Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [420]
As the two couples stood conversing on the sand, the boat returned to the Prayer to transport Odi Jeseratabhar and Lanstatet ashore. When the oarsmen had dragged the boat safely above the high-tide mark, the whole party made its way up the beach to the palace, following the queen and TolramKetinet. In some of the windows of the palace, lights had been lit.
SartoriIrvrash introduced Odi Jeseratabhar to CaraBansity in glowing terms. CaraBansity became noticeably cool; he made it clear that a Sibornalese admiral was not welcome on Borlienese soil.
‘I understand your feelings,’ Odi said faintly to CaraBansity. She was pale and drawn, her lips white and her hair straggling.
A meal was prepared for the unexpected guests, during which time the general was reunited with his sister Mai and embraced her. Mai wept.
‘Oh, Hanra, what’s to happen to us all?’ she asked. ‘Take me back to Matrassyl.’
‘Everything will be fine now,’ her brother said with assurance.
Mai merely looked her disbelief. She wished to be free of the queen – not to have her as sister-in-law.
They ate fish, followed by venison served with gwing-gwing sauces. They drank such wine as the king’s invading force had left, chilled with the best Lordryardry ice. As the meal progressed, TolramKetinet told the company something of the suffering of the Second Army in the jungle; he turned occasionally to Lanstatet, who sat next to his sister, for confirmation of one point or another. The queen appeared scarcely to be listening, though the account was addressed to her. She ate little and her gaze, shielded under long lashes, was rarely lifted from the table.
After the meal, she seized up a candle in its pewter holder and said to her guests, ‘The night grows short. I will show you to your quarters. You are more welcome than my previous visitors.’
The military force with Lanstatet were shown to rear accommodation. SartoriIrvrash and Odi Jeseratabhar were given a chamber near the queen’s, and a slave woman to attend them and dress Odi’s wounds.
When these dispositions were completed, MyrdemInggala and TolramKetinet stood alone in the echoing hall.
‘I fear you are tired,’ he said in a low voice as they mounted the stairs. She made no answer. Her figure, ascending the steps before him, suggested not fatigue but suppressed energy.
In the corridor upstairs, slatted blinds rattled against the open windows with the stirrings of false dawn. An early bird called from a tower. Looking obliquely back at him, she said, ‘I have no husband, as you have no wife. Nor am I queen, though by that name I am still addressed. Nor have I been scarcely a woman since I arrived at this place. What I am, you shall see before this night is over.’
She flung open the doors of her own bedchamber and gestured to him to enter.
He paused, questioning. ‘By the beholder—’
‘The beholder shall behold what she will behold. My faith has fallen from me as shall this gown.’
As he entered, she clasped the neck of her dress and pulled it open, so that her neat breasts, their nipples surrounded by large dark aureoles, sprang before his gaze. He shut the door behind him, calling her name.
She gave herself to him with an effort of will.
During what was left of the night, they did not sleep. The arms of TolramKetinet were round her body, and his flesh inside hers.
Thus was her letter, despatched by the Ice Captain, answered at last.
The next morning brought challenges forgotten in the reunions of the previous night. The Union and the Good Hope were closing in on the undefended harbour. Pasharatid was drawing near.
Despite the crisis, Mai insisted on getting her brother to herself for half an hour; while she lectured him on the miseries of life in Gravabagalinien, TolramKetinet fell asleep. She threw a glass of water over him to wake him. Staggering angrily out of the palace, he went to join the queen down by the shore. She stood with CaraBansity