Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [162]
‘Say nothing to Aoz Roon,’ Shay Tal cautioned.
‘He’s amenable just now,’ Dol said. ‘He hopes for a boy.’
She strode forward and stood by the side of Grey. Aoz Roon looked at her but said nothing.
She slapped his knee. ‘Once there were priests to bless the harvest in Wutra’s name. Priests used to bless newborn babes. Priests cared for all, men and women, high and low. We need them. Can’t you capture some priests for us?’
‘Wutra!’ Aoz Roon exclaimed. He spat into the dust.
‘That’s no answer.’
His dark eyebrows and eyelashes were dusted with the golden pepper in the air as he switched his heavy glance beyond Dol to where Shay Tal stood, her dark narrow face as blank as an alleyway.
‘She’s been talking to you, Dol, hasn’t she? What do you know or care about Wutra? Great Yuli threw him out, and our forefathers threw out the priests. They’re only lazy mouths to feed. Why are we strong while Borlien is weak? Because we have no priests. Forget this nonsense, don’t bother me with it.’
Dol said, pouting, ‘Shay Tal says the gossies are angry because we have no priests. Isn’t that right, Shay Tal?’ She looked appealingly over her shoulder at the older woman, who still made no move.
‘Gossies are always angry,’ Aoz Roon said, turning away.
‘They’re twitching down there like a bed of fleas,’ Eline Tal agreed, pointing at the earth and laughing. He was a big, red-cheeked man, and his cheeks wobbled when he laughed. More and more, he had become Aoz Roon’s closest companion, with the other two lieutenants playing rather subsidiary roles.
Stepping one pace forward, Shay Tal said, ‘Aoz Roon, despite our prosperity, we Oldorandans remain divided. Great Yuli would not have wished that. Priests might help us become a more united community.’
He looked down at her, and then climbed slowly from his hoxney, to stand confronting her. Dol was pushed to one side.
‘If I silence you, I silence Dol. No one wants the priests back. You only want them back because they’ll help fortify your craving for learning. Learning’s a luxury. It creates idle mouths. You know that, but you’re so damned stubborn you won’t give up. Starve yourself if you will, but the rest of Oldorando is growing fat – see for yourself. We grow fat without priests, without your learning.’
Shay Tal’s face crumpled. She said in a small voice, ‘I do not wish to fight you, Aoz Roon. I’m sick of it. But what you say is not true. We prosper in part because of applied knowledge. The bridges, the houses – those were ideas the academy contributed to the community.’
‘Don’t anger me, woman.’
Looking down at the ground, she said, ‘I know you hate me. I know that’s why Master Datnil was killed.’
‘What I hate is division, constant division,’ Aoz Roon roared. ‘We survive by collective effort, and always have done.’
‘But we can only grow through individuality,’ Shay Tal said. Her face grew paler as the blood mounted in his cheeks.
He made a violent gesture. ‘Look about you, for Yuli’s sake! Remember what this place was like when you were a child. Try to understand how we have built it to what it is now by united effort. Don’t stand in front of me and try to argue differently. Look at my lieutenants’ women – tits swinging, working in with everyone else. Why are you never with them? Always on the fringe, mouthing discontent, whining.’
‘No tit to swing, I’d say,’ Eline Tal said, chuckling.
His remark had been intended for the delectation of his friends, Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd. But it also reached the alert ears of the young hunters, who burst into jeering laughter – all except Dathka, who sat silent, hunched in his saddle, alertly surveying the participants in the momentary drama.
Shay Tal also caught Eline Tal’s comment. Since he was distant kin to her, the remark stung the more. Her eyes glittered with tears and wrath.
‘Enough,