Empress Taury and her reduced court of human and non-human beings receive the two time travellers in a small council chamber with hanging tapestries, skin carpet, white fluorotubes and a cheerfully crackling fire:
"Had it not been for the wind against the windows, they might have forgotten where they were." (p. 255)
However, the wind always has its say in a Poul Anderson text! When Belgotai asks about the Dreamer, a hyper-intelligent Imperial counsellor:
"It was like a sudden darkness in the room. There was silence, under the whistling wind, and men sat wrapped in their own cheerless thoughts." (p. 256)
The present Dreamer is the last of his race. The wind often underlines conversational silences and, on this occasion, it whistles appropriately when a nearly extinct race is mentioned.
The council chamber is in the great old alien stone fortress of Brontothor, half ruined by powerful energy weapons, worn by millennia of weather and only partly renovated. Its helmeted guards carry energy rifles and their cloaks are:
"...wrapped tightly against the wind..." (p. 252)
- hostile elements symbolizing the hostile aliens that will arrive soon.
The great hall where the court does not meet is huge, empty, dark and hollow.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Aycharaych, arguably also hyper-intelligent, if in less benign ways, was the last of his species.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: though he could have recreated it with biotech, eh?
BTW, cloaks fell out of favor when tailored jackets and pants became widely available.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, some psychological twist or kink prevented Aycharaych from using biotech like that to preserve his race.
I have noticed how often Anderson has his characters wearing cloaks in futuristic settings when an LL Bean coat would be so much more practical. I can only think Anderson was fond of cloaks because they looked dashing and colorful.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: they do; they're really not as practical as tailored garments, though. Mind you, the Roman "Britannic" cloak -- which had a hood, and could button down the front -- made a fairly good raincoat. It was woven "unfulled", that is, with the lanolin/grease in the natural wool not removed. Short of rubber, it was about as good as was possible for a raincoat then. (They were called "Britannic" because the best came from Britain... which is sensible, given the rain there!)
I recall your time travelers using "Britannic" cloaks during a trip on a wet November day in "To Turn the Tide". IIUC such unfulled wool has the advantage of still providing decent insulation when wet, though not quite as good as when dry.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Jim beat me to making similar comments re Britannic cloaks,
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, they were famous for centuries!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Next might come Artorius & Co. introducing umbrellas! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
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