Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (50 page)

Beyond the fields and new towers were bridle paths, patrolled by Aoz Roon’s cavalry. Oldorando was not merely a town but an armed camp as well. Nobody left or entered without permission, except in the traders’ quarters – nicknamed the Pauk – developing to the south side.

For every proud warrior mounted on a steed, six backs must bend in the field. But the harvest was good. The ground gave forth abundantly, following its long rest. Prast’s Tower had been used in cold times to store first salt, then rathel; now it stored grain. Outside, where the ground had been beaten flat, women and slaves worked to winnow an immense pile of grain. The men turned over the grain with wooden paddles, the women flapped skins tied to square frames, fanning away the chaff. It was hot work. Modesty went by the board. The women, at least the young ones, threw off their smart jackets and worked with naked breasts.

Fine particles of dust rose. The dust stuck to the moist skins of the women, powdering their faces, lending their flesh a furry appearance. It rose in the air, creating a pyramid above the scene, gold in the sunlight, before dispersing to fall elsewhere, deadening footfalls on stairs, staining vegetation.

Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd rode up, closely followed by Aoz Roon and Eline Tal, with Dathka and younger hunters riding behind. They had returned from a hunt and had brought in several deer.

For a minute, they were content to sit in their saddles, watching the women at work. Among the women were the wives of the three lieutenants; they paid no attention to the jocular remarks of their lords. The frames fanned the grain, the men leaned indulgently forward in their saddles, the chaff and dust flew high, flecking the sunshine.

Dol appeared, walking slowly, heavy with child, and Myk the aged phagor walked by her, driving her geese. With her came Shay Tal, her skinniness emphasised by the plumpness of Dol. When they saw the Lord of Embruddock and his men, both women paused, glancing at each other.

‘Say nothing to Aoz Roon,’ Shay Tal cautioned.

‘He’s amenable just now,’ Dol said. ‘He hopes for a boy.’

She strode forward and stood by the side of Grey. Aoz Roon looked at her but said nothing.

She slapped his knee. ‘Once there were priests to bless the harvest in Wutra’s name. Priests used to bless newborn babes. Priests cared for all, men and women, high and low. We need them. Can’t you capture some priests for us?’

‘Wutra!’ Aoz Roon exclaimed. He spat into the dust.

‘That’s no answer.’

His dark eyebrows and eyelashes were dusted with the golden pepper in the air as he switched his heavy glance beyond Dol to where Shay Tal stood, her dark narrow face as blank as an alleyway.

‘She’s been talking to you, Dol, hasn’t she? What do you know or care about Wutra? Great Yuli threw him out, and our forefathers threw out the priests. They’re only lazy mouths to feed. Why are we strong while Borlien is weak? Because we have no priests. Forget this nonsense, don’t bother me with it.’

Dol said, pouting, ‘Shay Tal says the gossies are angry because we have no priests. Isn’t that right, Shay Tal?’ She looked appealingly over her shoulder at the older woman, who still made no move.

‘Gossies are always angry,’ Aoz Roon said, turning away.

‘They’re twitching down there like a bed of fleas,’ Eline Tal agreed, pointing at the earth and laughing. He was a big, red-cheeked man, and his cheeks wobbled when he laughed. More and more, he had become Aoz Roon’s closest companion, with the other two lieutenants playing rather subsidiary roles.

Stepping one pace forward, Shay Tal said, ‘Aoz Roon, despite our prosperity, we Oldorandans remain divided. Great Yuli would not have wished that. Priests might help us become a more united community.’

He looked down at her, and then climbed slowly from his hoxney, to stand confronting her. Dol was pushed to one side.

‘If I silence you, I silence Dol. No one wants the priests back. You only want them back because they’ll help fortify your craving for learning. Learning’s a luxury. It creates idle mouths. You know that, but you’re so damned stubborn you won’t give up. Starve yourself if you will, but the rest of Oldorando is growing fat – see for yourself. We grow fat without priests, without your learning.’

Shay Tal’s face crumpled. She said in a small voice, ‘I do not wish to fight you, Aoz Roon. I’m sick of it. But what you say is not true. We prosper in part because of applied knowledge. The
bridges, the houses – those were ideas the academy contributed to the community.’

‘Don’t anger me, woman.’

Looking down at the ground, she said, ‘I know you hate me. I know that’s why Master Datnil was killed.’

‘What I hate is division, constant division,’ Aoz Roon roared. ‘We survive by collective effort, and always have done.’

‘But we can only grow through individuality,’ Shay Tal said. Her face grew paler as the blood mounted in his cheeks.

He made a violent gesture. ‘Look about you, for Yuli’s sake! Remember what this place was like when you were a child. Try to understand how we have built it to what it is now by united effort. Don’t stand in front of me and try to argue differently. Look at my lieutenants’ women – tits swinging, working in with everyone else. Why are you never with them? Always on the fringe, mouthing discontent, whining.’

‘No tit to swing, I’d say,’ Eline Tal said, chuckling.

His remark had been intended for the delectation of his friends, Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd. But it also reached the alert ears of the young hunters, who burst into jeering laughter – all except Dathka, who sat silent, hunched in his saddle, alertly surveying the participants in the momentary drama.

Shay Tal also caught Eline Tal’s comment. Since he was distant kin to her, the remark stung the more. Her eyes glittered with tears and wrath.

‘Enough, then! I’ll stand no more abuse from you and your cronies. I’ll worry you no more, Aoz Roon, I’ll argue never again. You’ve seen the last of me, you thickheaded, disappointing, treacherous bully – you and your little pregnant cow of a bed-mate! At Freyr-dawn tomorrow, I leave Oldorando for good. I shall depart alone, on my mare, Loyalty, and no one will ever see me more.’

Aoz Roon flung out his arm. ‘No one leaves Oldorando without my permission. You’re not going from here until you grovel at my feet, begging to leave.’

‘We’ll see about that in the morning,’ Shay Tal snapped. She turned on her heel, clutched her loose dark furs about her body, and made off towards the north gate.

Dol was red in the face. ‘Let her go, Aoz Roon, drive her out. Good riddance. Pregnant cow, indeed, the juiceless creature!’

‘You keep out of this. I’ll settle this my way.’

‘I suppose you’re going to have her killed, like the others.’

He struck her across the face, lightly and with contempt, still looking after the retreating figure of Shay Tal.

It was the night period when everyone slept, though Batalix still burned low in the sky. Although slaves twitched in the dreams of dim-day-sleep, some of the free were still about on this occasion. In the room at the top of the big tower, full council was met, consisting of the masters of the seven old corps, plus two new masters, younger men from newly constituted corps, the harness and lorimers, and the outfitters. Also present were Aoz Roon’s three lieutenants and one of his Lords of the Western Veldt, Dathka. The Lord of Embruddock presided over the meeting, and serving wenches kept their wooden cups filled with beethel or small beer.

After much argument, Aoz Roon said, ‘Ingsan Atray, give us your voice on this question.’

He was addressing the senior master, a greybeard who ruled over the metal-makers corps, and who had as yet said nothing. The years had curved Ingsan Atray’s spine and turned his scanty hair white, so that the great width of his skull was emphasised; for this reason, he was regarded as wise. He had a mannerism of smiling a great deal, though his eyes, barricaded behind wrinkled lids, always looked wary. He smiled now, squatting on the skins piled on the floor for his comfort, and said, ‘My Lord, Embruddock’s corps have traditionally protected the women. Women, after all, are our source of labour when the hunters are in the field, and so on. Of course, times are changing, I grant you that. It was different in the times of Lord Wall Ein. But women also serve as channels of much learning. We have no books, but women memorise and pass on the legends of the tribe, as is seen whenever we tell the Great Tale on feast days—’

‘Your point, please, Ingsan Atray …’

‘Ah, I was coming to it, I was coming to it. Shay Tal may be difficult and so on, but she is a sorceress and learned woman,
widely known. She does no harm. If she leaves, she will take other women with her, and so on, and that will be a loss. We masters would venture to say that you were correct in forbidding her to leave.’

‘Oldorando’s not a prison,’ Faralin Ferd shouted.

Aoz Roon nodded curtly, and looked about. ‘The meeting was called because my lieutenants disagreed with me. Who agrees with my lieutenants?’

He caught the eye of Raynil Layan, nervously stroking his forked beard.

‘Master of the tanners corps, you always like to air your voice – what have you to say?’

‘As to that—’ Raynil Layan gestured dismissively. ‘There is always the
difficulty
of preventing Shay Tal leaving. She can easily slip away, if so disposed. And there is the general principle … Other women will think … Well, we don’t want discontented women. But there’s Vry, for instance, another thinking woman, yet attractive, and
she
gives no trouble. If you could rethink your order, many would be grateful to you …’

‘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.