by Brian Aldiss
CaraBansity went across to a shelf of worn reference books. He passed over an ancient folio copy of The Testament of RayniLayan, and pulled out a calf-bound Seer’s and Deuteroscopist’s Calendrical Tables. After fluttering through several pages, he settled on one and ran his finger down a column.
Although the year by the Borlien-Oldorando calendar was 381, this reckoning was not universally accepted. Other nations used other reckonings, which were listed in the Tables; 828 was listed. He found it under the ancient, discarded ‘Denniss Calendar’, now associated with witchcraft and the occult. Denniss was the name of a legendary king supposed to have ruled all Campannlat.
“The central panel of the bracelet refers to local time…” He tested out his knuckle again. “And it has survived inundation in the sea. Where are there craftsmen now who could manufacture such a jewel? Somehow it must have survived from the time of Denniss…”
He held his wife’s wrist and they watched the numbers busy with their changes. They had found a timepiece of unparalleled sophistication, probably of unparalleled value, certainly of unparalleled mystery. Wherever the craftsmen were who had made the bracelet, they must be secure from the desperate state to which King JandolAnganol had brought Borlien. Things still held together in Ottassol because it was a port, trading with other lands. Conditions elsewhere were worse, with drought, famine and lawlessness. Wars and skirmishes wasted the country’s lifeblood. A better statesman than the king, advised by a less corrupt scritina, or parliament, would make peace with Borlien’s enemies and see to the welfare of the population at home.
Yet it was not possible to hate JandolAnganol—though CaraBansity regularly tried to do so—because he was prepared to give up his beautiful wife, the queen of queens, to marry a stupid child, a half-Madi. Why should the Eagle do that, if not to cement the alliance between Borlien and its old enemy, Oldorando, for his country’s sake? JandolAnganol was a dangerous man, all agreed—but as much under the cudgel of circumstances as the lowest peasant.
The worsening climate could be much blamed. The madness of the heat, increasing generation by generation, till the very trees caught fire…
“Don’t stand dreaming,” Bindla called. “Come and get your ridiculous contraption off my wrist.”
II
Some Arrivals at the Palace
The event that the queen feared was already in process. King JandolAnganol was on his way to Gravabagalinien to divorce her.
From the Borlienese capital of Matrassyl he would sail down the River Takissa to Ottassol, there to take a coastal ship westward to Gravabagalinien’s narrow bay. JandolAnganol would present his queen with the Holy C’Sarr’s bill of divorcement in front of witnesses. Then they would part, perhaps forever.
This was the king’s plan, and very stormy he looked about it.
Accompanied by a brave sound of trumpets, escorted by members of his Household in finest array, King JandolAnganol was driven in his state coach down the hill from the palace, through Matrassyl’s crooked streets, to the quayside. In the coach with him was a solitary companion: Yuli, his pet phagor. Yuli was no more than a runt, with the brown hairs of his infancy still showing through his white coat. He had been dehorned and sat against his master, shuffling in nervous anticipation of the river journey.
As JandolAnganol stepped out of the vehicle, the captain of the waiting ship came forward and saluted smartly.
“We’ll get under way as soon as you are ready,” JandolAnganol said. His queen had sailed into exile from this very quay some five tenners earlier. Groups of citizens stood along the riverbank, eager to observe the king who had such a mixed reputation. The mayor had come to bid his monarch farewell. The cheering was nothing like the roar that had sped Queen MyrdemInggala on her way.
The king went aboard. A wooden clapper sounded, crisp as hoof on cobble. Rowers began to row. The sails were unfurled.
As the boat slid out from its mooring, JandolAnganol turned sharply to stare at the mayor of Matrassyl, who stood with his attendants drawn stiffly up on the dock in farewell. Catching the king’s glance, the mayor bowed his head submissively, but JandolAnganol knew how angry the man was. The mayor resented his monarch’s leaving the capital when the city was under external threat. Taking advantage of Borlien’s war with Randonan in the west, the savage nations of Mordriat to the north-east were on the move.
As that surly face fell behind the stern of the ship, the king turned his head to the south. He admitted to himself that there was some justice in the mayor’s attitude. From the high, restless grasslands of Mordriat came news that the warlord Unndreid the Hammer was active again. The Borlienese Northern Army, to improve its morale, should have had appointed as its general the king’s son, RobaydayAnganol. But RobaydayAnganol had disappeared on the day he heard of his father’s plan to divorce his mother.
“A son to trust in…” said JandolAnganol to the wind, with a bitter expression. He blamed his son for this journey on which he was embarked.
So the king set his profile southwards, looking for loyal demonstration. On the timbers of the deck, the shadows of the rigging lay in elaborate patterns. The shadows doubled themselves when Freyr rose in splendour. Then the Eagle retired to sleep.
A canopy of silk provided shelter in the poop of the ship. There the king remained for most of the three-day journey, with companions by his side. A few feet below his coign of vantage, almost naked human slaves, Randonanese for the most part, sat at their oars, ready to assist the canvas when the wind failed. The scent of them drifted up occasionally, to mingle with the smells of tar, timber, and bilges.
“We will make a stop at Osoilima,” the king announced. At Osoilima, a place of pilgrimage on the river, he would go to the shrine and be scourged. He was a religious man, and needed the goodwill of Akhanaba, the All-Powerful, in the test that was to come.
JandolAnganol was of distinguished and morose bearing. At twenty-five years and a tenner or two, he was still a young man, but lines marked his powerful face, giving him an appearance of wisdom his enemies claimed he did not possess.
Like one of his hawks, he had a commanding way of holding his head. It was to this head that most attention turned, as if the head of the nation were embodied in his skull. There was an eaglelike look to JandolAnganol, emphasised by the sharp bladed nose, the fierce black eyebrows, and the trim beard and moustache, which latter partly concealed a sensuous mouth. His eyes were dark and intense; the darting glance from those eyes, missing nothing, had brought him his nickname in the bazaars, the Eagle of Borlien.
Those who were close to him and had a gift for understanding character claimed that the eagle was always caged, and that the queen of queens still held the lock of his cage. JandolAnganol had the curse of khmir, best described as an impersonal lust, well understood in these hot seasons.
Often the quick head movements, in marked contrast to the concentrated stillness of the body, were the nervous habits of a man who hoped to see where he could turn next. The ceremony under the high rock of Osoilima was soon over. The king, with blood seeping through his tunic, stepped back on board ship, and the second half of the journey began. Hating the stench of the boat, the king slept on deck at night, lying on a swansdown mattress. His phagor runt Yuli slept by him, guarding his feet.
Behind the king’s ship, keeping a discreet distance, was a second ship, a converted cattle boat. In it sailed the king’s most faithful troops, the First Phagorian Guard. It drew protectively closer to the king’s ship as they approached Ottassol’s inner harbour, on the afternoon of the third day of the voyage.
Flags dropped from masts in the muggy Ottassol heat. A crowd gathered at the quayside. Among the banners and other tokens of patriotism were grimmer signs, saying the fire is coming: the oceans will burn, and live with akha or die for ever with FREYR. The Church was taking advantage of a time of general alarm, and trying to bring sinners to heel.
A band marched importantly forward between two warehouses and began to play a reg
al theme. The plaudits for his majesty as he stepped down the gangplank were restrained.
Greeting him were members of the city scritina and notable citizens. Knowing the Eagle’s reputation, they kept their speeches brief, and the king was brief in his reply.
“We are always happy to visit Ottassol, our chief port, and to find it flourishing. I cannot remain here long. You know how great events move forward.
“My unbending intention is to divorce myself from Queen MyrdemInggala by a bill of divorcement issued by the Great C’Sarr Kilander IX, Head of the Holy Pannovalan Empire and Father Supreme of the Church of Akhanaba, whose servants we are.
“After I have served that bill upon the present queen, in the presence of witnesses accredited by the Holy C’Sarr, as in law I must, then, when the Holy C’Sarr receives the bill, I shall be free to take, and will take, as my lawful spouse Simoda Tal, Daughter of Oldorando. Thus shall I affirm by bonds of matrimony the alliance between our country and Oldorando, an ancient linkage, and confirm our common partnership in the Holy Empire.
“United, our common enemies will be defeated, and we shall grow to greatness as in the days of our grandfathers.”
There was some cheering and clapping. Most of the audience rushed to see the phagorian soldiery disembark.
The king had discarded his usual keedrant. He was dressed in a tunic of yellow and black, sleeveless, so that his sinewy arms were well displayed. His trousers were of yellow silk, clinging close to his limbs. His turn-over boots were of dull leather. He wore a short sword at his belt. His dark hair was woven about the golden circle of Akhanaba, by whose grace he ruled the kingdom. He stood staring at his welcoming committee.
Possibly they expected something more practical from him. The truth was that Queen MyrdemInggala commanded almost as much affection in Ottassol as in Matrassyl.
With a curt glance to his retinue, JandolAnganol turned and stalked off.
Ahead lay the shabby low cliffs of loess. A length of yellow cloth had been laid across the quayside for the king to walk on. He avoided it, crossed to his waiting coach, and climbed in. The footman closed the door, and the vehicle moved off at once. It entered an archway and was immediately within the labyrinth of Ottassol. The phagorian guard followed.
JandolAnganol, who hated many things, hated his Ottassol palace. His mood was not softened by being welcomed at the gate by his Royal Vicar, the chill, wench-faced AbstrogAthenat.
“Great Akhanaba bless you, sire, we rejoice to see your majesty’s face, and to have your presence among us, just when bad tidings arrive from the Second Army in Randonan.”
“I’ll hear of military matters from military men,” said the king, and paced forward into the reception hall. The palace was cool, and remained cool as the seasons grew hotter, but its subterranean nature depressed him. It reminded him of the two priestly years he had spent in Pannoval as a boy.
His father, VarpalAnganol, had greatly extended the palace. Seeking his son’s praise, he had asked him how he liked it. “Cold, copious, ill considered,” had been Prince JandolAnganol’s answer.
It was typical of VarpalAnganol, never an artist at warfare, not to appreciate that the subterranean palace could never be defended effectively.
JandolAnganol remembered the day the palace was invaded. He was three years and a tenner old. He had been playing with a wooden sword in an underground court. One of the smooth loess walls shattered. From it burst a dozen armed rebels. They had tunnelled through the earth unnoticed. It still vexed JandolAnganol to recall that he had yelled in terror before charging at them with his toy sword.
There happened to be a change of guard assembling in the court, with weapons ready. After a furious skirmish, the invaders were killed. The illegal tunnel was later incorporated into the design of the palace. That had been during one of the rebellions which VarpalAnganol had failed to put down with sufficient harshness.
The old man was now imprisoned in the fortress at Matrassyl, and the courts and passages of the Ottassol palace were guarded by human and ancipital sentries. JandolAnganol’s eyes darted to the silent men as he passed them in the winding corridors; if one so much as moved, he was ready to kill him.
News of the king’s black mood spread among the palace staff. Festivities had been arranged to divert him. But first he had to receive the report from the western battlefields.
A company of the Second Army, advancing across the Chwart Heights intending to attack the Randonanese port of Poorich, had been ambushed by a superior force of the enemy. They had fought till dusk, when survivors had escaped to warn the main force. A wounded man had been despatched to report the news back along the Southern Highway semaphore system to Ottassol.
“What of General TolramKetinet?”
“He fights on, sire,” said the messenger.
JandolAnganol received the report almost without comment and then descended to his private chapel to pray and be scourged. It was exquisite punishment to be beaten by the lickerish AbstrogAthenat.
The court cared little what happened to armies almost three thousand miles away: it was more important that the evening’s festivities should not be spoilt by the king’s bile. The Eagle’s chastisement was good for everyone.
A winding stair led down to the private chapel. This oppressive place, designed in the Pannovalan fashion, was carved from the clay which lay beneath the loess, and lined with lead to waist level, with stone above. Moisture stood in beads, or ran in miniature waterfalls. Lights burned behind stained glass shades. The beams from these lanterns projected rectangles of colour into the dank air.
Sombre music played as the Royal Vicar took up his ten-tailed whip from beside the altar. On the altar stood the Wheel of Akhanaba, two sinuous spokes connecting inner rim with outer. Behind the altar hung a tapestry, gold and red, depicting Great Akhanaba in the glory of his contradictions: the Two-in-One, man and god, child and beast, temporal and eternal, spirit and stone.
The king stood and gazed at the animal face of his god. His reverence was wholehearted. Throughout his life, since his adolescent years in a Pannovalan monastery, religion had ruled him. Equally, he ruled through religion. Religion held most of the court and his people in thrall.
It was the common worship of Akhanaba which united Borlien, Oldorando, and Pannoval into an uneasy alliance. Without Akhanaba there would be only chaos, and the enemies of civilization would prevail.
AbstrogAthenat motioned to his royal penitent to kneel, and read a short prayer over him.
“We come before Thee, Great Akhanaba, to ask forgiveness for failure and to display the blood of guilt. Through the wickedness of all men, Thou, the Great Healer, art wounded, and Thou, the All-Powerful, art made weak. Therefore Thou has set our steps among Fire and Ice, in order that we may experience in our material beings, here on Helliconia, what Thou dost experience elsewhere in our name, the perpetual torment of Heat and Frost. Accept this suffering, O Great Lord, as we endeavour to accept Thine.”
The whip came up over the royal shoulders. AbstrogAthenat was an effeminate young man, but strong in the arm and assiduous in working Akhanaba’s will.
After penitence, the ceremonial of the bath; after the bath, the King ascended to the revelry.
Whips here gave way to the flicking of skirts in the dance. The music was brisk, the musicians fat and smiling. The king put on a smile too, and wore it like armour, as he remembered that this chamber had previously been lit by the presence of Queen MyrdemInggala.
The walls were decorated with the flowers of dimday, with idront and scented vispard. There were mounds of fruit and sparkling jugs of black wine. The peasants might starve, but not the palace.
JandolAnganol condescended to refresh himself with black wine, to which he added fruit juice and Lordryardry ice. He sat staring without much attending to the scene before him. His courtiers kept at a discrete distance. Women were sent to charm him and sent away again.
He had dismissed his old chancellor before leaving Matras
syl. A new chancellor, on probation, fussed at his side. Made at once fawning and anxious by his advancement, he came to discuss arrangements for the forthcoming expedition to Gravabagalinien. He also was sent away.
The king intended to remain in Ottassol for as short a time as possible. He would meet with the C’Sarr’s envoy and then continue on with him to Gravabagalinien. After the ceremony with the queen, he would make a forced march to Oldorando; there he would marry Princess Simoda Tal and get that whole business over with. He would then defeat his enemies, with assistance from Oldorando and Pannoval, and impose peace within his own borders. Certainly, the child princess, Simoda Tal, would have to live in the palace at Matrassyl, but there was no reason why he should have to see her. This scheme he would accomplish. It ran constantly through his mind.
He looked about for the C’Sarr’s envoy, the elegant Alam Esomberr. He had met Esomberr during his two-year stay in the Pannovalan monastery, and they had remained friendly ever since. It was necessary for JandolAnganol to have this powerful dignitary, sent by Kilandar IX himself, to witness his and the queen’s signature to the document of divorcement, and to return it to the C’Sarr himself before the marriage was legally void. Esomberr should be at his side now.
But Envoy Esomberr had been delayed as he was about to leave his suite. A scruffy little man with a pot belly, mangy hair, and travel-stained clothes had talked his way into the envoy’s powdered presence.
“I take it you’re not from my tailor?”
The scruffy little man denied the charge and produced a letter from an inner pocket. He handed it to the envoy. He stood and wriggled while Esomberr tore open the letter with an elegant gesture.
“It is, sir, intended—intended for onward delivery. For the eyes of the C’Sarr alone, begging your pardon.”