He was free of the mysterious illness. He was allowed out again. The couch by the window, the immobility, the grey schoolmaster who came every day – they were done with. He was alive to fill his lungs with the brisk airs of outdoors. The cold blew down from Mount Shivenink, sharp enough to peel the bark from the north side of trees. The fresh wind brought out his defiance. It drew the blood to his cheeks, it made his limbs move with the beast which carried him across his father’s land. Letting out a yell, he spurred the hoxney into a gallop. He headed it away from the incarcerating mansion with its tolling bell, away along the avenue traversing the fields they still called the Vineyard. The movement, the air, the uproar of his own blood in his arteries, intoxicated him. Around him lay his father’s territory, a dominion triumphing over latitude, a small world of moor, mountain, valley, plunging stream, cloud, snow, forest, waterfall – but he kept his thought from the waterfall. Endless game roved here, springing up plenteously even as his father hunted it down.
What do You think about Helliconia: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, Helliconia Winter?
