by Brian Aldiss
“I submit that you need no further proof. This innocent young girl has told us all we need to know. His lies to the contrary, the King of Borlien’s son is revealed as a murderer. We have heard how he murdered in Ottassol, presumably at his father’s instruction, merely to obtain some bauble to bring here. His preferred weapon was a phagor horn; he had already murdered Simoda Tal, using the same weapon. His father was left to proceed here to enjoy our hospitality, to carry out his evil designs upon his majesty’s sole remaining daughter. We have uncovered here as black a plot as ever history related. I have no hesitation in demanding—on behalf of the court, and on behalf of our whole nation—the death penalty for both father and son.”
RobaydayAnganol’s defiance had collapsed as soon as Abathy had entered the court. He looked no more than an urchin, and his voice sank to a whisper as he said, “Please let me go free. I’m made for life, not death, for some wild plot where the breeze blows. I have no wild plot with my father—that I deny, and all other charges.”
Crispan Mornu swung dramatically about and confronted the youth.
“You still deny the murder of Simoda Tal?”
Robayday moistened his lips. “Can a leaf kill? I’m merely a leaf, sir, caught in the world’s storm.”
“Her Majesty Queen Bathkaarnet-she is prepared to identify you as a visitor to this palace a while ago, when you came disguised as a Madi for the express purpose of committing the foul deed. Do you wish her majesty to come to this court to identify you?”
A violent trembling took Robayday. “No.”
“Then the case is proven. This youth, a prince, no less, entered the palace and—at his father’s command—murdered our much-loved princess, Simoda Tal.”
All eyes turned to the judge. The judge turned his gaze down to the floor before delivering judgement.
“The verdict is as follows. The hand that committed this vile murder belongs to the son. The mind that controlled the hand is the father’s. So where lies the source of guilt? The answer is clear—”
A cry of torment broke from Robayday. He thrust out a hand as if physically to intercept Kimon Euras’s words.
“Lies! Lies! This is a room of lies. I will speak the truth, though it destroys me! I confess I did that thing to Simoda Tal. I did it not because I was in league with my father the king. Oh, no, that’s impossible. We are day and night. I did what I did to spite him.
“There he stands—just a man now, not a king! Yes, just a man, while my mother remains the queen of queens. I, in league with him? I would no more kill for his sake than I would marry for his sake… I declare the villain innocent. If I must die your dingy death, then never let it be said even in here that I was in league with him. I wish there was a league between us. Why help one who never helped me?”
He clutched his head as if to wrench it from his shoulders.
In the silence following, Crispan Mornu said coldly, “You might have done your father more harm by keeping silent.”
Robay gave him a cold sane look. “It’s the principle of evil in men I fear—and I see that principle more rampant in you than in that poor man burdened with the crown of Borlien.”
JandolAnganol raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if trying to detach himself from earthly events. But he wept.
With the sound of rippling excitement, the judge cleared his throat.
“In view of the son’s confession, the father is of course shown to be blameless. History is full of ungrateful sons… I therefore pronounce, under the guidance of Akhanaba, the All-Powerful, that the father go free and the son be taken from here and hanged as soon as it suits the convenience of his majesty, King Sayren Stund.”
“I will die in his stead and he can reign in my stead.” The words came from JandolAnganol, spoken in a firm voice.
“The verdict is irreversible. Court dismissed.”
Above the shuffle of feet came Sayren Stund’s voice.
“Remember, we refresh ourselves now, but this afternoon comes a further spectacle, when we hear what King JandolAnganol’s ex-chancellor, SartoriIrvrash has to say to us.”
XXI
The Slaying of Akhanaba
The drama of the court and the humiliation of JandolAnganol had been watched by a greater audience than the king could have imagined.
The personnel of the Avernus, however, were not entirely occupied by the story in which the king played a conspicuous part. Some scholars studied developments taking place elsewhere on the planet, or continuities in which the king played merely an incidental role. A group of learned ladies of the Tan family, for instance, had as their subject the origins of long-standing quarrels. They followed several quarrels through generations, studying how the differences began, were maintained and were eventually resolved. One of their cases concerned a village in Northern Borlien through which the king had passed on his way to Oldorando. There the quarrel originally concerned whether pigs belonging to two neighbours should drink at the same brook. The brook had gone and so had the pigs, yet two villages existed at the spot locked in hatred and still referring to the killing of neighbours as ‘hog-sticking’. King JandolAnganol, by passing with his phagors through one village and not the other, had exacerbated the feud, and a youth had had a finger broken in a brawl that night.
Of that, the learned Tan ladies were as yet unaware. All their records were automatically stored for study, while they at present worked over a chapter in their quarrel which had taken place two centuries ago; they studied videos of an incident of indecent exposure, when an old man from one of the villages had been mobbed by men from the other village. After this squalid incident, someone had composed a beautiful dirge on the subject, which was still sung on festive occasions. To the learned Tan ladies, such incidents were as vital as the king’s trial—and of more significance than all the austerities of the inorganic.
Other groups studied matters even more esoteric. Phagor lines of descent were particularly closely watched. The question of phagor mobility, baffling to the Helliconians, was by now fairly well understood on the Avernus. The ancipitals had ancient patterns of behaviour from which they were not easily deflected, but those patterns were more elaborate than had been supposed. There was a kind of ‘domestic’ phagor which accepted the rule of man as readily as the rule of a kzahhn; but hidden from the eyes of men was a much more independent ancipital which survived the seasons much as its ancestors had done, taking what it would and moving on: a free creature, unaffected by mankind.
The history of Oldorando as a unit also had its scholars, those who were most interested in process. They followed interweaving lives of individuals in only a general way.
When the eyes of Avernus first turned towards Oldorando, or Embruddock as it was then, it was little more than a place of hot springs where two rivers met. Round the springs, a few low towers stood in the middle of an immense ice desert. Even then, in the early years of Avernian research, it was apparent that this was a place, strategically situated, with a potential for growth when the climate improved.
Oldorando was now larger and more populous than anyone in the six families had seen it before. Like any living organism, it expanded in favourable weather, contracted in adverse.
But the story was no more than begun as far as those on the Avernus were concerned. They kept their records, they transmitted a constant stream of information back to Earth;
present transmissions could be reckoned to arrive there in the year 7877. The intricacies of the Helliconian biosphere and its response to change throughout the Great Year could be understood only when at least two complete cycles had been studied.
The scholars could extrapolate. They could make intelligent guesses. But they could no more see the future than King JandolAnganol could see what was to befall that very afternoon.
Sayren Stund had not been in better humour since before his elder daughter died. Before the afternoon’s event, which was to humiliate JandolAnganol further, Stund ate a light meal of Dorzin gout and called a meet
ing of the inner circle of his council to impress on them how clever he had been.
“Of course it was never my intention to hang King JandolAnganol,” he informed the councillors genially. “The threat of execution was simply to reduce him, as that Other of a son of his put it, to a mere man, naked and defenceless. He thinks he can do as he pleases. That is not so.”
When he had finished talking, his prime minister rose to make a speech of thanks to his majesty.
“We particularly appreciate your majesty’s humiliation of a monarch who cultivates phagors and treats them—well, almost as if they were human. We in Oldorando can have no doubt, must have no doubt, that the ancipitals are animals, nothing more. They have all the stamp of animals. They talk. So do preets and parrots.
“Unlike parrots, phagors are forever hostile to mankind. We know not where they come from. They seem to have been born in the late Cold Period. But we do know—and this is what King JandolAnganol does not know—that these formidable newcomers must be eradicated, first from among human society, then from the face of the earth.
“We still have the indignity of suffering JandolAnganol’s phagor brutes in our park. We all anticipate that, after this afternoon’s event, we shall be able to show gratitude once more to King Sayren Stund for ridding us for ever both of this pack of brutes, and of their pack master.”
There was general clapping. Sayren Stund himself clapped. Every word in the minister’s speech echoed his own words.
Sayren Stund enjoyed such sycophancy. But he was not a fool. Stund still needed the alliance with Borlien; he wished to make sure he would be the senior partner to it. He hoped, too, that the afternoon’s entertainment would impress the nation with whom he was already in uncomfortable alliance, Pannoval. He intended to challenge the C’Sarr’s monopoly of militarism and religion; that he could do by supplying an underlying philosophy for the Pannovalan drive against the ancipital kind. Having talked to SartoriIrvrash he foresaw that the scholar could provide precisely such a philosophy.
He had struck a bargain with SartoriIrvrash. In exchange for the afternoon’s oratory and the destruction of JandolAnganol’s authority, Sayren Stund had Odi Jeseratabhar released from the Sibornalese embassy, despite the grumbles of the Sibornalese. He promised SartoriIrvrash and Odi the safety of his court, where they could live and work in peace. The bargain had been agreed upon with glee on all sides.
The heat of the morning had overwhelmed many of those who attended the court; reports entering the palace spoke of hundreds dying of heart attacks in the city. The afternoon’s diversion was therefore staged in the royal gardens, where jets of water played on the foliage and gauzes were hung from trees to create pleasant shade.
When the distinguished members of court and Church had gathered, Sayren Stund came forward, his queen on his arm, his daughter following behind. Screwing up his eyes, he gazed about for sight of JandolAnganol. Milua Tal saw him first and hastened across the lawn to his side. He stood under a tree, together with his Royal Armourer and two of his captains.
“The fellow has boldness, grant him that,” Sayren Stund murmured. He had had delivered to JandolAnganol an ornate letter apologizing for his mistaken imprisonment, while making excuses because the evidence was so much against him. What he did not know was that Bathkaarnet-she had written a simpler note, expressing her pain over the whole incident and referring to her husband as a ‘love throttler’.
When his majesty was comfortably settled on his throne, a gong was struck, and Crispan Mornu appeared, shrouded as ever in black. Evidently the minister of the rolls, Kimon Euras, was too overcome by his morning’s activities to manage anything further. Crispan Mornu was in sole charge.
Ascending the platform set in the middle of the lawn, he bowed to the king and queen and spoke in his voice which had about it, as a court wit once remarked, the same redolence as the sex life of a public hangman.
“We have a rare treat this afternoon. We are to be present at an advancement of history and natural philosophy. Of recent generations, we among the enlightened nations have come to understand how the history of our cultures is at best intermittent. It is caused by our Great Year of 1825 small years, and not by wars as the idle have claimed. The Great Year contains a period of intense heat and several centuries of intense cold. These are punishments from the All-Powerful for the sinfulness of mankind. While the cold prevails for so long, civilization is difficult to maintain.
“We are to hear from one who has pierced through these disruptions to bring us news of distant matters which concern us urgently today. In particular, they refer to our relationship with those beasts which the All-Powerful sent to chasten us, the phagors.
“I beg you, gentles all, to listen well to the scholar Master SartoriIrvrash.”
Languidly polite clapping went about the lawn. On the whole, music and tales of bawdy were preferred to intellectual effort.
As the clapping died, SartoriIrvrash came forth. Although he smoothed his whiskers with a familiar gesture and looked rather furtively to left and right, he did not appear nervous. By his side walked Odi Jeseratabhar in a flowered chagirack. She had recovered from her assatassi wounds and carried herself alertly. Much of her Uskuti arrogance remained in the gaze with which she surveyed the assembly. Her expression was gentler when she looked at SartoriIrvrash.
The latter had adopted a linen hat to cover his baldness. He carried some books which he deposited carefully on the table before he spoke. The magisterial cairn with which he began betrayed nothing of the consternation he was about to spread.
“I am grateful to his majesty, King Sayren Stund, for giving me sanctuary in the Oldorandan court. In my long life, vicissitudes have been many, and even here, even here, I have not been free of botheration from those who are the enemies of knowledge. All too often, those who hate learning are the very people on whom we should most rely to promote it.
“For many years, I served as chancellor to King VarpalAnganol, and later to his son, who dares to be present here despite his encounter with justice this morning. By him I was unfairly dismissed from office. During my years in Matrassyl, I was compiling a survey of our world, entitled ‘The Alphabet of History and Nature’, in which I sought to integrate and distinguish between myth and reality. And it is on that subject I speak now.
“When I was dismissed, all my papers were most cruelly burnt, and my life’s work destroyed. The knowledge I carry in my head was not destroyed. With it, with my experiences since, and in particular with the assistance of this lady by my side, Odi Jeseratabhar, Priest-Militant Admiral of the Sibornalese fleet, I have come to understand much that was previously a mystery.
“One mystery in particular. A cosmological mystery, one which touches on our everyday lives. Bear with me, hot though it is, for I shall be as brief as possible, although I am told that is not always my habit.”
He laughed and looked about him. Everywhere was attention, real or feigned. Encouraged, he plunged into his argument.
“I hope to offend no one by what I say. I speak in the belief that men love truth above all things.
“We are so bound to our human concerns that we rarely catch sight of the great business of the planet about us. It is more marvellous than we can credit. It abounds with life. Whatever the season, winged and footed life is everywhere, from pole to pole. Endless herds of flambreg, each herd numbered in millions of beasts, rove ceaselessly across the vast continent of Sibornal. Such a sight is unforgettable. Where have the beasts come from? How long have they been there? We have no answers to such questions. We can only remain mute with awe.
“The secrets of antiquity could be unlocked if only we ceased our warring. If all kings had the wisdom of Sayren Stund.”
He bowed in the direction of the Oldorandan king, who smiled back, unaware of what was to come. There were scattered handclaps.
“While life was peaceful at the Matrassyl court, I was privileged in enjoying the company of MyrdemInggala, called by her subjects th
e queen of queens—merely because they knew not of Queen Bathkaarnet-she, of course—and her daughter, TatromanAdala. Tatro had a collection of fairy tales which I used to read to her. Although all my papers were destroyed, as I have said, Tatro’s fairy tales were not destroyed, not even when her cruel father banished her to the coast. We have a copy of Tatro’s book here.”
At this point, Odi solemnly raised the little book aloft and held it for all to see.
“In Tatro’s storybook is a tale called ‘The Silver Eye’. I read it many times without perceiving its inner meaning. Only when I travelled could I grasp its elusive truth. Perhaps because the herds of flambreg reminded me strongly of primitive ancipitals.”
Until this point, SartoriIrvrash’s delivery, free of his old pedantry, had kept his audience listlessly attentive. Many of the audience lounging on the lawn were drumble organizers, with a natural hatred of phagors; at the word ‘ancipitals’ they showed interest.
“There is an ancipital in the story of the Silver Eye.
“The ancipital is a gillot. Her role is advisor to a king in a mythical country, Ponpt. Well, not so mythical: Ponpt, now called Ponipot, still exists to the west of the Barrier Mountains. This gillot is superior to the king, and provides him with the wisdom whereby he rules. He depends on her as a son on a mother. At the end of the story, the king kills the gillot.
“The Silver Eye itself is a body like a sun, but silver and shining only by night. Like a close star, without heat. When the gillot is slain, the Silver Eye sails away and is lost for ever.
“What did all that signify? I asked myself. Where was the meaning of the tale?”
He leaned over the podium, hunching his shoulders and pointing at the audience in his eagerness to tell the tale.
“The key to the puzzle came when I was on an Uskuti sailing vessel. The vessel was becalmed in the Cadmer Straits. Odi, this lady here, and I landed on Gleeat Island, where we managed to capture a wild gillot with a black pelage. The females of the ancipital species have a one-day flow of menses from the uterus as a prelude to the oestral cycle, when they go into rut. Because of my prejudice against the species, I have no knowledge of Native Ancipital or even Hurdhu, but I discovered then that the gillot’s word for her period was ‘tennhrr’. That was the key! Forgive me if such a subject seems too disgusting to contemplate.