The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Six guards of the Prince’s Own led us the last bit of the way into the Palace Court, through a colonnade and into the banquet hall itself. No one else had arrived yet, and the servants were still setting the tables, but then, I don’t suppose any of the other guests needed to be shackled before they were allowed to sit down.

  “They might have taken off the damn irons just for this one night,” muttered Gerik. “The place is lousy with guards anyway.”

  “They’re probably afraid we’ll go for the Prince,” said Imrik.

  “Yeah—or for the ladies,” grinned Carle.

  But when the other banquet guests began to arrive, the grins faded. Most of them pretended we weren’t even there. But a few stared.

  “They gape at us as though we were beasts in a circus,” said Imrik in a low growl.

  “Ignore them,” said Nico.

  “Do what?”

  “Ignore them. Just pretend you don’t see them.”

  “Are you going to talk posh too? You’re not a damn sight better than the rest of us, boy.”

  “I never said I was,” said Nico. “Ever.”

  Imrik scowled, but I don’t think it was Nico he was truly mad at. Nico was just the only one he could get to.

  Suddenly there was a great braying of trumpets somewhere above us, in the gallery, and all the guests hurriedly got to their feet. Even us, though it took a sharp bark and a shove from the guards to get Imrik out of his seat. A door at the other end of the hall opened wide, and a herald in dragon livery announced:

  “His Greatness Prince Arthos Draconis the Just!”

  I stretched my neck, curious to see this Prince who had sundered my family and put me and Nico in chains. He was more than ninety years old, I had heard, but he still seemed able to walk on his own with no trouble, and his back was far straighter than Virtus’s. He did not look like a man in his dotage. His beard was coal black, and his head was covered by a hood much like the ones the Educators wore, except his was scarlet and richly decorated with gold thread and little gemstones that flashed whenever he turned his head. The beard must have been dyed, I thought, but his skin… it was almost as smooth as my own, just in a strangely dead and hard way. Like a shell. Egg smooth. Completely like the Educators, I suddenly realized. They might be father and son, he and Master Vardo. Or brothers. Hatched from the same egg.

  But the herald had not yet finished.

  “The Prince’s own daughter and dear guest, Her Grace Dama Lizea,” he shouted, and in the Prince’s wake a woman entered, dressed magnificently in sweeping blue silk, with a net of silver and pearls over her black hair. Two white streaks in the black looked almost as if they were there on purpose. But it was hardly on purpose that her face was so emaciated that it looked like a skull covered with just a thin layer of skin.

  Lady Death. That had been Dina’s name for her.

  Drakan’s mother—who knew Nico excellently well.

  There was no way we could run. We couldn’t even get up from the table. We were shackled to Mascha and the others, who in turn were chained to the heavy oak table. Nico could do nothing except duck his head and hope that Dama Lizea belonged to the ignore-them type of noble and not the staring kind. Luckily, they hadn’t been too literal about “the Prince’s own table”—there was quite a bit of distance from our corner of the banquet hall to the High Table, where Prince Arthos and Dama Lizea were now seated.

  “What are we going to do if she sees you?” I whispered to Nico.

  “Nothing,” said Nico. “And especially not you. There is no reason to give them an excuse to chop both our heads off.”

  Apparently, he was in no doubt what would happen to him if Lizea recognized him.

  Another flurry of trumpets, and the first course was served. It was flounder, prepared with some kind of white sauce. Carle took a bit of fish with his fingers and was about to pop it in his mouth, but the guard behind him slapped his fingers and hissed, “Not yet!” as if he were some kind of governess hired to teach proper manners to a bunch of unruly children.

  An Educator—was it Vardo? I thought it might be—stepped forward from his position just behind the Prince’s chair.

  “Let us all thank the Prince for the meal he so generously grants us, and let us pray that it may strengthen our limbs and nourish our minds so that we may better serve him. The Prince!”

  “The Prince!” It was like a roar, reverberating around the hall, as if everyone except us was trying to see who could shout the loudest.

  And only then was Carle allowed to eat his fish.

  Nico sat bent over his plate, picking at the pale fish with his fork. He had grown a beard since coming to the Highlands, and right now it was even fuller than usual. Was it enough to disguise him? I doubted it. He looked very much like himself, beard or no.

  I ate a bit of flounder. It tasted strongly of something very tart. Lemon, perhaps, from the orangeries of the Palace. My mouth was so dry that I had difficulty swallowing, but it would be too conspicuous if we didn’t eat. Around us, the rest of the gang were shoveling food down their throats as if they had never had anything like it. Which they probably hadn’t. Certainly not during the months and years they had been prisoners of the Sagisburg.

  Another bray of trumpets. At once, people around us put down their knives and forks and were silent. The Prince had risen to his feet. He was watching the gathering with his head slightly tilted to one side. That and the hood made him look a bit like a bird of prey, I thought, a hawk or perhaps an eagle.

  “We have unusual company today,” he said. “Men who this morning woke in the lowest dungeons of this castle are now seated in our midst, among silks and velvets. They learned. Let others be equally enlightened. He who once was low may be elevated. And they who sit in high places may be brought low—if that is the will of the Prince.”

  The silence deepened. I think most of the guests held their breaths. This was a warning to them, that much was obvious. A warning not to feel too smug, too safe. All they had to do was look at us to know where they could end up if they displeased their Prince.

  IN EVERY THING A LESSON it said above the door of the House of Teaching. And it seemed as if the entire castle was one big house of teaching, and the lesson everywhere was the same: bow before the Prince—or be broken.

  Everyone was looking at us, even those who at the beginning had ignored us. I tried to read Dama Lizea’s face, but she seemed not to have noticed Nico in particular.

  The Prince sat down. Accompanied by yet more trumpetry the next course was served, and I breathed a little more easily. I glanced at Nico. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on his cheekbones and forehead, and although he continued to put food in his mouth, I don’t think he tasted a thing.

  I would never have thought anyone could long for a dark, evil-smelling, flea-infested dungeon. But right now I was sure that both Nico and I would rather have been lying on the dirty straw in the Gullet than sitting here staring down at platters full of pheasant and green grapes.

  Hundreds of candles hung above our heads, on chandeliers the size of wagon wheels. Nico was not the only one sweating. Mascha’s beardless face was flushed from the heat and the wine, and sweat beaded Carle’s face too, as he cheerfully stuffed his face with pheasant meat, not bothering with such niceties as a knife and fork.

  Suddenly the captain of the Prince’s Own was at the end of our table.

  “The Prince wishes to know which one of you has the ability to read,” he said.

  Mascha hadn’t drunk enough to lose his ingrained wariness. “Why?” he said cautiously.

  But Carle, who had drunk more than his fill, was less hesitant. “My friend Nico here,” he said, slapping Nico amiably on one shoulder with greasy pheasant fingers. “And Davin, the sneaky bastard. They know a thing or two, the pair of them. The Educators never reckoned on that, did they?”

  The guard captain jerked his head at two of his men. “Unshackle them,” he said. “The Prince wishes to speak to them.”
r />   “I’m the one who can read,” I said quickly, getting up. “Nico was just following my orders.”

  The man loosening Nico’s fetters paused.

  “Rubbish!” said Carle, loudly and none too clearly. “Don’t go takin’ all the credit, now.”

  Mascha, who had caught on to the fact that something was afoot, tried to hush Carle up, but it was too late.

  “Is he coming or not?” said Nico’s guard.

  “Take both of them,” said the guard captain.

  I looked around quickly, but we were surrounded by guards. It was impossible to run. And if we tried, they would know for sure that there was something fishy about us. What prisoner tries to escape just as he may be about to receive a princely reward?

  They led us through the hall to the High Table. Only a few seats away, on the Prince’s right-hand side, Dama Lizea sat talking to her neighbor, her face turned away from us. I fervently hoped the conversation was so fascinating that she wouldn’t even spare us a glance.

  Prince Arthos, on the other hand, tilted his head and looked at us in his predatory manner.

  “And how is it,” he said slowly, “that my dungeon has come to hold two men who know how to spell JUSTICE?”

  “My friend is a tutor,” I said quickly, so that Nico wouldn’t have to answer. “We had no idea that a royal permission was necessary to teach a child in Sagisloc.”

  “A tutor. I see. And what is the name of such a tutor?”

  “Nicolas,” I said. “And I am Davin.”

  The only thought in my head was how to keep them from finding out who Nico really was. I didn’t even consider lying about my own name. But as soon as the word had left my mouth, I knew I had been stupid. Because Dama Lizea’s head snapped around as if pulled by an invisible string.

  She looked at me. And then she caught sight of Nico, and really stared. And then she began to laugh. “A tutor. Well, well. I suppose that is what he is best suited for, now that I think of it.”

  Prince Arthos was clearly puzzled by her behavior. “Will Medama explain herself?” he said acidly.

  Dama Lizea smiled. “That,” she said, pointing at Nico with an emaciated finger, “is Nicodemus Ravens. And if I am not mistaken, his ragged friend there is Davin Tonerre, who killed My Lord Prince’s own grandson.”

  Prince Arthos stared at us for a long moment.

  “Take them to the council chamber,” he said. “Shackle them. And send for the executioner.”

  We waited for a long time in the council chamber while Prince Arthos finished his banquet. He was not a man to rush things, it seemed, and what with the fetters, the shackles, and four guards, it wasn’t as if we were going anywhere.

  Finally he came, with Master Vardo and four bodyguards. Even in the heart of his own castle, he apparently guarded himself as well as he guarded his prisoners.

  He seated himself in a high-backed chair, not quite a throne, but almost, and regarded Nico and me for a while, as though we were some sort of puzzle he meant to solve.

  “Ebnezer Ravens’s son,” he finally said. “What do you mean by coming here?”

  Nico bowed as well as the chains allowed. “Nothing ill,” he said. “And I do not believe there ever was enmity before now between my house and the house of Draconis.”

  A faint snort from the princely nostrils. “Where are your men?”

  “Men? I have no men.”

  “Do not try to deceive me. I know well enough that my daughter’s ambitious son encounters resistance to his plans. I have heard of ambush, weapon raids, and espionage. If those men are not yours, whose are they?”

  Nico inclined his head. “I know that such things are done in my name. But I have no men, nor do I want any.”

  There was a slight movement at the corner of the Prince’s mouth—a disbelieving twitch. That Nico would not want to have anyone under him—that was too alien a thought for someone who had clung so tightly to his power for more than a generation.

  “Is the executioner on his way?” he asked one of the guards.

  “Not yet, My Lord Prince.”

  “Why not?”

  The guard looked ill at ease. “He—he sometimes drinks a little, My Lord Prince. Perhaps they have some difficulty in rousing him.”

  “I see. It would appear we have need of a new axman. Note that, Vardo.”

  Vardo nodded. “As My Lord Prince commands.”

  “Is it My Lord’s intention to have me executed?” asked Nico. He sounded almost as if he was inquiring into Prince Arthos’s breakfast plans or some other insignificant thing. I didn’t know how he could do it. But there was something about Nico now, something I was not used to seeing. A smooth coolness, a courteous self-control. Perhaps these were court manners. Perhaps this was what you learned when you were the son of a castellan.

  “Most likely,” said Prince Arthos. “But I am a thrifty man, young Ravens. I do not discard what may be useful to me.”

  The door burst open, so suddenly that the Prince’s bodyguards came close to drawing their swords. But it was not enemies from without who had entered the chamber; on the threshold stood Dama Lizea, the Prince’s own daughter. She looked at Nico and me with an icy glare.

  “Not yet dead?” she said. “Why so indecisive, Sire?”

  It obviously didn’t please the Prince to be interrupted.

  “My daughter has a hasty nature,” he told Master Vardo. “So hasty as to border on shamelessness at times.”

  “Sire!” Indignation made Dama Lizea’s face look even tighter. “I have not deserved such words of you.”

  “No? Had you been less hasty, my dear, and waited to be wed before you went to your marriage bed, your son would now be the rightful heir of Dunark, and the House of the Dragon might have been spared much shame.”

  Dama Lizea’s glare was edged like a sword blade as she stared at her father. She was silent for so long that it was obvious she had to struggle to maintain her self-control.

  “My son,” she finally managed with only a slight tremor to her voice, “is conquering the West. My Lord Prince and Father holds sway over most of the East. If you would but stretch out your hand to him as a grandfather should, he would make the House of the Dragon rulers of the entire Skay-Sagis!”

  “He lacks nothing in ambition, one must grant him that,” said Prince Arthos with a certain dryness. “But why should I support an upstart lordling who cannot keep order in his own house?”

  “He is your own blood!”

  “He is a bastard whose own father would not recognize him.”

  “My Lord Father!”

  “Is this not why his own people arm themselves against him? Yes, daughter, I have heard of the rebels you would rather not mention. I have heard of stolen weaponry and ambush and seasoned soldiers deserting to support him.” He jabbed a finger at Nico like a spear point. “Ebnezer’s true-born heir. Well? What do you say to that, my daughter?”

  A sound escaped her, a hiss of anger and contempt.

  “Kill him,” she said. “Execute him here and now, and all resistance will melt away.”

  “If My Lord Prince acknowledges my heritage, he knows that killing me would be a grave misdeed,” said Nico calmly. “Once we start executing true-born rulers, where will it end? Is any prince then safe?”

  It was the first time I had ever heard Nico refer to himself as a ruler. He often fought over it with Master Maunus. Why should he risk his life to rule Dunark? But he had probably guessed that Prince Arthos would hesitate a little longer over the shedding of noble blood.

  I covertly licked my dry lips. There was not a single drop of noble blood in my veins, so there was no reason for Prince Arthos to hesitate on my account.

  Dama Lizea threw a cold look at Nico. Then she repeated her demand.

  “Kill him, and all resistance will die with him.”

  “Or increase tenfold because his death inflames the wrath of the people? He serves us better as a hostage than as a martyr.”

  “If
you are too soft to kill him, leave him to me.”

  Prince Arthos looked up at Master Vardo, who was still standing at his side.

  “What do you think, Master? Should I let my axman do Drakan the favor of killing off his rival? So that the dragonet my shameless daughter has spawned can grow another inch?”

  “My Lord Prince put it well,” murmured Vardo courteously. “It is foolish to discard what may be of use. And an heir to the House of Ravens may be useful indeed—if trained right.”

  Prince Arthos regarded Nico keenly, as though Nico was a book in a foreign language that he must try to read.

  “Tell me, Young Ravens, did you love your father?”

  The question clearly startled Nico, and I could well understand that. What on earth had that to do with anything? And in any case, I knew it was not an easy question for Nico to answer, after everything that had passed between the two of them.

  “He was my father,” he finally said.

  “Yes, at least you can say that much. More than young Drakan can swear to.” A strange sort of gasp followed, sounding as if he had swallowed something the wrong way—only this, I realized, was the Prince’s laughter.

  “I do not think my daughter loves me,” he said. “But one need not love in order to serve. Though I must say she has been no faithful servant either.” He looked at her for a moment, and she returned his irritated glance with a rebellious expression. Then he turned his attention to Nico once more.

  “If I let you live, Young Ravens, would you serve me?”

  Nico was silent for a while. For much too long, I thought. Then he shook his head.

  “I cannot promise that.”

  “Hmmm,” snorted the Prince. “More honesty than wisdom, I see. Very well. I can appreciate an honest man. A shame one meets so very few. But if I released you. If I put you on the throne of Dunark, what then?”