Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (90 page)

At last she interrupted her. ‘Moth, I came down here half-prepared to meet with YeferalOborol, expecting his soul to have joined you and grandmother.’

‘Ah … then my dear son has come to the end of earthly years? Oh, praise be, that’s good news indeed, how glad we shall be to be united with him, since he never mastered pater-placation as you have, you clever girl. How glad you make us.’

‘Dear Mother, he was shot by a Sibornalese gun.’

‘Splendid! Splendid! The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. That is a treat … And when do we expect him?’

‘His mortal remains will be buried within a few hours.’

‘We shall watch for him, and what a welcome we shall give to him. You’ll be here with us one day, too, never fear …’

‘I look forward to it, Moth. And I have a request, which you must pass to your fellow fessups. It is a difficult question. There is one on the surface still who loves me, though he has never spoken his love; I have felt it radiating from him. I feel I can trust him as I can trust few men. He has been sent from Matrassyl to fight in a distant land.’

‘We have no wars down here, sweet child.’

‘This trusted friend of mine is often in pauk. His father is here in the world below. My friend’s name is Hanra TolramKetinet. I want you to pass a message on to his father, to ask Hanra’s whereabouts, for it is essential that I get a message to him.’

A hissing silence before the shade of Shannana spoke again.

‘My sweet child, in your world nobody communicates fully with another. So much is unknown. Here we have completion. There can be no secrets when the flesh is divested.’

‘I know, Moth,’ said the soul. It feared that kind of completion. It had heard the statement many times. It explained once more what it required from the revered gossie. After many a diversion, understanding was reached, and the soul’s enquiry was passed along the ranks, like a breeze rustling the dead leaves of a forest.

For the soul, there was difficulty in sustaining herself. Phantasms of the upper world seeped in, and a noise like frying. A curtain blew, something rattled with a deadly music. The soul began drifting, despite the cajolings of her mother’s gossie.

At last a message returned to her through the obsidian. Her friend was still among the living. The gossies of his family declared that he had spoken with them recently, when his corporeal part was near a village called Ut Pho in the jungles of the Chwart Heights on the eastern margins of the land called Randonan.

‘My thanks for what I needed to know,’ cried the soul. As it poured forth its gratitude, the maternal gossie puffed dust from its throat and spoke again.

‘Here we pity your poor disrupted lives, when physical sight blinds you. We can communicate with a greater voice beyond your knowledge, where many voices are one. Come soon and hear for yourself. Join us!’

But the frail soul knew these claims of old. The dead and the living were opposing armies; pauk was only a truce.

With many cries of affection, it left the spark which had once been Shannana, to sail upwards towards the spectrums of movement and breath.

When MyrdemInggala was strong enough, she dismissed SartoriIrvrash from her suite with suitable courtesies and no mention of what she had learned in pauk.

She summoned Mai TolramKetinet, sister to the friend of whom she had been enquiring in the world below. Mai aided her through the ritual of a post-pauk bath. The queen sluiced down her body with extra care, as if it had been sullied by its journey towards death.

‘I wish to go into the city, Mai – in disguise. You will accompany me. The princess will remain here. Prepare two sets of peasant clothes.’

When she was alone, MyrdemInggala wrote a letter to General TolramKetinet, apprising him of the threatening events at court. She signed the letter, sealed it with her seal, enclosed it in a leather pouch, and sealed that with a stronger seal.

Dismissing feelings of faintness, she dressed in the peasant clothes Mai brought, and concealed the message pouch in them.

‘We shall leave by the side gate.’

The side gate attracted less attention. There were always beggars and other importuners at the main gate. There were also heads of criminals on poles at present, which stank.

The guard let them through indifferently, and the women walked down the winding road to the city. At this hour, JandolAnganol was probably asleep. It was his habit, learnt from his father, to rise at dawn and show himself, crowned, on his balcony, for all to see. Not only did this gesture induce a feeling of security in the nation; it impressed everyone with the long hours the king worked – ‘like a one-legged peasant’, as the expression was. But the king generally went back to bed after his appearance.

Heavy cloud rolled overhead. The scorching wind, the thordotter, blew from the southeast, picking at their petticoats, blowing its hot breath in their faces till their eyes dried. It was a relief to gain the narrow alleys at the foot of the hill, despite the dust that whipped at their heels.

‘We’ll seek a blessing in the church,’ said MyrdemInggala. There was a church at the end of the street, with steps winding down round its curving wall in the traditional way of Old Borlienese church architecture. Little of the church was above ground except the dome. In this way, the fathers of the church imitated the desire to live underground which possessed the
Takers, those holy men of Pannoval who had brought the faith to Borlien, centuries ago.

The two women were not alone in their descent. An old peasant shuffled before them, led by a boy. He held out a hand to them. His story was that he had given up his holding because the heat had killed his crops, and had come to beg in town. The queen gave him a silver coin.

Darkness prevailed inside the church. The congregation knelt in a pool of darkness intended to remind them of their mortal state. Light filtered down from above. The painted image of Akhanaba behind the circular altar was lit by candles. The long bovine face, blue-painted, the eyes kind but inhuman – these were lapped by uncertain shadows.

To these traditional elements was added a more modern embellishment. Near the door, lit by one candle, stood a stylised portrait of a mother, with sad downcast eyes, her hands spread. Many of the women shuffling in kissed the original beholder as they passed her.

No formal service was in progress but, since the church was nevertheless half full, a priest was praying aloud in a high nasal singsong.

‘Many come to knock at thy door, O Akhanaba, and many turn away without a knock.

‘And to those who turn away and those who stand in all piety knocking.

‘Thou sayest, “Cease to cry ‘When willst thou open to me, O All-Powerful One?’

‘“For I say that all the while the door stands open, and never has been shut.” These things are there to be seen but you see them not.’

MyrdemInggala thought of what her mother’s gossie had said. They communicated with a greater voice. Yet Shannana did not mention Akhanaba. Looking up at the face of the All-Powerful, she thought, it’s true, we are surrounded by mystery. Even Rushven can’t understand it.

‘All about you lies all that you need, if you will accept and not take by force. If you would but lay down your self, you would find what is greater than yourself.

‘All things are equal in this world, but also greater.

‘“Ask not therefore if I am man or animal or stone:

‘“All these I am and more that you must learn to perceive.”’

The chanting went on, the choir joining in. The queen reflected how excellently the alto voices chimed with the stone vaulting overhead; here indeed were spirit and stone united.

She put a hand under her clothes and placed it on her breast, trying to still the beating of her heart.

Despite the beauty of the singing, the apprehension in her would not be soothed. There was no time to contemplate eternity under the pressure of dire events.

When the priest had blessed them, she was ready to go on. The two women, shawls about their heads, went out again into the wind and daylight.

The queen led them to the quayside, where the River Takissa looked dark and choppy, like a narrow sea. A boat just in from Oldorando was mooring with some difficulty. Small boats were being loaded, but there was less activity than usual because of the thordotter. Empty carts, barrels, timbers, winches, and other equipment essential to river life stood about. A tarpaulin whipped back and forth in the wind. The queen walked on determinedly until they reached a warehouse over which was a sign reading:
LORDRYARDRY ICE TRADING COMPANY
.

This was the Matrassyl headquarters of the famous ice captain, Krillio Muntras of Lordryardry.

The warehouse had an assortment of doors on all floors, large and small. MyrdemInggala chose the smallest on the ground floor and walked in. Mai followed.

Inside was a cobbled court, with fat men rolling barrels of their own shape over to a dray.

‘I wish to speak with Krillio Muntras,’ she said to the nearest man.

‘He’s busy. He won’t speak to anyone,’ the man said, regarding her suspiciously. She had drawn a veil across her face, so as not to be recognised.

‘He’ll speak to me.’ She withdrew from a finger of her left hand a ring with the colours of the sea in it. ‘Take this to him.’

The man departed, muttering. By his stature and accent, she
knew he was from Dimariam, one of the countries of the southern continent of Hespagorat. She waited impatiently, tapping her foot on the cobbles, but after a moment the man was back, his attitude much changed. ‘Pray allow me to show you to Captain Muntras.’

MyrdemInggala turned to Mai. ‘You will wait here.’

‘But, ma’am—’

‘And do not obstruct the men in their work.’

She was shown into a workshop smelling of glues and fresh-shaved wood, where old men and apprentices were sawing up timbers and making them into chests and iceboxes. The workbenches were bearded with long curly shavings. The men watched the hooded female figure curiously as it passed.

Her guide opened a door hidden behind overalls. They climbed a dusty stair to a floor where a long low room commanded a view of the river. Clerks worked at one end of the room, shoulders bent over ledgers. At the other end was a desk with a chair as solid as a throne, from which a fat brown man had risen, to come forward with a beaming face. He bowed low, dismissed the guide, and led the queen into a private room beyond his desk.

Although his room overlooked a stable yard, it was well furnished, with prints on the wall, with an elegance at variance with the functional appearance of the rest of the building. One of the prints depicted Queen MyrdemInggala.

‘Madam Queen, I am proud to receive you.’ The Ice Captain beamed again and set his head on one side as far as it would go, the better to regard MyrdemInggala as she removed her veil and headgear. He was himself simply dressed in a charfrul, the full shift with pockets worn by many natives of the equatorial regions.

When he had her comfortably seated and had given her a glass of wine chilled with fresh Lordryardry ice, he thrust out a hand to her. Opening his fist, he revealed her ring, which he now returned ceremoniously, insisting on fitting it on her dainty finger.

‘It was the best ring I ever sold.’

‘You were only a humble pedlar then.’

‘Worse, I was a beggar, but a beggar with determination.’ He struck his chest.

‘Now you are very rich.’

‘Now, what are riches, madam? Do they buy happiness? Well, frankly, they at least permit us to be miserable comfortably. My state, I will admit to you, is better than that of most common folk.’

His laugh was comfortable. He hitched a plump leg unceremoniously over the edge of the table and lifted his glass to toast her, evaluating her. The queen of queens raised her eyes to his. The Ice Captain lowered his gaze, protecting himself from a tremor of feeling much like awe. He had dealt in girls almost as widely as ice; before the queen’s beauty, he felt himself powerless.

MyrdemInggala talked to him about his family. She knew he had a clever daughter and a stupid son, and that the stupid son, Div, was about to take over the ice trade on his father’s retirement. That retirement had been postponed. Muntras had made his last trip a tenner and a half ago, at the time of the Battle of the Cosgatt – only it had proved not to be his last trip, since Div needed further instruction.

She knew the Ice Captain was gentle with his silly boy. Yet Muntras’s father had been harsh with him, sending him out as a lad to earn money begging and peddling, in order to prove he was capable of taking over a one-ship ice business. She had heard this tale before, but was not bored by it.

‘You’ve had an eventful life,’ she said.

Perhaps he thought some sort of criticism was implied, for he looked uncomfortable. To cover his unease, he slapped his leg and said, ‘I’m not ashamed to say that I have prospered at a time when the majority of citizens are doing the reverse.’

She regarded his solid countenance as if wondering if he understood she was also of that majority, but merely said, in her composed way, ‘You told me once you started in business with one boat. How many have you now, Captain?’

‘Yes, Madam Queen, my old father started with but one old hooker, which I inherited. Today, I hand over to my son a fleet of twenty-five ships. Fast seagoing sloops, and ketches, hookers, and doggers, to ply the rivers and coasts, each adapted to the trade. There you see the benefits of dealing in ice. The hotter it gets, the more a block of good Lordryardry ice will fetch in the market. The worse things get for others, the more they improve for me.’