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 enemies were being made, what desires stoked, what hopes squashed.
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 knowledge. I shall of course obey his instruction but I-"
"I'm sure you can, I'm sure," the Duke said. "And pray, what part of Drezen was it you said that you are from?"
The Doctor drew herself up a little more. "From Pressel, on the island of Napthilia, sir."
"Ah yes, yes. Napthilia. Napthilia. Indeed. You must miss it terribly, I imagine."
"A little, sir."
"Having no one of your own kind to talk to in your native language, unable to catch up on the latest news, lacking compatriots to reminisce with. A sad business, being an exile."
"It has its compensations, sir."
"Yes. Good. Very well. Think on, about those dances. We shall. see you later, perhaps, high-kicking, whirling and whooping, eh?"
"Perhaps," the Doctor said. I for one was glad I could not see her expression behind the mask. Of course, being a half-face mask, her lips were visible. I began to worry how much aspersion a pair of full red lips could convey.
Just so," Walen said. "Until then, madam." He nodded.
The Doctor bowed subtly. Duke Walen turned and led his party towards the ballroom.