Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [603]
About Lobanster Shokerandit were gathered his wife, Lourna, and her sister, and friends such as the Esikananzis – Ebstok, his wife, Insil, and her two brothers. They were talking together. Lobanster’s back was turned to Luterin, and his mother saw him first. She called his name.
The talk ceased. They all turned to look at him.
Something in their faces – an unpleasant complicity – told him they had been discussing him. He faltered in mid-stride. They continued to regard him and yet, curiously, their true attention still remained with the black-clad man in their midst.
Lobanster Shokerandit could command the attention of any group. This was less by his stature, which was no more than average, than by a sort of stillness which emanated from him. It was a quality all noticed, yet no one had word for it. Those who hated him, his slaves and servants, said that he froze you with a glance; his friends and allies said that he had an amazing power of command or that he was a man apart. His hounds said nothing, but slunk about his legs with their tails tucked down.
His hands were neat and precise, his nails pointed. Lobanster Shokerandit’s hands were noticeable. They were active while the rest of him remained rigid. They frequently travelled up to visit his throat, which was always swathed in black silk, moving with a startled action not unlike that of crabs or hawks searching for concealed prey. Lobanster had a goitre, which his cravat concealed and his hands betrayed. The goitre lent a pillarlike solidity to the neck, sufficient to support a large head.
The white hair of this remarkable head was brushed straight back as if raked, receding from a broad forehead. There were no eyebrows, but the pallid eyes were surrounded by thick dark lashes – so thick that some people suspected Madi blood somewhere. The eyes were further bolstered by grey pillows or bags below them; these pillows, having a certain goitrous quality, acted as embankments behind which the eyes watched the world. The lips, though ample, were almost as pale as the eyes, and the flesh of the face almost as pale as the lips. A sebaceous sheen covered forehead and cheeks – sometimes the busy hands went up to wipe at the film – so that the face gleamed as if it had recently been recovered from the sea.
‘Come near, Luterin,’ said the face now. The voice was deep and somewhat slow, as if the chin was reluctant to disturb the mound of goitre lying below it.
‘I am glad you are back, Father,’ said Luterin, advancing. ‘Had you good hunting?’
‘Well enough. You are so metamorphosed that I scarcely recognised you.’
‘Those fortunate enough to survive the plague take on compact shape for the Weyr-Winter, Father. I assure you I feel excellently fit.’
He took his father’s neat hand.
Ebstok Esikananzi said, ‘We may assume that phagors feel themselves to be fit, yet they are proven carriers of the plague.’
‘I have recovered from the plague. I cannot carry it.’
‘We certainly hope you can’t, dear,’ said his mother.
As he turned to her, his father said sternly, ‘Luterin, I wish you to retire to the hall and await me. I shall be there presently. We have some legal matters to discuss.’
‘Is there something the matter?’
Luterin took the full force of his father’s stare. He bowed his head and retired.
Once in the hall, he paced about, heedless of the tongue of his bell. What had made his father so cold he could not guess. True, that august figure had always been distant even when present, but that had been merely one of his qualities, as much taken for granted as the hidden goitre.
He summoned a slave and sent him to fetch Toress Lahl from her quarters.
She came questioningly. As she approached, he thought how appealing her metamorphosed shape was. And the frost prints on her face had healed.
‘Why have you been so long away? Where have you been?’
There was a hint of reproach, although she smiled and took his hand.
As he kissed her, he said,