Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [194]
‘I knew you’d help.’ She put a hand on his sleeve, smiling. ‘Something brings the disease. Under favourable conditions, it can spread like a fire. Half the population would die – we know of no cure. My belief is that those filthy phagors carry it. Perhaps it is the scent of their pelts. There are two hours of Freyr-dark tonight; in that time, I am going to have the two phagors in the vet’s surgery killed and buried. I wanted to tell someone in authority, so I’m telling you. I knew you’d be on my side.’
‘You think they will spread bone fever further?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t wish to take any risks. There may be another cause entirely – the blindness may bring it. Wutra may send it.’
She tucked her lower lip in. He read the concern in her homely face.
‘Bury them deep where the dogs can’t scratch them up again. I’ll see about the ruined tower for you. Are you expecting’ – he hesitated – ‘more cases soon?’
Without changing her expression, she said, ‘Of course.’
As he left, the clow was still playing its plaintive tune, remote in the depths of the building.
Laintal Ay did not think of complaining to Ma Scantiom, although he had laid other plans for the two hours of Freyr-dark.
Dathka’s speech of the morning, when Oyre had returned from her pauk-induced spell of father-communing, troubled him deeply. He saw the strength of the argument which said that he and Oyre together represented invincible claimants to the leadership of Oldorando. In general, he wanted what was rightfully his, as anyone else did. And he certainly wanted Oyre. But did he want to rule Oldorando?
It seemed that Dathka’s speech had subtly changed the situation. Perhaps be could now win Oyre only by taking power.
This line of thought occupied his mind as he went about Ma Scantiom’s business, which was everyone’s business. Bone fever was no more than a legend, yet the fact that nobody had experienced the reality made the legend all the more dark. People died. Plague was like the manic stepping-up of a natural process.
So he worked without complaint, conscripting help from Goija Hin. Together, Laintal Ay and the slave driver collected the two phagors belonging to the bone fever victims and sent them into the isolation cell. There, the phagors were made to roll their sick masters into rush mats and carry them away from the hospice. The innocuous-looking mat rolls would cause no panic.
The small group moved with its burdens out of town towards the ruined tower Laintal Ay knew of. With them shuffled the ancient slave phagor, Myk, to take an occasional turn carrying the diseased men. This was designed to hasten the proceedings, but Myk had become so ancient that progress was slow.
Goija Hin, also bent with age, his hair growing so long and stiff over his shoulders that he resembled one of his miserable captives, lashed Myk savagely. Neither lash nor curses hastened the old burdened slave. He staggered onward without protest, though his calves above his fetters were raw from whipping.
‘My trouble is, I neither want to wield the lash nor feel it,’ Laintal Ay told himself. Another layer of thought arose in his mind, like mist on a still morning. He reflected that he lacked certain qualities. There was little he wished for. He was content with the days as they fled.
I’ve been too content, I suppose. It was enough to know that Oyre loved me, and to lie in her arms. It was enough that once Aoz Roon was almost like a father to me. It was enough that the climate changed, enough that Wutra ordered his sentinels to keep their place in the sky.
Now Wutra has left his sentinels to stray. Aoz Roon has gone. And what was that cutting thing Oyre said earlier – that Dathka was mature, implying I was not? Oh, that silent friend of mine, is that maturity, to be a mass of cunning plots inside? Wasn’t contentment maturity enough?
There was too much of his grandfather, Little Yuli, in him, too little of Yuli the Priest. And for the first time in a long while, he recalled his mild grandfather’s