Riding the Serpent's Back (23 page)

As he approached, those who noticed him and were capable moved aside hurriedly. The others probably regretted it later, as he brushed past them leaving a trail of muck and slime.

Principal Pieter was standing on a paved area next to a wide expanse of glass doors which opened into the palace ballroom. He was laughing and talking with a small group of guests, and his wife was smiling indulgently and looking just a little ill. The Governors of Reistra and Shephrana were there, along with Estelle’s father, the Governor of Averna. Coll Paister, head minister of the city’s Embodied Church was with them, using a pillar to help himself remain vertical.

Red pushed past a small group of revellers and stopped before his master. He gave a deep bow. When he straightened, he realised from their looks that something was not quite right.

Then he glanced down at himself.

His finely pressed white jacket and trousers were smeared with jelly, mud and something that glittered red and green in the light of the gardens. He put his free hand to his face and felt that it, too, was smeared and filthy. His hair was slippery, with what felt like feathers and petals stuck to it. He vaguely recalled being rolled in a large barrel of feathers down a very long hill and being sick in a man’s boot afterwards.

He held up his other hand, in which he clutched a canvas bag. He tipped it up and out fell a cascade of feathers, cheaply jewelled pendants, gaudy masks painted with the names ‘Pieter’ and ‘Estelle’, a cup bearing an approximation of the Principal’s profile.

“Sir,” said Red, smiling lopsidedly. “I felt it my duty to ensure that the citizens of your fine city were being dutiful and dutifully celebrating this fine day. I have researched this most thoroughly, and I counted somewhere between one hundred and fifty-eight and one hundred and ninety-three street parties. I am afraid I cannot be more precise as – particularly towards the end of my researches – it became difficult to tell where one party ended and the next began. As your servant I have little to offer you as a gift to mark this fine day, so please accept all this—” he waved a hand at the junk he had tipped out of his bag “—a trophy from each one of your people’s parties!”

Pieter turned to his guests. “Please allow me to introduce my most loyal servant, Red Simeni,” he said. “And now, if you will excuse me for a moment...”

With a nod at a passing servant, the Principal stepped forward and took Red by the arm. “You need cleaning up,” he said.

Between the two of them, Pieter and the servant lifted Red off his feet and carried him a short distance.

“One! Two!
Three!
”

Red sailed through the air. People nearby cheered and clapped, a crazy swirl of lights rushed by and then Red hit a sheet of water with an enormous smack.

The shock of the cold water brought him to his senses and he sat up in the pool. He looked around at all the staring, laughing faces. The water was still coming down on his head. He looked up and was dazzled by the eerily glowing cascade. He was sitting in the fountain at the centre of the palace gardens.

He rolled over onto his knees and crawled to the edge of the pool. His little drunken display had served its purpose, he supposed: he had covered for his absence and Pieter had taken the opportunity to show his youthful high spirits to an appreciative audience.

As Red gasped for breath at the edge of the pool, a number of images from his hours of research flashed through his head: a bare breast pressed against his face, countless bottles of drink...something about painting a horse and dancing with a priest, or was it dancing with a horse and painting the priest?

He reflected, as he often did, what a demanding life he had chosen to lead. Then he belched.

Someone reached out a black-gloved hand and helped him out of the pool. A woman, dressed in a long black dress that clung to her like skin. Dark hair with a grey streak, tied back with a twist of snakeskin.

When he was out of the pool he pulled her to him and held her, startled at the feel of her body under his hands: it was as if she was naked, after all, the dress no more than an illusion. He cupped her buttocks in his hands and raked his teeth across her exposed shoulder.

“You’re wet,” she said.

“Hmm. So are you,” he said. He raised his head and looked into her perfect, teardrop-shaped eyes, and then he froze. “I...er...”

Cupped in his hands he had the rear end of the special representative of Lachlan Pas, senior Principal of Tule. Cupped in his hands he had the buttocks of the mage, Oriole.

She was smiling, enjoying his discomfort.

Pieter had warned him about her the previous day, emphasising the importance of her visit. “We must treat her well,” he said. “Because I have decided to consider a treaty with our sister city: between Totenang and Tule we would command half the population and more than nine-tenths of the trade of the Rift. It might be time for us to swallow our pride and compromise in return for long-term stability. Oriole’s visit is the first part of this process.”

“Shall we dance?” asked Oriole, now, touching a finger to his cheek. “I warn you: I am rather good.”

~

They danced until morning daubed its golden light across the eastern sky. They danced until Red’s body ached with the effort of matching Oriole’s effortless, sinuous moves.

From their first touch, Red had known how she would move, had sensed her energies and mysteries in an almost epiphanic rush. As they whirled around the terrace and through the ballroom, he was aware of Pieter and Estelle, of Hellia’s jealous stares. Dancing close, Oriole let her tongue slide around the lobe of one of his ears. “I think you should know,” she murmured, “I am even better in bed.”

He muttered something in reply and suddenly she snapped her head back from him and fixed him with her cool grey eyes. “You called me Estelle!” she said, clearly trying not to laugh.

“I...” He had been in a pleasantly somnambulant state where he didn’t know what he had called her, had hardly been aware of even speaking.

Now she laughed, a brief, musical sound. “Your secret is safe with me, lover boy,” she said, easing her way back into his arms.

Gradually, his recklessness began to sink through the hazy layers of his mind. He had said and done so many foolish things that night!

He backed away from Oriole, muttering apologies. “I must go,” he told her. “I...”

She held on to his hand. “But the party is still young,” she said, as all around the guests were filtering away for the start of a new day.

He slipped his hand free and, suddenly panicking, turned and ran, as behind him Lachlan’s mage laughed her musical laugh.

~

Red was kept busy for most of twenty days, ploughing through the pages and pages of Avernan legalese, a language even more elaborate than the formal Avernan he had used on his visit to Harrat. Just as he had expected, Pieter had imposed protection agreements to guard his new influence in the region. But now, Red saw that Estelle’s father was not as naive as he had appeared: tucked away in the contracts and treaties were all kinds of loopholes and provisos the Governor must have hoped would go undetected. Even Luc Reed, Pieter’s chief legal adviser, had difficulty disentangling some of the clauses from Red’s translations.

The Principal was not much help: once the general framework of the marriage settlement had been agreed, he wanted to leave all the details to Luc and Red. When he was not away cruising the lakes with Estelle, he was drifting about the palace like a teenager in love.

“It’s so sad to see a grown man in your condition,” Red told him more than once.

Pieter laughed. “Even sadder to
be
in such a condition,” he said. “But what am I to do? The girl is divine. She has the manners of a goddess and the sex drive of Ehna, himself.”

Red took to spending time alone in the Garden of Statues.

In a plot of land situated between the palace gardens and Totenang’s principal temple was a park which had long been closed to the public. Four thousand life-sized statues filled this park, many so old and weathered that they barely retained a human form. They stood as if scattered at random: a mixture of gods and the city’s former Principals, priests, senators. The only hint of order was that most of the gods were located towards the centre. These were the oldest statues of all, but continual repair and repainting meant that they stood out in their bright colouring from all the other grey lumps.

When Red wasn’t working, he would walk alone through the statues. If asked what it was that he thought about in this place, he would insist his mind remained blank: a contemplation of nothingness practised by many priests and mystics. Perhaps, he thought, he should have stayed on at the Embodied College and become a votary and then a priest. At the time that had been the only other viable route away from his shabby beginnings.

But when he was actually in the Garden of Statues, his mind was rarely as blank as he would claim. He remembered the night dancing with Oriole, the feel of her body in his arms, the sensation that she was really naked to his touch. He remembered, with a clarity absent at the time, the total conviction that it was not Oriole he held, but Estelle. He remembered riding with Estelle, on their journey from Harrat: the scent of Oriole as he held her close had been exactly the same as Estelle’s – not the superficial wash of perfume, but the basic, musky body scent beneath it all.

For a time that evening, he had danced with Estelle, he had been so sure.

And then he had spoken her name...but it had been Oriole all the time.

He couldn’t understand this desperate physical longing, other than to think it must be the result of Estelle’s flirting on their journey: something unfinished – his mind had moved on, but his body retained a base memory of her touch and wanted more.

And so, he strolled through the statues and studied the moss-covered plaques, working out the lineages and cross-family links they revealed and trying, all the time, not to think of Estelle.

~

Red rode out of Totenang with the team of investigators who had come from Tule, less than happy to have been assigned to this dismal group.

When they passed a drinking house on the outskirts of the city, he suggested they stop for a brief conference with the owner. When the road passed within view of the ophidy refuge on its island a few hundred standard paces offshore, he suggested they stop for a game of cards with the guards posted to keep the sick from swimming ashore.

All his suggestions were greeted with a contemptuous silence, which he resented greatly: priests were usually much better company than this.

He persisted with his suggestions just to annoy them.

Officially he was the investigators’ guide, but naturally he was also expected to file detailed reports on their activities to Pieter. The priests must know this too, and he was sure that was the reason for their brusqueness towards him.

When they arrived in the small town of Holden Spa, they went straight to Senator Mish Carmen’s residence, where they were greeted by soldiers who had been expecting them. Red was relieved to see that Captain Eliazar was there, the man who had ridden with him to escort Estelle from Harrat. He had been beginning to feel just a little unwelcome. A familiar face was a great relief.

“My friends here want wine and prostitutes,” he told Eliazar. “To maintain their already high spirits.”

Eliazar peered at the grim-faced priests, then turned to lead them through to an office where Carmen was being held.

“What has he done?” said Red, to the Captain’s retreating back.

Eliazar glanced back at him, then said in a quiet voice, “You’d better ask your cheery friends here.”

Senator Carmen was seated at one end of the room, flanked by two of Eliazar’s men. Red had met the senator on several occasions, although he had never much appreciated the man’s persistent opposition to many of the Principal’s legislative measures. At times it had seemed that the man challenged Pieter merely for the pleasure of opposition.

“So tell me,” said Red, conversationally, to one of the Tullan priests. “What is it that Senator Carmen has done?”

For the first time, the man acknowledged Red’s presence. He bowed his head and said, “Senator Mish Carmen promulgates views contrary to the teachings of the True Church of the Embodiment,” he said. “He encourages the neglect of faith amongst the people he governs. He offends the good lords, Habna, Samna and all they embody within us all.”

Red snorted. “Carmen promotes views contrary to
everything
,” he said. “It’s his nature.” He stopped when he saw that one of the priests had immediately started to note down his words.

“And thus he is not worthy of his office.”

Now, Senator Carmen said, “You see, Simeni? They have me judged before I have a chance to defend myself. They’ve decided before even setting eyes on me.”

The priest smiled again. “Of course,” he said. “The duty of this team of investigators is not to establish your guilt, but rather to determine your punishment.”

Red felt confused. He didn’t like these priests, but then he didn’t like Mish Carmen much better. It was true the man was open in his atheism and his contrary views, but did that really justify an investigation of this order? He would have to warn the Principal that this didn’t bode well for his prospective treaty with Tule.

He said nothing, merely listening to the interrogation. It wasn’t his place to judge the issue: it was his place to make as accurate a report as possible. Red could only advise: the decisions were all Pieter’s.

~

The priests never discussed their judgements in Red’s hearing, if they did so at all. For four days the party travelled from town to town, deciding the fates of various officials deemed unworthy of the Church’s support.

At the end of the fourth, Red heard that Senator Carmen had been hung the previous night.

He went straight to Pieter, who was on the barge, just back from another short cruise.

“They killed Carmen,” he told the Principal, with no preamble. “I was there when they questioned him and now they have had him killed.”