Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  Did you see what a fever burned her while she spoke of gathering an expedition to find the road into the unknown? "

  Ereleth had indeed seen those signs, but it was the content of Keshvara's account which had disturbed her, not the manner of its delivery.

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  "I believe that she was intending to serve as a recruit.in someone else's expedition," Ereleth said, thinking that it migntbe wise to dampen the princess's inflamed romanticism, 'and the overwhelming likelihood is that the road she intends to follow will lead nowhere but oblivion. Even if the seeds were really brought across the Dragomite Hills, that doesn't mean that any man might now cross them with impunity. "

  "If anyone can do it," Lucrezia said firmly,

  "Hyry Keshvara can."

  "I wish her the very best of luck," Ereleth said, with only the faintest hint of sarcasm, 'but you and I have a kind of wisdom which urges us to make more careful plans- and to make more extensive enquiries first. Even when time presses, the wise are patient. " " You've led a very patient life, I know," Lucrezia replied, obviously conscious other rudeness in saying so but determined to say it nevertheless.

  "But I hope you'll forgive me if I say that I would not like to live as you have lived. I don't want to be married off to some princeling, whether I remain my father's instrument or become a true witch-wife.

  I don't want to be a prisoner, condemned to rot quietly while I pass on the lore to my own daughters and stepdaughters. "

  Is that really how she sees me? Ereleth thought. But then, how could she possibly see me otherwise, when she is not yet party 1,0 the deeper secrets of the lore?

  "I have not always been a prisoner," she said aloud, rather stiffly, remembering the time when she had been free, before Belin had married her-not to bed, but to fill a space which tradition required to be filled.

  "I have lived in those dark lands which Keshvara merely visits. I know the Apu better than she does, although twenty years have passed since I learned their lore. I have ambition yet, for myself as well as my most precious pupil."

  "I know you have," Lucrezia said, not ungently.

  "But how will you ever escape these high walls which surround us both? I doubt that my father would ever let you go, although he might easily set one of my sisters in your place, now that you have trained so many. I wonder that you'd want to go, given that you've been here so long." Does she think I'm too old to cope with the world beyond the walls? Ereleth said to herself sourly. Do / seem so feeble in body 18

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  and mind? Has she no imagination,

  to see beyond appearances to what I really am? But how can she read signs of which she knows nothing? How can she know secrets which I have been careful to keep, even from her?

  "You do not know me," she said brusquely.

  "Nor do you know yourself, as yet. I have a clearer idea of what you are and what you might be than you have yourself. You must trust my judgment in such matters."

  In the past, her authority had always sufficed to subdue her pupil's awkward moods, but it did not seem sufficient now.

  "Must I?" she retorted.

  "My whole life, it seems, is governed by musts. I must do as my father wills; I must do what my teacher advises; I must do what tradition demands.

  I must do all these things, even when they conflict. I'd gladly trade every privilege I'm heir to for the one which Keshvara has: the privilege of being free."

  "You don't understand," Ereleth said, knowing how unsatisfactory a statement it was, and how hollow it would sound in Lucrezia's ear, even though it had the advantage of truth.

  "I understand far more than you think," the girl replied forlornly.

  "I know what I am, and what I want to be."

  If only you did, Ereleth thought. If only you could.

  Lucrezia had turned away after finishing her statement, unable to sustain her defiance as resolutely as she might have wished. She crossed the room to the window, and opened the casement so that she could suck in the warm air of the summer night. Ereleth joined her gratefully. The unpleasant odour of the corpse still lingered in the air of the claustrophobic chamber, and had long since ceased to serve as a useful challenge.

  The sky was very clear, and the calm back cloth against which the vivid flame stars were set scintillated with the silver dust of fainter lights. On nights such as this it was possible to see as well as one could in the dingy light of a cloudy winter day. Starlight had always seemed to Ereleth to be infinitely preferable- on the grounds of being far more intricate and far more beautiful- to the blue curtain of daylight which danced attendance on the imperious sun. The chamber was set so high that they could see over the crenellated rim of the lowest section of the citadel wall. The waters of the great harbour were visible beyond the green-fronded rooftops, sparkling with reflected starlight.

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  "On calm days and nights," Lucrezia said, 'the opense^ must be like a vast sheet of shimmering glass: a mirror to catch me image of infinity. "

  It was hardly an original thought, Ereleth knew. The sea was described in similar terms in a hundred romantic tales which the young princess must have heard over and over again from her nurses, her elder sisters and her maidservants. But such ways of seeing, and the ways of thinking they reflected, were precious things which needed to be protected, and cherished, for the sake of maintaining a sense of wonder.

  "It is, daughter," she said, as softly and lovingly as she could.

  "That's exactly what it is."

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  a ndris studied the examining magistrate carefully while the clerk read out the charges against him. He was dark for a golden, as many Xandrians were almost sailor man dark- although his hair and beard were going grey. He was tall, too- perhaps tall enough to resent the fact that Andris was a good three sims taller.

  At least he's old, Andris thought. My best hope is that he's experienced enough in the ways of the world to know the difference between a cultivated man from the far north and a forest savage. If only I can reason with him .

  . .

  He stirred restlessly. The heavy steel shackles which were clasped about his ankles always settled at an awkward angle when he stood still, and they had chafed the flesh so that any sustained pressure quickly became painful. The shackles were purely symbolic- lust rust had weakened the links of the chain strung between them to the point where at least half of them would shatter if he kicked out forcefully but he knew better than to oppose their grip. The last thing he needed was to have attempting to escape and damaging crown property added to the list of his supposed crimes.

  Apart from the magistrate, the clerk and Andris, the only other people present in the examination room were three soldiers. One had been set to guard him, and had been with him ever since he had been brought out of the cells beneath the harbour master office. The other two a sergeant and a captain were presumably here as witnesses. The sergeant was lean and grizzled; he looked as if he had been a soldier all his life. The captain was very young and very neat; he looked as if he had been recruited within the ten day Andris remembered seeing both of them when he had been arrested.

  He was mildly disturbed, but not unduly surprised, to file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Brian%20Stableford%20-%20Serpents%20Blood.TXT (25 of 495) [11/1/2004 12:26:19 AM]

  find that the

  guardsman who had been knocked unconscious was not present.

  All the other prisoners had been brought in before him; evidently they had told their stories and received their sentences. There had been
eight in all eight, at least, who had shared the harbour master cells with him. Four were dark landers and four were sailors from various far-flung shores of the Slithery Sea. The room seemed much too large for such a small gathering.

  There were rows of wooden benches on either side of the dock, presumably placed there for the use of onlookers as well as witnesses, but they were deserted now. The detritus of waterfront brawls were presumably of little enough public interest even at the best of times, and the hour was now uncomfortably close to the midday doldrums. The magistrate would doubtless be enthusiastic to get things over and done with, so that he might go to his bed. Andris noticed, however, that the proceedings were not entirely unobserved. A series of observation-slits had been cut into the wall behind the magistrate, so that watchers in some covert or corridor beyond could peer in without exposing more of themselves than their curious eyes. Someone was lurking behind one of the slits, quietly looking on. Andris wished that there were more people present. He was extremely conscious of being alone and friendless, and h(s apprehension was heightened by the fact that he had no idea how the law-courts of Xandria functioned. According to the oft-quoted wisdom of Goran the Forefather the law was the law throughout the world, but Andris -- who had reason enough to believe that he had seen but a tiny fraction of the world- had not found it so. If there ever had been a man named Goran, who really had said all the things he was supposed to have said, he must have lived a very long time ago, when the affairs of men ran far more smoothly than they did nowadays.

  "What have you to say to these charges, dark lander said the magistrate, when the clerk had finished.

  "I beg your pardon, sir, but I'm not a dark lander Andris said. His scrupulous politeness was wasted; the magistrate frowned resentfully.

  "You are the Andris Myrasol to whom the charges refer, are you not?"

  he said.

  "That's my name," Andris confirmed patiently.

  "And to those 22

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  who know names it reveals clearly enough that I'm not a dark lander

  My skin is pale because I come from Ferentina in the far north, nearly two thousand kirns beyond the opposite shore of the Slithery Sea. I'm a civilised man, as you are. " He added the last comment by way of diplomatic flattery, but it seemed to go to waste.

  "You were arrested in the company of dark landers the magistrate pointed out.

  "There were dark landers in the room," Andris admitted, 'but I wasn't with them. I was sitting at a different table, and I wasn't involved in any way with the fight which broke out. I'm innocent of all the charges. "

  The clerk whispered something in the magistrate's ear. "All the men I have so far questioned say that you were involved in the fight," the magistrate said.

  "All of them have said that they saw you grappling with Guardsman Herriman, and that it was you who struck him with the table at which you had been sitting."

  With a sinking heart, Andris remembered the long hours spent in the harbour master cells and all the whispered conversations that had gone on around him.

  The dark landers and sailors seemed to have settled their own differences by agreeing that he was the most suitable candidate to take all of the blame.

  He looked around at the two guardsmen, neither of whom was making any protest. "Have you asked the guardsman who was hurt?" he said.

  "Did he say I hit him?"

  The magistrate looked at the officer, who stiffened slightly.

  "Herriman's in the hospital, sir," he said.

  "He's unfit to attend these proceedings, having sustained a broken leg and severe concussion. He did come round for a few minutes, but he was only able to say that he was hit from behind and couldn't see who did it." The magistrate's dark eyes settled on Andris again.

  "What about the story-teller?" Andris asked desperately.

  "He was at my table."

  This time it was the sergeant who answered.

  "There was another man injured, sir," he said.

  "A pauper. He was able to walk once he came round, and wasn't taken to hospital. I have no idea what happened to him, but he wouldn't be much use as a witness- he was blind." The magistrate turned to Andris again.

  "Are you saying that all the other witnesses are lying?" he asked silkily.

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  "Yes," Andris said firmly. ^; "I saw him grappling with Herriman myself, sir, said the sergeant quickly.

  "Just out the corner of my eye, like, while I was trying to sort things out but I did see it."

  "Is Sergeant Purkin lying?" the magistrate asked Andris. "No, sir,"

  said Andris swiftly.

  "He's mistaken. The guardsman and I did collide for a moment. He was pushed towards me just as I was pushed towards him. We had to hold on to one another to keep our balance." It sounded feeble even to him, although it was the truth, and he was quick to add: "I'm sure that the man who was injured will confirm this, if you'll only wait until he's able to give his evidence."

  The magistrate didn't seem disposed to listen to any plea for more time. It was perfectly plain he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

  "There was a big man," Andris said desperately.

  "Heavyset. Almost as big as me, but not quite as tall. He and several others were desperate to get away up the staircase to the bedrooms. I just happened to be in their way that's why they shoved me. It was the big man who picked up the table and hit us with it. He hit me as well as the guardsman- I can show you the bruises."

  "Make a note of the fact that the man has bruises," the magistrate said to the clerk, without showing the slightest interest it^ inspecting them, 'even though he denies being involved in the^ brawl. "

  , "They're just trying to put the blame on me because I'm a foreigner,"

  Andris complained.

  "They decided to say I hit the guardsman just in case someone tried to put the blame on them."

  "All of the arrested men are foreigners," the magistrate pointed out.

  "But not from as far away as me- and they all knew each other ... at least, the dark landers knew one another and so did the men they were fighting."

  "And yet both sets of former disputants now agree that you caused Trooper Herriman's injuries," the magistrate observed, as though it were a point of immense significance.

  "You are, I suppose, a prince of your own land?"

  Andris was so startled by the change of tack that he failed to notice the sarcasm in the remark.

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  "As a matter of fact," he said, 'yes. "

  The magi state let out a short, barking laugh. The clerk tittered.

  Sergeant Purkin smiled in a way that was both ironic and predatory.

  "It's strange," said the magistrate, 'that the further away visitors to Xandria hail from, the higher their rank seems to be. No matter how shabby their clothing might appear, nor how ill-supplied their purses, they always turn out to be princes. "

  Or to put it another way, Andris thought dismally, we think we just caught you out in a whopping lie, and we're not going to believe a single word you say.

  "It doesn't matter what I once was," he said desperately.

  "I arrived in Xandria a poor man, hoping to find a kinsman of mine who left my homeland many years ago. A merchant in one of the northern ports told me that he'd come here. I took a room in the Wayfaring Tree while I made my enquiries. I was just sitting by the staircase, with the story-teller, when a riot broke out. I had no quarrel with anyone. .

  except, perhaps, with the man who did hit the guardsman, who'd already caused some injury and distress to my companion, the blind man. "

  "What's the name o
f this kinsman for whom you're supposedly searching?" the magistrate asked.

  "Theo Zabio. I understand he came south across the Slithery Sea some twelve or fifteen years ago."

  "Have you ever heard of a man named Theo Zabio, Captain Cerri?" the magistrate asked.

  "Never," said the officer, slightly unhappily.

  No reason why you should, Andris thought. You can't have been born twelve years ago.

  "I think this is all nonsense," the magistrate said sternly.

  "Whether you're a dark lander or not, it seems that you behave like a dark lander I see no reason whatsoever to doubt the word of all these witnesses.

  I find you guilty as charged, on all counts." The sanctimonious bastard, Andris thought. It's the same wherever you go.

  Always put the blame on the foreigner, and if you have a choice go for the big one. I should never have crossed the Slithery Sea. I should never have come south at all. What was wrong with west or east? Why should I expect Theo Zabio to be interested in me, just because he's my uncle? All my other uncles would have stabbed me in the back as soon as look at me.

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  "I'm sorry, sir," he said, keeping his voice very levelmspite of the ashen taste in his mouth, 'but the witnesses are mistaken. That's understandable-it was a very confused situation. But the fact is that I didn't hit anybody, least of all the guardsman. This isn't fair. In my own land, I'd be allowed to see and hear my accusers give evidence, and I'd be allowed an advocate too. "

  "This is Xandria," the magistrate told him coldly.

  "Advocates cost money, and you hadn't enough in your pouches to hire a donkey-driver.

  How, exactly, did you intend to make a living here? What training do you have? "