The Serpent Read online

  We stepped through the misty boundary between the Road and the node of Dun Add, the capital of the Commonwealth. The large party we were following were mostly strangers to Dun Add and had therefore stopped as soon as they reached landingplace, blocking passage for those following them. Sam was used to such thoughtlessness and forced his way through the legs of the gawkers. I followed. Sam had shoved them at knee height; I bumped their shoulders but then pushed the plump lady on my left a little farther away so that Lady Irene could get through without contact.

  The first thing to do was to get through the formalities. I headed immediately for the Herald of the Gate. I didn’t push anybody out of the way, but I didn’t call Sam back when he loped ahead and used his weight to get to the Herald before the visitor with a much smaller mongrel managed to do so.

  The Herald looked up in irritation but then recognized me and passed the protesting stranger off to his clerk. The visitor was no worse off for the change. The Herald’s clerk would run him through in a businesslike fashion without the posturing the Herald would have gone through.

  I nodded politely to the Herald and said, “Baga will run through the formalities for me and Lady Irene of Banft. The Leader sent Lord Frobier to escort her, but when he fell ill I was fortunately close enough to take over.”

  “Of course, Lord Pal,” the Herald said. While he was bowing to Lady Irene, I murmured to Baga, “After you’ve stabled Sam, go back to the house and tell May that I’m back but I’m stopping off with Morseth to take care of business before I come home. And I may have to check in with Clain and the Leader as well. But I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”

  “Right,” said Baga. “How many for dinner, boss? You know she’ll ask.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Just me tonight. Irene’s going to be staying with Morseth till we get her settled, okay?”

  “I’ll tell the Mistress,” Baga said. He sounded doubtful. I didn’t blame him.

  There are several paths from landingplace through the band of horse chestnuts before we’d reach the base of South Street, which was paved. One of these days the pavement would probably be extended all the way to landingplace; but I, for one, would regret that. This was Dun Add as I’d come to it. I didn’t want the simpler parts to change.

  “How far do we have to go?” Irene asked. “I’m quite tired.”

  “Two blocks, is all,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. Lady Irene hadn’t been raised for the kind of life she’d been leading on the Road. I understood that. But you know being around somebody who’s angry and resentful all the time makes the hike itself seem twice as far as it would be with somebody positive or at least neutral about the business.

  “And who is this Morseth?” Irene said, making the name sound like something you’d step around on the sidewalk.

  “Lord Morseth,” I said, still upbeat, “is one of the most senior and respected Champions in the hall. He’s also a close friend. You’ll be as safe with him as you would be with me.”

  “I expected to be lodged in the palace,” Irene said. “My father is Duke of Banft, you realize.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder if that’s what Jon decides,” I said, “as soon as he realizes the situation. Remember, he arranged with your father to escort you to Lord Diederich to be married. This is all going to be a surprise.”

  I cleared my throat and added to her silence, “Look, Lady Irene, this is going to work out fine and if there’s any problem you have my personal promise that I’ll get you to Westbriggan regardless of what Jon says. But that’s a long journey, and Morseth’s house is just two doors down here.”

  I gestured down the connecting street. Irene followed me immediately. I suspected my mention of how far she would have to hike to get to Westbriggan had decided her.

  Morseth’s door had a big brass knocker, but his doorman saw us coming up the street and whipped the door open, shouting inside, “Lord, it’s Pal, with a lady!”

  Morseth was coming out of the back when we came in the front. “Good to see you, buddy,” he said. “Reaves has had a bug for three days and it makes him mean as a denned bear.”

  “Has he tried Guntram’s couch?” I asked.

  “You know,” he said, “I doubt he thought of that. He’s not hurt, he just feels crappy and coughs a lot. You think the couch would help?”

  “I’d sure try it,” I said.

  Master Guntram had repaired a couch that speeded the healing of injuries. It bothered him that most Champions were leery of it even after two years of use by some of the top warriors—me among them. Folks seemed to be afraid that anything that really modified the body must have other effects than helping cuts heal or bruises go away. I’d heard that it made guys impotent. That was nonsense but it wasn’t the sort of thing I felt like demonstrating to my peers.

  There were Champions—Morseth among them—who rather famously had a wide acquaintance among willing women. He would be a good subject to increase acceptance of Guntram’s couch, but his friend Reaves was the one with the present problem.

  “I’ll suggest it,” he said. He glanced at Lady Irene and added, “There’s no problem with it, then?”

  “None at all,” I assured him. “I figure whatever it is that’s making him sick is the same as a knife. It’s hurting the body, right?”

  “You think of things in a way nobody else does, Pal,” Morseth said. He was so tall that at a distance you missed how extremely powerful his body was. “I’ll tell Reaves—and tell him the other part is safe too.”

  “Master Guntram thinks of things the same way I do,” I said. “Only he’s better at it. You ought to listen when he tells you something.”

  Morseth looked at me carefully. “Pal,” he said “I watched you beat Lord Baran. I wouldn’t swear that I could’ve done that. When I see Guntram manage something like that, I’ll take his word about some of his other cute toys.”

  I sighed. “Your choice,” I said. “I didn’t come to argue. I’d like a favor. I’m going to talk to Jon about lodging Irene in the palace. Until I do, could you lodge and feed her for a couple days?”

  He gave me an odd look and said, “Sure. Just so I know though, have you told Lady May about this?”

  I grinned. Trust Morseth to go to the heart of the matter. “It’s not what you think,” I said. “But no, I haven’t. I’ve got to do that as soon as I’ve cleared it with Jon, and I hope to hell that she believes me.”

  Morseth turned to the woman who’d just joined us in the hall. “Diane,” he said, “Lady Irene here is Lord Pal’s friend. She’ll be staying with us a few days so have a room made up on the third floor. Will you be with us for dinner, Pal?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be at home.” I nodded to Irene and said, “Milady, if you would go with Morseth’s housekeeper—” from the look Diane had given us all during the discussion, she was more than that “—I’ll discuss a few last points with my friend here.”

  I didn’t know how Irene was going to react, but she went off politely behind Diane.

  When she was safely out of earshot, I said, “Buddy, there’s one thing I’ve got to warn you—”

  “Don’t say a word,” said Morseth. “I don’t move in on my friends’ women.”

  “I know you don’t,” I agreed, “and neither does Reaves. But Reaves drinks and I suspect he’s not always sure what he’s doing when he’s really got a load on. But the thing I’ve got to say is that I’m pretty sure Irene poisoned Lord Frobier because he was going to take her where she didn’t want to go. I don’t think Frobier’s servants did, and the guards Irene’s father had hired couldn’t have gotten to his food. I just thought I ought to say it.”

  “She doesn’t just poison people to pass the time, then?” Morseth said, frowning at me.

  “No, she was getting Frobier out of the way,” I said. “He would’ve made sure she went where her father wanted—to marry Diederich of Haft.”

  “Not somebody I know,” said Morseth. “I don’t care who she marries,
so I’ll take a chance. Go do what you need to do—and I suggest you make seeing May high on the list.”

  “With luck I’ll catch her with the Consort right now,” I said and started back on my way to the palace. I didn’t meet Baga, returning from the stables from leaving Sam. I suspected that he’d stopped off for a stoup of wine. He’d never let his drinking become a problem while he was in my service, but it was something I needed to keep an eye on.

  I nodded to a few of the people I met on South Street. I didn’t know any of them so well that I needed to stop and chat. I thought about my first visit to Dun Add, a peasant boy from Beune who wanted to become a Champion of Mankind and didn’t have any idea of how to go about it.

  By chance I met one of the Consort’s ladies-in-waiting; and because she was a nice person she took pity on my ignorance and pointed me in the right directions. I knew nothing about her at the time except that she was nice and that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met.

  Both those things are still true. Her looks don’t matter a lot to me—they do matter a lot to May herself. The basic niceness of her personality matters a lot. She can fly hot and does so pretty often, but probably less often than I deserve. I’m not a bad person, but May and I are about as different as two people could be; I think a lot of times she doesn’t understand that I really am acting in ignorance, or that something seems reasonable to me when any reasonable person would see that it was impossible.

  I’ve told her I’m not interested in other women. By now she’s seen plenty of evidence that it’s the truth, but what she would call common sense keeps getting in the way of her believing it. That’s why I was a bit leery of explaining Lady Irene.

  The central core of the palace is stone, but the wings added on both ends are brick and the annex on the back—the north side—is timber and holds the regiment of practice machines on which Aspirants train and which all warriors use to keep their skills current.

  I knew to enter the second door from the left. The attendant inside looked up and murmured, “Lord Pal,” as I trotted up the stairs to the second floor, though I didn’t recollect having seen him before.

  There was another attendant at the head of the stairs and a third down the corridor at the door of the Consort’s suite. The last saw me coming and shouted through the grill, “Lord Pal coming.” The inside attendant had unlocked the entry before I got to him.

  From a distance Lady Jolene looked thirty years younger than her real age of about fifty. Even right across the room she was a beautiful woman with hair like a cloth of gold banner.

  “Pal,” she called graciously. “What impossible node are you back from this time?”

  Lady May had come in from the roof garden when she heard me announced. She gave me a bright smile and started around the edge of the room to join me. Besides Jolene and four of her attendants, Lord Reynes, a recent Champion, was present also, sitting beside Lady Daisenna—Daisy.

  “Nowhere very exciting,” I said. “I met Lord Frobier on Boyd where he’d gotten sick and took over escorting Lady Irene of Banft from him. She wanted to come to Dun Add, so I’m here to check with the Leader as to where he wants her lodged. For the time being I’ve got her with Lord Morseth.”

  “We have a spare room, Pal,” May said as I’d hoped she would.

  “I didn’t think that was a good plan,” I explained. “Morseth has more room and a full-time housekeeper. You’re up at the palace most days. And I wanted somebody like Morseth, because she’s a pretty woman and I don’t want her being pestered. She doesn’t like men, from what Frobier’s servants said. I don’t think she was sorry that Frobier got sick, to tell the truth.”

  “Frobier’s a pig,” May muttered unexpectedly.

  “I suspect Lady Irene would agree with you,” I said, “though we didn’t actually discuss it.”

  I knew that May’d had an active social life before she met me. This was one of the times that the fact cropped up in a fashion which startled me, though.

  “Jolene,” May said. “Can I run off early today?”

  “Of course, darling,” the Consort said. “Lord Pal saved me from being boiled in oil. Anything you do for him is done for me.”

  May stepped close and was urging us toward the door.

  I remained set and said to the Consort, “Thank you, milady, but I really need to see Jon about Lady Irene, because I really didn’t do what he expected. And I’d really like to check in on Master Guntram, too, and see if he’s doing all right. He had a really rough trip when last he went out.”

  “So did you, when you brought him back!” Lady May said.

  I hugged her close and said, “I’m a Champion and I’m expected to have a rough time when I go out. Guntram’s an old man and a scholar. Things aren’t supposed to happen to him the way they did.”

  I looked down at May and added, “Love, I’ll be back at the house as soon as I can be.”

  She rose up on tiptoes and kissed me. “You wouldn’t be any good to the Commonwealth if you didn’t put duty first. Or to me either, because I fell in love with the man you are.”

  “As quick as I can,” I repeated. I kissed her in front of the whole audience and broke away, going out the door.

  * * *

  The Leader’s suite was also on the second level but around on the east wing of the palace. I followed the corridor, occasionally saying hi to someone I knew. The waiting room was as usual full of petitioners who thought they would do better at a private hearing from Jon than by appearing in open court where matters were referred as a matter of routine to the bureaucrat into whose realm it fell.

  The clerk of appearances greeted me cheerfully but said, “He’ll be in court till five today, Lord Pal. If you come back after that, I’ll run you right in to see him.”

  “Thanks, Taggert,” I said. All the petitioners within earshot were staring at me as though they wished they could strike me dead. That was all right: I was seeing Jon on Jon’s business. They were here on their own. “I need to see Master Guntram. So I’ll come back later.”

  Guntram’s workroom was a large space on the third level back. I was about the only person besides Guntram who regularly went there. Ordinary people tend to be afraid of Makers. Guntram played on this to safeguard his privacy (because he didn’t keep a servant). On the door where a knocker would ordinarily be mounted was an Ancient artifact that looked like the tail of a lizard.

  If you twisted the lizard’s tail, the head appeared to stick through the panel and a voice inside the room announced you in a voice loud enough to be heard in the hall. In my case the lizard announced, “It’s Lord Pal, master!” in what seemed a cheerful though raspy voice. I’ve heard it call, “Some twit of a servant,” though. For the most part, Guntram had the privacy he desired.

  I heard Guntram’s shuffling footsteps for some while before the panel opened. I thought again of suggesting he get a servant to handle the menial tasks like this, but he really didn’t want anybody—any layman—around when he was working.

  I’d taught myself to be a Maker at home. Mom tried not to disturb me, but a peasant boy doesn’t dictate the rules to the adults around him. If somebody needed help tying sheaves—or later plowing, shingling, or the like—they broke in on my trance without hesitation. I got used to it.

  “I’ve got a little while before Jon is free,” I said. “I thought I’d see whether you’d recovered.”

  “Well, you know I wasn’t really injured,” Guntram said as we walked over to his work area. “I was just weak from not moving for months.”

  The big room was so littered with artifacts, books, and boxes of raw materials—and goodness knew what all else—that it was difficult to navigate. The furniture was sparse and generally piled with more paraphernalia.

  “The thing that distresses me is that I still don’t feel like doing anything,” he added. “Of course, there’s nothing I need to do. I guess that’s really the problem. I’m trying to work on some of the artifacts I’ve gathered o
ver the years, but I can’t convince myself that anybody cares.”

  “I care, Guntram,” I said. “Your skill is an inspiration to me.”

  He gave me a tired smile.

  I thought of Blessus. I wished even more strongly that I’d convinced him to come back. At the time I’d been thinking that Guntram would help me learn about Blessus. Now I realized that the puzzle of Blessus would have been just what Guntram needed to get back on an even keel himself.

  Blessus had simply given up because he realized he would never have the thing he most wanted. Guntram instead had found that he wanted nothing.

  “Look,” I said. “What would you like me to do? There must be something I can do.”

  Guntram laughed, the most positive response I’d had since I came to his suite. What he said though was, “You’ve discovered a new law of the universe, then, Lord Pal? Your good will isn’t in doubt, but I’m afraid the problem is in me and you can’t change it. Nor can I, I’m afraid.”

  I thought of suggesting that we work on something together as we’d done a number of times in the past. Particularly in putting the boat I’d captured from villains back in the condition it was in immediately after the Ancients had built it.

  Boats were self-repairing, so they survived in much better shape than other Ancient artifacts. But they needed raw materials to repair themselves and most boatmen, even those like Baga, didn’t know how to access the menu in the boat. They were left guessing at needs, and mostly guessed wrong—or didn’t provide specialized trace elements. The boatmen weren’t Makers and weren’t used to the details of elementary composition.

  It struck me that if Guntram and I worked a project together again, it might help get him back into the world. I was about to suggest that when I glanced at an outside window on the west end of the room. From the sun’s height I realized that I had less than an hour before Jon would be free to meet me. I had a duty to Guntram: he had been my friend and my savior.

  But I had a duty to Jon also—and to May. I’d promised her that I’d be home as soon as I’d reported to Jon—and that meant I had to get there. If we went deep into trances on a workpiece complex enough to really get Guntram involved, the likelihood was that we’d still be working at midnight.