Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [559]
‘Luterin—’ she said, but she was too frightened to do anything but follow him. They ran downstairs. The courtyard was a scene of panic. The gas still burned. Odims too old, too young, or too voluminous to attend the church service, together with their animals, were running about among the soldiers. The smart lieutenant aimed a bullet or two at the clouds. Slaves were screaming. One of the houses had caught fire.
It was an easy matter to skirt the melee and leave by the gate.
Once they were in the street, Fashnalgid dropped to an easier pace and sheathed his sword, so as to be less conspicuous.
They hurried into the churchyard. He pulled the woman against a buttress, panting. Inside, hymns rose to God the Azoiaxic. In his excitement, he gripped her painfully by the upper arm.
‘Those sherbs, they’re after us. Even in this piddling dump …’
‘Oh, do let me go. You’re hurting me.’
‘I’ll let you go. You’re going to go inside this church and get Shokerandit. Tell him that the military have caught up with us. There’ll be no escaping by boat now. If he has arranged a sledge, then we all start for Kharnabhar as soon as we can. Go in and tell him.’ He gave her a push to encourage her. ‘Tell him they want to hang him.’
By the time Toress Lahl reappeared with Shokerandit, many people were about in the street – and not only innocent bystanders. As the Odims ran shouting with distress, Fashnalgid said, ‘Luterin, have you got a sledge? Can we get out of here right away?’
‘Need you have wrecked the Odim home after all they have done for us?’ Shokerandit said, regarding the other’s disarray.
‘Don’t trust Odim. He’s a tradesman. We have to leave. The army’s woken up. Don’t forget your lovely Toress Lahl is officially a runaway slave. You know the penalty for that. Where’s the sledge?’
‘We can get it when the stables open at Batalix-dawn. You have changed your mind suddenly, haven’t you?’
‘Where do we hide till dawn?’
Shokerandit thought. ‘There’s a family friend, by name Hernisarath. He and his wife will give us shelter until the morning … But I must go and say good-bye to Odim.’
Fashnalgid pointed a thick finger at him. ‘You’ll do no such thing. He’ll hand you over. Soldiers are swarming everywhere. You are an innocent, aren’t you?’
‘All right, and you’re an eccentric. Insults apart, why the change of plan? Only this morning you were going to sail for Campannlat.’
Fashnalgid smiled. ‘Suppose it occurred to me that I ought to be nearer to God? I’ve decided to come with you and your lady slave to Holy Kharnabhar.’
X
‘The Dead Never Talk Politics’
On the sixth day of the sixth tenner of every sixth small year, the Synod of the Church of the Formidable Peace met in Askitosh. The lesser fry met in conventials behind the Palace of the Supreme Priest. The fifteen dignitaries who formed the standing synod lived and met in the Palace itself. They represented both the ecclesiastical and the secular or military arms of the organisation of the Church. The burdens of office were heavy upon them. They were not men given to drollery.
Being human, the fifteen had their faults. One was regularly overcome by alcohol by sixteen twenty every day. Others kept young female or male slaves in their chambers. Some enjoyed peculiar defilements. Nevertheless, at least a part of each of them was dedicated to the good continuance of the Church. Since good men were hard to find, the fifteen could be accounted good men.
And the most dedicated man of all was Chubsalid, a man of Bribahr birth, brought up by holy fathers within the cloisters of their church, now Priest-Supreme of the Church of the Formidable Peace, the appointed representative on Helliconia of God the Azoiaxic, who existed before life and round whom all life revolves.
Even the most watchful ecclesiastical eye had never seen Chubsalid raise a bottle to his lips. If he had any sexual proclivities whatsoever, they were a secret kept between him and his maker. If he ever experienced anger, fear, or sorrow, no