Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [274]
There had been centuries when Borlien was dominated by Oldorando. The chancellor did not want to see them return. He understood better than most how backward Borlien was; but falling under Pannoval’s power would not cure that backwardness. The king thought otherwise, and his religious advisors encouraged him so to think.
The chancellor had introduced strict laws into Matrassyl to govern the comings and goings of foreigners. Perhaps his solitariness included a touch of xenophobia; for he banned Madis from the city, while no foreign diplomat was allowed to enjoy sexual intercourse with a Matrassylan woman, on pain of death. He would have introduced laws against phagors had not the king flatly intervened.
SartoriIrvrash sighed. He desired only to pursue his studies. He detested the way power had been thrust upon him; in consequence, he became a tyrant in petty ways, hoping to steel himself to be bold when the stakes were high. Uncomfortable wielding the power he had, he wished for total power.
Then they would not be in this present dangerous situation, where fifty or more foreigners could lord it in the palace as they liked. He knew with cold certainty that the king intended to bring in change and that a drama was in store which would affect the reasonable tenor of his life. His wife had called him unfeeling; SartoriIrvrash knew it was truer to say that his emotions centred round his work.
He hunched his shoulders in a characteristic way; possibly the habit made him look more formidable than he was. His thirty-seven years – thirty-seven years and five tenners, in the precise way the Campannlatians measured age – had told on him, wrinkling his face round his nose and whiskers to make him resemble an intelligent vole.
‘You love your king and your fellow men,’ he instructed himself, and left the refuge of his chambers.
Like many similar strongholds, the palace was an accumulation of old and new. There had been forts in the caves under the Matrassyl rock during the last great winter. It grew or shrank, became stronghold or pleasure dome, according to the fortunes of Borlien.
The distinguished personages from Pannoval were disturbed by Matrassyl, where phagors were allowed to walk in the street without molestation – and without causing molestation. In consequence, they found fault with JandolAnganol’s palace. They called it provincial.
JandolAnganol, in the years when fortune was less against him and his marriage to MyrdemInggala still new, had brought in the best provincial architects, builders, and artists to patch the ravages of time. Particular care had been lavished on the queen’s quarters.
Although the general atmosphere of the palace tended towards the military, there was none of the stifling etiquette which marked the Oldorandan and Pannovalan courts. And in places, some kind of higher culture flourished. The apartments of Chancellor SartoriIrvrash, in particular, provided a rat’s nest of arts and learning.
The chancellor moved grudgingly on his way to consult with the king. To his mind came thoughts which were pleasanter than affairs of state. Only the previous day he had solved a problem which had long puzzled him, an antiquarian problem. Truth and lies were more easily distinguished in the past than the present.
The queen approached him, wearing one of her flame-red gowns, accompanied by her brother and the Princess Tatro, who ran and clutched his leg. The chancellor bowed. Despite his absorption he saw by the queen’s expression that she too was anxious about the diplomatic visit.
‘You will have business with Pannoval today,’ she said.
‘I have to consort with a set of pompous asses, and all the while my history is not getting written.’ Then he caught himself and laughed sharply. ‘My pardon, ma’am, I meant to say merely that I do not reckon Prince Taynth Indredd of Pannoval a great friend of Borlien …’
She sometimes had a slow way of smiling as if she was reluctant to be amused, which started at her eyes, included her nose, and then worked about the curves of her lips.
‘We’d