Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [628]
‘Insil – this terrible knowledge! How did you discover about my father and Favin? Were you there? Are you lying?’
‘Of course not. I found out later – when you were in your fit of prostration – by my customary method, eavesdropping. My father knew everything. He was glad – because Favin’s death punished me … I could not believe I had heard aright. When he was telling my mother she was laughing. I doubted my senses. Unlike you, however, I did not fall into a year-long swoon.’
‘And I suspected nothing … I was fatally innocent.’
She gave him one of her supercilious looks. Her irises appeared larger than ever.
‘And you still are fatally innocent. Oh, I can tell …’
‘Insil, resist the temptation to make everyone your enemy!’
But her look hardened and she burst out again. ‘You were never any help to me. My belief is that children always know intuitively the real natures of their parents, rather than the dissembled ones which they show the world. You knew your father’s nature intuitively, and feigned dead to avoid his vengeance. But I am the truly dead.’
Asperamanka was approaching. ‘Meet me in the corridor in five minutes,’ she said hastily, as she turned, smiling and gaily raising a hand.
Luterin moved away. He leaned against a waft, struggling with his feelings. ‘Oh, Beholder …’ he groaned.
‘I expect you find the crowds overpowering after your solitude,’ someone who passed by said pleasantly.
His whole inner life was undergoing revolution. Things had not been, he had not been, as he had pretended to himself. Even his gallantry on the field of battle – had that not been powered by ancient angers released, rather than by courage? Were all battles releases from frustration, rather than deeds of deliberate violence? He saw he knew nothing. Nothing. He had clung to innocence, fearing knowledge.
Now he remembered that he had experienced the actual moment when his brother died. He and Favin had been close. He had felt the psychic shock of Favin’s death one evening: yet his father had announced the death as occurring on the following day. That tiny discrepancy had lodged in his young consciousness, poisoning it. Eventually – he could foresee – joy could come that he was delivered from that poison. But delivery was not yet.
His limbs trembled.
In the turmoil of his thoughts, he had almost forgotten Insil. He feared for her in her strange mood. Now he hurried towards the corridor she had indicated – reluctant though he was to hear more from her.
His way was barred by bedizened dignitaries, who spoke to him and to each other roundly of the solemnity of this occasion, and of how much more appalling conditions would be henceforth. As they talked, they devoured little meat-filled pastries in the shape of birds. It occurred to Luterin that he neither knew nor cared about the ceremony in which he had become involved.
Their conversation paused as all eyes focused on the other side of the chamber.
Ebstok Esikananzi and Asperamanka were leaving by a spiral stair which wound to an upper gallery.
Luterin took the opportunity to slip into the corridor. Insil joined him in a minute, her narrow body leaning forward in the haste of her walk. She held her skirt up from the floor in one pale hand, her jewellery glittering like frost.
‘I must be brief,’ she said, without introduction. ‘They watch me continually, except when they are in drink, or holding their ridiculous ceremonies – as now. Who cares if the world is plunged into darkness? Listen, when we are free to leave here, you must proceed to the fish seller in the village. It stands at the far end of Sanctity Street. Understand? Tell no one. “Chastity’s for women, secrecy’s for men,” as they say. Be secret.’
‘What then, Insil?’ Again he was asking her questions.
‘My dear father and my dear husband plan