So she used to talk, scanning her boy’s face in the semidarkness.
The boy listened. Then he went to play among the treasures left in the chests which had once belonged to the wicked king.
One evening, as he was playing and his mother reading by the firelight, there came a knocking at the door of the chapel.
Like the slow seasons, the Great Wheel of Kharnabhar always completed its revolutions.
For Luterin Shokerandit, the Wheel at last came full circle. The cell that had been his habitation returned to the opening. Only a wall 0.64 metres thick separated it from the cell ahead, into which a volunteer was even then stepping, to commence ten years in the darkness, rowing Helliconia towards the light.
There were guards waiting in the gloom. They helped him from his place of confinement. Instead of releasing him, they took him slowly up a winding side stair. The light grew steadily brighter; he closed his eyes and gasped.
They took him into a small room in the monastery of Bambekk. For a while he was left alone.
Two female slaves came, regarding him out of the corner of their eyes. They were followed by male slaves, bearing a bath and hot water, a silver looking glass, towels and shaving equipment, fresh clothes.
“These are by courtesy of the Keeper of the Wheel,” said one of the women. “ ’Tisn’t every wheeler gets this treatment, be sure of that.”
As the scent of hot water and herbs reached him, Luterin realised how he stank, how the methaney odours of the Wheel clung to him. He allowed the women to strip off his ragged furs. They led him to the bath. He lay glorying in the sensation as they washed his limbs. Every smallest event threatened to overwhelm him. He had been as if dead.
He was powdered and dried and dressed in the thick new clothes.
They led him to the window to peer out, although the light at first almost blinded him.
He was looking down on the village of Kharnabhar from a great height. He could see houses buried up to their roofs in snow. The only things that moved were a sledge pulled by three yelk and two birds circling in the sky overhead, creating that eternal spectre of the wheel.
Visibility was good. A snowstorm was dying, and clouds blew away to the south, leaving pockets of undiluted blue sky. It was all too brilliant. He had to turn away, covering his eyes.
“What’s the date?” he asked one of the women.
“Why, ’tis 1319, and tomorrow’s Myrkwyr. Now, how about having that beard cut off and looking a few thousand years younger?”
His beard had grown like a fungus in the dark. It was streaked with grey and hung to his navel.
“Cut it off,” he said. “I’m not yet twenty-four. I’m still young, aren’t I?”
“I’ve certainly heard of people being older,” said the woman, advancing with the scissors.
He was then to be taken before the Keeper of the Wheel.
“This will be merely a formal audience,” said the usher who escorted him through the labyrinth of the monastery. Luterin had little to say. The new impressions crowding in were almost more than he could receive; he could not help thinking how he had once regarded himself as destined to be Keeper.
He made no response when eventually he was left at one end of what seemed to him an immense chamber. The Keeper sat at the far end on a wooden throne, flanked by two boys in ecclesiastical garb. The dignitary beckoned Luterin to approach.
He stepped gingerly through the lighted space, awed by the number of paces it required to reach the dais.
The Keeper was an enormous man who had draped himself in a purple gown. His face seemed about to burst. Like his gown, it was purple, and mottled with veins climbing the cheeks and nose like vines. His eyes were watery, his mouth moist. Luterin had forgotten there were such faces, and studied it as an object of curiosity while it studied him.
“Bow,” hissed one of the attendant children, so he bowed.
The Keeper spoke in a throttled kind of voice. “You are back among us, Luterin Shokerandit. Throughout the last ten years, you have been under the Church’s care—otherwise you would probably have been poisoned by your enemies, in revenge for your act of patricide.”
“Who are my enemies?”
The watery eyes were squeezed between folds of lid. “Oh, the slayer of the Oligarch has enemies everywhere, official and unofficial. But they were mainly the Church’s enemies too. We shall continue to do what we can for you. There is a private feeling that … we owe you something.” He laughed. “We could help you to leave Kharnabhar.”
“I have no wish to leave Kharnabhar. It’s my home.” The watery eyes watched his mouth rather than his eyes when he spoke.
“You may change your mind. Now, you must report to the Master of Kharnabhar. Once, if you remember, the offices of Master and Keeper of the Wheel were combined. With the schism between Church and State, the two offices are separate.”
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Ask it.”
“There’s much to understand… Does the Church hold me to be saint or sinner?”
The Keeper endeavoured to clear his throat. “The Church cannot condone patricide, so I suppose that officially you are a sinner. How could it be otherwise? You might have worked that out, I would have thought, during your ten years below… However, personally, speaking ex officio … I’d say you rid the world of a villain, and I regard you ” as a saint.” He laughed.
So this must be an unofficial enemy, thought Luterin. He bowed and turned to walk away when the Keeper called him back.
The Keeper heaved himself to his feet. “You don’t recognise me? I’m Wheel-Keeper Ebstok Esikananzi. Ebstok—an old friend. You once had hopes of marrying my daughter, Insil. As you see, I have risen to a post of distinction.”
“If my father had lived, you would never have become Keeper.”
“Who’s to blame for that? You be grateful that I’m grateful.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Luterin, and left the august presence, preoccupied by the remark regarding Insil.
He had no idea where he was supposed to go to report to the Master of Kharnabhar. But Keeper Esikananzi had arranged everything. A liveried slave awaited Luterin with a sledge, with furs to protect him from the cold.
The speed of the sledge overwhelmed him, and the jingle of the animals’ harness bells. As soon as the vehicle started to move, he closed his eyes and held tight. There were voices like birds crying, and the song of the runners on the ice, reminding him of something—he knew not what.
The air smelt brittle. From what little he glimpsed of Kharnabhar the pilgrims had all gone. The houses were shuttered. Everything looked drabber and smaller than he remembered it. Lights gleamed here and there in upper windows or in trading stores which remained open. The light was still painful to his eyes. He slumped back, marshalling his memories of Ebstok Esikananzi. He had known this crony of his father’s since childhood, and had never taken to the man; it was Ebstok who should be called to account for his daughter Insil’s bitterness.
The sledge rattled and jolted, its bells merrily jingling. Above their tinny sound came the tongue of a heavier bell.
He forced himself to look about.
They were sweeping through massive gates. He recognised the gates and the gatehouse beside them. He had been born here. Cliffs of snow three metres high towered on either side of the drive. They were driving through—yes—the Vineyard. Ahead, roofs of a familiar house showed. The bell of unforgettable voice sounded even louder.
Shokerandit was visited by a warming memory of himself as a small boy, pulling a little toboggan, running towards the front steps. His father was standing there, at home for once, smiling, arms extended to him.