Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [449]
She paused.
‘Go on, girl.’
‘It’s too awful, sir …’ There was a thick silence in the court, as if even the cooling herbs were drowning in the heat. ‘Well, sir, this man here came in with a dagger. He wanted me to go with him, and I wouldn’t. I don’t do such things. Div went to protect me, and this man here struck with his dagger – or horn, it was, you know – and he killed Div. He stabbed Div right in the stomach.’
She demonstrated daintily on her own hypogastric region, and the court craned its collective neck.
‘And what happened then?’
‘Well, sir, you know, this man here took the body away and threw it into the sea.’
‘This is all a lie, a lying plot!’ said JandolAnganol.
It was the girl who answered him, with a spurt of her own anger. She was more at home in the court now, and beginning to enjoy her role.
‘It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. The prisoner took Div’s body away and threw it into the sea. And the extraordinary thing was that a few days later it returned, the body I mean, packed in ice, to Ottassol, because I saw it in the house of my friend and protector, Bardol CaraBansity – later to become the king’s chancellor for a while.’
JandolAnganol emitted a strangled laugh and appealed direct to the judge. ‘How can anyone believe such an impossible story?’
‘It’s not impossible, and I can prove it,’ Abathy said boldly. ‘Div had a special jewel with three moving faces with figures, a timepiece. The figures were alive. Div kept it in a belt round his waist.’ She indicated the area she meant on her own anatomy, and again the collective neck was craned. ‘That same jewel turned up at CaraBansity’s and he gave it to his majesty, who probably has it now.’ She pointed her finger dramatically at JandolAnganol.
The king was visibly taken aback and remained silent. The timepiece lay forgotten in his tunic pocket.
He recalled now, all too late, how he had always feared the timepiece as an alien thing, a thing of science to be mistrusted. When BillishOwpin, the man who claimed to have come from another world, had offered him the timepiece, JandolAnganol had thrown it back to him. Mysteriously, it had returned later through the agency of the deuteroscopist. Despite his intentions, he had never rid himself of it.
Now it had betrayed him.
He could not speak. An evil spell had descended on him: that he saw, but could not say when it had begun. Not all his dedication to Akhanaba had saved him from the spell.
‘Well, Your Majesty, well, brother,’ said Sayren Stund, with relish, ‘have you this jewel with living figures?’
JandolAnganol said faintly, ‘It is intended as a wedding gift for the Princess Milua Tal …’
A hubbub broke out in court. People dashed here and there, clerics called for order, Sayren Stund covered his face in order to hide his triumph.
When order was restored Crispan Mornu put another question to Abathy. ‘You are sure this young man, RobaydayAnganol, son of the king, is the man who murdered your friend Div? Did you ever see him again?’
‘Sir, he was a great nuisance to me. He would not go away. I don’t know what would have happened to me if your men hadn’t arrested him.’
A short silence prevailed in court while everyone contemplated what might have happened to such an attractive young lady.
‘Let me put one last and rather personal question to you,’ Crispan Mornu said, fixing Abathy with his corpselike stare. ‘You are evidently a low-born woman, and yet you seem to have well-connected friends. Rumour mentions your name with that of a certain Sibornalese ambassador. What do you say to that?’
‘Shame,’ said a voice from the court benches, but Abathy answered in an untroubled way, ‘I did have the pleasure of knowing a Sibornalese gentleman, sir. I like the Sibornalese for their good manners, sir.’
‘Thank you, Abathy, your testament has been invaluable.’ Crispan Mornu managed a moue which resembled a stiletto’s smile. He then turned to the court, speaking only when