The Royals of Hegn
Ursula K. Leguin Неизвестный Автор
The Royals of Hegn by Ursula K. Le Guin
Hegn is a small country, an island monarchy blessed with a marvelous climate and a vegetation so rich that lunch or dinner there consists of reaching up to a tree to pluck a succulent, sunwarmed, ripe, rare steakfruit, or sitting down under a llumbush and letting the buttery morsels drop onto one’s lap or straight into one mouth. And then for dessert there are the sorbice blossoms, tart, sweet, and crunchy.
Four or five centuries ago the Hegnish were evidently an enterprising, stirring lot, who built good roads, fine cities, noble country houses and palaces, all surrounded by literally delicious gardens. Then they entered a settling-down phase, and at present they simply live in their beautiful houses. They have hobbies, pursued with tranquil obsession. Some take up the cultivation and breeding of ever finer varieties of grapes. (The Hegnian grape is self-fermenting; a small cluster of them has the taste, scent, and effect of a split of Veuve Clicquot. Left longer on the vine, the grapes reach 80 or 90 proof, and the taste comes to resemble a good single malt whiskey.) Some raise pet gorkis, an amiable, short-legged domestic animal; others embroider pretty hangings for the churches; many take their pleasure in sports. They all enjoy social gatherings.
People dress nicely for these parties. They eat some grapes, dance a little, and talk. Conversation is desultory and, some would say, vapid. It concerns the kind and quality of the grapes, discussed with much technicality; the weather, which is usually settled fair, but can always be threatening, or have threatened, to rain; and sports, particularly the characteristically Hegnish game of sutpot, which requires a playing field of several acres and involves two teams, many rules, a large ball, several small holes in the ground, a movable fence, a
short, flat bat, two vaulting poles, four umpires, and several days. No non-Hegnish person has ever been able to understand it. Hegnishmen discuss the last match played with the same grave deliberation and relentless attention to detail with which they played it. Other subjects of conversation are the behavior of pet gorkis and the decoration of the local church. Religion and politics are never discussed. It may be that they do not exist, having been reduced to a succession of purely formal events and observances, while their place is filled by the central element, the focus and foundation of Hegnish society, which is best described as the Degree of Consanguinity.
It is a small island, and nearly everybody is related. As it is a monarchy, or rather a congeries of monarchies, this means that almost everybody is related to a monarch or is a member of the Royal Family.
In earlier times this universality of aristocracy caused trouble and dissension. Rival claimants to the crown tried to eliminate each other; there was a long period of violence referred to as the Purification of the Peerage, a war called the Agnate War, and the brief, bloody Cross-Cousins Revolt. But all these family quarrels were settled when the genealogies of every lineage and individual were established and recorded in the great work of
the reign of Eduber XII of Sparg, the
Book of the Blood.
Now four hundred and eighty-eight years old, this book is, I may
say without exaggeration, the
centerpiece of every Hegnish household.
Indeed it is the only book anybody
ever reads. Most people know
the sections dealing with their own
family by heart. Publication
of the annual Addition and Supplements to the Book of the Blood is awaited as the great event of the year. It furnishes the staple
of conversation for months, as people of the Levigian House with the death exciting possibility of an heir to the eminently suitable marriage of Endol the unexpected succession of Viscount Fob due to the untimely deaths of his and his cousin all in the same year, (by decree of the Board of Editors-
discuss the sad extinction of old Prince Levigvig, the Swads arising from the IV and the Duchess of Mabuber, Lagn to the crown of East great-uncle, his uncle, or the re-legitimization Royal) of the great-grandson
of the Bastard of Egmorg.
There are eight hundred and seventeen kings in Hegn. Each has
title to certain lands, or palaces, or
at least parts of palaces; region isn’t what makes a king crown and wearing it on certain another king, and having
but actual rule or dominion over a a king. What matters is having the occasions, such as the coronation of
one’s lineage recorded unquestionably in the Book of the Blood, and edging the sod at the first game of the local sutpot season,
and being present at the annual
Blessing of the Fish, and knowing
that one’s wife is the queen and
one’s eldest son is the crown
prince and one’s brother is the
prince royal and one’s sister
is the princess royal and all one’s relations and all their children
are of the blood royal.
To maintain an aristocracy it is necessary that persons of exalted
rank form intimate association only
with others of their kind.
Fortunately there are plenty of those.
Just as the bloodline of
a Thoroughbred horse on my planet can
be tracked straight back
to the Godolphin Arabian, every royal
family of Hegn can trace
its ancestry back to Rugland of Hegn-
Glander, who ruled eight
centuries ago. The horses don’t
care, but their owners do, and
families. In this sense, Hegn may
be seen as a vast stud
farm.
There is an unspoken consensus that certain royal houses are slightly,
as it were, more royal than others,
because they descend directly than one of his eight younger have married into the central unshakable connection. Each incomparable claim to distinction, the semi-legendary conqueror or a family tree never sullied duchess but exhibiting (on the
from Rugland 6;s eldest son rather sons; but all the other royal houses line often enough to establish an house also has some unique, such as descent from Alfign the Ax, of North Hegn, or a collateral saint, by marriage with a mere duke or
ever-open page of the Book of the Blood in the palace library) a continuous and unadulterated flowering
of true blue princes and processes.
And so, when the novelty of the annual Addition and Supplements at last wears thin, the royal guests at the royal parties can
always fall back on discussing degrees
of consanguinity, settling of Agnin IV’s second marriage, same prince who was slain father 6;s palace against the could not, have been the King of Shut.
such questions as whether the son born to Tivand of Shut, was or was not the at the age of thirteen defending his Anti-Agnates and therefore could, or father of the Duke of Vigrign, later
Such questions are not of interest to everyone, and the placid
fanaticism with which the Hegnish
pursue them bores or offends that the Hegnish have absolutely themselves can also cause offense, is all the Hegnish know about are too polite to say that but if they had to think about
many visitors to the island. The fact no interest in any people except or even rage. Foreigners ex
ist. That them, and all they care to know. They it is a pity that foreigners exist, it, they would think so.
They do not, however, have to think about foreigners. That is
taken care of for them. The
Interplanary Hotel on Hegn is in Hemgogn,
a beautiful little kingdom on the west
coast. The Interplanary guides. The guides, mostly the Alternation of the Watch the blood, wearing magnificent daily. The Agency also offers kingdoms. The bus runs softly along among sunlit orchards and wildfood bus and look at the ruins, palace open to visitors. The but unfailingly civil and the Queen comes down and actually looking at them and instructs invite them to pick and eat orchard, and then she and the of the palace, and the the bus. And that is that.
Agency runs the hotel and hires local dukes and earls, take visitors to see on the Walls, performed by princes of traditional regalia, at noon and six day tours to a couple of other the ancient, indestructible roads forests. The tourists get out of the or walk through the parts of the inhabitants of the palace are aloof courteous, as befits royalty. Perhaps smiles at the tourists without the pretty little Crown Princess to whatever they like in the lunch-Princess go back into the private part tourists have lunch and get back into
Being an introvert, I rather like Hegn. One does not have to mingle,
since one can’t. And the food is
good, and the sunlight sweet.
I went there more than once, and
stayed longer than most people
do, and so it happened that I learned
about the Hegnish Commoners.
I was walking down the main street of Legners Royal, the capital
of Hemgogn, when I saw a crowd in the
square in front of the old thought it must be one of and joined the crowd to watch. decorous, and profoundly dull. But are: and they have their own tedious
Church of the Thrice Royal Martyr. I the many annual festivals or rituals These events are always slow, they’re the only events there
charm. Soon, however, I saw this was a
different from any Hegnish ceremony I
funeral. And it was altogether had ever witnessed, above people.
were all royals, of course, like any princesses, duchesses, countesses, the regal reserve, the sovereign always seen in them before. square, for once not engaged in traditional occupation or if for comfort. They were and verged upon being noisy. grieving, openly grieving. person nearest me in the crowd was the aunt by marriage. I knew who she morning at half past eight, walk the King’s pet gorki the hotel, and one of the I had watched from the hotel while the gorki, a fine, himself under the cheeseblossom away into a tranquil vacancy aristocrats.
those pale eyes were filled with tears, with the effort to control
SIZE="2">"Your ladyship," I provide
in case I had it wrong, "forgive funeral is this?"
all in the behavior of the
They crowd in Hegn, all of The Dowager Duchess of But now and the soft, weathered face of the Duchess worked She looked at me unseeing, dimly surprised but too absorbed in The crowd was growing rapidly, constantly. By the time the coffin The coffin was carried and closely surrounded by people I had At the far edge of the crowd I saw a native guide with whom I "Sissie," he said almost in a wail, caught up in the general grief–"Sissie "And Sissie–?" "She’s, she was, their daughter. The only daughter." Do what he
them princes, dukes, earls,
etc. But they were not behaving with
aplomb, the majestic apathy I had
They were standing about in the
any kind of prescribed ritual duty or
hobby, but just crowding together. as
disturbed, distressed, disorganized,
They showed emotion. They were
Mogn and Farstis, the Queen’s
was because I had seen her, every
issue forth from the Royal Palace to
in the Palace gardens, which border on
Agency guides had told me who she was.
window of the breakfast room of the
heavily testicled specimen, relieved
bushes, and the Dowager Duchess gazed
reserved for the eyes of true
her feelings.
the proper appellation for a duchess
me, I am from another country, whose
sorrow to wonder at my ignorance or my
effrontery. "Sissie’s,"
she said, and speaking the name made
her break into open sobs
for a moment. She turned away, hiding
her face in her large lace
handkerchief, and I dared ask no
more.
was borne forth from the church, there
must have been over a thousand
people, most of the population of
Legners, all of them members
of the Royal Family, crowded into the
square. The King and his
two sons and his brother followed the coffin at a respectful distance.
never seen before, a very odd
lot–pale, fat men in cheap suits,
pimply boys, middle-aged women with
brassy hair and stiletto heels, thick thighs in a miniskirt, mantilla. She staggered half-hysterical, supported with a pencil mustache and small, dry, tired, dogged woman rusty black.
and a highly visible young woman with a halter top, and a black cotton lace along after the coffin weeping aloud, on one side by a scared-looking man two-tone shoes, on the other by a in her seventies dressed entirely in
had struck up a lightweight
friendship, a young viscount, son
of the Duke of Ist, and I worked my
way toward him. It took quite
a while, as everyone was streaming
along with the slow procession
of the coffin-bearers and their entourage toward the King’s limousines
and horse-drawn coaches that waited
near the Palace gates. When
I finally got to the guide I said, "Who is it? Who are they?"
died last night!" Then, coming
back to his duties as guide and pleasant aristocratic manner,
he looked at me, blinked back his
tears, and said, "They 6;re our
commoners."
could, the tears would well into his
eyes. "She was such a dear
girl. Such a help to her mother,
always. Such a sweet smile. And
there’s nobody like her, nobody.
She was the only one. Oh, she
was so full of love. Our poor little
Sissie!" And he broke right
down and cried aloud.
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Copyright
"The Royals of Hegn" by Ursula K. Le Guin, copyright © 1999 by
Ursula K. Le Guin, used by permission of the
author
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