Helliconia Spring

  Both hospice and surgery had a bad name – it was claimed that the tools of their respective trades were interchangeable; but the hospice was efficiently run by the first woman member of the apothecary's corps, a midwife and teacher at the academy known to all as Ma Scantiom, after the flowers with which she insisted on decking the wards under her command.

  A slave took Laintal Ay to her. She was a tall sturdy person of middle age, with plenty of bosom, and a kindly expression on her face. One of her aunts had been Nahkri's woman. She and Laintal Ay had been on good terms for many years.

  "I've two patients in an isolation ward I want you to see," she said, selecting a key from a number that hung at her belt. She had discarded hoxneys in favour of a long saffron apron-dress which hung almost to the floor.

  Ma Scantiom unlocked a sturdy door at the rear of her office.

  They went through into the old tower and climbed the ramps until they were at the top.

  From somewhere below them came the sound of a clow, played by a convalescent patient. Laintal Ay recognised the tune: "Stop, Stop, Voral River." The rhythm was fast, yet with a melancholy which matched the useless exhortation of the chorus. The river ran and would not stop, no, not for love or life itself….

  Each floor of the tower had been divided into small wards or cells, each with a door with a grille set in it. Without a word, Ma Scantiom slid back the cover over the grille and indicated that Laintal Ay was to look through.

  There were two beds in the cell, each bearing a man. The men were almost naked. They lay, in locked positions, nearly rigid but never entirely still. The man nearest the door, who had a thick mane of black hair, lay with his spine arched and his hands clenched together above his head. He was grinding his knuckles against the stone wall so that they seeped blood, which ran down the blue-veined paths of his arms. His head rolled stiffly at awkward angles. He caught sight of Laintal Ay at the grille, and his eyes tried to fix on him, but the head insisted on its continued slow-motion movement. Arteries in his neck stood out like cord.

  The second patient lying below the window, held his arms folded tight into his chest. He was curling himself into a ball and then unrolling, at the same time waggling his feet back and forth so that the little bones cracked. His gaze, distraught, moved between floor and ceiling. Laintal Ay recognized him as the man who had collapsed in the street.

  Both men were deathly pale and glistening with sweat, the pungent smell of which filtered out of the cell. They continued to wrestle with invisible assailants as Laintal Ay drew the cover across the grille.

  "The bone fever," he said. He stood close to Ma Scantiom, seeking out her expression in the thick shadow.

  She merely nodded. He followed down the ramps behind her.

  The clow was still wearily playing.

  Why do you hurry so?

  Pray this longing takes me to her

  Or else lets me go …

  Ma Scantiom said over her shoulder, "The first of them arrived two days ago – I should have called you yesterday. They starve themselves; they can hardly be persuaded to take water. It's like a prolonged muscular spasm. Their minds are affected."

  "They'll die?"

  "Only about half survive attacks of bone fever. Sometimes, when they have lost a third of their body weight, they simply pull out of it. They then normalise at their new weight. Others go mad and die, as if the fever got in their harneys and killed them."

  Laintal Ay swallowed, feeling his throat dry. Back in her office, he took a deep inhalation of a bunch of scantiom and raige on the window sill to cleanse the stench in his nostrils. The room was painted white.

  "Who are they? Traders?"

  "They have both come from the east, travelling with different groups of Madis. One's a trader, one's a bard. Both have phagor slaves, which are at present in the vet's surgery. You probably know that bone fever can spread fast and become a major plague. I want those patients out of my hospice. We need somewhere away from town where we can isolate them. These won't be the only cases."

  "You've spoken to Faralin Ferd about it?"

  She frowned. "Worse than useless. First of all, he and Tanth Ein said the sick must not be moved from here. Then they suggested killing them and dumping the bodies in the Voral."

  "I'll see what I can do. I know a ruined tower about five miles away. Perhaps that would be suitable."

  "I knew you'd help." She put a hand on his sleeve, smiling. "Something brings the disease. Under favourable conditions, it can spread like a fire. Half the population would die – we know of no cure. My belief is that those filthy phagors carry it. Perhaps it is the scent of their pelts. There are two hours of Freyr-dark tonight; in that time, I am going to have the two phagors in the vet's surgery killed and buried. I wanted to tell someone in authority, so I'm telling you. I knew you'd be on my side."

  "You think they will spread bone fever further?"

  "I don't know. I just don't wish to take any risks. There may be another cause entirely – the blindness may bring it. Wutra may send it."

  She tucked her lower lip in. He read the concern in her homely face.

  "Bury them deep where the dogs can't scratch them up again. I'll see about the ruined tower for you. Are you expecting" – he hesitated – "more cases soon?"

  Without changing her expression, she said, "Of course."

  As he left, the clow was still playing its plaintive tune, remote in the depths of the building.

  •••

  Laintal Ay did not think of complaining to Ma Scantiom, although he had laid other plans for the two hours of Freyr-dark.

  Dathka's speech of the morning, when Oyre had returned from her pauk-induced spell of father-communing, troubled him deeply. He saw the strength of the argument which said that he and Oyre together represented invincible claimants to the leadership of Oldorando. In general, he wanted what was rightfully his, as anyone else did. And he certainly wanted Oyre. But did he want to rule Oldorando?

  It seemed that Dathka's speech had subtly changed the situation. Perhaps he could now win Oyre only by taking power.

  This line of thought occupied his mind as he went about Ma Scantiom's business, which was everyone's business. Bone fever was no more than a legend, yet the fact that nobody had experienced the reality made the legend all the more dark. People died. Plague was like the manic stepping-up of a natural process.

  So he worked without complaint, conscripting help from Goija Hin. Together, Laintal Ay and the slave driver collected the two phagors belonging to the bone fever victims and sent them into the isolation cell. There, the phagors were made to roll their sick masters into rush mats and carry them away from the hospice. The innocuous-looking mat rolls would cause no panic.

  The small group moved with its burdens out of town towards the ruined tower Laintal Ay knew of. With them shuffled the ancient slave phagor, Myk, to take an occasional turn carrying the diseased men. This was designed to hasten the proceedings, but Myk had become so ancient that progress was slow.

  Goija Hin, also bent with age, his hair growing so long and stiff over his shoulders that he resembled one of his miserable captives, lashed Myk savagely. Neither lash nor curses hastened the old burdened slave. He staggered onward without protest, though his calves above his fetters were raw from whipping.

  "My trouble is, I neither want to wield the lash nor feel it," Laintal Ay told himself. Another layer of thought arose in his mind, like mist on a still morning. He reflected that he lacked certain qualities. There was little he wished for. He was content with the days as they fled.

  I've been too content, I suppose. It was enough to know that Oyre loved me, and to lie in her arms. It was enough that once Aoz Roon was almost like a father to me. It was enough that the climate changed, enough that Wutra ordered his sentinels to keep their place in the sky.

  Now Wutra has left his sentinels to stray. Aoz Roon has gone. And what was that cutting thing Oyre said earlier that Dathka was mature, implying I was not? Oh, tha
t silent friend of mine, is that maturity, to be a mass of cunning plots inside? Wasn't contentment maturity enough?

  There was too much of his grandfather, Little Yuli, in him, too little of Yuli the Priest. And for the first time in a long while, he recalled his mild grandfather's enchantment with Loil Bry, and of how they had stayed together happily in the room with the porcelain window. It was another age. Everything had been simpler then. They had been so content then, with so little.

  He was not content to die now. Not content to be killed by the lieutenants if they thought him involved with Dathka's plotting. And not content either to die of the bone fever, contracted from these two wretches they were carrying away from the city. It was still three miles to the old tower he had in mind.

  He paused. The phagors and Goija Hin trudged on automatically with their vile burdens. Here he was again, once more meekly doing what was asked of him. There was no reason for it. His stupid habit of obedience had to be broken.

  He shouted to the phagors. They halted. They stood where they were, without moving. Only the burdens on their shoulders creaked slightly.

  The group was standing on a narrow track with thickets of dogthrush on either side. A child had been eaten near here a few days earlier; evidence suggested a sabre-tongue had been the killer – the predators came in close to settlements now that wild hoxneys were scarce. So there were few people about.

  Laintal Ay struck in among the bushes. He got the phagors to carry their sick masters into the thicket and set them down. The monsters did so carelessly, so that the men rolled on the ground, still in locked positions.

  Their lips were blue, peeled back to reveal yellow teeth and gums. Their limbs were distorted, their bones creaked. They were in some way aware of their position, yet unable to cease a constant motor movement, making their eyeballs roll horribly in their stretched facial skin.

  "You know what's the matter with these men?" Laintal Ay asked. Goija Hin nodded his head and smiled evilly to demonstrate his mastery over human knowledge. "They're ill," he said.

  Nor did Laintal Ay forget the fever he had once caught off a phagor. "Kill the men. Make the phagors scrape out graves with their hands. As fast as you can."

  "I understand." The slave master came heavily forward. Laintal Ay stood with a branch pressing in his back, watching the fat old man do as he was bid, as Goija Hin had always done. At each step in the proceedings, Laintal Ay gave an order and it was executed. He felt himself fully implicated in everything and would not let himself look away. Goija Hin drew a short sword and stabbed it twice through the hearts of the sick men. The phagors scraped graves with their horny hands – two white phagors, and Myk, as obese as his master, prickled with the black hairs of age and working very slowly.

  All the phagors had shackles on their legs. They rolled the corpses into their graves and kicked dirt over them, then stood without movement, as was their fashion, awaiting the next order. They were commanded to scrape three more graves under the bushes. This they did, working like mute animals. Goija Hin ran his sword between the ribs of the two strange phagors, afterwards smearing the yellow ichor on their coats as they lay face down, in order to clean his blade.

  Myk was made to push them in their graves and cover them with dirt.

  As he stood up, he faced Laintal Ay, sliding his pale milt up the slot of his right nostril.

  "Not kill now Myk, master. Strike off my chains and allow me to go away to die."

  "What, let you loose, you old scumble, after all these years?" Goija Hin said angrily, raising the sword.

  Laintal Ay stopped him, staring at the ancient phagor. The creature had given him rides on his back when he was a boy. It touched him that Myk did not attempt to remind him of the fact. There was no feeble appeal to sentiment. Instead, he stood without movement, awaiting whatever would befall.

  "How old are you, Myk?" Sentiment, he thought, my sentiment. You couldn't face giving the necessary order to kill, could you?

  "I prisoner, don't count years." The s's were dragged like bees from his throat. "Once, we ancipitals ruled Embruddock, and you Sons of Freyr were our slaves. Ask Mother Shay Tal – she knew."

  "She told me. And you killed us as we kill you."

  The crimson eyes blinked once. The creature growled, "We kept you alive through the centuries when Freyr was sick. Much foolish. Now you Sons will all die. You strike away my chains, leave me go to die in tether."

  Laintal Ay gestured to the open grave. "Kill him," he ordered Goija Hin.

  Myk put up no struggle. Goija Hin kicked the huge body into the depression and piled dirt about it with his boot. Then he stood among the tanglewood, facing Laintal Ay, moistening his lips and looking uneasy.

  "I knew you when you was a little boy, sir. I was good to you. Myself, I always said you should be Lord of Embruddock – you ask my mates if I didn't."

  He made no attempt to defend himself with his sword. It fell from his hands and he went down on his knees, blubbering, bowing his hoary head.

  "Myk's probably right," Laintal Ay said. "We've probably got the plague in us. We're probably too late." Without another glance, he left Goija Hin where he was and strode back to the crowded city, angry with himself for not striking the fatal blow.

  It was late when he entered his room. He stared round it without relaxing his black expression. Horizontal rays of Freyrlight lit the far corner, flaring up brightly, casting the rest of the room into unlikely shade.

  He rinsed his face and hands in the basin, scooping up the cool water, letting it run over his brow, his eyelids, his cheeks, and drip from his jaw. He did it repeatedly, breathing deeply, feeling the heat leave him and the self-anger remain. As he smoothed his face, he noted with satisfaction that his hands had ceased to tremble. The light in the corner slid to one wall and faded to a smouldering yellow, making a square no bigger than a box in which the world's gold decayed. He went round the room, collecting a few items to take with him, scarcely giving a thought to the task.

  There was a knock on the door. Oyre looked in. As if sensing immediately the tension in the room, she paused on the threshold.

  "Laintal Ay – where have you been? I've been waiting for you."

  "There was something I had to do."

  She paused with her hand still on the latch, watching, breathing a sigh. With the light behind him, she could not decipher his expression through the thick dusk gathering in the room, but she caught the abruptness in his voice.

  "Is anything the matter, Laintal Ay?"

  He stuffed his old hunter's blanket into a pack, punching it down. "I'm leaving Oldorando."

  "Leaving …? Where are you going?"

  "Oh … let's say I'm going to look for Aoz Roon." He spoke bitterly. "I've lost interest in – in everything here."

  "Don't be silly." She moved a step forward as she spoke, to see him better, thinking how large he seemed in the low-ceilinged room. "How will you seek him in the wilderness?"

  He turned to face her, slinging the pack over one shoulder. "Do you think it's sillier to seek him in the real world or to go down in pauk among the gossies to find him, as you do? You were always telling me I had to do something great. Nothing satisfied you…. Well, now I'm off, to do or die. Isn't that something great?"

  She laughed feebly, and said, "I don't want you to go. I want –"

  "I know what you want. You think Dathka is mature and I'm not. Well, to hell with that. I've had enough. I'm going, as I always longed to do. Try your luck with Dathka."

  "I love you, Laintal Ay. Now you're acting like Aoz Roon."

  He took hold of her. "Stop coming me with other people. Perhaps you're not as clever as I thought, or you'd know when you were hurting me. I love you too, but I'm going…."

  She screamed. "Why are you so brutal?"

  "I've lived with brutes long enough. Stop asking stupid questions."

  He put his arms round her, dragging her close, and kissed her hard on the mouth, so that her lips were forced back an
d their teeth slid together.

  "I hope to be back," he said. He laughed sharply at the stupidity of his own remark. With a final glance, he left, slamming the door behind him, leaving her in the empty room. The gold had died to ashes. It was almost dark, though she saw points of fire in the street outside.

  "Oh scumb," she exclaimed. "Curse you – and curse me, too."

  Then she recovered herself, ran to the door, and flung it open, shouting to him. Laintal Ay was running down the stairs and did not respond. She ran after him, clutching his sleeve.

  "Laintal Ay, you idiot, where are you going?"

  "I'm going to saddle up Gold."

  He said it so angrily – wiping his mouth on the back of his hand – that she remained where she was. Then the thought occurred to her that she must get Dathka at once. Dathka would know how to deal with his friend's madness.

  Just recently, Dathka had become elusive. Sometimes he slept in the unfinished building across the Voral, sometimes in one tower or another, sometimes in one of the doubtful new places springing up. All she could think of at this hour was to run to Shay Tal's tower to see if he was with Vry. Fortunately, he was. He and Vry were in the middle of a quarrel; her cheek burned and she cowered almost as if Dathka had struck her. Dathka looked pale with fury, but Oyre broke in on them and poured out her tale, oblivious to their troubles. Dathka gave a choking noise.

  "We can't let him leave now, just when everything's falling apart."

  With one deadly glance at Vry, he ran from the room.

  He ran all the way to the stables, and was in time to catch Laintal Ay walking out, leading Gold. They confronted each other.

  "You're plain mad, friend – behave sensibly. No one wants you to go. Come to your senses and look after your own interests."

  "I am sick of doing what everyone wants me to do. You want me here because you need me to play a role in your schemes."

  "We need you to see that Tanth Ein and his mate, and that slimy toad Raynil Layan, don't take control of everything we've got." His expression was bitter.