Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [336]
Once the Sibornalese party had crossed the River Mar, the blight grew less. Then it faded. They entered Mordriat – a name of terror in Matrassyl. The reality was peaceful. Most of the tribes smiled beneath sheltering layers of braffista turbans, their chief item of apparel.
Guides were engaged to guarantee their safety, thin villainous-looking men who abased themselves at every sunrise and sunset. Round their campfire at night, the head Pointer of the Way, as he called himself, explained to the travellers how the ornamentation on his braffista indicated his rank in life. He boasted of the numerous ranks below his.
None listened more eagerly than SartoriIrvrash. ‘Strange, this human propensity to create ranks in society,’ he observed to the rest of the party.
‘A propensity the more noticeable the nearer the bottom of the pile one descends,’ said Madame Dienu. ‘We avoid such demeaning gradations in my land. How you will enjoy seeing Askitosh. It is a model for all communities.’
SartoriIrvrash had some reservations about that. But he found a restful quality in the steady severity of Madame Dienu after years of dealing with a changeable king. As the wilderness grew more arid, his spirits rose; equally, Roba’s madness grew calmer. But when the others slept, SartoriIrvrash could not. His bones, which had become accustomed to a goosedown mattress, could not adapt to a blanket and hard ground. He lay looking up at the stars and the lightning flickering between them, full of an excitement he had not known since he and his brothers were children. Even his bitterness against JandolAnganol abated somewhat.
The weather continued dry. The coaches made fair progress over the low hills. They arrived at a small trading town called Oysha – ‘Quite probably a corruption of the Local Olonets word “osh”, meaning simply “town”,’ SartoriIrvrash explained to the company. Explanations that could be attached to things made the journey more enjoyable. However the word was derived, at Oysha the Takissa, rushing down from the east, met up with its formidable tributary, the Madura. Both rivers had their sources high in the limitless Nktryhk. Beyond Oysha to the north stretched the Madura Desert.
In Oysha, the coaches were exchanged for kaidaw geldings. The Pointer volubly made the deal, during which much striking of foreheads took place. The kaidaw was a reliable animal when it came to crossing deserts. The rust-coloured brutes stood in the dusty market square of Oysha, indifferent to the deal being negotiated beside them.
The ex-chancellor sat on a chest while the trading was in progress. He mopped his brow and coughed. The outfall from Mount Rustyjonnik had given him a sore throat and fever he could not shake off. He stared at the long haughty faces of the kaidaws – those legendary steeds of the warrior phagors in the Great Winter. It was hard to see in these slow beasts the whirlwind which, with phagors astride it, had brought destruction upon Oldorando and other Campannlatian cities in the time of cold.
In the Great Summer, the animals stored water in their single hump. This made them suitable for desert conditions. They looked meek enough now, but excited SartoriIrvrash’s sense of history.
‘I should purchase a sword,’ he told RobaydayAnganol. ‘I was quite a swordsman in my younger day.’
Roba turned a cartwheel. ‘You turn the year upside down, now that you are free of the Eagle. You’re right to defend yourself, of course. In those hills lives the accursed Unndreid – our herdsmen here sleep with his multitudinous daughters every night. Murder’s as frequent hereabouts as scorpions.’
‘The people seem friendly.’
Roba squatted before SartoriIrvrash and put on a cunning