Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [361]
Yet JandolAnganol vacillated. He had enough enemies without taking on one of the corps, whose power in the land was traditional, and whose chiefs were represented on the scritina. After private prayer and scourging, he went lengthily into pauk, to be counselled by the fessup of his grandfather. The battered grey cage floating in obsidian comforted him. Again, he was encouraged to act.
‘To be holy is to be hard,’ he said to himself. He had promised the scritina that he would devote himself wholeheartedly to his country. So it should be. Matchlocks were necessary. They would compensate for lack of manpower. Matchlocks would bring back the golden age.
Accompanied by a mounted troop of the Royal First Phagorian Guard, JandolAnganol went to the quarters of the Ancient Corps of Ironmakers and Swordsmen and demanded admittance. The great shadowy place opened up to him. He entered their quarters, which led into the rock. Everything here spoke of long-dead generations. Smoke had come like age to blacken everything.
He was greeted by officers with ancient halbards in some kind of uniform, who tried to bar his way. Chief Ironmaster SlanjivalIptrekira came running with ginger whiskers bristling – apologising, yes, bowing, yes, but stating firmly that no nonmember of the corps (barring possibly the odd woman) had ever entered these premises, and that they had centuries-old charters showing their rights.
‘Fall back! I am king. I will inspect!’ shouted JandolAnganol. Giving a command to the phagorian guard, he moved forward. Still mounted on their armoured hoxneys, they surged into an inner courtyard, where the air stank of sulphur and tombs. The king climbed from his mount, going forward surrounded by a strong guard while other soldiers waited with the hoxneys. Corpsmen came running, paused, scurried this way and that, dismayed at the invasion.
Red in the face, SlanjivalIptrekira still fell back before the king, protesting. JandolAnganol, showing his teeth in a holy snarl, drew his sword.
‘Run me through if you will,’ shouted the armourer. ‘You are for ever cursed for breaking in here!’
‘Rhhh! You lurk underground like miserable fessups! Out of my way, slanje!’
He pressed forward. The invading party went in under grey rock, thrusting into the entrails of the establishment.
They came to the furnaces, six of them, pot-bellied, made of brick and stone, patched and repatched, towering up to a murky roof, where ventholes in the rock showed as blackened cavities. One of the furnaces was working. Boys were shovelling and kicking fuel into a gleaming eye of heat, as fire roared and raged. Men in leather aprons drew a tray of red-hot rods from the furnace door, set them on a mutilated table, and stepped back, tight-lipped, to see what the excitement was.
Further into the chamber, men were kneeling by anvils. They had been hammering away at iron rods. Their din stopped as they stood to see what was happening. At the sight of JandolAnganol, blank amazement covered their faces.
For a moment, the king too was stopped. The terrible cavern astonished him. A captive stream gushed along a trough to work the enormous bellows placed by the furnace. Elsewhere were piled timbers and instruments as fearful as any used in torture. From a separate side cavern came wooden tubs bearing iron ore. Everywhere, blacksmiths, iron smelters, craftsmen – half naked – peered at him with pink-rimmed eyes.
SlanjivalIptrekira ran before the king, his arms raised, waving, fists clenched.
‘Your Majesty, the ores are being reduced by charcoal. It is a sacred process. Outsiders – even royal personages – are not allowed to view these rites.’
‘Nothing in my kingdom is secret from me.’
‘Attack him, kill him!’ cried the Royal Armourer.
The men carrying glowing iron bars lifted them with thick leather gloves. They looked at each other, then set them down again. The king’s person was sacred. Nobody else moved.
With perfect calm, JandolAnganol said, ‘Slanji, you have uttered a treasonable command against your sovereign, as all