Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  he said- and then realised what it might mean.

  "She wasn't an amber, by any chance?"

  "N-not exactly," the thin man said, as doubt caught him up.

  "Not amber but not pure g-g-gold, mind. If she'd d-dark lander in erit was only a quarter. She warn't in lander though. Islander or sailor man C-could've had amber in 'er. . . certainly cc-could've."

  "What was the message?" Jacom said quietly, tiring of the man's panic-stricken rambling.

  "I d-don't. . ." Purkin raised his arm again, but he didn't have a chance to bring it down. Jacom neatly plucked the hammer out of the sergeant's hand. He was warming to his task now, and suddenly saw an opportunity to make an impression on his men.

  "Don't do that, sergeant," he said silkily.

  "I know a better way to cure bad memories."

  "You do, sir?" said Purkin interestedly. It was difficult to tell whether the tone of his voice signified honest curiosity or whether he was simply trying to play his part in the pantomime. Jacom gave the hammer back to Purkin as the sergeant stood up, and stepped past Seril Sart, brujshing Kristoforo's hands away with a casual sweep of his wrist. As the guardsman stepped back, Jacom took his place.

  Carefully, he removed a handkerchief from his pouch and reached around to stuff it in Sart's mouth.

  "Hold that in place, will you?"

  he said to Kristoforo. The guardsman obliged in time to stop the prisoner mumbling an objection.

  "Tell me, sergeant," said Jacom, as he took Sart's right hand in his own, and placed his left on the prisoner's shoulder.

  "Have you ever seen this method of treatment?" He took a firm grip on the middle finger of Sart's hand, and twisted it in the very precise manner which he had learned from his tutor in the Arts Martial. It was difficult to judge the exact extent of Sart's agony because the precautionary muffler stifled his scream, but Jacom noted the approving glint in Purkin's eyes.

  "Interestin', that, sir," said Purkin agreeably, as Jacom released the arm, stood the prisoner back on his feet and recovered his file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Brian%20Stableford%20-%20Serpents%20Blood.TXT (96 of 495) [11/1/2004 12:26:20 AM]

  handkerchief.

  "I've seen it done, sir, but never learned the trick of it myself. Leaves no marks, I hear, but positively excruciatin' to experience. I don't suppose you could show me again, sir so I can try to get the hang of it, like?"

  "That depends, sergeant," Jacom said. Then he suddenly moved to transfix Sart's gaze with his own.

  "Don't try to tell me that you can't read, Seril," he said wolfishly, 'and don't try to tell me that because you were strictly forbidden to read it you daren't even look.

  What did the message say, Seril? Word for word, now. " Seril Sart was no hero, and he had taken more than enough punishment for one day.

  "G-g-great danger," he ground out, through teeth clenched against the pain.

  "Escape arranged. Stay p-p-put. Signed with a name begins with a z-zed.

  That's all, on est This time, Jacom was inclined to believe him.

  "Doesn't make sense," opined the jailer.

  "Mongrel's got people queuing up to buy him out all legal. What'd he want to escape for -even if he could?"

  Jacom signalled to the jailer to be quiet.

  "Thank you, Seril," he said.

  "That's all we wanted to know. You can go home now, if you want to. If anyone asks about the message, you'd be well advised to tell them you delivered it safely, and that no one was any the wiser. If you don't tell them that, I might not be pleased to see you the next time we meet. That's only one of a dozen little tricks I know, and I'd be glad of the opportunity to test the other eleven. Practice makes perfect, isn't that what they say?"

  Seril Sart nodded, perhaps to confirm, that that was, indeed, what they said.

  Jacom watched the thin man make his exit.

  "Shouldn't we have held on to him, sir?" asked the sergeant, in a pleasantly respectful tone.

  "No," said Jacom thoughtfully. This, he was sure, was a chance to get his nascent career back on the right track.

  "We'd never get to the bottom of it that way. If there really is an escape planned, the sensible thing for us to do is to arrange for it to go awry.

  That way, we catch the would-be rescuers instead of their messenger. He must be just a messenger, don't you think?"

  "But it still doesn't make sense," the jailer complained yet again.

  "The amber's as good as out. If the king won't give him to the princess, your friend Fraxinus'll buy him out."

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  Jacom was uncorp^prtably aware of the sergeant's curious gaze studying his face. Purkin was obviously wondering whether Carus Fraxinus was behind this, but wasn't entirely sure whether it was safe to say so. Jacom, on the other hand, was wondering whether he ought to tell Fraxinus that someone seemingly had plans to liberate his precious mapmaker before anyone had the chance to get him out legally. Why, Jacom asked himself, were northern map makers suddenly in such demand?

  "It seems that a competition is developing to claim the services of our unlucky vagabond," he said carefully.

  "When he was in court, he said he'd come to Xandria in search of a kinsman of his, by the name of Zabio. Sart's message was signed with a name beginning with a zed."

  "He wrote a letter to a shipmaster asking after a man of that name,"

  the jailer put in, and was swift to add: "A legal letter, that is."

  "Perhaps this was his reply," Jacom said.

  "Carus Fraxinus is an honest man, who's exploring honest ways to take the mapmaker into his service. . . ifSeril Sart is right in thinking that he was hired by a pirate lass, it's possible^ that this Zabio fellow is a very different sackful of prunes." ' "And that the amber isn't what he claims to be, irrespective of whether or not he clouted Henriman," Purkin put in significantly. "I think we ought to set a trap, sergeant," said Jacom, who saw in this affair a golden opportunity to put the seal on his reputation, and perhaps to increase his standing in the eyes of Carus Fraxinus too.

  "I think we ought to employ a full measure of cunning in getting to the bottom of this not to mention-doing the amber a favour by saving him from getting any deeper in trouble than he already is."

  Sergeant Purkin condescended to laugh at that.

  "When was the last time anyone succeeded in escaping from the jail?" Jacom asked the jailer.

  "Before my time," the jailer replied stiffly.

  "Twenty or thirty years, at least. Every wall and every door's solidI'd stake my life on that. You couldn't tunnel out with a sack full of grinder worms and he hasn't got so much as a hairpin in there.

  Strikes me that his friends don't have a clue about what they're letting themselves in for. Foreigners! "

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  "In that case," Jacom said,

  "I think we'll let them have a go, don't you? It might even be tonight.

  They probably think we'll be too busy with other matters, with the big holiday tomorrow. We'll keep a close eye on the place until they arrive, let them in ... and stop them on the way out. Maybe we'll even have time to twist an arm or two in the interests of finding out what in corrosion's name they're playing at."

  "Suits me," grunted the jailer.

  "Done my bit. Down to you now."

  "We'll take care of it," Jacom assured him.

  "You can depend on that."

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  i t was difficult to estimate Hyry Keshvara's age. Lucrezia judged that she must be at least eighteen, but she seemed amazingly fit and wiry for a woman of that age. The women of t
he Inner Sanctum mostly grew fat before they turned fifteen, and even those who didn't were soft, like pillows filled with feather foam Keshvara was by no means thin, but her flesh looked hard harder even than Dhalla's. Lucrezia had only once had occasion to touch the older woman's arm, but she remembered vividly that she had never felt muscles so taut and flesh so firm. She imagined that the best of the king's guardsmen would feel very similar- not those like the young officer who paused to watch her from the wall while she worked in the garden, but tHe old veterans who had seen action in the last of the wesrland wars.

  Keshvara was surely a veteran of sorts herself-- but Lucrezia had never before seen her as troubled or as hesitant as she now was,jand the princess was dismayed by the sight. ' Lucrezia had often urged Keshvara to visit her more frequently, but until this evening the trader had never come to see her without goods to offer for sale. When Keshvara had something to sell, she was a paragon of all the conversational virtues polite, charming, witty and completely at case with herself, even in the company of royalty- hut she was different now. She had refused food, and she was sipping her wine in a cautious manner that might almost have been insulting, given the princess's reputation. Her gaze was moving restlessly from side to side, as though she were reluctant to look Lucrezia squarely in the eye.

  Lucrezia wished that she could put the older woman at her ease. She wished she could tell her that out of all the people she knew, she envied none but Hyry Keshvara, no matter that the other women of the Sanctum except perhaps Ereleth - would have

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  despised her on sight. She wished she could explain that although the great majority of the queens and princesses, and even the higher-ranking servants, measured their peers according to their beauty-envying the slenderness of a waist or the curve of a breast while feeling fully entitled to sneer at a hank of grey hair or a callused hand- she, Lucrezia, was different. Alas, politeness as well as protocol forbade her to say any such thing. There was simply no diplomatic way to inform someone generally considered plain that it really did not matter that a woman had narrow eyes, a lumpen nose and hairy arms, provided that the sights those eyes had seen, the odours the nose had smelt and the objects those arms had reached out for were worthwhile.

  Lucrezia studied the scar which scored Keshvara's neck and disappeared beneath the collar of her masculine blouse, where she had been caught by the teeth of a crocolid. She even envied the woman that, but knew how absurd it would be to say so. She was disappointed to discover that Hyry was capable of an altogether feminine confusion and trepidation, but she was doubly disappointed in herself for not being able to dispel that anxiety. When she groped for words, the best she could come up with was a leaden

  "Are you well?" and even that came out in a formal tone quite unsuited to the asking of a sincere question.

  "Yes, highness," the trader replied.

  "Very well indeed, I assure you."

  "I'm flattered that you found the time to come to see me," Lucrezia said, trying to make up for the awkward start.

  "You must he very busy with preparations for your new expedition into the south lands

  Keshvara seemed taken aback by that observation, and her narrow eyes narrowed further, as if she were wondering whether the princess might be mocking her.

  "I'm making ready for the journey," she admitted.

  "Carus Fraxinus wants me to go ahead, so I'll be setting out for Khalorn tomorrow or the day after."

  "So soon!" said Lucrezia, in mild surprise.

  "I'd hoped that you'd remain here to see the culmination of our experiment."

  The trader bowed her head shamefacedly.

  "Fraxinus has received news from Aulakh Phar in Khalorn," she said.

  "Phar urges us to make all possible haste there's trouble stirring in the dark lands it seems.

  All kinds of strange rum ours are spreading 97

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  through the forest, fcaxinus

  thought it best to bring forward all our plans. In fact, highness, it was Fraxinus who asked me to come here tonight, to ask a small favour of you. "

  "A favour!" the princess exclaimed, with a small thrill of delight.

  If Keshvara felt able to come here asking favours, no matter how smalt, that surely signified that there was more to their relationship than mere commerce.

  "You have only to ask," she added recklessly, 'and I will do whatever I can.

  "

  Hyry Keshvara nodded, but there was no evident diminution in her uncertainty.

  "It's about the tall amber who's presently held in your father's jail," she said.

  "He told Fraxinus that you had offered to secure a pardon for him if he would pledge himself to your service."

  Lucrezia tried hard to conceal her shock.

  "What of it?" she said evenly.

  "Do you, perchance, intend to feed him the third of the seeds I brought back from my last expedition?"

  "I do," Lucrezia said.

  "It seems to me that he will make a perfect host, and my father has said that I may have him the day after Thanksgiving, although I had to strike a bargain of sorts to get him."

  Hyry's lips were very tight; it was plain that this was the answer she had anticipated- and, fonsome reason, feared.

  "Why do you ask?" Lucrezia added.

  "What has the northerner to do with you- or with Carus Fraxinus?"

  "I know it's not my place to say this, highness," Keshvara said haltingly,

  'but I wish that you might see your way clear to finding a different host.

  Carus Fraxinus would like to buy the amber out himself. "

  Lucrezia made every effort to remain calm, and to be seen to remain calm, although this request caused her some distress.

  "I fear," she said, as mildly as she could, 'that I've gone to a certain amount of trouble to secure the man's services. I've made promises in order that I might have this man, and I can't simply abandon him. With the whole realm to chose from, can't Fraxinus find a substitute? " The trader's head was deeply bowed, concealing her expression.

  "Of course, highness," she said unhappily.

  "I understand. Perhaps, though, you might order the amber to perform one brief and

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  simple task on our behalf before you give him to the seed. We would be eternally grateful, and it shouldn't inconvenience you at all.

  He's a mapmaker, you see. He knows how to draw a map of the region we desire to explore. "

  "Are there no other map makers in Xandria?" Lucrezia asked, in genuine astonishment.

  The trader looked up. She was blushing, although her cheeks were so dark that they hardly showed the red.

  "I fear not, highness," she said.

  "At least, none who practise openly. The Art fell into disrepute many generations ago, and although there may be patient scholars somewhere within the empire's bounds who preserve the lore on the grounds that forgetfulness is a sin, we don't know where to look for them. Carus Fraxinus has been looking for a mapmaker for some time, and when news reached him- I believe the information came from one of the clerks who serve in the king's court-that one had been found he was enthusiastic to secure his services. Alas, he discovered that his offer to buy the man out had been preempted ... by your highness. When he told me, I guessed what had happened, and he asked me to come to see you, in the hope that something might be done. I knew that you were interested in the prospects of our expedition, highness, and dared to hope . . ."

  "I see," said Lucrezia, quickly taking up the conversational slack as her visitor's voice faltered.

  "I really am sorry that this accidental clash of interests has arisen . ..


  but if the map is all you need, there'll be no problem. I'll instruct him to. draw it before turning him over to the surgeon."

  "The map is all we need," Hyry agreed, stressing the word need very slightly to indicate that there was a measure of compromise in the agreement.

  "Fraxinus is, of course, willing to pay a fair price for it."

  Lucrezia could see that Hyry was more than willing to leave the matter there, but she wasn't prepared to release the trader so easily. She had questions of her own that required answering, and she could hardly help but remember what she had told her father regarding the political importance of the expedition that Fraxinus and Keshvara were mounting.

  "Tell me more about this Carus Fraxinus," the princess commanded. 99

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  "He's

  a merchany^Hyry replied uneasily.

  "One of the richest in the city- a man respected by everyone. He's not one of those who've made their fortunes by issuing usurious loans and bargaining with rapacious fervour. He's . . ."

  "An adventurer like you," Lucrezia put in, hoping that the compliment might smooth the trader's explanatory path.

  "Far better and far bolder than I," Hyry answered modestly.

  "I'm glad to be his hireling in this business, although the initial inspiration for the venture was mine. He and Aulakh Phar are the ideal men to equip and undertake such an expedition."

  "Is Phar a merchant too?"

  "He's more of a scholar," Hyry said, a little uneasily.

  "He makes his living as a healer but his wisdom extends far beyond any single branch of the lore. Fraxinus has often called upon his services as an agent and advisor, and thinks that his cunning will be invaluable if we can indeed cross the Dragomite Hills."

  "And you think the amber might be useful too?"

  Hyry shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably.

  "Fraxinus formed a good impression of him, highness. He has the look of a fighting man and he seemed to be in desperate need of a generous master . .

  . but the map is the main thing. If only we can obtain the map, we can hire fighting men aplenty in the dark lands At least, we can if . . ." She trailed off. i "This trouble in the dark lands you mention," Lucrezia said, quick to pick up the thread of the argument.