Inversions
Chapters - Iain M. Banks
Prologue
An older Oelph reflects on the Doctor's assertion that selfishness is the only sin, tracing how his views on this evolved over a lifetime. He introduces the dual narrative structure of his chronicle, explaining that one part he witnessed personally and the other he discovered later, believing the two tales belong together. He invites the reader to judge the events that follow.
POV: Oelph
Chapter 1: The Doctor
Oelph is summoned by Unoure, the questioner's assistant, to bring Doctor Vosill to the hidden torture chamber beneath the palace. There, chief torturer Nolieti demands Vosill heal a prisoner who is bleeding to death after brutal interrogation. The Doctor examines the man and administers a stimulant, but the prisoner dies from his injuries. Nolieti accuses Vosill of killing the man, but she calmly demonstrates the stimulant is harmless by tasting it herself, invoking the King's name to deflect his threats.
Chapter 2: The Bodyguard
DeWar attends a war-planning meeting in Protector UrLeyn's chambers, where his brother RuLeuin returns from a tour of the Thrown Isles and UrLeyn's young son Lattens is introduced to the court men. Afterwards, in Perrund's tower room, DeWar joins the concubine over a game of Monarch's Dispute, and Perrund recounts the old parable of Emperor Munnosh and the fiery bird, the two of them turning the story over for what it says about rulers, advisers and the cost of holding power.
POV: DeWar·On page: UrLeyn, General YetAmidous, RuLeuin, Lattens, Perrund, Stike
Chapter 3: The Doctor
A storm-battered expedition takes Doctor Vosill and Oelph through the Blister Gate down to the Barrows, summoned to Mrs Elund's small daughter, who is burning with fever. Vosill sends Oelph out into the freezing night to fetch ice while she works to bring the child's temperature down. Despite their efforts the girl dies before morning, and the Doctor and her apprentice trudge back through the slush in silence.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Wiester, Guard Commander Adlain, Duke Walen
Chapter 4: The Bodyguard
Protector UrLeyn grants a Painted Chamber audience to Oestrile, ambassador of the Sea Company, who arrives in a fine cloak that conceals chain mail beneath. When Oestrile draws a dagger hidden inside a fake telescope, DeWar cuts him down; a concealed crossbow is later discovered behind a painted panel as part of the chamber's secret defences. Uninjured and exhilarated, UrLeyn leaves DeWar to manage the aftermath and goes off to the harem.
POV: DeWar·On page: Perrund, UrLeyn, General YetAmidous, Guard Commander ZeSpiole, RuLeuin, Doctor BreDelle, Lattens, Huesse
Chapter 5: The Doctor
Oelph lies feverish in Doctor Vosill's apartments, and she nurses him with unexpected gentleness; in his delirium he asks about her battered old dagger and she tells him it is a keepsake from a friend in Drezen, its missing stones traded for passage. She is then called by sedan to the house of Slave Master Tunch, an obese and dying slaver, where Vosill notices the bruised arm of his terrified young wife. On the way back, troubled by what she has seen, the Doctor takes Oelph to a tavern and undertakes to teach him to drink.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Feulecharo, Unoure, Wiester, Guard Commander Adlain, Duke Walen, Jollisce, Epline, Slave Master Tunch
Chapter 6: The Bodyguard
DeWar is found dozing in a tower room by Perrund on his morning off, and they talk over recent threats and the rumours circulating about him. At General YetAmidous's gathering the court men trade gossip about DeWar's origins and his closeness to Perrund. Later, with the boy Lattens, DeWar tells the first of his Lavishia stories, in which the cousins Sechroom and Hiliti argue over the tale of Leleeril and whether the developed peoples have any right to interfere with the less developed.
POV: DeWar·On page: Perrund, Lattens, Huesse, BiLeth, UrLeyn, RuLeuin, Guard Commander ZeSpiole, Yalde
Chapter 7: The Doctor
During the long Circuition journey to the summer palace at Yvenir, Oelph learns from Duke Walen's page Feulecharo that Walen harbours suspicions about Doctor Vosill, and the page Jollisce reveals that Walen has sent an agent to Equatorial Cuskery seeking someone from Drezen. On the road, Vosill confides in Oelph about her voyage from Drezen through Cuskery and several ports before reaching Haspide, revealing she fled an unhappy love affair and an argument with a friend over whether greater powers have the right to impose their values on others. In the King's tent, Vosill treats the King's aching back and debates governance with him. Later, Walen and Guard Commander Adlain discuss in private their doubts about the Doctor's true allegiances, considering plans to investigate - or move against - her.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Duke Quettil, Duke Walen, Guard Commander Adlain, Duke Ulresile, Duke Ormin, Wiester
Chapter 8: The Bodyguard
Perrund takes DeWar on a walk through the city, past a clattering war wagon being readied for Ladenscion and into the paupers' hospital where she was once a patient. She tells him of the plague that took her in the war of succession, and of the harem-painter's assassin she once foiled when no one else suspected him. That evening DeWar joins her and Lattens for a shadow-puppet show in the harem, which is cut short when the boy suddenly stiffens and suffers his first seizure.
POV: DeWar·On page: Perrund, Lattens, UrLeyn, Guard Commander ZeSpiole
Chapter 9: The Doctor
The King's party arrives at Yvenir, the summer palace, and Vosill and Oelph are quartered in the round tower of a Lesser House with a view out over the river Mizui. At Lep-Skatacheis the King twists his ankle and the Doctor binds it. In the Hidden Gardens, Duke Quettil unveils the geographer Kuin's new map of the world, the assembled court gathering round to admire it. The chapter ends with word racing through the palace that chief torturer Nolieti has been found murdered.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Doctor Skelim, Ralinge, Wiester, Duke Ormin, Nolieti
Chapter 10: The Bodyguard
Lattens lies bedridden after his seizure, with Doctor BreDelle bleeding him twice a day. DeWar grows convinced the boy has been poisoned, while Protector UrLeyn boasts about Perrund and steadily excludes his bodyguard from the war briefings. To distract the sick child, DeWar tells him the Lavishia story of Sechroom and Hiliti and the plank laid over a waterfall, and what cruel kindness can cost. Later, alone in the repaired Painted Chamber, his fist goes through the panel that shows the harem scene, to the alarm of the plasterer at work behind it.
POV: DeWar·On page: Lattens, UrLeyn, Perrund, RuLeuin, Doctor BreDelle, BiLeth, Guard Commander ZeSpiole
Chapter 11: The Doctor
In the questioning chamber at Yvenir, Vosill conducts a post-mortem of Nolieti while a flea hops across the body and a shaft of light falls down the well above. She disputes Guard Commander Polchiek and Doctor Skelim over the geometry of the wound, arguing from its direction, depth and angle that the assistant Unoure cannot be the killer. Afterwards she tends the King through a heavy cold, the two of them slipping into easy banter about health, ageing and good government.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Duke Walen, Duke Quettil, Guard Commander Adlain, Duke Ulresile, Polchiek
Chapter 12: The Bodyguard
DeWar accompanies Protector UrLeyn on a hunt in the Royal Park of Croughen Hills, joining a small party that includes generals YetAmidous and RuLeuin in pursuit of dangerous prey. During the chaotic chase, both YetAmidous and RuLeuin loose crossbow shots that come perilously close to striking UrLeyn, each claiming to have been aiming at the animal; UrLeyn finishes the kill himself with the old King Beddun's antique hunting crossbow. Later, over a board game of Leader's Dispute in Perrund's tower room, DeWar discusses with her what really happened on the hunt, and Perrund - through the device of a "friend's" observations - shares what she has come to think of YetAmidous's loyalties and the contempt he carries for the Protector.
Chapter 13: The Doctor
A masked ball is held at Yvenir. Duke Walen baits Vosill in front of the company, demanding she perform a "Drezeni dance", and she parries him. In the formal figure dance the Doctor moves through the steps with the King, Duke Quettil, Guard Commander Adlain and the young Duke Ulresile, who is plainly smitten. Oelph partners a Wadderan princess and the haughty Lady Ulier. The evening ends with Walen staggering out of a side room clutching a dagger wound in his chest, crying that he has been murdered.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Duke Walen, Duke Quettil, Guard Commander Adlain, Feulecharo
Chapter 14: The Bodyguard
On a garden terrace at Crough, Lattens plays an elaborate miniature war-game with catapults, launching stones at model cities, towns and lakes laid out across the tiled ground below. UrLeyn, his brother RuLeuin, Doctor BreDelle, BiLeth, Commander ZeSpiole and the concubine Perrund watch from an awninged platform as DeWar - cast as Lattens's defending opponent - hovers nervously over his own miniature settlements. UrLeyn discusses the failing war in Ladenscion and the possibility that he may have to take personal command, proposing RuLeuin, YetAmidous and ZeSpiole as a ruling trio in his absence. Lattens wins the game with a final, devastating stone strike, and DeWar surrenders with cheerful theatricality to the laughter and applause of the court.
POV: DeWar·On page: Lattens, Perrund, UrLeyn, General YetAmidous, RuLeuin, Guard Commander ZeSpiole
Chapter 15: The Doctor
Vosill attempts mouth-to-mouth on the dying Walen, but cannot save him. A young couple, Droythir and Uoljeval, had been having sex for the Duke's voyeuristic pleasure when the blow was struck; the girl speaks of a dark bird or shadow at the window. Walen's page Feulecharo is found unconscious in the corridor behind a locked door, having been spying for the Duchess. No weapon and no killer come to light, and the missing key turns up innocently in the palace seneschal's cabinet.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Polchiek
Chapter 16: The Bodyguard
UrLeyn has decided to take personal command of the faltering war in Ladenscion. Before riding out, DeWar sits with Lattens in the harem and tells him a long Lavishia story about Sechroom and Hiliti's holiday on a wild island, where the cousins try to cross a rotting tree-bridge that collapses and Hiliti rescues Sechroom from drowning using her own blow-pipe as a breathing tube - the tale framed as a parable about staying alive long enough to be rescued. UrLeyn arrives to bid his son farewell, and Perrund sees DeWar off in the corridor, making him promise to protect both himself and the Protector on the road to come.
POV: DeWar·On page: UrLeyn, Doctor BreDelle, Lattens, Perrund, RuLeuin, General YetAmidous, Guard Commander ZeSpiole, BiLeth
Chapter 17: The Doctor
A mad beggar named Berridge is brought forward, confesses to Walen's murder, and is tortured and burned as a scapegoat. Vosill and the King spend long afternoons together, and one evening, by the fire, he teases her about taking a lover and she parries with talk of his marriage plans. Bathing naked in a lake she is set upon by two pages, Auomst and Puomiel, who attempt to assault her and are found knocked senseless on the bank, the blades of their knives somehow twisted into knots.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, King Quience, Duke Ulresile, Duke Ormin, Guard Commander Adlain, Gaan Kuduhn, Berridge
Chapter 18: The Bodyguard
UrLeyn and his company arrive at Niarje after a hard four-day ride from Crough, expecting to coordinate the campaign in Ladenscion. Within hours, coded messages from Duke Ralboute reveal the barons' forces are far better prepared than anticipated - cities well defended, supply lines harried, troops drilled to a high standard, Ralboute himself nearly killed in a night raid out of besieged Zhirt - and almost simultaneously word arrives from the opposite direction that Lattens has suffered another seizure and lies near death. UrLeyn and Doctor BreDelle resolve to return to Crough at once. In a darkened room in the capital, Perrund keeps vigil with the ailing boy, telling him the story of an ugly girl called Dawn, rescued from cruelty by travelling players and made beautiful by their kindness. In the baths, generals YetAmidous, RuLeuin and ZeSpiole discuss the deteriorating war and quietly speculate about whether some of the generals at the front are deliberately losing it.
POV: DeWar·On page: Perrund, UrLeyn, RuLeuin, General YetAmidous, Guard Commander ZeSpiole, BiLeth
Chapter 19: The Doctor
On the return Circuition across the Toforbian Plain, the King rides in bandaged hands and ceremonial robes, while Duke Ulresile, the new Duke Walen and Duke Ormin argue over the pace of his civic reforms. Back at Haspide, gaan Kuduhn of Drezen arrives and, far from discrediting Vosill, confirms her identity and delights her. That night, drunk and weeping in her chambers, the Doctor confesses to Oelph that she told the King she loved him and that he turned her down, saying he preferred pretty, empty-headed women.
POV: Vosill·On page: Oelph, Guard Commander Adlain, Ralinge·Mentioned: Duke Ormin