Iain Banks Culture 06 Inversions

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'You must find somewhere else,' the Doctor told her. She reached down and
pulled up the girl's thin dress. I looked away as she examined the child's
mid-parts, which appeared inflamed.
The Doctor bent closer, rearranging the child's legs and taking some
instrument from her bag. After a while she put the girl's legs back together
and pulled the patient's dress and skirts back down. She busied herself with
the child's eyes and mouth and nose, and held her wrist for a while, eyes
closed. There was silence in the room save for the noises of the storm and the
occasional sniffle from Mrs Elund, who had settled on the floor with the
Doctor's cape wrapped half around her. I had the distinct impression the
Doctor was trying to control a desire to shout and scream.
'The money for the song school,' the Doctor said tersely. 'If I went to the
school now, do you think they would tell me it had been spent there on Zea's
lessons?'
'Oh, Doctor, we're a poor family!' the wild-haired woman said, putting her
face in her hands again. 'I can't watch what they all do! I can't keep watch
on what she does with the money I give her! She does what she wants to do,
that one, I tell you! Oh, save her, Doctor! Please save her!'
The Doctor shifted her position where she knelt and reached in under the bed.
She pulled out a couple of fat clays, one stoppered, one not. She sniffed the
empty clay and shook the stoppered one. It sloshed. Mrs Elund looked up, her
eyes wide. She swallowed. I
caught a whiff from the clay. The smell was the same as that on Mrs Elund's
breath. The
Doctor looked at the other woman over the top of the empty clay. 'How long has
Zea known men, Mrs Elund?' the Doctor asked, replacing the clays under the
bed.
'Known men!' the wild-haired woman screeched, sitting upright. 'She '
'And on this bed, too, I'd think,' the Doctor said, pulling up the girl's
dress to look at the bed's covers again. 'That's where she's picked up the
infection. Somebody's been too rough with her. She's too young.' She looked at
Mrs Elund with an expression I can only say I was devoutly glad was not
directed at me. Mrs Elund's jaw worked and her eyes went wide. I thought she
was about to speak, then the Doctor said, 'I understood what the children said
when they left, Mrs Elund. They thought Zea might be pregnant, and they
mentioned the sea captain and the two bad men. Or did I misunderstand
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something?'
Mrs Elund opened her mouth, then she went limp and her eyes closed and she
said, 'Oooh
. . .' and fell in what looked like a dead faint to the floor, folding herself
on to the Doctor's cloak.
The Doctor ignored Mrs Elund and busied herself at her bag for a moment before
bringing out a jar of ointment and a small wooden spatula. She drew on a pair
of the rike's bladder gloves she'd had the Palace hide-tailor make for her and
pulled the girl's dress up once more. I looked away again.
The Doctor used various of her precious ointments and fluids on the sick
child, telling me as she did so what effect each ought to have, how this one
alleviated the effects of high temperature on the brain, how this one would
fight the infection at its source, how this one would do the same job from
inside the girl's body, and how this one would give her strength and act as a
general tonic when she recovered. The Doctor had me remove her cloak from
underneath Mrs Elund and then hold the cloak out of a window in the other
room, waiting with arms that became increasingly sore until it was
saturated with water before bringing it back inside and placing its dark,
sopping folds over the child, whose clothes, save for a single tatty shift,
the Doctor had removed. The girl continued to shake and twitch, and seemed no
better than when we had arrived.
When Mrs Elund made the noises that indicated she was coming back from her
faint, the
Doctor ordered her to find a fire, a kettle and some clean water to boil. Mrs
Elund seemed to resent this, but left without too many curses muttered under
her breath.
'She's burning up,' the Doctor whispered to herself, one graceful,
long-fingered hand on the child's forehead. It occurred to me then, for the
first time, that the girl might die.
'Oelph,' the Doctor said, looking at me with worry in her eyes. 'Would you see
if you can find the children? Hurry them up. She needs that ice.'
'Yes, mistress,' I said wearily, and made for the stairs and their mixture of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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