Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  "Tell us how you came by the information, captain," Belin said, trying not to let his weariness become too obvious.

  "The jailer saw a man pass a message into one of the cells, majesty.

  He was there visiting his brother, shortly before the gates were due to be closed, and took the opportunity to drop a piece of parchment into another man's cell. I. persuaded the man to tell me what the message said. I would have reported the matter had it occurred earlier in the shift, or if the night had passed without incident, but. it seemed best to take precautions.

  "

  "Imbecile," said the Prince-Commander.

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  The young man lifted his head for the first time, but there was nothing heated about his response.

  "I now see, majesty, that I was intended to intercept the message," he said.

  "I was taken in. My stupidity was responsible for everything that happened thereafter."

  Brave man! Belin thought. And not so stupid as to attempt excuses or apologies.

  "How long have you held your commission?" he asked. "Sixty days, majesty."

  "Did it occur to you to ask for extra men to set your trap?"

  "Yes, majesty. But I. . ."

  "But you're the junior officer in the guard, and you wanted to create an impression." Belin finished for him, thinking that it was probably a more accurate summary than the young man had in mind, although it was probably far too simple to be the whole explanation of a complicated judgment.

  The officer had sense enough not to attempt any correction. "There was trouble at the prison, I suppose?" Belin said. "Yes, majesty.

  There was an escape. "

  "Which you failed to prevent, in spite of the advance warning." The young man's face flushed crimson.

  "Yes, majesty. I had been expecting only one man to be released, but the men who went into the jail let everyone out. Then, as soon as the alarm was raised, my men went to the City Gate as fast as they could. Several prisoners escaped in the confusion, including the amber and the brother of the man from whom we obtained the information. It seems that they were part of the conspiracy all along. Their arrests might well have been part of the plan."

  "So they might," said Belin tiredly.

  "It's obvious enough, with the aid of hindsight. But you're not a complete fool, Captain Cerri. No one could have anticipated that this might happen.

  The citadel of Xandria is one of the wonders of the world, and history tells us that it has been besieged a dozen times in the last thousand years, always unsuccessfully. These walls have been battered by mortar- bombs, and even by freshly forged cannon by those mad enough to take the risk, for ten days on end. They've been bombarded with thousands of gallons of the most powerful stone rots known to man, but they've never been fatally breached. The harbour has been blockaded by the most powerful navies ever assembled, and file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Brian%20Stableford%20-%20Serpents%20Blood.TXT (146 of 495) [11/1/2004 12:26:20 AM]

  the city has been sacked by armies a hundred thousand strong, but the citadel itself has always held firm. Who would have imagined that a gang of petty thieves and dark land savages with blowpipes would dare to try to rob it?"

  Captain Cerri wisely said nothing.

  "I suppose you realise, captain," Belin went on, 'that these noble gentlemen gathered about me want your blood. They want me to make an example of you-perhaps to have you hanged, or at least condemned to the wall. Not because they think you're any more guilty than they are, of course, but simply because they think you're the most convenient scapegoat. The Chief Steward of the citadel didn't know that half his staff were in league with these villains. The Chief of my Secret Police heard not the slightest whisper that any such robbery was being planned. My beloved son the Prince-Commander of the Armed Forces has such brilliant staff officers that the combined forces of the guard, the constabulary and the militia failed to make a single arrest between them. The Lord High Treasurer failed to take the most elementary precautions regarding the safe storage of the refreshed coin. Between the four of them, they managed to make the unthinkable not merely possible but perfectly straightforward. And they want you to take the blame for them, because nobody who matters a damn cares what becomes of you. "

  Belin did not look round to see what expressions his ministers wore, but he took a certain pleasure in the naked astonishment with which the young officer finally condescended briefly to meet his gaze. "As it happens," the king went on, warming at last to the task which lay unpleasantly and tediously before him, 'it could have been even worse. No one is dead, so far as we know. That, I think, is something to be grateful for. The thieves caused chaos, but they didn't cut anybody's throat, and they seem to have taken some small trouble to avoid doing so. Their petards were very carefully designed, and just as carefully set. The devices did what they were supposed to do, and no more. The coin they stole is a modest enough fortune, and its redistribution will be a temporary affair- it might even work to the benefit of trade within the kingdom, or between Xandria proper and whichever of its far-flung provinces the thieves select as a refuge.

  In any case, it's safe to assume that i43

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  every man in the empire will be

  keeping a sharp lookout for the coin, whether his intention is to reclaim it for the crown or to steal a portion himself. There are other matters which concern me more. " He paused, prompting the officer to say

  "Majesty?"

  "No one is dead, so far as we know," Belin said, 'but several people are missing. One of them is my daughter, Lucrezia. She seems to have run out of the Inner Sanctum immediately after the petard blew the door off its hinges, while the carts were coming out of the stables on their way to pick up the barrels of coin. No one is certain what happened to her after that, but I fear she might have been kidnapped. "

  Captain Cerri had the grace to look astonished as well as faintly puzzled.

  "I want my daughter back, captain," Belin said, allowing his voice to become ominous.

  "I don't know what the robbers intend to do with her but if they did take her they'll presumably try to hold her to ransom. I want you and the men in your command to find her, and bring her back. If, in the process of carrying out this mission, you encounter the men who robbed the treasury, you should of course kill the lot of- them but not until the princess is safe. Until you find her and bring her safely back, neither you nor any of your men will set foot inside the city walls. Do you understand me, captain?" ' "Yes, majesty," the officer replied, although he was not entirely sure what he was agreeing to. The order he' had been given was clear enough, but one of the things he had to' understand was that unless and until he carried it out he and all his-men were banished from the city. It was a milder punishment than the king's ministers wanted, but it was a punishment nevertheless. As for the other thing he had to understand . . . well, no one was going to say out loud that perhaps the princess hadn't been kidnapped at all that perhaps she, too, had taken the opportunity to escape from her narrow prison. "Do you have any idea where to start looking?" Belin asked, his voice once again as mild as milk.

  "According to rumour, majesty, the person behind the robbery must have been a man named Checuti," the officer said.

  "He's a southerner, from the province of Khalorn , . . but that's not to say

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  he'll go back there. He might be wiser to go to one of the Thousand Isles."

  "My Chief of Secret Police will give you any information he has,"

  Belin said. He leaned forward, and said: "What do you know about the amber, captain? The prisoner whose escape you were trying to prevent."
>
  "Very little, majesty," the officer replied, with a slight stutter which implied that he might know something he wasn't prepared to admit.

  "My men arrested him some days ago, while we were on harbour patrol.

  should have realised there was something strange about the planned escape, given that two people had already offered to buy him out."

  "Two people?" For the first time, Belin found himself facing a point of information which had not already been made known to him. "Yes, majesty. A merchant named Carus Fraxinus and . . . Princess Lucrezia." The officer blushed, realising that he had placed the names in the wrong order.

  Belin looked round at the Chief of his Secret Police, but didn't bother to ask the question that was hovering on his lips. If Fraxinus had been involved in the robbery, he'd hardly have attempted to buy out a man who was required by the plan to be in jail . . . assuming that the attempted jailbreak really was a calculated diversion. He remembered that Lucrezia had mentioned the name of Carus Fraxinus in connection with that of Hyry Keshvara and the expedition to find the source of the seed which she had planned to feed to the amber . . .

  but he couldn't begin to see what sinister sense there mighr be in the tangled web of coincidence. Hadn't Lucrezia tried to tell him that there was something important about whatever it was that Fraxinus had planned . to the realm, and perhaps to the world? Was that why she had disappeared? Could even she have been parr of this amazing plan to steal the Thanksgiving coin?

  For a fleeting moment, Belin was almost intrigued . . . but then he remembered how terribly tired he was, and imagined the dreadful headache which speculations of that intricate kind mighr easily bring on.

  "Find my daughter, captain," he said dully.

  "Bring her back, alive and well. If you can, bring me this Checuti's head on a pike as well . . . and the amber's, if you want to be sure of the best possible i45

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  welcome. But don't come back without the princess. Not ever.

  That goes for you^ men too. You have two days to make ready."

  "Yes, majesty," the captain said, bowing low in response to a casual gesture of dismissal. He turned, and made his weary way back to the door through which he had entered, making only the feeblest attempt to simulate a military march.

  Another problem solved, Belin thought, as he watched the young man's dejected retreat. There's not one chance in a thousand of my seeing him again. If only I could be as easily rid of the rest of these chattering apes!

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  i9 the servant who had shown Jacom into Carus Fraxinus's reception-room bowed and retired. Jacom was surprised to find that the merchant was not alone, and even more surprised at the appearance of the man with whom he was engrossed in conversation. He was old, blind, very ragged and none too clean. It cook several seconds for Jacom to realise that this must be the story-teller who had been with the amber in the Wayfaring Tree. Was he too, Jacom wondered, part of the vast conspiracy which had caught him up and ruined his life?

  "Jacom!" said the merchant heartily. He leapt to his feet and extended his hand to be shaken. There was a glass decanter on the table before the sofa where his unprepossessing guest sat, and two dark-coloured goblets; now Fraxinus fetched a third cup from a cupboard and filled that too. He seemed to be in a good mood- an excessively good mood, in Jacom's sombre opinion.

  "It's good to see you, friend," the merchant said, guiding him to a chair while resuming his own seat beside the blind man.

  "I wish Xury were here, but he's still away- not expected until tomorrow or the day after. Are you well?"

  Jacom, perching uneasily on the edge of his seat, could not summon up the energy to lie.

  "No," he said bluntly.

  "I'm not. I'm in trouble. I need your help."

  "Ah!" said Fraxinus, not in the least put out by his bluntness.

  "I

  take it that Checuti's mad escapade has numbered you among its many victims.

  I'm very sorry to hear it. How bad is it? "

  "Not as bad as it might be, I'm assured," Jacom said glumly, 'but quite bad enough, from my point of view. I was on duty last night. I set men to watch the jail, having learned that someone intended to help one of the prisoners escape- a move which must have assisted the robbers in the secret setting of their petards and i47

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  helped them to prepare their carts unobserved and uninterrupted. My men and I have^fcen exiled from the city, in effect. The price of our return is the safe recovery of Princess Lucrezia. "

  Fraxinus seemed suitably amazed, and suitably sympathetic.

  "I had not heard that Princess Lucrezia was missing," he said.

  "That's a harsh sentence, Jacom. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

  "The princess is missing, presumed kidnapped," Jacom said, stressing the word presumed very faintly.

  "If Checuti took her, I must find him, as quickly as I can."

  "That won't be easy," Fraxinus observed cautiously. Jacom wondered if the note of caution signified that his careful use of the word if had not gone unnoticed, nor its implications unappreciated. "I'd be very grateful for any help you can offer, Carus," Jacom said, this time placing a slight emphasis on the word any. Fraxinus took a sip of wine, studying his visitor with a slightly furrowed brow. The blind man was quite still, but he was listening eagerly to every word, well aware of the fact that there would be good money to be earned from the spreading of this tale. Jacom, embarrassed by the tension he had brought into being, sipped from his own cup.

  "I believe you're going south very shortly," he said to Fraxinus.

  "To Khalorn." He wondered why there seemed to be a bitter taste in his mouth when the wine was so silkily sweet. "That's right," Fraxinus said neutrally.

  "[ told you as much when I spoke to you the other day. I also told you then that I know Checuti. What are you getting at?" i "The man whose escape from the jail I tried to prevent," Jacom said, taking the bull between the horns,

  'was the man in whom you expressed a strong interest- the mapmaker. I don't suppose you know his present whereabouts? "

  "Jacom!" the merchant protested, maintaining his voice at a gentle level despite the clear note of reproach.

  "Surely you don't think that I had anything to do with this business? I've been a respectable man of business since before you were born, and I've never been accused or suspected of any kind of wrongdoing. Why would I try to secure the man's release by stealth when I could have bought him out?"

  "The thing is," Jacom said uneasily, 'that you couldn't buy him out because the princess had already claimed him. If the note file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Brian%20Stableford%20-%20Serpents%20Blood.TXT (152 of 495) [11/1/2004 12:26:20 AM]

  which the jailer

  intercepted wasn't a complete fabrication, it might well have been sent by someone called Zabio. You told me that Myrasol asked you to look for a relative of his- by which he meant one Theo Zabio, according to the jailer.

  I see that you found the other man he mentioned to you. Did you by any chance find Zabio too? " Fraxinus had raised his eyebrows, but it was impossible to tell whether he was genuinely offended.

  "Andris Myrasol did ask me to enquire after a man named Zabio," he admitted.

  "Alas, I could find no one who knew such a man. I had intended to consult Checuri about that, but I had no chance to do so he can be a difficult man to find even at the best of times, and I now know that he had other matters on his mind. The story-teller here was far easier to locate, and I wanted to interview him for my own reasons. You don't really think that I'm mixed up in this business, do you, Jacom? Surely not!" Jacom couldn't meet the other
man's eyes.

  "No, I don't," he said. "But the jailer has given this information to the Chief of the Secret Police, and it's his duty as well as his nature to scent conspiracies everywhere. Given that you're about to set out for Khalorn, and that another member of your expedition visited Princess Lucrezia mere hours before the robbery, he's understandably interested. At the very least, you'll be carefully watched for the next few ten days - and I can't promise that you won't be hindered when you reach Khalorn. If you do happen to meet up with the mapmaker. . . well, perhaps you might count yourself more fortunate if you don't, at least until Checuti is caught or the princess found."

  "It all seems a trifle over-complicated," Fraxinus said in a vexed tone.

  "But I do see the logic of it. When you say you want my help, I presume you'd like me to help you locate Andris Myrasol ... or Checuti. Given that Aulakh Phar and I have extensive contacts in the southland, including dark landers you think I might be in a position to pick up valuable information."

  "I'd like to travel with you, if I may," Jacom said, there being no point in beating about the bush.

  "I'd be extremely obliged if you could do your utmost, while we're on the road, to catch some whisper regarding Checuti's possible whereabouts."

  "I see," Fraxinus said.

  "Well, you're welcome to come with me, if you wish--you don't really need my permission to follow me along 149

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  the king's highwavi.Whatever whispers

  reach my ears I'll be pleased to pass on to you- but for what it may be worth, perhaps I ought to say that I had no reason whatsoever to try to get Andris Myrasol out of jail. Hyry Keshvara had already persuaded the princess to take steps to provide me with a map as soon as the amber was given into her care. I don't say that Checuti's so-called crime of the century was as much of an inconvenience to me as it has been to you, but I certainly obtained no advantage from it, and would far rather it hadn't happened.