‘What else did you do with my father? In Borlien. Was he drunk? I want to know — did he have a young woman on the boat from Matrassyl? Did he have carnal knowledge of her? You must tell me.’ She leaned over him, to grasp him as her brother had done. ‘He’s drinking now. There was a woman, wasn’t there? I ask you for my mother’s sake.’
The intensity with which these words were spoken frightened Billy; he strove to sink deeper into the tree, to feel the rough bark gripping his eddre. Bubbles came from his mouth.
She shook him. ‘Did he have carnal knowledge? Tell me. Die if you will, but tell me.’
He tried to nod.
Something in his distorted expression confirmed her guess. A look of vindictive satisfaction came on her face.
‘Men! That’s how they take advantage of women. My poor mother has suffered from his debauchery for years, poor innocent thing. I found out years ago. It was an awful shock. We Dimariamians are respectable people, not like the inhabitants of the Savage Continent, which I hope never to have to visit…’
As her voice died, Billy attempted an inarticulate protest. It served to rekindle the fire of Immya’s animosity. ‘And what about the poor innocent girl involved? And her innocent mother? I long ago made that brother of mine, the bane of my life, confess to me everything my father does… Men are pigs, ruled by lust, unable to keep faith…’
‘The girl.’ But Abathy’s name became entangled with the knots in his larynx.
Gloaming enveloped Lordryardry. Freyr sank to the west. Bird songs became fewer. Batalix took up a position low on the horizon, where it could glare across the water at the scaley things piled on the shore. Mists thickened, obscuring the stars and the Night Worm.
Eivi Muntras brought Billy some soup before she retired to bed. As he drank, terrible hungers rose from his very eddre. His immobility was overcome, he sprang at Eivi, bit her shoulder and tore flesh from it. He ran about the room screaming. This was the bulimia associated with the late stages of fat death. Other members of the family came running, slaves brought lights. Billy was cursed and cuffed and strapped down to his bed.
For an hour he was left, while the sound of ministrations came from the other end of the house. He endured visions of eating Eivi whole, of sucking her brains. He wept. He imagined that he was back on the Avernus. He imagined he was eating Rose Yi Pin. He wept again. His tears fell like leaves.
Boards creaked in the corridor. A dim lamp appeared, behind it a man’s face floating as if on a stream of darkness. The Ice Captain, breathing heavily. Fumes of Exaggerator entered the room with him.
‘Are you all right? I’d have to throw you out if you weren’t dying, Billish.’ He steadied himself, breathing heavily. ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this… I know you’re some kind of angel from a better world, Billish, even when you bite like a devil. A man’s got to believe there’s a better world somewhere. Better than this one, where no one cares about you. Avernus… I would take you back there, if I could. I’d like to see it.’
Billy was back in his tree, his limbs part and parcel of its agonised branches.
‘Better.’
‘That’s right, better. I’m going to sit in the courtyard, Billish, just outside your window. Have a drink. Think about things. It’ll soon enough be time to pay the men. If you want me, just give a call.’
He was sorry that Billish was dying, and the Exaggerator made him sorry for himself. It was puzzling the way he always felt more comfortable with strangers, even with the queen of queens, than he did with his own family. With them he was constantly at a disadvantage.
He settled himself down outside the window, placing a jug and glass on the bench beside him. In the milky light, the stones resembled sleeping animals. The albic climbing the walls of the house opened its blooms, the blooms opened their beaks like parrots; a tranquil scent floated on the air.
After his plan to bring Billish here in secrecy had succeeded, he found himself unable to proceed further. He wanted to tell everyone that there was more to life than they knew, that Billish was a living example of that truth. It was not just that Billish was dying; Muntras suspected, somewhere in a cold corner of his being, that there might be less to life than he knew. He wished he had remained a wanderer. Now he was back home for good…
After a while, sighing, the Ice Captain pulled himself to his feet and peered through the open window. ‘Billish, are you awake? Have you seen Div?’
A gurgle in response.
‘Poor lad, he’s not really fit for the job, that’s the truth…’ He sat down again on the bench, groaning. He took up his glass and drank. Too bad Billish didn’t like Exaggerator.
The milky light thickened. Dusk-moths purred among the albic. In the sleeping house at his back boards creaked.
‘There must be a better world somewhere…’ Muntras said, and fell asleep with an unlit veronikane between his lips.
The sound of voices. Muntras roused. He saw his men gathering in the court to be paid. It was daylight. Dead calm prevailed.
Muntras stood and stretched. He looked in through the window at Billish’s contorted form, motionless on the couch.
‘This is assatassi day, Billish — I’d forgotten, with you here. The monsoon high tide. You ought to see this. It’s quite a local event. There’ll be celebrations tonight, and no half measures.’
From the couch came a single word, forced from a locked jaw. ‘Celebrations.’
The workmen were rough, dressed in rough overalls. They cast their gaze down on the worn paving stones in case their master took offence at being discovered asleep. But that was not Muntras’s way.
‘Come on, men. I’ll not be paying you out much longer. It’ll be Master Div’s turn. Let’s get it over with promptly, and then we’ll prepare for the festivities. Where’s my pay clerk?’
A small man with a high collar and hair brushed in the opposite direction to anyone else’s came darting forward. He had a ledger under his arm and was followed by a stallun carrying a safe. The clerk made a great business of pushing through the workers. This he did with his eyes constantly on his employer and his lips working as if he was already calculating what each man should be paid. His arrival caused the men to shuffle into a line to await their modest remuneration. In the unusual light, their features were without animation.
‘You lot are going to collect your wages, and then you’re going to hand it over to your wives or get drunk as usual,’ Muntras said. He addressed the men near him, among whom he saw only common-hire labourers and none of his master craftsmen. But at once a mixture of indignation and pity seized him and he spoke louder, so that all could hear. ‘Your lives are going by. Here you’re stuck. You’ve been nowhere. You know of the legends of Pegovin, but have you ever been there? Who’s been there? Who’s been to Pegovin?’
They leaned back against the rounded stones, muttering.
‘I’ve been all over the world. I’ve seen it all. I’ve been to Uskutoshk, I’ve visited the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar, I’ve seen old ruined cities and sold junk in the bazaars of Pannoval and Oldorando. I’ve spoken with kings and queens as fair as flowers. It’s all out there, waiting for the man who dares. Friends everywhere. Men and women. It’s wonderful. I’ve loved every minute of it.
‘It’s bigger than you can ever imagine, stuck here at Lordryardry. This last voyage, I met a man who came from another world. There’s more than just this world, Helliconia. There’s another circling around us, Avernus. And others beyond that, worlds to be visited. Earth, for instance.’