Helliconia, page 113
After garrison duties one evening, Fashnalgid ordered his personal servant to saddle up his hoxney and rode furiously out to his father’s estate.
His brothers snarled at him like curs. Nor was he allowed as much as a glimpse of his light of love, except for a bare arm disappearing round a door as she was dragged away. He recognised the bracelets on the lovely wrist. How they had rattled when she danced!
His father lay on a day sofa, covered in blankets. The old man was scarcely able to answer his son’s questions. He rambled and procrastinated. Sadly, Fashnalgid recognised his own portrait in his father’s lies and pretences. The old man still claimed once to have seen Torkerkanzlag II, the Supreme Oligarch. But that had been over forty years ago, when his father was a youth.
‘The titles are arbitrary,’ the old man said. ‘They are intended to conceal real names. The Oligarchy is secret, and the names of the Members and the Oligarch are kept secret, so that no one knows them. Why, they don’t know each other … Just as well …’
‘So you never met the Oligarch?’
‘No one ever claimed to have met him. But it was a special occasion, and he was in the next room. The Oligarch himself. So it was said at the time. I know he was there, I’ve always said so. For all I know, he could be a gigantic lobster with pincers stretching to the sky, but he was certainly there that day – and had I opened the door, I would have seen him, pincers and all …’
‘Father, what were you doing there, what was this special occasion?’
‘Icen Hill, it’s called. Icen Hill, as you know. Everyone knows where it is, but even the Members of the Oligarchy don’t know each other. Secrecy is important. Remember that, Harbin. Honesty’s for boys, chastity’s for women, secrecy’s for men … You know the old saying my grandfather used to tell me, “There’s more than an arm up a Sibornalese sleeve.” Some truth in that.’
‘When were you at Icen Hill? Did you assign a tithe of this estate to the Oligarchy? I must know.’
‘Duties, boy, there are duties. Not just buying women dolls and poems. The estate is entitled to protection if you assign it. Winter’s coming, you need to look ahead. I’m getting old. Security … There’s no need for you to be upset. It was agreed before you were born. I was someone then, more than you’ll ever – you should be a major by now, son, but from what I hear from the Gardeterarks … That’s why I signed the agreement that my firstborn son should serve in the Oligarch’s army, in the defence of that state act, when I—’
‘You sold me into the army before I was born?’ Fashnalgid said.
‘Harbin, Harbin, sons go into the army. That’s gallantry. And piety. It’s piety, Harbin. As taught in church.’
‘You sold me into the army? What precisely did you get in return?’
‘Peace of mind. A sense of duty. Security, as I said, only you weren’t listening. Your mother approved. You ask her. It was her idea.’
‘Beholder …’ Fashnalgid went and poured himself a drink. As he was throwing the liquid down his throat, his father sat up and said in a distinct voice, ‘I received a promise.’
‘What sort of a promise?’
‘The future. The safety of our estate. Harbin, I was for many years myself a Member. That’s why I signed you over to the army. It’s an honour – a good career, fine career. You should cultivate young Gardeterark more …’
‘You sold me. Father, you sold your son like a slave …’ He began to weep and rushed from the house. Without looking back, he galloped away from the place where he had been born.
A few months later, he was posted with his battalion to Koriantura, under his enemy, Major Gardeterark, and ordered to prepare a warm reception for Asperamanka’s returning army.
Throughout recorded time, Sibornal had existed more unitedly than had the rabble of nations which comprised Campannlat. The nations of the northern continent had their differences, but remained capable of uniting in the face of an external threat.
In milder centuries, Sibornal was a favoured continent. From early in spring of the Great Year, Freyr rose and never set, permitting the northern lands to develop early. Now that the Year was declining, the Oligarchy was busy tightening the reins of its power – bringing in its own kind of darkness.
Both Oligarchy and common people understood that winter, setting in steadily, could burst society apart like a frozen water pipe. The disruptions of cold, the failure of food supplies, could spell the collapse of civilisation. After Myrkwyr, only a few years away, darkness and ice would be upon the land for three and a half local centuries: that was the Weyr-Winter, when Sibornal became the domain of polar winds.
Campannlat would collapse under the weight of winter. Its nations could not collaborate. Whole peoples would revert to barbarism. Sibornal, under more severe conditions, would survive through rational planning.
Still seeking consolation, Harbin Fashnalgid consorted with priests and holy men. The Church was a reservoir of knowledge. There he discovered the answer to Sibornal’s survival. Obsessed as he was with his virtual exile from his father’s estates, from those fields and woods where his brothers laboured, the answer had the force of revelation. It was not to the land that Sibornal would turn in extremity.
The huge continent was so largely covered by polar ice that it might best be regarded as a narrow circle of land facing sea. In the seas lay Sibornal’s winter salvation. Cold seas held more oxygen than warm ones. Come winter, the seas would swarm with marine life. The durable food chains of the ocean would yield their plenty – even when ice covered those estates of his family from which he had been banished.
The awful working of history gnawed at Fashnalgid. He was used to thinking in periods of days or tenners, not in decades and centuries. He fought his disposition to drink and took to spending as much time with priests as with whores. A Priest-Servitant attached to the military chapel in the Askitosh barracks became his confidant. To this priest, Fashnalgid one day confessed his hatred of the Oligarchy.
‘The Church also hates the Oligarchy,’ said the priest mildly. ‘Yet we work together. Church and State must never be divided. You resent the Oligarchy because, through its pressures, you had to enter the army. But the flaws in your character under which you labour are yours – not the army’s, not the Oligarchy’s.
‘Praise the Oligarchy for its positive aspects. Praise it for its continuity and benevolent power. It is said that the Oligarchy never sleeps. Rejoice that it watches over our continent.’
Fashnalgid kept silent. He took a while to understand why the priest’s answer alarmed him. It came to him that ‘benevolent power’ was a contradiction in terms. He was an Uskuti, yet he had been virtually sold into the slavery of the army. As for the Oligarchy not sleeping: anyone who went without sleep was by definition inhuman, and therefore as opposed to humanity as the phagors.
It was a while later that he realised the priest had spoken of the Oligarchy in the same terms he might have used for God the Azoiaxic. The Azoiaxic also was praised for his continuity and his benevolent power. The Azoiaxic also watched over the continent. And was it not claimed that the Church never slept?
From that moment on, Fashnalgid ceased to attend church, and was more confirmed than ever in his opinion that the Oligarchy was monstrous.
The Oligarch’s First Guard had escaped being sent with Asperamanka’s punitive expedition to Northern Campannlat. Only a few weeks later, however, it received orders to move to Koriantura to man the frontier.
Fashnalgid had dared to question Major Gardeterark on the reasons for the move.
‘The Fat Death is spreading,’ said the major brusquely. ‘We don’t want any rioting in the frontier towns, do we?’ His dislike of his junior officer was such that he would look him not in the eyes but in the moustache.
On his last evening in Askitosh, Fashnalgid was with a woman he currently favoured, by name Rostadal. She lived in an attic only a few streets from the barracks.
Fashnalgid liked Rostadal and pitied her. She was a displaced person. She had come from a village in the north. She had nothing. No possessions. No political or religious beliefs. No relations. She still managed to be kind, and made her little rented room homely.
He sat up suddenly in bed and said, ‘I’ll have to go, Rostadal. Get me a drink, will you?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Just get me a drink. It’s the weight of misery. I can’t stay.’
Without complaint, she slipped out of bed and brought him a glass of wine. He threw it down his throat.
She looked down at him and said, ‘Tell me what’s worrying you.’
‘I can’t. It’s too terrible. The world’s full of evil.’ He began dressing. She slipped into her soiled keedrant, wordless now, wondering if he would pay her. There was only an oil lamp to light the scene.
After lacing up his boots, he collected the book he had set by the bedside and put down some sibs for her. His look was one of misery. He saw her fright but could do nothing to comfort her.
‘Will you come back, Harbin?’ she asked, clasping her hands together.
He looked up at the cracked ceiling and shook his head. Then he went out.
A spiteful rain fell over Askitosh, setting its gutters foaming. Fashnalgid took no notice. He walked briskly through the deserted streets, trying to wear out his thoughts.
On the previous night, a messenger on an exhausted yelk had ridden through these same streets. He rode to the army headquarters at the top of the hill. Although the incident had been hushed up, the officers’ mess soon heard about it. The messenger was an agent of the Oligarch. He brought a report concerning Asperamanka, announcing the victory of the latter’s forces against the combined armies of Campannlat, and the relief of Isturiacha. Asperamanka, said the report, was expecting a triumphal reception on his return to Sibornal.
The messenger bearing this letter dismounted in the square and fell flat on his face. He was suffering all the symptoms of the Fat Death. A senior officer shot the man as he lay.
Only an hour or two later, Fashnalgid’s mother came to him distraught in a dream, saying, ‘Brother shall slay brother.’ He was himself dangling from a hook.
Two days passed and Fashnalgid was posted to Koriantura.
As he took his orders from Major Gardeterark, he saw clearly the plan the Oligarch had devised. There was one factor which would disrupt the scheme for carrying Sibornal through the Weyr-Winter. That factor was more divisive even than the cold: the Fat Death. In the madness the Fat Death carried with it, brother would devour brother.
The death of his midnight messenger warned the Oligarch that the return of Asperamanka’s army would bring the plague from the Savage Continent. So a rational decision had been arrived at: the army must not return. The First Guard, of which Fashnalgid was an officer, was in Koriantura for one reason only: to annihilate Asperamanka’s army as it approached the frontier. The antiplague regulations, the Restrictions of Persons in Abodes Act, imposed on the city and on Eedap Mun Odim, were moves to make the massacre when it came more acceptable to the population.
These terrible reflections ran through Harbin Fashnalgid’s head as he lay in his billet under Odim’s roof. Unlike Major Gardeterark, he was not an early riser. But he could not escape into sleep from the vision in his head. The Oligarchy he now saw as a spider, sitting somewhere in the darkness, sustaining itself through the ages at whatever cost to ordinary people.
That was the implication behind his father’s remark that he had bought the promise of the future. He had bought it with his son’s life. His father had ensured his own safety as an ex-Member of the Oligarchy, at no matter what expense to others.
‘I’ll do something about it,’ Fashnalgid said, as he finally dragged himself out of bed. Light was filtering through his small window. All round him, he could hear Odim’s vast family beginning to stir.
‘I’ll do something about it,’ he said as he dressed. And when, a few hours later, the girl Besi Besamrtikahl entered his office, he read in the unconscious gestures of her body a willingness to do his will. In that moment, he saw how he might make use of her and Odim to disrupt the Oligarch’s plan and save Asperamanka’s army.
The escarpment to the east of Koriantura, which tumbled down to the Isthmus of Chalce, marked the point where the continents of Sibornal and Campannlat joined. The broken land south of the escarpment – through which any army must make its way if approaching Uskutoshk – was bounded to the west by marshes which led eventually to the sea, and was terminated after a few miles by the Ivory Cliffs, standing like sentries before the steppes of Chalce.
Harbin Fashnalgid and the three common soldiers under him reined their yelk at the foot of the Ivory Cliffs and dismounted. They discovered a cave from which to shelter from the stiff breeze, and Fashnalgid ordered one of the men to light a small fire. He himself took a pull from a pocket flask.
He had already made some use of Besi Besamitikahl. She had shown him a way through the back alleys of Koriantura which curved downhill. The route avoided the rest of the First Guard mustering along the ramparts of the escarpment. Fashnalgid was now technically a deserter.
He gave a little misleading information to his detail. They would wait here until Asperamanka’s army came from the south. They were in no danger. He had a special message from the Oligarch for Asperamanka himself.
They tethered their yelk in lying positions so that they could crouch against the animals and derive benefit from their body warmth. There they waited for Asperamanka. Fashnalgid read a book of love poetry.
Several hours elapsed. The men began to complain to each other. The fog cleared, the sky became a hazy blue. In the distance, they heard the sound of hoofs. Riders were approaching from the south.
The Ivory Cliffs were the bastions of the inhospitable spine of the highlands which curled about the Gulf of Chalce. They formed canyons through which all travellers must go.
Fashnalgid stuffed the poetry volume into his pocket and jumped up.
He felt – as so often in the past – the feebleness of his own will. The hours of waiting, not to mention the languorous tenor of the verse, had sapped his determination to act. Nevertheless, he gave crisp orders to his men to position themselves out of sight and stepped from concealment. He expected to see the vanguard of an army. Instead, two riders appeared.
The riders came on slowly. Both slumped wearily in the saddles of their yelk. They were in army uniform, the yelks were half-shaved, in the military fashion. Fashnalgid ordered them to halt.
One of the riders dismounted and came forward slowly. Although he was little more than a stripling, his face was grey with dust and fatigue. ‘Are you from Uskutoshk?’ he called, in a hoarse voice.
‘Yes, from Koriantura. Are you of Asperamanka’s army?’
‘We’re a good three days ahead of the main body. Maybe more.’
Fashnalgid considered. If he let them through, the two riders would be stopped by Major Gardeterark’s lookouts, and might reveal his whereabouts. He did not consider himself capable of shooting them in cold blood – why, this young fellow was a lieutenant ensign. The only way to halt them was to tell them of the fate which hung over the army, and enlist their cooperation.
He stepped one pace nearer the lieutenant. The latter immediately produced a revolver and braced it against his crooked left arm to aim. As he squinted down the barrel, he said, ‘Come no nearer. You have other men with you.’
Fashnalgid spread wide his hands. ‘Look, don’t do that. We mean you no harm. I want to talk. You look as if you might like a drink.’
‘We’ll both stay where we are.’ Without ceasing to squint down his gun barrel, the lieutenant called to his companion, ‘Come and get this man’s gun.’
Licking his lips nervously, Fashnalgid hoped that his men would come to his rescue; on the other hand, he hoped they would not, since that might lead to his being shot. He watched the second rider dismount. Boots, trousers, cloak, fur hat. Face pale, fine-featured, beardless. Something in her movements told Fashnalgid, an expert in such matters, that this was a woman. She came hesitantly towards him.
As she got to him, Fashnalgid pounced, grasping her outstretched wrist, twisting her arm and swinging her violently about. Using her as a shield between him and the other man, he pulled his own gun from its holster.
‘Throw your weapon down, or I’ll shoot you both.’ When his order was obeyed, Fashnalgid called to his men. The soldiers emerged cautiously, looking unwarlike.
The rider, having dropped his gun, stood confronting Fashnalgid. Fashnalgid, still pointing his revolver, reached inside his captive’s coat with his left hand, and had a feel of her breasts.
‘Who the sherb are you?’ He burst out laughing, even as the woman began to weep. ‘You’re evidently a man who likes to ride with his creature comforts … and a well-developed creature it is.’
‘My name is Luterin Shokerandit, Lieutenant. I am on an urgent mission for the Supreme Oligarch, so you’d better let me through.’
‘Then you’re in trouble.’ He ordered one of his men to collect Shokerandit’s pistol, turned the woman about, and removed her hat so that he could get a better look at her. Toress Lahl stood before him, her eyes heavy with anger. He patted her cheek, saying to Shokerandit, ‘We have no quarrel. Far from it. I have a warning for you. I’ll put my gun away and we will shake hands like proper men.’
They shook hands warily, looking each other over. Shokerandit took Toress Lahl’s arm and drew her beside him, saying nothing. As for Fashnalgid, the feel of breasts had heartened him; he was beginning to congratulate himself on his handling of a difficult situation when one of his men, keeping lookout, called that riders were approaching from the north, from the direction of Koriantura.
A line of mounted men was nearing the Ivory Cliffs, a banner flying in its midst. Fashnalgid whipped a spyglass from his coat pocket and surveyed the advance.
