The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  I didn’t see that it made a huge difference. We were in a cold, bare basement room under the courthouse. What was there to look at? But it obviously mattered to Nico. And then I realized. This was not the first time Nico had been in a dungeon. The first time Dina met Nico, he had been locked up in a cell in Dunark Castle, accused of having murdered his father, his sister-in-law, and his small nephew. If Dina and Mama hadn’t helped him then, the executioner would have chopped off his head. And it must be hard for Nico not to think of that time now. Darkness in a cell in Sagisloc probably wasn’t very different from darkness in a cell in Dunark.

  I tried to think of something to say, something that might make it easier for him. But my chest hurt, and I was freezing cold. I might have said “It’ll be all right,” or something like that, but right now it would be really hard to sound as if I believed it myself.

  They came to get us. I don’t know how much later; it was impossible to keep proper track of time in the darkness.

  “Out,” said one of the guards gruffly.

  I got to my feet with some difficulty—it isn’t easy with your hands chained behind your back and a body full of bruises that have stiffened in the cold. I wasn’t quick enough, it seemed; the guard grabbed me by the arm and hauled me into the passage outside. I had to squeeze my eyes shut. The light from the window at the end was blindingly bright after hours of darkness.

  They dragged us up two flights of stairs and into a hall with tall, narrow windows on all sides. On a dais raised a few feet above the floor sat a row of men in black cloaks. I wasn’t sure whether they were Educators or some other kind of official.

  Standing in front of them was Mesire Aurelius. He had not been chained, but it was still obvious that he was being accused.

  “Does he admit to having used a false teacher, a grayling even, as a tutor for his daughter?” said one of the men on the dais.

  “Yes, M’lord Courtmaster, I do so admit,” said Mesire Aurelius. “But only out of ignorance. I had no idea—”

  “Ignorance is no excuse. The law is clear, and it is a citizen’s duty to know it: only Educators and tutors authorized by the Prince may teach our children.”

  A whisper went around the hall, and I noticed that the balcony at the end of the room was crowded with onlookers. The Courtmaster threw a sharp glance at the audience, and the whisperings died. Then he raised the Sword of Justice, a cumbersome thing loaded down with gemstones and scarlet tassels, and spoke his judgment:

  “Mesire Aurelius is fined a hundred silver marks. And the child is to be brought to the Educators at Sagisburg.”

  “No,” moaned Mesire Aurelius. “The money, yes, I’ll pay it gladly, but Mira—”

  The Courtmaster rose and looked down on Mesire Aurelius. “The charge could have been one of offense against the Prince’s name, Mesire. Does he know the penalty for that?”

  Mesire Aurelius’s voice was barely audible. “Death,” he said.

  “Precisely. You should compose yourself, sir, pay the fine, and count yourself mercifully judged. Next case.”

  The guard next to me cleared his throat. “M’lord Courtmaster…”

  “Yes?” It clearly did not please the Courtmaster to be interrupted.

  “The two graylings.”

  “Oh, yes. Six years’ labor at the Sagisburg. Next!”

  Six years. Six years?

  “Don’t we get a say?” I shouted.

  Apparently not. The guard whacked the back of my neck so hard that I stumbled and grew dizzy.

  “Apologies, M’lord Courtmaster,” he said. And to me he snarled, “Shut your mouth, cur, or I’ll break your jaw.”

  The Courtmaster looked as if he had just discovered something unpleasant in his food. “Clear them from the room,” he said. “And see to it that they are shipped to the Sagisburg this very night.”

  The guard grabbed my shoulder in a no-nonsense hold, forced me around, and pushed me toward the door. And that was when I saw him, up there among the riveted onlookers on the balcony. Sezuan. I was certain it was him. That black hair, and the eyes, so like Dina’s… He stared at me for a long moment. Then a man in front of him got up, and suddenly Sezuan was gone. But he had been there. I was sure of it. And he had wanted me to see him. No one sees Sezuan unless he wants to be seen. But why? To mock me? To drive me wild with fear at what he would do to Dina and the others now that I wasn’t there to protect them?

  If that was his purpose, he succeeded. My gut was one big icy lump of fear.

  Mama, I thought. Dina. Melli. Rose. Surely, these people couldn’t send us off without at least letting us speak to our family?

  But it seemed they could.

  At dusk that night they dragged us from the cellar, put us in a boat with poor Mira, and sent us off across the lake to the Sagisburg.

  DINA

  Six Years

  Beating flax was hard and dusty work. It made my arms and back hurt, and soon my cough was nearly as bad as Melli’s.

  “It should be our last day here,” said Mama comfortingly. “When Nico and Davin come back with the money, we can collect our belongings and leave.”

  I could hardly wait. The working day dragged along at a snail’s pace.

  But by the time we got to supper, neither Davin nor Nico had turned up.

  “Where are they?” I asked anxiously.

  “Perhaps the Aurelius family has asked them to stay for dinner,” said Mama. “To celebrate.”

  But I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was worried too.

  I felt like sneaking into the men’s quarters that night to find them, but I didn’t dare. There was probably some silly fine if you got caught, and if that made it impossible for us to leave the Foundation… it didn’t bear thinking about. So all night I lay on my shelf, dozing for a while, then lying awake with my anxious thoughts, then dozing again.

  At breakfast, still no Davin, still no Nico.

  “Where are they?” I hissed at Mama.

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but we shall have to ask.”

  We went to the Inscriptorium, the building where our names had been entered into the record slates of the Foundation the very first day.

  “Pardon me,” said Mama to the Scriptor. “But I don’t understand… my son and my nephew, we haven’t seen them since breakfast yesterday, and I was wondering…”

  He looked at her in irritation, as if that was none of his concern. She kept her eyes lowered, but it was obvious all the same that she had no intention of moving before he gave her an answer.

  He sighed. “Number?” he rapped out.

  “Eight-E-10 and 8-E-11.”

  He brought the 8E slate down from its hook on the wall and carefully held it so that we would not be able to see what was written on it. Then he put it back and turned to us with a chilly smile.

  “They’ve been arrested,” he said. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound very sorry.

  “Arrested?” said Mama. “Why?”

  “For having falsely tutored a child without authorization, for spreading treason, for having attacked an officer of the Prince’s guard, and for resisting lawful arrest.”

  “What?” Mama looked completely stunned, and when I took her hand, it was icy cold to touch.

  “They got six years,” said the Scriptor and smiled his pleasant smile. “At the Sagisburg.”

  Mama wanted her own clothes back. She was going to the courthouse, and we all knew she wouldn’t get much of a hearing if she showed up in a grayling shirt. At first the Scriptor wouldn’t hear of it, at least not until Mama turned her Shamer’s eyes on him.

  “Is this the way you treat a fellow human being? Is this the way you would want to be treated yourself?”

  The color left his face and he muttered something inaudible. And suddenly it was quite possible to get ordinary clothes from the laundry; not our own, perhaps, but anything was better than the grays.

  “Now he knows you’re a Shamer,” I said as we hurried through the str
eets.

  “There’s no help for that,” said Mama. “It had to be done.”

  The courthouse was a big, square gray building of the kind that has been built to make people look small. It didn’t seem to bother Mama. She marched up the stone steps as if they were her own kitchen stairs.

  “I wish to see the Courtmaster,” she said to the first person she saw, a guard in a black uniform tunic. And even though she used neither the Shamer’s eyes nor the Shamer’s voice, there was such a forcefulness to her that he merely obeyed and said, “This way, Medama,” though she was dressed somewhat drably and looked like nobody special or powerful at all. It wasn’t until he paused in front of a door on the first floor that he seemed to hesitate.

  “Erhhh, who may I say is calling?” he asked cautiously.

  “Melussina Tonerre.” She added nothing to her bare name, just left him to sort it out for himself.

  He knocked, and when a come-in sort of grunt sounded from inside the room, he poked only his head in, as if he was less to blame if less of him was visible.

  “Medama Tonerre,” he said. “Will M’lord Courtmaster receive her?”

  But M’lord Courtmaster never got the chance to make up his own mind on that score. Mama moved swiftly past the guard, and I followed her into the large, well-lit room where the Courtmaster had been enjoying an early lunch.

  “Mesire,” said Mama. “I have come to talk to you about my son.”

  And Nico, I added in my own mind, let’s not forget Nico. But perhaps it was wise of Mama not to start talking about her “nephew Nicolas” right now. She was the worst of liars.

  The Courtmaster looked somewhat taken aback. He let go of the drumstick he was chewing and put his hand reflexively to his chest, leaving grease stains on his black robe.

  “I do not believe we have met,” he said pointedly. “Nor do I have any idea who this son of yours might be.”

  “Yesterday Mesire sentenced him to six years’ labor.”

  He frowned. “I did not pass such a sentence on any citizen yesterday.”

  “It is possible,” said Mama in her sharpest voice, “that Mesire did not consider him a citizen. He was dressed in Foundation clothes.”

  “Oh, one of the two graylings.”

  “Yes. Mesire, my son has not deserved such punishment.”

  “Medama. I do not recall the details of the matter, but I know I followed the laws of the land.”

  “Did Mesire also follow his own conscience?”

  Normally, weeks passed by without my mother using her powers. Now she had done so twice in one morning. It caused a wobbly sensation in my insides, because using the Shamer’s gift was often the next best thing to prodding a hornets’ nest. It might take a moment or two before something happened, but after that, leaving in a hurry was a really good idea.

  The Courtmaster’s own eyes were nearly hidden by heavy folds of skin, and at first it was hard to tell whether Mama had struck a nerve or not.

  “They were graylings,” he finally ventured. “If he was not guilty in this instance, I’m sure he had committed other acts deserving of punishment.”

  “Why? Because graylings are not citizens? Not human like you and me?”

  He stared helplessly down at his dead chicken. “Judgment has been passed,” he said. “There is nothing I can do now.”

  “Is that so?” Mama spoke with icy contempt. “I demand the immediate release of my son and his… companion. And I believe this to be within the powers of a courtmaster.”

  Tiny beads of sweat glittered on his lined forehead, but he did not surrender completely.

  “The boat has sailed,” he said. “The two convicts have already been brought to the Sagisburg.”

  There was perhaps just a touch of malicious pleasure in his voice. Mama stared at his bowed neck, and I almost wished she would use her voice and eyes on him again, to make him cringe and admit his fault, and his shame at it.

  She didn’t. Mama had taught me not to abuse the gift, and I had never seen her do so herself. But I think she came close, that day in the Courtmaster’s office.

  The boat has sailed. Nico and Davin were on their way to the Sagisburg now. How long would it be before someone found out that Nico was the old castellan’s son? And Davin. Davin had killed Valdracu, Prince Arthos’s own grandson. How long would they let him live if they found out about that?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Mama?”

  We were standing on the steps outside the courthouse. Had, in fact, been standing there for a while. Mama had stopped halfway down, as if her feet had suddenly sunk into the stone and she no longer had the power to move. And I grew even more afraid than I already was, afraid in a new way. Because if Mama couldn’t go on, if Mama gave up, then it really did seem hopeless, and the world might as well come to an end right away.

  It felt to me as if we had been standing there forever.

  Then Mama finally raised her head.

  “Which street?”

  “Mama?”

  “Mesire Aurelius’s house. Which street, Dina?”

  “Silver Street,” I said and felt the worst, most terrible fear seep away. Mama was still here. She hadn’t given up.

  Ines, the maid, showed us into the parlor. Everything in there seemed to be some shade of white or pale blue, and it might have been quite a cheerful room on most days. Right now, it seemed haunted, not by dead people but by the living, the master and mistress of the house and their son, Markus. They all sat still as statues, looking at no one; a table had been set for tea, but it looked as if the boy was the only one who had eaten anything.

  “Medama Tonerre,” announced Ines and left the room as if the devil might catch her if she stayed. But the sound of her footsteps halted as soon as the door had closed behind her. Was she listening by the keyhole?

  “Medama Tonerre,” said Mesire Aurelius tonelessly. “I’m afraid I’m not acquainted… have we met?”

  “I’m Davin’s mother.”

  That made him raise his eyes from his saucer. He got up.

  “Medama…” He eyed her pale green skirts as if he thought they ought to have been gray. “I regret… I must ask you to leave my house immediately.”

  “Mesire. My son and Nico have suffered judgment and imprisonment because they tried to aid this house. And you want me to leave without having spoken?”

  Why was Mesire Aurelius suddenly looking at his son? A quick sideways look, as if to see whether Markus was listening.

  “This house is obedient to the will of Prince Arthos,” he said in a loud and hollow-sounding voice. “We do not consort with enemies of the Prince. Leave, Medama, before I have the guards called.”

  He seized my mother’s hand and arm for a moment, as if he meant to push her out the door with his own two hands. She looked at him coldly.

  “Mesire, I am perfectly capable of walking on my own.”

  “Then please do so.”

  There wasn’t much else to do. We turned our backs on the statue family and left the room.

  “Mama—”

  “Hush,” said Mama, eyeing Ines, who was busy polishing a door handle a little farther down the passage, a door handle that looked gleamingly clean to me already. “When we’re outside.”

  In the streets a few moments later, I could no longer keep my mouth shut.

  “Mama, why were they like that? As if they had been turned to stone?”

  Mama shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. But I think Mesire Aurelius is afraid of his son. And I think he would like to help us if he could. He gave me a silver coin.”

  She held it so that it glinted in the afternoon sun.

  I hadn’t seen him give her anything. Perhaps when he had seized her arm?

  “Why would he be afraid of his own child? That’s weird.”

  “Yes.”

  “What can a—How old is he, ten? What can a ten-year-old do that a grown-up needs to fear?”

  Mama looked thoughtful. “Perhaps tell tales,” sh
e said.

  Suddenly the door opened again. Ines poked her head out, looking left and right.

  “Mesire asked me to say he will send word,” she said softly.

  “When?”

  “He didn’t say. But I should think when the young master has left.”

  Ines ducked back into the house and quietly closed the door. We didn’t have time to ask when that might be. And I wasn’t sure how much help we could count on getting. A silver mark was no mean sum, to be sure, but it would take more than that to release us from the Foundation. And that would only be the first step. We still had to work out a way of freeing Davin and Nico.

  “We have to go back to the Foundation to wait,” said Mama. “If he sends word today or tomorrow, fine. If he doesn’t, we’ll just have to think of something ourselves.”

  Yes, but what? I didn’t ask the question out loud, because I knew she wouldn’t be able to answer it.

  DINA

  Dinner at the Golden Swan

  We had barely reached the Foundation when we were called down to the Inscriptorium. There, the Scriptor eyed us with suspicion.

  “A gentleman has asked for you,” he said. “He wishes to hire you for a task, the exact nature of which he would not disclose. I feel bound to draw your attention to the fact that the Foundation does not permit its clients to perform acts of indecency or any other form of lewdness.”

  Acts of indecency? Mama? Me?

  “I can assure Mesire that neither my daughter nor myself has any intention of acting indecently,” said Mama with a coldness that should have left him an icicle from the ears down. She didn’t look at him, not quite, but I think he remembered what had happened the last time she did so.

  “No,” he said quickly. “No, of course not. The gentleman has sent a carriage.”

  A carriage. How extravagant.

  “Who is he?” asked Mama.

  “The gentleman did not leave his name.”

  “Do you suppose it’s Mesire Aurelius?” I whispered to Mama.