I noticed that the youthful Duke wade sure that he positioned himself in our half of the figure, so ensuring that he would have two opportunities to dance with the Doctor rather than one.

The introductions were made and the dance was named by a very impressively dressed Wiester, wearing a plain black mask. We took our places in two lines, male facing female. The King took a last drink from a goblet, replaced it on a tray, waved away the servant carrying it and nodded to Wiester, who in turn nodded to the conductor of the orchestra.

The music began. My heart was beating hard and fast. I was reasonably familiar with the figure we were engaged upon, but still concerned that I might make a mistake. I was just as concerned that the Doctor might commit a serious misstep. I did not think she had danced so formally complicated a figure before.

"You are enjoying the ball, madam?" Duke Quettil asked as he and the Doctor advanced upon each other, bowed, held hands, circled and stepped. I was similarly engaged with the lady Ghehere, who gave every impression through her carriage and bearing that she had no interest whatsoever in conversing with the assistant to a woman who claimed the honourable but un-noble title of doctor, and so I was at least able both to dance without treading on her toes and to attend to what passed between my mistress and the Duke.

"Very much, Duke Quettil."

"I was surprised when the King insisted that you be invited to join us, but then he is most… most merry this evening. Don't you think?"

"He does appear to be enjoying himself."

"Not too much, in your opinion?"

"It is not my place to judge the King in any aspect, sir, save that of his health."

"Quite. I was granted the privilege of choosing the figure. Is it to your taste?"

"Entirely so, Duke."

"It is perhaps a little complex."

"Perhaps."

"So much to remember that is not entirely natural, so many opportunities to make a mistake."

"Dear Duke," the Doctor said with some concern. "I hope this is not some subtly disguised warning."

I happened to be circling my immediate partner with my hands clasped behind my back and was facing.the Duke Quettil at this point. I got the impression that he was momentarily taken aback, unsure quite what to say for the moment before the Doctor went on, "You are not preparing to step on my toes, are you?"

The Duke gave a small, high laugh, and with that the timeous demands of the dance took both the Doctor and myself away from the centre of the figure. While our other four-set took the centre, we stood alongside each other, our hands clasped or on hips as appropriate, marking time with one foot then the other.

"All right so far, Oelph?" the Doctor said. I thought she sounded slightly breathless, and even as though she was enjoying herself.

"Aye, so far, mistress. The Duke seemed-"

"Were you teaching Quettil extra steps there, Doctor?" Adlain asked from her other side.

"I'm sure that there is nothing I could teach the Duke, Guard Commander."

"I'm equally sure he feels just the same way, madam, and yet he appeared to lose his way for a moment in that last turn."

"It is a complicated figure, as he himself pointed out to me."

"Yet one he chose."

"Indeed he did. Does Count Walen dance it as well, do you think?"

Adlain was silent for a moment. "I fancy he might, or at least fancy that he fancies he might." I saw him glance at the Doctor. His half-mask allowed him to show a smile. "However I myself find it takes all my concentration just minding my own steps without attempting to scrutinise somebody else's. Ah, excuse me…"

Another set. "Good Doctor," young Duke Ulresile said, meeting her in the centre. His companion, the young lady whose name I forget, seemed no more inclined to talk to nee than Lady Ghehere.

"Duke," the Doctor replied.

"You look most striking."

"Thank you."

"That mask, is it Brotechian?"

"No, sir, it is silver."

"Ah. Indeed. But does it originate in Brotechen?"

"No, in Haspide. I had a jeweller fashion it."

"Ah! It is your own design! How fascinating!"

"My toe, sir."

"What? Oh! Oh, I'm sorry."

"And your mask, Duke?"

"What? Oh, ah, some old family thing. Do you like it? Does it please you? There is a companion one for a lady. I would be honoured if you would accept it with my compliments."

"I could not possibly, sir. I'm sure your family would object. Thank you, nevertheless."

"But it is nothing! That is, it is very — it is, I should say, regarded as most elegant and graceful, the one for a lady, I mean, but it is entirely mine to gift. It would be an honour!"

The Doctor paused, as though considering this offer. Then she said, "And an even greater one for me, sir. However, I already possess the mask which you see and have admired, and I find I can only wear one at a time."

"But…"

However, with that it was time for the two to separate, and the Doctor returned to my side.

"Are you getting all this, Oelph?" she asked, as we caught our breath and executed the marking-time steps.

"Mistress?"

"Your partners appear to become mute in your presence and yet you had the look of somebody concentrating on a conversation."

"I did, mistress?" I asked, feeling my face redden under my mask.

"You did, Oelph."

"I beg your pardon, mistress."

"Oh, it's quite all right, Oelph. I don't mind. Listen away, with my blessing."

The music changed again, and it was time for the two rows of dancers to form a circle and then reconstitute themselves in an alternate order. In the circle, the Doctor held my hand firmly but gently. Her hand, which I'd swear squeezed mine just before she let go, felt warm and dry, and the skin smooth.

Before too long I was dancing in the middle of the great ballroom of our Kingdom's second palace — and arguably its first in opulence — with a smiling, giggling, porcelain-skinned princess from the Half-Hidden Kingdoms in the high, snow-besieged mountains that climb most-way into the sky beyond the savage anarchy of Tassasen.

Her cloud-white skin was tattooed on eyelid and temple, and pierced with jewelled studs at her nostrils and the septum between nose and upper lip. She was short but curvaceous, dressed in a highly ornamented and colourful version of the booted, straight-skirted fashion of her people. She spoke little Imperial and no Haspidian, and her knowledge of the dance steps was somewhat fragmentary. Still she contrived to be an enchanting dancing partner, and I confess that I caught little of what passed between the Doctor and the King, noting only that the Doctor looked very tall and graceful and correct while the King seemed most animated and merry, even if his steps were not as fluent as they would normally have been (the Doctor had strapped his ankle up especially tightly that afternoon, knowing that he would be certain to take part in the dancing). Both wore smiles beneath their half-masks.

The music swelled and rolled over us, the grand people and beautiful masks and costumes surged and eddied about us, and we, resplendent in our finery, were the bright focus of it all. The Doctor moved and swayed at my side and occasionally I caught a hint of her perfume, which was one that I was never able to identify and cannot ever recall seeing her apply. It was an astonishing scent. It reminded me at once of burned leaves and sea spray, of newly turned earth and of seasonal flowers in bloom. There was, too, something tenebrous and intense and sensual about the scent, something sweet and sharp at the same tune, at once lithe and full-bodied and utterly enigmatic.

In later years, when the Doctor was long gone from us and even her most manifest features were becoming difficult to recall with perfect clarity, I would, in diverse moments of private intimacy, catch a hint of that same odour, but the encounter would always prove fleeting.