Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [627]
But he said tenderly, ‘Two profiles in search of a face?’
‘I’d forgotten that. Existence in Kharnabhar has grown narrower over the years – dirtier, grimmer, more artificial. As might be expected. Everything narrows. Souls included.’ She rubbed her hands together in a gesture he did not recall.
‘You still survive, Insil. You are more beautiful than I remembered.’ He forced the insincerity from him; conscious of pressures on him to be a social being again. While it remained difficult to enter into a conversation, he was aware of old reflexes awakening – including his habit of being polite to women.
‘Don’t lie to me, Luterin. The Wheel is supposed to turn men into saints, isn’t it? Notice I refrain from asking you about that experience.’
‘And you never married, Sil?’
Her glare intensified. She lowered her voice to say with venom, ‘Of course I am married, you fool! The Esikananzis beat their slaves better than their spinsters. What woman could survive in this heap without selling herself off to the highest bidder?’
She stamped her foot. ‘We had our discussion of that glorious topic when you were one of the candidates.’
The dialogue was running too fast for him. ‘Selling yourself off, Sil! What do you intend to mean?’
‘You put yourself completely out of the running when you stuck your knife into that pa you so revered … Not that I blame you, seeing that he killed the man who took away my cherished virginity – your brother Favin.’
Her words, delivered with a false brightness as she smiled at those around them, opened up an ancient wound in Luterin. As so often during his incarceration in the Wheel, he thought of the waterfall and his brother’s death. Always there remained the question of why Favin, a promising young army officer, should have made the fatal jump; the words of his father’s gossie on that subject had never satisfied him. Always he had shied away from a possible answer.
Not caring who was looking on among the pale-lipped crowd, he grasped Insil’s arm. ‘What are you saying about Favin? It’s known that he committed suicide.’
She pulled away angrily, saying, ‘For Azoiaxic’s sake, do not touch me. My husband is here, and watching. There can be nothing between us now, Luterin. Go away! It hurts to look at you.’
He stared about, his gaze darting over the crowd. Halfway across the chamber, a pair of eyes set in a long face regarded him in open hostility.
He dropped his glass. ‘Oh, Beholder … not Asperamanka, that opportunist!’ The red liquid soaked into the white carpet.
As she waved to Asperamanka, she said, ‘We’re a good match, the Master and I. He wanted to marry into a proud family. I wanted to survive. We make each other equally happy.’ When Asperamanka turned with a sign back to his colleagues, she said in venomous tones, ‘All these leather-clad men going off with their animals into the forests … why do they so love each other’s stink? Close under the trees, doing secret things, blood brothers. Your father, my father, Asperamanka … Favin was not like that.’
‘I’m glad if you loved him. Can’t we escape from these others and talk?’
She deflected his offer of consolation. ‘What misery that brief happiness inherited … Favin was not one to ride into the caspiarns with his heavy males. He rode there with me.’
‘You say my father killed him. Are you drunk?’ There was something like madness in her manner. To be with her, to enter into these ancient agonies – it was as if time stopped. It was as if a fusty old drawer was being unlocked; its banal contents had become hallowed by their secret nature.
Insil scarcely bothered to shake her head. ‘Favin had everything to live for … me, for instance.’
‘Not so loud!’
‘Favin!’ she shouted, so that heads turned in her direction. She began to pace through the crowd, and Luterin followed. ‘Favin discovered that your father’s “hunts” were really journeys to Askitosh and that he was the Oligarch. Favin was all integrity. He challenged your father. Your father shot him down and threw him over the cliff by the waterfall.’
They