The Serpent Bride

by Sara Douglas

  What a difference this dowry could make.

  "How is it a lady from the Outlands manages to control the rights to Deepend?" Maximilian asked. He'd known there had been an absentee lordship on the place--Escator had the right to use the bay for its shipping but each year Maximilian paid heavily for the privilege to the steward of Deepend--but had always believed it belonged to one of the more reclusive Central Kingdom families.

  "The Brunelle family has lineage that stretches back many centuries," Vorstus said. "Lixel writes that they picked up the Deepend rights via a fortuitous marriage two hundred years ago."

  "And now the Coil, via Ishbel, offers those rights to me," said Maximilian. "Why? Of what benefit can this be to them?"

  "You're the least objectionable man on the aristocratic marriage market," said Vorstus bluntly, and Maximilian laughed, now with genuine amusement.

  "Ah!" he said. "Now I see. The Coil doesn't want anyone from the Central Kingdoms getting them, eh?"

  "Indeed," said Vorstus. "There's bad blood between the Outlands and the Central Kingdoms, as well you know--"

  Maximilian grunted. The various kingdoms and principalities of the two regions had been posturing and threatening each other with war for years.

  "--and perhaps the Coil, who Lixel says are closely allied with the Outlanders through blood and geography, think to establish an alliance with Escator so that they may have a friend on the rear flank of the Central Kingdoms."

  "So we get to the heart of the matter," said Garth, silent until now as he studied Maximilian's reactions.

  "Is the thought of the economic advantage of the woman enough for Maxel to forget her more ghastly acquaintances?"

  "There is no need for anyone beyond this room to know of the Lady Ishbel's `more ghastly'

  acquaintances," said Vorstus softly. "She is the well-dowered Lady Ishbel Brunelle, of Margalit. An Outlander, to be sure, but one wealthy enough, and well-mannered enough, for that slight geographical stain to be conveniently forgotten. Maximilian"--Vorstus leaned forward--"no one need ever know of her time with the Coil."

  "You really want me to consider this, don't you," said Maximilian.

  "Aye," said Vorstus, "I don't think you can ignore it. Escator needs her wealth, and you need a wife to mother you a family. Damn it, all you need do is meet with her, talk, and if you don't like her, then walk away."

  "How would I know," said Maximilian, "if she really is `just a ward' of the Coil, and not some full-blooded member of their vile Order? I don't want some witch slitting open my belly in the middle of the night to see what the weather will be like for her tea party the following week."

  Vorstus held out his right hand, showing Maximilian the mark of the quill on the back of its index finger.

  "If she was a priestess of the Coil then she would be marked with the sign of the Coil, the coiled serpent,

  somewhere on her body, just as I am marked with this as a member of the Order of Persimius. Just as you are marked with the Manteceros."

  Maximilian absently touched his right bicep, where, just after his birth, the mark of the Manteceros--the semimythical protector of the Escatorian throne--had been tattooed in blue ink made from the blood of the creature itself.

  "She would have to be marked, Maxel," Vorstus continued, "and if she isn't, then she is truly what the Coil claims her to be--a simple ward when no one else was left to ward her."

  Egalion grinned. "Does that mean Maximilian gets to spend his wedding night going over her with a magnifying glass?"

  Maximilian smiled politely, but his eyes were far distant.

  The group broke up a half hour later. It was not a moment too soon for Maximilian, who needed to be by himself to think.

  Egalion and Garth left, but Vorstus hung back a moment to hand Maximilian the sheaf of documents.

  "Maxel," Vorstus said softly, "when you go through these papers, do be sure to cast your eyes over the map of the Outlands that Lixel enclosed most helpfully. I'm sure it will prove...interesting."

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Royal Palace, Ruen, Escator

  Late that night Maximilian moved restlessly about his bedchamber. The palace at Ruen was a massive structure of dark red stone, rising more than five windowless stories from street level before splintering into fifty-three towers and spires. Maximilian could never quite decide whether it was the most beautiful structure he'd ever seen, or the ugliest, but he loved it. He'd been born within its walls, and raised here by loving parents for his first fourteen years before Cavor snatched him and condemned him to the Veins.

  Now, once more encased within its red stone walls, Maximilian appreciated the palace for the isolation it allowed him. Maximilian liked people, but he also loved solitude, and at night in his bedchamber, which rested at the summit of the highest of the palace towers, he could indulge that to the fullest.

  There was something about living at the pinnacle of the tower, about being so high and having the castle stretch down beneath his booted feet, that sated some deep need within Maximilian.

  But tonight that isolation irked him. He couldn't stop thinking about the Coil's offer of Ishbel Brunelle as a bride. His first instinct was to refuse her: he was repulsed by her association with an order as abominable as the Coil. Even if she had taken no part in any of their murderous ceremonies, nor even if she swore horror herself at their activities, Ishbel would always be tainted in his mind with their depravity.

  But on the other hand she did come from a good family--Maximilian had spent an hour this afternoon poring over the information Lixel had sent...if not poring over the map that Vorstus was so eager for him to read. Vorstus could annoy Maximilian at times with his secretive eyes and his ambiguous words, and Maximilian was in a perverse enough mood that he did not want to immediately do what Vorstus wanted.

  The documents kept Maximilian occupied enough. Gods, this Ishbel came with such wealth trailing at her skirts! Escator's economy was virtually moribund. It had depended so greatly on the gloam mines, and when they had been destroyed during Maximilian's release there was nothing to take their place.

  Maximilian had worked hard to increase trade, but he'd concentrated on trade alliances with Tencendor,

  and when that country had sunk beneath the waves five years ago, then so also had Maximilian's hopes of an economic resurgence in Escator within his lifetime. The Central Kingdoms to the east, his only other useful trading partners, were locked in exclusive trading alliances with the far northern nations of Berfardi and Gershadi. The Coroleans were too hopelessly unreliable and treacherous to consider as allies in anything, and as for the great southern lands beyond the FarReach Mountains...well, they were so isolated by reason of both the mountains and lack of ports, as well as being totally uncommunicative, that Maximilian had never even considered them as potential trading partners.

  Besides, what did Escator have to trade with anyone? A tiny surplus of agricultural produce and a surfeit of geniality essentially encapsulated all Escator had to offer, and Maximilian honestly couldn't think of anyone desperate for a bucketful of beans delivered with a smile.

  Lady Ishbel Brunelle, ward of the Coil, offered Maximilian and Escator a lifeline. Perhaps some of the eastern princelings would smile disdainfully at a handful of vast estates and the Deepend manorial rights,

  but to Maximilian they represented salvation. The income would make all the difference to the country.

  They would make all the difference to Maximilian's guilt. Although he knew he had no need, he did feel guilty about the loss of the gloam mines. Yes, they were vile, but they had kept Escator rich, and it was now Maximilian's task to replace those lost riches.

  A ring on Ishbel's finger would do it.

  Ah! Maximilian paced restlessly about the chamber, his thoughts tumbling. Marriage to a woman tainted with the Coil to restore Escator's riches, or continued personal isolation and poverty for so many of his subjects?

  "Damn it," he muttered. "Why couldn't I have found so
meone else with that kind of dowry who was interested in me?"

  He paced about for a few more minutes, stripping off his jacket and shirt and tossing them over the back of a chair, running his hand through his too long hair and thinking he really ought to get it cut, rolling the Persimius ring around his finger, over and over.

  Finally, coming to a decision, Maximilian walked to one of the high windows and opened wide the glass panes. He stared out into the night for a moment, then returned to stand by his bed, his back to the window, the fingers of his left hand absently running over the ungainly outline of the Manteceros on his right bicep.

  He waited long minutes, finally relaxing when he heard the faint sound of movement in the window.

  "How arrogant you are," she said softly, "that you were so certain I'd be crouching on a rooftop somewhere, waiting in hope that you'd open a window for me."

  Maximilian smiled, slowly turning about. "And how glad I am, StarWeb, that you were sitting on that rooftop, waiting for me to open the window."

  She crouched in the window, her dark wings held out gracefully behind her for balance, watching him with unreadable dark eyes. She had a mop of black curls, a fine-boned face, and a dancer's body,

  currently clothed in a short silken robe as dark as her hair and wings.

  Maximilian slowly walked over to her and held out a hand. "StarWeb, I took a chance, knowing you often soar over the palace late at night. Arrogant assumption didn't open that window. Hope did."

  StarWeb hesitated, then took his hand as she jumped down to the floor. She started to walk into the chamber, but Maximilian's grip on her hand tightened, and he pulled her close enough for a soft kiss.

  "Smile for me," he whispered, drawing away fractionally.

  "Why? What good news could you possibly have to make me smile?"

  Still keeping her hand locked in his, Maximilian drew back enough so he could study her face. StarWeb was an Icarii, one of the race of bird people who had once ruled over the land of Tencendor to the west.

  StarWeb had also been one of the elite among the Icarii, a powerful Enchanter who could manipulate the magic of the Star Dance. But then Tencendor had descended into chaos, the ruling SunSoar family had imploded into tragedy; the Star Gate, through which the Icarii Enchanters drew the power of the Star Dance had been destroyed. Tencendor itself vanished into the waters of the Widowmaker Sea, taking all its peoples into doom.

  But not quite all its peoples. Caelum SunSoar, who had ruled the land in its final years, had maintained strong diplomatic ties with both Coroleas and the continent over the Widowmaker Sea. During the final wars that had destroyed Tencendor, almost five thousand Icarii had been scattered about Coroleas and the eastern continent. More had joined them before the final cataclysm. Currently, StarWeb had told Maximilian, there was an expatriate community of almost six thousand Icarii scattered about the lands surrounding the Widowmaker Sea, as well as the Central Kingdoms. There were at least six hundred living in Escator alone.

  The Icarii may have kept their lives, but the Enchanters among them had lost all their power, and Maximilian well knew from his relationship with StarWeb what that had cost them. It wasn't so much the power they resented losing, but the constant touch of the Star Dance, without which, StarWeb had once confided to him, their lives were but pale reflections of what had once been.

  Maximilian pulled StarWeb closer again, and kissed her a little more lingeringly. They had been lovers for some months now, their relationship based almost entirely on a sexual bond rather than an emotional one,

  which suited Maximilian well, although he often wondered about StarWeb. He knew she disliked the fact he kept their trysts secret.

  StarWeb pulled away. "What do you want, Maxel?"

  He sighed. "To talk, to share some companionship. To make love, if you want. I don't want to be alone tonight."

  She shrugged, moving deeper into the chamber, running a hand lightly over a table, then the back of a chair, folding her wings close in against her body--a sure sign that she remained annoyed with him.

  "Is it only kings who want companionship completely on their terms, Maxel?"

  "You're in a bad mood tonight."

  She swung about to look at him. "That's because I hate it, Maxel, that I always come whenever you deign to open that window."

  "I'm sorry, StarWeb. I am not what you need."

  She studied that statement for any hint of sarcasm, and then decided the apology was genuine. "So what's up, Maxel? You're tense. Worried about something."

  "I've been offered a bride."

  StarWeb burst into laughter, her expression relaxing back into that of a delighted girl. "Well done, then!

  Are you going to take this one?"

  "She's been offered to me by the Coil."

  All StarWeb's amusement vanished. "I've heard of them."

  "And not liked what you have heard, most apparently."

  "You are truly considering taking a priestess of the Coil to your bed? As a wife?"

  "She's not a priestess, merely a ward taken in after a plague wiped out her family and half the population of the Outlands. And she comes with wealth that Escator could well use."

  "Oh, well. That makes it all right then."

  "I don't need that sarcasm, StarWeb. If I were merely Maximilian Persimius, I would have winced and torn up the offer into a thousand pieces. But I am King of Escator as well, and with that comes a responsibility to my people. Escator needs that wealth."

  "So shall you meet with her?"

  He hesitated, then gave a nod. "Eventually, but--"

  "But you want something from me first."

  "I trust you, StarWeb. I trust your perception. I need someone to act as an emissary between me and the Coil. I need someone to meet her, and tell me what they think. Will we suit each other? Is she good enough for me to forget her association with the Coil?" He gave a shamefaced grin. "And I need someone who can do all this relatively quickly. This is not a decision I wish to linger over."

  "Would you like me also to take her to bed, and see if she suits your needs?"

  Maximilian smiled. "Would you?"

  StarWeb laughed then, and the mood between them relaxed. The Icarii Enchanter walked over to Maximilian, running her hands slowly over his naked upper body, her fingers tracing the outlines of the scars left from his time in the Veins, kissing his neck slowly as she spoke. "How fortunate you are that I

  am not a jealous woman."

  He took her face between gentle hands. "I am well aware how fortunate I am in you, StarWeb, and also well aware that I use you unmercifully. Whatever you want from me, you have it."

  Your love? she wondered, and then discarded the thought. There had never been any expectation of love on either of their parts.

  "Just you," she whispered. "For an hour or two tonight, so I can forget all I have lost."

  While Maximilian lay with StarWeb, Vorstus sat at a table in his locked chamber in a distant part of the palace. On the table before him sat a small glass pyramid, about the height of a man's hand. It pulsated gently with soft rosy light, and its depths showed a man of ascetic appearance in late middle age who revealed, as he reached up a hand to rub thoughtfully at his nose, a serpent tattoo writhing up his forearm.

  "Has Maximilian looked at the map yet?" said the man whose image showed within the pyramid.

  "No, my Lord Lister," said Vorstus. "If he had, I am sure I would have heard the screech from here."

  Lister smiled. "Will he be ready, do you think?"

  "He had seventeen years battling the darkness in the Veins, my lord," said Vorstus. "He won't like it, but when he is needed, then, yes, I believe he will step forward. How goes the Lady Ishbel?"

  "Resigning herself to marriage. She, also, will step forward when needed."

  "If only she knew who had caused that plague to strike her family home in Margalit, my lord. Then perhaps she might not be so ready to `step forward.'"

  "Don't threaten me," Lister s
aid. "Besides, what will Maximilian say, eh, when he learns who it was whispered to Cavor the plan to imprison him in the gloam mines for such a mighty length of time?"

  "We have all done what was needed."

  "Ah, we all have done what was needed," said Lister, "and we will do more, as the need dictates. Let me know what Maximilian says, why don't you, when he finally looks at that map."

  The rose pyramid dulled, then died.

  Lister stood in the central chamber of his castle of Crowhurst and stared as his own pyramid dulled into lifelessness on the table. He sighed, and turned away, walking to the open window to look out.

  Beyond stretched a vast wasteland of frost and low, snow-covered rolling hills. The northern wastes were a desolate place, but they suited Lister's purpose for the time being, and for the time being he needed to be here. He shuddered, more from the cold than from any direction of his thoughts, and he reached out and closed the windows, revealing tattoos of black serpents crawling up both his forearms.

  Kanubai's ancient foe, Light, had taken the form of Lister some forty-five years ago when it had become apparent to both Light and Water that Kanubai's prison had begun to fail. Light and Water needed mortal shape now, for the battle to come would be of the physical rather than the ethereal. While they had taken the flesh of men, Light also, from time to time, and as it amused him, took on the ethereal form of the serpent, while Water occasionally took the form of the frog.

  Sometimes also, when it suited their purpose to manipulate those about them, they named themselves gods, and commanded ordinary men and women.

  Ishbel had no idea what it was she truly served.

  The move into the physical realm of men was dangerous. As flesh-and-blood men they might still command powers greater than those of most mortals, but were as vulnerable to the spear and the sword as any other.

  There came a noise from the door, a footfall, and Lister turned about.

  Three creatures of above man-height stood there. They were skeletal and vaguely man-shaped, but more wraith than flesh. The most substantial part of them was their oversized skull-like heads, dominated by heavy, great-toothed jaws and huge silver orbs set deep into their eye sockets.