Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

He saw no reason to worry that the commander used what was an ancient phagorian name for Oldorando, though he knew of their long and seemingly ineradicable memories. He was too used to their archaic speech habits.

As he was walking back across the park, four phagors escorting him, the earth shook. Tremors were frequent in Oldorando. This was the second he had felt since his arrival. He looked across Loylbryden Square at the palace. He wished there would be an earthquake severe enough to shake it down, but he could see that the wooden pillars along its face were designed for maximum stability.

The onlookers and loiterers seemed unworried. A waffle seller carried on business as usual. With an inward tremor, JandolAnganol wondered if the end of the world was coming, despite all the wise men said.

“Let it all end,” he said to himself.

Then he thought of Milua Tal.

Towards Batalix-set, messengers ran to the palace to say that Prince Taynth Indredd of Pannoval was arriving at the East Gate earlier than anticipated. A formal invitation was sent to JandolAnganol’s party to be present at the welcome ceremony in Loylbryden Square, an invitation he could scarcely refuse.

Indifferent to affairs of state, or to wars in progress elsewhere, Taynth Indredd had been on a hunt in the Quzints, and came loaded with trophies of the hunt—skins, plumes, and ivories. He arrived in a palanquin, followed by several cages of animals he had captured. In one cage, a dozen Others chattered at the crowd or moped dejectedly. A twelve-piece band played lively airs as they marched, and banners flew. It was a more impressive entry than JandolAnganol’s. Nor did Taynth Indredd have to stoop to haggling for a little money in the marketplace.

Among the prince’s retinue was one of JandolAnganol’s few friends in the Pannovalan court, Guaddl Ulbobeg. Ulbobeg looked exhausted from his journey. When the official welcoming ceremony showed signs of turning into a prolonged drinking bout, JandolAnganol managed to talk to the old man.

“I’m getting too frail to undertake such expeditions,” Guaddl Ulbobeg said. He lowered his voice to add, “And between ourselves, Taynth Indredd gets more tiresome, tenner by tenner. I greatly desire to retire from his service. I’m thirty-six and a quarter, after all.”

“Why don’t you retire?”

Guaddl Ulbobeg laid a hand on JandolAnganol’s arm. The king was moved by the unthinking friendliness of the gesture. “With the post goes the bishopric of Prayn. Do you not recall I am a bishop of the Holy Pannovalan Empire, bless it? Were I to resign before being retired, I’d lose the post and all that goes with it… Taynth Indredd, by the by, is not best pleased with you, so let me warn you.”

JandolAnganol laughed. “I’m universally hated, I do believe. How have I offended Taynth Indredd?”

“Oh, it’s common knowledge that he and our pompous friend Sayren Stund intended him to marry Milua Tal until you put your oar in.”

“You know about that?”

“I know everything. I also know I’m going to bathe and then to bed. Drink’s no good to me at my age.”

“We’ll talk in the morning. Rest well.”

The earthquakes came again in the early part of the night. This time, they were serious enough to cause alarm. In the poorer parts of the city, tiles and balconies were dislodged. Women ran out screaming into the streets. Slaves spread alarm throughout the palace.

It suited JandolAnganol well. He needed a distraction for his purposes. His captains had investigated the grounds to the rear of the palace and discovered—as was to be expected of a building which had not had to serve as a fortress for a great while—that there were many exits for those who knew. Some had been made by the palace staff for their own convenience. Although there were guards at the front, anyone could leave by the back. As JandolAnganol did.

Only to find that the palace had its own diversions. In the alley that ran outside the northeast side of the palace, a wagon, drawn by six hoxneys, arrived. Four burly men climbed down. One held the lead hoxney, while the other three set about sliding wooden bars away from a side door. They flung the door open and shouted to someone inside the wagon. When there was no answer, two of the men climbed in and, with blows and curses, dragged a bound figure out into the street. A rug had been tied over the captive’s head. When he groaned too distinctly, he was fetched a blow across his shoulders.

Without hurry, the three toughs unlocked an iron door and passed into an outbuilding of the palace. The door slammed shut behind them.

JandolAnganol watched this event from the concealment of a portico. Beside him was the fragile figure of Milua Tal. From where they stood, beside the wall, they could smell the heavy fragrance of the zaldal, to which Sayren Stund had drawn JandolAnganol’s attention earlier.

In the pavilion in Whistler Park, which they called the White Pavilion, they established their refuge. They would be safe under the protection of the Phagorian Guard. The king was still preoccupied with the sight they had just witnessed in the street.

“I think your father means to kill me before I escape from Oldorando.”

“Killing’s not so bad, but he’s determined somehow to disgrace you. I’ll find out how if I can, but he gives me only black looks now. Oh, how can kings be so difficult? I hope you won’t be like that when we escape to Matrassyl. I’m so curious to see it, and to sail down the Valvoral. Boats going downstream can go at a fantastic speed, faster than birds.

“Do they have pecubeas in Borlien? I’d like some in my room, just like Moth has. Four pecubeas at least, maybe five—if you can afford it. Father says that you intend to murder me in revenge and cut my head off, but I just laughed and stuck my tongue out—have you seen how far my tongue comes out?—and said, ‘Revenge for what, you silly old king-person?’ and that got him so mad. I thought he’d have apolloplexy.”

She chattered away happily as she examined the apartment.

Carrying their single light, JandolAnganol said, “I intend you no harm, Milua. You can believe that. Everyone thinks me a villain. I am in the hands of Akhanaba, as we all are. I do not even intend your father harm.”

She sat on the bed and stared out of the window, the beakiness of her face emphasized in the shadows. “That’s what I told him, or words to that effect. He was so mad, he let one thing slip. You know SartoriIrvrash?”

“I know him well.”

“He’s in father’s hands again. Father’s men found him in that hunchback’s room.”

He shook his head. “No. He’s still bound and gagged in a garderobe. My captains are going to bring him over here for safekeeping.”

Milua Tal gave her bubbling laugh. “He fooled you, Jan. That’s another man, a slave they put in there in the dark. They found the real SartoriIrvrash when everyone was greeting fat old Prince Taynth.”

“By the beholder! That man has trouble for me, that man has trouble. He was my chancellor. What does he know?… Milua, whatever happens, I am going to face it out. I must face it out, my honour is involved.”

“Oh, zygankes, ‘My honour is involved’! You sound like Father when you say that. Aren’t you supposed to say you are mad about my infantile beauty or something?”

He caught at her hands. “So I may be, my pretty Milua! But what I’m trying to say is that that sort of madness is no good without something to back it. I have to survive dishonour, to outlive it, to remain uncontaminated by it. Then honour will return to me. All will respect me for surviving. Then it will be possible to form an alliance between my country and yours, as I have long desired, and I will form it with your father or with whoever succeeds him.”