Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

Shay Tal and Vry met privately with Laintal Ay and Dathka.

“You understand what we’re trying to do,” Shay Tal said. “ You persuade that stubborn man to change his mind. You are closer to him than I can manage.”

All that came of this meeting was that Dathka started making eyes at the reticent Vry. And Shay Tal became slightly more haughty.

Laintal Ay returned later from one of his solitary expeditions and sought Shay Tal out. Covered with mud, he squatted outside the women’s house until she emerged from the boilery.

When she appeared, she had with her two slaves bearing trays of fresh loaves. Vry walked in a docile way behind the slaves. Once more, Oldorando’s bread was ready, and Vry set off to supervise its distribution—though not before Shay Tal had snatched a spare loaf for Laintal Ay. She gave it to him, smiling and throwing back her unruly hair.

He munched gratefully, stamping his feet to warm them.

Milder weather, like the new lord, had proved more a convulsion than an actual progression. Now it was cold again, and the moisture beading Shay Tal’s dark eyelashes froze. All about, white stillness prevailed. The river still flowed, broad and dark, but its banks were fanged by icicles.

“How’s my young lieutenant? I see less of you these days.”

He swallowed down the last of the loaf, his first food in three days.

“Hunting has been difficult. We’ve had to travel far afield. Now that it’s colder again, the deer may move nearer home.”

He stood alertly, surveying her as she stood before him in her ill-fitting furs. In her coiled quietness was the quality that made people admire and stand back from her. He perceived before she spoke that she saw through his excuse.

“I think much of you, Laintal Ay, as I did of your mother. Remember your mother’s wisdom. Remember her example, and don’t turn against the academy, like some of your friends.”

“You know how Aoz Roon admires you,” he blurted out.

“I know the way he has of showing it.”

Seeing that he was disconcerted, she was more kind, and took his arm, walking with him, asking him where he had been. He glanced now and again at her sharp profile as he told her of a ruined village he had visited in the wilds. It lay half buried among boulders, its deserted streets like dried streambeds, fringed with roofless houses. All its wooden parts had been taken or had rotted away. Stone staircases ascended to floors that had long since disappeared, windows opened on prospects of tumbled rock. Toadstools grew in the doorsteps, driven snow accumulated in the fireplaces, birds made their nests in flaking alcoves.

“It’s part of the disaster,” said Shay Tal.

“It’s what happens,” he said innocently, and went on to tell of a small party of phagors he had stumbled across—not military ones, but humble fungusmongers, who had been as scared of him as he of them.

“You risk your life so needlessly.”

“I need to … I need to get away.”

“I have never left Oldorando. I must, I must—I want to get away as you do. I’m imprisoned. But I tell myself we are all prisoners.”

“I don’t see that, Shay Tal.”

“You will see. First, fate moulds our character; then character moulds our fate. Enough of that—you’re too young.”

“I’m not too young to help you. You know why the academy is feared. It may upset the smooth running of life. But you tell us that knowledge will contribute to a general good, isn’t that right?”

He regarded her half-smilingly, half-mockingly, and she thought, gazing back into his eyes, Yes, I understand how Oyre feels about you. She assented with an inclination of her head, smiling in return.

“Then you need to prove your case.”

She raised a fine eyebrow and said nothing. He lifted his hand and uncurled his dirty fingers before her eyes. In his palm lay the ears of two grasses, one with seeds arranged in delicate bells, the other shaped like a miniature teazle.

“Well, ma’am, can the academy pronounce upon these, and name them?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “They are oats and rye, aren’t they?” She searched in her mental store of folk wisdom. “They were once a part of—farming.”

“I picked them beside the broken village, growing wild. There may have been fields of them once—before your catastrophe… There are other strange plants, too, climbing against the ruins in sheltered spots. You can make good bread with these grains. Deer like them—when the grazing’s good, the does will choose the oats and leave the rye.”

As he transferred the green things to her hands, she felt the rasp of the rye’s beard against her skin. “So why did you bring them to me?”

“Make us better bread. You have a way with loaves. Improve the bread. Prove to everyone that knowledge contributes to the general good. Then the ban on the academy will be lifted.”

“You are very thoughtful,” she said. “A special person.”

The praise embarrassed him. “Oh, many plants are springing up in the wilderness which can be used to benefit us.”

As he made to go, she said, “Oyre is very moody nowadays. What is troubling her?”

“You are wise—I thought you would know.”

Clutching the green seeds, she hitched her skins about her body and said warmly, “Come and talk to me more often. Don’t disregard my love for you.”

He smiled awkwardly and turned away. He was unable to express to Shay Tal or anyone else how witnessing the murder of Nahkri had clouded his life. Fools though they were, Nahkri and Klils were his uncles and had enjoyed life. The horror would not go away, though two years had passed. He also guessed that the difficulties he experienced with Oyre were part of the same involvement. Towards Aoz Roon, his feelings were now intensely ambivalent. The murder estranged his powerful protector even from his own daughter.

His silence since the deaths implicated him in Aoz Roon’s guilt. He had become almost as speechless as Dathka. Once he had fared forth on his solitary expeditions out of high spirits and a sense of adventure, now sorrow and unease drove him forth.

“Laintal Ay!” He turned at Shay Tal’s call.

“Come along and sit with me until Vry returns.”

The summons pleased and shamed him. He went quickly with her into her old rough refuge above the pigs, hoping none of his hunter friends saw him go. After the cold outside, its fug made him sleepy. Shay Tal’s furfuraceous old mother sat in a corner against the garderobe, droppings from which fell immediately to the animals below. The Hour-Whistler sounded the hour; darkness was already gathering in the room.

Laintal Ay greeted the old woman and sat himself down on skins beside Shay Tal.

“We’ll collect more seed and plant little fields of rye and oats,” she said. He knew by her tone she was pleased.

After a while, Vry returned with another woman, Amin Lim, a plump, motherly young woman who had appointed herself Shay Tal’s chief follower. Amin Lim went straight to the rear wall of the room, sitting cross-legged with her back to the stonework; she wished only to listen, and to be within sight of Shay Tal.

Vry was also self-effacing. She was of comparatively slight build. Her breasts scarcely made more show under her silver-grey furs than two onions would have done. Her face was narrow, but not without its good looks, because her eyes were deep-set and brilliant against the pale skin. Not for the first time, Laintal Ay thought that Vry bore a resemblance to Dathka; perhaps that accounted for Dathka’s attraction to her.

The one feature that marked Vry out was her hair. It was rich and dark. When seen in sunshine, it disclosed itself as dark brown, rather than the bluey black of Oldorandan hair. Her hair was the only indication that Vry was of mixed extraction; her mother had been a slave woman from the south of Borlien, light of hair and complexion, who had died when she entered into captivity.