Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (139 page)

Sayren Stund mopped his forehead and pondered the matter.

‘JandolAnganol will never take such good advice from me. Let his friends put it to him.’

‘His friends?’

‘Yes, yes, his Pannovalan friends, Alam Esomberr and that contemptible Guaddl Ulbobeg. Have them summoned while I have myself voluptuously bathed.’ Addressing his wife, he asked, ‘Do you wish to come and enjoy the voluptuous sight, my dear?’

The mob was in action. Its gathering could be traced from the Avernus. Oldorando was full of idle hands. Mischief was always welcome. They came out of taverns, where they had been harmlessly occupied. They locked up shops and picked up sticks. They rose from outside churches, where they had been begging. They wandered along from hostels and billets and holy places. Just to have a share in whatever was going on
.

Some hrattock had said they were inferior to fuggies. Those were fighting words. Where was this hrattock? Maybe it was that slanje standing talking over there …

Many Avernian watchers regarded the brawling, and the pretext for brawling, with contempt. Others who reflected more deeply saw another aspect of it. However preposterous, however primitive the issue that SartoriIrvrash had raised, it had its parallels aboard the Earth Observation Station – and there no rioting would solve it
.

‘Belief: an impermanence.’ So it said in the treatise ‘On the Prolongation of One Helliconian Season Beyond One Human Lifetime’. The belief in technological progress which had inspired the building of the Avernus had, over the generations, become a trap for those aboard it, just as the accretion of beliefs called Akhanabaism had become a trap
.

Settled into an introspective quietism, those who ran the Avernus saw no escape from their trap. They feared the change they most needed. Patronising though their attitude was to the unwashed who ran through Goose Street and Wozen Avenue, the unwashed had a hope denied those far above them. Hot with fight and drink, a man in Goose Street could use his fists or shout before the cathedral. He might be confused, but he did not endure the emptiness the advisors among the six families endured. Belief: an impermanence. It was true. Belief had largely died on the Avernus, leaving despair in its place
.

Individuals despair, but not peoples. Even as the elders looked down on, and transmitted wearily back to Earth, scenes of confusion which seemed to reflect their own futility, another faction was taking bold shape on the station
.

That faction had already named itself the Aganippers. Its members were young and reckless. They knew there was no chance for them to return to Earth
or – as the recent example of Billy Xiao Pin had effectively demonstrated – to live on Helliconia. But on Aganip there was a chance for them. Avoiding the ever-watching lenses, they accumulated their stores and marked out a shuttle they could appropriate which would transport them to the empty planet. In their hearts was a hope as bright as any to be found in Goose Street
.

The evening grew slightly cooler. There was another earth tremor, but it passed almost unnoticed among the general excitements.

Calmed and refreshed by his bath, well fed, King Sayren Stund was in fit mood to receive Alam Esomberr and the elderly Guaddl Ulbobeg. He seated himself comfortably on a couch and assembled his wife behind him to make an attractive composition before summoning the two men to his presence.

All due courtesies were made, and a slave woman poured wine into glasses already freighted with Lordryardry ice.

Guaddl Ulbobeg wore an ecclesiastical sash over a light charfrul. He entered reluctantly and appeared no more comfortable to see Crispan Mornu present. He felt his position to be dangerous, and showed it in his nervous manner.

Alam Esomberr, by contrast, was excessively cheerful. Immaculately dressed as usual, he approached the king’s couch and kissed the hands of both majesties with the air of one immune to bacteria.

‘Well, indeed, sire, you did present us with a spectacle this afternoon, just as you promised. My congratulations. How ably your old rogue of an atheist spoke! Of course, our faith is merely deepened by doubt. Nevertheless, what an amusing turn of fate it is that the abhorred King JandolAnganol, lover of phagors, who only this morning stood trial for his life, should this evening stand revealed as heroic protector of the children of God.’

He laughed pleasantly and turned to Advisor Mornu to judge his amusement.

‘That is blasphemy,’ said Crispan Mornu, in his blackest voice.

Esomberr nodded, smiling. ‘Now that
God
has a new definition, surely blasphemy has one too? The heresy of yesterday, sir, is now perceived as today’s true path, which we must tread as nimbly as we can …’

‘I don’t know why you are so merry,’ Sayren Stund complained. ‘But I hope to take a small advantage of your good humour. I wish to ask you both a favour. Woman, serve the wine again.’

‘We will do whatever your majesty commands,’ said Guaddl Ulbobeg, looking anxious and clutching his glass.

The king rose up from a reclining position, smoothed his stomach, and said, with a touch of royal pomp, ‘We shall give you the wherewithal with which to persuade King JandolAnganol to leave our kingdom immediately, before he can delude my poor infant daughter Milua Tal into matrimony.’

Esomberr looked at Guaddl Ulbobeg. Guaddl Ulbobeg looked at Esomberr.

‘Well?’ said the king.

‘Sire,’ said Esomberr, and fell to tugging a lock of hair at the back of his neck, which necessitated his looking down at the floor.

Guaddl Ulbobeg cleared his throat and then, more or less as an afterthought, cleared it again. ‘May I venture to ask your majesty if you have seen your daughter just of late?’

‘As for me, sire, I am almost totally within the power of the King of Borlien, sir,’ added Esomberr, still attending to his neck. ‘Owing to a past indiscretion on my part, sir. An indiscretion concerning – most unforgivably – the queen of queens. So when the King of Borlien came to us this afternoon, seeking our assistance, we felt bound …’

Since he allowed the sentence to dangle while he scrutinised the countenance of Sayren Stund, Ulbobeg continued the discourse.

‘I being a bishop of the Household of the Holy C’Sarr of Pannoval, sire, and therefore,’ said Guaddl Ulbobeg, ‘empowered to act in His Holiness’s stead in certain offices of the Church …’

‘And I,’ said Esomberr, ‘still remissly holding in my charge a bill of divorcement signed by the ex-queen MyrdemInggala which should have been rendered to the C’Sarr, or to one of his representatives of the Household, tenners ago – with apologies for using that now opprobrious word—’

‘And we both having care,’ said Guaddl Ulbobeg, now with rather more relish in his voice, ‘not to overburden His Holiness
with too many functions on this visit of pleasure between sister nations—’

‘When there will be more contentious matters—’

‘Or, indeed, to incommode your majesty with—’

‘Enough!’ shouted Sayren Stund. ‘Come to the point, the pair of you! Enough procrastination!’

‘Precisely what we both said to ourselves a few hours ago,’ agreed Esomberr, bestowing his choicest smile on the gathering. ‘Enough procrastination – perfectly put, Your Majesty … Therefore, with the powers entrusted in us by those above us all, we solemnised a state of matrimony between JandolAnganol and your beautiful daughter, Milua Tal. It was a simple but touching service, and we wished that your majesties could have been present.’

His majesty fell off the couch, scrambled up, and roared.

‘They were married?’

‘No, Your Majesty, they
are
married,’ said Guaddl Ulbobeg. ‘I took the ceremony and heard their vows for His Holiness in absentia.’

‘And I was witness and held the ring,’ said Esomberr. ‘Some of the King of Borlien’s captains were also present. But no phagors. That I promise.’

‘They are married?’ repeated Sayren Stund, looking about wildly. He fell back into his wife’s arms.

‘We’d both like to congratulate your majesties,’ said Esomberr suavely. ‘We are sure the lucky couple will be very happy.’

It was the evening of the following day. The haze had cleared toward sunset and stars shone in the east. Stains of a magnificent Freyr-set still lingered in the western sky. There was no wind. Earth tremors were frequent.

His Holiness the C’Sarr Kilandar IX had arrived in Oldorando at midday. Kilandar was an ancient man with long white hair, and he retired straight to a bed in the palace to recover from his journey. While he lay prostrate, sundry officials, and lastly King Sayren Stund, in a fever of apology, came to tell the old man of the religious disarray in which he would find the kingdom of Oldorando.

To all this, His Holiness listened. In his wisdom, he declared that he would hold a special service at Freyr-set – not in the Dom but in the chapel of the palace – during which he would address the congregation and resolve all their doubts. The degrading rumour that ancipitals were an ancient, superior race would be exposed as complete falsehood. The voice of atheists should never prevail while strength was left in his ageing body.

This service had now begun. The old C’Sarr spoke out in a noble voice. There was scarcely an absentee.

But two absentees were together in the white pavilion in Whistler Park.

King JandolAnganol, in penitence and gratitude, had just prayed and scourged himself, and was washing the blood from his back with jugs of hot spring water poured by a slave.

‘How could you do such cruelty, my husband?’ exclaimed Milua Tal, entering briskly. She was shoeless, and wore a filmy white gown of satara. ‘What are we made of but flesh? What else would you desire to be made of?’

‘There is a division between flesh and spirit, of which both must be reminded. I shall not ask you to undergo the same rituals, though you must bear with my religious inclinations.’

‘But your flesh is dear to me. Now it is my flesh, and if you hurt it more, I will kill you. When you sleep, I will sit on your face with my bottom and sufflicate you!’ She embraced him, clinging to him until her dress was soaked. He sent the slave away, and kissed and petted her.

‘Your young flesh is dear to me, but I am determined that I will not know you carnally until your tenth birthday.’

‘Oh, no, Jan! That’s five whole tenners away! I’m not such a feeble little thing – I can easily receive you, you’ll see.’ She pressed her flower face to his.

‘Five tenners is not long, and it will do us no harm to wait.’

She flung herself on him and bore him down onto the bed, fighting and wriggling in his arms, laughing wildly as she did so.

‘I’m not going to wait, I’m not going to wait! I know all about what wives should be and what wives should do, and I am going to be your wife in every single particle.’

They began to kiss furiously. Then he pushed her away, laughing.

‘You little spitfire, you jewel, you posy. We’ll wait till circumstances are more propitious and I have made some sort of peace with your parents.’

‘But now is always a popiters time,’ she wailed.

To distract her, he said, ‘Listen, I have a little wedding present for you. It’s almost all I possess here. I shall heap gifts upon you when we are back home in Matrassyl.’

He took from his tunic the timepiece with the three faces and held it out to her.

The dials read:

Milua Tal took it and looked rather disappointed. She tried it on her brow, but the ends would not meet at the back of her head.

‘Where am I supposed to wear it?’

‘As a bracelet?’

‘Maybe so. Well, thanks, Jan. I’ll wear it later.’ She threw the watch down and then, with a sudden movement, pulled off her damp dress.

‘Now you can inspect me and see if you are going to get good value.’

He began to pray but his eyes would not close as she danced about the room. She smiled lasciviously, seeing in his eyes the awakening of his khmir. He ran to her, seized her, and carried her to the bed.

‘Very well, my delicious Milua Tal. Here beginneth our married life.’

Over an hour later, they were roused from their raptures by a violent quake. The timbers about them groaned, their little lamp was pitched to the floor. The bed rattled. They jumped up, naked, and felt how the floor rocked.

‘Shall we go out?’ she asked. ‘The park jumps about a little, doesn’t it?’

‘Wait a minute.’

The tremors were long sustained. Dogs howled in town. Then it was over, and a dead silence prevailed.

In that silence, thoughts worked like maggots in the king’s
head. He thought of the vows he had made – all broken. Of the people he loved – all betrayed. Of the hopes he had entertained – all dead. He could not find, in the prevailing stillness, consolation anywhere, not even in the perspiring human body lying against his.

His eyes with their leaden stare fixed on an object which had dropped onto the rush mat on the floor. It was the timepiece once owned by BillishOwpin, the article of an unknown science which had woven its way through the tenners of his decline.