Brian Aldiss - Helliconia

‘You put yourself completely out of the running when you stuck your knife into that pa you so revered… Not that I blame you, seeing that he killed the man who took away my cherished virginity — your brother Favin.’

Her words, delivered with a false brightness as she smiled at those around them, opened up an ancient wound in Luterin. As so often during his incarceration in the Wheel, he thought of the waterfall and his brother’s death. Always there remained the question of why Favin, a promising young army officer, should have made the fatal jump; the words of his father’s gossie on that subject had never satisfied him. Always he had shied away from a possible answer.

Not caring who was looking on among the pale-lipped crowd, he grasped Insil’s arm. ‘What are you saying about Favin? It’s known that he committed suicide.’

She pulled away angrily, saying, ‘For Azoiaxic’s sake, do not touch me. My husband is here, and watching. There can be nothing between us now, Luterin. Go away! It hurts to look at you.’

He stared about, his gaze darting over the crowd. Halfway across the chamber, a pair of eyes set in a long face regarded him in open hostility.

He dropped his glass. ‘Oh, Beholder… not Asperamanka, that opportunist!’ The red liquid soaked into the white carpet.

As she waved to Asperamanka, she said, ‘We’re a good match, the Master and I. He wanted to marry into a proud family. I wanted to survive. We make each other equally happy.’ When Asperamanka turned with a sign back to his colleagues, she said in venomous tones, ‘All these leather-clad men going off with their animals into the forests… why do they so love each other’s stink? Close under the trees, doing secret things, blood brothers. Your father, my father, Asperamanka… Favin was not like that.’

‘I’m glad if you loved him. Can’t we escape from these others and talk?’

She deflected his offer of consolation. ‘What misery that brief happiness inherited… Favin was not one to ride into the caspiarns with his heavy males. He rode there with me.’

‘You say my father killed him. Are you drunk?’ There was something like madness in her manner. To be with her, to enter into these ancient agonies — it was as if time stopped. It was as if a fusty old drawer was being unlocked; its banal contents had become hallowed by their secret nature.

Insil scarcely bothered to shake her head. ‘Favin had everything to live for… me, for instance.’

‘Not so loud!’

‘Favin!’ she shouted, so that heads turned in her direction. She began to pace through the crowd, and Luterin followed. ‘Favin discovered that your father’s “hunts” were really journeys to Askitosh and that he was the Oligarch. Favin was all integrity. He challenged your father. Your father shot him down and threw him over the cliff by the waterfall.’

They were interrupted by officious women acting hostess, and separated. Luterin accepted another glass of yadahl, but had to set it down, so violently was his hand shaking. In a moment, he found his chance to speak to Insil again, breaking in on an ecclesiastic who was addressing her.

‘Insil — this terrible knowledge! How did you discover about my father and Favin? Were you there? Are you lying?’

‘Of course not. I found out later — when you were in your fit of prostration — by my customary method, eavesdropping. My father knew everything. He was glad — because Favin’s death punished me… I could not believe I had heard aright. When he was telling my mother she was laughing . I doubted my senses. Unlike you, however, I did not fall into a year-long swoon.’

‘And I suspected nothing… I was fatally innocent.’

She gave him one of her supercilious looks. Her irises appeared larger than ever.

‘And you still are fatally innocent. Oh, I can tell…’

‘Insil, resist the temptation to make everyone your enemy!’

But her look hardened and she burst out again. ‘You were never any help to me. My belief is that children always know intuitively the real natures of their parents, rather than the dissembled ones which they show the world. You knew your father’s nature intuitively, and feigned dead to avoid his vengeance. But I am the truly dead.’

Asperamanka was approaching. ‘Meet me in the corridor in five minutes,’ she said hastily, as she turned, smiling and gaily raising a hand.

Luterin moved away. He leaned against a waft, struggling with his feelings. ‘Oh, Beholder…’ he groaned.

‘I expect you find the crowds overpowering after your solitude,’ someone who passed by said pleasantly.

His whole inner life was undergoing revolution. Things had not been, he had not been, as he had pretended to himself. Even his gallantry on the field of battle — had that not been powered by ancient angers released, rather than by courage? Were all battles releases from frustration, rather than deeds of deliberate violence? He saw he knew nothing. Nothing. He had clung to innocence, fearing knowledge.

Now he remembered that he had experienced the actual moment when his brother died. He and Favin had been close. He had felt the psychic shock of Favin’s death one evening: yet his father had announced the death as occurring on the following day. That tiny discrepancy had lodged in his young consciousness, poisoning it. Eventually — he could foresee — joy could come that he was delivered from that poison. But delivery was not yet.

His limbs trembled.

In the turmoil of his thoughts, he had almost forgotten Insil. He feared for her in her strange mood. Now he hurried towards the corridor she had indicated — reluctant though he was to hear more from her.

His way was barred by bedizened dignitaries, who spoke to him and to each other roundly of the solemnity of this occasion, and of how much more appalling conditions would be henceforth. As they talked, they devoured little meat-filled pastries in the shape of birds. It occurred to Luterin that he neither knew nor cared about the ceremony in which he had become involved.

Their conversation paused as all eyes focused on the other side of the chamber.

Ebstok Esikananzi and Asperamanka were leaving by a spiral stair which wound to an upper gallery.

Luterin took the opportunity to slip into the corridor. Insil joined him in a minute, her narrow body leaning forward in the haste of her walk. She held her skirt up from the floor in one pale hand, her jewellery glittering like frost.

‘I must be brief,’ she said, without introduction. ‘They watch me continually, except when they are in drink, or holding their ridiculous ceremonies — as now. Who cares if the world is plunged into darkness? Listen, when we are free to leave here, you must proceed to the fish seller in the village. It stands at the far end of Sanctity Street. Understand? Tell no one. “Chastity’s for women, secrecy’s for men,” as they say. Be secret.’

‘What then, Insil?’ Again he was asking her questions.

‘My dear father and my dear husband plan to kick you out. They will not kill you, as I understand — that might look bad for them, and that much they owe you for your timely disposal of the Oligarch. Simply evade them after the ceremony and go down Sanctity Street.’

He stared impatiently into her hypnotic eyes.

‘And this secret meeting — what is it about?’

‘I am playing the role of messenger, Luterin. You still remember the name of Toress Lahl, I suppose?’

Trockern and Ermine were asleep. Shoyshal had gone somewhere. The geonaut they preceded had come to a halt, and stood gently breathing out its little white hexagonal offspring .

SartoriIrvrash woke and stretched, yawning as he did so. He sat up on his bunk and scratched his white head. It was his habit to sleep for the second half of the day, waking at midnight, thinking through the dark hours, when his spirit could commune with the travelling Earth, and teaching from dawn onwards. He was Trockern’s teacher. He had named himself after a dangerous old sage who once lived on Helliconia, whose gossie he had met empathically .