Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Winter

Yaringa jumped up and uttered loud soblike noises of welcome.

“Home at last, you poor poor thing! What you must have been through…”

Lourna Shokerandit lowered herself stiffly into a velvet-covered chair. She took her son’s hand as he sat beside her. Yaringa perforce retreated to her padded corner.

“It’s happiness to see you back, Luterin. We had such fears for you, particularly when we heard what happened to Asperamanka’s army.”

“My life was spared through a piece of good fortune. All our fellow-countrymen were slain as they returned to Sibornal. It was an act of deep treachery.”

She looked down at her thin lap, where silences had a habit of nestling. Finally she said, without glancing up, “It is a shock to see you as you are. You have become so … fat.” She hesitated on the last word, in view of her sister’s presence.

“I survived the Fat Death and am in my winter suit, Mother. I like it and feel perfectly well.”

“It makes you look funny,” said Yaringa, and was ignored.

He told the ladies something of his adventures, concluding by saying, “And I owe my survival in great part to a woman called Toress Lahl, widow of a Borldoranian I killed in battle. She nursed me devotedly through the Fat Death.”

“From slaves, devotion is to be expected,” said Lourna Shokerandit. “Have you been to see the Esikananzis yet? Insil will be eager to see you again, as you know.”

“I have not yet spoken to her. No.”

“I shall arrange a feast for tomorrow night, and Insil and her family shall come. We will all celebrate your return.” She clapped her hands once, without sound.

“I shall sing for you, Luterin,” said Yaringa. It was her speciality.

Lourna’s expression changed. She sat more upright in her chair.

“And Evanporil tells me that you are countermanding the new Act to destroy all phagors.”

“We could cull them gradually, Mother. But to lose all six hundred at once would be to disrupt the working of the estate. We are hardly likely to get six hundred human slaves to replace them—apart from the greater expense of human slaves.”

“We must obey the State.”

“I thought we would wait for Father’s return.”

“Very well. Otherwise, you will comply with the law? It is important for us Shokerandits to set an example.”

“Of course.”

“I should tell you that a foreign female slave was arrested in your rooms this morning. We have her in a cell, and she will go before the local Board when they meet next.”

Shokerandit stood up. “Why was this done? Who dared intrude into my rooms?”

With composure, his mother answered, “The servant you had ordered to attend the slave woman reported that she went into a state of pauk. Pauk is proscribed by law. No less a personage than Priest- Supreme Chubsalid has gone to the stake for refusing to comply with the law. Exception can hardly be made for a foreign slave woman.”

“In this case, an exception will be made,” Shokerandit said, pale of face. “Excuse me.” He bowed to his mother and aunt and left their rooms.

In a fury, he stamped through the passages to the Estates Office. He relieved his anger by bellowing at the staff.

As he summoned the estate guard captain, Shokerandit said to himself, Very well, I shall marry Toress Lahl. I must protect her from injustice. She’ll be safe, married to a future Keeper of the Wheel… and perhaps this scare will persuade her not to visit the gossie of her husband so often.

Toress Lahl was released from the cell without trouble and restored to Shokerandit’s rooms. They embraced.

“I bitterly regret this indignity imposed on you.”

“I have become used to indignity.”

“Then you shall become used to something better. When the right opportunity arises, I will take you to meet my mother. She will see the kind of person you are.”

Toress Lahl laughed. “I am sure that I shall not greatly impress the Shokerandits of Khamabhar.”

The feast to mark Luterin’s return was well attended. His mother had shaken off her lethargy to invite all local dignitaries as well as such Shokerandit relations as were in favour.

The Esikananzi family arrived in force. With Member Ebstok Esika-nanzi came his sickly-looking wife, two sons, his daughter Insil Esikananzi, and a train of subsidiary relations.

Since Luterin and Insil had last met, she had developed into an attractive woman, though a heaviness in her brow prevented true beauty—as well as suggesting that tendency to meet fate head-on which had long been a quality of the Esikananzis. She was elegantly dressed in a grey velvet gown reaching to the floor, adorned by the sort of wide lace collar she favoured. Luterin noted how the formal politeness with which she covered her disgust at his metamorphosis studiedly emphasised that disgust.

All the Esikananzis tinkled to a great extent; their hip-bells were very similar in tone. Ebstok’s was the loudest. In a loud whisper, he spoke of his bottomless sorrow at the death of his son Umat at Isturia-cha. Luterin’s protest that Umat was killed in the great massacre outside Koriantura was swept aside as lies and Campannlatian propaganda. Member Ebstok Esikananzi was a thickset man of dark and intricate countenance. The cold endured on his frequent hunts had brought a maze of red veins creeping like a species of plant life over his cheeks. He watched the mouths, not the eyes, of those who addressed him.

Member Ebstok Esikananzi was a man who believed in being unafraid to speak his mind, despite the fact that this organ, when spoken, had only one theme to sound: the importance of his opinion.

As they demolished the maggoty fists of venison on their plates, Esikananzi said, addressing both Luterin and the rest of the table, “You’ll have heard the news about our friend Priest-Supreme Chub-salid. Some of his followers are kicking up a bit of trouble here. Wretched man preached treason against the State. Your father and I used to go hunting with Chubsalid in better days. Did you know that, Luterin? Well, we did on one occasion.

“The traitor was born in Bribahr, so you don’t wonder… He paid a visit to the monasteries of the Wheel. Now he takes it into his head to speak against the State, the friend and protector of the Church.”

“They have burnt him for it, Father, if that’s any consolation,” said one of the Esikananzi sons, with a laugh.

“Of course. And his estates in Bribahr will be confiscated. I wonder who will get them? The Oligarchy will decide on what is best. The great thing is, as winter descends, to guard against anarchy. For Sib- ornal, the four main tasks are clear. To unify the continent, to strike rapidly against all subversive activity, whether in economic, religious, or academic life…”

As the voice droned on, Luterin Shokerandit stared down at his plate. He was without appetite. His eventful time away from Shivenink had so widened his outlook on life that he was oppressed by the sight and sound of the Esikananzis, of whom he had once been in awe. The pattern of the plate before him penetrated his consciousness; with a wave of nostalgia, he realised that it was an Odim export, despatched from the warehouse in Koriantura in better times. He thought with affection of Eedap Mun Odim and his pleasant brother—and then, with guilt, of Toress Lahl, at present locked in his suite for safety. Looking up he caught Insil’s cool gaze.

“The Oligarchy will have to pay for the death of the Priest-Supreme,” he said, “no less than for the slaughter of Asperamanka’s army. Why should winter be an excuse for overturning all our human values? Excuse me.”

He rose and left the room.

After the meal, his mother employed many reproaches in order to induce him to return to the company. Sheepishly, he went and sat with Insil and her family. They made stiff conversation until slaves brought in a phagor who had been taught to juggle. Under guidance from her master’s whip, the gillot jiggled a little from one foot to another while balancing a plate on her horns.