Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (88 page)

Wisely, nothing was said about what might or might not accrue in eighty-three years. Most diplomacy was concerned with getting through the next five years.

The royal household gave a luncheon for the guests, over which Queen MyrdemInggala presided, the king sitting at her side without eating, his little phagor waiting behind him. High-ranking members of the Borlienese scritina were also present.

A wealth of roasted crane, fish, pig, and swan was consumed.

After the banquet, Prince Taynth Indredd made his reply. Pretending to reciprocate for the feast, he had his bodyguard give a demonstration of the capabilities of the new matchlocks. Three mountain lions were brought in chains into one of the inner courtyards and despatched.

While the smoke was still clearing, the weapons were given to JandolAnganol. They were presented almost contemptuously, as if his assent to the Pannovalan demands was taken for granted.

The reason for the demonstration was clear. The scritina would demand that the king get more matchlocks from Pannoval to fight the various wars. And Pannoval would supply them – at a price.

No sooner was this ceremony concluded than two traders entered the palace grounds, bringing with them a body sewn into a sack, lashed to the back of an ancient kaidaw. The sack was opened. YeferalOboral’s body rolled out, with part of its chest and shoulder blown away. It was a tormented king who stalked into his chancellor’s chambers that evening. Batalix was setting among roll after roll of cloud, on which Freyr’s light intermittently shone. The warm western glow lit the dull corners of the room.

SartoriIrvrash rose from the long cluttered table at which he was sitting and bowed to the king. He was wrestling with his ‘Alphabet of History and Nature’. All about lay ancient sources and modern reports, at which the king’s quick eye glared dismissively.

‘What decision should I give Taynth Indredd?’ demanded the king.

‘May I speak clearly, Your Majesty?’

‘Speak.’ The king flung himself untidily into a chair, and the runt stood behind it so as to avoid SartoriIrvrash’s gaze.

SartoriIrvrash bowed his head so that the king could see only his expressionless bald pate. ‘Your Majesty, your first duty lies not to yourself but to your country. So says the ancient Law of Kings. The plan of Pannoval to cement our present good relations with Oldorando by a dynastic marriage is workable. It will render your
throne more secure, its tenure less open to question. It will guarantee that in future we may turn to Pannoval for aid.

‘I think in particular of aid in the form of grain, as well as weapons. They have great fields in their more temperate north, towards the Pannoval Sea. This year, our harvest is poor, and will become yet poorer as the heat increases. Whereas our Royal Armourer can presumably imitate the Sibornalese matchlocks.

‘There is, therefore, everything to be said for your making the match with Simoda Tal of Oldorando, despite her scanty years – everything but one thing. Queen MyrdemInggala. Our present queen is a good and holy woman, and the condition of love prospers between the two of you. If you sever that love, you will suffer harm as a result.’

‘Perhaps I can come to love Simoda Tal.’

‘Perhaps you can, Your Majesty.’ SartoriIrvrash turned to look out of his small window at the sunsets. ‘But with that love will go the bitter thread of hate. You will never find another woman like the queen; or, if you do, that woman will not bear the name of Simoda Tal.’

‘Love’s not important,’ said JandolAnganol, beginning to pace the floor. ‘Survival’s more important. So says the prince. Perhaps he’s right. In any case, what advice are you giving me? Are you saying yes or no?’

The chancellor tugged at his whiskers, ‘The phagor question is another botheration. Did the prince bring it up this morning?’

‘He said nothing on that subject this morning.’

‘He will. The people for whom he speaks will. Just as soon as a deal is made.’

‘So, your advice, Chancellor? Should I say yes to Pannoval or no?’

The chancellor kept his eye on the litter of papers on his table, and sank down on the bench. His hand fluttered a parchment, causing it to rustle like old leaves.

‘You tax me, sire, on a crucial matter, a matter where the needs of the heart run into confrontation with the demands of the state. It’s not for me to say yes or no … Is this not a religious matter, best taken to your vicar?’

JandolAnganol struck his fist on the table. ‘All matters are religious, but in this particular matter I must turn to my
chancellor. That you reverence the present queen is a quality for which I respect you, Rushven. Nevertheless, put that consideration apart and deliver me your judgment. Should I set her aside and make this dynastic marriage, in order to safeguard the future of our country? Answer.’

In the chancellor’s mind lay the knowledge that he must not be responsible for the king’s decision. Otherwise, he would be made a scapegoat later; he knew the king’s volatile disposition, dreaded his rages. He saw many arguments for the coalition between Borlien and Oldorando; to have peace between the two traditionally hostile neighbours would benefit all; in that union, if it was wisely handled – as he could handle it – would be a bulwark against Pannoval as well as against the ever-thrusting continent of the north, Sibornal.

On the other hand, he felt as much loyalty to the person of the queen as he did to the king. In his egocentric way, he loved MyrdemInggala like a daughter, especially since his wife had been killed in such horrible circumstances. Her beauty was before him every day to warm his scholarly old heart. He had but to lift a finger, to say vigorously, ‘You must stand by the woman you love – that is the greatest alliance you can make … ,’ but, peeping up at the stormy face of his king, his courage failed him. There was his great lifelong project, his book, to be defended.

The question was too large for any but the king himself to answer.

‘Your majesty will have a nose bleed if you become overexcited. I pray, drink some wine …’

‘By the beholder, you are all that is worst in men, a very grave of help!’

The old man hunched his shoulders further into his patterned charfrul and shook his head.

‘As your advisor, my duty in such a difficult personal matter is to formulate the problem clearly for you. You it is who must decide what resolution is best, Majesty, for you of all people must live with that decision. There are two ways of looking at the problem you face.’

JandolAnganol made towards the door and then stopped. He confronted the older man down the length of the room.

‘Why should I have to suffer? Why should not kings be exempt from the common lot? If I did this thing demanded of me, should I be a saint or a devil?’

‘That only you will know, sire.’

‘You care nothing, do you – nothing about me or the kingdom, only for that miserable dead past you work over all day.’

The chancellor gripped his trembling hands between his knees.

‘We may care, Your Majesty, and yet be unable to do anything. I put it to you that this problem which confronts us is a result of the deteriorating climate. As it happens, I’m studying at present an old chronicle of the time of another king, by name AozroOnden, who was lord of a very different Oldorando almost four centuries ago. The chronicle refers to AozroOnden’s slaying of two brothers who had between them ruled the known world.’

‘I know the legend. What of it? Am I threatening to kill anyone at present?’

‘This pleasant story, set in an historical record, is typical of the thinking of those primitive times. Perhaps we are not meant to take the story literally. It is an allegory of man’s responsibility for the death of the two good seasons, represented as two good men, and his causing the cold winters and burning summers which now afflict us. We all suffer from that primal guilt. You cannot act without feeling guilt. That is all I say.’

The king let out a growl. ‘You old bookworm, it’s love that tears me apart, not guilt!’

He went out, banging the door behind him. He was not going to admit to his chancellor that he did feel guilt. He loved the queen; yet by some perverse streak in him he longed to be free, and the realisation tortured him.

She was the queen of queens. All Borlien loved her, as they did not love him. And a further turn of that particular screw: he knew she deserved their love. Perhaps she took it too much for granted that he loved her … Perhaps she had too much power over him …

And that bastion of her body, ripe as corn sheaves, the soft seas of her hair, the ointments of her loins, the dazzlement of her gaze, the wholeness with which she smiled … But what would it be like
to rip into the pubescent body of that pretentious semi-Madi princess? A different thing entirely …

His tortuous thoughts, winding this way and that, were penned in among the intricacies of the palace. The palace had accumulated almost by accident. Courts had been filled in by buildings and servants’ quarters improvised from ruins. The grand and the sordid lay side by side. The privileged who lived here above the city suffered almost as many inconveniences as those in the city.

One token of inconvenience lay in the grotesque arrangements on the skyline, now visible outlined against the darkening cloud overhead. The air in the valley lay stifling upon the city, like a cat indifferently sprawled upon a dying mouse. Canvas sails, wooden vanes, and little copper windmills had been perched high on air stacks, in order to drag a breath of freshness down to those who suffered in chambers below. This orchestra of semaphoric bids for relief creaked above the king’s head as he walked through his maze. He looked up once, as if attracted by a chorus of doom.

No one else was about, except sentries. They stood at every turn, and most of them were phagors. Weapon bearing, marching, or rigidly on guard, they might have been the sole possessors of the castle and its secrets.

JandolAnganol saluted them absently as he went through the gathering shadows. There was one person to whom he could go for advice. It might be advice of a villainous order, but it would be given. The person who gave it was himself one of the secrets of the castle. His father.

As he drew nearer to an innermost part of the palace where his father was confined, more sentries stiffened at his approach, as if by some potent regal quality he could freeze them with his presence. Bats fluttered from nooks in the stonework, hens scattered underfoot; but the place was strangely silent, dwelling on the king’s dilemma.

He made for a rear staircase protected by a thick door. A phagor stood there, his high military caste denoted by the fact that he had retained his horns.

‘I will enter.’

Without a word, the phagor produced a key and unlocked the door, pushing it wide with his foot. The king descended, walking
slowly with a hand on the iron rail. The gloom was thick, and thickened as the stair curved down. At the bottom was an anteroom where another guard stood before another locked door. This also was opened to the king.

He came into the damp set of chambers reserved for his father.

Even in his self-absorption, he felt the chill and the damp. A ghost of remorse moved in his harneys.

VarpalAnganol sat in the end room of three, wrapped in a blanket, gazing into a log fire smouldering in a grate. A grille high in one wall let in the last of daylight. The old man looked up, blinking, and made a slapping noise with his lips, as if moistening his mouth preparatory to speech, but he said nothing.

‘Father. It’s I. Have you no lamp?’

‘I was just trying to calculate what year it was.’

‘It’s 381, winter.’ It was some weeks since he had set eyes on his father. The old man had aged considerably, and would soon be one with the gossies.

He got himself to the standing position, supporting himself with an arm of the chair.

‘Do you want to sit down, my boy? There’s only the one chair. This place is not very well furnished. It will do me good to stand for a while.’

‘Sit down, Father. I want to talk to you.’

‘Have they found your son – what’s his name? Roba? Have they found Roba?’

‘He’s crazy, even the foreigners know it.’

‘You see, he liked the desert as a child. I took him there, and his mother. The wide sky …’

‘Father, I am thinking of divorcing Cune. There are state reasons.’

‘Oh, well, you could lock her up with me. I like Cune, nice woman. Of course, we’d need another chair …’

‘Father, I want some advice. I want to talk to you.’ The old man sank down on the chair. JandolAnganol crossed in front of him and squatted facing him, back to the feeble fire. ‘I want to ask you about – love, whatever love is. Are you attending? Everyone is supposed to love. The highest and the lowest. I love the All-Powerful Akhanaba, and perform my worship every day; I am
one of his representatives here on earth. I also love MyrdemInggala, above all women who ever breathed. You know that I have killed men I thought looked lustfully upon her.’

A pause followed while his father gathered his thoughts.

‘You’re a good swordsman, that I never denied.’ The old man tittered.

‘Didn’t a poet say that Love is like Death? I love Akhanaba and I love Cune, yes. Yet under that love – I often ask myself – under that love, isn’t there a vein of hatred? Should there be? Does every man feel as I do?’