Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Winter

A treble voice, disembodied, sexless, free of lust, traced a thread of theatrical penitence which rose from the well of the church to its interlaced roof beams.

Odim smiled as he sang and felt his soul lifted towards the rafters. Belief would have been good. But even the wish to believe was consolatory.

As the voices of the congregation were raised in song inside, ten beefy soldiers marched down the street outside accompanied by an officer, and halted outside Odirin Nan Odim’s gate. The watchman opened up to them, bowing. The soldiers brushed him aside and marched into the centre of the courtyard, trampling the already trodden carpet of snow.

The officer barked orders to his men. Four men to search the houses set at each point of the compass, remainder to stand where they were and be alert for escapees.

“Abro Hakmo Astab!” Fashnalgid shouted, jumping up from his bed. He had been sitting half-dressed, watching both the window and Toress Lahl, to whom he occasionally read lines of poetry from a small book She was obeying his orders to prepare a meal, and was carrying a flaming brand obtained from a slave downstairs to light their stove.

She flinched at the obscenity of his oath, although she was used to the swearing of soldiers.

“How I love the sound of a military voice! ‘No song like yours under spring skies…’ ” Fashnalgid said. “And the clump of army boots. Yes, there they are. Look at that young fool of a lieutenant, uniform gleam- ing. All I once was…”

He glared down at the scene in the courtyard, where, in front of the soldiers, slaves still worked, rodding out the biogas drains, glancing mistrustingly at the invaders.

A pair of boots started to clump up the stairs to the attic room. Fashnalgid snarled, showing white teeth under the wave of his moustache. He rushed for his sword and glared round the room like a cornered beast. Toress Lahl stood petrified, one hand to her mouth, the other holding the flaming brand at arm’s length.

“Haaa…” He dashed forward and snatched the brand from her, trailing the smoke across the room as he ran for the window. Pushing it open, he forced his head and shoulders out and hurled the brand with all his strength.

He had not lost his military skills. No grenade could have flown truer. The flame drew a parabola down the darkened air and disappeared into the open trap of the biogas chamber. For a second, silence. Then the whole place exploded. Slabs of the courtyard went flying. A great flame rose in the midst of everything, burning blue at its core.

With a roar of satisfaction, Fashnalgid crossed to the door and flung it wide. A young soldier stood there, hesitating, looking back the way-he had come. Without thought, Fashnalgid ran him through. As the man doubled, Fashnalgid kicked out, sending him head first down the stairs.

“Now we’ve got to run for our lives, woman,” he said, taking hold of Toress Lahl’s hand.

“Luterin—” she said, but she was too frightened to do anything but follow him. They ran downstairs. The courtyard was a scene of panic. The gas still burned. Odims too old, too young, or too voluminous to attend the church service, together with their animals, were running about among the soldiers. The smart lieutenant aimed a bullet or two at the clouds. Slaves were screaming. One of the houses had caught fire.

It was an easy matter to skirt the melee and leave by the gate.

Once they were in the street, Fashnalgid dropped to an easier pace and sheathed his sword, so as to be less conspicuous.

They hurried into the churchyard. He pulled the woman against a buttress, panting. Inside, hymns rose to God the Azoiaxic. In his excitement, he gripped her painfully by the upper arm.

“Those sherbs, they’re after us. Even in this piddling dump…”

“Oh, do let me go. You’re hurting me.”

“I’ll let you go. You’re going to go inside this church and get Shokerandit. Tell him that the military have caught up with us. There’ll be no escaping by boat now. If he has arranged a sledge, then we all start for Kharnabhar as soon as we can. Go in and tell him.” He gave her a push to encourage her. “Tell him they want to hang him.”

By the time Toress Lahl reappeared with Shokerandit, many people were about in the street—and not only innocent bystanders. As the Odims ran shouting with distress, Fashnalgid said, “Luterin, have you got a sledge? Can we get out of here right away?”

“Need you have wrecked the Odim home after all they have done for us?” Shokerandit said, regarding the other’s disarray.

“Don’t trust Odim. He’s a tradesman. We have to leave. The army’s woken up. Don’t forget your lovely Toress Lahl is officially a runaway-slave. You know the penalty for that. Where’s the sledge?”

“We can get it when the stables open at Batalix-dawn. You have changed your mind suddenly, haven’t you?”

“Where do we hide till dawn?”

Shokerandit thought. “There’s a family friend, by name Hernisarath. He and his wife will give us shelter until the morning… But I must go and say good-bye to Odim.”

Fashnalgid pointed a thick finger at him. “You’ll do no such thing. He’ll hand you over. Soldiers are swarming everywhere. You are an innocent, aren’t you?”

“All right, and you’re an eccentric. Insults apart, why the change of plan? Only this morning you were going to sail for Campannlat.”

Fashnalgid smiled. “Suppose it occurred to me that I ought to be nearer to God? I’ve decided to come with you and your lady slave to Holy Kharnabhar.”

On the sixth day of the sixth tenner of every sixth small year, the Synod of the Church of the Formidable Peace met in Askitosh. The lesser fry met in conventials behind the Palace of the Supreme Priest. The fifteen dignitaries who formed the standing synod lived and met in the Palace itself. They represented both the ecclesiastical and the secular or military arms of the organisation of the Church. The burdens of office were heavy upon them. They were not men given to drollery.

Being human, the fifteen had their faults. One was regularly overcome by alcohol by sixteen twenty evenday. Others kept young female or male slaves in their chambers. Some enjoyed peculiar defilements. Nevertheless, at least a part of each of them was dedicated to the good continuance of the Church. Since good men were hard to find, the fifteen could be accounted good men.

And the most dedicated man of all was Chubsalid, a man of Bribahr birth, brought up by holy fathers within the cloisters of their church, now Priest-Supreme of the Church of the Formidable Peace, the appointed representative on Helliconia of God the Azoiaxic, who existed before life and round whom all life revolves.

Even the most watchful ecclesiastical eye had never seen Chubsalid raise a bottle to his lips. If he had any sexual proclivities whatsoever, they were a secret kept between him and his maker. If he ever experi- enced anger, fear, or sorrow, no shadows of those emotions ever reached his rosy face. And he was no fool.

Unlike the Oligarchy, whose meeting place on Icen Hill was not a mile away, the Synod had wide popular support. The Church genuinely ministered to the needs of its people; uplifted their hearts and supported them in adversity. And preserved tactful silence about pauk.

Unlike the Oligarch, who was never seen and whose image in the fearful popular imagination most resembled a huge crustacean with hyperactive nippers, Priest-Supreme Chubsalid travelled among the poor and was a popular visitor with his congregations. He looked every inch a Priest-Supreme, with his large stature, craggy but kindly countenance, and mane of white hair. When he spoke, people wished to listen. His addresses were spun from piety and often fringed by wit: he could make his congregations laugh as well as pray.