Master Lattens, to lick a lady’s tears up so! Let go my hand. I must . . . There. That’s better. You sleep now. Your father will be here soon, I’m sure. I’ll send in the nurse to make sure you’re tucked in properly. Oh, do you need this? Is this your comforter?’

‘Yes. Thank you, Perrund. Good night.’

‘Good night.’

The palace concubine Yalde brought fruit and wine to the bath, where YetAmidous, RuLeuin and ZeSpiole floated in the milky waters. Terim and Herae, also concubines of Yalde’s rank, sat naked by the pool side, Terim with her long legs dangling in the water while Herae brushed her long black hair.

Yalde placed the tray with the fruit bowl and the decanter near YetAmidous’ elbow, then stepped out of the loose gown she had worn to visit the servants’ quarters and slipped into the water. The eyes of the other two men followed her movements but she ignored them. She floated at YetAmidous’ side and poured wine for him.

‘So our little time of power may be drawing to an unexpectedly early close,’ ZeSpiole said. He brought one hand out of the water and stroked the tawny calf of Terim’s leg. She looked down and smiled at him, though he did not see. Both Terim and Herae were from Ungrian, and spoke only their own tongue and Imperial. The men talked in Tassaseni.

‘That might not be so bad,’ RuLeuin said. ‘The Protector told BiLeth to report to me while he’s away and I’m growing tired of having to listen to that idiot pontificate on diplomatic niceties. Part of me hopes UrLeyn does come back.’

‘You think he will come back?’ YetAmidous asked, looking from RuLeuin to ZeSpiole. He accepted the goblet of wine from Yalde and slurped at it, spilling some into the translucent waters around his wide chest.

‘I fear he will,’ ZeSpiole said.

‘Fear?’ RuLeuin said. ‘But’

‘Oh, not because I am so attached to a temporary third of the shadow of his power,’ ZeSpiole said. ‘But because I think it the wrong thing for him to do for Tassasen.’

‘The troops will go on without him, most of them, won’t they?’ RuLeuin said.

‘It would be better if he did bring some of them back with him,’ YetAmidous told the Guard Commander. ‘There may be three of us to share his authority but there are precious few troops at our command, and when all fine words are finished with it’s soldiers and swords that make power. I have barely enough men to make the city walls look lived in.’

‘The Protector has always said that a populace which in general assents to its ruling and to its rulers needs few sheriffs and no troops,’ ZeSpiole said.

‘Easily said when you have several barracks full of soldiers to agree with you,’ YetAmidous said. ‘But you will observe that it is we who are allowed the privilege of testing our master’s theory in this regard, not he.’

‘Oh, the people are happy enough,’ ZeSpiole said. ‘For the moment.’

RuLeuin glanced at him. ‘Your spies are sure of that then?’