Member Ebstok Esikananzi was a man who believed in being unafraid to speak his mind, despite the fact that this organ, when spoken, had only one theme to sound: the importance of his opinion.
As they demolished the maggoty fists of venison on their plates, Esikananzi said, addressing both Luterin and the rest of the table, “You’ll have heard the news about our friend Priest-Supreme Chub-salid. Some of his followers are kicking up a bit of trouble here. Wretched man preached treason against the State. Your father and I used to go hunting with Chubsalid in better days. Did you know that, Luterin? Well, we did on one occasion.
“The traitor was born in Bribahr, so you don’t wonder… He paid a visit to the monasteries of the Wheel. Now he takes it into his head to speak against the State, the friend and protector of the Church.”
“They have burnt him for it, Father, if that’s any consolation,” said one of the Esikananzi sons, with a laugh.
“Of course. And his estates in Bribahr will be confiscated. I wonder who will get them? The Oligarchy will decide on what is best. The great thing is, as winter descends, to guard against anarchy. For Sib- ornal, the four main tasks are clear. To unify the continent, to strike rapidly against all subversive activity, whether in economic, religious, or academic life…”
As the voice droned on, Luterin Shokerandit stared down at his plate. He was without appetite. His eventful time away from Shivenink had so widened his outlook on life that he was oppressed by the sight and sound of the Esikananzis, of whom he had once been in awe. The pattern of the plate before him penetrated his consciousness; with a wave of nostalgia, he realised that it was an Odim export, despatched from the warehouse in Koriantura in better times. He thought with affection of Eedap Mun Odim and his pleasant brother—and then, with guilt, of Toress Lahl, at present locked in his suite for safety. Looking up he caught Insil’s cool gaze.
“The Oligarchy will have to pay for the death of the Priest-Supreme,” he said, “no less than for the slaughter of Asperamanka’s army. Why should winter be an excuse for overturning all our human values? Excuse me.”
He rose and left the room.
After the meal, his mother employed many reproaches in order to induce him to return to the company. Sheepishly, he went and sat with Insil and her family. They made stiff conversation until slaves brought in a phagor who had been taught to juggle. Under guidance from her master’s whip, the gillot jiggled a little from one foot to another while balancing a plate on her horns.
An ensemble of slaves appeared next, dancing while Yaringa Shokerandit did her party piece and sang love songs from the Autumn Palaces.
“Are you being uncivil or merely soldierly?” Insil asked, under cover of the music. “Do you anticipate our marrying in a kind of dumb show?”
He gazed at her familiar face, smiled at her familiar teasing tone. He admired the froth of lace and linen at shoulders and breasts, and observed how those breasts had developed since their last meeting.
“What are your expectations, Insil?”
“I expect we shall do what is expected of us, like creatures in a play. Isn’t that necessary in times like these—when, as you tactfully reminded Pa, ordinary values are cast off like garments, in order to meet winter naked.”
“It’s more a question of what we expect from ourselves. Barbarism may come, certainly, but we can defy it.”
“Word has it that in Campannlat, following the defeat you administered to their various savage nations, civil wars have broken out and civilisation is already crumbling. Such disturbances must be avoided here at all costs… Notice that I have taken to talking politics since we parted! Isn’t that barbarism?”
“No doubt you have had to listen to your father preaching about the perils of anarchy many times. It’s only your neckline I find barbaric.”
When Insil laughed, her hair fell over her brow. “Luterin, I am not sorry to see you again, even in your present odd shape, disguised as a barrel. Let’s talk somewhere privately while your relation sings her heart out about that horrible river.”
They excused themselves and went together to a chill rear chamber, where biogas flames hissed a continual cautionary note.
“Now we can trade words, and let them be warmer than this room,” she said. “Ugh, how I hate Kharnabhar. Why were you fool enough to come back here? Not for my sake, was it?” She gave him a look askance.
He walked up and down in front of her. “You still have your old ways, Sil. You were my first torturer. Now I’ve found others. I am tormented—tormented by the evil of the Oligarchy. Tormented by the thought that the Weyr-Winter might be survived by a compassionate society, if men thought that way, not by a cruel and oppressive one like ours. Real evil—the Oligarch ordered the destruction of his own army. Yet I can also see that Sibornal must become a fortress, submitting to harsh rules, if it is not to be destroyed as Campannlat will be by the oncoming cold. Believe me, I am not my old childish self.”
Insil appeared to receive the speech without enthusiasm. She perched herself on a chair.
“Well, you certainly don’t look yourself, Luterin. I was disgusted at the sight of you. Only when you condescend to smile, when you are not sulking over your plate, does your old self reappear. But the size of you … I hope my deformities remain inside me. Any measures, however harsh, against the plague, are justified if they spare us that.” Her personal bell tinkled in emphasis, its sound calling up a fragment of the past for him.
“The metamorphosis is not a deformity, Insil; it’s a biological fact. Natural.”
“You know how I hate nature.”
“You’re so squeamish.”
“Why are you so squeamish about the Oligarch’s actions? They’re all part of the same thing. Your morality is as boring as Pa’s politics. Who cares if a few people and phagors are shot. Isn’t life one big hunt anyway?”
He stared at her, at her figure, slender and tense, as she clutched her arms against the chill of the room. Some of the affection he had once felt broke through. “Beholder, you still argue and riddle as before. I admire it, but could I bear it over a lifetime?”
She laughed back. “Who knows what we shall be called upon to endure? A woman needs fatalism more than a man. A woman’s role in life is to listen, and when I listen I never hear anything but the howl of the wind. I prefer the sound of my own voice.”
He touched her for the first time as he asked, “Then what do you want from life, if you can’t even bear the sight of me?”
She stood up, looking away from him. “I wish I were beautiful. I know I haven’t got a face—just two profiles tacked together. Then I might escape fate, or at least find an interesting one.”
“You’re interesting enough.”
Insil shook her head. “Sometimes I think I am dead.” Her tone was unemphatic; she might have been describing a landscape. “I want nothing that I know of and many things I know nothing of. I hate my family, my house, this place. I’m cold, I’m hard, and I have no soul.
“My soul flew out of the window one day, maybe when you were spending your year pretending to be dead… I’m boring and I’m bored. I believe in nothing. No one gives me anything because I can give nothing, receive nothing.”