Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [308]
The door opened – even that was a wonder, that wooden door. A lean old secretary appeared, who conducted him to the chancellor’s suite. There he sat on a chair in an antechamber and waited. To his relief, the hiccups died and he felt less ill.
Chancellor SartoriIrvrash appeared, walking wearily. His shoulders were bent and, despite a show of courtesy, his manner was preoccupied. He listened to Billy without interest and ushered him into a large room where books and documents took up a major part of the space. Billy looked at the chancellor with awe. This was a figure out of history. This was once the hawkish young advisor who had assisted JandolAnganol’s grandfather and father to establish the Borlienese state.
The two men seated themselves. The chancellor pulled agitatedly at his whiskers and muttered something under his breath. He seemed not to listen as Billy described himself as coming from a town in Morstrual on the Gulf of Chalce. He hugged his lean body as if comforting himself.
When Billy’s words ran out, he sat in puzzlement as silence descended. Did the chancellor not understand his Olonets?
SartoriIrvrash spoke at last. ‘We’ll do whatever we can to be of assistance, sir, although this is not the easiest of times, not by any means.’
‘I want a conversation with you, if I can, as well as with his majesty and the queen. I have knowledge to offer, as well as questions to ask.’
He gave a belated hiccup.
‘Apologies.’
‘Yes, yes. Excuse me. I am what someone once termed a connoisseur of knowledge, but this happens to be a day of deepest – deepest botheration.’
He stood, clutching at his stained charfrul, shaking his head as he regarded Billy as if for the first time.
‘What is so bad about today?’ asked Billy in alarm.
‘The queen, sir, Queen MyrdemInggala …’ The chancellor rapped his knuckles on the table for emphasis. ‘Our queen is being put away, expelled, sir. This is the day she sails for exile. For Ancient Gravabagalinien.’
He put his hands up to his face and began to weep.
IX
Some Botheration for the Chancellor
There was an old country saying among the peasants of the land still known locally as Embruddock concerning the continent on which they lived: ‘Not an acre is properly habitable, and not an acre is uninhabited.’
The saying represented at least an approach to the truth. Even now, when millions believed that the world was to die in flames, travellers of all kinds crossed and recrossed Campannlat. From whole tribes, like the migrant Madis and the nomadic nations of Mordriat, down to pilgrims, who counted out their pilgrimage not in miles but in shrines; robber bands, who counted territory in throats and purses; and solitary traders, who travelled leagues to sell a song or a stone for a greater price than it would fetch at home – all these found fulfilment in movement.
Even the fires that consumed the interior of the continent, stopping short only at rivers or deserts, did not deter travellers. Rather, they added to their numbers, contributing refugees in quest for new homes.
One such group arrived in Matrassyl down the Valvoral in time to see Queen MyrdemInggala leave for exile. The royal press gang gave them little time to gape. Its officers descended on the new arrivals in their leaky tub and marched the men away to serve in the Western Wars.
That afternoon, the natives of Matrassyl had temporarily forgotten the wars – or shelved the thought of them in favour of this newer drama. Here was the most dramatic moment of many dull lives: poverty, committing them to mere endurance, forced them to live vicariously through the illustrious. For this reason, they appointed and tolerated the vices of their kings and queens, so that shock or delight might enter their existences.
Smoke drifted over the town, shrouding the crowds mute along the quayside. The queen came in her coach. It moved between