Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [447]
‘You see, child, this villain you threw your arms about is to be branded a murderer before everyone.’ He advanced upon her with ogreish glee. ‘We’ll give you his corpse to embrace in a day’s time. Yes, just another twenty-five hours and your virginity will be safe forever from JandolAnganol!’
‘Why not hang me too, Father, and rid yourself of all your daughters to worry about?’
A special chamber in the palace had been set aside to serve as the courtroom. The Church sanctified it for judiciary purposes. Sprigs of veronika, scantiom, and pellamountain – all regarded as cooling herbs – were hung to lower the stifling temperature and shed their balm into the room. Many luminaries of court and city were gathered to watch the proceedings, not all of them by any means as in accord with their ruler as he supposed.
The three main actors in the drama were the king, his saturnine advisor, Crispan Mornu, and a judge by name Kimon Euras, whose station in the Church was minister of the rolls.
Kimon Euras was so thin that he stooped as if the tautness of his skin had bent the backbone it contained; he was bald or, to be precise, without visible vestige of hair, and the skin of his face displayed a greyish pallor reminiscent of the vellums over which he had parsimonious custody. His spiderish air, as he ascended to his bench, clad in a black keedrant hanging to his spatulate feet, seemed to guarantee that he would handle mercy with a similar parsimony.
When these impressive dignitaries were settled in their places, a gong was struck, and two guards chosen for strength dragged King JandolAnganol into the chamber. He was made to stand in the middle of the room for all to see.
The division between prisoner and free is sharp in any court. Here it was more marked than usual. The king’s short imprisonment had been enough to make filthy his tunic and his person. Yet he stood with his head high, darting his eagle gaze about the court, more like a bird of prey hunting weaknesses than a man looking for mercy. The clarity which attended his movements and contours remained part of him.
Kimon Euras began a long address in a powdery voice. The ancient dusts from the documents in his charge had lodged in his larynx. He spoke marginally louder when he came to the words, ‘… cruel murder of our beloved Princess Simoda Tal, in this very palace, by the thrust of an ancipital horn. King JandolAnganol of Borlien, you are charged with being the instigator of this crime.’
JandolAnganol immediately shouted in defiance. A bailiff struck him from behind, saying, ‘Prisoners are not allowed to speak in this court. Any interruptions and you will be thrown back in your cell.’
Crispan Mornu had managed for the occasion to find a garment of deeper black than usual. The colour reflected up into his jowls, his cheeks, his eyes, and, when he spoke, into his throat.
‘We intend to demonstrate that the guilt of this Borlienese king is inescapable, and that he came here with no other purpose than the destruction of Princess Milua Tal, thus ending the lineage of the House of Stund. We shall produce a copy of the instrument with which Princess Simoda Tal was cruelly dispatched. We shall produce also the actual perpetrator of the deed. We shall show that all factors point inescapably to the prisoner as the originator of the cruel plot. Bring forth the dagger.’
A slave scurried forward, making a great business of his haste, and presented the article demanded.
Unable to keep out of the proceedings, Sayren Stund reached forward and grasped it before Crispan Mornu could take it.
‘This is the horn of a phagor beast. It has two sharp edges, and hence cannot be confused with the horn of any other animal. It corresponds with the configurations of the wound in the late princess’s breast. Poor dear girl.
‘We do not attempt to pretend that this is the weapon with which the murder was committed. That weapon is lost. This is merely a similar one, newly pulled from the head of a phagor.
‘I wish to remind the court, and they shall judge whether