Plot Summary

The following contains spoilers, but has been somewhat modified in the course of actually writing the novel.

Gregorius Bass works for the Foreign Ministry of the nation of Calaria. The Foreign Minister, Darion, Lord Rivers, is married to Bass’s sister, who nags Rivers to promote him. Rivers considers him a fool and refuses until the unimportant post of Envoy to Bonvidaeo, the City of Masks, becomes available through the death of the incumbent.

In Bonvidaeo, everyone customarily wears masks, and by law, custom and religion each person must be treated as the character portrayed by their mask, as long as they portray the character correctly (if they don’t, they commit the sin and crime of becoming Unmasked). The city is effectively ruled by the Countess, through the Commissioners of Masks, though the Royal Council and the Priests of the Sun are constantly plotting to further their influence. The king is a figurehead and a cipher.

Accompanied by his newly-hired Bonvidaeoan valet Corius, who has spent some time in Calaria and now wishes to return home, Bass sails to the city, where he meets Corius’s elderly mentors: blind Felkior, Keeper of the Book of Masks, and Felkior’s secretary and friend Tamas. These longtime friends are on opposite sides of the philosophical divide of Characterist vs Personalist, Felkior holding to the (official, orthodox) view that the character is what is real, while Tamas maintains (heretically and illegally) that the person behind the mask is real. Their friendship, however, is greater than their philosophical differences, and Felkior shelters Tamas from official notice by employing him as his secretary. Felkior has been granted the distinction of being a living Character, not once but twice; as a youth he was a noted blade and dandy.

While Bass is consulting with the two elderly men, a messenger arrives from a famous collector of masks to say that he has been robbed of a unique mask, that of a Jack the Ripper-style murderer known as The Butcher, executed some years before.

Corius visits his mother Mende, sister Juliana and foster-sister Sallia. His mother was, and his foster-sister is, the Countess’s maid. While there he encounters Sallia’s lover Bardo, who is a leader of the radical underground in the city. He is somewhat disturbed by veiled remarks made by both Bardo and Mende during his visit.

Bass settles in as envoy but within a week of his arrival is faced with a murder of one of his nation’s citizens - in the style of The Butcher. Corius promises to mobilise his contacts to investigate. Shortly thereafter, however, another, similiar murder occurs - this time Corius’s mother. A black-clad figure in the mask of the Butcher is seen fleeing.

Although Corius’s relationship with his mother included a large amount of friction, he is shocked and enraged, and consults Felkior and Tamas for guidance. Tamas reluctantly reveals to him that in his wild youth he had an affair with Mende and is probably Corius’s father. He promises to assist with tracking down Mende’s killer, and Felkior offers his resources as Keeper of the Book - he will supply useful masks to anyone Corius wants to use as helpers. Corius and a grieving Sallia recruit Bardo and his radical faction and issue them with masks which will assist their investigation. The city guard are unconcerned with the murder of a foreigner and a servant-class woman, but become involved when a minor member of the Commissioners of Masks is killed in the Butcher’s manner.

As the investigation, and the murders, continue, the evidence points increasingly to someone in the Countess’s household or closely connected with it, and Corius comes to suspect Bardo. However, Bardo is his main conduit for information and cannot be cut out of the loop.

During this period, Bass meets Juliana and becomes enamoured of her, despite the social and cultural gap between them. Always honest and with full confidence in his servant, he confesses his feelings to Corius despite the fact that Corius is her twin brother. Corius agrees to sound Juliana out; he seems surprised and amused, rather than upset.

Tamas, it emerges, is a leader of the Personalists, but a moderate one who seeks only freedom of conscience, not the overthrow of the Characterist orthodoxy and government. Bardo’s faction, however, are more radical and plot to assassinate Tamas’s twin brother the Archpriest, leader of the Priests of the Sun, who dominate religion in the city and have driven the Priests of the Moon underground. (Tamas is involved with this illegal sect also).

Corius discovers the assassination plot through a remark let slip by Bardo. He communicates it to the two old men and his master, and they realize that it will bring indiscriminate vengeance down on all known Personalists including Tamas and Corius. Bardo initially is not open to reason and they are faced with only two options - betraying the plot to the authorities and attracting the vengeance of the radicals (as well as causing the arrest and death of Sallia’s lover), or allowing the plot to go ahead but foiling it by alerting the Archpriest at the last minute.

Bardo appears to undergo a change of heart and agrees to convince his colleagues to abandon the plot. However, Corius is suspicious and, by investigating the area which the assassins planned to use, determines that Bardo is lying. He rushes to tell the old men and they hurry to attempt to convince the Archpriest, who is also stubborn. In the end they must resume their old masks as youthful swashbucklers to prevent the success of the plot. Since Tamas is the Archpriest’s twin, he substitutes himself for his brother, removes his (outer) mask shortly before the assassination attempt is about to go off, and addresses the crowd in the character of the Archpriest but in such terms that he tips the would-be assassins off to his actual identity; they therefore abort the mission. Although some of the hotheads want to assassinate him anyway as a “martyr”, Corius convinces Bardo that it wouldn’t work the same since he isn’t masked as the Sun, and Bardo exercises his authority to cancel the assassination.

During the confusion surrounding the attempted assassination, Bass sees someone drop a mask from under their robes and picks it up with the intention of giving it back to the person who lost it. Once it is within the range of his vision (he’s short-sighted), he realizes that it is the mask of the Butcher and, calling Corius, he pursues the robed figure, who becomes aware of the pursuit and ascends to the High Paths - roof-level bridges and walkways which are reserved for the use of the Bonvidaeoan upper classes. Corius has snatched a crossbow from one of the would-be assassins and, accompanied by Bass, pursues the fleeing figure across the rooftops. He wings the fugitive with a lucky bolt but turns his ankle and drops behind, leaving Bass, masked as the Gentle Knight, to continue pursuit.

Slowed by the injury, the fleeing figure turns and attacks Bass with a sword, expecting no skill from him, but is surprised when Bass turns out to be a fencer of considerable ability (he has been receiving coaching in secret from Felkior, who was the outstanding fencer of his generation). Bass disarms the fugitive and, being a foreigner, strips off the fugitive’s mask to reveal the Countess, just as Corius hobbles up. Confronted, she confesses to the murders in a vituperative speech which also reveals that she and Felkior are the parents of Sallia. It was the threat of revelation of this information that caused her to murder Mende, who was the only other person who knew. However, she had planned to use the Butcher’s mask anyway before Mende became a threat - both for political advancement and for simple enjoyment. The original murder of the Calarian was random and “for practice”.

Asked why she felt that Mende was a threat now after so many years, she replies that Mende had been coming close to the truth of her son Corius’s death. In the momentary confusion caused by this revelation she flings a handful of caltrops at the pair and turns to flee (or attempts to kill Corius). [Would like to have her viciousness and/or vanity cause her to fall and die. Current attempt: She cuts her hand on the caltrops and, slick with blood, it slips off a rope she is using to escape and she falls to her death.]

Bardo, meanwhile, has got himself into position to witness these revelations while unseen; after the Countess falls he reveals his presence.

Hearing of these events, Felkior and Tamas explain that the change in their manner of life was because of the sobering shock Felkior received when the Countess was his lover. Felkior’s blindness was caused by the treatment for a sexually transmitted disease he contracted from the Countess - when he tasked her with infecting him, saying that she was Unmasked because she had been portraying a seduced innocent and that he knew it was from her because he’d been faithful, she cold-bloodedly reminded him that to be faithful was out of his Character and so he, too, was Unmasked. She, in turn, had contracted the disease from her father.

Much of this cannot be made public, but the murders are at an end and Bass can report to Rivers that the situation is resolved. The Countess has systematically weakened the Commissioners of Masks and the Royal Council, and, by various means of influence including sexual humiliation, the Archpriest. Out of the subsequent infighting and assassinations in the power vacuum left by the Countess, the King looks like emerging as the winner. He is a young man, backed by the radicals of the Personalist party - in fact, he is Bardo. He announces that, in view of the civil disorder which he has put down with the help of his now-official Personalist forces, he is resuming government by decree until the situation is resolved. He appoints Tamas to head the Royal Council and Felkior to head the Commissioners of Masks, purges both bodies and the more political priests, and rewards Corius and Bass by making them Characters. He also declares Sallia the rightful heiress to the Countess’s title and proposes marriage to her.

“Corius” now reveals to Bass that the original Corius was killed 5 years previously for indirectly crossing the Countess, and Juliana has been masquerading as Corius ever since, while Sallia occasionally took the part of Juliana so that the deception would not be suspected. So when Bass confessed his love for Juliana to “Corius” he was actually addressing Juliana. Juliana doesn’t give him a definite “yes” but doesn’t give him a definite “no” either.

The City of Masks is a fictional setting and is copyright © 1997–2006 Mike Reeves-McMillan.