Collected Short Fiction, page 809
IMPATIENTLY I awaited Halum’s return from her isle in the Gulf of Sumar. Neither bondsister nor bondbrother had I had for over two years and drainers could not take their place; I ached to sit up late at night with Halum or Noim, as in the old days, opening self to self. Noim was somewhere in Salla, I supposed, but I knew not where and Halum, though she was said to be due back imminently from holidaying, did not appear in my first week in Manneran, nor the second. During the third, I left the Justiciary office early one day, feeling ill from the humidity and the tensions of mastering my new role and was driven to Segvord’s estate. Entering the central courtyard, I caught sight of a tall, slender girl at the far end, plucking from a vine a golden flower for her dark glossy hair. I could not see her face, but from her figure and bearing I had no doubt of her, and joyfully I cried, “Halum!” and rushed across the courtyard. She turned frowning to me, halting me in mid-rush. Her brow was furrowed and her lips were tight together; her gaze was chilly and remote. What did that cold glance mean? Her face was Halum’s face—dark eyes, fine slim proud nose, firm chin, bold cheekbones—and yet her face was strange to me. Could two years have changed my bondsister so greatly? The main differences between the Halum I remembered and the woman I saw were subtle ones, differences of expression, a tilt of the eyebrows, a flicker of the nostrils, a quirking of the mouth, as though the whole soul itself within her had altered. Also there were some minor differences of feature, I saw as I drew nearer, but these could be ascribed to the passing of time or to the faults of my memory. My heart sped and my fingers trembled and an odd heat of confusion spread across my shoulders and back. I would have gone to her and embraced her, but suddenly I feared her in her transformations.
“Halum?” I said uncertainly, hoarse-voiced, dry-throated.
“She is not yet here.” A voice like falling snow, deeper than Halum’s, more resonant, colder.
I was stunned. Like enough to Halum to be her twin! I knew of only one sister to Halum, then still a child, not yet sprouting her breasts. It was not possible for her to have concealed from me all her life a twin or a sister somewhat older. But the resemblance was extraordinary and disturbing. I have read that on old Earth they had ways of making artificial beings out of chemicals, that could deceive even a mother or a lover with the likeness to some real person—and I could well have been persuaded that moment that the process had come down to us, across the centuries, across the gulf of night, and that this false Halum before me was a devilishly clever synthetic image of my true bondsister.
I said, “Forgive this foolish error. One mistook you for Halum.”
“It happens often.”
“Are you some kin of hers?”
“Daughter to the brother of the High Justice Segvord.”
She gave her name as Loimel Helalam. Never had Halum spoken to me of this cousin—or if she had I had no recollection of it. How odd that she had hidden from me the existence of this mirror-Halum in Manneran! I told her my name and Loimel recognized it as that of Halum’s bondbrother, of whom she had evidently heard a good deal. She softened her stance a little and some of the chill that was about her now thawed. For my part I was over the shock of finding the supposed Halum to be another and I was beginning to warm to Loimel, for she was beautiful and desirable and unlike Halum herself—available. I could by looking at her out of one eye pretend to myself that she was indeed Halum I even managed to deceive myself into accepting her voice as my bondsister’s. Together we strolled the courtyard, talking. I learned that Halum would come home this evening and that Loimel was here to arrange a hearty reception for her; I learned also some things about Loimel, for, in the injudicious fashion of many Mannerangi, she guarded her privacy less sternly than a northerner would. She told me her age: a year older than Halum (and I also). She told me she was unmarried, having recently terminated an unpromising engagement to a prince of an old but unfortunately impoverished family of Mannerangi nobility. She explained her resemblance to Halum by saying that her mother and Halum’s were cousins, as well as her father’s being brother to Halum’s. And five minutes later, when we walked arm in arm, she hinted scandalously that in fact the High Justice had invaded his elder brother’s bridal couch long ago, so that she was properly half-sister to Halum, not cousin. And she told me much more.
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 cried out. But an instant before I would have taken her the thought came coldly to me, Why, this is forbidden—to have one’s bondsister . . . and my passion left me.
It was only a momentary embarrassment: looking down at her face, I told myself brusquely that this was Loimel and not Halum. My manhood revived and our bodies joined. Yet 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!
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 twin-ship: 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, shines the inner light of the soul. The radiance that came from Halum was tender, 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. 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.
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—day after day I kneeled 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 ring-linker to be. 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 that he snubbed 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. I concluded, finally, that there were two reasons why Loimel took me. First, she was lonely and troubled after the breakup of her other trothing. Second, 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 even 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.
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 my tasks.
Most of the material submitted for the guidance of the High Justice was nonsense. I learned swiftly to detect that sort by a quick scanning, often by looking at just a single page. The style in which reports and/or proposals were 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. 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 responsibility. 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 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 as 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.
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 worshiped, 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. 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. 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; 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 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.
