Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [188]
Her words were meant to reassure. The expression on their faces showed the pain of their inward thought: in twenty years, none of them was likely to be alive.
‘How can you know what’s going to happen in the future, Vry? Even Shay Tal couldn’t do that,’ Laintal Ay said heavily.
She wanted to touch him, but was too shy. ‘It’s a matter of observation and gathering old facts, putting everything together. It’s a matter of understanding what we know, of seeing what we see. Freyr and Batalix are far apart, even when they appear close to us. Each balances on the edge of a great round plate. The plates are tipped at an angle. Where they intersect, there eclipses happen, because our world is in line with Freyr, with Batalix between. Do you understand that?’
Dathka strode up and down. He said impatiently, ‘Listen, Vry, I forbid you to speak of such mad notions in public. The people will kill you. This is what the academy has led you to. I’m not going to listen to any more.’
He gave her a dark look, bitter, yet oddly imploring. She was transfixed. Dathka left the room without further word. Silence was what he left behind.
He had been gone only a couple of minutes when there was a commotion in the street outside. Laintal Ay ran down immediately to see what was happening. He suspected Dathka’s intervention, but his friend had disappeared. A man had fallen from his mount and was crying for help – a foreigner by his garb. A crowd gathered round him, among them faces Laintal Ay knew, although none went to help the traveller.
‘It’s the plague,’ a man told Laintal Ay. ‘Anyone who aided this knave would be sick himself by Freyr-fall.’
Two slaves were brought up, and the sufferer was dragged towards the hospice.
This was the first public appearance of the bone fever in Oldorando.
When Laintal Ay returned to Oyre’s room, she had removed her hoxneys and was washing herself over a bowl, calling out from behind a curtain to Dol and Vry.
Dol’s dimpled face was for once registering expression. She uncoupled Rastil Roon from her breast and passed him to her mother, saying, ‘Listen, my friend, you must act. Call the people together and speak to them. Explain. Never mind Dathka.’
‘You should do that, Laintal Ay,’ Oyre called. ‘Remind everyone of how Aoz Roon built Oldorando, and how you were his faithful lieutenant. Don’t follow Dathka’s plan. Assure everyone that Aoz Roon is not dead, and will return soon.’
‘That’s right,’ Dol said. ‘Remind people how they fear him, and how he built the bridge. They’ll listen to you.’
‘You’ve sorted out our troubles between you,’ said Laintal Ay. ‘But you are mistaken. Aoz Roon has been gone too long. Half the people here scarcely know his name. They’re strangers, traders passing through. Go to the Pauk and ask the first man you meet who Aoz Roon is – he won’t be able to tell you. That’s why the question of power is open.’ He stood solid before them.
Dol shook her fist at him. ‘You dare say that! It’s lies. If – when he comes back, he’ll rule as before. I’ll see that he kicks out Faralin Ferd and Tanth Ein, too. Not to forget that reptile, Raynil Layan.’
‘Maybe so, maybe not, Dol. The point is, he is not here. What about Shay Tal? She’s been gone just as long. Who speaks of her nowadays? You may still miss her, Vry, but others don’t.’
Vry shook her head. She said quietly, ‘If you want the truth, I miss neither Shay Tal nor Aoz Roon. I think they blighted our lives. I believe she blighted mine – oh, it was my fault, I know, and I owe her much, I being the daughter of a mere slave woman. But I followed Shay Tal too slavishly.’
‘That’s right,’ old Rol Sakil piped, bouncing the baby. ‘She was a bad example to you, Vry – too virginal by half, was our Shay Tal. You’ve gone the same way. You must be fifteen now, near middle age, and still not laid. Get on with it, afore it’s too late.’
Dol said, ‘Ma’s right, Vry. You saw how Dathka marched out