Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [459]
The evening grew slightly cooler. There was another earth tremor, but it passed almost unnoticed among the general excitements.
Calmed and refreshed by his bath, well fed, King Sayren Stund was in fit mood to receive Alam Esomberr and the elderly Guaddl Ulbobeg. He seated himself comfortably on a couch and assembled his wife behind him to make an attractive composition before summoning the two men to his presence.
All due courtesies were made, and a slave woman poured wine into glasses already freighted with Lordryardry ice.
Guaddl Ulbobeg wore an ecclesiastical sash over a light charfrul. He entered reluctantly and appeared no more comfortable to see Crispan Mornu present. He felt his position to be dangerous, and showed it in his nervous manner.
Alam Esomberr, by contrast, was excessively cheerful. Immaculately dressed as usual, he approached the king’s couch and kissed the hands of both majesties with the air of one immune to bacteria.
‘Well, indeed, sire, you did present us with a spectacle this afternoon, just as you promised. My congratulations. How ably your old rogue of an atheist spoke! Of course, our faith is merely deepened by doubt. Nevertheless, what an amusing turn of fate it is that the abhorred King JandolAnganol, lover of phagors, who only this morning stood trial for his life, should this evening stand revealed as heroic protector of the children of God.’
He laughed pleasantly and turned to Advisor Mornu to judge his amusement.
‘That is blasphemy,’ said Crispan Mornu, in his blackest voice.
Esomberr nodded, smiling. ‘Now that God has a new definition, surely blasphemy has one too? The heresy of yesterday, sir, is now perceived as today’s true path, which we must tread as nimbly as we can …’
‘I don’t know why you are so merry,’ Sayren Stund complained. ‘But I hope to take a small advantage of your good humour. I wish to ask you both a favour. Woman, serve the wine again.’
‘We will do whatever your majesty commands,’ said Guaddl Ulbobeg, looking anxious and clutching his glass.
The king rose up from a reclining position, smoothed his stomach, and said, with a touch of royal pomp, ‘We shall give you the wherewithal with which to persuade King JandolAnganol to leave our kingdom immediately, before he can delude my poor infant daughter Milua Tal into matrimony.’
Esomberr looked at Guaddl Ulbobeg. Guaddl Ulbobeg looked at Esomberr.
‘Well?’ said the king.
‘Sire,’ said Esomberr, and fell to tugging a lock of hair at the back of his neck, which necessitated his looking down at the floor.
Guaddl Ulbobeg cleared his throat and then, more or less as an afterthought, cleared it again. ‘May I venture to ask your majesty if you have seen your daughter just of late?’
‘As for me, sire, I am almost totally within the power of the King of Borlien, sir,’ added Esomberr, still attending to his neck. ‘Owing to a past indiscretion on my part, sir. An indiscretion concerning – most unforgivably – the queen of queens. So when the King of Borlien came to us this afternoon, seeking our assistance, we felt bound …’
Since he allowed the sentence to dangle while he scrutinised the countenance of Sayren Stund, Ulbobeg continued the discourse.
‘I being a bishop of the Household of the Holy C’Sarr of Pannoval, sire, and therefore,’ said Guaddl Ulbobeg, ‘empowered to act in His Holiness’s stead in certain offices of the Church …’
‘And I,’ said Esomberr, ‘still remissly holding in my charge a bill of divorcement signed by the ex-queen MyrdemInggala which should have been rendered to the C’Sarr, or to one of his representatives of the Household, tenners ago – with apologies for using that now opprobrious word—’
‘And we