Iain Banks - Inversions

The chief torturer stood there, quivering, while his assistant gazed on with an expression of apprehension and terror. The Doctor’s look was one of grimly contemptuous amusement. Then Nolieti spun round and stabbed a finger at her. “You!” he hissed at her. “You killed him. You didn’t want him to live!”

The Doctor looked unconcerned, and continued drying her hands (though it seemed to me that they were both already dry, and shaking). “I am sworn to save life, chief torturer, not to take it,” she said reasonably. “I leave that to others.”

“What was in that stuff?” the chief torturer said, quickly squatting to wrench open the Doctor’s bag. He pulled out the open vial she had taken the ointment from and brandished it in her face. “This. What is it?”

“A stimulant,” she said, and dipped a finger into the vial, displaying a small fold of the soft brown gel on her finger tip so that it glinted in the light of the brazier. “Would you like to try it?” She moved the finger towards Nolieti’s mouth.

The chief torturer grabbed her hand in one of his and forced the finger back, towards her own lips. “No. You do it. Do what you did to him.”

The Doctor shook her hand free of Nolieti’s and calmly put her finger to her mouth, spreading the brown paste along her top gum. “The taste is bitter-sweet,” she said in the same tone she uses when she is teaching me. “The effects last between two and three bells and usually have no side effects, though in a body seriously weakened and in shock, fits are likely and death is a remote possibility.” She licked her finger. “Children in particular suffer severe side effects with almost no restorative function and it is never recommended for them. The gel is made from the berries of a biennial plant which grows on isolated peninsulae on islands in the very north of Drezen. It is quite precious, and more usually applied in a solution, in which form, too, it is most stable and long-lasting. I have used it to treat the King on occasion and he regards it as one of my more efficacious prescriptions. There is not much left now and I would have preferred not to waste it on either those who are going to die anyway, or on myself, but you did insist. I am sure the King will not mind.” (I have to report, Master, that as far as I am aware, the Doctor has never used this particular gel — of which she has several jars — on the King, and I am not sure she had ever used it to treat any patient.) The Doctor closed her mouth and I could see her wipe her tongue round her top gum. Then she smiled. “Are you sure you won’t try some?”

Nolieti said nothing for a moment, his broad, dark face moving as though he was chewing on his tongue.

“Get this Drezen witch out of here,” he said eventually to Unoure, and then turned away to stamp on the brazier’s foot-bellows. The brazier hissed and glowed yellow, showering sparks up into its sooty chimney. Nolieti glanced at the dead man in the cage-chair. “Then take this bastard to the acid bath,” he barked.

We were at the door when the chief torturer, still working the foot-bellows with a regular, thrusting stroke, called out, “Doctor?”

She turned to look at him as Unoure opened the door and fished the black blindfold from his apron. “Yes, chief torturer?” she said.

He looked round at us, smiling as he continued to fire the brazier. “You’ll be here again, Drezen woman,” he said softly to her. His eyes glittered in the yellow brazier light. “And next time you won’t be able to walk out.”

The Doctor held his gaze for a good while, until she looked down and shrugged. “Or you will appear in my surgery,” she told him, looking up. “And may be assured of my best attention.”

The chief torturer turned away and spat into the brazier, his foot stamping on the bellows and breathing life into that instrument of death as we were ushered out of the low door by the assistant Unoure.

Two hundred heartbeats later we were met at the tall iron doors which led into the rest of the palace by a footman of the royal chamber.

“It’s my back again, Vosill,” the King said, turning on to his front on the wide, canopied bed while the Doctor rolled up first her own sleeves and then the King’s tunic top and shift. And we were in the principal bed-chamber of King Quience’s private apartments, deep within the innermost quadrangle of Efernze, the winter palace of Haspide, capital of Haspidus!

This has become such a regular haunt of mine, indeed such a regular place of work, that I confess I am inclined to forget that I am honoured indeed to be present. When I stop to consider the matter though, I think, Great Gods, I — an orphan of a disgraced family — am in the presence of our beloved King! And regularly, and intimately!

At such moments, Master, I thank you in my soul with all the vigour that is mine to command, for I know that it was only your kindness, wisdom and compassion that put me in such an exalted position and entrusted me with such an important mission. Be assured that I shall continue to try with all my might to be worthy of that trust, and fulfil that task.

Wiester, the King’s chamberlain, had let us into the apartments. “Will that be all, sir?” he asked, bending and hunching over as well as his ample frame would allow.

“Yes. That’s all for now. Go.”

The Doctor sat on the side of the King’s bed and kneaded his shoulders and back with her strong, capable fingers. She had me hold a small jar of rich-smelling unguent which she dipped her fingers into every now and again, spreading the ointment across the King’s broad, hairy back and working it into his pale gold skin with her fingers and palms.

As I sat there, with the Doctor’s medicine bag open at my side, I noticed that the jar of brown gel which she had used to treat the wretch in the hidden chamber was still lying opened on one of the bag’s ingeniously fashioned internal shelves. I went to stick my own finger into the jar. The Doctor saw what I was doing and quickly took hold of my hand and pulled it away from the jar and said quietly, “I wouldn’t, Oelph, if I were you. Just put the top back on carefully.”

“What’s that, Vosill?” the King asked.

“Nothing, sir,” the Doctor said, replacing her hands on the King’s back and leaning forward on to him.

“Ouch,” the King said.

“Mostly muscular tension,” the Doctor said softly, flicking her head so that her hair, which had partly fallen across her face, was sent spilling back over her shoulder.

“My father never had to suffer so,” the King said morosely into his gold-threaded pillow, his voice made deeper by the thickness and weight of fabric and feathers.

The Doctor smiled quickly at me. “What, sir,” she said. “You mean he never had to suffer my clumsy ministrations?”

“No,” the King said, groaning. “You know what I mean, Vosill. This back. He never had to suffer this back. Or my leg cramps, or my headaches, or my constipation, or any of these aches and pains.” He was silent a moment as the Doctor pushed and pressed at his skin. “Father never had to suffer anything. He never—”

“—had a day’s illness in his life,” the Doctor said, in chorus with the King.

The King laughed. The Doctor smiled at me again. I held the jar of ointment, inexpressibly happy for just that moment, until the King sighed and said, “Ah, such sweet torture, Vosill.”

Whereupon the Doctor paused in her rocking, kneading motion, and a look of bitterness, even contempt, passed briefly over her face.

This is the story of the man known as DeWar, who was principal bodyguard to General UrLeyn, Prime Protector of the Tassasen Protectorate, for the years 1218 to 1221, Imperial. Most of my tale takes place in the palace of Vorifyr, in Crough, the ancient capital city of Tassasen, during that fateful year of 1221.