Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [109]
‘I don’t know. Winter’s setting in. Perhaps it will get colder.’
‘Snow? How I’d love the damned snow back, and the rain gone.’ He made an angry gesture, raising his fists, then dropping them again.
‘If it gets colder, the rain will turn into snow.’
‘Wutra’s scumble, what a female answer! Have you no certainty for me, Shay Tal? No certainty in this damned uncertain world?’
‘No more than you have for me.’
He turned on his heel, to pause at her door. ‘If your women don’t work, they won’t eat. We can’t have people idle – you understand that.’
He left her without a word more. She followed him to the door and stood there, frowning. She was vexed that he had not given her a chance to say no to him again; it would have renewed her sense of purpose. But his mind, she realised, had not really been on her at all, but on more important questions.
She hunched her rough garments about her and went to sit on her bed. When Vry returned, she was still in that attitude, but jumped up guiltily at the sight of her young friend.
‘We must always be positive,’ she said. ‘If I were a sorceress, I would bring back the snows, for Aoz Roon’s sake.’
‘You are a sorceress,’ Vry said loyally.
News of the approaching phagors travelled fast. Those who remembered the last raid on the town spoke of nothing else. They talked of it at night as they tumbled, rathel-rich, into their beds; they talked of it at dawn, grinding grain by goose light.
‘We can contribute more than talk,’ Shay Tal told them. ‘You have brave hearts, women, as well as quick tongues. We’ll show Aoz Roon what we can do. I want you to listen to my idea.’
They decided that the academy, which must always justify its existence in the eyes of the men, should propose a plan of attack that would spare Oldorando. Choosing suitable ground, the women would reveal themselves at a safe place where the phagors would see them. When the phagors approached, they would be ambushed by the hunters, waiting concealed on either flank to cut them down. The women screamed and cried for blood as they discussed the idea.
When the plan had been discussed to their satisfaction, they chose one of their prettiest girls to act as emissary to Aoz Roon. The girl was almost of an age with Vry; she was Dol Sakil, daughter of the old midwife, Rol Sakil. Oyre escorted Dol to her father’s tower, where the girl was to present Shay Tal’s compliments and to request him to come to the women’s house: there a defensive proposal would be presented to him.
‘He won’t take much notice of me, will he?’ Dol said. Oyre smiled and pushed her ahead.
The women waited while the rain poured down outside.
It was midmorning when Oyre returned. She was alone, and looking furious. Finally she burst out with the truth. Her father had rejected the invitation – and kept Dol Sakil. He regarded her as a present from the academy. Dol would live with him from now on.
At this news, a high anger overcame Shay Tal. She fell to the floor. She danced with rage. She screamed and tore her hair. She gestured and swore vengeance on all imbecile men. She prophesied that they would all be eaten alive by phagors, while their supposed leader lay in bed copulating with an imbecile child. Many other terrible things she said. Her companions could not calm her and went in fear of her. Vry and Oyre were driven away.
‘It is a vexation,’ said Rol Sakil, ‘but it will be nice for Dol.’
Then Shay Tal gathered her clothes about her body and stormed down into the lane, to stand before the big tower where Aoz Roon lived. The rain poured on her face as she cried aloud the scandal of his conduct, daring him to show himself.
Her noise was so great that men of the makers corps and some hunters ran out to listen. They stood against the ruinous buildings for shelter, grinning, with folded arms, while the downpour beat the steam from the geysers close to the ground, and mud bubbled between their boots.
Aoz Roon came to the window of his tower. He looked down and shouted to Shay Tal to go