by Iain Banks
Then Langtuhn looked right at me, waved and called out. He touched the Prince's sleeve and gestured in my direction. In front of me, heads were starting to turn. The Prince caught my gaze, smiled broadly and waved, shouting something.
'Shit,' I breathed.
'Shit,' said a little voice quite clearly above me.
'It is so good to see you again!' the Prince enthused, clapping his hands and smiling like a schoolboy. He wasn't wearing any rings, I noticed. There were seven of us squeezed into the back of the Roller, bouncing uphill to the palace. I was thigh-to-thigh with Suvinder, who was relatively comfortable in the middle of the rear seat with B. K. Bousande, his private secretary, on the other side. Hisa Gidhaur, the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary whom I'd last seen at Blysecrag, sat directly across from me. Hokla Niniphe, the Home Secretary, was sitting sweating next to the cabin's stove, while Jungeatai Rhumde, the Prime Minister, and Srikkuhm Pih, commander of the militia, had been the last two to get in and so had to squat each with their backs to a door. I'd have assumed they'd be better off in one of the two four-wheel-drives following us up the hill, but apparently there was some big protocol thing about travelling with the Prince.
I'd been introduced to the officials and dignitaries I hadn't met before and they'd all been very polite and cordial before we clambered into the back of the car, but I sincerely hoped I wasn't inadvertently treading on as many metaphorical toes as I had physical ones.
At least they all seemed happy enough, sitting or squatting hunched in their thick clothes with big smiles on their round, hairless faces, nodding at me and making appreciative noises. I put it down to the understandable euphoria of at last having their. chunky Thulahnese asses only half a metre above the ground in a vehicle travelling at little more than a fast walk which, if it broke down, would just sit at the roadside decorously wisping steam rather than plummeting abruptly towards the nearest patch of icy rock.
'You have seen my mother,' Suvinder went on. 'She is well?'
'Yes, I think so.'
'How did you get on?'
I thought carefully. 'We had a full and frank discussion.'
'Oh, very good!' Suvinder looked delighted. I glanced round the others. The cream of the Thulahnese hierarchy looked appreciatively on, nodding their approval.
The Prince's suite was in the same recently modernised section of the palace as my room, though a floor higher. The whole royal complex was suddenly full of people dashing about, slamming doors, waving bits of paper, carrying boxes and clattering open shutters. I stood with B. K. Bousande in the lounge of the Prince's private suite, watching servants I'd never seen before rushing round the room distributing bits of luggage and straightening pictures.
The lounge was relatively modest, even restrained. Plain walls held a few gauzy watercolours; a polished wood floor was scattered with intricately patterned carpets, a couple of big cream-coloured settees and a few pieces of what looked very old and elaborately carved wooden furniture including a low central table.
A servant carrying a bunch of fresh flowers appeared through the door and set them in a vase on a sideboard. I straightened the little wire and silk flower I'd worn the day before and had transferred to my red quilted jacket, then noticed again the muddy grey marks Dulsung's boots had left by my lapels. I brushed them off as best I could and dusted my hands.
'You must tell me all you have done since you arrived!' the Prince called out from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. Judging from the echo, from the bathroom.
'Oh, just sightseeing.'
'You will not be rushing away, I hope? I would like to show you more of Thulahn.'
'I can stay a few more days, I guess. But I wouldn't want to interfere with your duties, sir.'
There was a pause, then the Prince stuck his head round the door from the bedroom, frowning. 'You do not call me "sir", Kathryn. To you I am Suvinder.' He shook his head and disappeared again. 'BK, deliver my invitation, would you?'
B. K. Bousande bowed to me and said, 'We are holding a reception to celebrate His Highness's return this evening. Would you be his guest?'
'Certainly. I'd be honoured.'
'Oh, good!' the Prince called out.
The high valleys were torn ribbons of scrappy green rammed between the force of mountains pitched tumultuously against the sky. In them was a whole raised world of tenaciously adapted bushes, trees, birds and animals somehow able to grow and multiply in this winded sweep of gust-eroded ice, naked rock and barren gravel.
The reception was held in the palace's main hall, a relatively modest space not much larger than the throne room in the old palace, but much less bizarre in its decoration, with a stalactitically carved wooden ceiling and walls covered by what looked like crosses between Afghan rugs and tapestries.
After consulting with Langtuhn Hemblu on the propriety of the little blue-black Versace — regretfully deemed too short — I'd chosen a long green silk sleeveless number with a high Chinese collar. This is the sort of dress that makes me look long and hard at myself; however, I passed the inspection of my own in-built body-fascist program and, happily, people did later compliment me on the dress in that way that means they think you look good in it, and not in the way that means they're astonished how tolerable a job it's doing of making mutton look like lamb.
There were perhaps two hundred people present at the reception. The majority were Thulahnese but there were a couple of dozen Indians and Pakistanis and a smattering of Chinese, Malays, other Oriental people whose nationalities I wasn't so sure of and some Japanese. A lot of Westerners seemed to have crawled out of the woodwork, too; I hadn't known there were so many in Thulahn, let alone Thuhn.
I was introduced to the Indian High Commissioner, the Pakistani and Chinese ambassadors, and various consuls, honorary and otherwise, including Josh Levitsen, who looked awkward in a three-piece suit that had probably last been fashionable about the time of his senior prom. Perhaps to take his mind off this he was already quite drunk when we shook hands.
The Prince guided me round his ministers, advisers and family members. This last category included his rather subdued brother and sister-in-law whose son was the heir to the throne if Suvinder didn't have any children and who was at a Business-run school in Switzerland. I also met representatives of the other noble families, of which there were about a dozen all told, a swathe of subtly varied saffron-clad lamas, a couple of Hindu priests clad in borderline-garish, and I was introduced to the remainder of the Thulahnese Civil Service that I hadn't met in either the Twin Otter four years earlier or the Foreign Ministry the day before.
I made a point of bowing and smiling a lot. A gift I've always been very grateful for is never forgetting a name, so I was able to greet people like Senior Immigration Officer Shlahm Thivelu, Home Secretary Hokla Niniphe and Prime Minister Jungeatai Rhumde without having to be prompted. They all seemed pleased. I spotted a female face I knew I'd seen before but couldn't place until I realised it was one of the old Queen's ladies-in-waiting.
The remaining foreigners included a clutch of VSO Brits and Peace Corps Americans — all appropriately young, enthusiastic, naive and full of energy — a few teachers, mostly English and French, a couple of Ozzie doctors and one Indian surgeon, some Canadian rough-diamond-type engineers and contractors engaged on relatively small-scale infrastructure work, a handful of sweaty mixed-European businessmen hoping to land contracts with the various Thulahnese ministries, and a physically attractive but corrosively smug Milanese geology professor with his own little entourage of students, all female.
Only when you started to look, only once you'd had your fill of gazing at the dazzling white peaks above and refocused your sight to what was really around you did you see the variety of forms displayed.
'They are very bad workers.'
'Are they?'
'Impossible. Quite useless. They cannot keep time. I think sometimes they cannot tell time.' The speaker was a tall, bulky Austrian businessman with a tight grip on his coc
ktail glass.
'Oh dear,' I said.
'Yes. We have a factory — just a very small concern you understand, something quite tiny, really — in Sangamanu making eyeglasses and ethnic jewellery. We received funding from the World Bank and various NGOs and the project was seen as a way of providing much-needed employment. It could be acceptably profitable, but the employees are quite hopeless. They forget to turn up, many days. They wander off before the clocking-off time comes. They seem unable to understand that they must be there five or six days out of seven; they go ploughing fields or gathering wood. It is quite unacceptable, but what is one to do? This factory means nothing to my company. I say nothing, of course it means something, but really it is so small in scale that it means next to nothing. But, you see, in Sangamanu it is the biggest employer. These people should be grateful that it is there and do their best to make it a success, as we have done, but they do nothing. They are just pathetic. They are a very childish sort of people, I think. They are immature, yes, like children are.'
'Really,' I said, shaking my head and looking as though I found this fascinating. I created an excuse to get away from the guy shortly afterwards, leaving him agreeing sternly with a German surveyor that, yes, the people here were just impossible. I went in search of anybody not conforming to their own national or cultural stereotypes.
I spotted Srikkuhm Pih, the militia commander, standing stiffly in his rather grand ceremonial uniform, which looked as if it might have been fashionable in the British Army about a hundred years earlier.
'Mr Pih,' I said, bowing.
'Ah, Miss Telman.' Srikkuhm Pih was old, slightly stooped, shorter than me and had the greyest hair of any Thulahnese I'd seen so far.
'I very much like your outfit. You look terribly grand. That sword's quite wonderful.'
Mr Pih responded very well to flattery. Apparently as well as being commander of the militia he was Minister of War , Secretary of Defence and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. After he'd shown me the dazzlingly bright and beautifully inscribed sword — a present to one of his predecessors from an Indian maharaja at the turn of the century — we were soon talking about the ticklish nature of his job and the generally unwarlike nature of the average Thulahnese male.
'We very bad soldiers,' he said, with a happy shrug.
'Well, if you don't need to fight…'
'Very bad soldiers. Monks best.'
'Monks?'
He nodded. 'Monks have competition. Of this.' He mimed drawing a bow.
'Archery competitions?' I asked.
'That right. Four time year. Each…'
'Season?'
'That right. Four time year they competition, all sampal, all monk-house against all other. Arch. But always get drunk first.'
'They get drunk first?'
'Drink khotse.' This was the local brew, a fermented milk beer that I'd tried exactly once when I'd come to Thulahn the first time. I think it's safe to say that even its greatest fan would agree it was an acquired taste. 'Get drunk,' Srikkuhm Pih continued, 'then they fire arrow. Some very good. Hit middle of the target, bang spot on. But. Start good, then drunk, end not good. Laugh too much. Fall over.' He shook his head. 'Sorry state of affairs.'
'You can't use the monks as soldiers, then?'
He mugged horror and dread. 'Rinpoche, Tsunke, head lama, chief priest man, they not let me. None of would. They are most…' He blew out his cheeks and shook his head.
'Didn't you have sort of samurai or something? I thought I read about a warrior caste. What were they called? The Treih?'
'They no good either. Worst. All gone soft. Very soft peoples now. Too much of living in houses, they say. Just not officer material, don't you know.' He shook his head again and regarded his empty glass. 'Sorry state of affairs.'
'What about the rest of the people? Where do you get your soldiers?'
'Not got soldiers,' he said, shrugging. 'Got none. Not a bean.'
'None at all?'
'We have militia; I am commander. Men have guns in house, we have more gun to give, here in palace, also in Government House in each towns. But not barracks, not standing army, not professionals or territorials.' He tapped his chest. 'This only army uniform in country.'
'Wow.'
He gestured to where Suvinder was talking to a couple of his ministers. The Prince waved. I waved back. 'I ask Prince for money for uniform for men,' the militia commander went on, 'but he say, "No, I am afraid not yet, Srikkuhm old fellow, must wait. Maybe next year." Well, I am very patient. Guns more important than uniforms. Not wrong there.'
'But if, say, the Chinese invaded, how many men could you put up? What would be the maximum?'
'Government military secret,' he said, slowly shaking his head. 'Very top secret.' He looked thoughtful. 'About twenty-three thousand.'
'Oh. Well, that is a fairly respectable army. Or militia.'
He looked dubious. 'That how many guns. Men not supposed to sell them or use them for other thing, like for plumb in house, but some have.' He looked glum.
'Sorry state of affairs,' I said.
'Sorry state of affairs,' he agreed, then brightened. 'But Prince always is saying he happy to have me most unemploymented man in Thulahn.' He looked around, then leaned closer and dropped his voice. I bent to hear. 'I get performance-relate bonus every year there no war.'
'Do you?' I laughed. 'How splendid! Well done.'
The militia commander offered to refresh my glass, which didn't need refreshing, then wandered off in the general direction of the drinks table, looking pleased both with himself and the financially agreeable absence of war.
I did some more circulating and found myself talking to one of the teachers, a young Welsh woman called Cerys Williams.
'Oh, Cerys, like the girl in Catatonia?'
'That's it. Same spelling.'
'I'm sure you get asked all the time, but what's it like, teaching here?'
Cerys thought the Thulahnese children were great. The schools had very little equipment and the parents were inclined to keep children away from lessons if there was anything that had to be done on the farm, but generally they seemed very bright and willing to learn.
'How long do they get in school? How many years?'
'Just primary, really. There is secondary education, but you have to pay for that. It isn't a lot, but it's more than most of the families can afford. Usually they educate the oldest boy up to third or fourth year, but the rest tend to leave when they're eleven or twelve.'
'Always the boy, even if there's an older girl?'
She gave a rueful grin. 'Oh, well, almost always. I'm trying — well, we're all trying, really, but I think I'm trying hardest — to change that, but you're up against an awful lot of generations of tradition, see?'
'I'll bet.'
'But they're not stupid. They're coming round to the idea that girls might benefit from higher education; we've had a few successes. It still usually means only one child per household goes to secondary, mind you.'
'I imagine there might be a few eldest boys who feel resentful because of that.'
She smiled. 'Oh, I don't know. They're happy enough to leave school when the time comes. I think most of them would much rather it was their sisters who had to stay on.'
More circulating. The Prime Minister himself filled me in on the workings of the Thulahnese governmental system. There was a form of democracy at the most local level, where people in each village and town elected a head man or mayor, who then chose town constables to uphold the law (or didn't bother: there was very little crime and certainly I hadn't seen any sort of police presence in Thuhn so far). The chief of each noble family and the head men and mayors formed a parliament of sorts, which met irregularly and could advise the monarch, but after that it was down to appointees of the monarch, and appointees of appointees. Anyone in the kingdom could appeal to the throne if he thought he'd been hard done by in the courts or elsewhere. Suvinder took this part of the job seriously, though Ju
ngeatai Rhumde thought people were inclined to take advantage of the Prince's good nature. He'd suggested a sort of supreme court set-up instead, but Suvinder preferred the old system.
'Aw, shit, no, they're great people. You wouldn't want to confuse them with anybody who gives a fuck, mind you.' Rich was an Ozzie civil engineer. He laughed. 'Some of the fellas disagree, but I think they've got a great attitude to life, but then they think they're going to be reincarnated or something like that, you know?'
I smiled, nodded.
'Who needs crash barriers if God's looking after you and you might come back as something better next time anyway, you know? Fucking hard little workers, though. Don't know when to stop.'
And more circulating. Michel was a French doctor, moodily good-looking but one of those people who makes no effort to be attractive or even interesting beyond keeping their good looks kempt. He was a bit dour, as we say, but provided an overview of medicine in Thulahn, which was pretty basic. High infant mortality, poor ante- and post-natal care in the outlying villages, whole population prone to influenza epidemics which killed a few thousand each winter, some malnutrition, a lot of preventable and/or easily treatable blindness. Goitres and other deficiency conditions a problem in some of the valleys where they didn't get a full spectrum of minerals and vitamins in their diet. No sign of gender-biased infanticide. AIDS known but not common.
On which negative but happy note, the good doctor propositioned me in a bored sort of way that left it open whether he was so used to women falling into his arms that he'd got out of the way of putting much effort into it, or was so frightened of rejection he thought it wise not to invest the suggestion with too much significance.
I did my impression of the Roman Empire, and declined.
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