“Let’s hope so.”
It was a beautiful carriage, drawn by two dappled grays that reminded me a bit of Silky. The coachman politely offered Mama his arm to help her into the carriage and then did the same for me.
“Do you work for Mesire Aurelius?” I asked.
“This is a hired carriage,” he said. “I work for whoever pays me.”
He gave my mother a courteous bow, closed the carriage door, and mounted the block. The carriage took off with a jerk.
“I should have asked where he was taking us,” I said.
“I know of nobody else who might be this interested in us and pay for a carriage,” said Mama. “He is trying to clear his conscience, I wager.”
But when the carriage came to a halt, it was not outside the house in Silver Street. A liveried servant opened the door for us, but I didn’t recognize my surroundings at all.
“Where are we?” I said, a little nervously.
“At the Golden Swan,” he said. “If Medamina will step this way. Mesire has arranged for supper.”
An inn. That soothed my nerves. Probably Mesire Aurelius dared not meet us at the house in Silver Street where Markus’s pale eyes noted everything that went on.
We followed the usher into a handsome red building. Lamps were everywhere, and waiters in blue waistcoats and white shirts were busy lighting them to shine softly in the dusky evening. The floors were wooden, so dark that they were nearly black, and so shiny that one could practically see oneself mirrored there. Several of Sagisloc’s good citizens were already seated at white tables enjoying what looked like an exquisite meal—capon, salads, grapes, and wine.
“Mesire’s guests are here,” said the usher to one of the blue waistcoats.
“Ah, yes. This way, Medama, Medamina. Mesire thought it would be pleasant to enjoy dinner in the orangery, as it is such a warm evening.”
He led us through the house and into a tiled courtyard where apple trees, pear trees, and peach trees stood in long rows, like pillars in a church. From a greenhouse at the back, a soft light was shining onto the tiles.
It was like something out of a fairy tale. A house of glass. Like a tiny crystal palace. So many panes, even the roof was mostly glass. I was almost afraid to shout or sneeze or make sudden movements. What if it broke?
The wide doors were open to the orchard, and inside, among lemon trees, fig trees, and vines, a table had been set. A silver candelabrum sported a whole forest of candles, it seemed, and a young girl in a starched white apron was already serving the first course.
“Please be seated,” said the waiter in the blue waistcoat and held the chair for my mother and then for me. I had not been treated this way since… No, I had never been treated with this kind of courtesy in my life.
I was sitting on a white chair with a blue velvet cushion. On the platter in front of me, a rolled-up fish rested in a small pool of orange sauce. Thin strips of orange peel had been arranged delicately on top, and I couldn’t help thinking of Melli and Rose, who were sitting down to another round of the inevitable barley soup at the moment, or to boiled lentils and pork trimmings, if they were lucky.
The waiter and the serving girl both retired. The third chair was still empty. Where was Mesire Aurelius?
“Fine meals and silver candelabra,” murmured my mother, eyeing the fish. “All very well. But I would rather have the money so that we could free ourselves from the Foundation and—and see what can be done for Nico and Davin.”
“You aim too low, Melussina,” said a voice. “Why make it either, when you can have both?”
Mama leaped to her feet, so abruptly that her chair crashed back and fell over.
“You,” she said softly. “I might have known.”
Sezuan came out of the orchard shadows, so soundlessly that he seemed to glide rather than walk.
“Will you not be seated?” he said. “I can help you. Melussina, you know I can.”
“In return for what?” said my mother bitterly. “You never give anything freely. There is always a price.”
Sezuan hesitated. “Sit down,” he said coaxingly. “When did you last eat? You’ve probably had nothing all day. I promise you, this dinner is yours to enjoy, free of any… cost.”
The light gleamed in the short red silk jacket he was wearing, and in his serpent earring. Mama was staring at him, but although he didn’t meet her gaze, he didn’t seem afraid of her. Not at all afraid.
“Come. Sit,” he repeated, making a gesture toward the table and the fish on the platters.
Any hunger I might have felt had vanished at the sight of him. And I could hardly believe my own eyes when my mother slowly nodded.
“Very well,” she said. “Let us at least eat together. And talk about what we might do for each other.”
She smoothed the green skirts of her borrowed dress and stood waiting while he picked up the fallen chair and held it for her.
“Wine?” he said.
“Yes, please.”
He pulled the crystal stopper and poured golden wine into one of the three glasses that waited by Mama’s plate. He stood behind her when he poured, like a waiter does. I couldn’t help notice how beautiful his hands were, long and slender, with deft straight fingers. The hands of a flutist.
“Dina?” He held out the carafe.
“A little,” said Mama. “But you will drink water with that, Dina.”
I dutifully watered my wine. My hands were shaking a little. I didn’t understand why we were sitting here pretending to be the best of friends. Was he suddenly all right now? Was it just a silly mistake that we had fled hell for leather to get away from this man?
Mama began to eat her fish, just as if everything was perfectly normal.
I can help you, he had said. Was that why we were still here? Because Mama hoped to buy his help somehow? But what did we own that might interest him, he who had money to stay and eat at the most expensive inn in town?
“I was at the courthouse when Davin and the castellan’s son were sentenced,” said Sezuan, taking a delicate bite of fish. “It was a most speedy trial. The fastest I have ever seen.”
“Castellan’s son?” said Mama, raising an eyebrow.
“Come now. Did you think I wouldn’t guess? Yes, I know who ‘Cousin Nico’ really is.” He smiled, not maliciously at all, more as if we shared a delicious secret.
You can’t trust him, I told myself. Remember who he is. But it was hard to do when he sat there, smiling, meeting my eyes without fear. Drakan can meet my gaze too, I told myself sourly. But Sezuan did not look in the least bit like Drakan. He looked like me. Same black hair, same green eyes. Just like mine.
Mama put down her fork.
“All right. You know who Nico is. Is there a price for that secret too?” she said, her voice hard like a bargain-driving peddler’s.
“Why do you always assume that I mean to hurt you?” asked Sezuan.
“The benefits of harsh experience.”
“Melussina. I have never forced you. I have never harmed you. I never wanted anything except…” He hesitated, as if afraid of what she might do. “I only wanted to love you,” he finally said.
I couldn’t even begin to guess what was going on inside my mother’s head. She sat stone still, not moving a muscle.
“And your mother?” she said. “Your family? Did they also want to love me?”
He lowered his eyes and could not look at her.
“My mother is dead,” he said, rolling the stem of his wine-glass between his fingers, so that the wine was forced into a very small maelstrom inside the glass. “My aunt is head of the family now. I know—I know that my family has done things you find it difficult to forgive. Things few people would be able to understand. But I am here with you, now. Not with them. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
Horrified, I saw tears streaming down my mother’s face.
“You are so clever,” she said, and in her voice there were no tears, only anger, anger like a roc
kslide that buried everything else. “You are all so clever. You can turn night into day, evil into good. You never wanted to love me. Your mother sent you to me the way they send a stud to a mare. Because she believed the offspring would be interesting. Can you look me in the eyes and deny that?”
The circling motion of the glass stopped. He sat very still for a moment, the light gleaming in the serpentine curves of his earring.
“No,” he finally whispered. “I cannot deny that. A child that might have both the Shamer’s power and the serpent gift… it was too great a temptation. But I can deny the accusation that I never loved you.”
“Don’t lie to me. Not again, Sezuan!”
“I’m not lying.” And he raised his head and looked her in the eyes for a brief, painful moment before dropping his glance once more.
That shook her.
“Dina,” she said in a very odd voice. “Go. Go to the inn and get us some more wine.”
I stayed where I was.
“We can call the waiter,” I said. I was not about to leave her alone with him, no matter what she said. Not the way she looked right now, with tears still on her cheeks and hands she couldn’t keep still.
Mama looked straight at me.
“Go,” she said.
I was on my feet without meaning to be. It is no easy thing to gainsay a mother who has the Shamer’s gift. Sometimes it is downright impossible. I took the carafe and left the table. But as soon as I had moved far enough into the crowding shadows of the orchard that she wouldn’t be able to see me, I stopped.
Mama waited until she thought I was out of hearing. Then she wiped the tears from her face with an angry motion and drank the last of the wine in her glass.
“Well, then,” she said in a harsh voice I hadn’t ever heard her use before. “Let’s discuss the price.”
“Melussina—”
“No,” she said. “No velvet words. No waking dreams. No lies. What are you offering when you say you can help us?”
“The money you need. The help that can bring your son and young Nicodemus Ravens out of the Sagisburg.”
“You are certain you can do that?”
He shrugged. “Nothing is certain in this world. But the serpent gift is a great help, isn’t it? Who can pass the guards unseen? Who can make the turnkey dream sweet dreams while his keys go for a walk? A Shamer cannot do such things, Melussina. But a Blackmaster can.”
My mother slowly nodded. This was why, I thought. This was why she hadn’t stormed out of the greenhouse the moment she had heard Sezuan’s voice. We needed the help he could give us. And to save Davin she must almost be willing to do a deal with the Devil himself.
“And the price?” she said.
“Are you so sure there is one?”
“Yes. And I will not go one step farther until I know what it is you want.”
“What were you thinking of offering?”
“Don’t play with me.”
“I’m not. Make me an offer, if you are so sure that my aid is a thing that may be bought and sold.”
My mother rose. She smoothed the pale green linen skirt with a nervous movement that made it look as if she were wiping her palms.
“Dina doesn’t have the serpent gift,” she said.
“How do you know?” he asked. “You have hardly tried to teach her. Not if I know you.”
“Believe me. She doesn’t have it.” My mother’s voice was as tense and hard as a drawn bow. “But I am still young enough to bear another child. A child that your family may have.”
I nearly dropped the carafe. She… she… she couldn’t do that! In my mind’s ear I heard the Scriptor warn us against “acts of indecency and other lewdness.” What I had just heard my mother suggest had to be the most indecent thing I’d ever heard of. Far worse than the more ordinary kind when a woman offered her body for money. Mama stood there offering to sell an unborn child!
It seemed she had succeeded in taking even Sezuan aback. For a moment, he looked… perhaps not crestfallen, but certainly bemused. Then he too got to his feet and walked to stand directly in front of her. He put a hand on either side of her face, almost as he had done with me the day he met me in the Market crowd. And I knew that my mother had closed her eyes. She could have sent him staggering back with one look, she could have made good and sure that he wouldn’t dare touch her. She didn’t.
I raised the carafe. If I threw it as hard as I could, right through the large windowpanes of the greenhouse… I could almost see it, the glass breaking and splintering, cascading like icicles down on the lemon trees, the white tablecloth, Sezuan and Mama—
He kissed her. And then he laughed, softly and gently.
“Oh, Melussina,” he said in an affectionate tone. “You are the worst liar in the world.”
She stepped backward, out of his grasp.
“What do you mean?”
“Let us say for a moment that a child did come of this. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you would give it up?”
Mama hesitated. “Wasn’t that what I just said?”
But even I could hear that she didn’t mean it. I lowered the carafe again.
He shook his head. “Thank you for your most generous offer,” he said, “but I have very keen and unfond memories of last time. I would not have thought a pregnant woman with a small child would have been able to cover that many miles in such a short time. Determination must have lent you wings.”
She took another step away from him. Suddenly she looked afraid, far more scared than angry.
“What do you want, then?” she asked.
“Time.”
“Time?”
He nodded. “Time with Dina. Time to get to know her.”
“Time to see whether she has the serpent gift, you mean.”
“No,” he said. “Not just that.” He turned his back on her, walked back to the table, and took a swallow of wine from his glass. “She is the only one,” he said finally. “The only child I have.”
“Oh, really,” said Mama scornfully. “Would you have me believe I was the one and only? Your mother must have really lost her grip. I would have thought she would waste no time in procuring you another few… brood mares.”
He rubbed his forehead absently and suddenly looked smaller and more tired. More ordinary.
“There have been others,” he said in a peculiarly flat voice. “But it would seem I am not very fertile.”
“How disappointing. For your mother.”
“Could you possibly not mention her in every other sentence? She is dead. Let her rest in peace. Listen, Melussina. Is it so unnatural? That a father wants to know his daughter?”
Mama slowly shook her head. “No,” she said. “You are not getting Dina.” She sounded as unyielding as a mountain.
“Do you mean to say that you will deny me a few days of my daughter’s company, even though your refusal may cost your son his life?”
“We will manage on our own,” said Mama harshly. “We always have.”
Suddenly, something touched my arm.
“Pardon me, but may I serve—”
Startled, I spun round. The carafe slipped through my fingers, and though I made a frantic catch at it, I knew it was too late.
Crash. It sounded like a thunderclap.
The girl in the white apron held a hand to her mouth in consternation. Mama and Sezuan both turned to look directly at us. And I knew they knew I had heard the whole thing.
“May I serve the main course?” asked the girl.
“No,” said Mama. “We are through here. Come on, Dina.”
On the way back to the Foundation, she spoke not a single word to me. And I didn’t dare say anything to her. Only when we were nearly at the gates did I venture to open my mouth.
“Mama?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t we… I mean, if all he wants is a few days? And if he really can save Davin and Nico?”
She stopped in her tracks.
“Do y
ou know what he wants to do to you?”
I shook my head mutely. “Get to know me, he said.”
“Dina. Never trust him. He hopes that you have his gift. The serpent gift. So that you may become a Blackmaster just like him.”
“You said I didn’t have it.”
“And I don’t think you have. But he is your father. It is possible. But it isn’t… I won’t… If he can, he will awaken it within you. And then, Dina, I wouldn’t be able to bear it if you became like him.”
Serpent kin. Serpent spawn. I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to bear it myself.
DINA
Trading with the Devil
Mama was a long time falling asleep that night. I know that because I lay awake myself, waiting. She kept tossing and turning, making the bunk creak at each turn. But finally all the little noises stopped, leaving only the sound of her breathing, and when I poked my head out of my bunk to look into hers, she had the blanket drawn up to her chin and was fast asleep.
Right now it would have been useful to be able to move as silently as Sezuan, to glide along like a snake, rather than to have to climb out of the bunk warily and slowly, inch by inch, to set my feet as quietly as I could on the creaking floorboards.
It was dark inside the crowded room, of course, but the shutters were open to give us at least a chance at some fresh air. In the sky outside hung a summer moon, huge and yellow, and the moonlight fell through the window on an arm, a foot, a blanket fold, and whatever else poked out from the bunks. It wasn’t necessary to get dressed. Foundation comforts didn’t run to night robes, so you slept in the gray clothes or in nothing at all. All I had to do was lace up my bodice and sneak toward the door.
“Dina?”
I turned slowly. Mama’s voice was hoarse and sodden with sleep, and she was only half awake.
“I have to pee,” I whispered.
She didn’t say anything. I think she went back to sleep. I opened the door and tiptoed out onto the balcony outside. There was no guard at the gates to the Foundation; two watchmen walked their rounds occasionally, but that was probably mostly to prevent people from breaking into the kitchen stores. It wasn’t hard to hide behind the Inscriptorium until they had gone past, and then slip through the gates and into the sleeping city.
The Serpent Gift Page 15
