Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [208]
‘What’s your bargain?’
‘Four yelk, well fed. Me, my wife, her maidservant, you. We leave together – they’ll let me through the lines without difficulty. We ride back with you to Oldorando. You know the way, I protect you, see to it that you have a good steed. Otherwise you’ll never be allowed to get away from here – you’re too valuable – particularly when matters get worse. Do you agree?’
‘When do you plan to leave?’
Skitosherill buried his nose in the posy and looked up searchingly at Laintal Ay. ‘You say a word of this to anyone and I’ll kill you. Listen, the crusade of the phagor kzahhn, Hrr-Brahl Yprt, is due to start passing here before Freyr-set, according to our scouts. We four will follow on afterwards – the phagors will not attack us if we are in their rear. The crusade can go where it will; we shall progress to Oldorando.’
‘Are you planning to live in such a barbarian place?’ Laintal Ay asked.
‘We shall have to see how barbarian it is before I answer that. Don’t try to be sarcastic to your superiors. Do you agree?’
‘I’ll have a hoxney rather than a yelk, and choose it myself. I’ve never ridden a yelk. And I want a sword, white metal, not bronze.’
‘Very well. You agree, then?’
‘Do we shake hands on it?’
‘I do not touch other hands. Verbal agreement is enough. Good. I’m a godfearing man, I’ll not betray you; see you don’t betray me. Get these corpses buried while I go to prepare my wife for the journey.’
As soon as the tall Sibornalan had gone, Laintal Ay called the captives to halt their activity.
‘I’m not your master. I’m a prisoner as much as you. I hate Sibornalans. Throw those corpses in the water and cover them with stones – it’ll save you labour. Wash your hands afterwards.’
They gave him suspicious looks instead of thanks, he in his grey woollen garments, tall, standing above them on the bank, he who talked with the Sibornalan guard on equal terms. He felt their hatred and was unmoved by it. Life was cheap if Shay Tal’s life was cheap. As they scrambled among the corpses, they brushed the sheet from one of them, so that he glimpsed an ashen face underneath, frozen in its anguish. Then they had the body by feet and shoulders and tossed it down to the stream, where dashing water seized ravenously on the covering, moulding it round the body, which it began to roll unceremoniously downstream.
The watercourse marked the perimeter of New Ashkitosh; on its other bank, beyond a flimsy rail, no-man’s-land began.
When their task was over, the Madis considered the prospect of escape by fording the stream and running away. Some advocated this course of action, standing on the edge of the water and beckoning their fellows. The more timid hung back, gesticulating towards unknown dangers. All kept glancing anxiously at Laintal Ay, who stood where he was, arms folded. They were unable to make up their minds whether to act individually or corporately, with the result that they did nothing but argue, starting up the bank or down into the stream, but ever returning to a common centre of indecision.
There was reason for their hesitation. The no-man’s-land on the far side of the river was filling with figures that moved westward. Birds made uneasy by constant disturbance flew up before them, wheeling in the sky and then attempting to realight.
The land rose to a low horizon in the middle distance, where it dropped sharply to reveal a line of drums, the crowns of ancient rajabarals which emitted steam. Beyond their vapour, the landscape continued on a grander scale, revealing hills, stacked distant and serene in misty light. Stone megaliths stood here and there, curiously incised, marking land-and air-octave lines.
The fugitives heading westward turned their faces away from New Ashkitosh, as if fearing its reputation.