The White Serpent Read online

  “So. It always comes back. The tides are high.”

  “And it sings to itself at night. They heard it, as far as the High Gate.”

  “So. Let the sea do what it wants.”

  “Hey, girl! Give me some flowers. What are you asking for those lilies?”

  But the girl shook her hooded head. “Not for sale. Already bought.” And went on.

  It was true, her flowers were of the best, fresh with dew and dawn, from the hills, doubtless, behind Tomb Street, where the other flower gatherers went.

  Why should it occur to anyone the flower seller had not picked a single bloom herself, but paid to take this pannier of lilies, wall-rose and white aloe, from a one-armed woman near the Shalian temple?

  She had been industrious, Velva, and extravagant. All her coins were gone now.

  Turning into an alley by the lacemakers, she reached the gate of a house wall, and sat down there.

  Soon she heard the sound of the zeeba, and the man, calling his wares. Then he had paused on the street to serve customers; then, as Velva had done, turned into the alley. On either side the patient zeeba hung a cibba-wood cask, and through the man’s belt was stuck a copper ladle, filmed with white. He was a milk vendor. Since it was possible to learn so much about the habits of the woman who lodged in this house, she being of such interest to all, it was easy to find out that milk was bought here once every three days.

  “Clean milk, sweet milk,” he called, winking at Velva where she sat with her flowers.

  It would be sweet today, wonderfully sweet. Which no one would think odd. In the hot weather, the milk was often sugared or salted against curdling.

  “Does the lady take flowers ever?” said Velva, to the milk vendor.

  “Well, she might.”

  Timidly, “Would you let me come in with you, and ask the servant? They’re fresh—look—to stand in vases or make garlands.”

  “Oh, you’ve heard the Lydian calls here, too.”

  Velva lowered her eyes. The man stole near and rubbed his hand on her belly. “If I praise you to the servant, and you sell your flowers, what do I get?”

  Eyes lowered, Velva said, “What a kind man always gets at Zastis.”

  When they reached the downstairs entry, the man, having opened the door, hallooed up the steps. The zeeba chewed the long dry grass of the garden, and Velva, pitying it, unseen by the man, fed it two of her precious flowers.

  Just so one thing must be devoured to sustain another. It was the gods’ law.

  Borne to the satin beaches on the black thoroughbred, in the arms of the Lydian, she had exalted and clutched at happiness, knowing it would not last. She had hoped he might want her again, for a while, from time to time. But all the city worshiped him. She was an inn sloven. It might have to do for her lifetime, that one night.

  She was resigned, but she loved.

  From the vantage of that love, she heard he shared the witch’s bed. It was the gossip from one end of the city to the other, tickled and aggravated: That he should be wasted on a Lowlander, that the arrogant Lowland mare should have yearned after him. But she had been his Zastis pairing, it seemed, even before he sought Velva. Yes, he had asked the way to the witch’s house . . . but she had been unavailable, and something of less significance was substituted, Velva herself. Next on this knowledge came the story of the sword-wound in the practice court. It informed Velva of a thing already sensed and dreaded. The Lowland woman was Death. As the giant snake would crush, the lesser inject with venom—it was her nature. She would drain him and destroy him, he would perish miserably, before his hour, the mock of men, uncherished by gods.

  But not if Velva succeeded at her task today, not then.

  There was the quiet noise of sandaled feet on the stair, the servant girl coming down with her pitcher.

  The milk vendor said to Velva, jokingly, “You won’t get to see him, if you were thinking of that. He wasn’t with her last night. The Guardian had a dinner for the Lydian. He couldn’t say no to it.”

  Velva had known of the dinner, as she knew that Swordsmen never drank milk.

  The mix girl had entered the foyer and the man was ladling into her pitcher. Velva went forward and stood near. The mix did not glance at her. Velva surreptitiously stroked the milkman’s side. He smiled.

  “My cousin here,” he said to the mix. “She’s had a bit of bad luck today. Up before dawn getting all those flowers, the first and freshest, for a cow along the street. But the cow’s sulking over some tiff with her lover, and won’t buy.” He hesitated, not yet taking the coins the servant held out to him. He was doing his very best. “I suppose your lady wouldn’t care to take some? Do you think you could ask her. It’d be a kindness. I’m sure my girl here wouldn’t mind giving you back a bit of what your lady pays . . . if it’s enough, of course.” His hand shut on his own payment at last.

  The mix turned and looked at Velva. Velva hated and was afraid of the yellow-brown color of her eyes, but she said hopefully, “Look, miss, beautiful flowers. These roses—for a love-couch nothing better.” The peculiar eyes went on to the flower basket. Velva had begun to tremble. She had an array of gambits, all risky, but was alert to veer in whatever direction she must—even to upsetting the milk pitcher. “Oh, please, miss. Could you perhaps take up the flowers for her to see? She’ll like them. And the lilies are good fortune for lovers. Oh, do. I could hold the milk. Here, you just carry up the basket—” And Velva brought the pannier, adrip with water drops and fragrance, against the servant’s hands. While, with the dexterity of her trade as wine-girl, Velva laid hold of the pitcher’s handle. If the mix refused, something else must be done. But the mix did not refuse. She gave over the pitcher and accepted the flowers, and went away up the stair with them like a doll of clockwork from Xarabiss.

  Velva forced herself to turn slowly, friendly, to the milk vendor.

  “Yasmat’s blessing.”

  “That’s what I trust I’ll get.”

  “Those trees near the gate,” Velva said. “It’s cool there, and no one can see. Go on, or she may think we’re up to something else. I’ll meet you in a minute.”

  “You’d better,” he said. But he was deceived. The gods of Vis were helping. He led the zeeba off through the garden. And Velva fumbled the vial of poison from her cloak. Prizing out the stopper, she closed the vial with her finger. Putting her hand down into the milk, she released the poison in its depths.

  Her hand was dry again, the milk smooth, when the mix came back. She had no flowers but an array of draks to pay lavishly for them.

  “Heaven reward you,” said Velva. She pressed two draks, as if ingenuously, on the mix, and then went out to the trees by the gate to let the milk vendor enjoy her. Something must always be rendered for something. That, too, was the gods’ law.

  The young soldier, part of the Guardian’s force, which had a military requirement of a certain height, discovered that the Lydian was still a trace taller. He waited, with the westering sun behind him, and the soldier said, “You can go in, if you want. Shall I tell you the news first? Not good, Lydian.”

  The Lydian replied that he would hear the news. Accordingly the soldier gave it. “I’m sorry to be the one tells you. Don’t curse me for it. Do you still want to go in the house?”

  The Lydian said he would, thanked him, and went on through the gate and across the garden.

  It was late in the hot afternoon, the sky with a strange glaring light that taxed the eyes. The house was deadened but not refreshed by shade. There were soldiers on the stair. They, too, let the Lydian by, commiserating, one asking after his arm, and, insensitive in embarrassment, when he would fight again. The other said, “The slut’s run, a thief, too. There’ll be trouble with Sh’alis over it, mark my words.”

  It seemed she had asked to be shown some lace that day. So the lacemaker and her two girls had come i
n and found it all, and rushed out shrieking in fright for the watch.

  A sheet of lace was strewn on the floor of the salon; they had forgotten it in their panic. It was, too, costly, of gold threads from which the stretched gauze backing was scorched out by a heated iron. Perhaps the lacemaker had thought she would be accused of malice—though who would dare practice against an Amanackire? Somebody, plainly.

  Elsewhere chests and cabinets hung open, a jewelbox had been emptied and flung down. The mix girl had robbed her mistress, having, presumably, murdered her. Servants did sometimes turn on their employers. As for Shansarian Alisaar—Sh’alis—always on fire for the honor of Shansar’s old ally the Lowlands, they would have to be appeased. It was excellent the villainess was a mix. Nothing else was about to be considered.

  She lay on a couch near the window, that window where she had wept. Apart from the fact that the mix had torn the rings from her fingers and the jeweled pin out of her dress, she lay as peacefully as if she slept. Her pale, pale hair glistened in a shaft of sun. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted, fresh, delicately painted as the mouth of an image. Superstition had apparently caused the robber to leave the amber drop on the forehead alone, also the enamel snake on her arm. Its eyes sparkled dully, as Rehger crossed the chamber. But nothing else was stirring.

  He had seen death many times, and caused death, and walked with death. But she did not look dead.

  Rehger bent over her, and put out the sun from her face.

  Yes, this was how she looked in slumber. For he had seen that, too. Serene and still. The dead, despite the words of poets, never looked like this. They looked—vacant, like something sloughed and thrown away. But here she was, poised for life, And no life came.

  He would hear, before dusk, for they wanted to tell him all they could, as if details might be of use, that the poison had been identified, in the last of a cup of milk left standing by. Though the scent was very faint, both the physicians sent in by the Guardian had diagnosed the substance, for they had seen men and women depart through its benefits before. She had drained the pitcher; it was thirsty weather. Nothing on earth could have saved her, the medicine being that strong. It was astonishing she looked so quiet, as this way there was firstly euphoria and then terrible pain—And, somehow, obviously realizing her end was on her, she had got out and laid ready the necessary papers to do with her disposal. These also the robber respected.

  Although Amanackire, she had at some time decided, with surprising tact, to be buried. The Shalian Ashara temple was to see to the rites. Regarding a tomb, she had recently bought that of Panduv the dancer. Indeed, ominously enough, the documents had only been notarized and sealed the previous night.

  From all this one might even suspect a suicide. But the method, if so, was curious; she was young and in the wholeness of health, and of a race thinking itself god-gotten. And she was the doxy of a man any woman, liking men, would have desired.

  There was nothing to be spoken to the dead. They would not listen. An inspiration was on him to say her name, Aztira. But he did not say it.

  In the deep silence, a bird sang in the garden trees.

  9. The Fall of the Hawk

  THERE WAS A ROOM which was kept for him above an armorer’s shop on Sword Street. It was not quite unusual for Swordsmen, or the dancers of the Women’s House, to retain such a bolt-hole. Here they might have a privacy the stadium dormitories did not afford, for lovers, or for mere solitude. Rehger had always thought it proper to pay for the room and its maintenance, his cash rewarded by scrupulous attention from the armorer’s cleaner. The whitewashed walls were spotless, the rugs shaken, and the sleeping couch aired and ready. Tonight, for some reason, she had put speckled lilies in a crock under the window. The very same flowers that had clouded up from a figured bowl in the salon of the mansion.

  He arrived quietly, ascended the steps behind the shop, and unlocked the door. It was not yet sunset, miles of time between him and a new day. He thought of it in this manner. He did not know what should be done with the night, with Zastis, with all the burden of terrible surprise, of feeling, that had not had the space to become for him recognizable, to fade to an irrelevance, or spur to any height— Dawn, his superstition told him, would wash at least the doubt away. Or night itself, submerging him, would be his teacher. He almost feared to learn. Yet he had come here to aloneness, in order to do so. He had not lived so long in Daigoth’s courts through bandaging his eyes.

  Rehger had been in the room less than the third of an hour when someone scratched on the door. He supposed the slave had come, or the armorer’s wife, to see if he wanted anything brought, supper or wine. Inclined not to answer, he delayed, but to give a churlish response displeased him, so he went to the door and opened it. No one was there. The shadows lay in place along the yard from the well tree and the trellised creepers. While from the yard’s far side the hammer and anvil thudded on the forge like an angry heart.

  By the room’s threshold, a square of reed paper lay, rolled and corded, with a pebble set inside to weigh it down.

  Some girl, maybe . . . But the retreats of champions were respected. Love-letters came to the stadium, or the wine-shops.

  He took this letter up. Going back inside, he sat, the paper in his hand, looking at the lilies in the final sunlight.

  Then he untied the cord.

  The stadium educated its children, but there had never been much occasion to read anything. It was often so with the Swords, acrobats and dancers, wedded to the body not the mind. As for love-notes, they were short, or if copious, did not need to be scanned.

  The paper was fully covered, by a fine and beautiful script.

  It began: “To Rehger Am Ly Dis, son of Yennef son of Yalen: A prince of the Royal House of Lan, and of the bloodline of Amrek, King of Dorthar, Storm Lord of All Vis.”

  Only one other knew to address him in this way— this extraordinary way. She who had risen in the center of night, leaving his arms to search by sorcery the drak of bronzed gold. She, like an icon of ivory before the one lamp that had not yet burned out, turning the coin, in a while telling him of his mother that she had never seen, of his father that neither she nor he had ever looked on. And of that father’s father. Of bastardy and foolishness, of births and wanderings, of a frivolous search she could not properly decipher— She had described the wretched farm at Iscah, and the city of Amlan. She had spoken of a priestess, Amrek’s daughter— And in the end he had only left the couch and gone to bring her back against his flesh. It was Zastis. Let the past and future wait.

  “Dear Friend,” the letter continued, “when this comes to you, I will be dead, and you will know it. I think that you have some care for me, but not enough that this can wound you deeper than a little scratch might do. Salve the hurt, and may it heal swiftly and well. For myself, I loved you, from the moment I saw you I believe. I have never told you of my circumstances, but, like you, I was taken from my kindred early. And so to love, at last, was a gift She gave me. To be requited was not needful.

  “She that brought you this, my servant, had disguised herself on my instructions, in the same way that she was instructed to take my jewels. She knows what she must do, though they will hunt her for my murder if they can. She is guiltless, of course. While the one that is culpable will in due season be punished, if even punishment is wanted.

  “Only two things more to say, and quickly. By those means you have termed sorcery, I can banish pain. But there are not many minutes. A vanity—I refuse to die uncouthly. They will find me lying on the couch composed as if for sleep. And unless some unforeseen mistake occurs, so you will find me also. I regret we had no more together. But since there is no true death, I believe we will meet again.

  “Having had communion with the coin, I have, as I cautiously promised you, been able to uncover something further: When you are able to seek your father, you will find him in the Lowland province of M
oih. It really asks no larger information. You are, I think, destined to know him. The sons of the hero Raldnor never met their sire; his own was dead at his conception. That which the Vis call Chance, and we, Anackire, tends always to a balance where allowed. It will come at the correct hour, knowledge, and to both. I must be brief—

  “Thus. I invite you to my funeral obsequies. Though it is perhaps irksome, nor joyous. To see me to my black stone bed on the hill. The Ashara temple will have charge of me. But I shall lack followers. Do it for kindness’ sake, Rehger. I set it on you, that you must.

  “And now I shall seek the couch and lie down there.

  “Prosper. And, perhaps, remember me sometimes. Or how else will you know me, when next we meet?”

  The letter was signed, without any of the flourish which had begun it, Aztira.

  • • •

  The madam arrived in person to oust Chacor. Her wide hips filled the doorway and her scent the chamber.

  “So soon,” he said.

  “We’re a good-class house, and hygienic. Money goes farther in the stews, but a Corhlish prince wouldn’t want those.”

  “And I see I’ve fallen from favor with my last coin.”

  “Fallen? Scarcely down than up, from what I heard. And you’re pretty enough to ruin all my girls for the other trade. And my best, my Tarla, so taken with you she’s left out her petal, and Yasmat knows, now the silly tart’s probably womb-full of something the doctor will have to see to. Unless you want it brought up to help you rule Corhl.”

  “If I had any cash left, I’d give it you in recompense,” said Chacor. Cheerfully he placed a squashed marigold in the madam’s hand and kissed her well-powdered cheek. “But I’ve only enough for a cup of bad wine.”

  He descended the brothel stairs whistling, the girls leaning over the galleries to reprove him for leaving, or for whistling, or to wish him luck.

  It was getting dark, and the lane outside was murky. Farther down it forked, plummeting toward the fish market on one hand, up toward Gods’ High Gate on the other. He had been thinking a while, once Tarla had gone. (Lamenting over the springy “petal” of softened cow gut, that should have been inserted within her before their congress, and which eagerness had made her leave lying in the washbowl. The Way of Women, in rustic Corhl, was normally effected by a leaf pasted over the navel.)