by Brian Aldiss
Div was further enraged by the sight of the weapon. He could soon dispose of this slight lad, this meddler.
Abathy screamed at him, but he paid no heed. She stood with both hands to her pretty mouth, eyes wide in horror. That pleased Div. She would be next.
He rushed to the attack, landing on the couch with a leap. He received the point of the horn just below his lowest rib. The tip grated against the rib as it slid in. His charge ensured that it went into his flesh to the hilt, penetrating the spleen and the stomach, at which point the handle broke off in his opponent’s hand.
A long baffled groan escaped Div. Liquids gushed over the wall as he fell against it and slipped to the floor.
Raging, Robayday left the girl to weep. He fetched two men who disposed of the corpse by tossing it into the Takissa.
Robayday ran from the city, as if pursued by mad dogs. He never returned to the girl or to the room. He had an appointment which he had been in danger of forgetting, an appointment in Oldorando. Over and again, he wept and cursed along the road.
Carried by the current, turning as it went, the body of Div Muntras drifted among the shipping to the mouth of the Takissa. No one saw it go, for most folk, even slaves, were indulging in a grand assatassi fry. Fish moved in to give the corpse their attention as the sodden mass was taken into the maw of the sea, to become part of the progression of waters westwards, towards Gravabagalinien.
That evening when the sun sank, simple people came down to the beaches and headlands of the Borlien coast. They were moved by an impulse to celebrate and give thanks. In all the countries lapped by the narrow seas, Randonan, Thribriat, Iskahandi, Dimariam, Throssa, other crowds would gather.
Here the great assatassi feast was ending. Here was a time to pause and offer praise for such blessings to the spirit who dwelt in the waters.
While women sang and danced on the sand, their menfolk waded into the sea bearing little boats. The boats were leaves, on which short candles burned, giving off a sweet scent.
On every beach, as dusk drew in, whole navies of leaves were launched. Some still floated, burning dim, long after darkness had fallen, forming panoramas reminiscent to the superstitious of gossies and fessups suspended in their more permanent darkness. Some were carried far out to sea before their feeble flames were quenched.
XVIII
Visitors from the Deep
Anyone advancing on Gravabagalinien could see from a distance the wooden palace which was the queen’s refuge. It stood without compromise, like a toy left on a beach.
Legend said that Gravabagalinien was haunted. That at some distant time in the past a fortress had stood in place of the flimsy palace. That it had been entirely destroyed in a great battle.
But nobody knew who fought there, or for what reason. Only that many had died, and had been buried in shallow graves where they fell. Their shades, far from their proper land-octaves, were still reputed to haunt the spot.
Certainly, another tragedy was now being acted out on the old unhallowed ground. For the time had come round when King JandolAnganol arrived in two ships with his men and phagors, and with Esomberr and CaraBansity, to divorce his queen.
And Queen MyrdemInggala had descended the stairs and had submitted to the divorce. And wine had been brought, and much mischief had been permitted. And Alam Esomberr, the envoy of the C’Sarr, had made his way into the ex-queen’s chamber only a few hours after he had conducted the ceremony of divorcement. And then had come the announcement that Simoda Tal had been slain in far Oldorando. And this sore news had been delivered to the king as the first rays of eastern Batalix painted yellow the peeling outer walls of the palace.
And now an inevitability could be discerned in the affairs of men and phagors, as events drew towards a climax in which even the chief participants would be swept helplessly along like comets plunging into darkness.
JandolAnganol’s voice was low with sorrow as he tore the hairs from his beard and head, crying to Akhanaba.
“Thy servant falls before thee, O Great One. Thou hast visited sorrow upon me. Thou hast caused my armies to go down in defeat. Thou hast caused my son to forsake me. Thou hast caused me to divorce my beloved queen, MyrdemInggala. Thou hast caused my intended bride to be assassinated… What more must I suffer for Thy sake?
“Let not my people suffer. Accept my suffering O Great Lord, as a sufficient sacrifice for my people.”
As he rose and put on his tunic, the pallid-chopped AbstrogAthenat said casually, “It’s true that the army has lost Randonan. But all civilized countries are surrounded by barbaric ones, and are defeated when their armies invade them. We should go, not with the sword, but with the word of God.”
“Crusades are in the province of Pannoval, not a poor country like ours, Vicar.” Adjusting his tunic over his wounds, he felt in his pocket the three-faced timepiece he had taken from CaraBansity in Ottassol. Now as then, he felt it to be an object of ill omen.
AbstrogAthenat bowed, holding the whip behind him. “At least we might please the All-Powerful by being more human, and shunning the inhuman.”
In sudden anger, JandolAnganol struck out with his left hand and caught the vicar across the cheek with his knuckles.
“You keep to God’s affairs and leave worldly matters to me.”
He knew what the man meant. His reference had been to purging phagors from Borlien.
Leaving his tunic open, feeling its fabric absorb the blood of his latest scourging, JandolAnganol climbed from the subterranean chapel to the ground floor of the wooden palace. Yuli jumped up to welcome him.
His head throbbed as if he were going blind. He patted the little phagor and sank his fingers into its thick pelage.
Shadows still lay long outside the palace. He scarcely knew how to face the morning: only yesterday he had arrived at Gravabagalinien and—in the presence of the envoy of the Holy C’Sarr, Alam Esomberr—he had divorced his fair queen.
The palace was shuttered as it had been the day previously. Now men lay everywhere in the rooms, still in drink-sodden sleep. Sunlight cut its way into the darkness in a crisscross of lines, making it seem like a woven basket that he walked through, heading for the doorway.
When he flung the door open, the Royal First Phagorian Guard stood on duty outside, its ranks of long jaws and horns unmoving. That was something worth seeing anyway, he told himself, trying to dispel his black mood.
He walked in the air before the heat rose. He saw the sea and felt the breeze, and heeded them not. Before dawn, while he still slept heavily from drink, Esomberr had come to him. Beside Esomberr stood his new chancellor, Bardol CaraBansity. They had informed him that the Madi princess he intended to marry was dead, killed by an assassin.
Nothing was left.
Why had he gone to such trouble to divorce his true wife? What had possessed his mind? There were severances the hardiest could not survive.
It was his wish to speak to her.
A delicacy in him restrained from sending a messenger up to her room. He knew that she was there with the little princess Tatro waiting for him to leave and take his soldiers with him. Probably she had heard the news the men had brought in the night. Probably she feared assassination. Probably she hated him.
He turned in his sharp way, as if to catch himself out. His new chancellor was approaching with his heavy, determined tread, jowls jolting.
JandolAnganol eyed CaraBansity and then turned his back on him. CaraBansity was forced to skirt him and Yuli before making a clumsy bow.
The king stared at him. Neither man spoke. CaraBansity turned his cloudy gaze from the king’s.
“You find me in an ill mood.”
“I have not slept either, sire. I deeply regret this fresh misfortune which has visited you.”
“My ill mood covers not only the All-Powerful but you, who are not so powerful.”
“What have I done to displease you, sire?”
The Eagle drew his brows together, making his gaze more hawklike
.
“I know you are secretly against me. You have a reputation for craftiness. I saw that gloating look you could not conceal when you came to announce the death of—you know who.”
“The Madi princess? If you so distrust me, sire, you must not take me on as your chancellor.”
JandolAnganol presented his back again, with the yellow gauze of his tunic patterned red with blood like an ancient banner.
CaraBansity began to shuffle. He stared up abstractedly at the palace and saw how its white paint was peeling. He felt what it was to be a commoner and what it was to be a king.
He enjoyed his life. He knew many people and was useful to the community. He loved his wife. He prospered. Yet the king had come along and snatched him up against his will, as if he were a slave.
He had accepted the role and, being a man of character, made the best of it. Now this sovereign had the gall to tell CaraBansity that he was secretly against his king. There was no limit to royal impertinence—and as yet he could see no way to escape following JandolAnganol all the way to Oldorando.
His sympathy with the king’s predicament left him. “I meant to say, Your Majesty,” he began in a determined voice, and then became alarmed by his own temerity, looking at that bloody back. “This is just a trifling matter, of course, but before we set sail from Ottassol, you took from me that interesting timepiece with three faces. Do you happen to have it still?” The king did not turn or move. He said, “I have it here in my tunic.” CaraBansity took a deep breath and then said, much more feebly than he intended, “Would you return it to me, please, Your Majesty?”
“This is no time to approach me for favours, when Borlien’s standing within the Holy Empire is threatened.” He was the Eagle as he spoke.
They both stood, watching Yuli root in the bushes by the palace. The creature pissed after the retromingent fashion of his species.
The king began to walk with measured pace in the direction of the sea.
I’m no better than a damned slave, said CaraBansity to himself. He followed.
With the runt skipping beside him, the king speeded his step, speaking rapidly as he went, so that the portly deuteroscopist was forced to catch up. He never mentioned the subject of his timepiece again.
“Akhanaba had favoured me and set many fruits in my life’s way. And always to those fruits an additional flavour was given when I saw that more were promised—tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. Whatever I wished, I might have more of.
“It’s true I suffered setbacks and defeats, but that within a general atmosphere of promise. I did not allow them to disturb me for long. My personal defeat in the Cosgatt—well, I learnt from it and put it behind me, and eventually won a great victory there.”
They passed a line of gwing-gwing trees. The king snatched down a gwing-gwing, biting into it to the stone as he spoke, letting the juice run down his chin. He gestured, clutching the despoiled fruit.
“Today, I see my life in a new light. Perhaps all that was promised me I have already received… I am, after all, more than twenty-five years.” He spoke with difficulty. “Perhaps this is my summer, and in future when I shake the bush no fruit will fall… Can I any longer rely on plenty? Doesn’t our religion warn us that we must expect times of famine? Fah!—Akhanaba is like a Sibornalese, always obsessed with the winter to come.”
They walked along the low cliffs separating land from beach, where the queen was accustomed to swim.
“Tell me,” said JandolAnganol carelessly, “if you as an atheist do not have a religious construction to put to the case—how do you see my difficulties?”
CaraBansity was silent, setting his beefy red face towards the ground as if guarding it against the king’s abrasive look. Work up your courage, he told himself.
“Well? Come, say what you will. I have no spirit! I have been flogged by my whey-visaged vicar…”
When CaraBansity stopped walking, the king followed suit.
“Sire, I recently to oblige a friend took into my establishment a certain young lady. My wife and I entertain many people, some alive, some dead; also animals for dissection, and phagors, either for dissection or for bodyguards. None caused as much trouble as that certain young lady.
“I love my wife, and ever continue to do so. But I lusted after that certain young lady. I had a contempt for her, yet I lusted after her. I despised myself, and yet I lusted after her.”
“But did you have her?”
CaraBansity laughed, and for the first time in the king’s presence, his face lightened. “Sire, I had her much as you have that gwing-gwing, the fruit par excellence of dimday. The juice, sire, ran down… But it was khmir and not love, and once the khmir was quenched—though that was certainly a process… that was summer process, sire—once it was quenched, I loathed myself and wanted nothing more of her. I established her apart and told her never to see me again. Since when, I learn that she has taken to her mother’s profession, and caused the death of at least one man.”
“What’s all this to me?” asked the king with a haughty look.
“Sire, I believe the activating principle of your life to be lust rather than love.
“You tell me in religious terms that Akhanaba has favoured you and put many fruits in your path. In my terms, you have taken what you would, done what you would, and so you wish to continue. You favour ancipitals as instruments of your lust, not caring that phagors are in reality never submissive. Nothing really can stand in your way—except the queen of queens. She can stand in your way because she alone in the world commands your love, and perhaps some respect. That is why you hate her, because you love her.
“She stands between you and your khmir. She alone can contain your—duality. In you as in me, and perhaps as in all men, the two principles are divided—but the division in you is as great as your state is great.
“If you prefer to believe in Akhanaba, believe now that he has by these supposed setbacks given you warning that your life is about to go wrong. Make it right while the chance is offered.”
They stopped on the cliff, ignoring the dull thunders of the sea, and stood face to face, both of them tense. The king heard his chancellor out with never a movement, while Yuli rolled in coarse grass nearby.
“How would you suggest that I make my life right?” A less self-assured man than CaraBansity would have taken fright from his tone.
This is my advice, Your Majesty. Do not go to Oldorando. Simoda Tal is dead. You no longer have reason to visit an unfriendly capital. As a deuteroscopist, I warn you against it.” Under his grizzled eyebrows, CaraBansity kept careful note of the effect of his words on JandolAnganol.
“Your place is in your own kingdom, never more so than now, while your enemies have not forgotten the Massacre of the Myrdolators. Return to Matrassyl.
“Your rightful queen is here. Fall before her and ask forgiveness. Tear up Esomberr’s bill before her eyes. Take back what you love most. Your sanity lies in her. Reject the cozzening of Pannoval.”
The Eagle glared out to sea, eyes rapidly blinking.
“Live a saner life, Majesty. Win back your son. Kick out Pannoval, kick out the phagor guard, live a sane life with your queen. Reject the false Akhanaba, who has led you—”
But he had gone too far.
Matchless fury seized the king. A rage filled him until he was rage personified. He hurled himself bodily upon CaraBansity. Before this anger beyond reason, CaraBansity quailed and fell an instant before the king was on him.
Kneeling on his prostrate body, the king drew his sword. CaraBansity screamed.
“Spare me, Your Majesty! Last night I saved your queen from vile rape.”
JandolAnganol paused, then stood, sword point directed at the quaking body huddled by his feet. “Who would dare touch the queen when I was near? Answer?”
“Your Majesty…” The voice trembled slightly, the lips uttering it were pressed almost to the ground; yet what it said was clear. “You were drunk.
And Envoy Esomberr went into her room to ravish her.”
The king breathed deep. He sheathed his sword. He stood without movement.
“You base commoner! How could you understand the life of a king? I do not go back along the path I have once trod. You may possess life, which is mine to take, but I have a destiny and shall follow on where the All-Powerful leads.
“Crawl back to where you belong. You cannot advise me. Keep out of my way!”
Yet he still stood over the grovelling anatomist. When Yuli came snuffling up, the king turned suddenly away and strode back to the wooden palace.
The guard roused at his shout. They were to be away from Gravabagalinien within the hour. They would march for Oldorando, as planned. His voice, his cold fury, stirred up the palace as if it were a nest of rickybacks disturbed by the lifting of a log. Esomberr’s vicars could be heard within, calling to each other in high voices.
This commotion reached the queen in her chambers. She stood in the middle of her ivory room, listening. Her bodyguard was at the door. Mai TolramKetinet sat with two maids in the anteroom, clutching Tatro. Thick curtains were drawn across the windows. MyrdemInggala wore a long flimsy dress. Her face was as pale as the shadow of a cowbird’s wing on snow. She stood breathing the warm air into her lungs and out again, listening to the sound of men and hoxneys, of curses and commands below. Once she went to the curtains; then, as if disdaining her own weakness, withdrew the hand she had raised and returned to where she waited before. The heat brought out beads of perspiration which clung to her forehead like pearls. She heard the king’s voice once distinctly, then not again.
As for CaraBansity, he climbed to his feet when the king had gone. He walked down to the bay where he could not be seen, to recover his colour. After a while, he began to sing. He had his liberty back, if not his timepiece.
In his pain, the king went to a small room in one of the rickety towers and bolted the door behind him. Dust drifting down gave phantom substance to slices of gold shining in through a lattice. The place smelt of feathers, fungus, and old straw. On the bare boards of the floor were pigeon droppings, but the king, ignoring them, lay down and cast himself by an effort of will into pauk.