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
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
