Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [452]
‘Of course it was never my intention to hang King JandolAnganol,’ he informed the councillors genially. ‘The threat of execution was simply to reduce him, as that Other of a son of his put it, to a mere man, naked and defenceless. He thinks he can do as he pleases. That is not so.’
When he had finished talking, his prime minister rose to make a speech of thanks to his majesty.
‘We particularly appreciate your majesty’s humiliation of a monarch who cultivates phagors and treats them – well, almost as if they were human. We in Oldorando can have no doubt, must have no doubt, that the ancipitals are animals, nothing more. They have all the stamp of animals. They talk. So do preets and parrots.
‘Unlike parrots, phagors are forever hostile to mankind. We know not where they come from. They seem to have been born in the late Cold Period. But we do know – and this is what King JandolAnganol does not know – that these formidable newcomers must be eradicated, first from among human society, then from the face of the earth.
‘We still have the indignity of suffering JandolAuganol’s phagor brutes in our park. We all anticipate that, after this afternoon’s event, we shall be able to show gratitude once more to King Sayren Stund for ridding us for ever both of this pack of brutes, and of their pack master.’
There was general clapping. Sayren Stund himself clapped. Every word in the minister’s speech echoed his own words.
Sayren Stund enjoyed such sycophancy. But he was not a fool. Stund still needed the alliance with Borlien; he wished to make sure he would be the senior partner to it. He hoped, too, that the afternoon’s entertainment would impress the nation with whom he was already in uncomfortable alliance, Pannoval. He intended to challenge the C’Sarr’s monopoly of militarism and religion; that he could do by supplying an underlying philosophy for the Pannovalan drive against the ancipital kind. Having talked to SartoriIrvrash, he foresaw that that scholar could provide precisely such a philosophy.
He had struck a bargain with SartoriIrvrash. In exchange for the afternoon’s oratory and the destruction of JandolAnganol’s authority, Sayren Stund had Odi Jeseratabhar released from the Sibornalese embassy, despite the grumbles of the Sibornalese. He promised SartoriIrvrash and Odi the safety of his court, where they could live and work in peace. The bargain had been agreed upon with glee on all sides.
The heat of the morning had overwhelmed many of those who attended the court; reports entering the palace spoke of hundreds dying of heart attacks in the city. The afternoon’s diversion was therefore staged in the royal gardens, where jets of water played on the foliage and gauzes were hung from trees to create pleasant shade.
When the distinguished members of court and Church had gathered, Sayren Stund came forward, his queen on his arm, his daughter following behind. Screwing up his eyes, he gazed about for sight of JandolAnganol. Milua Tal saw him first and hastened across the lawn to his side. He stood under a tree, together with his Royal Armourer and two of his captains.
‘The fellow has boldness, grant him that,’ Sayren Stund murmured. He had had delivered to JandolAnganol an ornate letter apologising for his mistaken imprisonment, while making excuses because the evidence was so much against him. What he did not know was that Bathkaarnet-she had written a simpler note, expressing her pain over the whole incident and referring to her husband as a ‘love throttler’.
When his majesty was comfortably settled on his throne, a gong was struck, and Crispan Mornu appeared, shrouded as ever in black. Evidently the minister of the rolls, Kimon Euras, was too overcome by his morning’s activities to manage anything further. Crispan Mornu was in sole charge.
Ascending the platform set in the middle of the lawn, he bowed to the king and queen and spoke in his voice which had