The Garments of Caean

It did not escape the Ziodeans that despite his disclaimers Caldersk was already interpreting the significance of dress in terms that to them were bizarre. ‘Let’s examine this business of obsession,’ Amara suggested. ‘To be obsessed is to be unnaturally preoccupied with one thing to the exclusion of others. Now, we in Ziode have no objection to imaginative dress. But likewise we have no objection to nakedness either. Both are a matter of indifference to us. So who is obsessed?’ She was tickled to see both Caldersk and Trupp blush deeply at her mention of nudity.

‘But you disparage raiment and let your minds dwell on … vulgar biology. That way lies decadence.’

‘We are not decadent,’ Amara said indignantly.

Caldersk drank a deep draught from a tankard of fizzy yellow liquid. Trupp once again took up the thread.

‘What is man when he is born? He is nothing; his mind is in neutral; not switched on. Only when he begins to interact with his environment does his life burgeon. Such interaction means that he must have an effective interface; he must clothe himself with suitable psychological instruments. Thus it is the lot of the shabbily clothed to sink into morbid introspection, to take on a depressing uniformity. The skill of our sartorialists, by contrast, ensures that we maintain a healthy contact with external reality.’

‘Yes, we of Caean enjoy life, thanks to the Art of Attire,’ Caldersk agreed. He turned to Amara with a smile. ‘And you say we have no individuality! Do I look like a “clothes robot” to you?’

‘No, you do not,’ she admitted.

He leaned closer, his eyes roving over her. ‘Let me send a sartorial to you. Experience for yourself the benefits of our art. A rich houppelande, perhaps? A graceful pelisse? You will soon notice the difference.’

‘No, thank you,’ she said primly.

Estru looked about him at the picturesquely garbed people feasting at the table, and wondered if there could be any truth in what Trupp and Caldersk had just said. Was Caean indeed a case of exotic social insanity, as he had always believed, or was it merely that Ziode had lost some quality Caean had retained? His gaze came to rest on two women sitting on the other side of the table a little farther down. One wore a dress which consisted of interlocking diamond-shaped panels, making her torso look like a crystalline explosion, while on her head she wore a fontange, a tall, fan-like headdress. The other wore a polonaise, a simpler willowy dress made of a cream-coloured material decorated with wandering lines of pearls. Her headdress, however, was an extravagant vision from the past: a full-blown model of a three-masted sailing ship, complete in every detail, proud and tall with sails and rigging, and apparently being buffeted by the complicated waves and curls into which her hair was set.

Noticing his attention, the girl in the sailing-ship hairdo smiled at him. Estru received an inward jolt. Her smile was at once winsome, proud and tempestuous, exciting him quite against his will.

Amara, too, was realizing that they were being subjected to a clever propaganda exercise. It was becoming easy to let small, treacherous doubts contend with their Ziodean upbringing. Were the results the Caeanics gained from their practices – or imagined they gained – really harmful? More and more people were coming into the stadium now, giving the place the air of a festival. Amara watched one young woman saunter shyly across the soft moss which covered the floor of the bowl. She wore a gauzy outfit which was known generically as a flimsy, though this version was doubtless named after some species of bird. She even walked somewhat after the manner of a bird, stepping delicately and nervously, as though at any moment she might take to the air in fright, and go winging away over the surrounding towers and terraces.

Caldersk beckoned to a footman, who handed him a moulded purple control box.

‘After all, the Art of Attire merely gives life a civilized texture,’ he remarked. ‘But enough of this talk about your obsession that we have an obsession. Your tour of Caean should show you that we do have interests other than pride in our appearance. For the present, how about some entertainment?’

His fingers went to touch the controls on the box. The centre of the stadium glowed slightly, then came to life.