Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [105]
‘I think much of you, Laintal Ay, as I did of your mother. Remember your mother’s wisdom. Remember her example, and don’t turn against the academy, like some of your friends.’
‘You know how Aoz Roon admires you,’ he blurted out.
‘I know the way he has of showing it.’
Seeing that he was disconcerted, she was more kind, and took his arm, walking with him, asking him where he had been. He glanced now and again at her sharp profile as he told her of a ruined village he had visited in the wilds. It lay half buried among boulders, its deserted streets like dried streambeds, fringed with roofless houses. All its wooden parts had been taken or had rotted away. Stone staircases ascended to floors that had long since disappeared, windows opened on prospects of tumbled rock. Toadstools grew in the doorsteps, driven snow accumulated in the fireplaces, birds made their nests in flaking alcoves.
‘It’s part of the disaster,’ said Shay Tal.
‘It’s what happens,’ he said innocently, and went on to tell of a small party of phagors he had stumbled across – not military ones, but humble fungusmongers, who had been as scared of him as he of them.
‘You risk your life so needlessly.’
‘I need to … I need to get away.’
‘I have never left Oldorando. I must, I must – I want to get away as you do. I’m imprisoned. But I tell myself we are all prisoners.’
‘I don’t see that, Shay Tal.’
‘You will see. First, fate moulds our character; then character moulds our fate. Enough of that – you’re too young.’
‘I’m not too young to help you. You know why the academy is feared. It may upset the smooth running of life. But you tell us that knowledge will contribute to a general good, isn’t that right?’
He regarded her half-smilingly, half-mockingly, and she thought, gazing back into his eyes, Yes, I understand how Oyre feels about you. She assented with an inclination of her head, smiling in return.
‘Then you need to prove your case.’
She raised a fine eyebrow and said nothing. He lifted his hand and uncurled his dirty fingers before her eyes. In his palm lay the ears of two grasses, one with seeds arranged in delicate bells, the other shaped like a miniature teazle.
‘Well, ma’am, can the academy pronounce upon these, and name them?’
After a moment’s hesitation, she said, ‘They are oats and rye, aren’t they?’ She searched in her mental store of folk wisdom. ‘They were once a part of – farming.’
‘I picked them beside the broken village, growing wild. There may have been fields of them once – before your catastrophe … There are other strange plants, too, climbing against the ruins in sheltered spots. You can make good bread with these grains. Deer like them – when the grazing’s good, the does will choose the oats and leave the rye.’
As he transferred the green things to her hands, she felt the rasp of the rye’s beard against her skin. ‘So why did you bring them to me?’
‘Make us better bread. You have a way with loaves. Improve the bread. Prove to everyone that knowledge contributes to the general good. Then the ban on the academy will be lifted.’
‘You are very thoughtful,’ she said. ‘A special person.’
The praise embarrassed him. ‘Oh, many plants are springing up in the wilderness which can be used to benefit us.’
As he made to go, she said, ‘Oyre is very moody nowadays. What is troubling her?’
‘You are wise – I thought you would know.’
Clutching the green seeds, she hitched her skins about her body and said warmly, ‘Come and talk to me more often. Don’t disregard my love for you.’
He smiled awkwardly and turned away. He was unable to express to Shay Tal or anyone else how witnessing the murder of Nahkri had clouded his life. Fools though they were, Nahkri and Klils were his uncles and had enjoyed life. The horror would not go away, though two years had passed. He also guessed that the difficulties he experienced with Oyre were part of the same involvement. Towards Aoz Roon, his feelings were