by Iain Banks
"What? Yes, yes, of course."
"Oh! You weren't worried about me, were you?" (And I confess my heart gave a little leap within my hot and breathless chest, for what young man would not be taken with the idea of a good and handsome woman, especially one tending so intimately to his bodily needs as at that point, worrying about and caring for him?) "Don't worry," I said, putting out a hand. "I'm not going to die." She looked uncertain, so I added, "Am I?"
"No, Oelph," she said, and smiled kindly. "No, you're not going to die. You're young and strong and I'll look after you. Another half-day and you should start to come round again." She looked down at the hand I had extended to her, which I now realised was on her knee. I gulped.
"Ah, this old dagger of yours," I said, not so fevered that I could not feel embarrassed. I tapped the old knife's pommel where it protruded from the top of the Doctor's boot, near where my hand had rested. "It has, ah, always fascinated me. What sort of knife is it? Have you ever had to use it? I dare say it cannot be a surgical tool. It looks too dull. Or is it some ceremonial token? What-?"
The Doctor smiled and put one hand over my lips, quieting me. She reached down and pulled the dagger from its sheath in her boot, handing it to me. "Here," she said. I took its battered-looking length in my hands. "I'd tell you to be careful," she said, still smiling, "but there's little point."
"Nor much in the way of edge," I said, running one sweaty thumb along it.
The Doctor laughed loudly. "Why, Oelph, a joke," she said, clapping me gently on the shoulder. "And one that works in many a language too. You must be getting better." Her eyes looked bright.
I felt suddenly shy. "You have looked after me so well, mistress…" I was not sure what else to say, and so I studied the dagger. It was a heavy old thing, about a hand and a half long and made of old steel which had become minutely pitted with small rusty holes. The blade was slightly bent and the tip had been broken off and rounded with time. There were a few nicks on each blade-edge, which truly were so dull one would have to saw away with some force to cut anything much more robust than a jellyfish. The tusk grip was pitted too, though on a larger scale. Around the pommel and in a trio of lines down the length of the grip down to the stop there were a few semiprecious stones each no bigger than a crop grain, and many holes where it appeared similar stones had once rested. The top of the pommel was formed by a large dark smoky stone which, when I held it up to the light, I could just see through. Round the pommel's bottom rim what I mistook at first for some wavy carving was really a line of little pits which had lost all but one of the small pale stones.
I ran a finger down them. "You should have this repaired, mistress," I told her. "The palace armourer would oblige, I'm sure, for the stones do not look expensive and the workmanship is not of the first order. Let me take it down to the armoury when I am well. I know the deputy armourer's assistant. It would be no trouble. It would please me to do something for you."
"There is no need," the Doctor said. "I like it well enough just as it is. It has sentimental value. I carry it as a keepsake."
"From whom, mistress?" (The fever! Normally I would not have been so bold!)
"An old friend," she said easily, mopping off my chest and then putting the cloths aside and sitting back on the floor.
"From Drezen?"
"From Drezen," she nodded. "Given to me the day I set sail."
"It was new then?"
She shook her head. "It was old then." The thin light of a Seigen sunset shone through a cracked-open window and reflected redly on her netted, gathered hair. "A family heirloom."
"They do not take very good care of their heirlooms if they let them fall into such disrepair, mistress. There must be more holes than stones."
She smiled. "The stones that are missing were used to good effect. Some bought protection in uncultured places where a person travelling alone is seen more as prey than as guest, and others paid my way on some of the sea passages that brought me here."
"They do not look very valuable."
"They are more highly prized elsewhere, perhaps. But the knife, or what it carried, kept me safe and it kept me moving. I have never had to use it — well, I have had to brandish it and wave it around a bit — but I have never had to use it to hurt anyone. And as you say, that is just as well for me, for it is quite the dullest knife I have seen since I arrived here."
"Quite so, mistress. It would not do to have the dullest dagger in the Palace. All the others are so very sharp."
She looked at me (and I can only say, she looked at me sharply, for that was a piercing gaze). She gently took the dagger from me and rubbed a thumb down one blade. "I think perhaps I will have you take it to the armoury, though only to have an edge put on it."
"They might re-point it too, mistress. A dagger is for stabbing."
"Indeed." She put it back in its sheath.
"Oh, mistress!" I cried, suddenly full of fear. "I'm sorry!"
"For what, Oelph?" she said, her beautiful face, so concerned, suddenly close to mine.
"For — for talking to you like this. For asking you personal questions. I am only your servant, your apprentice. This is not seemly."
"Oh, Oelph," she said, smiling, her voice soft, her breath cool on my cheek. "We can ignore seemliness, at least in private, don't you think?"
"May we, mistress?" (And I confess my heart, fevered though it was, leapt at these words, wildly expecting what I knew I could not expect.)
"I think so, Oelph," she said, and took my hand in hers and squeezed it gently. "You may ask me whatever you like. I can always say no, and I am not the type to take offence easily. I would like us to be friends, not just Doctor and apprentice." She tilted her head, a quizzical, amused expression on her face. "Is that all right with you?"
"Oh, yes, mistress!"
"Good. We'll-" Then the Doctor cocked her head again, listening to something. "There's the door," she said, rising. "Excuse me."
She returned holding her bag. "The King," she said. Her expression, it seemed to me, was half-regretful, halfradiant. "Apparently his toes are sore." She smiled. "Will you be all right by yourself, Oelph?"
"Yes, mistress."
"I'll be back as soon as I can. Then maybe we'll see if you're ready for something to eat."
It was a five-day later, I think, that the Doctor was called to the Slave Master Tunch. His house was an imposing one in the Merchants" Quarter, overlooking the Grand Canal. Its tall, raised front doors sat imposingly above the sweeping double staircase leading from the street, but we were not able to enter that way. Instead our hired seat was directed to a small quay a few streets away, where we transferred to a little cabin-punt which took us, shutters closed, down a side canal and round to the rear of the building and a small dock hidden from the public waters.
"What is all this about?" the Doctor asked me as the punt's shutters were opened by the boatman and the vessel bumped against the dark timbers of a pier. It was well into summer yet still the place seemed chilly and smelled of dankness and decay.
"Mistress?" I said, fastening a spiced kerchief round my mouth and nose.
"This secrecy."
"And why are you doing that?" she asked, obviously annoyed, as a servant helped the boatman secure the punt.
"What, this, mistress?" I asked, pointing to the kerchief.
"Yes," she said, standing up and rocking our small craft.
"It is to combat the evil humours, mistress."
"Oelph, I have told you before that infectious agents are transmitted in breath or bodily fluids, even if they are insect body fluids," she said. "A bad smell by itself will not make you ill. Thank you." The servant accepted her bag and laid it carefully on the small dock. I did not reply. No doctor knows everything and it is better to be safe than sorry. "Anyway," she said, "I am still unclear why all this secrecy is required."
"I think the Slave Master does not want his own doctor to know of your visit," I told her as I clambered on to the dock. "They are
brothers."
"If this Slaver is so close to death, why isn't his doctor at his side?" the Doctor said. "Come to that, why isn't he there as his brother?" The servant held out a hand to help the Doctor out of the boat. "Thank you," she said again. (She is always thanking servants. I think the menials of Drezen must be a surly lot. Or just spoiled.)
"I don't know, mistress," I confessed.
"The Master's brother is in Trosila, ma'am," the servant said (which just goes to show what happens when you start speaking to servants).
"Is he?" the Doctor said.
The servant opened a small door leading to the rear of the house. "Yes, ma'am," he said, looking nervously at the boatman. "He has gone in person to seek some rare earth which is said to help the condition the Master is suffering from."
"I see," the Doctor said. We entered the house. A female servant met us. She wore a severe black dress and had a forbidding face. Indeed her expression was so bleak my first thought was that Slave Master Tunch had died. However, she gave the tiniest of nods to the Doctor and in a precise, clipped voice said, "Mistress Vosill?"
"That's me."
She nodded at me. "And this?"
"My apprentice, Oelph."
"Very good. Follow me."
The Doctor looked round as we started up some bare wooden stairs, a conspiratorial look on her face. I was caught in the act of directing a most harsh stare at the black back of the woman leading us, but the Doctor just smiled and winked.
The servant who had talked to the Doctor locked the dock door and disappeared through another which I guessed led to the servants" floor.
The passage-way was steep and narrow and unlit save for a slit window every storey, where the wooden steps twisted to double back on themselves. There was a narrow door at each floor, too. It crossed my mind that perhaps these confined quarters were for children, for the Slaver Tunch was well known for specialising in child slaves.
We came to the second landing. "How long has Slaver Tunch?" the Doctor began.
"Please do not talk on these stairs," the strict-looking woman told her. "Others may hear."
The Doctor said nothing, but turned back to look at me again, her eyes wide and the corners of her mouth turned down.
We were led into the rest of the house at the third storey. The corridor we found ourselves in was broad and plush. Paintings adorned the walls, and facing us were wall-high glass windows letting in the sight of the tops of the grand houses on the far side of the canal and the sky and clouds beyond. A series of tall, wide doors opened off the corridor. We were ushered towards the tallest and widest.
The woman put her hand on the door's handle. "The servant," she said. "On the dock."
"Yes?" said the Doctor.
"He talked to you?"
The Doctor looked into the woman's eyes for a moment. "I asked him a question," she said (this is one of the few times I have ever heard the Doctor directly lie).
"I thought so," the woman said, opening the door for us.
We stepped into a large, dark room lit only by candies and lanterns. The floor underfoot felt warm and furry. At first I thought I'd stepped on a hound. There was a perfume of great sweetness in the room and I thought I detected the scent of various herbs known to have a healing or tonic effect. I tried to detect a smell of sickness or corruption, but could not. A huge canopied bed sat in the middle of the room. It held a large man attended by three people: two servants and a well-dressed lady. They looked round as we entered and light flooded into the room. The light started to wane behind us as the severe-looking woman closed the doors from outside.
The Doctor turned round and said through the narrowing gap, "The servant-"
"Will be punished," the woman said with a wintry smile.
The doors thudded shut. The Doctor breathed deeply and then turned to the candle-lit scene in the centre of the room.
"You are the woman doctor?" the lady asked, approaching us.
"My name is Vosill," the Doctor told her. "Lady Tunch?"
The woman nodded. "Can you help my husband?"
"I don't know, ma'am." The Doctor looked round the shadowy, half-hidden spaces of the room, as if trying to guess its extent. "It would help if I could see him. Is there a reason for the curtains being drawn?"
"Oh. We were told the darkness would reduce the swellings."
"Let's take a look, shall we?'the Doctor said. We crossed to the bed. Walking on the thick floor covering was an odd, disconcerting experience, like walking on the deck of a pitching ship.
The Slave Master Tunch had, by repute, always been a huge man. He was bigger now. He lay on the bed, breathing quickly and shallowly, his skin grey and blotched. His eyes were closed. "He seems to sleep almost all the time,"
the lady told us. She was a thin little thing, scarcely more than a child, with a pinched, pale face and hands that were forever kneading each other. One of the two servants was mopping her husband's brow. The other was fussing at the bottom of the bed, tucking in bed clothes. "He was soiled, just earlier," the lady explained.
"Did you keep the stool?" the Doctor asked.
"No!" the lady said, shocked. "We have no need to. The house has a water closet."
The Doctor took the place of the servant mopping the man's brow. She looked into his eyes, she looked in his mouth and then she pulled back the coverings over the huge bulge of his body before pulling up his shirt. I think the only fatter people I have seen have been eunuchs. Master Tunch was not just fat (though goodness knows, there is nothing wrong with being fat!), he bulged. Oddly. I saw this myself, even before the Doctor pointed this out.
She turned to the lady. "I need more light," she told her. "Would you have the curtains opened?"
The lady hesitated, then nodded to the servants.
Light washed into the great room. It was even more splendid than I had imagined. All the furniture was covered in gold leaf. Cloth of gold hung from the bed's great frame. It was drawn up into a great sphincter shape in the centre of the ceiling and even formed the curtains themselves. Paintings and mirrors covered every wall and pieces of sculpture — mostly nymphs and a few of the old, wanton goddesses — stood on the floor or sat upon the tables, desks and sideboards, where a veritable profusion of what looked like human skulls covered in gold leaf were scattered. The carpets were a soft and lustrous blue-black, and were, I guessed, zuleon fur, from the far south. They were so thick I wasn't surprised that walking on them had been unsettling.
Slave Master Tunch looked no better in the light of day than he had by candle glow. His flesh was everywhere puffy and discoloured and his body seemed a strange shape, even for one so large. He moaned and one fat hand came fluttering up like a doughy bird. His wife took it and held it to her cheek one-handed. There was an awkwardness about the way she tried to use both hands that mystified me at the time.
The Doctor pressed and prodded the giant frame in a variety of places. The man groaned and whimpered but uttered no intelligible word.
"When did he start to bloat like this?" she asked.
"About a year past, I think," the lady said. The Doctor looked at her quizzically. The lady looked bashful. "We were only married a half-year ago," the Slaver's wife said. The Doctor was looking at her oddly, but then she smiled.
"Was there much pain at the start?"
"The Housemistress has told me that his last wife said it was about Harvest when he began to get the pains, and then his…" She patted her own waist. "His girth began to become greater."
The Doctor kept prodding the great body. "Did he become ill tempered?"
The lady smiled a small, hesitant smile. "Oh, I think he was always… he was never one to suffer fools gladly." She started to hug herself, then winced with pain before she could cross her arms, settling instead for massaging her upper left arm with her right hand.
"Is your arm sore?" the Doctor asked her.
The lady stepped back, eyes wide. "No!" she exclaimed, still clutching her arm. "No. There's nothin
g wrong with it. It's fine."
The Doctor pulled the man's night dress back down and drew the covers over him. "Well, there's nothing I can do for him. Best let him sleep."
"Sleep?" the lady wailed. "All day, like an animal?"
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "I should have said best let him remain unconscious."
"Is there nothing you can do for him?"
"Not really," the Doctor said. "The illness is so advanced that he is hardly even feeling the pain now. It's unlikely he'll come round again. I can write you a prescription for something to give him if he does, but I imagine his brother has already dealt with that."
The lady nodded. She was staring at the great form that was her husband, one fist at her mouth, her teeth biting on her knuckle. "He's going to die!"
"Almost certainly. I'm sorry."
The lady shook her head. Eventually she tore her gaze away from the bed. "Should I have called you earlier? If I had, would that-?’
"it would have made no difference," the Doctor told her. "There is nothing any doctor could have done for him. Some diseases are not treatable." She looked down — with a cold expression, it seemed to me — at the body lying panting on the great bed. "Happily some are also not transmissible." She looked up at the lady. "You need have no fear on that point." She glanced round at the servants as she said this.
"How much do I owe you?" the wife asked.
"Whatever you think fit," the Doctor said. "I have been able to do nothing. Perhaps you feel I deserve nothing."
"No. No, not at all. Please." The lady went to a bureau near the bed and took out a small plain purse. She handed it to the Doctor.
"You really should have that arm seen to," the Doctor said softly, while studying the other woman's face, and her mouth, most closely. "It might mean-"
"No," the lady said quickly, looking away and then walking off to the nearest of the tall windows. "I am perfectly well, Doctor. Perfectly. Thank you for coming. Good day."
We sat in the hired chair on the way back, wobbling and weaving through the crowds of Land Street, heading for the Palace. I was folding away my spiced kerchief. The Doctor smiled sadly. She had been in a thoughtful, even morose mood all the way back (we had left the same way we had arrived, via the private dock). "Still worried about ill humours, Oelph?"
