Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [297]
The warehouse had an assortment of doors on all floors, large and small. MyrdemInggala chose the smallest on the ground floor and walked in. Mai followed.
Inside was a cobbled court, with fat men rolling barrels of their own shape over to a dray.
‘I wish to speak with Krillio Muntras,’ she said to the nearest man.
‘He’s busy. He won’t speak to anyone,’ the man said, regarding her suspiciously. She had drawn a veil across her face, so as not to be recognised.
‘He’ll speak to me.’ She withdrew from a finger of her left hand a ring with the colours of the sea in it. ‘Take this to him.’
The man departed, muttering. By his stature and accent, she knew he was from Dimariam, one of the countries of the southern continent of Hespagorat. She waited impatiently, tapping her foot on the cobbles, but after a moment the man was back, his attitude much changed. ‘Pray allow me to show you to Captain Muntras.’
MyrdemInggala turned to Mai. ‘You will wait here.’
‘But, ma’am—’
‘And do not obstruct the men in their work.’
She was shown into a workshop smelling of glues and fresh-shaved wood, where old men and apprentices were sawing up timbers and making them into chests and iceboxes. The workbenches were bearded with long curly shavings. The men watched the hooded female figure curiously as it passed.
Her guide opened a door hidden behind overalls. They climbed a dusty stair to a floor where a long low room commanded a view of the river. Clerks worked at one end of the room, shoulders bent over ledgers. At the other end was a desk with a chair as solid as a throne, from which a fat brown man had risen, to come forward with a beaming face. He bowed low, dismissed the guide, and led the queen into a private room beyond his desk.
Although his room overlooked a stable yard, it was well furnished, with prints on the wall, with an elegance at variance with the functional appearance of the rest of the building. One of the prints depicted Queen MyrdemInggala.
‘Madam Queen, I am proud to receive you.’ The Ice Captain beamed again and set his head on one side as far as it would go, the better to regard MyrdemInggala as she removed her veil and headgear. He was himself simply dressed in a charfrul, the full shift with pockets worn by many natives of the equatorial regions.
When he had her comfortably seated and had given her a glass of wine chilled with fresh Lordryardry ice, he thrust out a hand to her. Opening his fist, he revealed her ring, which he now returned ceremoniously, insisting on fitting it on her dainty finger.
‘It was the best ring I ever sold.’
‘You were only a humble pedlar then.’
‘Worse, I was a beggar, but a beggar with determination.’ He struck his chest.
‘Now you are very rich.’
‘Now, what are riches, madam? Do they buy happiness? Well, frankly, they at least permit us to be miserable comfortably. My state, I will admit to you, is better than that of most common folk.’
His laugh was comfortable. He hitched a plump leg unceremoniously over the edge of the table and lifted his glass to toast her, evaluating her. The queen of queens raised her eyes to his. The Ice Captain lowered his gaze, protecting himself from a tremor of feeling much like awe. He had dealt in girls almost as widely as ice; before the queen’s beauty, he felt himself powerless.
MyrdemInggala talked to him about his family. She knew he had a clever daughter and a stupid son, and that the stupid son, Div, was about to take over the ice trade on his father’s retirement. That retirement had been postponed. Muntras had made his last trip a tenner and a half ago, at the time of the Battle of the Cosgatt – only it had proved not to be his last trip, since Div needed further instruction.
She knew the Ice Captain was gentle with his silly boy. Yet Muntras’s father had been harsh with him, sending him out as a lad to earn money begging and peddling, in order to prove he was capable of taking over a one-ship ice business. She had heard this tale before, but was not bored by it.
‘You’ve had an eventful life,’ she said.
Perhaps he thought some sort of criticism