Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [249]
He then made much of forming them up, drilling them, and addressing them in Native. At last he was ready to walk the half mile to the palace. Yuli ran ahead, frisking in the sand, kicking it up, delighted to be on firm ground again.
They were greeted by an ancient woman in a black keedrant and white apron. White hairs trailed from a mole on her cheek. She walked with a stick. Two unarmed guards stood some way behind her.
Close at hand, the white and gold building revealed its shabbiness. Gaps showed where slates on its roofs, planks from its verandahs, uprights in its railings, had fallen away and not been replaced. Nothing moved, except a herd of deer cropping grass on a distant hillside. The sea boomed endlessly against the shore.
The king’s costume took up the general sombre note. He wore an undecorated tunic and breeches of a deep blue close to black. Esomberr, by contrast, strolled along in his jauntiest powder blues, offset by a pink short cloak. He was perfumed this morning, to camouflage the stinks of the ship.
An infantry captain blew a bugle to announce their arrival.
The palace door remained closed. The old woman wrung her hands and muttered to the breeze.
Wrenching himself into action, JandolAnganol went up to the door and beat on its wooden panels with the hilt of his sword. The noise echoed within, setting hounds barking.
A key was applied to a lock. The door swung open, propelled by another aged hag, who gave a stiff curtsey to the king and stood there blinking.
All was gloom inside. The hounds that had set up such a din when the door was locked now slunk away into shadowy recesses.
‘Perhaps Akhanaba in his somewhat temperamental mercy has sent the plague here,’ suggested Esomberr. ‘Thus releasing the occupants from earthly sorrow and rendering ours an unnecessary journey.’
The king gave a shout of greeting.
A light showed at the top of the stairs, where all was otherwise dark. They looked up, to see a woman carrying a taper. She bore it above her head, so that her features were in shadow. As she descended the stairs, every step creaked. As she neared those waiting below, the light from outside began to illumine her features. Even before that, something in her carriage declared who she was. The glow strengthened, the face of Queen MyrdemInggala was revealed. She stopped a few paces in front of JandolAnganol and Esomberr and curtseyed first to the one, then the other.
Her beauty was ashen, her lips almost colourless, her eyes dark in her pallid face. Her hair floated in dark abundance about her head. She wore a pale grey gown to the floor which buttoned at the throat to conceal her breasts.
The queen spoke a word to the crone, who went to the doors and closed them, leaving Esomberr and JandolAnganol in the dark, with the intrusive phagor runt behind them. That dark revealed itself as seamed with threads of light. The palace was flimsily built of planking. When the sun shone on it, a skeletal aspect was revealed. As the queen led them to a side room, slivers of light disclosed her presence.
She stood awaiting them in the middle of a room defined by thin geometries of illumination, where daylight slit round shuttered windows.
‘Nobody is in the palace at present,’ MyrdemInggala said, ‘except for me and the Princess TatromanAdala. You may kill us now, and there will be no witnesses except the All-Powerful.’
‘We do not intend to hurt you, madam,’ said Esomberr. He walked over to one of the windows and opened the shutters. Turning in the dusty light, he saw the husband and wife standing close in the almost empty room.
MyrdemInggala pursed her lips and blew out her taper.
JandolAnganol said, ‘Cune, as I’ve said, this divorce is a question of state policy.’ His manner was abnormally subdued.
‘You may force me to accept it. You can never make me understand it.’
Esomberr opened the window and called