Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [262]
In a reflective mood, the ice trader realised that he had unwittingly performed a ceremony the previous evening. In handing his son over to the young whore, he was in effect relinquishing his old lusts. And what when lust died? Women had reduced him to beggary once; he had built up a prosperous trade – and never had he stopped lusting after women. But if that central interest withered … something had to enter the vacuum.
He thought of his own godless continent of Hespagorat. Yes, Hespagorat needed a god, though certainly not the god of this religion-infested Campannlat. He sighed, wondering why what lay between Metty’s narrow thighs should seem so much more powerful than god.
‘Off to church, then? Waste of time.’
She nodded. Never argue with a client.
Taking the cup she offered, he cradled its warmth in his paw and went to the threshold of the doorless room. There he paused, looking back.
Metty had not lingered over her pellamountain, but diluted it with cold water and gulped it down. Now she pulled on black gloves which came up to her elbow, adjusting the lace round her wrinkling skin.
Catching his glance, she said, ‘You can go back to bed. No one stirs in this house yet awhile.’
‘We’ve always got on well together, you and I, Metty.’ Determined to win a word of affection from her, he added, ‘I get on better with you than with my own wife and daughter.’
She heard such confessions every day.
‘Well, I hope to see Div next trip, then, Krillio. Good-bye.’ She spoke briskly, moving forward so that he had to get out of her way. He stepped back into her cabin and she swept past, still fiddling with the top of one glove. She made it clear that the notion of there being any affection between them was just his fantasy. Her mind was on something excluding him.
Carrying his cup back to the bed, he sipped the hot tea. He pushed open the shutter for the pleasure or pain or whatever it was of seeing her walk down the silent street. The crowded houses were pale and closed; something in their aspect disquieted him. Darkness still hung in side alleys. Only one person was to be seen – a man who progressed like a sleepwalker, supporting himself with a hand against the walls. Behind him came a small phagor, a runt, whimpering.
Metty emerged from a door beneath the ice trader’s window, took a step into the street. She paused when she saw the man approaching. She knew all about drunks, he thought. Booze and loose women went together, on every continent. But this man was no drunk. Blood ran from his leg to the cobbles.
‘I’m coming down, Metty,’ he called. In another minute, still shirtless, he joined her in the ghostly street. She had not moved.
‘Leave him, he’s injured. I don’t want him in my place. He’ll cause trouble.’
The injured man groaned, stumbling against the wall. He paused, lifted his head and stared at the ice trader.
The latter gasped in astonishment. ‘Metty, by the beholder! It’s the king, no less … King JandolAnganol!’
They ran to him and supported him to the shelter of the whorehouse.
Few of the king’s force returned to Matrassyl. The Battle of the Cosgatt, as it came to be called, inflicted a terrible defeat. The vultures praised Darvlish’s name that day.
On his recovery – when he had been nursed at the palace by his devoted queen, MyrdemInggala – the king claimed in the scritina that a great force of enemy had been routed. But the ballads the peddlers sold declared otherwise. The death of KolobEktofer was particularly mourned. Bull was remembered with admiration in the lower quarters of Matrassyl. Neither returned home.
In those days when JandolAnganol lay in his chamber, faint from his wounds, he came to the conclusion that if Borlien was to survive he must form a closer alliance with the neighbouring members of the Holy Pannovalan Empire, in particular Oldorando and Pannoval. And he must at all costs acquire that hand artillery which the bandits of the borderland had used so devastatingly.
All this he discussed with his advisors. In their concurrence were laid