by Brian Aldiss
No doubt Oyre also understood his dilemma. Yet she was marked out as his and no one else’s. He would have fought to the death any other man who went near her.
His wild instincts, his sense for the cunning trap, for the unregarding moment that spells disaster, made him see as clearly as did Shay Tal that Oldorando was now left regularly vulnerable to attack. In the present warm spell, nobody was alert. Sentries drowsed at their posts.
He raised the question of defence with Aoz Roon, who had a reasonable answer.
Aoz Roon said dismissively that nobody, friend or foe, travelled far any more. A mantle of snow had made it easy for men to go wherever they pleased; now everywhere was choked with green things, with thickets growing denser every day. The time for raids was past.
Besides, he added, they had had no phagor raids since the day Mother Shay Tal performed her miracle at Fish Lake. They were safer than they had ever been. And he passed Laintal Ay a tankard of beethel.
Laintal Ay was not satisfied with the answer. Uncle Nahkri had considered himself perfectly safe that night he had climbed the stairs of the big tower. Within a couple of minutes, he was lying in the lane below with his neck broken.
When the hunters went out today, Laintal Ay had got no further than the bridge. There he turned silently back, determined to make a survey of the village and see how it would fare under an unexpected attack.
As he commenced circling the outskirts, the first thing he observed was a light plume of steam on the Voral. It rode along on a certain line in midstream, never deviating, seeming to advance above the dark rapid glide of the water, yet ever remaining in the identical place. Feathers of vapour shredded back from it along the breast of the river. What it signified he could not determine. He proceeded with a sense of unease.
The atmosphere grew heavier. Saplings were springing up over mounds that had once been buildings. He viewed the remaining towers through their slender bars. Aoz Roon was right in one respect: it had become difficult to get round Oldorando.
Yet warning images formed in his mind. He saw phagors riding kaidaws, leaping obstacles and charging into the heart of the settlement. He saw the hunters straggling home, loaded with bright skins, their heads heavy from too much beethel. They had time to witness their homes burnt, their women and children dead, before they too were trampled under savage hoof.
He forced his way through prickly bushes.
How the phagors rode! What could be more wonderful than to mount a kaidaw and ride it, master it, share its power, be one with its action? Those ferocious beasts submitted to no mount but a phagor: or so the legends said, and he had never heard of the man who had ridden a kaidaw. The very notion made one dizzy. Men went on foot … But a man on a kaidaw would be more than the equal of a phagor on a kaidaw.
Half concealed by bushes, he could see across to the north gate, which stood open and unguarded. Two birds perched on top of the gate, twittering. He wondered if a sentry had been posted that morning, or if the man had deserted his post. The silence, through the heavy air, took on a booming quality.
A shambling figure came into his line of vision. It was immediately recognisable as the slave master, Goija Hin. Behind him went Myk, led by a rope.
‘There now, you’ll enjoy this afternoon’s work,’ Laintal Ay heard the slave master say. He stopped beyond the gate and tied the phagor to a small tree. The creature’s legs were already chained. He patted Myk almost affectionately.
Myk looked at Goija Hin with apprehension. ‘Myk can sit here in the sunshine some time.’
‘Not sit, stand. You stand, Myk, you do as you’re told, or you know what you’ll get. We’re going to do exactly as Aoz Roon says, or we’ll both be in trouble.’
The old phagor made a growling sound. ‘Trouble is always all round us in the air-octaves. What are you Sons of Freyr but trouble?’
‘Any more of that I rip your stinking hide off,’ Goija Hin said, without malice. ‘You stay there and do what we were told and you’ll have your chance on one of us Sons of Freyr in a minute.’
He left the monster where he was concealed from gaze and marched off with his flat-footed walk, back towards the towers. Myk promptly lay down on the ground and was lost to Laintal Ay’s view.
Like the trail of vapour riding on the Voral, this incident made Laintal Ay uneasy. He stood waiting, listening, wondering. The twittering stillness was one he would have regarded as unnatural only a few years ago. He shrugged his shoulders and walked on.
Oldorando was unguarded. An undertaking must be made to rouse the hunters to a sense of peril. He observed that steam seeped from the caps of the bare rajabarals. There was another portent he could not interpret. Thunder rumbled, far to the north, yet with intimate menace.
He crossed a brook which bubbled and let forth steam, the vapour snarling itself among teeth of fern growing from the bank. When he bent to dip his hand, he found the water tolerably warm. A dead fish floated past, tail uppermost, just under the surface. He squatted there, looking across it at the tangle of new green through which the tops of the towers showed. No hot spring had existed here before.
The ground trembled. Reed trailed in the water, forever uncurling; newts flashed in it then were gone. Birds rose crying over the towers, then sank again.
As he waited for the tremor to be repeated, the Hour-Whistler blew nearby, the sound of Oldorando he remembered since the cradle. It lasted a fraction longer than usual. He knew exactly how long it lasted; this time, the note was sustained for an instant more than it should have been.
He rose and continued his perimeter prowl. When moving with difficulty through raige bushes which reached to his thigh, he heard voices. With the prompt response of a hunter, Laintal Ay froze, then moved forward cautiously, bent double. Ahead was a sharp rise in the ground, patched by thyme bushes. He sank down on his hands among the fragrant leaves, to peer forward cautiously. He felt his stomach swing under him – his lean arc of belly had become convex with recent good living.
Voices – female – again. He raised his head and looked over the mound.
Whatever he had expected to see, the reality was far more delightful. He found himself gazing into a hollow, in the centre of which lay a deep pool surrounded by verdure. Wisps of steam rose from the water and drifted into the bushes round about which dripped moisture back into the pool. On the far side of this pool were two women dressing themselves in their hoxney skins; one was heavy with child; he quickly identified her as Amin Lim and her companion as Vry. Standing near him on the edge of the pool, her beautiful back turned to him, was his adored and self-willed Oyre, naked.
When he realised who it was, he gasped with pleasure, and lay where he was, regarding those shoulders, that sweep of back, those glowing buttocks and legs, with a delight that caught his breath.
Batalix had broken free from one of the giant purple castles of cloud, to flood the land below with gold. The sentinel’s rays scattered obliquely over Oyre’s cinnamon skin, which was pearled about her shoulders and breasts with water drops. Runnels of water chased themselves down the mazes of her flesh, finally spreading to the stone on which she stood, as if to unite her, naiadlike, to the nearby element they shared. Her pose was relaxed, her feet were slightly apart. One hand was raised, to wipe away water from her eyelashes as she watched her friends preparing to leave. Oyre’s was the carelessness of an animal – unconscious at this moment of the hunter’s predatory regard, yet poised for escape if need be.
Her dark hair clung wetly to her skull, damp tails of it curling about her shoulders and throat, lending her an otterlike quality.
Laintal Ay could catch only glimpses of her face from where he crouched. He had never seen any naked body before, male or female; custom, reinforcing cold, had banished nudity from Oldorando. Overcome by what he saw, he allowed his face to sink into the fragrant thyme. Pulses beat heavily in his temples.
When he could raise his head and look upon the sight again, the movement of her buttocks as she wave
d her friends good-bye and turned away worked a strong enchantment in him. He breathed a different air. Oyre now regarded the pool almost drowsily, gazing into its pure depths, her lashes gleaming against her cheeks. At her next movement, he could consider her pudendum, covered with tiny wet pigtails, her superb belly, and the cunning whorl of her navel. All was momentarily revealed as she flung up her arms and jumped into the pool.
He was alone with the heavy sunlight and the steam rolling into the bushes until she surfaced again, laughing.
She climbed out quite near him, her breasts swinging clear of her body, jellying lightly against each other.
‘Oyre, golden Oyre!’ he called in ecstasy.
He rose.
She stood in a crouch before him, a pulse throbbing by a little hollow on her neck. Her regard was heavy upon him, her dark eyes lustrous, yet with a kind of sensuous dullness induced by the general ripe warmth. He saw anew the beauty of the short oval of her face, framed in otter hair, and the sweetness about her eyebrows and the folds of her eyelids. Those eyebrows were arched at present, but after her first surprise she showed no fear, simply looking at him with parted lips, awaiting his next move as if puzzled as to what it might be. Then, belatedly, she curled one hand down and covered her queme. The gesture was more provocative than protective. Well aware of her beauty, she possessed a natural composure.
Four little lascivious birds fluttered down between them, overcome by the heaviness of the afternoon.
Laintal Ay strode across the grass and clutched her, looking fiercely into her eyes, feeling her body against his furs. He reached forward and grasped her, kissing her passionately on the lips.
Oyre stepped back and licked those lips, smiling slightly, her eyes narrowed.
‘Strip yourself. Let Batalix see how you are made,’ she said.
The words were part invitation, part taunt. He unlaced his neckties, then grasped the opening of his tunic and tugged, so that the stitches tore. With loud ripping sounds, the tunic came away and he flung it down. Then he treated his trousers similarly, and kicked them off. He was aware of how his prod stood out stiff from his body, as he crossed to her.
Oyre grasped his outstretched arm, pulled, kicked at his shin, and stepped back swiftly, propelling him full length into the water.
The moist lips of the pool closed over Laintal Ay. It felt astonishingly hot. He surfaced, yelling for breath.
She leaned down laughing with her hands on her handsome knees.
‘You wash yourself before you are fit for me, you flea-bitten warrior!’
He splashed her, smacking the surface of the water between laughter and anger.
When she helped him out, she was considerably softer. She felt slippery in his grasp. As they knelt down in the grass, he slid a hand between her legs, feeling her fine details. Immediately, his seed burst from him across the grass.
‘Oh, you fool, you fool!’ she cried, and caught him a slap across the chest, her face distorted by disappointment.
‘No, no, Oyre, it’s all right. Give me a minute, please. I love you, Oyre, with all my eddre. I want you always, always. Come to me, rouse me again.’
But Oyre stood up, full of annoyance and inexperience. Despite his coaxing words, he felt enraged with her, with himself. He jumped up beside her.
‘Scumb you, you shouldn’t be so pretty, you minx!’
He grabbed hold of her arm, swung her brutally round, and thrust her towards the steaming pool. She grabbed his hair, snarling and screeching. Together they tumbled into the water.
He got an arm about her back, caught her underwater, kissed her as they surfaced, grabbing a breast with his left hand. Laughing, they climbed to the muddy bank, rolling over together. He hooked a leg round hers and climbed on top. She kissed him passionately on the lips, thrusting her tongue into his mouth even as he entered her queme.
There they lay in the secret place, serene, ecstatic, making love. The mud beneath them, plastering their sides, emitted comfortable noises, as if full of microbes all copulating to express their joy in life.
She was climbing languorously into her hoxney skins. The soft pelts were distinctively marked with dark blue and light blue stripes, each stripe varying in width as it chased its way down Oyre’s body. The afternoon had become stifling, and thunder rumbled near at hand, occasionally breaking into claps like sharp cries of protest.
Laintal Ay sprawled close, watching Oyre’s movements, eyes half-closed.
‘I’ve always wanted you,’ he said. ‘For years. Your flesh is a hot spring. You’ll be my woman. We’ll come here every afternoon.’
She said nothing. She started singing under her breath.
‘The stream on its way
Glides like our day …’
‘I want you badly, every day, Oyre. You want me too, don’t you?’
She looked at him and said, ‘Yes, yes, Laintal Ay, I wanted you. But I cannot be your woman.’
He felt the ground tremble under him.
‘What do you mean?’
She seemed to hesitate, then she leaned towards him. When he automatically reached for her, she pulled herself away, tucked her breasts into her tunic, and said, ‘I love you, Laintal Ay, but I am not going to become your woman.
‘I always suspected that the academy was just a diversion – a consolation for silly women like Amin Lim. Now the weather’s fine, it has fallen apart. To be honest, only Vry and Shay Tal care about it – and possibly old Master Datnil. Yet I value Shay Tal’s example of independence, and imitate it. Shay Tal will not submit to my father – though I expect she desires him madly, as everyone does – and I follow her example: if I become your possession, I become nothing.’
He scrambled up on his knees, looking wretched. ‘Not so, not so. You’ll be – everything, Oyre, everything. We’re nothing without each other.’
‘For a few weeks, yes.’
‘What do you expect?’
‘What do I expect …’ Her eyes rolled upwards, and she sighed. She smoothed back her still damp hair and looked away, at the young bushes, at the sky, at the birds. ‘It’s not that I have such a high regard for myself. I can do so little. By remaining independent like Shay Tal, perhaps I can achieve something.’
‘Don’t talk that way. You need someone to protect you. Shay Tal, Vry – they’re not happy. Shay Tal never laughs, does she? Besides, she’s old. I’d look after you and make you happy. I want nothing better.’
She was buttoning up her tunic, looking down at the toggles which she herself had designed (to the tailor’s amazement), so that the skins could be put on and off without trouble.
‘Oh, Laintal Ay, I’m so difficult. I have difficulty with myself. I don’t really know what I want. I long to dissolve and flow like this wonderful water. Who knows where it comes from, where it goes to? – from the very eddre of earth, maybe … I do love you, though, in my horrid way. Listen, we’ll have an arrangement.’
She stopped fiddling with her tunic and came to stand looking down at him, hands on her hips.
‘Do something great and astonishing, one thing, one deed, and I’ll be your woman for ever. You understand that? A great deed, Laintal Ay – a great deed and I’m yours. I’ll do whatever you wish.’
He got up and stood away from her, surveying her. ‘A great deed? What sort of great deed do you mean? By the original boulder, Oyre, you are a strange girl.’
She tossed her damp hair. ‘If I told you, then it would no longer be great. Do you understand that? Besides, I don’t know what I mean. Strive, strive … You’re getting fat already, as if you were pregnant …’
He stood without moving, his face hard. ‘How is it that when I tell you I love you you insult me in return?’
‘You tell me truth – I hope; I tell you truth. But I don’t mean to hurt you. Really I’m gentle. You just released things in me, things I’ve said to no one else. I long for … no, I can’t say what the longings are for … glory. Do something great, Laintal Ay, I beg you, somethi
ng great, before we grow too old.’
‘Like killing phagors?’
Suddenly she laughed on rather a harsh note, narrowing her eyes. For a moment, her resemblance to Aoz Roon was marked. ‘If that’s all you can think of. Provided you kill a million of them.’
He looked baffled.
‘So you imagine you’re worth a million phagors?’
Oyre pretended to smite herself hard on the forehead, as if her harneys had come loose. ‘It’s not for me, don’t you see? It’s for yourself. Achieve one great thing for your own sake. Here we’re stuck in what Shay Tal says is a farmyard – at least make it a legendary farmyard.’
The ground trembled again. ‘Scumble,’ he said. ‘The earth really is moving.’
They stood up, shaken out of their argument, ignoring each other. A bronze overcast spread from the aerial castles, which now took on purple hearts and yellow edges. The heat became intense, and they stood in the midst of an oppressive silence, backs to each other, looking about.
A repeated smacking sound made them turn towards the pool. Its surface was marred by yellow bubbles which rose and grew until they burst, to spread filth through the hitherto clear water. The bubbles sailed up from the depths, releasing a stink of rotten eggs, coming faster and blacker. Thick mist filled the hollow.
A jet of mud burst from the pool and sprayed into the air. Gobbets of scalding filth flew, pocking the foliage all about. The humans ran in terror, she in her garb the colour of summer skies.
Within a minute of their leaving, the pool was a mass of black seething liquid.
Before they could get back to Oldorando, the skies opened, and down came the rain, grey, and chilling to the flesh.
As they climbed into the big tower, voices could be heard overhead, Aoz Roon’s prominent among them. He had just arrived back with allies of his own generation, Tanth Ein, Faralin Ferd, and Eline Tal, all sturdy warriors and good hunters; with them were their women, exclaiming over new hoxney skins, and Dol Sakil, who sat sulkily apart on the window sill, regardless of the rain beating down. Also in the room was Raynil Layan, his skins perfectly dry; he fingered his forked beard and looked anxiously back and forth, without either speaking or being spoken to.