Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter (94 page)

‘I want a conversation with you, if I can, as well as with his majesty and the queen. I have knowledge to offer, as well as questions to ask.’

He gave a belated hiccup.

‘Apologies.’

‘Yes, yes. Excuse me. I am what someone once termed a connoisseur of knowledge, but this happens to be a day of deepest – deepest botheration.’

He stood, clutching at his stained charfrul, shaking his head as he regarded Billy as if for the first time.

‘What is so bad about today?’ asked Billy in alarm.

‘The queen, sir, Queen MyrdemInggala …’ The chancellor rapped his knuckles on the table for emphasis. ‘Our queen is being put away, expelled, sir. This is the day she sails for exile. For Ancient Gravabagalinien.’

He put his hands up to his face and began to weep.

There was an old country saying among the peasants of the land still known locally as Embruddock concerning the continent on which they lived: ‘Not an acre is properly habitable, and not an acre is uninhabited.’

The saying represented at least an approach to the truth. Even now, when millions believed that the world was to die in flames, travellers of all kinds crossed and recrossed Campannlat. From whole tribes, like the migrant Madis and the nomadic nations of Mordriat, down to pilgrims, who counted out their pilgrimage not in miles but in shrines; robber bands, who counted territory in throats and purses; and solitary traders, who travelled leagues to sell a song or a stone for a greater price than it would fetch at home – all these found fulfilment in movement.

Even the fires that consumed the interior of the continent, stopping short only at rivers or deserts, did not deter travellers. Rather, they added to their numbers, contributing refugees in quest for new homes.

One such group arrived in Matrassyl down the Valvoral in time to see Queen MyrdemInggala leave for exile. The royal press gang gave them little time to gape. Its officers descended on the new arrivals in their leaky tub and marched the men away to serve in the Western Wars.

That afternoon, the natives of Matrassyl had temporarily forgotten the wars – or shelved the thought of them in favour of this newer drama. Here was the most dramatic moment of many dull lives: poverty, committing them to mere endurance, forced them to live vicariously through the illustrious. For this reason, they
appointed and tolerated the vices of their kings and queens, so that shock or delight might enter their existences.

Smoke drifted over the town, shrouding the crowds mute along the quayside. The queen came in her coach. It moved between lines of people. Flags waved. Also banners, saying
REPENT YE
! and
THE SIGNS ARE IN THE SKY
. The queen looked neither to right nor to left.

Her coach stopped by the river. A lackey jumped down and opened the door for her majesty. She put forth a dainty foot and stepped down upon the cobbles. Tatro followed, and the lady-in-waiting.

MyrdemInggala hesitated and looked round. She wore a veil, but the aura of her beauty was about her like a perfume. The lugger that was to take her and her entourage downstream to Ottassol, and thence to Gravabagalinien, awaited her. A minister of the Church in full canonicals stood on deck to greet her. She walked up the gangplank. A sigh escaped the crowd as she left Matrassylan soil.

Her head was low. Once she had gained the deck and accepted the minister’s greeting, she pulled back her veil and lifted a hand in farewell, her head high.

At the sight of that peerless face, a murmur rose from the wharves and walks and roofs nearby, a murmur which rumbled into a cheer. This was Matrassyl’s inarticulate farewell to its queen of queens.

She gave no further sign, letting the veil drop, turning on her heel and going below, out of sight.

As the ship weighed anchor, a young court gallant ran forward to stand on the edge of the quay and declaim a popular poem, ‘And Summer’s Self She Is.’ There was no music, no more cheering.

No one standing there in silent farewell knew of the events at the court that afternoon, though news of fearful deeds would leak out soon enough.

The sails were hoisted. The ship of exile moved slowly from the quayside and began its journey downstream. The queen’s vicar stood on the deck and prayed. Nobody in the watching crowd, on
the street, on the cliffs, or perched on rooftops, stirred. The wooden hull began to shrink with distance, its detail to be lost.

The people went silently away to their homes, taking their banners with them.

The Matrassyl court swarmed with factions. Some factions were unique to the court; others had nationwide support. The best-supported of the latter groups was undoubtedly the Myrdolators. This ironically named clique opposed the king on most issues and supported the queen of queens on all.

Within the major groupings were minor groupings. Self-interest saw to it that each man was divided in some way against his brother. Many reasons could be invented for supporting or opposing a closer union with Oldorando, in the continual jockeying for position in court.

There were those – haters of women perhaps – who hoped to see Queen MyrdemInggala disgraced. There were those – dreaming of possessing her perhaps – who wished to see her remain. Of those who wished to see her remain, some of the most fervent Myrdolators believed that she should stay and the king should go. After all, they argued, to look at the affair legalistically – and to ignore her physical attractions – the queen’s claim to the throne of Borlien was as valid as the Eagle’s.

Envy saw to it that the enemies of both king and queen were perpetually active. On the day of departure of the queen many were ready to take up arms.

On the morning of that day, JandolAnganol had moved against the malcontents.

By a ruse, the king and SartoriIrvrash had the Myrdolators meet together in a chamber in the palace. Sixty-one of them foregathered, some of them greybeards who had professed loyalty to MyrdemInggala’s parents, RantanOboral and Shannana the Wild. They stormed indignantly in to the meeting. The Household Guard slammed the doors on them and guarded the chamber. While the Myrdolators screamed and fainted in the heat, the Eagle, with malicious glee on his face, went to a final meeting with his lovely queen.

MyrdemInggala was still overwhelmed by the turn in her
fortunes. Her cheeks were pale. There was a feverish look in her eyes. She could not eat. She started at small things. When the king came upon her, she was walking with Mai TolramKetinet, discussing prospects for her children. If she was threatened, so were they. Tatro was small, and a girl. It was upon Robayday that the brunt of the king’s vengeance might fall. Robayday had disappeared on one of his wild excursions. She perceived that she would not even be able to say good-bye to him. Nor would her brother be here to exert influence over his wilful nephew.

The two women walked in MyrdemInggala’s dimday garden. Tatro was playing with Princess Simoda Tal – an irony which could be borne if not contemplated closely.

This garden the queen had created herself, directing her gardeners. Heavy trees and artificial cliffs screened the walks from Freyr’s eyes. There was sufficient shade for genetic sports and melanic forms of vegetation to flourish.

Dimday plants flowered beside fullday ones. The jeodfray, a fullday creeper with light pink-and-orange flowers, became the stunted albic, hugging the ground. The albic occasionally put forth grotesque scarlet-and-orange buds along a fleshy stem, to attract the attention of dimday moths. Nearby were olvyl, yarrpel, idront, and spikey brooth, all relishing shade. The ground-loving vispard produced hooded blossoms. It was the adaptation of a nocturnal species, the zadal bush, and had moved towards lighter conditions rather than darker.

Such plants had been brought by her subjects from different parts of the kingdom. She had no great understanding of the astronomy which SartoriIrvrash tried to instil in her, or of the slow protracted manoeuvres of Freyr along the heavens, except through her appreciation of these plants, which represented an instinctive vegetable response to those confusingly abstract ellipses of which the chancellor loved to talk.

Now she would visit this favoured place no more. The ellipses of her own life were moving against her.

The king and his chancellor appeared at the gate. She sensed their wish for formality even from a distance. She saw the tension in the king’s stance. She laid a hand on her lady-in-waiting’s wrist in alarm.

SartoriIrvrash approached and bowed formally. Then he took the lady-in-waiting off with him, in order to leave the royal couple alone.

Mai instantly broke into anxious protests.

‘The king will murder Cune. He suspects she loves my brother Hanra, but it is not so. I’d swear to it. The queen has done nothing wrong. She is innocent.’

‘His calculations run otherwise, and he will not murder her,’ said SartoriIrvrash. He hardly looked the figure to comfort her. He had shrunk inside his charfrul and his face was grey. ‘He rids himself of the queen for political reasons. It has been done before.’

He brushed a butterfly impatiently from his sleeve.

‘Why did he have Yeferal murdered, then?’

‘That piece of botheration is not to be laid at the king’s door but rather at mine. Cease your prattle, woman. Go with Cune into exile and look after her. I hope to be in touch some time, if my own situation continues. Gravabagalinien is no bad place to be.’

They entered into an archway and were immediately embraced within the stuffy complexities of the building.

Mai TolramKetinet asked in a more even voice, ‘What has overcome the king’s mind?’

‘I know only of his ego, not his mind. It is bright like a diamond. It will cut all other egos. It cannot easily tolerate the queen’s gentleness.’

When the young woman left him, he stood at the bottom of the stairwell, trying to steady himself. Somewhere above him, he heard the voices of the visiting diplomats. They waited with indifference to hear how the matter worked out and would be departing soon, whatever happened.

‘Everything finally goes …’ he said to himself. In that moment, he longed for his dead wife.

The queen, meanwhile, stood in her garden, listening to the low, hasty voice of JandolAnganol, trying to thrust his emotions upon her. She recoiled, as from a great wave.

‘Cune, our parting is forced on me for the survival of the kingdom. You know my feelings, but you also know that I have duties which must be performed …’

‘No, I won’t have it. You obey a whim. It is not duty but your khmir speaking.’

He shook his head, as if trying to shake away the pain visible in his face.

‘What I do I have to do, though it destroys me. I have no wish for anyone at my side but you. Give me a word that you understand that much before we part.’

The lines of her face were rigid. ‘You have traduced the reputation of my dead brother and of me. Who gave the order for the spreading of that lie but you?’

‘Understand, please, what I have to do for my kingdom. I have no will that we part.’

‘Who gave the order for our parting but you? Who commands here but you? If you don’t command, then anarchy has come, and the kingdom is not worth saving.’

He gave her a sideways look. The eagle was sick. ‘This is policy I must carry through. I am not imprisoning you but sending you to the beautiful palace of Gravabagalinien, where Freyr does not dominate the sky so greatly. Be content there and don’t scheme against me, or your father will answer for it. If the war news improves, who knows but we may be together again.’

She rounded on him, by her vehemence making him look into her overflowing face.

‘Do you then plan to wed that lascivious child of Oldorando this year and divorce her next, as you do me this? Have you an endless series of matrimonies and divorcements in mind by which to save Borlien? You talk of sending me away. Be warned that when I am sent, I remain forever away from you.’

JandolAnganol reached out a hand, but dared not touch her.

‘I’m saying that in my heart – if you believe I have one – I am not sending you away. Will you understand that? You live only by religion and principle. Have some understanding of what it means to be king.’

She plucked a twig of idront and then flung it from her.

‘Oh, you’ve taught me what it is to be a king. To incarcerate your father, to drive off your son, to defame your brother-in-law, to dismiss me to the ends of the kingdom – that’s what it is to be a king! I’ve learnt the lesson from you well.

‘So I will answer you, Jan, after your own fashion. I cannot prevent your exiling me, no. But when you put me away, you inherit all the consequences of that act. You must live and die by those consequences. That is religion speaking, not I. Don’t expect me to alter what is unalterable.’

‘I do expect it.’ He swallowed. He seized her arm tightly and would not let it go, despite her struggles. He walked her along the path, and butterflies rose up. ‘I do expect it. I expect you to love me still, and not to stop simply from convenience. I expect you to be above humanity, and to see beyond your suffering to the suffering of others.

‘So far, in this pitiless world, your beauty has saved you from suffering. I have guarded you. Admit it, Cune, I have guarded you through these dreadful years. I returned from the Cosgatt only because you were here. By will I returned … Won’t your beauty become a curse when I am not by to act as shield? Won’t you be hunted like a deer in a forest, by men the likes of whom you have never known? What will your end be without me?