Serpentine (The Beggar's Ride Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  “Perhaps.” Cain smiled. She was probably right. She usually was about such things. Being a Halith mage gave her an insight into people that a plain man like Cain could not hope to match.

  “How did it go with the duke?” she asked.

  “He wants Col Boran to do something about Afael, but I don’t see it happening.”

  “But you gave him something,” she said, perceptive as ever.

  “I agreed to carry a letter. He’ll give it to me tomorrow.”

  “We’re going back to Col Boran?”

  “It’s been a while. I think we should. I said I would.”

  It had been the better part of a year. They had spent much of the time at Cain’s estate at Waterhill, and after that had visited Skal and Hestia at their place in Telas. In truth Cain knew that Sheyani did not much like Col Boran. It was a bleak place, and never really warm. He was not overly fond of it himself, but he owed a duty to Narak and his long life to Pascha, and he liked the people there. He was always able to find convivial company at Col Boran, and he felt that he was better able to draw Narak out of himself than anyone except Caster, the sword master.

  “I’ll pack,” Sheyani said. “Do you want to ride or shall I ask Pascha to bring us?”

  “I’ve ridden enough this year,” Cain said. “Are you sure she doesn’t mind?”

  “It’s a trivial thing for a god mage, and we are hers. I think she enjoys hearing news, and we have many tales to tell. She will not mind.”

  “Then you’d better finish going through Fal’s accounts. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him, and I have a few things to finish before we leave,” Cain said. They kissed briefly, and Cain left her in the apartment and went down to make arrangements for their departure.

  7 The Serpent’s Ward

  Col Boran seemed a brutal place to Callista. It was barely warm, even now in high summer, and most of it was cold stone, clawed from the mountains themselves and stacked in improbably vast buildings that echoed any voice they heard.

  The Snake, however, lived differently.

  Sithmaree brought her to one of the lower buildings which was apparently her home. Servants rushed to meet the Snake’s every whim, and once it became known that Callista was a guest they did the same for her. Even in her father’s day she had never known such pampering.

  She was shown to a room that would have suited a prince, given clothes, and a bath was poured for her. She took her time, delighting in the warm water, banishing the dirt and grime ingrained by four weeks on the road. She washed her hair, and when the water began to cool she dried herself and selected the simplest gown she could find from the array of outlandish clothes that had been provided. Even so, it was not excessively modest, and possessed a neckline that would have made her father frown.

  She was seated before a mirror brushing her hair when a knock sounded on the door.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Food will be served in twenty minutes,” a man’s voice spoke from outside. “A servant will be here to guide you.”

  “Thank you.”

  The mention of food reminded Callista that she was hungry, ravenously so despite the generous meal she had shared with Sithmaree this morning.

  It was like a dream, really. She did not know whether to be afraid or excited. Here she was at the legendary palace of Col Boran, a guest of the snake god. Saved from the plots of her uncle and cousins and destined, so it seemed, to meet the god mage herself. That part, she admitted, still frightened her.

  She tied her hair back loosely and opened her door. As promised there was a servant waiting, a woman dressed in red with pale hair and brown eyes.

  “Follow me, my lady,” the servant said.

  She followed. They went along a corridor and back down the broad stairs she had ascended to reach her room. At the base of the stairs lay the entrance hall and here they turned left, passing through what must have been a sitting room, thickly carpeted and luxuriously furnished with a fire burning brightly below the mantel. Beyond this lay the dining room. Another fire blazed, and the room was almost filled by a large table of reddish wood that gleamed with polish. There were two places set, one at the head of the table and one by its side. Sithmaree was already seated.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Deus,” Callista said.

  “Nonsense,” the Snake said. She gestured and a servant poured two glasses of wine.

  Sithmaree’s attire made Callista’s look positively prudish. She was dressed to shock, had there been anyone to shock. Her neckline plunged, and most of her back was naked. The dress she wore was black and studded with silver and diamonds, hugged her body in a revealing embrace and the image of a snake was woven into each sleeve.

  Callista sipped her wine. She knew enough about wine to know that it was very good wine indeed.

  Sithmaree sipped her own wine and gave Callista a hard look. “Now I want you to tell me that you’re not going through with this testing nonsense,” she said.

  “I don’t want to go back,” Callista said.

  “You can return in a year and reclaim your estate,” the Snake told her. “You can throw your uncle and his unpleasant sons out on the street. Don’t you want to do that?”

  Callista shrugged. Did she? It would be a grand moment, but these were people she suspected of having killed her mother and father. Justice would be the hangman or the headsman, not being sent home. Besides, her father’s estate would never be the same, not after what she had been through.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “If you test, you will die.”

  Callista didn’t know if she still wanted to take the test. If death was so certain why had people tried? Her life in Afael was spoiled, that was for certain. She did not want to go back there unless she was sure she could not be hurt again. With the Snake she felt safe, but alone in Afael…

  “I don’t know,” she repeated, meaning something else. She didn’t know if she wanted to die, but testing was not about death, or so she had heard. It was about power, and power was safety. If she was like Sithmaree she would always be safe.

  “How can you not know?” Sithmaree demanded. “Do you want to die?”

  Servants bustled into the room, and Callista certainly wasn’t going to talk in front of them. She watched them set a plate before her, but didn’t really see the food. She was afraid, but also frightened of admitting that to Sithmaree. She might find herself cast out from this safe place, alone again.

  She felt her eyes prick. She covered her face with her hand, but it was no good. She began to weep. Now that she had lost control she lost it completely. She sobbed, great wracking sobs that shook her body. The world that had been so safe and kind had turned against her. Everything that had been solid and dependable had been ripped away. There was nothing now but the fragile kindness of this mythical woman, and that, too, would crumble and fade. It only remained for her to choose how to end it.

  She felt an arm around her shoulder, and she leaned towards it, taking what little comfort she could from the body that stood next to her.

  “What on earth is the matter, child? You’re safe. Nobody will harm you here.”

  Callista didn’t try to speak. Everything struck her at once – the loss of her father and mother, her home, her possessions. Through no fault of her own she had been beggared, cast out, hunted.

  She felt herself picked up, lifted as though she were still a child and carried away. She felt something soft beneath her, a bed, and a blanket pulled over her.

  After a while, sleep relieved her of the conscious burden of her grief.

  *

  She awoke. By the sunlight coming through the window it was still day, but not for long. There was a yellow dullness to the light. She rolled upright and sat on the edge of the bed.

  She remembered what had happened. Was it the same day? It must be. There was a sense of shame, but relief, too. She had been weak, and she could not imagine that she would be permitted to stay here in the Snake�
��s house. She wasn’t worthy.

  She rose and dressed in her own clothes. She found them at the foot of the bed, and was surprised that they had been washed and pressed. They smelled of soap and lavender.

  There was a sword laid on a table beside her clothes, but it was not hers. She had never owned a sword. This one was a fine looking thing, encased in a leather sheath and decorated with pretty stones. She touched it on impulse, but didn’t pick it up or draw the blade.

  She was about to leave her room when the door opened.

  Sithmaree stood in the hallway. The spectacular dress she had worn was gone. Now she was dressed in a black shirt and black breeches, a myriad of small silver snakes worked into the material of each.

  “You are awake,” she said. Callista nodded. “You found the sword?”

  She looked back at the jewelled weapon.

  “It is a gift,” Sithmaree said. “And I know a man who will teach you how to use it.”

  So she had not disgraced herself so much as she had thought. She would be allowed to stay.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I was weak…”

  “Nonsense. You had every right to cry. You’ve been betrayed by family, walked a thousand miles to get here in just a month. If you were weak you’d be dead.”

  Callista was grateful yet again. The Snake seemed to understand, which surprised her. Their lives and stations could not have been more different. Sithmaree inspected her.

  “You’ll do,” she said. “Come with me. I’m taking you to meet Pascha.”

  Callista felt a hollow form in the pit of her stomach. The god mage? She looked down at her clothes. She looked like a pauper. Her clothes were threadbare and there was a hole in one sleeve, a small stain on the thigh.

  “Like this, Deus?”

  Sithmaree grinned. “Aye, just like that. Don’t panic, girl. I want Pascha to see you as you are, not as I’ll make you. It’s better this way.”

  They left the house by the roof, which seemed odd, but there was a bridge that spanned a chasm between Sithmaree’s house and another building. They walked through this, meeting nobody. It seemed to Callista that Col Boran was almost empty. The halls and stairways echoed to their footfalls, torches burned in dark hallways and every now and then they passed a closed door.

  Another roof, another bridge, and they were suddenly among people. This new place was filled by men and women in robes of various colours.

  “Duranders,” Sithmaree told her. “They come here to serve Pascha, but she has little use for them. They think their petty magic makes them kin.”

  A number of the robed figures bowed as the Snake passed, and Callista felt curious eyes upon her. In the narrow corridors and stairs the Duranders got out of the way, standing to one side as Sithmaree strode past. It was perhaps more fear than respect that made them give way. She felt no warmth from them.

  On the roof of the Durander building there was a garden, but Sithmaree hurried across it and over yet another arched bridge. On the other side they entered a vast hall with stained glass windows. It was empty again, and they crossed the bare stone floor to a distant stair. Callista looked at the pillars that reached up to the roof, impossibly high above them. They seemed far too thin to support such a weight.

  Up another stair and they were quite suddenly in human spaces again. There was a door with a guard and after that a comfortable room and a terrace beyond.

  The god mage was on the terrace.

  She was sitting in a chair set close to the western edge, commanding views over Col Boran and the endless plains beyond. Callista was surprised at how small she was, and how young she looked. The god mage could have passed for Callista’s age. She was short, slender, almost frail, with bright red hair tied back to reveal a pale face. Her eyes, which turned on Sithmaree as the Snake approached, were a bright, almost unnatural emerald green. She was dressed in a simple cotton dress, white and decorated in pale green.

  She was not alone. Next to her sat a man of average height, short hair, brown eyes. He leaned forwards as though he had been making a point when they entered. Other than where he was he seemed quite unremarkable, and dressed in brown and white cottons.

  “Sithmaree,” the god mage said.

  “Pascha, you are well, of course.”

  “Of course. You have brought someone.” The green eyes turned on Callista and she shrank inside herself. The man looked at her, too.

  “She has a story to tell, and I have made her my ward. She lives with me now at Col Boran. Perhaps for a year, perhaps longer.”

  “I see.” Pascha smiled. “She does not seem your type, Sithmaree. For a start she’s not a man.”

  “Let us hear the story,” the man said.

  Sithmaree turned to Callista. “You must tell the tale yourself,” she said. “In your own words. Leave nothing out.”

  Callista gathered her thoughts. Where to begin? Should she start with her childhood? Her father’s death? What mattered most? She made her decision, took a deep breath and began to speak.

  It seemed to her that she talked for hours. She told them everything, every slight against her and her father’s memory, every presumption by her supposed guardians, the conversation she had overheard from hiding and the desperate flight across the plains to Col Boran. She told them about the law hunters, and about her wish to be tested, now being reconsidered in the light of Sithmaree’s kindness. When she finished she stood for a moment in silence.

  “Well, she’s telling the truth as she knows it,” the man said.

  And she knew who he was. Even though he was dressed like a peasant and bore no arms she knew that he was Wolf Narak, because he was the only truth teller who did not have wings and weigh a ton or more.

  “Callista.” The god mage beckoned her over and she obeyed, coming to stand less than two paces from her chair. The green eyes met her own. “You have been shamefully treated by your own kin, but it is not our place to seek justice within the kingdoms. If you seek redress you must do so in Afael, and a dragon court would, I think, see your suit with favourable eyes. However, for now you are granted leave to remain in Col Boran for as long as you wish.” She smiled. “And you may come and speak to me if you desire it.”

  Callista bowed, but could find no reply worthy of the favour she had been granted.

  “Thank you, Eran,” she said.

  Sithmaree led her away, back down the stone stairs to the great and empty hall. “You did well,” the Snake said when they were alone. “She likes you.”

  8 First Bridge

  It was long past the hour when working men plied their trades, and even the taverns had closed their doors, the last few drunks having staggered home or collapsed into troubled sleep on the street.

  Afael was not a city that lived through the night. By midnight it was quiet, dark and mostly deserted.

  Major Terrel Biali was quite alone, standing on the peak of the arch that was First Bridge, the first bridge up from the sea across the Shilling River, close to the border between Central and Dock wards. He waited, wrapped in a thick cloak against the night air, listening to the river lap at the piles beneath him.

  Major Biali was here to meet a man, or maybe several men. He wasn’t sure which, but his colonel had given him this uneasy task, and as a soldier he was bound to carry it out.

  The instruction was simple. Wait on the bridge for an hour after midnight and you will be contacted.

  He looked left and right. The bridge was empty. The streets either side of the bridge were empty. The end of his hour was approaching. They had probably taken fright, he thought, and in a few minutes he could go home and seek the comfort of his bed. He pulled out a small flask and drank from it. The fiery liquor it contained helped to keep out the damp air in this dismal place.

  “You are not the colonel,” a voice said.

  It startled him. He looked around, but saw nobody nearby. Could they be invisible? The voice laughed – a low chuckle.r />
  “Below you,” it said.

  He looked over the balustrade and there below him he saw a small boat riding against the river current. They had hooked onto a ring in one of the bridge’s piers and the oarsman now rested on his oars while a man in the bow of the small craft looked up at him.

  “I am Major Biali,” he said. “The colonel’s second. He sent me in his place.”

  “In case it was a trap,” the man said. “We had the same fear, hence this.” He gestured at the boat. There was a brief silence, as though neither wanted to be the first to speak. “We seek your support,” the man in the boat said.

  “Against the king?”

  “The king will fall. He is too weak, and it will not be our hand that removes him. We are discussing what comes after the king.”

  “You presume too much. There are many who remain loyal to the crown and the Casraes family.”

  “Not enough. Your colonel knows this, or you would not be here. Will he follow one of the dukes or defend the Afaeli people?”

  It was a pertinent question. Biali knew what his own answer would be, had the choice been his. Afael possessed three dukes. Kenton was too weak and lacked ambition, Derali was a monster. The stories of how he’d dealt with unrest in his own duchy left no doubt what he’d do to the rest of the county – hundreds dead, whole neighbourhoods burnt. The third man, Falini, was hardly better. He’d publicly urged the king to hang every man and woman suspected of taking part in the riots. Neither man could be trusted. Both would, Biali was certain, become tyrants who would stain Afael’s history for centuries.

  “And what would you offer the people of Afael?” he asked.

  “Power. The chance to rule themselves.”

  “A dream. There is always one man who rules.”

  “Then let the people of Afael choose him,” the man in the boat said. “Let them pick their ruler, duke or pauper, fool or sage.”

  “You?” Biali looked down at the shadowy figure in the boat. “Would you have them choose you?”

  “You think I want power? If there is a chosen king I shall stand at his side, if he will have me, but I will not seek the throne. I am old and have enough burdens to bear.”