The Serpent Read online

  Instead of enticing Guntram to work, I told him about meeting Irene and through her of meeting Blessus.

  “I’ve heard of Master Sans,” Guntram said. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve seen some examples of what I was told was his work. Very skilled, from what I saw.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” I said, “but he doesn’t appear to have been a pleasant man. From the evidence, he’s dead now having been eaten by a creature from the Waste. There were many Ancient artifacts in the place that Sans worked. Perhaps Irene would take us back there so that you could see for yourself. For that matter, I’d like you to meet Irene. She doesn’t have a winning personality, but she really is a Maker in her own way.”

  “I’ve always suspected the Ancients had female Makers as well as men,” Guntram said. “There are artifacts which I simply can’t get into. When I try, it’s like watching raindrops splash off a roof slate.”

  For a moment I thought the old curiosity and animation were back in my friend, but the enthusiasm died away immediately. Maybe if I got him and Irene actually together…?

  “I need to go see Jon right now,” I said, “but I’ll be back tomorrow. Stick with us, buddy. I didn’t know what to do when you disappeared, you know.”

  We shook hands like the friends we were, but I left afraid I was losing him, as surely as if I hadn’t been able to get him out of the trap he’d gotten into. I’d seen Horsley die after he’d lost his foot in a woodchopping accident back home. Old Frances had tied off the blood vessels with fish line right away—it wasn’t that. But Horsley shivered on a hot summer day until he just shut down. I got the same feeling about Guntram now.

  * * *

  I got back to the Leader’s waiting room a little later than I’d expected. When Taggert saw me he called, “Lord Pal! The Leader came in and asked me to bring you to him as soon as you arrived. He’s with delegates from the timber industry now but I’m sure he’d want me to alert him.”

  I shrugged but followed Taggert to the door past people waiting on benches. Being run in this way sounded like a new job rather than anything to do with my report. Not that timber merchants were likely to be of critical importance to the Commonwealth.

  Taggert tapped on the door, then opened it and stuck his head in. “Lord Pal is here,” he said. Jon came immediately to the door and then said over his shoulder to men still within the room, “Gentlemen, I’m very sorry, but I must deal with an important matter that just came to light! Lord Pal, please come with me.”

  “Yes, my lord,” I said, wishing I knew more about the business than that the Leader wanted to get out of a boring meeting.

  We turned left down a short corridor to a meeting room Jon used to keep groups separate. He murmured to me, “A Maker kidnapped his bride twenty-five years ago. He’s Count of Midian and he says he’ll join the Commonwealth if we get her back. His Maker, Master Beddoes, hasn’t been able to.”

  Jon tapped on the door to alert those inside and entered ahead of me.

  “Count Stokes,” he said immediately to the pair of men turning to face us. “This is Lord Pal, who has been able to think himself into a number of situations and I hope may have a useful viewpoint. Please explain the situation just as you did to me.”

  “If you think so, Lord Jon,” the Count said. He was a tall man in his forties whose hair was already thinning. “Lady Marlene was a famous beauty and was courted by me and many others, including a Master Harvey, a Maker of some fame. Her father, a landowner on Midian, chose me rather than the commoner, of course.

  “The day we were married Master Harvey cast the whole party into blackness and stole Lady Marlene away. He took her to a compound on the edge of landingplace. The walls are opaque except for about twenty feet of the front, which are clear.”

  “We could see Marlene, and she apparently could see us,” Beddoes said, “but we couldn’t hear her. Harvey was in the sealed-off place with her but nobody else could get in. There was nothing anyone could do.”

  “Was the container alive?” I asked, thinking of the cysts Guntram and I had found and gotten out of with difficulty.

  “It was not,” said Beddoes. “There was nothing there to get hold of. Nothing.”

  I looked at Jon and said, “Sir, I’d like to have Guntram look at this.”

  “Who is Guntram?” said Stokes to me.

  “He’s a Maker,” I said without adding superlatives. “He’s my friend and has a broader range of knowledge and interests than most people.”

  “If a Maker were what was required,” Beddoes said, “Lady Marlene would have been free years ago, wouldn’t she, Lord Stokes?”

  “Certainly I immediately sought out the best Makers for the problem,” Stokes said. “None of them solved it.”

  “You see,” Beddoes said, “this Harvey is using an Ancient device as the basis of his trap. If a modern Maker could solve the problem, I would have done so.”

  “Nevertheless, I’d like Master Guntram to take a look at the situation,” I said. “I think this is the best help for a solution short of contacting Master Harvey and convincing him to change sides.”

  “If I see the man, I’ll kill him!” Stokes snarled. “He raped my wife in front of me in his enclosure!”

  “In that case,” I said as calmly as I could, “then I particularly want Guntram to look at the situation.”

  “I’d want you to escort him, Pal,” the Leader said. “We can’t send Guntram out alone.”

  “Of course,” I said. “And we’ll take my boat.”

  The Leader had a boat of his own, but it wasn’t in nearly as good condition as the one Guntram and I had spent weeks bringing back to original specification. My own boat had requested that I not do the same for the rival vessel and I hadn’t volunteered the service. I suppose it was doubtful morality to do a favor to a machine rather than for the ruler of the Commonwealth, but I figured it didn’t really matter to Jon so long as I loaned my boat whenever he asked.

  It did matter to the boat. And if you don’t believe machines can have personalities, you haven’t been as close to them as I have.

  Stokes and Beddoes were talking together, but neither Jon nor I paid attention.

  “When will you go off?” Jon asked.

  “Maybe tomorrow after May and I have talked,” I said. “I don’t plan to give Guntram much time to think about it. He’s lost interest in things in a way I don’t like to see.”

  Jon and I shook hands. Then I nodded to Stokes and said, “Be ready to leave tomorrow, probably around noon. I have a boat, so you can spare your legs.”

  Beddoes started asking questions, which I ignored. Lord Stokes just seemed pleased that he’d be riding.

  I headed out of the palace and toward May.

  * * *

  Dom, the manservant May had decided that my status required, was waiting on the front step as I came down South Street. Instead of holding the door for me he ducked back inside and May herself met me at the door with a kiss.

  That was a delight, but over her shoulder I saw her cousin Lord Osbourn. Since Osbourn shaped up and applied himself, he’d become a Champion three months ago. We got along fine now—but I hadn’t been looking for company tonight.

  “Darling,” May said. “Osbourn’s back from his own official mission and I invited him to dinner with us. He has some business to take care of for the next hour, though, so he’s just going out now. Let’s go up to discuss our own business in private until then. If that suits you?”

  “It suits me right down to the ground,” I said. We skipped up the stairs to the bedroom. I suppose I shouldn’t have been embarrassed—May certainly wasn’t.

  Right now I didn’t care. I’d been out a long time.

  * * *

  The cook, Fritz, was delighted to have a guest to cook for—one who would appreciate his skill better than I did. I like good food just fine, but I’m not used to it to the point that I could say the sorts of things Fritz wants to hear. “I really liked dinner,” rather than
comments on the subtleties of the seasoning, is as far as I go. My mom was a terrible cook.

  Well, my stepmom. My real mother lived with a monster from the Waste and had nothing to eat but human bodies. Anyway, I don’t get very excited about food, which I’m sure offends Fritz.

  I guess I offend Dom also. He and his wife, Elise, were used to working for proper nobles. He considered me a jumped-up peasant, which is truly what I am. I can live with that for May’s sake—so long as Dom keeps it politely hidden—which he learned to do just in time.

  Nobody came to our bedroom, but the knocking and opening of the front door told us that Osbourn had returned. I rolled out of bed and pulled my clothes on. Glancing back it struck me again that I was the luckiest man born.

  “May,” I said. “You’re beautiful.”

  She smiled up at me, making her even lovelier. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “Tell Lord Osbourn I’ll be right down.”

  I went down the stairs with my hand touching the stone balustrade. There were no stairs in Beune when I was growing up. If my heel caught on a step, it would be no worse than embarrassing; I wasn’t going to break my neck. On the other hand, I don’t like to be embarrassed.

  Osbourn got up from his chair in the waiting room. I waved him back and sat down on the couch, then said, “Tell me about this mission you were on, Osbourn. It was your first for the Commonwealth, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” the boy agreed. “I was sitting in court last month and a woman, Lady Verde, claimed her sister Blanche had hired toughs to drive her out of the portion of their father’s estate on Gammon that he’d left to her. I volunteered to escort Verde back and take a look at the situation.”

  Dom came in with wine from a vintage that May had just bought on Fritz’s recommendation. From the pleased expression Lord Osbourn assumed at his first sip, May had gotten very good value for the considerable expense.

  I said, “Was there any doubt about the will?”

  “Jon’s experts didn’t think so,” Osbourn said. “Blanche didn’t send representatives, though she can appeal if she wants to.”

  Osbourn shrugged. He’s a trifle taller than I am and now that he’s starting to fill out he’s a darned impressive specimen. “The situation on Gammon was pretty much the way Lady Verde had described it. Blanche had three toughs but their shields were crappy and I didn’t spend any time discussing the situation. The third one tried to throw his weapon down, but I’d already started my stroke. I stayed around a few days to see that things were sorted out, then came back to report to Jon.”

  May came down then. “Osbourn was just telling me about his mission,” I said.

  “The past may be interesting,” May said, “but what I’d like to hear is whether you’re going to be able to stay in Dun Add for a while, Pal? Lady Bedelia is giving a dinner party in ten days and I don’t know if I should accept her invitation.”

  Bedelia was another of the ladies in waiting, and Lord Moncrief’s companion. Moncrief was a Champion and a decent fellow, but we’d never been close.

  “Love,” I said, “Jon has a problem he wants me to look at on for Lord Stokes. It sounds a little like the cyst Osbourn and I got Guntram out of, which is why Jon asked me into it. Stokes has a Maker who thinks a lot of his own skills, though, and at any rate I doubt he was going to overlook any problem that way that I’d be able to solve, so it struck me that this might be the way to get Guntram back to normal. Back to what he was before the cyst trapped him.”

  “If you send Guntram, you won’t have to go yourself, then?” May said hopefully.

  Before I came up with a polite response, Lord Osbourn said, “Pal would never let Master Guntram go out by himself, Cousin May.”

  But then he turned to me and said, “But you know, Pal—you don’t have to escort him unless you want to—I could. If you trust me, I mean.”

  “I certainly trust you on a job like this,” I said. The truth was, an excuse for missing Lady Bedelia’s dinner party certainly had sounded good; but that was a truth I didn’t plan to state aloud.

  I smiled at May and said, “It seems that we can make the party after all. I’m planning to go out on general patrol but there’s no reason that can’t wait another ten days.”

  Osbourn seemed really cheerful at the prospect. “Stokes and Master Beddoes say they’ll be ready at midday tomorrow. Suit you?”

  “Oh, yes, milord!” Osbourn said. “Thank you so much for this opportunity, sir.”

  “Then after dinner I’ll go talk to Guntram,” I said.

  “I’m glad things have worked out so well,” May said. She certainly seemed pleased, so I guess I was too. Despite the dinner party.

  * * *

  The image on Guntram’s door sounded happy to see me. Ancient machines certainly can have personalities, but I’m not sure that all of them do. The various doorkeepers that Guntram repaired to keep people away from his quarters had always seemed to me to be joke rather than serious working machines—the way a boat is, for example. But I hadn’t made a real study.

  Guntram was really glad to usher me in. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight, Pal,” he said. Then frowning added, “I hope all is well with you and May.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. When things were going badly at home I sometimes spent the night in Guntram’s workroom. The atmosphere was pretty similar to my surroundings on Beune after Mom died, leaving me alone in the house and a barn furnished with the Ancient artifacts I’d found in the Waste—and repaired if I could.

  “Thing is, Guntram, I volunteered you for a job I didn’t think I could handle and figured I ought to tell you,” I said. “You go off with Lord Osbourn as escort to Midian, to free a bride who was kidnapped on her wedding day and is being held behind a clear barrier for the past twenty-five years. The fiancé has a Maker who says a Maker can’t penetrate the barrier—which means he can’t. Like I said, I volunteered you. The fiancé, Lord Stokes, is important to Jon. I figure if I had to be close to Stokes and his Maker any length of time, I’d say or do really the wrong thing.”

  “I appreciate your confidence, Pal,” Guntram said, “but I’m afraid it’s misplaced.

  “Since I came back from that cyst, I haven’t been the same man.”

  I looked for a moment at a clock which kept time by three different systems, none of them familiar, depending on whether the digits show blue, yellow or green. I have always been amazed that Guntram had gotten it running again by replacing missing atoms according to the ghostly pattern in his mind that showed him what those atoms should be.

  “Guntram,” I said. “You haven’t come back. Not really. I’m hoping that a tricky problem with a smart aleck watching you will bring you closer to the man who rebuilt this clock.”

  I gestured.

  Guntram smiled, which I took for a good sign. He said, “The clock is completely useless, you realize.”

  “I realize we don’t know how to calibrate it yet,” I said. “As a piece of craftsmanship, I don’t know its equal, though.

  “And Guntram?” I went on saying more than I’d intended to. “The Leader believes in big things—Mankind and the Commonwealth, that sort of thing. Maybe I did too, when I was a kid. Now you and I believe in the work. The work is real.”

  I pointed to the clock again. “This is real,” I said, “and I want to see more work like it.”

  Guntram sighed. “I’ll be at landingplace at noon,” he said. “And I’ll try not to embarrass Dun Add before these provincials.”

  “Thank you, friend,” I said and headed back for home.

  I didn’t know whether or not Guntram would succeed on Midian, but I’d succeeded in getting Guntram moving. That had been my job, and it was much more important to me than anything concerning Lord Stokes.

  * * *

  Several days later, I returned to the chambers of the Chancellor. There was now a waiting room in place, but admission was controlled not by a clerk but by a Champion, Lord Manzas. I realized the increasing bure
aucracy was a sign of the Commonwealth’s success, but I looked back fondly to the days when seeing the Chancellor was no more complicated than dropping in on my neighbor Gervaise on Beune.

  “He’ll be a while, Pal,” Manzas said. “Going to take long?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m just checking in for politeness before I ask Mistress Toledana for a patrol route.”

  Somebody was shouting on the other side of the far door, which surprised me. Clain wasn’t a person you shouted at: not only was he Jon’s Chancellor, he was a warrior of unmatched skill. I had risen to my present stature by cleverness and hard work. Clain was certainly clever and worked hard, but he’s become the paramount Champion by virtue of crushing everything in his way. He is strong, quick, and instinctively does the things I had taught myself to do by studying warriors like him.

  A heavy man in expensive clothes came out. I thought he was Count Osbert. Through the door before it closed behind him, I saw Clain advancing. The scene suggested that the visitor had gone out the door before Clain hurled him through it.

  “Didn’t take as long as I figured,” Manzas said. “You want to go through now, Pal, or wait a bit?”

  The visitor stomped past us, making a point of stamping his feet every time they came down. “I’ll chance it now, Manzas,” I said and walked to the door. Those already waiting watched me but nobody contested my primacy.

  I tapped and Clain grunted, “Come!” through the door.

  I opened it wide enough to meet the Chancellor’s eyes and said, “Is this an all right time to see you briefly, sir?”

  “Come on in, Pal,” Clain said. “Unless you think I should make you regional overlord because you’re so important, it’s a fine time. I suppose you’re here to check on Lady Irene? She’s fine, but take a chair.”

  I did take the seat Count Osbert had shoved backward when he leaped to his feet, but I said, “I finished with Lady Irene when I delivered her to Dun Add. I’m glad she’s doing well, but I came for your approval of me asking the Clerk of Here for a patrol route in a region she thinks would benefit from the Commonwealth’s attention. Or perhaps you have your own choice?”