Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Summer

TolramKetinet shrugged. “It’s chance.”

“But the enormous scale of growth and destruction… Perhaps our mistake is to think ourselves apart from nature. Well, I know of old that you are less than enthralled by such speculations. One thing I must say. I believe I have resolved one question of such revolutionary nature…”

He hesitated, stroking his damp whiskers. Smiling, TolramKetinet urged him to go on.

“I believe I have thought what no man has ever thought. This lady has inspired me. I need to get to Oldorando or Pannoval to lay my thought before the powers of the Holy Pannovalan Empire. My deduction, I should call it. There I shall certainly be rewarded, and Odi and I can then live comfortably.”

Scrutinizing his whiskery face, TolramKetinet said, “Deductions that are paid for! They must be valuable.”

The man’s a fool and I always knew it, thought the ex-chancellor, but he could not resist the chance to explain.

“You see,” SartoriIrvrash said, lowering his voice so that it could hardly be heard for the slap of the canvas above them. “I could never abide the ancipital race, unlike my master. There lay much of our difference. My thought, my deduction, weighs very much against the ancipitals. Hence it will be rewarded, according to the terms of the Pannovalan Pronouncement.”

Rising from her chair, Odi Jeseratabhar took SartoriIrvrash’s arm and said to TolramKetinet and Lanstatet, who had joined them, “You may not know that King JandolAnganol destroyed all the chancellor’s life’s work, his ‘Alphabet of History and Nature’. It’s a crime not to be forgotten. The chancellor’s deduction, as he modestly names it, will revenge him on JandolAnganol, and perhaps allow us both to work together on reassembling the ‘Alphabet’.”

Lanstatet said sharply, “Lady, you’re our enemy, sworn to destroy our native land. You should be below decks in irons.”

“That’s past,” said SartoriIrvrash, with dignity. “We’re simply wandering scholars now—and homeless ones at that.”

“Wandering scholars…” It was too much for the general, so he asked a practical question. “How are you to get to Pannoval?”

“Oldorando would suit me—it is nearer, and I hope to arrive before the king, if he is not already there, to cause him maximum botheration before he weds the Madi princess. You have no love of him either, Hanra. You’ll be the ideal person to take me there.”

“I’m going to Gravabagalinien,” said TolramKetinet grimly, “if only this tub will sail us there, and we are not overtaken by our enemies.”

All looked back. The Vajabhar Prayer was now in open sea, making laboured progress eastwards along the coast. The Union had emerged from Keevasien Bay, but lay far astern. There was no immediate danger of its catching them.

“You will see your sister Mai in Gravabagalinien,” SartoriIrvrash told the general. The general smiled without replying.

Later in the day, distantly, they saw the Good Hope also in pursuit, with a jury-rigged main mast. The two pursuing vessels were lost in haze as thunderheads towered from the western sea, their edges cast in copper. Lightning darted silently in the belly of the cloud.

A second wave of assatassi rose from the sea, like a wing unfurling, to cast itself upon the land. The Prayer was too far from the coast to suffer ill effect. Only a few of the flying fish-lizard darted past the vessel. The men looked on complacently at what that morning had struck them dumb. As they crawled towards Gravabagalinien, thunderous darkness fell and tiny splinters of light showed ashore, where natives were feasting on the dead invaders.

And something without identity made its way towards the place where the queen of queens resided in her wooden palace: a human body.

RobaydayAnganol had stolen a ride downriver from Matrassyl to Ottassol, keeping ahead of his father. Wherever he went now, he went with a special haste in his gait, half-looking back; did he but know it, this aspect of a man pursued made him resemble his father. He thought of himself as pursuing. Vengeance against his father filled his mind.

In Ottassol, instead of going to the underground palace which his father was due to visit, he went to an old friend of SartoriIrvrash’s, the deuteroscopist and anatomist, Bardol CaraBansity. CaraBansity was feeling no great goodwill for the king or his strange son.

He and his wife had staying with them a society of deuteroscopists from Vallgos. He offered Robayday a bed in a house he maintained near the harbour, where, he said, a girl would look after his needs.

Robayday’s interest in women was sporadic. However, he immediately found the woman in CaraBansity’s harbour house attractive, with her long brown hair and a mysterious air of authority, as if she knew a secret shared by nobody else.

She gave her name as Metty, and he remembered her. She was a girl he had once enjoyed in Matrassyl. Her mother had assisted his father when the latter was wounded after the Battle of the Cosgatt. Her real name was Abathy.

She did not recognize him. No doubt she was a lady with many lovers. At first, Robayday did not enlighten her. He remained inert and let her come to him. To impress, she spoke of a scandalous connection with Sibornalese officials in Matrassyl; he watched her expression as she spoke, and thought of how different her view of the world was, with its clandestine comings and goings.

“You do not recognize me, for I am hard to recognize, yet there was a day when you wore less kohl on your eyes when we were close as tongue to teeth…”

Then she spoke his name and embraced him, exhibiting delight.

Later, she said she had cause to be grateful to her mother, to whom she sent back money regularly, for teaching her how to behave with men. She was cultivating a taste for the highborn and powerful; she had been shamefully seduced, she said, by CaraBansity, but now she hoped for better things. She kissed him.

She allowed her charfrul to slip and reveal her pale legs. Seeing cruelty everywhere, Robayday saw only the spider’s trap. Eagerly, he entered it. Later, they lay together and kissed, and she laughed prettily. He loved her and hated her.

All his impulses screamed to him to hurry on to Oldorando, yet he remained with her for another day. He hated her and he loved her.

The second evening in her house. He thought that history would cease if he remained for ever. She again let down her beautiful hair and hitched up her skirt, climbing onto the couch with him again.

They embraced. They made love. She was a well of delight. Abathy was starting to undress him for more prolonged enjoyment when there was a thumping at her door. They both sat up, startled.

A more violent thump. The door burst open, and in blundered a burly young fellow dressed in the uncouth Dimariamian fashion. It was Div Muntras, in bull-like quest of love.

“Abathy!” he cried. She yelled by way of reply.

After sailing alone to Ottassol, Div had traced his way to her by diligent enquiry. He had sold everything he possessed, except for the talismanic watch stolen from Billish, which reposed safe in his body belt. And here, at the end of his trail, he found the girl who had dominated his thoughts ever since she idled voluptuously with his father on the deck of the Lordryardry Lady trittoming with another man.

His face altered into the image of rage. He raised his fists. He bellowed and charged forward.

Robayday jumped up and stood on the couch, his back to the wall. His face was dark with anger at the intrusion. That the king’s son should be shouted at—and at such a moment! He had no thought but to kill the intruder. In his belt was a dagger shaped from a phagor horn, a sharp two-sided instrument. He drew it.