Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

Fruitful monotony attended the lives in Oldorando.

The rule of the brothers did not please everyone. It did not please some of the hunters; it did not please some of the women; and it did not please Laintal Ay.

Among the hunters was a party of young bloods who formed a company together, and resisted Nahkri’s attempts to break them up. Of these, the leader was Aoz Roon Den, now in the full flower of manhood. He was large of frame, with a frank expression on his face, and could run on his two legs as fast as a hog on four. His figure was distinctive; he wore the skin of a black bear, and the fur enabled him to be picked out at a distance.

That bear was one he had wrestled with and killed. In pride at the feat, he carried the animal back from the hills unaided, and threw it down before his admiring friends in the tower where they lived. After a rathel party, he had summoned in Master Datnil Skar to skin the animal.

And there had been a touch of distinction in the way Aoz Roon had arrived in this tower. He was descended from an uncle of Wall Ein’s who had been Lord of the Brassimips. The brassimips were an area and a vegetable vital to the local economy; from the brassimips came the feed for the sows that yielded milk for rathel. But Aoz Roon found his family tyrannical, revolted against it early in life, and established his niche in a distant tower, along with bright sparks of his own age, the mirthful Eline Tal, the lecherous Faralin Ferd, the steady Tanth Ein. They drank to the stupidity of Nahkri and his brother. Their drinking parties were widely regarded as distinguished.

In other ways also, Aoz Roon was distinguished. He was a man noted for courage in a society where courage was common coin. During the tribal dances, he could turn a cartwheel in the air without touching the ground. And he believed strongly in the unity of the tribe.

Nor did the presence of his natural daughter, Oyre, stop women admiring him. He had caught the eye of Loilanun’s friend, Shay Tal, and responded warmly to her unique beauty; but he gave his heart to no one. He saw that one day Nahkri and Klils would meet with trouble and fall before it. Since he understood—or thought he did—what was good for the tribe, he wished himself to rule, and could not allow any woman to rule his heart.

To this end, Aoz Roon cultivated his comrades with good fellowship and also paid attention to Laintal Ay, encouraging the boy to come by his side on the chase when he officially reached the years of a hunter.

Out on a deer hunt to the southwest of Oldorando, he and Laintal Ay became separated by flooded ground from the rest of the company. They had to detour through difficult country studded with the great cylinders of rajabarals. There they came an a party of ten traders lying round a grass campfire, torpid after drink. Aoz Roon despatched two of the number as they slept, without any of the others rousing. He and Laintal Ay then rushed from cover holding animal skulls before their faces and screaming. The remaining eight traders surrendered in superstitious fear. This story was told in Oldorando as a great joke for many years.

The eight had traded in weapons, grain, furs, and anything else that came to hand. They came from Borlien, where the people were traditionally regarded as cowards, and travelled from the seas of the south to the Quzints in the north. Most of them were known in Oldorando and known as cheats and swindlers. Aoz Roon and Laintal Ay brought them back to serve as slaves, and shared their goods among the people. For his personal slave, Aoz Roon kept a young man called Calary, scarcely older than Laintal Ay.

This episode brought Aoz Roon more prestige. He was soon in a position to challenge Nahkri and Klils. Yet he held back, as was his way, and consorted with his fellow bloods.

Unrest was growing among the makers corps. In particular, a young man by the name of Dathka was attempting to break away from the metal-makers corps, refusing to service his long term as apprentice. He was taken before the brothers. They could get no submission from him. Dathka disappeared from everyone’s ken for two days. One of the women reported that he was lying bound in an infrequently used cell, with bruises on his face.

At this, Aoz Roon went before Nahkri and asked that Dathka might be allowed to join the hunters. He said, “Hunting is no easy life. There is still plenty of game, but the grazing grounds have altered with this freak weather the last few years have sent us. We’re hard pressed, as you know. So let Dathka join us if he wishes. Why not? If he’s no good, then we’ll kick him out and think again. He’s about Laintal Ay’s age, and can team up with him.”

The light was dim where Nahkri stood, supervising slaves who were milking the rathel sows. Dust filled the air. The ceiling was low, so that Nahkri stooped slightly. He appeared to cringe before the challenge of Aoz Roon.

“Dathka should obey the laws,” said Nahkri, offended by Aoz Roon’s unnecessary reference to Laintal Ay.

“Permit him to hunt and he’ll obey the laws. We’ll have him earning his keep before those welts you set on his face can heal.”

Nahkri spat. “He’s not trained as a hunter. He’s a maker. You have to be trained to these things.” Nahkri feared that various secrets belonging to the metal makers might be given away; the crafts of the corps were closely guarded and reinforced the rulers’ power to rule.

“If he won’t work, then let’s subject him to our hard life and see how he survives,” Aoz Roon argued.

“He’s a silent, surly fellow.”

“Silence is an aid on the open plains.”

Finally Nahkri released Dathka. Dathka teamed up with Laintal Ay as Aoz Roon said. He developed into a good hunter, delighting in the chase.

Silent though he was, Dathka was accepted by Laintal Ay as a brother. There was not an inch to choose between them in height and less than a year in age. Whereas Laintal Ay’s face was broad and humorous, Dathka’s was long, and his glance perpetually cast downward. Their expertise as a team became legendary during the chase.

Because they were so much together, old women said of them that they would one day meet the same fate, as had been predicted in an earlier age of Dresyl and Little Yuli. As then, so now: their fates were to differ greatly. In these young days, they merely seemed alike, and Dathka excelled to such an extent that the vain Nahkri grew proud of him, patronising him, and sometimes making reference to his own far-sightedness in releasing the youth from his bondage with the corps. Dathka kept silent and stared at the ground when Nahkri went by, never forgetting who had beaten him. Some men never forgive.

Loil Bry was not the same after the death of her man. Whereas she had formerly clung to her scented chamber, now, old and vulnerable, she chose to wander in the wilderness of green springing up about Oldorando, talking or singing to herself. Many feared for her, but none dared approach, except Laintal Ay and Shay Tal.

One day, she was attacked by a bear driven down from the hills by fresh avalanches. Dragging herself along, wounded, she was set on by wild dogs, who killed and half ate her. When her mangled body was found, women gathered it up and carried it home weeping.

Then was the extravagant Loil Bry buried in traditional fashion. Many women wailed their grief: they had respected the remoteness of this person, born in the time of snows, who had managed to remain in the midst of them and yet live a life completely apart. There was a kind of inspiration in such remoteness: it was as if they could not sustain it for themselves, and so lived it through her.

Everyone recognised the learning of Loil Bry. Nahkri and Klils came to pay their respects to their ancient auntie, though they did not bother to order Father Bondorlonganon over to supervise her burial. They stood about on the edge of the mourning crowd, whispering together. Shay Tal went with Laintal Ay to support Loilanun, who neither wept nor spoke as her mother was lowered into the sodden ground.