Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [429]
Oldorando’s climate was hot and enervating. The eruption of Mount Rustyjonnik had opened up a chain of volcanic activity. A sulphurous pall often hung over the land. The flags which the king ordered to be put out to greet his Borlienese cousin hung limp in the airless atmosphere.
As for the King of Borlien, impatient energy possessed him. The march from Gravabagalinien had taken the best part of a tenner, first over the loess farmlands, then across wilder country. No pace was rapid enough for JandolAnganol. Only the First Phagorian made no complaint.
Bad news continued to reach the column. Crop failure and famine were everywhere in his kingdom; evidence of that lay all round. The Second Army was not merely defeated: it was never going to reemerge from the jungles of Randonan. Such few men as came back slunk to their own homes, swearing they would never soldier again. The phagor battalions which had survived disappeared into the wilds.
From the capital, the news was no more encouraging. JandolAnganol’s ally, Archpriest BranzaBaginut, wrote that Matrassyl was in a state of ferment, with the barons threatening to take over and rule in the name of the scritina. It behoved the king to act positively, and as soon as possible.
He enjoyed being on the move, delighted in living off what game there was, rejoiced in the evening bivouac, and even tolerated days of brilliant sunshine, away from the coastal monsoons. It was as if he took pleasure from the ferment of emotions that filled him. His face became leaner, tenser, his waywardness more marked.
Alam Esomberr felt less enthusiastic. Brought up in his father’s house in the subterranean recesses of Pannoval, he was unhappy in the open and mutinous about the forced pace. The dandified envoy of the Holy C’Sarr called a halt at last, knowing he had the support of his weary retinue.
It was dimday, when fat, brilliant flowers opened among the lustreless grasses, inviting the attention of dusk-moths. A bird called, hammering at its two notes.
They had left the loess farmlands behind and were traversing a farmless moor which supported few villages. For shade, the envoy’s party retreated under an enormous denniss tree, whose leaves sighed in the breeze. The denniss sprouted many trunks, some young, some ancient, which propped themselves up languidly – like Esomberr himself – with gnarled elbows as they sprawled on the ground in all directions.
‘What can drive you like this, Jandol?’ Esomberr asked. ‘What are we hurrying for, except for hurrying’s abominable sake? To put it another way, what fate awaits you in Oldorando better than the one you revoked in Gravabagalinien?’
He eased his legs and looked up with his amused glance into the king’s countenance.
JandolAnganol squatted nearby, balancing on his toes. A faint smell of smoke came to his nostrils, and he searched the distance for its origin. He threw small pebbles at the earth.
A group of the king’s captains, the Royal Armourer, and others leant on their staffs, a short distance away. Some smoked veronikanes, one teased Yuli, prodding the creature with his staff.
‘We must reach Oldorando as soon as possible.’ He spoke as one who wants no argument, but Esomberr persisted.
‘I’m eager to see that somewhat squalid city myself, if only to soak for a few millennia in one of their famous hot springs. That doesn’t mean I’m anxious to run all the way there. You’re a changed man since your Pannoval days, Jandol – not quite such fun, if I may say so …’
The king threw his pebbles more violently. ‘Borlien needs an alliance with Sayren Stund. That deuteroscopist who presented me with my three-faced timepiece, Bardol CaraBansity, said I had no business in Oldorando. A conviction seized me at that moment that I had to go there. My father supported me. His dying words to me were – as he