Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [156]
‘If the phagors can ride it, so can we. I rode a stungebag,’ Laintal Ay said. He brought up a bucket of beethel and set it by the animal. The kaidaw took a sniff and backed away, bridling.
‘I’m going to sleep,’ Dathka said. It was his only comment after many hours. He crawled through the fence, sprawled on the ground, stuck his knees in the air, clasped his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. Insects buzzed about him. Far from taming the animal, he and Laintal Ay had earned themselves only bruises and scratches.
Laintal Ay wiped his forehead and made another approach to the captive.
It brought its long head down so as to look him levelly in the eye. It was blowing softly. He was aware of the horns pointing at him, and made coaxing noises, poised to jump aside. The great beast shook its ears against the base of its horns and turned away.
Laintal Ay controlled his breathing and moved forward again. Ever since he and Oyre had made love by the pool, her beauty had sung in his eddre. The promise of more loving hung above him like an unreachable bough. He must prove himself by that imaginary great deed she required. He woke every morning to feel himself smothered in dreams of her flesh, as if buried under dogthrush blossom. If he could ride and tame the kaidaw, she would be his.
But the kaidaw continued to resist all human advances. It stood waiting as he approached. Its hamstrings twitched. At the last possible moment, it bucked away from his outstretched hand, to prance off, showing him its horns over one shoulder.
He had slept in the stockade with it on the previous night – or dozed fitfully, afraid of being trampled under its hoofs. Still the beast would not accept food or drink from him, and shied away from every approach. The performance had been repeated a hundred times.
Finally, Laintal Ay gave up. Leaving Dathka to slumber, he returned to Oldorando to try a new approach.
Three hours later, as the Hour-Whistler sounded, a curiously deformed phagor approached the enclosure. It dragged itself through the fence with awkward movements, so that gouts of wet yellow fur were torn out by the thorns, to remain hanging among the twigs like dead birds.
With a dragging gait, the oddity approached the kaidaw.
It was hot inside the skin, and it stank. Laintal Ay had a cloth tied round his face, with a sprig of raige against his nostrils. He had made two Borlienian slaves dig up the three-day-old corpse and skin it. Raynil Layan had soaked the skin in brine to remove some of its unpleasant associations. Oyre accompanied him back to the enclosure and stood with Dathka, waiting to see what happened next.
The kaidaw put its head low and breathed a soft question. Its dead mistress’s saddle, complete with flamboyant stirrups, was still strapped about its girth. As soon as Laintal Ay reached the puzzled beast he set one foot high in the near stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle. He was mounted at last, positioned in front of the animal’s single low hump.
Phagors rode without reins, crouching over the necks of their mounts or holding the harsh frizzled hair growing along the ridge of their necks. Laintal Ay clutched the hair tightly, awaiting the next move. From the corner of his eye, he could see other villagers, strolling across the Voral bridge, coming to join Oyre and Dathka and watch the proceedings.
The kaidaw stood in silence, head still low, as if weighing its new burden. Then, slowly, it began an absurd movement, arching its neck inward, bringing its head round until its eyes, from an upside-down position, could look up and regard the rider. Its gaze met Laintal Ay’s.
The animal remained in its extraordinary position but began to tremble.
The trembling was an intense vibration, seemingly originating at its heart and working