A Time of Changes Read online

  I could think only of Halum, Halum, Halum, Halum. This Loimel existed for me solely as a reflection of my bondsister. An hour after we first met, Loimel and I were together in my bedroom, and when her gown had dropped from her I told myself that Halum’s skin must be creamy as this, that Halum’s breasts must be much like these, that Halum’s thighs could be no less smooth, that Halum’s nipples would also turn to turrets when a man’s thumbs brushed their tips. Then I lay naked beside Loimel and made her ready for taking with many cunning caresses; soon she gasped and pumped her hips and cried out, and I covered her with my body, but an instant before I would have thrust myself into her the thought came coldly to me, Why, this is forbidden, to have one’s bondsister, and my weapon went limp as a length of rope. It was only a momentary embarrassment: looking down at her face, I told myself brusquely that this was Loimel and not Halum who waited for my thrust, and my manhood revived, and our bodies joined. But another humiliation awaited me. In the moment of entering her my traitor mind said to me, You cleave Halum’s flesh, and my traitor body responded with an instantaneous explosion of my passions. How intricately our loins are linked to our minds, and how tricky a thing it is when we embrace a woman while pretending she is another! I sank down on Loimel in shame and disgust, hiding my face in the pillow; but she, gripped by urgent needs, thrashed about against me until I found new vigor, and this time I carried her to the ecstasy she sought.

  That evening my bondsister Halum at last returned from her holiday in the Gulf of Sumar, and wept with happy surprise to see me alive and in Manneran. When she stood beside Loimel I was all the more amazed by their near twinship: Halum’s waist was more slender, Loimel’s bosom deeper, but one finds these variations even in true sisters, and in most ways of the body Halum and her cousin seemed to have been stamped from the same mold. Yet I was struck by a profound and subtle difference also, most visible in the eyes, through which, as the poem says, there shines the inner light of the soul. The radiance that came from Halum was tender and gentle and mild, like the first soft beams of sunlight drifting through a summer morning’s mist; Loimel’s eyes gave a colder, harsher glow, that of a sullen winter afternoon. As I looked from one girl to the other, I formed a quick intuitive judgment: Halum is pure love, and Loimel is pure self. But I recoiled from that verdict the instant it was born. I did not know Loimel; I had not found her thus far to be anything but open and giving; I had no right to disparage her in that way.

  The two years had not aged Halum so much as burnished her, and she had come to the full radiance of her beauty. She was deeply tanned, and in her short white sheath she seemed like a bronzed statue of herself; the planes of her face were more angular than they had been, giving her a delicate look of almost boyish charm; she moved with floating grace. The house was full of strangers for this her homecoming party, and after our first embrace she was swept away from me, and I was left with Loimel. But toward the end of the evening I claimed my bondright and took Halum away to my chamber, saying, “There is two years’ talking to do.” Thoughts tumbled chaotically in my mind: how could I tell her all that had happened to me, how could I learn from her what she had done, all in the first rush of words? I could not arrange my thinking. We sat down facing one another at a prim distance, Halum on the couch where only a few hours before I had coupled with her cousin, pretending then to myself that she was Halum. A tense smile passed between us. “Where can one begin?” I said, and Halum, at the same instant, said the same words. That made us laugh and dissolved the tension. And then I heard my own voice asking, without preamble, whether Halum thought that Loimel would accept me as her husband.

  26

  LOIMEL AND I were married by Segvord Helalam in the Stone Chapel at the crest of the summer, after months of preparatory rituals and purifications. We made these observances by request of Loimel’s father, a man of great devoutness. For his sake we undertook a rigorous series of drainings, and day after day I knelt and yielded up the full contents of my soul to a certain Jidd, the best-known and most costly drainer in Manneran. When this was done Loimel and I went on pilgrimage to the nine shrines of Manneran, and I squandered my slender salary on candles and incense. We even performed the archaic ceremony known as the Showing, in which she and I stepped out on a secluded beach one dawn, chaperoned by Halum and Segvord, and, screened from their eyes by an elaborate canopy, formally disclosed our nakedness to one another, so that neither of us could say afterward that we had gone into marriage concealing defects from the other.

  The rite of union was a grand event, with musicians and singers. My bondbrother Noim, summoned from Salla, stood up as pledgeman for me, and did the ring-linking. Manneran’s prime septarch, a waxen old man, attended the wedding, as did most of the local nobility. The gifts we received were of immense value. Among them was a golden bowl inlaid with strange gems, manufactured on some other world, and sent to us by my brother Stirron, along with a cordial message expressing regret that affairs of state required him to remain in Salla. Since I had snubbed his wedding, it was no surprise for him to snub mine. What did surprise me was the friendly tone of his letter. Making no reference to the circumstances of my disappearance from Salla, but offering thanks that the rumor of my death had proven false, Stirron gave me his blessing and asked me to come with my bride for a ceremonial visit to his capital as soon as we were able. Apparently he had learned that I meant to settle permanently in Manneran, and so would be no rival for his throne; therefore he could think of me warmly again.

  I often wondered, and after all these years still do wonder, why Loimel accepted me. She had just turned down a prince of her own realm because he was poor: here was I, also a prince, but an exiled one, and even poorer. Why take me? For my charm in wooing? I had little of that; I was still young and thick-tongued. For my prospects of wealth and power? At that time those prospects seemed feeble indeed. For my physical appeal? Certainly I had some of that, but Loimel was too shrewd to marry just for broad shoulders and powerful muscles; besides, in our very first embrace I had shown her my inadequacies as a lover, and rarely did I improve on that bungled performance in the couplings that followed. I concluded, finally, that there were two reasons why Loimel took me. First, that she was lonely and troubled after the breakup of her other trothing, and, seeking the first harbor that presented itself, went to me, since I was strong and attractive and of royal blood. Second, that Loimel envied Halum in all things, and knew that by marrying me she would gain possession of the one thing Halum could never have.

  My own motive for seeking Loimel’s hand needs no deep probing to uncover. It was Halum I loved; Loimel was Halum’s image; Halum was denied me, therefore I took Loimel. Beholding Loimel, I was free to think I beheld Halum. Embracing Loimel, I might tell myself I embraced Halum. When I offered myself to Loimel as husband, I felt no particular love for her, and had reason to think I might not even like her; yet I was driven to her as the nearest proxy to my true desire.

  Marriages contracted for such reasons as Loimel’s and mine do not often fare well. Ours thrived poorly; we began as strangers and grew ever more distant the longer we shared a bed. In truth I had married a secret fantasy, not a woman. But we must conduct our marriages in the world of reality, and in that world my wife was Loimel.

  27

  MEANWHILE IN MY OFFICE at the Port Justiciary I struggled to do the job my bondfather had given me. Each day a formidable stack of reports and memoranda reached my desk; each day I tried to decide which must go before the High Justice and which were to be ignored. At first, naturally, I had no grounds for judgment. Segvord helped me, though, as did several of the senior officials of the Justiciary, who rightly saw that they had more to gain by serving me than by trying to block my inevitable rise. I took readily to the nature of my work, and before the full heat of summer was upon Manneran I was operating confidently, as if I had spent the last twenty years at this task.

  Most of the material submitted for the guidance of the High Justice was nonsense. I lea
rned swiftly to detect that sort by a quick scanning, often by looking at just a single page. The style in which it was written told me much: I found that a man who cannot phrase his thoughts cleanly on paper probably has no thoughts worth notice. The style is the man. If the prose is heavy-footed and sluggish, so too, in all likelihood, is the mind of its author, and then what are his insights into the operations of the Port Justiciary worth? A coarse and common mind offers coarse and common perceptions. I had to do a great deal of writing myself, summarizing and condensing the reports of middling value, and whatever I have learned of the literary art may be traced to my years in the service of the High Justice. My style too reflects the man, for I know myself to be earnest, solemn, fond of courtly gestures, and given to communicating more perhaps than others really want to know; all these traits I find in my own prose. It has its faults, yet am I pleased with it: I have my faults, yet am I pleased with me.

  Before long I realized that the most powerful man in Manneran was a puppet whose strings I controlled. I decided which cases the High Justice should handle, I chose the applications for special favor that he would read, I gave him the capsuled commentaries on which his verdicts were based. Segvord had not accidentally allowed me to attain such power. It was necessary for someone to perform the screening duties I now handled, and until my coming to Manneran the job had been done by a committee of three, all ambitious to hold Segvord’s title some day. Fearing those men, Segvord had arranged to promote them to positions of greater splendor but lesser responsibilities. Then he slid me into their place. His only son had died in boyhood; all his patronage therefore fell upon me. Out of love of Halum he had coolly chosen to make a homeless Sallan prince one of the dominant figures of Manneran.

  It was widely understood, by others long before by me, how important I was going to be. Those princes at my wedding had not been there out of respect for Loimel’s family, but to curry favor with me. The soft words from Stirron were meant to insure I would show no hostility to Salla in my decision-making. Doubtless my royal cousin Truis of Glin now was wondering uneasily if I knew that it was his doing that the doors of his province had closed in my face; he too sent a fine gift for my marriage-day. Nor did the flow of gifts cease with the nuptial ceremony. Constantly there came to me handsome things from those whose interests were bound up in the doings of the Port Justiciary. In Salla we would call such gifts by their rightful name, which is bribes; but Segvord assured me that in Manneran there was no harm in accepting them, so long as I did not let them interfere with my objectivity of judgment. Now I realized how, on the modest salary of a judge, Segvord had come to live in such princely style. In truth I did try to put all this bribery from my mind while at my official duties, and weigh each case on its merits alone.

  So I found my place in Manneran. I mastered the secrets of the Port Justiciary, developed a feel for the rhythms of maritime commerce, and served the High Justice ably. I moved among princes and judges and men of wealth. I purchased a small but sumptuous house close by Segvord’s, and soon had the builders out to increase its size. I worshipped, as only the mighty do, at the Stone Chapel itself, and went to the celebrated Jidd for my drainings. I was taken into a select athletic society, and displayed my skills with the feathered shaft in Manneran Stadium. When I visited Salla with my bride the springtime after our wedding, Stirron received me as if I were a Mannerangi septarch, parading me through the capital before a cheering multitude and feasting me royally at the palace. He said not a word to me about my flight from Salla, but was wholly amiable in a reserved and distant fashion. My first son, who was born that autumn, I named for him.

  Two other sons followed, Noim and Kinnall, and daughters named Halum and Loimel. The boys were straightbodied and strong; the girls promised to show the beauty of their namesakes. I took great pleasure in heading a family. I longed for the time when I could have my sons with me hunting in the Burnt Lowlands, or shooting the rapids of the River Woyn; meanwhile I went hunting without them, and the spears of many hornfowl came to decorate my home.

  Loimel, as I have said, remained a stranger to me. One does not expect to penetrate the soul of one’s wife as deeply as that of one’s bondsister, but nevertheless, despite the customs of self-containment we observe, one expects to develop a certain communion with someone one lives with. I never penetrated anything of Loimel’s except her body. The warmth and openness she had showed me at our first meeting vanished swiftly, and she became as aloof as any coldbelly wife of Glin. Once in the heat of lovemaking I used “I” to her, as I sometimes did with whores, and she slapped me and twisted her hips to cast me from her loins. We drifted apart. She had her life, I mine; after a time we made no attempt to reach across the gulf to one another. She spent her time at music, bathing, sunsleeping, and piety, and I at hunting, gaming, rearing my sons, and doing my work. She took lovers and I took mistresses. It was a frosty marriage. We scarcely ever quarreled; we were not close enough even for that.

  Noim and Halum were with me much of the time. They were great comforts to me.

  At the Justiciary my authority and responsibility grew year by year. I was not promoted from my position as clerk to the High Justice, nor did my salary increase by any large extent; yet all of Manneran knew that I was the one who governed Segvord’s decisions, and I enjoyed a lordly income of “gifts.” Gradually Segvord withdrew from most of his duties, leaving them to me. He spent weeks at a time on his island retreat in the Gulf of Sumar, while I initialed and stamped documents in his name. In my twenty-fourth year, which was his fiftieth, he gave up his office altogether. Since I was not a Mannerangi by birth, it was impossible for me to become High Justice in his place; but Segvord arranged for the appointment of an amiable nonentity as his successor, one Noldo Kalimol, with the understanding that Kalimol would retain me in my place of power.

  You would be right to assume that my life in Manneran was one of ease and security, of wealth and authority. Week flowed serenely into week, and, though perfect happiness is given to no man, I had few reasons for discontent. The failings of my marriage I accepted placidly, since deep love between man and wife is not often encountered in our kind of society; as for my other sorrow, my hopeless love for Halum, I kept it buried deep within me, and when it rose painfully close to the surface of my soul I soothed myself by a visit to the drainer Jidd. I might have gone on uneventfully in that fashion to the end of my days, but for the arrival in my life of Schweiz the Earthman.

  28

  EARTHMEN come rarely to Borthan. Before Schweiz, I had seen only two, both in the days when my father held the septarchy. The first was a tall redbearded man who visited Salla when I was about five years old; he was a traveler who wandered from world to world for his own amusement, and had just crossed the Burnt Lowlands alone and on foot. I remember studying his face with intense concentration, searching for the marks of his otherworldly origin—an extra eye, perhaps, horns, tendrils, fangs.

  He had none of these, of course, and so I openly doubted his story of having come from Earth. Stirron, with the benefit of two years’ more schooling than I, was the one who told me, in a jeering tone, that all the worlds of the heavens, including our own, had been settled by people from Earth, which was why an Earthman looked just like any of us. Nevertheless, when a second Earthman showed up at court a few years later, I still searched for fangs and tendrils. This one was a husky, cheerful man with light brown skin, a scientist making a collection of our native wildlife for some university in a far part of the galaxy. My father took him out into the Burnt Lowlands to get hornfowl; I begged to go along, and was whipped for my nagging.

  I dreamed of Earth. I looked it up in books and saw a picture of a blue planet with many continents, and a huge pockmarked moon going around it, and I thought, This is where we all came from. This is the beginning of everything. I read of the kingdoms and nations of old Earth, the wars and devastation, the monuments, the tragedies. The going-forth into space, the attainment of the stars. There was a time when
I even imagined I was an Earthman myself, born on that ancient planet of wonders, and brought to Borthan in babyhood to be exchanged for a septarch’s true son. I told myself that when I grew up I would travel to Earth and walk through cities ten thousand years old, retracing the line of migration that had led my forefathers’ forefathers from Earth to Borthan. I wanted to own a piece of Earth, too, some potsherd, some bit of stone, some battered coin, as a tangible link to the world at the heart of man’s wanderings. And I longed for some other Earthman to come to Borthan, so that I could ask him ten thousand thousand questions, so that I could beg a slice of Earth for myself, but none came, and I grew up, and my obsession with the first of man’s planets faded.

  Then Schweiz crossed my way.

  Schweiz was a man of commerce. Many Earthmen are. At the time I met him he had been on Borthan a couple of years as representative of an exporting firm based in a solar system not far from our own; he dealt in manufactured goods and sought our furs and spices in return. During his stay in Manneran, he had become entangled in controversy with a local importer over a cargo of stormshield furs from the northwestern coast; the man tried to give Schweiz poor quality at a higher-than-contracted price, Schweiz sued, and the case went to the Port Justiciary. This was about three years ago, and a little more than three years after the retirement of Segvord Helalam.