The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  On the fourth day, we lost.

  “Twelve yards and a quarter,” announced the Wallmaster. “Against Erlan’s full thirteen.”

  My stomach contracted. This was it. It was our turn to face the Count of the day. And I felt absolutely sure that Mascha would pick on either me or Nico. My poor back was already so work-worn that it hurt even to think of it, and my ribs felt as if they would never mend. I wasn’t at all sure that I would be able to keep my mouth shut and take my whipping like a man, the way the other prisoners had done, except for the last one.

  Mascha’s dark gaze rested first on Nico, then on me. His face was completely expressionless.

  “Gerik,” he said. “You’ll have to do it today.”

  I think my mouth dropped open. I had been so certain it would be one of us blank-backs.

  Gerik didn’t say anything. He merely nodded, as if that was as much as he had expected. Was it his turn? Or had he done something that Mascha didn’t like? I didn’t know. But Gerik let himself be tied to the post and took his three strokes with no more than a hiss between clenched teeth. And as we were marched back to the Gullet, he nailed me with a hard stare that said: That’s how it’s done. Could you have done as much—blank-back?

  I don’t think Nico slept much. I had expected him to get used to the darkness after a while, to stop being so afraid. He didn’t. You could hear it in the way he breathed—gasping like a dog with a too-tight collar. And some nights he woke all of us by yelling and fighting in his sleep, caught up in one of his nightmares.

  The other prisoners didn’t like him much, especially not at first. There was something in the way he talked, and probably something about the way he walked, even fettered by those miserable leg irons, something that set him apart. They knew that he was “posh,” or had been. That and the nightmares made them scorn him and mock him when they could.

  He never fought back. Silently, he just took all the abuse they handed out and never lost his temper, not even when one or the other shoved him or “accidentally” swiped him with the chain. If it had been me, I would have lost my head a hundred times over, and I was often so angry on his behalf that I snarled at them and gave them back all their dirty names with interest. On the morning of the fifth day, as we were being herded together for the day’s work, I even got into a fight with Carle, one of the other prisoners in Mascha’s gang. It began because he stepped back the moment Nico was stepping forward, so that Nico stumbled and fell on his face. When you spend at least ten hours every day chained to nine other men, you learn how to move with and not against each other, so I knew that Carle had done it on purpose.

  “Stupid bastard,” I muttered, but softly, so that the guards wouldn’t hear.

  He gave me a fast, mean-eyed glare.

  “Can I help if Prince Pee-in-His-Pants is a clumsy idiot?” he snarled back.

  “You did that! You did it on purpose.”

  “Shut up, Davin,” said Nico, getting to his feet again. “Just shut up, can’t you?”

  Carle grinned, a superior and malicious grin. You could tell he thought Nico was hushing me up because he was scared.

  “Pee-in-His-Pants,” he murmured. “Prince Pee-in-His-Pants and his noble knight, Sir Wet-Behind-the-Ears. What a pair!”

  And then he made Nico stumble again.

  I forgot all about sore ribs and sore arms. I was going to wipe that smirk off his stupid face if it was the last thing I did. And he was only one place down from Nico and me on the chain, so I had no trouble reaching him. My fist struck him right on the nose with a lot of pent-up fury behind it, and he toppled over backward and went down.

  Not for long, though. In a moment, he was up and at me, and I learned just how much I didn’t know about fighting prisoner-style, with no room to move away but with lots of nasty ways to use the shackles as weapons.

  The guards made no move to stop it. They just laughed and watched while Carle and I tried to half-kill one another. Or at least, that was what Carle was trying to do—I was busy trying to stay alive. Somehow I ended up on the gritty floor of the chamber, with a length of chain across my windpipe and one wrist, while Carle had a fine old time punching me in the belly with his free left hand. I tried to pull up my legs in protection, but the leg irons got in the way, and breathing was becoming more and more difficult.

  Mascha stopped it. I don’t know what he did to Carle, but suddenly the blows stopped and the choking pressure of the chain went away. While I was still lying on the floor gasping and feeling blue in the face, Mascha bent over me, pinching my upper lip between finger and thumb. It was incredibly painful, and I batted at him with both hands, trying to get him off me. It was like trying to move a log.

  “Who gave you leave to fight, blank-back?” he asked. “If we lose today because you and Carle are too slow, who do you think will be going to the post, boy? Any ideas?” He finally let go of me with his hands, but not with his eyes. “Get up,” he said. “And if there is half an ounce of sense in your wretched body, you’ll work today like you’ve never worked before. And pray we win.”

  “Fourteen yards,” said the Wallmaster. “Against Erlan’s fourteen and a quarter.”

  Mascha looked at me. His eyes were so dark they just seemed like holes. “Told you so,” he said, and jerked his head at me. “Him,” he told the guards.

  “No,” said Nico. “Not Davin. He is—Let me. Take me. It was my fault he got into the fight in the first place!”

  Mascha sniffed contemptuously. “Who asked you, Prince Pee-in-His-Pants? You don’t make the calls here. And never fear. Your turn will come.”

  I couldn’t help resisting as they dragged me to the post, but the guards had done this a hundred times, and it took them only a moment to haul up my arms and secure my wrists to the cross-piece. Just hanging there like that with my arms above my head hurt my ribs and my abused stomach. I twisted my neck to try to see who was to wield the whip today.

  It was a skinny little boy, no more than perhaps ten years of age, and I breathed a little more easily. A runt like that—how hard would he be able to hit me? It wouldn’t be so bad, probably.

  The Educator started his usual cant about the enemies of the Prince, hatred, and punishment, and strength. The boy nodded eagerly, as if this was a lesson he was well acquainted with. But when they gave him the whip, his eagerness vanished.

  “But he never hurt me any,” he said in a small voice.

  “He is an enemy of the Prince, Aril. Do you think he has not earned his punishment?”

  Aril squirmed. “Yes,” he muttered.

  “Why, then, will you not punish him? Do you not yearn to serve the Prince?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “But what, Aril?”

  The boy was silent for a while. Finally he spoke, so softly that I barely caught the words.

  “Mama says, Mama says you shouldn’t hit people.”

  For an instant, the Educator stood utterly still. Then he bent over the boy.

  “We have talked about this matter before, Aril. You no longer have a mother. The woman who was your mother—who is she?”

  “An enemy of the Prince,” whispered Aril.

  “And what are her just wages?”

  “Death.”

  “Louder, please, Aril.”

  “Death!”

  “Good. Now, hit this man.”

  And Aril did. The lash left a stinging trail down my back, and I clenched my teeth, waiting for the next stroke.

  It didn’t come. The boy broke into tears and stood there, crying his eyes out, as if he had been the one to feel the lash. He threw the whip on the ground.

  “I won’t. I won’t!”

  And no matter what the Educator said to him, he wouldn’t pick it up again. Finally, the Educator took the boy’s arm in a firm grip and led him away. And the guard captain pointed to one of his men.

  “You will have to finish the job then, Brand. Two strokes, if you please.”

  Brand was a big brute of a man,
and he picked up the whip without hesitation, flicking it through the air with a loud crack. There was something about his practiced ease that made a chill spread outward from my spine. I wanted to call for the boy to come back and finish it. I suddenly understood utterly and absolutely what had made Anton egg on his reluctant whip boy until the child managed to complete the three strokes. I wished I had had the sense to do as much with Aril.

  Brand swung the whip. And the blow went right through my body. My head jerked back so suddenly that I cracked my chin against the post, and a line of fire shot down my back.

  Then the second stroke came, and this time, I couldn’t bite back the sound. I roared like a steer being branded. Someone had cut two deep furrows in my back and poured sizzling oil into them. Or that was how it felt. Fire. My whole back was on fire. And something warm ran down the small of my back. Blood, it had to be.

  I tried to stay upright when they cut me down, but my knees buckled and I ended up on all fours. I absolutely didn’t understand how Gerik could have walked away from the post as if three strokes of the lash counted for less than a bee sting. I didn’t understand how he and the others had been able not to cry out. Were they made of stone? Or had the skin on their backs gradually turned into leather so that they no longer felt the blows as other men would?

  Nico had hold of one of my arms, Mascha the other.

  Mascha? Mascha was helping me?

  “Come on, lad,” he was saying. “Got to help us a little, here. Can’t bloody carry you, can we?”

  Somehow, I made it back to the Gullet even though every step sent a shudder of pain through my back. As I sank down onto my knees and then onto my stomach in the dirty straw of the lock-up, I heard Mascha talking to the guards in low tones. Sweet Saint Magda. That anything could hurt this much. Three measly strokes. Or two, really, because the sting of Aril’s efforts had disappeared completely in the roaring pain of Brand’s blows. I knew that men had sometimes been sentenced to ten or twenty strokes. How did they survive? I would never whip a horse or a mule again. Ever. No matter how stubborn they were.

  “Do it!” said Mascha, his voice suddenly much louder. “You owe me. And you know it.”

  The guard muttered something and disappeared. But he let the torch remain behind, and a little later he brought a bucket of water and some rags. And it was Mascha, to my surprise, who cleaned the furrows on my back and dressed them with sheep’s tallow. And Mascha who made me eat and drink, even though I didn’t really have the energy. I didn’t get it. I thought he didn’t like me. But perhaps it was just that he knew we had a working day ahead of us tomorrow. The thought made me cold all over. I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. No way would I be able to get up tomorrow, and climb to the top of the wall, and spend the day dragging stone. Not if my life depended on it.

  Carle held out the filthy rag of an old cloak that he usually used as a blanket during the night.

  “Lie on this,” he said. “Be real uncomfortable else, lying on your stomach all night.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, dizzy and confused to be so suddenly on their good side. I had cried out, hadn’t I? Even though I had promised myself I wouldn’t. I had acted like the wet-behind-the-ears blank-back that I was.

  “That Brand is a real swine,” said Carle darkly. “Didn’t have to lay your back open like that, did he? Probably has his money on Erlan’s team to win, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “His money?”

  “Sure. They bet on us, didn’t you know? And if you can’t work tomorrow, it’ll slow us down. Filthy scumbag swine.”

  The tallow helped a little. My head was buzzing like a beehive, and my body felt heavy and somehow not quite my own. Finally I dozed off, slipping in and out of sleep for a few hours. Once I woke to find Virtus next to me, clumsily patting my head.

  “It’s because he loves us,” he said.

  “What?” I muttered, lacking the energy to brush off his touch.

  “He chastises us so that we may learn. Because he loves us.”

  Nico sat up abruptly. “Shut up, Virtus,” he hissed. “Leave him alone.”

  Virtus withdrew his hand. “The Prince is great,” he muttered nervously. “The Prince is great.”

  “He is mad,” whispered Nico. “Raving mad.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Toward dawn I couldn’t stand lying on my stomach anymore. Inch by painful inch I managed to get to my knees. The torch had burnt itself out, but a pale glow of early daylight came through the grille at the far end of the tunnel.

  Mascha had noticed that I was moving.

  “How are you doing, lad?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know how to take the curious care and… well, tenderness almost… that he was suddenly awarding me.

  “I’ll live,” I finally said.

  He watched me in silence for a while.

  “What did you say your name was?” he said.

  Why did he want to know? Why now? I stared at him suspiciously. But his beardless, baldheaded face was as expressionless as an egg.

  “Davin,” I finally said.

  “Davin? Hmm. All right. Have to try and remember that, then.” He suddenly grinned. “Can’t very well call you blank-back anymore, now, can we?”

  DAVIN

  The Key to Wisdom

  I did climb to the top of the wall that morning, but there wasn’t much I could do. Almost any movement made the wounds on my back crack open, and after that it didn’t take long before I got so dizzy it was sit down or fall down. Nico slaved like a beast to load and drag the sled almost on his own, but no matter how hard he worked, it went more slowly than before. That night Erlan’s gang beat us by more than two yards, and Carle had to take three strokes. It was hardly noticeable in his work the next day, and I felt bad because I was still staggering like a sick calf, unable to lift my share of the load.

  “Sorry,” I muttered to Nico the third time I had to drop out of the harness and sit down. “I—I can’t help it.”

  “Of course you can’t! You shouldn’t be working at all.”

  “Carle is working.”

  “Yes. But there’s a difference. Carle has three nasty weals that probably sting a great deal. You have two bloody furrows that split open and bleed down your back every time you bend!”

  That night Erlan’s gang were once again the winners, by a yard and a half. And this time Mascha chose to take the strokes himself.

  “Why?” asked Nico hoarsely. “Why not me?”

  “Because I can take it better than you can, blank-back,” growled Mascha. But he had seen how Nico had worn himself to the bone, trying to drag the sled practically single-handed, and there was less of a sting to the insult than usual.

  Mascha took his strokes without even a moan, and as we were marched back to the Gullet, they seemed to have made no difference at all to him. Maybe he really was made of stone. Even though his whip boy had been a big, stocky fourteen-year-old, the red weals hardly showed on Mascha’s scarred, dark, sun-bitten back.

  When the guards had locked the gates and retreated back up to the surface world and their leisurely pastimes, Mascha made us draw together in a huddle so that we could talk without being overheard by the gang in the hole next to ours.

  “Tomorrow settles it,” he said. “Erlan’s are about ten yards short, we lack nearly twelve. For those of you who can count, this means that we have to beat them by two yards to finish before they do.”

  Somebody groaned. Two yards was a lot.

  “Can we do that?” asked Gerik.

  “If we hustle,” said Mascha. “And that means not taking a breather just because the next load of stones hasn’t arrived yet. You bloody go and help get it instead. Understand? Everybody works all the time.”

  “Perhaps—” Nico broke off, probably wondering whether anybody would listen to words of wisdom from Prince Pee-in-His-Pants.

  “Perhaps what?” asked Mascha.

  “At the quarry, most people choo
se the smaller blocks first because they are easier to lift, and that means you load the sled more quickly. Erlan’s people do that, I’ve seen them. But if we got the biggest we could find, even if it takes two to lift them, the masonry would go more quickly, I think. And we have fewer masons than stone-draggers. All in all it would save time, I think.”

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  “I think he is right,” said Imrik, our most highly skilled mason.

  “Good,” said Mascha. “We’ll do it. Any other bright ideas?”

  “We must work hard!” said Virtus suddenly, very loudly. “Work hard. Work hard.”

  “Yes, Virtus,” said Mascha, with a gentleness I would never have guessed he possessed.

  “The Prince is great!”

  “Yes, Virtus. Anything else?”

  No one else had anything to say.

  “Right. Get some sleep. You too, Prince Pee-in-His-Pants. We need you.”

  We worked like beasts. Like demons. Like something hardly flesh and blood and bone. Imrik’s hands flew. Carle and Mascha hefted huge stone blocks as if they were logs. And Nico and I toiled in the harness as though we were mules, not men. The wall grew, yard by yard, closer and closer to the Lion Tower.

  “We’re ahead!” called Gerik toward the end of the afternoon, passing us with an empty wheelbarrow. “We’ve caught them up and passed them, and we’re ahead!”

  Sweat was literally dripping off us, and I could feel blood and fluid seeping from the deepest of the wounds on my back, but Gerik’s message put new life into tired arms and legs. We could win now. We could actually win! Both of us, Nico and I, leaned forward into the harness to get the sled moving just a little faster.