Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [155]
The rope was fine and silken, finer than any rope woven from stungebag fibre in Oldorando. He coiled it about his arm.
Curd was holding the kaidaw at bay. The mount, taller at the shoulder than an average man, stood a-tremble, head high, eyes rolling, making no attempt to escape. Laintal Ay tied a noose in the rope and flung it over the animal’s neck. He drew it tight and approached the trembling creature step by step, until he could pat its flank.
Aoz Roon had recovered his composure. He wiped his sword on his leg and sheathed it as Tanth Ein arrived on the scene.
‘We’ll keep watch, but this was a solitary brute – a renegade near death. We have reason for continuing our celebrations, Tanth Ein.’
As they clapped each other’s shoulders, Aoz Roon looked about him. Ignoring Laintal Ay, he concentrated his regard on Shay Tal and Vry.
‘We have no quarrel, whatever you imagine to the contrary,’ he told the women. ‘You did well to sound the alarm. Come with Oyre and me and join the festivities – my lieutenants will welcome you.’
Shay Tal shook her head. ‘Vry and I have other things to do.’
But Vry remembered the stuffed geese. She could still smell them. It would be worth enduring even that hated room for a taste of that superb flesh. She looked in torment at Shay Tal, but her stomach won. She yielded to temptation.
‘I’ll come,’ she told Aoz Roon, flushing.
Laintal Ay had his hand on the kaidaw’s trembling flank. Oyre stood with him. She turned to her father and said coldly, ‘I shall not come. I’m happier with Laintal Ay.’
‘You please yourself – as usual,’ he said, and marched off along the dripping lane with Tanth Ein, leaving the humiliated Vry to follow behind as best she could.
The kaidaw stood tossing its great bracketed head up and down, looking sideways at Laintal Ay.
‘I’m going to make a pet of you,’ he said. ‘We shall ride you, Oyre and I, ride you over the plains and mountains.’
They made their way through a gathering crowd, all pressing to see the body of the vanquished enemy. Together, they went back to Embruddock, whose towers stood like decaying teeth against the last rays of Freyr. They walked hand in hand, differences submerged in this decisive moment, pulling the quivering animal after them.
X
Laintal Ay’s Achievement
The veldt was banded with upstart flowers as far as eye could see, and farther, farther than any man on two legs could investigate. White, yellow, orange, blue, viridian, cerise, a storm of petals blew across the unmapped miles to wash against the walls of Oldorando and incorporate the hamlet into its blast of colour.
The rain had brought the flowers and the rain had gone. The flowers remained, stretching to the horizon where they shimmered in hot bands, as if distance itself were stained for spring.
A section of this panorama had been fenced off.
Laintal Ay and Dathka had finished work. They and their friends were inspecting what they had achieved.
With saplings and thorn trees, they had built a fence. They had chopped down new growth till the sap ran from their blades over their wrists. The saplings had been trimmed and secured horizontally to serve as the bars of the fence. The uprights and horizontals were packed branches and whole thorn trees. The result was almost impenetrable, and as high as a man. It enclosed about a hectare of ground.
In the middle of this new enclosure stood the kaidaw, defying all attempts to ride it.
The kaidaw’s mistress, the gillot, had been left to rot where she fell, as the custom was. Only after three days were Myk and two other slaves sent to bury the body, which had begun to stink.
Blossom hung neglected like spittle from the kaidaw’s lips. It had taken a mouthful of pink flowers. Eaten in captivity, they seemed not to its taste, for the great gaunt animal stood with its head high, staring out over the top of the stockade, forgetting to munch. Occasionally, it moved a few yards, with its high step, and then came back to its original vantage point, eyes showing white.
When one of its