Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [240]
Possibly they expected something more practical from him. The truth was that Queen MyrdemInggala commanded almost as much affection in Ottassol as in Matrassyl.
With a curt gesture to his retinue, JandolAnganol turned and stalked off.
Ahead lay the shabby low cliffs of loess. A length of yellow cloth had been laid across the quayside for the king to walk on. He avoided it, crossed to his waiting coach, and climbed in. The footman closed the door, and the vehicle moved off at once. It entered an archway and was immediately within the labyrinth of Ottassol. The phagorian guard followed.
JandolAngonol, who hated many things, hated his Ottassol palace. His mood was not softened by being welcomed at the gate by his Royal Vicar, the chill, wench-faced AbstrogAthenat.
‘Great Akhanaba bless you, sire, we rejoice to see your majesty’s face, and to have your presence among us, just when bad tidings arrive from the Second Army in Randonan.’
‘I’ll hear of military matters from military men,’ said the king, and paced forward into the reception hall. The palace was cool, and remained cool as the seasons grew hotter, but its subterranean nature depressed him. It reminded him of the two priestly years he had spent in Pannoval as a boy.
His father, VarpalAnganol, had greatly extended the palace. Seeking his son’s praise, he had asked him how he liked it. ‘Cold, copious, ill considered,’ had been Prince JandolAnganol’s answer.
It was typical of VarpalAnganol, never an artist at warfare, not to appreciate that the subterranean palace could never be defended effectively.
JandolAnganol remembered the day the palace was invaded. He was three years and a tenner old. He had been playing with a wooden sword in an underground court. One of the smooth loess walls shattered. From it burst a dozen armed rebels. They had tunnelled through the earth unnoticed. It still vexed JandolAnganol to recall that he had yelled in terror before charging at them with his toy sword.
There happened to be a change of guard assembling in the court, with weapons ready. After a furious skirmish, the invaders were killed. The illegal tunnel was later incorporated into the design of the palace. That had been during one of the rebellions which VarpalAnganol had failed to put down with sufficient harshness.
The old man was now imprisoned in the fortress at Matrassyl, and the courts and passages of the Ottassol palace were guarded by human and ancipital sentries. JandolAnganol’s eyes darted to the silent men as he passed them in the winding corridors; if one so much as moved, he was ready to kill him.
News of the king’s black mood spread among the palace staff. Festivities had been arranged to divert him. But first he had to receive the report from the western battlefields.
A company of the Second Army, advancing across the Chwart Heights intending to attack the Randonanese port of Poorich, had been ambushed by a superior force of the enemy. They had fought till dusk, when survivors had escaped to warn the main force. A wounded man had been despatched to report the news back along the Southern Highway semaphore system to Ottassol.
‘What of General TolramKetinet?’
‘He fights on, sire,’ said the messenger.
JandolAnganol received the report almost without comment and then descended to his private chapel to pray and be scourged. It was exquisite punishment to be beaten by the lickerish AbstrogAthenat.
The court cared little what happened to armies almost three thousand miles away: it was more important that the evening’s festivities should not be spoilt by the king’s bile. The Eagle’s chastisement was good for everyone.
A winding stair led down to the private chapel. This oppressive place, designed in the Pannovalan fashion, was carved from the clay which lay beneath the