Brian Aldiss - Helliconia Spring

“Speak out and don’t mince your words so,” Aoz Roon said. “You’re a master now, as you wished, and don’t have to cringe.”

Nobody else spoke. Aoz Roon glared at them. All avoided his gaze, burying their faces in their cups.

Eline Tal said, “Why are we worrying? What’s the odds? Let her go.”

“Dathka!” the lord snapped. “Are you going to grant us a single word tonight, since your friend Laintal Ay has not put in an appearance?”

Dathka set down his beaker and looked directly at Aoz Roon.

“All this debate, this talk of principle … it’s rubbish. We all know you and Shay Tal long wage great personal war. So you decide what to do, not us. Kick her out now you have your chance. Why bring us into it?”

“Because it concerns you all, that’s why!” Aoz Roon pounded his fist on the floor. “By the boulder, why does that woman always have such a grudge against me, against everyone? I don’t understand. What rotten maggot chews at her harneys? She keeps on the academy, doesn’t she? She sees herself in a long line of female troublemakers—Loilanun, Loil Bry, who became Little Yuli’s woman… But where would she go? What would happen to her?”

His sentences seemed wild and disconnected.

No one answered. Dathka had spoken for all of them; all were secretly aghast when he said what he did. Aoz Roon himself had nothing more to say. The meeting broke up.

As Dathka was slipping away, Raynil Layan grasped Dathka’s arm and said softly, “A cunning speech you made. With Shay Tal out of the way, the one you fancy will head the academy, won’t she? Then she’ll need your support…”

“I leave the cunning to you, Raynil Layan,” Dathka said, pulling away. “Just keep out of my path.”

He had no trouble in finding Laintal Ay. Despite the lateness of the hour, Dathka knew where to go. In Shay Tal’s ruined tower, Shay Tal was packing, and many friends had come to bid her farewell. Amin Lim was there with her child, and Vry, and Laintal Ay with Oyre, and several other women beside.

“What was the verdict?” Laintal Ay asked Dathka immediately, coming to his side.

“Open.”

“He won’t stop her leaving if she’s bent on it?”

“Depends how much he drinks during the night, he and Eline Tal and that crew—and that wretched hanger-on, Raynil Layan.”

“She’s getting old, Dathka; should we allow her to go?”

He shrugged, using one of his favourite gestures, and looked at Vry and Oyre, who were standing close and listening. “Let’s leave with Shay Tal before Aoz Roon has us killed—I’m game if these two ladies will come too. We’ll head for Sibornal, the group of us.”

Oyre said, “My father would never kill you and Laintal Ay. That’s wild talk, whatever happened in the past.”

Another shrug from Dathka. “Are you prepared to vouch for his behaviour when Shay Tal’s gone? Can we trust him?”

“That’s all over long ago,” Oyre said. “Father’s settled happily with Dol now, and they don’t quarrel as much as they used, now a baby’s coming.”

Laintal Ay said, “’Oyre, the world’s wide. Let’s leave with Shay Tal, as Dathka suggests, and make a new start. Vry, we’ll take you with us—you’ll be in danger here without Shay Tal’s support.”

Vry had not spoken. In her usual unobtrusive way, she merely formed part of the group; but she said now, firmly, “I can’t leave here. Dathka, I am complimented by your kind suggestion, but I must stay, whatever Shay Tal does. My work is yielding results at last, as I hope soon to announce.”

“You still can’t bear my presence, can you?” he said, looking grim.

“Oh, I almost forgot something,” she said sweetly.

She turned, evading Dathka’s brooding gaze, and pushed through the women to Shay Tal’s side.

“You must measure all distances, Shay Tal. Don’t forget. Have a slave count the number of hoxney strides every day; with the direction taken. Write down details every night. Find out how far away the country of Sibornal is. Be as precise as you can.”

Shay Tal was majestic in the midst of the weeping and chattering that filled her chamber. Her hawk face preserved a closed look whenever addressed, as if already her spirit was remote from them. She said little, and that little was uttered in unemotional tones.

Dathka, after staring blankly at the walls, with their elaborate patterning of lichen, looked at Laintal Ay with his head on one side and gestured to the door. When Laintal Ay shook his head, Dathka made a characteristic moue and slipped out. “Pity you can’t train women like hoxneys,” he said, as he disappeared.

“At least he is consistently revolting,” Oyre said disdainfully. She and Vry took Laintal Ay into a corner and began whispering to him. It was essential that Shay Tal should not leave on the morrow;, he must help persuade her to wait for the following day.

“That’s absurd. If she wants to go, she must go. We’ve been over all this. First you will not leave, now you don’t want her to leave. There’s a world out beyond the barricades you know nothing about.”

She coolly picked a sliver of straw from his hoxneys. “Yes, the world of conquest. I know—I hear enough of it from Father. The point is, there will be an eclipse tomorrow.”

“That’s general knowledge. It’s a year since the last one.”

“Tomorrow will be rather different, Laintal Ay,” Vry said, warningly. “We simply wish Shay Tal to postpone her departure. If she leaves here on the day of the eclipse, people will associate the two events. Whereas we know there is no connection.”

Laintal Ay frowned. “What of it?”

The two women looked uneasily at each other.

“We think that if she leaves tomorrow, ill things may follow.”

“Ha! So you do believe there is a connection… The workings of the female mind! If the connection exists, then there’s no way we can evade it, is there?”

Oyre clutched her face in exaggerated disgust. “The male mind … Any excuse not to do anything, eh?”

“You witches will meddle with what is no concern of ours.”

In disgust, they left him standing in the corner and pressed back into the crowd round Shay Tal.

The old women still chattered away, speaking of the miracle at Fish Lake, speaking obliquely, looking obliquely, to see if their reminiscences registered on the preoccupied Shay Tal. But Shay Tal gave no sign that she heard or saw them.

“You look proper fed up with life,” Rol Sakil commented. “Maybe when you reach this Sibornal, you’ll marry and settle down happily—if men are made there as they’re made here.”

“Perhaps they’re made better there,” another old woman responded, amid laughter. Various suggestions as to improvements were bandied about.

Shay Tal continued to pack, without smiling.

Her belongings were few. When she had finally assembled them in two skin bags, she turned to the crowd in her room and requested them to leave, as she desired to rest before her journey. She thanked them all for coming, blessed them, and said she would never forget them. She kissed Vry on the forehead. Then she summoned Oyre and Laintal Ay to her side.

She clutched one of Laintal Ay’s hands in her two thin ones, looking with unusual tenderness into his eyes. She spoke only when all but Oyre had left her room.

“Be wary in all you do, for you are not self-seeking enough, you do not take enough care for yourself. You understand, Laintal Ay? I’m glad you have not struggled for the power that you may feel is your birthright, for it would only bring you sorrow.”

She turned to Oyre, her face lined with seriousness.

“You are dear to me, for I know how dear you are to Laintal Ay. My council to you as we part in this: become his woman with all speed. Don’t put conditions on your heart, as I did, as your father once did—that leads to inevitable wretchedness, as I understand too late. I was too proud when young.”