Brian Aldiss: Helliconia Winter

She lowered her gaze to the flowers.

“These snowflowers are tokens of the world’s death, don’t you think? There are only white flowers now, to go with the snow. Once, so the histories say, brightly coloured flowers bloomed in Kharnabhar.”

She pushed the vase resignedly from her. Down in the throats of the pale blossoms, a touch of gold remained, turning to a speck of intense red at the ovary, like an emblem of the vanishing sun.

He sauntered across to her, over the patterned tiles. “Come and sit on the couch with me and talk of happier things.”

“You must be referring to the climate—declining so rapidly that our grandchildren, if we live to have any, will spend their lives in near darkness, wrapped in animal skins. Probably making animal noises… That sounds a promising topic.”

“What nonsense you talk!” Laughing, he jumped forward and grasped her. She let him drag her down on the couch as he uttered fevered endearments.

“Of course you can’t make love to me, Luterin. You may feel me as you have before, but no lovemaking. I don’t think I shall ever take kindly to lovemaking—but in any case, were I to permit it, you would lose your interest in me, your lust being satisfied.”

“It’s a lie, a lie.”

“It had best stand as the truth, if we are to have any marital happiness at all. I am not marrying a sated man.”

“I could never have enough of you.” As he spoke, his hand was foraging up her clothes.

“The invading armies…” Insil sighed, but she kissed him and put the point of her tongue in his mouth.

At which moment, the door of the wardrobe burst open. Out jumped a young man of Insil’s dark colouration, but as frenzied as his sister was passive. It was Umat, brandishing a sword, shouting.

“Sister, sister! Help is at hand! Here’s your brave rescuer, to save you and the family from dishonour! Who’s this beast? Isn’t a year in bed enough for him, that he must rise immediately to seek the nearest couch? Varlet! Rapist!”

“You rat in the skirting!” Luterin shouted. He rushed at Umat in a rage, the wooden sword fell to the floor, and they wrestled furiously. After his long confinement, Luterin had lost some of his strength. His friend threw him to the floor. As he picked himself up, he saw that Insil had flitted away.

He ran to the door. She had vanished into the dark recesses of the house. In the scuffle, her flowers had been spilt and the jug broken on the tiled floor.

Only as he made his way disconsolately back to the village road, letting the hoxney carry him at walking pace, did it occur to Luterin that possibly Insil had staged Umat’s interruption. Instead of going home, he turned right at the Esikananzi gate, and rode into the village to drink at the ken Inn.

Batalix was close to setting when he followed the mournful Shoke-randit bell home. Snow was falling. No one was about in the grey world. At the inn, the talk consisted mainly of jokes and complaints concern- ing the new regulations being introduced by the Oligarch, such as curfew. The regulations were intended to strengthen communities throughout Sibornal for ordeals to come.

Most of the talk was cheap, and Luterin despised it. His father would never speak of such things—or not in his one remaining son’s hearing.

The gaslights were burning in the long hall of his home. As Luterin was unbuckling his personal bell, a slave came up, bowed, and announced that his father’s secretary wished to see him.

“Where is my father?” Luterin demanded.

“Keeper Shokerandit has left, sir.”

Angrily Luterin ran up the stairs and threw open the door into the secretary’s room. The secretary was a permanent member of the Shokerandit household. With his beaklike nose, his straight line of eyebrow, his shallow forehead, and the quiff of hair which protruded over that forehead, the secretary’ resembled a crow. This narrow wooden room, its pigeonholes stuffed with secret documents, was the crow’s nest. From here, it surveyed many secret prospects beyond Luterin’s ken.

“Your father is off on a hunt, Master Luterin,” announced this wily bird now, in a tone mingling deference with reproach. “Since you were nowhere to be found, he had to leave without bidding you farewell.”

“Why didn’t he let me accompany him? He knows I love the hunt. Perhaps I can catch him up. Which way did his entourage go?”

“He entrusted me with this epistle for you. You would perhaps be advised to read it before dashing off.”

The secretary handed over a large envelope. Luterin snatched it from his talons. He ripped open the cover and read what was set down on the enclosed sheet in his father’s large and careful hand:

Son Luterin,

There is a prospect in the days to come that you will be appointed Keeper of the Wheel in my place. That role, as you are aware, combines both secular and religious duties.

When you were born, you were taken to Rivenjk to be blessed by the Priest-Supreme of the Church of the Formidable Peace. I believe this to have fortified the godly side of your nature. You have proved a submissive son in whom I am satisfied.

Now it is time to fortify the secular side of your nature. Your late brother was commissioned to the army, as is the tradition with elder sons. It is fitting that you should take up a similar office, especially as in the wider world (of which you so far know nothing), Sibornal’s affairs are moving towards a point of decision.

Accordingly, I have left a sum of money with my secretary. He will hand it over to you. You will proceed to Askitosh, chief city of our proud continent, and there enroll yourself as a soldier, with a commissioned rank of lieutenant ensign. Report to Arch-priest-Militant Asperamanka, who will be familiar with your situa- tion.

I have instructed that a masque shall be held in your honour, to celebrate your departure.

You are to leave without delay and gather esteem to the family name.

A blush spread over Luterin’s face as he read his father’s rare word of praise. That his father should be satisfied with him despite all his failings!—satisfied enough to declare a masque in his honour!

His glow of happiness faded when he realised that his father would himself not be present at the masque. No matter. He would become a soldier and do anything asked of him. He would make his father proud of him.

Perhaps even Insil would warm to the name of glory…

The masque was performed in the banqueting hall of the Shokerandit mansion on the eve of Luterin’s departure south.

Stately personages in grand costume enacted preordained roles. A solemn music played. A familiar story was performed telling of innocence and villainy, of the lust to possess, and of the convoluted role of faith in the lives of men. To some characters harm was allotted, to some good. All came under a law greater than their own jurisdiction. The musicians, bent over their strings, emphasised the mathematics which prevailed over relationships.

The harmonies evoked by the musicians suggested a cadence of stem compassion, inviting a view of human affairs far beyond the normal acceptances of optimism or pessimism. In the leitmotifs for the woman forced to give herself to a ruler she hated and for the man unable to control his baser passions, musical members of the audience could detect a fatality, a sense that even the most individual characters were indissolubly functions of their environment, just as individual notes formed part of the greater harmony. The stylised acting of the performers reinforced this interpretation.

Some entrances were pol’tely applauded by the audience, others observed without especial pleasure. The actors were well rehearsed in their roles, but not all by any means commanded the same presence as the principals.