The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Davin was staring at me. They were all staring at me. I slowly lowered the flute and sat down again.

  “Where did you learn that?” asked my brother. “Is it him? Did the Puff-Adder teach you how to do that?”

  I shook my head mutely. I had no strength left for explanations. I knew now that Sezuan had lied to the very end. His last word to me had been a lie.

  I had the serpent gift.

  DINA

  Yew Tree Cottage

  We reached Sagisloc shortly before dawn the next morning. We didn’t dare approach the harbor, but instead dragged the boat onto the mudflats south of the city.

  “What will you do now?” Nico asked Mascha.

  “Try and find my family,” answered Mascha and suddenly looked much more uncertain and less bull-like. “If they still want me.”

  He and Gerik ripped out a couple of the bottom planks—not hard after the shakedown the Wyrm had given us—and towed the boat out far enough for it to sink. We didn’t know what would happen in Sagis now. At that point, we weren’t even sure whether Prince Arthos was alive or dead. At any rate, it didn’t seem prudent to arrive in Sagisloc in the Prince’s own boat, which we had stolen.

  We parted. The prisoners each went their way in the dim dawn, seeking families or friends they still hoped to have, or perhaps just someplace where people would let a man chop firewood in exchange for a mug of beer and a meal. Nico, Davin, and I headed for the house on Silver Street, to take Mira home.

  It was a full day before we got there, and I think a lot of curious eyes followed us the last bit of the way. I would have gone to the street door, but Nico and Davin headed instead for the kitchen entrance.

  The girl in the kitchen dropped a cup at the sight of us.

  “Holy Saint Magda!”

  “Good morning, Ines,” said Nico with the peculiar politeness that so rarely left him. “Are Mesire and Medama in?”

  Ines stood there, open-mouthed, and at first seemed to have lost the power of speech entirely.

  “Yes,” she finally gasped. “Wait, I was just about to… I was taking up Medama’s morning tray, but that probably doesn’t matter now. Mira. Holy Saints, you’ve brought Mira home!”

  And then she flew up the stairs, tray-less, and a second later Medama Aurelius came rushing down, barefooted in her morning robe, her hair uncombed. She said nothing at all. She just snatched Mira into her arms and hugged her so hard that Mira finally complained:

  “Mama, not so tight.”

  And then I forgot all about Mira and her mother. Because suddenly my own mother had appeared at the top of the stairs.

  I wanted so badly to run to her and bury myself in her embrace. And at the same time I felt like running the other way, out of the house, so that she wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t see me. Wouldn’t guess what I now was. I ended up doing neither, but just stood there as if my feet had been nailed to the floorboards.

  She knew right away that something was wrong. She looked at me, and then at Davin. And Davin hadn’t rushed forward either, I now noticed.

  How I wanted to be like Mira, a child who could cling to her mother and not care about the rest of the world. But I wasn’t just my mother’s daughter anymore. I had become Sezuan’s, too. My father’s child. I stared at the floor and didn’t know what to do.

  So it was Mama who came to us. And drew us both into an embrace, me and Davin.

  “Something’s happened,” said Davin in an odd, choked-up voice, and I felt sure he would go on to say Dina has the serpent gift. Don’t, I thought. Do you have to say it right now? But perhaps that wasn’t what he meant to say at all, and in any case, Mama stopped him before he could go on.

  “That can all wait,” she said quietly. “For now, just let me be glad that I still have you.”

  So it was only later, little by little, that we told her about all the things that had happened, or some of them, at least. Mesire Aurelius came down to the kitchen, too, and Melli and Rose, and we sat at the kitchen table while Ines kept putting out food and cold milk and tea and beer for those who wanted it. We didn’t see the boy, Markus. I didn’t know whether he had gone back to school or was somewhere in the house, skulking, and I didn’t like to ask.

  Davin talked most. Nico told parts of the story, too. I didn’t say very much. Rose could tell that something was badly wrong, I think, because she took my hand under the table and gave it a little squeeze. I kept my eyes on Mama’s face as she listened. When she heard about Sezuan’s death, a strange expression crossed her features, and I don’t think it was all relief. But when Davin told her about the Wyrm and how I’d played to it…

  She knew. I could see her knowing.

  I couldn’t stand it. I got up and went outside, into the fine new carriage shed that Davin had built. Perhaps I could stay here, I thought. Perhaps I could help Ines in the kitchen or something. Would Rose stay too, or would she rather go home with Mama? Perhaps she wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who had the serpent gift.

  “Dina?”

  I turned around. Mama stood in the middle of the yard and looked almost the way she always did, only a little tired and with eyes that were perhaps a little too bright. How could she stand there pretending that nothing had happened, when everything had changed?

  “I have it,” I said. “He said I didn’t, but I do.”

  “Yes. It looks that way.” And still she looked as if everything was normal.

  “You said you wouldn’t be able to bear it.”

  “Did I? That was a stupid thing to say.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to bear it if I became like him. That’s what you said.”

  I was crying now. I could feel the tears on my cheeks. Mama took five quick steps and drew me into a hug.

  “You aren’t like him, Dina,” she said fervently. “And you won’t become like him. You are yourself. And my daughter. Now, come back to the house.”

  She took my arm and nearly dragged me back to the kitchen even though I wanted most of all to hide in some hole and never be seen by another human being ever again. She made me sit on the kitchen bench and set a cup of tea in front of me.

  “Drink that,” she said.

  “Dina is crying,” said Melli and grew teary-eyed herself.

  “Yes,” said Mama. “It has been a rough, bad time. But it’s over now.”

  We stayed on Silver Street for four days, all six of us. Mesire Aurelius even saw to it that our animals were returned to us, though Belle had to live in the stables for a while with Silky and Falk and Nico’s bay mare. Mesire hardly knew how to repay us for bringing Mira back to him. If we meant to travel on, he would buy us a wagon, he said. But we were welcome to stay. For as long as we liked.

  When the news of the Prince’s death reached Sagisloc, a wave of disorder swept over the tidy, well-kept streets. The city guard didn’t know who to take their orders from, and a lot of the graylings simply walked out on the Foundation without being hauled back. You no longer saw little carts drawn by graylings. And many of the good ladies of Sagisloc suddenly found that they had to make their own morning tea.

  Ines stayed with the Aureliuses. But she threw her gray shirt into the kitchen hearth and burnt it, and began to wear a flame-colored blouse instead.

  Mesire Aurelius fetched Markus home from his Draconis school without debate and spoke hopefully of the future.

  “Prince Arthos has no living sons,” he said, “so it’s up to the grandsons now. It’s one big tussle, and while they argue, we have a real chance of making genuine changes around here! A better Foundation, and a different kind of school, schools that don’t steal away people’s children and turn them into alien little creatures!” A fleeting pain touched his face, and there was little doubt that he was thinking of Markus. “Nico, you could help. You understand about children and learning.”

  But Nico shook his head. “I think it’s best that we move on.”

  “We could go home, couldn’t we?” said Davin. “To Yew Tree Cotta
ge, I mean. Now that the Puff-Adder is dead.”

  “Don’t call him that,” said Mama. “He was Dina’s father, after all.”

  “Sezuan, then. But we could. Couldn’t we?” The longing in Davin’s voice was so thick it was almost visible.

  “Yes,” said Mama. “We could go home now.”

  By the time we reached Yew Tree Cottage, autumn had already touched the Highlands. There were still warm, sunny days, but the nights were cold. In the orchard behind the house, seven red-gold apples waited for us, looking much too large because the branches that held them were so slender.

  Callan was terribly happy to see us. All of us, but Mama most of all, I think. And Master Maunus came running over from Maudi’s farm, red-faced with haste and joy, when he realized Nico had returned. Many of the Kensies came by “just to see how ye’re doing” that first week. They had missed their herbwife—and perhaps they were even pleased to have their Shamer back, as well.

  A few days after our return, I was on my hands and knees in the vegetable patch, pulling up beets; we had to harvest them before the frost got to them, which would only be a matter of days. Nico and Davin hadn’t seen me—and when I heard what they were talking about, I kept my head down and eavesdropped.

  “When are you going to start meeting my eyes again?” said Nico.

  At first Davin didn’t say anything. And when the answer came, it was with such fury and bitterness that the venom of it made me gasp.

  “You think I’m a sorry coward. You think I’m weak.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You saw me, you saw me crawl to him. You saw me kiss his damn dragon ring. And… and I took the cup from you. When you could have saved Mira with it.”

  “Davin. I was also with you in the Hall of the Whisperers. I know what it was like.”

  “You didn’t kiss the dragon!”

  “No. Nor did I wound the Prince. You did.”

  There was silence for a while.

  Then Davin said, hesitantly, “Yes, I did. But—”

  “You didn’t let them win, Davin. Have you considered what that meant? When Sezuan played his dream to the prisoners, don’t you think that meant something? That they knew that at least one prisoner had not been broken? Mascha said they were pounding at the bars half the night.”

  Another silence. I knelt among the vegetables with my dirty fingers and hardly dared breathe. It seemed there was still quite a bit Davin had never told us!

  “I sometimes dream about it,” he said suddenly, in a very low voice.

  “So do I,” said Nico. “I hear those damn voices whisper, whisper, whisper. And sometimes when I wake up, I still see blood on my hands. It takes a few moments before it disappears.”

  A stone skipped across the yard. I thought Davin must have kicked it.

  “I think I understand why you don’t like swords,” he said. Nico snorted with laughter. “Oh, finally! But actually, I’ve been thinking. You once asked me to help you train.”

  “You said no.”

  “Well, I think I’ve changed my mind. We can train, if you still want to.”

  I think he caught Davin completely by surprise. In any case, some moments passed before he answered.

  “Thank you. I would like that.”

  Well, well, I thought, pulling another beet from the damp earth. It seems Nico and my stubborn brother have become friends now. Who would have thought!

  Apart from Mama and me, no one knows about the serpent gift. We never talk about it, and I haven’t even told Rose. Papa’s flute is in the chest under my bed. I haven’t touched it since I played for the Wyrm. I’m afraid to. I don’t want to. But I can’t throw it away. It is the only thing I have that my father has given me. And once that same flute played a moonshine bridge across the dragon pits and gave prisoners and Teaching House children the courage to dream. And the courage to walk away, and leave the dark castle of the Prince behind.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  An award-winning and highly acclaimed writer of fantasy, LENE KAABERBØL was born in 1960, grew up in the Danish countryside and had her first book published at the age of 15. Since then she has written more than 30 books for children and young adults. Lene’s huge international breakthrough came with The Shamer Chronicles, which have been published in more than 25 countries selling over a million copies worldwide.

  COPYRIGHT

  Pushkin Press

  71–75 Shelton Street

  London WC2H 9JQ

  Original text © 2001 by Lene Kaaberbøl

  English translation © 2005 by Lene Kaaberbøl

  The Serpent Gift was first published as Slangens Gave in Copenhagen, by Forlaget Forum in 2001

  First published in English in 2005 by Hodder Children’s Books

  First published by Pushkin Press in 2019

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  ISBN 13: 978–1–78269–230–0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press

  www.pushkinpress.com

  The Shamer’s War is the fourth and final book in the thrilling fantasy adventure of The Shamer Chronicles.

  The Dragon Lord of Dunark will stop at nothing in his persecution of Shamers, and he is determined to crush any community that shelters them. Those struggling to resist his cruel power have realised that hiding won’t work any more. It’s time to fight back.

  But as preparations for the rebellion begin, Dina starts to have doubts – can she really be part of a plan to unleash war? There must be another way, but can she find it before her world is torn apart?