Wildfire (89 page)

 

  
The serpent was complete, embroidered on my skin in stitches of fire, and the venom had kindled within me and was burning its way into every cranny, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. My sinews spasmed in agony, yet my limbs were stiff as wood. Against my will I let out a gush of piss, and I was cast down again through Katabaton’s Navel, though I do not recall that journey or the return.

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

  
  
  
CHAPTER 34
  

  
Adept
  
  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

  
K
ing Corvus summoned me to live with him in the Court of Tranquil Waters. I’d come to look upon Aghazal’s house as my home, and upon her Sisters as sisters, and upon her kin as friends, and I never loved them so tenderly as when I had to leave them. Aghazal told me not to weep. Wasn’t it a happy occasion that my benefactor wished me to live with him? And we Sisters would see each other often at banquets, and visit back and forth between town and palace.

 

  
I said, “I’ll try, ein? It isn’t the custom of Incus to parade about with one’s concubine as it is here.”

 

  
She teased me, saying she’d be disappointed if I proved less willful toward him than I was toward herself.

 
  

 

  
The king had not instructed Garrio to give me my own room, so I took one for myself on the opposite side of the courtyard from the king’s quarters. The room was full of useless things: stained cushions bursting with tow and inhabited by mice, dusty chipped statues, broken furniture. Garrio ordered mudmen to clean it out, and in the rubbish they found an inlaid and carved bed that had all four legs, though one of the backrests was broken. A tharos maidservant mended a rip in a mattress. Dust flew as they beat the pillows and an old tattered carpet.

 

  
I waited in the shade of a pomegranate tree covered with red blooms. I was insulted that King Corvus hadn’t seen fit to prepare for me. He surely was mistaken if he thought I would leave immediately. I wasn’t fit to go, not yet. I ached in every sinew and my piss was murky yellow—by which I knew I was improving, for it had been brown before, like dried blood. Arthygater Keros too must be suffering from the snakebites and tattoo, though she’d received less venom than I. It would be at least a hand of days before either of us could set forth.

 

  
Garrio came to tell me my room was ready. I thanked him, but I didn’t wish to move, not yet. Like a serpent, my flesh had grown cold, and I
needed the Sun’s heat, to bake on warm stone in the courtyard. That’s where the king found me when he returned late that afternoon: curled up asleep on the flagstones in my fine silks and gold jewelry. I wore a saffron wrapper with an indigo band on one end in honor of the king. I’d put aside my celebrant garments of magenta and blue and parrot green.

 

  
He crouched beside me and said, “Is this the hospitality you were offered? I am ashamed.”

 

  
I shaded my eyes to look at him, and sat up with a painful effort that required no exaggeration. “Beg pardon, Corvus Rex Incus. It’s only that my room wasn’t ready, and I fell asleep.”

 

  
“Your room?”

 

  
I pointed to the heap of broken furniture outside my door. “As you have no women’s quarters, I told Garrio to put me in that empty room. Was I supposed to—? I thought—it’s the Lambaneish custom. This way you can invite me when you have leisure, and when you don’t, I won’t be troublesome.”

 

  
“Ah. Quite proper,” said the king.

 

  
He helped me stand. I waited for the dizziness to pass and leaned on his arm as we crossed the courtyard. A few mudmen had the audacity to cheer and call out my name. Garrio opened the door to the king’s bedchamber with a flourish, and gave me a wink behind the king’s back. For all his listening at doors, he didn’t know his master’s use for me.

 

  
The king turned to Garrio and said, “Tell Divine Aboleo she’s here.”

 

  
Garrio could be as impassive as his master, when he chose. He bowed and hurried away.

 

  
The king sat on his bed cross-legged and asked, “Do you have the tattoo?”

 

  
I disrobed before him, and it was not as I had hoped or dared to imagine. I unwound my saffron wrapper, and wondered that I could be troubled by modesty after all I’d done.

 

  
I’d removed the bandage the day before, and rubbed the tattoo with the greasy salve I had been given, and looked at the snake backward in Aghazal’s small round handmirror. So I knew what the king would see: the indigo outline of a narrow zigzag serpent. Its tail lay between my breasts, and the forked tongue—dyed red with a pigment made from rust—just touched the lips of my cleft. Where I’d been stitched, the flesh was inflamed and swollen and sore.

 

  
Divine Aboleo entered the room, and I started to clothe myself. He gestured at me to stop, as if I were a tharais servant who didn’t merit speech. He stood too close and peered at the tattoo. My face grew hot even as stipples of gooseflesh rose all over my body. I couldn’t seem to teach myself not to fear him.

 

  
The king said, “It looks like a lightning bolt, not a snake. My wife’s serpent curved around her waist like a girdle and swallowed her navel.”

 

  
Divine Aboleo sat down across from the king, and I dressed. “Each one is different,” I said. “An adept makes it according to her vision, her inward sight. See, I have these three peaks, one for each—” I almost said one for each bite. I didn’t mention what Horama told me, that she depicted the creature striking downward because I served Katabaton with the hidden serpent between my legs.

 

  
“Merle will not expect it to look like this,” King Corvus said.

 

  
“He saw your wife’s tattoo?”

 

  
“At the wedding, when she took off her robe for the consummation. Some took the tattoo as an ill omen—and everyone thought it made her look barbarous.”

 

  
“Did you think so?” I asked him.

 

  
“I assumed it was a mark of her descent from the gods of her people. But I thought at first that it marred her, and she would have been more perfect without it.”

 

  
At first. I wondered what he meant by that.

 

  
Divine Aboleo said, “Did Arthygater Keros receive a tattoo?”

 

  
“Hers must be very painful, such tender fresh, flesh.” I traced it on myself to show them how the snake looped around both her breasts, and its head swallowed its tail.

 

  
“And is yours painful?” asked King Corvus.

 

  
“It wasn’t easy to come by. I am sorry it disappoints you.”

 
  

 

  
I dined with the king and Divine Aboleo that evening in the king’s bedchamber. It was fortunate the king hadn’t invited any Lambaneish of consequence to dine with him. They’d have ridiculed him for allowing his cook to serve food so abominably bland and ugly. If I stayed, I’d see to it that the food improved. But the talk was all of me going.

 

  
Divine Aboleo said he’d procured two tharos bondwomen to serve as handmaids, young and obedient.

 

  
“Did you get a tharais servant too? I shall need one.”

 

  
“You can have one of ours,” said the king.

 

  
“You have someone who knows how to arrange a woman’s hair?”

 

  
“Is that what they do?” the king said. “Perhaps you better purchase one. How much do they cost?”

 

  
I had no idea. There was a pause while a servant delivered a dish of potted hare with turnips.

 

  
King Corvus said, “My wife had ten handmaids when she first arrived-
magpies, I used to call them. They were always twittering and screeching in those shrill voices. None of them could speak a word in the High.”

 

  
“What of Arthygater Kalos, could she speak the High?”

 

  
The king didn’t answer.

 

  
Divine Aboleo said, “We’ve hired an escort of Ebanakans with a Lambaneish captain—an honest chiseler, by all accounts. He came recommended for work of this kind, guarding merchants and their goods, or brides and their dowries. He says it’s imperative to leave before the next New Moon to make sure you’re across the mountains before the rains start.”

 

  
So soon? Already the waning Moon was at the half. I said, “I would feel safer traveling with some of your men, trustworthy men. Must I be among strangers?”

 

  
The king said, “Merle knows my men.”

 

  
“Too many spies,” Divine Aboleo said. “We cannot send a troop of kingsmen with you, even part of the way. You must leave the city unnoticed and travel to Lake Sapheiros; your escort will meet you there, with the dowry.”

 

  
I had no appetite, and took tiny morsels of turnip. I was just as frightened as if I intended to do this. “You expect me to go alone to Sapheiros? But that’s a ride of many days!” I turned to the king. “The Starling doesn’t know your mudmen—please, give me someone I can trust. Give me a jack or some horseboys, give me Chunner and Lame, please?”

 

  
The king looked surprised. He knew the names of his horses’ ancestors for fifty generations; was it possible he’d never bothered to learn the names of his horseboys?

 

  
Divine Aboleo said, “You forgot she was a mudwoman, didn’t you? Indeed it’s a marvel to see her eating as daintily as a Lambaneish princess. The Ebanakan whore did wonders with her.”

 

  
King Corvus said, “Of course we didn’t expect you to go alone. You may have three mudmen to take to the pass—and beyond, if you wish.”

 

  
“Which three?”

 

  
He made a gesture to show he didn’t care.

 

  
The priest said, “We’ve provided you with a protector already, someone to accompany you the whole way. Someone with whom you’re well acquainted, I hear.” He raised his voice and called to Garrio, who waited outside the door. “Send him in.”

 

  
I hardly recognized the young priest. Since I’d seen him last, the day of the Hunt, he’d grown a beard and stopped shaving his scalp. The bristle of brown hair on his head was already long enough to obscure his tattooed third eye. Divine Volator. He wore a split surcoat and loose leggings made
of the same brocade, in the Lambaneish mode. He bowed to the king and didn’t look at me. I wondered if he was being punished for coupling with me during the Hunt, and if the king knew. I touched my cheek and raised my eyebrows, wondering how they’d hide the godsigns on his right cheek, which marked him as a member of the clan of Growan, and a servant of the god Rift.

 

  
“He’ll have an ugly scar there,” said Divine Aboleo.

 

  
The young priest slid a glance at me and looked away so quickly I nearly missed it. I said to King Corvus, “So this is the man who will rid you of your brother.”

 
  

 

  
The king asked me to stay in his bed that night. He said his men would wonder otherwise. They didn’t care for peculiar Lambaneish customs such as sleeping apart.

 

  
I said, “Won’t they wonder when you send me away in a few days?”

 

  
Likely his men would think he’d already tired of me. But the gossips of Allaxios would find it most interesting. A man didn’t spend five thousand in gold to dedicate a postulant to the Serpent Cult only to lose interest in her some days later. If I disappeared, they might think he’d killed me in a fit of jealousy. No matter. I had no family to demand compensation from him. The gossips would wag their tongues and not one of them would care. Aghazal would care, but what could she do?

 

  
How absurd—to think of Aghazal fretting about me, grieving over me as if I were dead, made me grieve for myself. It was all planned. They had purchased bondwomen and hired guardsmen, and I merely had to do as I was told. It had been vanity to think I could beguile King Corvus into keeping me. Even if he desired me, he wouldn’t hesitate at my sacrifice. Look at how many of his men—men he loved more dearly than he could ever love me—had died for his claim to the kingdom.

 

  
The king slept, or seemed to, though I didn’t know how he could sleep when I was so restless, turning like a hen on a spit. The venom was devouring me from the inside out—or was this the pain of healing, like that of frozen flesh as it thaws?

 

  
I went to the pisspot for the third time; I used the one in the privy closet in the bathing room so as not to annoy the king. I had to step over Garrio going and returning, where he lay before the king’s door in the portico. The last time he touched my ankle and said, “Are you ill?”

 

  
I stooped and whispered, “Yes.”

 

  
“Can I help?”

 

  
“Have you any doublewine?”

 

  
“I’ll get you some,” he said, and rolled out of his pallet and tiptoed down
the arcade. His thin shirt stuck to his back with sweat. Old man. How old was he? His master was—if I reckoned rightly—twenty or twenty-one. I would wager Garrio was twice as old. His legs were slightly bowed and his calves were thin.

 

  
I sat with my back against the wall and looked at the dark courtyard. Cool feathers of air brushed my bare shoulders. Garrio returned and we passed the flask back and forth, and soon a pleasant numbness spread from my belly to my limbs. My head felt insufficiently tethered to my body. It kept wobbling.

 

  
“Garrio,” I said. “I don’t want to go, not anymore. I used to want to but now I don’t. The king…”

 

  
“I’ll go with you,” he said.

 

  
“You will? Oh, my brother, you don’t mean it. You’d never desert your master.” I put my left hand on his bony knee.

 

  
“There are four or five of us will go, if you wish. I asked Chunner and Wheezer and Lame tonight, and they’re sure Voro will go too.”

 

  
“You have big ears.”