Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (49 page)

He woke Laintal Ay with a prodding boot. Together, they crawled on their bellies over the wet grass and through the protecting barrier of thorns. When they were beyond the
barricade, they stood up quietly, beaming at each other, clasping each other’s shoulders in an attempt to keep from laughing.

No doubt the hoxneys had sought shelter from the sabre-tongues. Now they were in deeper trouble.

Drawing their knives, the men cut fresh armfuls of spikey thorn bush, ignoring the tears they gave their own flesh. These sinewy shrubs had grown even in the snows, keeping each cluster of leaf buds protectively rolled into spikes. Now the spikes unfurled into coppery green, revealing the silver curve of true thorns.

The hoxneys had broken a gap in the fence where they had entered. It was not difficult to intertwine the thorns and repair the hole. They soon had the four animals secure.

At which point, Laintal Ay and Dathka fell into an argument. Dathka claimed that the animals should be left without water until they were weakened and would submit to domination. Laintal Ay said that extra feeding and buckets of water would win the day. Eventually his method, being more positive, prevailed.

But they were still a long way from making mounts of the beasts. For ten days they worked concertedly, bedding down in the enclosure every night as the night grew shorter. The capture was a sensation; the whole population flocked across the Voral bridge to watch the fun. Aoz Roon and his lieutenants came every day. Oyre watched at first, but lost interest as the hoxneys spiritedly defied their would-be riders. Vry came frequently, often in the company of Amin Lim, who was carrying her newborn infant in her arms.

The battle for domestication was won only when the young hunters hit on the idea of dividing the enclosure into four with more fences. Once the animals were separated from each other, they became dejected, standing about with their heads low, refusing to eat.

Laintal Ay had been feeding the animals on barley bread. To this diet, he added rathel. Stocks of rathel had been accumulating steadily in Prast’s Tower. Even the men now preferred the sweeter beethel or barley wine, and Embruddock’s traditional drink was going out of fashion. One result of this was that women were released from the brassimip patch to work in the new fields. There was rathel to spare for four hoxneys.

A small measure mixed with the bread was enough to make the captive animals skip merrily, fall about, and later become slow and heavy-lidded. During their heavy-lidded phase, Laintal Ay slipped a strap round the neck of the hoxney they had named Gold. He mounted. Gold reared up and bucked. Laintal Ay stayed on for about a minute. On a second attempt, he stayed longer. Victory was his.

Dathka was soon astride Dazzler.

‘God’s eddre, this is better than sitting on burning stungebags,’ Laintal Ay shouted, as they rode round the enclosure. ‘We can ride anywhere – to Pannoval, to the end of the lands, to the edge of the seas!’

At last they dismounted and thumped each other, laughing with achievement.

‘Wait until Oyre sees me riding into Oldorando. She won’t resist me any longer.’

‘It’s surprising what women can resist,’ Dathka said.

When they were sure enough of their mounts, they rode side by side across the bridge and into town. The inhabitants turned out and cheered, as if aware of the great social change upon them. From this day forth, nothing would be the same.

Aoz Roon appeared with Eline Tal and Faralin Ferd, and claimed one of the other two hoxneys, which was christened Grey. His lieutenants started to quarrel over the remaining animal.

‘Sorry, friends, the last one is for Oyre,’ Laintal Ay said.

‘Oyre’s not riding a hoxney,’ Aoz Roon said. ‘Forget that idea, Laintal Ay. Hoxneys are for men … They present us with immense possibilities. Riding hoxneys, we are on equal terms with phagors, Chalceans, Pannovalians, or any breed you may name.’

He sat astride Grey, gazing at the ground. He foresaw a time when he would lead not simply a few hunters but an army – a hundred men, even two hundred, all mounted, striking fear into the enemy. Every conquest made Oldorando richer, more secure. Oldorandan banners flew across the unmapped plains.

He looked down at Laintal Ay and Dathka, who stood in the middle of the lane, reins in their hands. His dark face wrinkled into a grin.

‘You’ve done well. We’ll let yesterday rest with yesterday’s snows. As Lord of Embruddock, I appoint you both Lords of the Western Veldt.’

He leaned forward to clasp Laintal Ay’s hand.

‘Accept your new title. You and your silent friend are in charge of all hoxneys from now on. They are yours – my gift. I’ll see you have help. You’ll have duties and privileges. I’m a just man, you know that. I want all the hunters mounted on broken hoxneys as soon as possible.’

‘I want your daughter as my woman, Aoz Roon.’

Aoz Roon scratched his beard. ‘You get to work on the hoxneys. I’ll get to work on my daughter.’ Something veiled in his look suggested that he had no intention of encouraging the match; if he had a rival to power, it was not his three complaisant lieutenants but young Laintal Ay. To bind him to Oyre was to reinforce that potential threat. Yet he was too cunning actively to discourage his wayward daughter from her interest in Laintal Ay. What he wanted was a contented Laintal Ay, and a stream of armed, mounted warriors.

Although his vision was impossibly grand, yet the epoch would come when all he dreamed of doing was achieved by others a hundred times over. That epoch had its beginnings when he and Dathka and Laintal Ay first sat astride the woolly backs of their hoxney mares.

Powered by the dream, Aoz Roon threw off a state of indolence which had overcome him with better weather, and reverted to the man of action. He had inspired his people to build a bridge: now it was stables and corrals and a shop where harness and saddles were made. The dead gillot’s saddle with adjustable stirrups was used as a model for all Oldorandan saddles.

The tamed hoxneys were used as decoys in the manner of captive deer, and more of the wild animals were caught. Despite their protests, all hunters had to learn to ride; soon, each had a hoxney of his own. The age of hunting on foot was dead.

Fodder became an overwhelming problem. The women were driven to plant more fields of oats. Even the old were sent out to do what they could. Fences were built round the fields to exclude hoxneys and other despoilers. Expeditions went out to discover
fresh brassimip plants, once it was discovered that hoxneys would eat ground brassimip – the food from the plant where their glossies had sheltered in darker days.

For all these new developments, power was needed. The greatest innovation was the building of a mill; a hoxney, plodding round and round in a circle, ground all the grain required, and the women were released from their immemorial morning chore.

Within a few weeks, days even, the hoxney revolution was well under way. Oldorando became a different kind of town.

Its population had doubled: for every human, there was a hoxney. In the base of every tower, hoxneys were quartered beside pigs and goats. In every lane, hoxneys were tethered, champing down grasses. Along the banks of the Voral, hoxneys were watered and traded. Beyond the town gates, primitive rodeos and circuses were held, with hoxneys in starring roles. Hoxneys were everywhere, in towers, in talk, in dreams.

While auxiliary trades grew up to cater for the new obsession, Aoz Roon furthered his plans for turning his hunters into light cavalry. They drilled incessantly. Old objectives were forgotten. Meat became scarce, promises of more meat more plentiful. In order to stave off complaints, Aoz Roon planned his first mounted foray.

He and his lieutenants chose as their target a small town to the southeast, by name Vanlian, within the province of Borlien. Vanlian was situated on the Voral, where that river broadened into a valley. It was protected on its east side by tall crumbling cliffs honeycombed by caves. The inhabitants had dammed the river to create a series of shallow lakes in which they bred fish, the chief item of their diet. Sometimes traders brought the fish, dried, to Oldorando. Vanlian, with over two hundred inhabitants, was larger than Oldorando, but had no strongholds equivalent to the stone towers. It could be destroyed by surprise attack.

The marauding cavalry numbered thirty-one. They attacked at Batalix-dawn when the inhabitants of Vanlian were out of their caves and attending to their fish harvest. Although their town was surrounded by ditches backed by steep embankments, the hoxneys climbed this fortification with ease, and bore down on the
helpless people, their riders uttering wild cries and striking out with their spears.

Within two hours, Vanlian was destroyed. The men were killed, the women raped. Huts were burned down, fires were started in the caves, the dykes regulating the artificial lakes despoiled. A celebratory feast was held among the ruins, with much of the local small ale consumed. Aoz Roon made a speech praising his men and their mounts. None of the cavalry had died, although one hoxney had been mortally wounded by a Vanlianian sword thrust.

The victory against tall numerical odds was achieved so easily because the local people were aghast at seeing brightly clad men riding in on bright steeds. They stood with mouths open to receive their death blow. Only youths and children of both sexes were spared. These were forced to round up their livestock and move off in the direction of Oldorando, driving pigs, goats, and cattle before them. Under the eyes of six cavalry selected as guards, they took a day to make a journey that Aoz Roon and his triumphant lieutenants achieved in an hour.

Vanlian was hailed as a great victory. More conquests were called for. Aoz Roon tightened his grip, and the population learned that conquests call for sacrifices. The Lord addressed his subjects on this question when he and his cavalry had returned from another successful raid.

‘We shall never want again,’ he announced. He stood with his arms akimbo and his legs apart. A slave stood behind him, holding Grey’s rein. ‘Oldorando will be a great place, as legends say that Embruddock was in bygone days. We are like phagors now. Everyone will fear us, and we shall grow rich. We will take in more land, and have more slaves to tend it. Soon, we shall raid Borlien itself. We need more people, there are not enough of us. You women must bear your men more children. Babies will soon be born in the saddle as we spread far and wide.’

He pointed to a wretched huddle of prisoners, guarded by Goija Hin, Myk, and others. ‘These people will work for us, just as the hoxneys work for us. But for a while we must all work doubly hard, and eat less, so that these things come about. Don’t
let me hear you complaining. Only heroes deserve the greatness that will soon be ours.’

Dathka scratched his thigh and looked at Laintal Ay with one eyebrow up and one eyebrow down. ‘See what we’ve started.’

But Laintal Ay was carried away by excitement. Whatever his feelings for Aoz Roon, he believed many of the things the older man said to be true. Certainly, there was no excitement like that of riding on hoxneyback, being at one with the lively creature, and feeling the wind on one’s cheek and the ground thundering by below. Nothing so wonderful had ever been invented – with one exception.

He said to Oyre, gathering her to him, ‘You heard what your father said. I have done a great thing – one of the greatest things in history. I have tamed the hoxneys. That’s what you wished, isn’t it? Now you must be my woman.’

But she pushed him away. ‘You smell of hoxneys, just as my father does. Ever since you were ill, you have talked of nothing but those stupid creatures, good only for their skins. Father talks only of Grey, you talk only of Gold. Do something that makes life better, not worse. If I was your woman, I’d never see you, because you’re out riding all day and night. You men have gone mad over the hoxneys.’

The women in the main felt as Oyre did. They experienced the bad effects of hoxney-mania without its excitements. Forced to work in the fields, they no longer enjoyed a sleepy afternoon’s visit to the academy.

Only Shay Tal took a close interest in the animals. The wild hoxney herds were no longer as plentiful as they had been. Taking alarm at last, they moved to new grazing grounds to the west and south, in order to avoid captivity or slaughter. It was Shay Tal who had the initiative to breed from a mare and a stallion. She set up a stud by King Denniss’s pyramid in which foals were soon being born. The result was a strain of domesticated and mild-mannered animals, easy to train for whatever job was required.

One of the best mares she christened Loyalty. Over all the foals she exercised great care, but her special attention was directed towards Loyalty. She knew that she now held by a halter her means of leaving Oldorando and getting to far Sibornal.

In sun and rain, Oldorando expanded. Before its industrious inhabitants realised what had happened, it had crossed the river Voral, had leaped the marshy tributaries to the north, had stretched out to the corrals on the veldt and the brassimip patches in the low hills.

More bridges were built. None was heroic like the first one. The corps had relearnt the art of sawing planks, carpenters came forth – among both the free and the slaves – for whom arches and joints and abutments presented few problems.

Beyond the bridges, fields were planted and fenced, sties were built for pigs and pens for geese. Food production had to be dramatically increased, to feed the increasing numbers of domesticated hoxneys, and to feed the slaves needed to tend the extra fields. Beyond or between the fields, new towers were built along the old Embruddock lines, to house the slaves and their keepers. The towers were built according to a demonstration given by the academy, using mud blocks instead of stone, and rising only to two stories instead of five. The rains, heavy on occasion, washed away the walls. The Oldorandans cared little for that since only slaves lived in the new blocks. But the slaves themselves cared – and demonstrated how straw harvested from the cereal fields could be used as overhanging thatch, to preserve the mud buildings and keep them intact even in heavy rainstorms.