Helliconia Summer

II Some Arrivals at the Palace

The event that the queen feared was already in process. King JandolAnganol was on his way to Gravabagalinien to divorce her.

From the Borlienese capital of Matrassyl he would sail down the River Takissa to Ottassol, there to take a coastal ship westward to Gravabagalinien’s narrow bay. JandolAnganol would present his queen with the Holy C’Sarr’s bill of divorcement in front of witnesses. Then they would part, perhaps forever.

This was the king’s plan, and very stormy he looked about it.

Accompanied by a brave sound of trumpets, escorted by members of his Household in finest array, King JandolAnganol was driven in his state coach down the hill from the palace, through Matrassyl’s crooked streets, to the quayside. In the coach with him was a solitary companion: Yuli, his pet phagor. Yuli was no more than a runt, with the brown hairs of his infancy still showing through his white coat. He had been dehorned and sat against his master, shuffling in nervous anticipation of the river journey.

As JandolAnganol stepped out of the vehicle, the captain of the waiting ship came forward and saluted smartly.

“We’ll get under way as soon as you are ready,” JandolAnganol said. His queen had sailed into exile from this very quay some five tenners earlier. Groups of citizens stood along the riverbank, eager to observe the king who had such a mixed reputation. The mayor had come to bid his monarch farewell. The cheering was nothing like the roar that had sped Queen MyrdemInggala on her way.

The king went aboard. A wooden clapper sounded, crisp as hoof on cobble. Rowers began to row. The sails were unfurled.

As the boat slid out from its mooring, JandolAnganol turned sharply to stare at the mayor of Matrassyl, who stood with his attendants drawn stiffly up on the dock in farewell. Catching the king’s glance, the mayor bowed his head submissively, but JandolAnganol knew how angry the man was. The mayor resented his monarch’s leaving the capital when the city was under external threat. Taking advantage of Borlien’s war with Randonan in the west, the savage nations of Mordriat to the north-east were on the move.

As that surly face fell behind the stern of the ship, the king turned his head to the south. He admitted to himself that there was some justice in the mayor’s attitude. From the high, restless grasslands of Mordriat came news that the warlord Unndreid the Hammer was active again. The Borlienese Northern Army, to improve its morale, should have had appointed as its general the king’s son, RobaydayAnganol. But RobaydayAnganol had disappeared on the day he heard of his father’s plan to divorce his mother.

“A son to trust in…” said JandolAnganol to the wind, with a bitter expression. He blamed his son for this journey on which he was embarked.

So the king set his profile southwards, looking for loyal demonstration. On the timbers of the deck, the shadows of the rigging lay in elaborate patterns. The shadows doubled themselves when Freyr rose in splendour. Then the Eagle retired to sleep.

A canopy of silk provided shelter in the poop of the ship. There the king remained for most of the three-day journey, with companions by his side. A few feet below his coign of vantage, almost naked human slaves, Randonanese for the most part, sat at their oars, ready to assist the canvas when the wind failed. The scent of them drifted up occasionally, to mingle with the smells of tar, timber, and bilges.

“We will make a stop at Osoilima,” the king announced. At Osoilima, a place of pilgrimage on the river, he would go to the shrine and be scourged. He was a religious man, and needed the goodwill of Akhanaba, the All-Powerful, in the test that was to come.

JandolAnganol was of distinguished and morose bearing. At twenty-five years and a tenner or two, he was still a young man, but lines marked his powerful face, giving him an appearance of wisdom his enemies claimed he did not possess.

Like one of his hawks, he had a commanding way of holding his head. It was to this head that most attention turned, as if the head of the nation were embodied in his skull. There was an eaglelike look to JandolAnganol, emphasised by the sharp bladed nose, the fierce black eyebrows, and the trim beard and moustache, which latter partly concealed a sensuous mouth. His eyes were dark and intense; the darting glance from those eyes, missing nothing, had brought him his nickname in the bazaars, the Eagle of Borlien.

Those who were close to him and had a gift for understanding character claimed that the eagle was always caged, and that the queen of queens still held the lock of his cage. JandolAnganol had the curse of khmir, best described as an impersonal lust, well understood in these hot seasons.

Often the quick head movements, in marked contrast to the concentrated stillness of the body, were the nervous habits of a man who hoped to see where he could turn next. The ceremony under the high rock of Osoilima was soon over. The king, with blood seeping through his tunic, stepped back on board ship, and the second half of the journey began. Hating the stench of the boat, the king slept on deck at night, lying on a swansdown mattress. His phagor runt Yuli slept by him, guarding his feet.

Behind the king’s ship, keeping a discreet distance, was a second ship, a converted cattle boat. In it sailed the king’s most faithful troops, the First Phagorian Guard. It drew protectively closer to the king’s ship as they approached Ottassol’s inner harbour, on the afternoon of the third day of the voyage.

Flags dropped from masts in the muggy Ottassol heat. A crowd gathered at the quayside. Among the banners and other tokens of patriotism were grimmer signs, saying the fire is coming: the oceans will burn, and live with akha or die for ever with FREYR. The Church was taking advantage of a time of general alarm, and trying to bring sinners to heel.

A band marched importantly forward between two warehouses and began to play a regal theme. The plaudits for his majesty as he stepped down the gangplank were restrained.

Greeting him were members of the city scritina and notable citizens. Knowing the Eagle’s reputation, they kept their speeches brief, and the king was brief in his reply.

“We are always happy to visit Ottassol, our chief port, and to find it flourishing. I cannot remain here long. You know how great events move forward.

“My unbending intention is to divorce myself from Queen MyrdemInggala by a bill of divorcement issued by the Great C’Sarr Kilander IX, Head of the Holy Pannovalan Empire and Father Supreme of the Church of Akhanaba, whose servants we are.

“After I have served that bill upon the present queen, in the presence of witnesses accredited by the Holy C’Sarr, as in law I must, then, when the Holy C’Sarr receives the bill, I shall be free to take, and will take, as my lawful spouse Simoda Tal, Daughter of Oldorando. Thus shall I affirm by bonds of matrimony the alliance between our country and Oldorando, an ancient linkage, and confirm our common partnership in the Holy Empire.

“United, our common enemies will be defeated, and we shall grow to greatness as in the days of our grandfathers.”

There was some cheering and clapping. Most of the audience rushed to see the phagorian soldiery disembark.

The king had discarded his usual keedrant. He was dressed in a tunic of yellow and black, sleeveless, so that his sinewy arms were well displayed. His trousers were of yellow silk, clinging close to his limbs. His turn-over boots were of dull leather. He wore a short sword at his belt. His dark hair was woven about the golden circle of Akhanaba, by whose grace he ruled the kingdom. He stood staring at his welcoming committee.

Possibly they expected something more practical from him. The truth was that Queen MyrdemInggala commanded almost as much affection in Ottassol as in Matrassyl.

With a curt glance to his retinue, JandolAnganol turned and stalked off.

Ahead lay the shabby low cliffs of loess. A length of yellow cloth had been laid across the quayside for the king to walk on. He avoided it, crossed to his waiting coach, and climbed in. The footman closed the door, and the vehicle moved off at once. It entered an archway and was immediately within the labyrinth of Ottassol. The phagorian guard followed.

JandolAnganol, who hated many things, hated his Ottassol palace. His mood was not softened by being welcomed at the gate by his Royal Vicar, the chill, wench-faced AbstrogAthenat.

“Great Akhanaba bless you, sire, we rejoice to see your majesty’s face, and to have your presence among us, just when bad tidings arrive from the Second Army in Randonan.”

“I’ll hear of military matters from military men,” said the king, and paced forward into the reception hall. The palace was cool, and remained cool as the seasons grew hotter, but its subterranean nature depressed him. It reminded him of the two priestly years he had spent in Pannoval as a boy.

His father, VarpalAnganol, had greatly extended the palace. Seeking his son’s praise, he had asked him how he liked it. “Cold, copious, ill considered,” had been Prince JandolAnganol’s answer.

It was typical of VarpalAnganol, never an artist at warfare, not to appreciate that the subterranean palace could never be defended effectively.

JandolAnganol remembered the day the palace was invaded. He was three years and a tenner old. He had been playing with a wooden sword in an underground court. One of the smooth loess walls shattered. From it burst a dozen armed rebels. They had tunnelled through the earth unnoticed. It still vexed JandolAnganol to recall that he had yelled in terror before charging at them with his toy sword.

There happened to be a change of guard assembling in the court, with weapons ready. After a furious skirmish, the invaders were killed. The illegal tunnel was later incorporated into the design of the palace. That had been during one of the rebellions which VarpalAnganol had failed to put down with sufficient harshness.

The old man was now imprisoned in the fortress at Matrassyl, and the courts and passages of the Ottassol palace were guarded by human and ancipital sentries. JandolAnganol’s eyes darted to the silent men as he passed them in the winding corridors; if one so much as moved, he was ready to kill him.

News of the king’s black mood spread among the palace staff. Festivities had been arranged to divert him. But first he had to receive the report from the western battlefields.

A company of the Second Army, advancing across the Chwart Heights intending to attack the Randonanese port of Poorich, had been ambushed by a superior force of the enemy. They had fought till dusk, when survivors had escaped to warn the main force. A wounded man had been despatched to report the news back along the Southern Highway semaphore system to Ottassol.

“What of General TolramKetinet?”

“He fights on, sire,” said the messenger.

JandolAnganol received the report almost without comment and then descended to his private chapel to pray and be scourged. It was exquisite punishment to be beaten by the lickerish AbstrogAthenat.

The court cared little what happened to armies almost three thousand miles away: it was more important that the evening’s festivities should not be spoilt by the king’s bile. The Eagle’s chastisement was good for everyone.

A winding stair led down to the private chapel. This oppressive place, designed in the Pannovalan fashion, was carved from the clay which lay beneath the loess, and lined with lead to waist level, with stone above. Moisture stood in beads, or ran in miniature waterfalls. Lights burned behind stained glass shades. The beams from these lanterns projected rectangles of colour into the dank air.

Sombre music played as the Royal Vicar took up his ten-tailed whip from beside the altar. On the altar stood the Wheel of Akhanaba, two sinuous spokes connecting inner rim with outer. Behind the altar hung a tapestry, gold and red, depicting Great Akhanaba in the glory of his contradictions: the Two-in-One, man and god, child and beast, temporal and eternal, spirit and stone.

The king stood and gazed at the animal face of his god. His reverence was wholehearted. Throughout his life, since his adolescent years in a Pannovalan monastery, religion had ruled him. Equally, he ruled through religion. Religion held most of the court and his people in thrall.

It was the common worship of Akhanaba which united Borlien, Oldorando, and Pannoval into an uneasy alliance. Without Akhanaba there would be only chaos, and the enemies of civilization would prevail.

AbstrogAthenat motioned to his royal penitent to kneel, and read a short prayer over him.

“We come before Thee, Great Akhanaba, to ask forgiveness for failure and to display the blood of guilt. Through the wickedness of all men, Thou, the Great Healer, art wounded, and Thou, the All-Powerful, art made weak. Therefore Thou has set our steps among Fire and Ice, in order that we may experience in our material beings, here on Helliconia, what Thou dost experience elsewhere in our name, the perpetual torment of Heat and Frost. Accept this suffering, O Great Lord, as we endeavour to accept Thine.”

The whip came up over the royal shoulders. AbstrogAthenat was an effeminate young man, but strong in the arm and assiduous in working Akhanaba’s will.

After penitence, the ceremonial of the bath; after the bath, the King ascended to the revelry.

Whips here gave way to the flicking of skirts in the dance. The music was brisk, the musicians fat and smiling. The king put on a smile too, and wore it like armour, as he remembered that this chamber had previously been lit by the presence of Queen MyrdemInggala.

The walls were decorated with the flowers of dimday, with idront and scented vispard. There were mounds of fruit and sparkling jugs of black wine. The peasants might starve, but not the palace.

JandolAnganol condescended to refresh himself with black wine, to which he added fruit juice and Lordryardry ice. He sat staring without much attending to the scene before him. His courtiers kept at a discrete distance. Women were sent to charm him and sent away again.

He had dismissed his old chancellor before leaving Matrassyl. A new chancellor, on probation, fussed at his side. Made at once fawning and anxious by his advancement, he came to discuss arrangements for the forthcoming expedition to Gravabagalinien. He also was sent away.

The king intended to remain in Ottassol for as short a time as possible. He would meet with the C’Sarr’s envoy and then continue on with him to Gravabagalinien. After the ceremony with the queen, he would make a forced march to Oldorando; there he would marry Princess Simoda Tal and get that whole business over with. He would then defeat his enemies, with assistance from Oldorando and Pannoval, and impose peace within his own borders. Certainly, the child princess, Simoda Tal, would have to live in the palace at Matrassyl, but there was no reason why he should have to see her. This scheme he would accomplish. It ran constantly through his mind.

He looked about for the C’Sarr’s envoy, the elegant Alam Esomberr. He had met Esomberr during his two-year stay in the Pannovalan monastery, and they had remained friendly ever since. It was necessary for JandolAnganol to have this powerful dignitary, sent by Kilandar IX himself, to witness his and the queen’s signature to the document of divorcement, and to return it to the C’Sarr himself before the marriage was legally void. Esomberr should be at his side now.

But Envoy Esomberr had been delayed as he was about to leave his suite. A scruffy little man with a pot belly, mangy hair, and travel-stained clothes had talked his way into the envoy’s powdered presence.

“I take it you’re not from my tailor?”

The scruffy little man denied the charge and produced a letter from an inner pocket. He handed it to the envoy. He stood and wriggled while Esomberr tore open the letter with an elegant gesture.

“It is, sir, intended—intended for onward delivery. For the eyes of the C’Sarr alone, begging your pardon.”

“I am the C’Sarr’s representative in Borlien, thank you,” said Esomberr.

He read the letter, nodded, .and produced a silver coin for the bearer.

Muttering, the latter retreated. He left the underground palace, went to where his hoxney was tethered, and began making his way back to Gravabagalinien to report his success to the queen.

The envoy stood smiling to himself and scratching the end of his nose. He was a willowy, personable man of twenty-four and a half years, dressed in a rich trailing keedrant. He dangled the letter. He sent a minion for a likeness of Queen MyrdemInggala, which he studied. From any new situation, personal as well as political advantages were to be gained. He would enjoy his trip to Gravabagalinien, if that were possible. Esomberr promised himself that he would not be too religious for his own enjoyment at Gravabagalinien.

As soon as the royal boat had docked, men and women had crowded into the forecourt of the palace to seek a word with the king. By law, all supplications had to go through the scritina, but the ancient tradition of making a plea direct to the king died hard. The king preferred work to idleness. Tired of waiting and of watching his courtiers gyrate themselves into states of breathlessness, he agreed to hold audience in a nearby room. His runt sat alertly by the small throne, and the king patted him now and again.

After the first two supplicants had come and gone, Bardol CaraBansity appeared before the king. He had thrown an embroidered waistcoat over his charfrul. JandolAnganol recognized the man’s strutting walk and frowned as a florid bow was sketched in his direction.

“This man is Bardol CaraBansity, sire,” said the chancellor-on-trial, standing at the king’s right hand. “You have some of his anatomical designs in the royal library.”

The king said, “I remember you. You are a friend of my ex-chancellor, SartoriIrvrash.”

CaraBansity blinked his blood-shot eyes. “I trust that SartoriIrvrash is well, sire, despite being an ex-chancellor.”

“He has fled to Sibornal, if that can be called being well. What do you want of me?”

“Firstly, a chair, sire, since my legs pain me to stand.”

They contemplated each other. Then the king motioned a page to move a chair below the dais on which he sat.

Taking his time about getting himself settled, CaraBansity said, “I have an object to set before you—priceless, I believe—knowing your majesty to be a man of learning.”

“I am an ignorant man, and stupid enough to dislike flattery. A king of Borlien concerns himself with politics merely, to keep his country intact.”

“We do whatever we do the better for being better informed. I can break a man’s arm better if I know how his joints work.”

The king laughed. It was a harsh sound, not often heard from his mouth. He leaned forward. “What is learning against the increasing rage of Freyr? Even the All-Powerful Akhanaba seems to have no power against Freyr.”

CaraBansity let his gaze rest on the floor. “I know nothing of the All-Powerful, Majesty. He does not communicate with me. Some public benefactor scribbled the word ‘Atheist’ on my door last week, so that is my label now.” Then take care for your soul.” The king spoke less challengingly now, and lowered his voice. “As a deuteroscopist, what do you make of the encroaching heat? Has humankind sinned so gravely that we must all perish in Freyr’s fire? Is not the comet in the northern sky a sign of coming destruction, as the common people claim?”

“Majesty, that comet, YarapRombry’s Comet, is a sign of hope. I could explain at length, but I fear to vex you with astronomical reckoning. The comet is named after the sage—cartographer and astronomer—YarapRombry of Kevassien. He made the first map of the globe, setting Ottaassaal, as this city was then called, in the centre of the map, and he named the comet. That was 1825 years ago—one great year. The return of the comet is proof that we circle about Freyr like the comet, and will pass it by with no more than a slight singe!”

The king thought. “You give me a scientific answer, just as SartoriIrvrash did. There must also be a religious answer to my question.”

CaraBansity chewed his knuckle. “What does the Holy Pannovalan Empire say on the subject of Freyr? For Akha’s sake, it dreads any manifestation in the sky, and therefore uses the comet only to increase the fear of the people. It declares one more holy drumble to eliminate the phagors from our midst. The Church’s argument is that if those creatures without souls are eliminated, the climate will immediately cool. Yet we are given to understand that, in the years of ice, the Church then claimed it was the ungodly phagors which brought the cold. So their thinking lacks logic—like all religious thinking.”

“Don’t vex me. I am the Church in Borlien.”

“Majesty, apologies. I merely speak true. If it offends you, send me away, as you sent SartoriIrvrash away.”

“That fellow you mention was all for wiping out the ancipitals.”

“Sire, so am I, though I depend on them myself. If I may again speak truth, your favouring of them alarms me. But I would not kill them for some silly religious reason. I would kill them because they are the traditional enemy of mankind.”

The Eagle of Borlien banged his hand down on the arm of his chair. The chancellor-on-trial jumped.

“I’ll hear no more. You argue out of place, you impertinent hrattock!”

CaraBansity bowed. “Very well, sire. Power makes men deaf and they will not hear. It was you, not I, sire, who called yourself ignorant. Because you can threaten with a look, you cannot learn. That is your misfortune.”

The king stood. The chancellor-on-trial shrank away. CaraBansity stood immobile, his face a patchy white. He knew he had gone too far.

But JandolAnganol pointed at the cringing chancellor.

“I tire of people who cower before me, like this man. Advise me as my advisor cannot and you shall be chancellor—no doubt to prove as vexing as your friend and predecessor.

“When I remarry, and take for wife the daughter of King Sayren Stund of Oldorando, this kingdom will be linked more firmly to the Holy Pannovalan Empire, and from that we shall derive strength. But I shall come under much pressure from the C’Sarr to obliterate the ancipital race, as is being done in Pannoval. Borlien is short of soldiers and needs phagors. Can I refute the C’Sarr’s edict through your science?”

“Hm.” CaraBansity pulled at a heavy cheek. “Pannoval and Oldorando have always hated fuggies as Borlien never did. We are not on ancipital migratory routes, as is Oldorando. The priests have found a new pretext to wage an old war…

“There is a scientific line you might take, sire. Science that would banish the Church’s ignorance, if you’ll forgive me.”

“Speak, then, and my pretty runt and I will listen.”

“Sire, you will understand. Your runt will not. You must know by repute the historical treatise entitled The Testament of RayniLayan. In that volume, we read of a saintly lady, VryDen, wife of the sage RayniLayan. VryDen unravelled some of the secrets of the heavens where, she believed, as I do, that truth, not evil, lives. VryDen perished in the great fire which consumed Oldorando in the year 26. That is three hundred and fifty-five years ago—fifteen generations, though we live longer than they did in those times. I am convinced that VryDen was a real person—not an invention of an Ice Age tale, as the Holy Church would have us believe.”

“What’s your point?” asked the king. He began to pace sharply about, and Yuli skipped after him. He remembered that his queen set great store by the book of RayniLayan, and read parts of it to Tatro.

“Why, my point is a sharp one. This same VryDen lady was an atheist, and therefore saw the world as it is, unobscured by imagined deities. Before her day, it was believed that Freyr and Batalix were two living sentinels who guarded our world against a war in heaven. With the aid of geometry, this same excellent lady was able to predict a series of eclipses which brought her era to a close.

“Knowledge can build only on knowledge, and one never knows where the next step will lead. The Church’s very emblem is that circle.”

“Which I prefer to your fumbling steps into darkness.”

“I found a way to see through the darkness into light. With the aid of our mutual acquaintance, SartoriIrvrash, I ground some lenses of glass like the lens in the eye.” He described how they had constructed a telescope. Through this instrument, they studied the phases of Ipocrene and the other planets in the sky. This intelligence they kept to themselves, since the sky was not a popular subject in those nations under the religious sway of Pannoval.

“One by one, these wanderers revealed their phases to us. Soon we could predict their changes exactly. There’s deuteroscopy! From there, SartoriIrvrash and I backed our observations by calculation. Thus we came on the laws of heavenly geometry, which we think must have been known to YarapRombry—but he suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Church. These laws state that the orbits of the worlds lie about the sun Batalix, and the orbit of Batalix lies about Freyr. And the radius vector of the solar movements covers equal areas of space in equal times.

“We discovered also that the fast planet, called by VryDen Kaidaw, has its orbit not about Batalix but about Helliconia, and is therefore a satellite body or moon.”

The king stopped pacing to ask sharply, “Could people like us live on this Kaidaw?”

The question was so at variance with his previous reluctant interest that CaraBansity was surprised. “It is merely a silver eye, sire, not a true world, like Helliconia or Ipocrene.”

The king clapped his hands. “Enough. Explain no more. You could end as did YarapRombry. I understand nothing.”

“If we could make these explanations clear to Pannoval, then we might change their out-of-date thinking. If the C’Sarr could be coaxed to understand celestial geometry, then he might come to appreciate a human geometry enough to allow humankind and ancipitals to revolve about each other as Batalix and Freyr do, instead of promulgating his holy drumbles, which upset orderly life.”

He was about to launch into further explanation, when the king made one of his impatient gestures.

“Another day. I can’t listen to much heresy at a time, though I appreciate the cunning of your thought. You incline to go with circumstances, even as I do. Is this what you came here for?”

For a while, CaraBansity faced the sharp gaze of the king. Then he said, “No, Your Majesty, I came, like many of your faithful subjects, hoping to sell you something.”

He brought from his belt the bracelet with the three sets of numbers which he had discovered on the corpse, and presented it to his majesty.

“Did you ever see a jewel like this before, Your Majesty?”

His majesty regarded it with surprise, turning it over in his hand.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ve seen this very bracelet before, in Matrassyl. It is indeed strange, and it came from a strange man, who claimed to have come from another world. From your Kaidaw.” He closed his mouth after this mysterious speech, as if sorry to have spoken.

He watched the numbers in the piece of jewellery writhing and changing for a while, and said, “You can tell me at a more leisurely time how this arrived in your possession. Now this audience is closed. I have other matters to attend to.”

He closed his hand over the bracelet.

CaraBansity broke into pained protest. The king’s demeanour changed. Rage burned from his eyes, from every line of his face. He leaned forward like a predatory bird.

“You atheists will never comprehend that Borlien lives or dies by its religion. Are we not threatened on every side by barbarians, by unbelievers? The empire cannot exist without belief. This bracelet threatens the empire, threatens belief itself. Its wriggling numbers come from a system that would destroy us…” In a less intense voice, he added, “Such is my conviction, and we must live or die by our convictions.”

The deuteroscopist bit his knuckle and said nothing.

JandolAnganol contemplated him, then spoke again.

“If you decide to become my chancellor, return here tomorrow. We will then speak more. Meanwhile, I will keep this atheistic bauble. What will your answer be, do you think? Will you become my chief advisor?”

Seeing the king place the bracelet within his clothes, CaraBansity was overcome.

“I thank your majesty. On that question, I must consult my own chief advisor, my wife…”

He bowed low as the king passed him and swept out of the room.

In a nearby corridor of the palace, the C’Sarr’s envoy was preparing to attend the king.

The portrait of Queen MyrdemInggala was painted on an oval piece of ivory cut from the tusk of a sea beast. It showed that unmatched face with a brow of flawless beauty, and her hair piled high above it. The queen’s deep blue eyes were shielded by full lids, while the neat chin lent a delicate aspect to an otherwise rather commanding mien. These features Alam Esomberr recognized from earlier portraits he had examined in Pannoval—for the queen’s beauty was known far and wide.

As he gazed upon this image, the official envoy of the Holy C’Sarr allowed his mind to dwell upon lascivious thoughts. He reflected that in a short space of time he would be face to face with the original masterpiece.

Two agents of Pannoval who spied for the C’Sarr stood before Esomberr. As he stared at the picture, they reported the gossip of Ottassol. They discussed back and forward between themselves the danger the queen of queens would be in once the divorcement between her and JandolAnganol was complete. He would wish to have her removed entirely from the scene. Entirely.

On the other hand, the general multitude preferred the queen to the king. Had not the king imprisoned his own father and bankrupted his country? The multitude might rise up, kill the king, and place MyrdemInggala on the throne. Justifiably.

Esomberr looked mildly upon them. “You worms,” he said. “You hrattocks. You tit-tattlers. Do not all kings bankrupt their countries? Would not everyone lock up his father, given the power? Are not queens always in danger? Do not multitudes always dream of rising up and overthrowing someone or other? You chatter merely of traditional role-playing in the great but on the whole somewhat typecast theatre of life. You tell me nothing of substance. Agents of Oldorando would be flogged if they turned in such a report.”

The men bowed their heads. “We also have to report that agents of Oldorando are busy here.”

“Let’s hope they don’t spend all their time rumboing the port wenches, as you two evidently do. The next time I summon you, I shall expect news from you, not gossip.”

The agents bowed more deeply and left the room, smiling excessively, as if they had been overpaid.

Alam Esomberr sighed, practised looking severe, and glanced again at the miniature of the queen.

“No doubt she’s stupid, or has some other defect to counterbalance such beauty,” he said aloud. He tucked the ivory into a safe pocket.

The envoy to C’Sarr Kilandar IX was a noble of deeply religious Taker family with connections in the deep-dwelling Holy City itself. His austere father, a member of the Grand Judiciary, had seen to it that promotion of his son, who despised him, had come early. Esomberr regarded this journey to bear witness to his friend’s divorcement as a holiday. On holiday, one was entitled to a little fun. He began to hope that Queen MyrdemInggala might provide it.

He was prepared to meet JandolAnganol. He summoned a footman. The footman took him into the presence of the king, and the two men embraced each other.

Esomberr saw that the king was more nervous in his manner than previously. Covertly, he assessed that lean bearded profile as the king escorted him into the chambers where revels were still in progress. The runt Yuli followed behind. Esomberr threw him a look of aversion, but said nothing.

“So, Jan, we have both managed to arrive in Ottassol safely. No invaders of your realm intercepted either of us on our way.”

They were friends as friendship went in those circles. The king remembered well Esomberr’s cynical airs and his habit of holding his head slightly to one side, as if questioning the world.

“As yet we are free of the depredations of Unndreid the Hammer. You will have heard of my encounter with Darvlish the Skull.”

“I’m sure the rogues you name are frightful rogues indeed. Would they have been somewhat nicer, one wonders, if they had been given less uncouth names?”

“I trust your suite is comfortable?”

“To speak true, Jan, I abominate your underground palace. What happens when your River Takissa floods?”

“The peasants dam it with their bodies. If the timetable suits you, we shall sail for Gravabagalinien tomorrow. There’s been delay enough, and the monsoon approaches. The sooner the divorcement is over the better.”

“I look forward to a sea voyage, as long as it is short and the coast remains within earshot.”

Wine was served them, and crushed ice added.

“Something worries you, cousin.”

“Many things worry me, Alam. It’s no matter. These days, even my faith worries me.” He hesitated, looked back over his shoulder. “When I am insecure, Borlien is insecure. Your master, the C’Sarr, our Holy Emperor, surely would understand that. We must live by our faith. For my faith, I renounce MyrdemInggala.”

“Cousin, in private we can admit that faith has a certain lack of substance, eh? Whereas your fair queen…” In his pocket, the king fingered the bracelet he had taken from CaraBansity. That had substance. That was the work of an insidious enemy who, intuition told him, could bring disaster to the state. He clenched his fist round the metal.

Esomberr gestured. His gestures, unlike the king’s, were languid, lacking spontaneity.

“The world’s going to pot, cousin, if not to Freyr. Though I must say religion never caused me to lose a wink of sleep. Indeed, religion’s often been the cause of sleep in me. All nations have their troubles. Randonan and the dreaded Hammer are your preoccupations. Oldorando now has a crisis with Kace. In Pannoval, we are once more being attacked by the Sibornalese. South through Chalce they come, unable to tolerate their ghastly homeland for another instant. A strong Pannoval-Oldorando-Borlien axis will improve the stability of all Campannlat. The other nations are mere barbarians.”

“Alam, you are requested to cheer me, not depress me, on the eve of my divorcement from MyrdemInggala.”

The envoy drained his glass. “One woman’s much like another. I’m sure you’ll be blissfully happy with Simoda Tal.”

He saw the pain in the king’s face. JandolAnganol said, looking away towards the dancers, “My son should be marrying Simoda Tal, but I get no sense from him. MyrdemInggala understands that I take this step in the interests of Borlien.”

“By the boulder, does she indeed?” Esomberr felt inside his silk jacket and produced a letter. “You had better read this, which has just come to my hand.”

Seeing MyrdemInggala’s bold handwriting, JandolAnganol took the sheet trembling, and read.

“Well, then we shall have to deal with this,” said the king, with a look of pain, clutching the letter.

“I will have to deal with this,” corrected Esomberr, retrieving the letter.

The following day, the party set sail westwards along the coast of Borlien. With the king went his new chancellor, Bardol CaraBansity.

The king had developed a nervous habit at this time of looking over his shoulder, as if he felt himself watched by Akhanaba, the great god of the Holy Pannoval Empire.

There were those who watched him—or who would watch him—but they were more remote in space and time than JandolAnganol could imagine. They were to be numbered in their millions. At this time, the planet Helliconia held ninety-six million human beings, and possibly a third of that number of phagors. The distant watchers were still more numerous.

The inhabitants of the planet Earth had once watched the affairs of Helliconia with considerable detachment. The transmissions from Helliconia, beamed to Earth by the Earth Observation Station, had begun as little more than a source of entertainment. Over the centuries, as Great Spring on Helliconia turned to Summer, matters were changing. Observation was developing into commitment. The watchers were being changed by what they watched; despite the fact that Present and Past on the two planets could never coincide, an empathetic link was now being forged. Schemes were in hand to make that link more positive. The increasing maturity, the increasing understanding of what it was to be an organic entity, was a debt which the peoples of Earth owed to Helliconia. They now saw the embarkation of the king from Ottassol, not as Tatro saw the wave on the beach, as a separate event, but rather as a strand in an inescapable web of cosmology, culture and history. That the king possessed free will was never in dispute among the observers; but whichever way JandolAnganol turned to exert his will—a ferocious one—the infinite linkages of the continuum closed behind him again, to leave little more trace than the keel of his ship upon the Sea of Eagles. Although the terrestrials viewed the divorce with compassion, they saw it less as an individual act than as a cruel example of a division in human nature between mistakenly romantic readings of love and duty. This they were able to do because something of Earth’s long crucifixion was over. The upheaval of JandolAnganol’s divorce from MyrdemInggala took place in the year 381, by the local Borlien-Oldorando calendar. As the mysterious timepiece had indicated, on Earth the year was 6877 years after the birth of Christ; but this suggested a false synchronicity, and the events of the divorce would become real to the peoples of Earth only when a further thousand years elapsed.

Dominating such local dates was a cosmic one with more meaning. Astronomical time in the Helliconian system was at full flood. The planet and its sister planets were approaching periastron, the nearest point in the orbit to the brilliant star known as Freyr.

It took Helliconia 2592 Earth years to complete one Great Year in its orbit about Freyr, during which time the planet endured extremes of heat and cold. Spring was over. Summer, the enervating summer of the Great Year, had arrived.

Summer’s duration would extend over two and a third Earth centuries. To those who lived on Helliconia at this time, winter and its desolations were but legends, although powerful ones. So they would remain yet a while, waiting in the human mind to become fact.

Above Helliconia shone its own local sun, Batalix. Dominating Batalix was its giant binary companion, Freyr, shining at present with an apparent brightness thirty percent greater than Batalix, although it was 236 times more distant.

Despite their involvements in their own history, the observers on Earth watched Helliconian events closely. They saw that strands of the web—the religious strand not the least—had been woven long ago which now entangled the King of Borlien.