Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [125]
When he fell silent, she helped him with a smile. ‘Do you believe that Oldorando was once bigger than it is now?’
He looked at her with his head on one side. ‘I know you call this town a farmyard. But it survives … It’s the centre of the cosmos. Well, that’s not answering your question. My friends, you found rye and oats growing north of here, so let’s speak of them. To the best of my belief, that place was once carefully tended fields, enclosed against wild beasts. The fields belonged to Embruddock. Many other cereals grew there and were cultivated. Now you cultivate them again, which is wise.
‘You know we need bark for our tanning. We have a job to get hold of it. I do believe – well, I know …’ He fell silent, then he said quietly, ‘Great forests of tall trees, which yield bark and wood, grew to the west and north. The region was called Kace. It was hot then, and there was no cold.’
Someone said, ‘The time of heat – that’s a legend left over from the priesthood. The sort of tale we’re supposed to get out of our minds in the academy. We do know that it was once colder than it is now. Ask my grandma.’
‘What I’m saying is that, to the best of my belief, it was hot before it was cold,’ Datnil Skar said, slowly scratching the back of his grey head. ‘You should try to understand these things. Many lives go by, many years. There’s a lot of history vanished. I know you women think that men are against you learning, and it may be so; but I speak sincerely when I say that you should support Shay Tal, despite various difficulties. As a master, I know how precious knowledge is. It seems to run out of the bottom of a community like water out of a sock.’
They stood and clapped him politely when he left.
*
At Freyr-set, two days later, Shay Tal was pacing restlessly in her room in the isolated tower. A shout came from below. Immediately she thought of Aoz Roon, though the voice was not his.
She wondered who would venture beyond the barricades when light was growing dim. Putting her head out of the window, she saw Datnil Skar, his figure insubstantial in the dusk.
‘Oh, come up, my friend,’ she cried. She went down to meet him. He appeared clutching a box, smiling nervously. They sat down facing each other on her stone floor, and she poured him a measure of rathel.
After some idle conversation, he said, ‘I think you know that I am due to retire soon as master of the tawyers and tanners corps? My chief boy will take my place. I’m getting old and he long ago knew all I have to teach.’
‘You come here because of that?’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘I come here, Mother Shay, because I – I experience an old man’s admiration for you, for your person and your worth … No, let me say it. I have always served and loved this community, and I believe you do the same, though you have the opposition of many men. So I wanted to do you a good turn while I was able to.’
‘You’re a good man, Datnil Skar. Oldorando knows it. The community needs good people.’
Sighing, he nodded. ‘I have served Embruddock – or Oldorando as we should call it – every day of my life, and have never left it. Yet scarcely a day’s gone by …’ He broke off in his shy way, smiled, and said, ‘I believe I am speaking to a kindred spirit when I say that scarcely a day has gone by since I was a lad when I haven’t wondered … wondered what was happening in other places, far away from here.’
He paused, cleared his throat, then said more briskly, ‘I’ll tell you a tale. It’s only brief. I remember one terrible winter when I was a lad when the phagors attacked, and disease and famine followed. Many people died. And the phagors were dying too, although we didn’t know it at the time. It was so dark, I swear days are brighter now … Anyhow, the phagors left behind a human boy during the slaughter. His name was – I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten it, but to the best of my belief it was something like Krindlesheddy. A long name. Once I knew it