Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [147]
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, something great, before