Inversions

'I see,' the Doctor said. There was more passed between them, but then Lady Ulier, Duke Ulresile's sister, spoke to me.

'My brother seemed most fixed upon your lady physician,' she said. Lady Ulier was a few years older than either myself or her brother, with the same narrow-pinched and sallow look as he, though her dark eyes were bright and her brown hair lustrous. Her voice was somewhat strident and abrasive even when pitched low, however.

'Yes,' I said. I could think of little else.

'Yes. I imagine he seeks a physician for our family, which is of course of the finest quality. Our own midwife grows old. Perhaps the lady physician will provide a suitable replacement when the King grows tired of her, should we think her suitable and sufficiently trustworthy.'

'With the greatest respect, ma'am, I think that would demean her talents.'

The lady looked down her long nose at me. 'Do you, indeed! Well, I think not. And you perjure yourself, sir, for the greatest respect you could have accorded me would have been to have said nothing to contradict what I had just said.'

'I beg your pardon, ma'am. It was simply that I could not bear to see so noble and fair a lady so deceived regarding the abilities of Doctor Vosill.'

'Yes. And you are…?'

'Oelph, my lady. It is my honour to have been the Doctor's assistant throughout the time she has treated our good King.'

'And your family?'

'Is no more, my lady. My parents were of the Koetic persuasion and perished when the Imperial regiment of our late King sacked the city of Derla. I was a baby in swaddling at the time. An officer took pity on me when he might as well have thrown me on to a fire and brought me back to Haspidus. I was raised amongst the orphans of officers, a loyal and faithful servant of the crown.'

The lady looked at me with some horror. In a strangled voice she said, 'And you wish to teach me the proprieties of who should serve our family?' She laughed in such a way that the shriek produced surely convinced most of those surrounding us that I had just stamped upon her toe, then for the rest of the set she kept her nose angled as though trying to balance a marble-fruit upon its tip.

The music had stopped. We all bowed to each other and the King, hobbling a little, was surrounded by dukes and princes all of whom seemed desperately anxious to talk to him. The little Wadderan princess, whose name I had established was Gul-Aplit, gave me a polite wave as a forbidding-looking chaperone appeared at her side and escorted her away. 'Are you all right, Oelph?' the Doctor asked.

'I am very well, mistress,' I told her. 'A little warm.'

'Let's get something to drink and then step outside. What do you say?'

'I'd say that was a very good idea, mistress, if not two.'

We collected two tall goblets of some form of aromatic punch which we were assured by the servants was weak in alcohol and then, with our masks off at last — and following a brief period to obey the call of nature — we made our way out on to the balcony which ran round the outside of the ballroom, joining a good hundred or so others taking the fragrant night air.

It was a dark night and would be long. Seigen had almost joined Xamis at sundown that evening and for a good quarter of the wholeday there would be only the moons to light the sky. Foy and Iparine were our lanterns that evening, their bluey-grey luminescence filled out along the balcony's tiles and the terraces of garden, fountain and hedge by glowing paper lamps, cressets of oilwood and scented pole-torches.

Duke and Duchess Ormin and their party approached us on the balcony, their way lit for them by dwarves carrying short poles, on the tip of which were large spheres of clear glass containing what looked like millions of soft and tiny sparks. As these curious apparitions came closer we saw that the globes contained hundreds and hundreds of glowflies, all milling and darting about in their strange confinement. They spread little light, but much amazement and delight. The Duke exchanged nods with the Doctor, though the Duchess did not deign to acknowledge us.

'Did I hear you telling the very young but very grand Lady Ulier your life history, Oelph?' the Doctor asked, sipping at her goblet as we strolled.

'I mentioned something about my upbringing, mistress. It may have been a mistake. She cannot think better of either of us for it.'

'From the impression, not to mention the looks I got,

I do not think she could think much less of me, but I'm sorry if she finds your orphanhood in some way reprehensible.'

'That and the fact that my parents were Koetics.'

'Well, one must allow for the prejudices of nobles. Your forebears professed themselves not only republican, but so god-fearing they had neither dread nor respect left for any worldly authority.'

'Theirs was a sadly mistaken creed, mistress, and I am not proud to be associated with it, though I honour my parents' memory as any child must.'

The Doctor looked at me. 'You do not resent what happened to them?'

'To the extent that I resent their suppression as a people who preached forgiveness rather than violence, I condemn the Empire. For the fact that I was recognised as an innocent and rescued, I thank Providence that I was discovered by a Haspidian officer who acted under the more humane orders of our good King's father.

'But I never knew my parents, mistress, and I have never met anybody who knew them, and their faith is meaningless to me. And the Empire, whose very existence might have fuelled an urge for vengeance on my part, is gone, brought down by the fire which fell from the sky. One unchallengeably mighty force brought down by an even greater one.' I looked at her then, and felt, from the expression in her eyes, that we were talking and not just behaving as equals. 'Resentment, mistress? What is the point of feeling that?'

She took my hand in hers for a moment then, and squeezed it rather as she had during the dance, and after that she put her arm through mine, an action that had fallen into disuse and even disrepute within polite society and which occasioned not a few looks. To my own surprise I felt honoured rather than embarrassed. It was a gesture of friendliness rather than anything else, but it was a gesture of closeness and comfort, and I felt just then that I was the most favoured man in all the palace, regardless of birth, title, rank or circumstance.

'Ah! I am murdered! Murdered! Help me! Help me! Murdered!'

The voice rang out across the balcony. Everybody stopped as though frozen into statues, then looked round at a tall door leading from one of the smaller rooms next to the ballroom as it opened further and a half-clothed figure fell slowly out of it into the light, gripping the pale gold curtains that fluted back inside, where thin, girlish screams began to sound.

The man, dressed only in a white shirt, gradually rolled over so that his face pointed towards the moons. The pure white shirt seemed to glow in the moonlight. High on his chest near one shoulder there was a bright, vividly red mark, like a freshly picked blossom. The man's collapse to the stones of the balcony was accomplished with a sort of idle grace, until his violent grip on the curtains and his weight overcame their supports and they gave way.

With that, he slumped quickly to the ground and the curtains came billowing, folding down upon him, like syrup on to the body of a struggling insect, entirely covering his round shape so that, while the screams from the room still sounded and everybody still stood where they were, staring, it was almost as though there was no body there at all.

The Doctor moved first, dropping her goblet on to the balcony with a crash and running towards the tall, slowly swinging door.

It was a moment or two longer before I could break the spell that had descended upon me, but eventually I was able to follow the Doctor — through a crowd of servants most of whom suddenly and to my confusion seemed to be carrying swords — to where the Doctor was already kneeling, throwing back the folds of curtain, burrowing down to where the twitching, bleeding form of Duke Walen lay dying.