Helliconia Winter

by neetha Napew

  Besi was an orphan who remembered neither of her parents, although rumour had it that she was the daughter of a slave woman from far Dimariam. Some claimed that this slave woman had been accompanying her master on a pilgrimage to Holy Kharnabhar; he had kicked her out on the streets on discovering that she was about to give birth. Whether true or not (Besi would say cheerfully), the story had a ring of truth. Such things happened.

  Besi had survived her childhood by dancing in those same streets into which her mother had been kicked. By that dancing, she had come to the notice of a dignitary on his way to the Oligarch's court in Askitosh. After undergoing a variety of abuses at the hands of this man, Besi managed to escape from the house in which she was imprisoned with other women by hiding in an empty walrus-oil vat.

  She was rescued from the vat by a nephew of Eedap Mun Odim's, who traded on his uncle's behalf in Askitosh. She so charmed this impressionable young man, particularly when she played her trump card and danced for him, that he took her in marriage. Their joy, however, was brief. Four tenners after their wedding day, the nephew fell from the loft of one of his uncle's warehouses and broke his neck.

  As orphan, ex-dancing girl, slave, other dubious things, and now widow, Besi Besamitikahl had no standing in any respectable Uskuti community.

  Odim, however, was a Kuj-Juveci, and a mere trader. He protected Besi - not least from the scorn of her relations by marriage - and so discovered that the girl could think as well as employ her more obvious talents. Since she still had her beauty, he adopted her as first mistress.

  Besi was grateful. She became rather plump, tried to look less flighty, and assisted Odim in the countinghouse; in time, she could supervise the complex business of ordering his cargoes and scrutinising bills of lading. The days of the Oligarch's court and the walrus oil were now far behind her.

  After a brief exchange with the watchman, she climbed the winding stair to her own room.

  She paused at one of the tiny kitchens on the second floor, where an old grandmother was busy preparing supper with a maidservant. The old woman gave Besi a greeting, then turned back to the business of making pastry savrilas.

  Lamplight gleamed on pale and honey-coloured forms, the simple shapes of bowls and jugs, plates, spoons and sieves, and on dumpy bags of flour. The pastry was being rolled wafer-thin, as mottled old hands moved above its irregular shape. The young maidservant leaned against a wall, looking on vacantly, pulling at her lower lip. Water in a skillet hissed over a charcoal fire. A pecubea sang in its cage.

  What Odim said could not be true: that everyday life in Koriantura was threatened - not while the grandmother's capable hands continued to turn out those perfect half-moon shapes, each with a dimpled straight edge and a twist of pastry at one end. Those little pillows of pleasure spoke of a domestic contentment which could not be shattered. Odim worried too much. Odim always worried. Nothing would happen.

  Besides, tonight Besi had someone other than Odim on her mind. There was a mysterious soldier in the house, and she had glimpsed him that morning.

  All the lower and less favoured rooms were occupied by Odim's many relatives. They constituted almost a small township. Besi held little communication with any of them except the old grandmother, resenting the way they sponged off Odim's good nature. She patrolled through their rooms with her nose in the air, tilting that organ at an angle which enabled her to see what was happening in those enervating abodes.

  Here basked remote female Odims of great age, grown monstrous on sloth; younger female Odims, their figures flowing like loose garments under the impact of bearing multitudinous small Odims; adolescent female Odims, willowy, reeking of zaldal perfume, frugal in all but the spots and pallors of indoor life; and the multitudinous small Odims themselves, clad in bright frocks or frocklets, so that boy could scarcely be distinguished from girl, should anyone wish to do so, scurrying, sicking, scuttling, squabbling, suckling, screaming, sulking, or sleeping.

  Scattered here and there like cushions, overwhelmed by the preponderance of femininity, were a few Odim males. Castrated by their dependence on Eedap Mun Odim, they were vainly growing beards or smoking veronikanes or bellowing orders never to be complied with, in an effort to assert the ascendancy of their sex. And all these relations and interrelations, of whatever generation, bore, in their sallow skin colour, their listless eye, their heaviness of jowl, their tendency - if an avalanche may be so termed - towards corpulence, flatulence, and somnolence, such a family resemblance that only loathing prompted Besi to distinguish one odious Odim from the next.

  Yet the Odims themselves made clear distinctions. Despite their superabundance, they kept each to their own portion of whatever room they occupied, squabbling luxuriously in corners or lounging on clearly defined patches of carpet. Narrow trails were traced out across each crowded chamber, so that any child venturing onto the territory of a rival, even that of a mother's sister, might expect a clout straight off, no questions asked. At night, brothers slept in perfect and jealously-guarded privacy within two feet of their voluptuous sisters-in-law. Their tiny portions of real estate were marked off by ribbons or rugs, or draperies hung from lines of string. Every square yard was guarded with the ferocity normally lavished on kingdoms.

  These arrangements Besi viewed with jaundiced eye. She saw how the murals on the walls were becoming besmirched by her master's vast family; the sheer fattiness of the Odims was steaming the delicate tones from the plaster. The murals depicted lands of plenty, ruled over by two golden suns, where deer sported amid tall green trees, and young men and women lay by bushes full of doves, dallying or blowing suggestively on flutes. Those idylls had been painted two centuries ago, when the house was new; they reflected a bygone world, the vanished valleys of Kuj-Juvec in autumn.

  Both the paintings and their pending destruction fed Besi's mood of discontent; but what she was chiefly seeking was a place where she could enjoy a little privacy away from her master's eye. As she completed her tour in increasing disgust, she heard the outside door slam and the watchdog give its sharp bark.

  She ran to the stairwell and looked down.

  Her master, Eedap Mun Odim, was returning from worship, and setting his foot on the lowest stair. She saw his fur hat, his suede coat, the shine of his neat boots, all foreshortened. She caught glimpses of his long nose and his long beard. Unlike all his relations, Eedap Mun Odim was a slender man, a morsel; work and money worries had contained his waistline. The sole pleasures he allowed himself were those of the bedchamber, where - as Besi knew - he kept a cautious mercantile tally of them and entered them in a little book.

  Uncertain what to do, she stood where she was. Odim drew level and glanced at her. He nodded and gave a slight smile.

  "Don't disturb me," he said, as he passed. "I shall not want you tonight."

  "As you please," she said, employing one of her well-worn phrases. She knew what was worrying him. Eedap Mun Odim was a leading light in the porcelain trade, and the porcelain trade was in difficulties.

  Odim climbed to the top of the house and closed his door. His wife had a meal prepared; its aromas filtered through the house and down to those quarters where food was less easily come by.

  Besi remained on the landing, in the dusk among the odours of crowded lives, half-listening to the noises all round her. She could hear, too, the sound of military boots outside, as soldiers marched along the Climent Quay. Her fingers, still slender, played a silent tune on the bannister rail.

  So it was that she stood concealed from anyone on the floors below her. So it was that she saw the old watchman creep from his lair, look furtively about, and slink out the door. Perhaps he was going to find out what the Oligarch's soldiery were doing. Although Besi had taken care to befriend him long ago, she knew the watchman would never dare let her out of the house without Odim's permission.

  After a moment, the door opened again. In came a man of military bearing, whose wide bar of moustache neatly divided his face along its horizonta
l axis. This was the man who had provided the secret motive for Besi's inspection of her domain. It was Captain Harbin Fashnalgid, their new lodger.

  The watchdog came rushing out of the watchman's lair and began to bark. But Besi was already moving swiftly down the stairs, as nimbly as a plump little doe down a steep cliff.

  "Hush, hush!" she called. The dog turned to her, swinging its black jowls around and making a mock charge to the bottom of the stairs. It thrust out a length of tongue and spread saliva across Besi's hand without in any way relaxing its menacing scowl.

  "Down," she said. "Good boy."

  The captain came across the hall and clutched her arm. They stared into each other's eyes, hers a deep deep brown, his a startling grey. He was tall and slim, a true pure Uskuti, and unlike the proliferating Odims in every way. Thanks to the Oligarch's troop movements, the captain had been billeted on Odim the previous day, and Odim had reluctantly made room for him among his family on the top floor. When the captain and Besi clapped eyes on each other, Besi - whose survival through a hazardous life had had something to do with her impressionability - had fallen in love with him straight away.

  A plan came immediately into her mind.

  "Let's have a walk outside," she said. "The watchman's not here."

  He held her even more tightly.

  "It's cold outside."

  All he needed was her slight imperious shake of the head, and then they moved together to the door, looking up furtively into the shadows of the staircase. But Odim was closeted in his room and one woman or another would be playing a binnaduria and singing him songs of forsaken fortresses in Kuj-Juvec, where maidens were betrayed and white gloves, dropped one fateful dimday, were forever treasured.

  Captain Fashnalgid put his heavy boot to the chest of the hound - which had shown every sign of following them away from captivity - and whisked Besi Besamitikahl into the outside world. He was a man of decision in the realm of love. Grasping her arm firmly, he led her across the courtyard and out of the gate where the oil lamp burned.

  As one they turned to the right, heading up the cobbled street.

  "The church," she said. Neither said another word, for the cold wind blew in their faces, coming from the Circumpolar Mountains with ice on its breath.

  In the street, winding upwards with it, went a line of pale dogthrush trees, wan between the two enclosing stone cliffs of houses. Their leaves flapped in the wind. A file of soldiers, muffled, heads down, walked on the other side of the road, their boots setting up echoes. The sky was a sludgy grey which spread to even-thing beneath it.

  In the church, lights burned. A congregation cried its evensong. Since the church had a slightly bohemian reputation, Odim never came here. Outside its walls, tall man-high stones stood in rows, more correct than soldiers, commemorating those whose days beneath the sky were done. The furtive lovers picked their way among the memorials and hid against a shadowy sheltered wall. Besi put her arms round the captain's neck.

  After they whispered to each other for some while, he slid a hand inside her furs and her dress. She gasped at the cold of his touch. When she reciprocated, he grunted at the chill of her hand. Their flesh seemed ice and fire alternately, as they worked closer together. Besi noticed with approval that the captain was enjoying himself and in no great hurry. Loving was so easy, she thought, and whispered in his ear, "It's so simple..." He only burrowed deeper.

  When they were united, he held her firmly against the wall. She let her head roll back against the rough stone and gasped his name, so newly learned.

  Afterwards, they leaned together against the wall, and Fashnalgid said matter-of-factly, "It was good. Are you happy with your master?"

  "Why ask me that?"

  "I hope one day to make something of myself. Maybe I could buy you, once this present trouble's over."

  She snuggled against him, saying nothing. Life in the army was uncertain. To be a captain's chattel was a steep step down from her present security.

  He brought a flask from his pocket and drank deeply. She smelt the tang of spirits and thought, Thank God Odim doesn't booze. Captains are all drinkers...

  Fashnalgid gasped. "I'm not much catch, I know that. The fact is, girl, I'm worried about this errand I'm on. They've landed me with a real sherber this time, my scab-devouring regiment here. I reckon I'm going mad."

  "You're not from Koriantura, are you?"

  "I'm from Askitosh. Are you listening to me?"

  "It's freezing. We'd better get back."

  Grudgingly, he came along, taking her arm in the street, which made her feel like a free woman.

  "Have you heard the name of Archpriest-Militant Asperamanka?"

  With the wind about her head, she gave him only a nod. He wasn't as romantic as she had hoped. But she had been to listen to the Priest-Militant just a tenner earlier, when he had held an outdoor service in one of the city squares. He had spoken so eloquently. His gestures had been pleasing and she had enjoyed watching. Asperamanka! - what a gift of the gab! Later, she and Odim had watched him lead his army through the city and out by the East Gate. The guns had shaken the ground as they passed. And all those young men marching off ...

  "The Priest-Militant took my oath of fealty to the Oligarchy when I was made captain. That's a while ago." He smoothed his heavy moustache. "Now I'm really in trouble. Abro Hakmo Astab!"

  Besi was deeply disgusted to hear this curse spoken in her presence. Only the lowest and most desperate would use it. She tugged her arm from his and quickened her pace down the street.

  "That man has won a great victory for us against Pannoval. We heard about it in the mess at Askitosh. But it's being kept secret. Secrets... Sibornal lives on sherbing secrets. Why do you think they should do that?"

  "Can you tip our watchman so that he doesn't make a fuss to Odim?" She paused as they got to the outer gate. A new poster had been pasted up there. She could not read it in the dark, and did not wish to.

  As Fashnalgid felt in his pocket for money as she requested, he said, in a flat way that seemed characteristic, "I have been posted to Koriantura to help organise a force which will ambush the Priest-Militant's army when it returns from Chalce. Our orders are to kill every last man, including Asperamanka. What do you make of that?"

  "It sounds awful," Besi said. "I'd better go in first in case there's trouble."

  Next morning, the wind had dropped, and Koriantura was enveloped in a soft brown fog, through which the two suns gleamed intermittently. Besi watched the thin, parched form of Eedap Mun Odim as he ate breakfast. She was allowed to eat only when he had finished. He did not speak, but she knew that he was in his usual resigned good humour. Even while she recollected the pleasures that Captain Fashnalgid could offer, she knew that she was, despite everything, fond of Odim.

  As if to test out his humour, he allowed upstairs one of his distant relations, a second cousin who professed to be a poet, to speak to him.

  "I have a new poem, cousin, an Ode to History," said the man, bowing, and began to declaim.

  "Whose is my life? Is history

  To be considered property

  Only of those who make it?

  May not my finer fancy take it

  Into my heart's morality

  And shape it just as it shapes me?"

  There was more of the same. "Very good," said Odim, rising and wiping his bearded lips on a silken napkin. "Fine sentiments, well displayed. Now I must get down to the office, if you will excuse me - refreshed by your ornamental thoughts."

  "Your praise overwhelms me," said the distant cousin, and withdrew.

  Odim took another sip of his tea. He never touched alcohol.

  He summoned Besi to his side as a servant came forward to help him into his outdoor coat. His progress down the stairs, Besi obediently following, was slow, as he underwent the barrage of his relations, those Odims who squawked like starlings on every stair, cajoling but not quite begging, jostling but not quite pushing, touching but not quite i
mpacting, calling but not quite shrieking, lifting tiny befrocked Odims for inspection but not exactly thrusting them in his face, as he performed his daily spiral downwards.

  "Uncle, little Ghufla can do his arithmetic so well..."

  "Uncle, I am so shamed that I must tell you of yet another infidelity when we are private together."

  "Darling Unky, stop a while while I tell you of my terrifying dream in which some terrible shining creature like a dragon came and devoured us all."

  "Do you admire my new dress? I could dance in it for you?"

  "Have you news from my creditor yet, please?"

  "Despite your orders, Kenigg kicks me and pulls my hair and makes my life a misery, Unky. Please let me be your servant and escape him."

  "You forget those who love you, darling Eedap. Save us from our poverty, as we have pleaded so often."

  "How noble and handsome you look today, Unk Eedap..."

  The merchant showed neither impatience at the constant supplications nor pleasure at the forced compliments.

  He pushed slowly through the thickets of Odim flesh, the odours of Odim sweat and perfume, saying a word here and there, smiling, permitting himself once to squeeze the mangolike breasts proffered by a young great-niece, sometimes even going so far as to press a silver coin into a particularly protruding hand. It was as if he considered - and indeed he did - that life could be got through only by sufferance, dispensing as few advantages to others as possible but nevertheless retaining a general humanity for the sake of one's self-respect.