“My friends, you want to hear a cautionary tale?” said Psamag, resting a hand on Tenocwe’s shoulder, in a way that might have looked friendly, if Tenocwe had not been shaking like a reed in the wind by now. “Look at this. A promising young man, a fine soldier, a trusted officer, just ready for all the fruits of this world to tumble into his lap. We ought to be celebrating his victory tonight. This ought to be a proud moment for me. You want to know what’s put me out of the celebrating mood? Imagine my disappointment. My right hand, a man I’ve known since he was a boy: scheming against me with the Chancellor’s men.”
This had exactly the effect Psamag was going for. The room reeled, then exploded with disbelieving cries. Tenocwe could hardly speak, shaking his head and mouthing frantic denials. Some of them pushed back their chairs to distance themselves from the traitor. Morga did not look surprised at all. Talasseres Charossa seemed to have been expecting it too. His shoulders were drawn up tight and his face was a mask.
It took Csorwe a few seconds to understand what it all meant. She had half convinced herself that Tenocwe was one of Sethennai’s contacts, that she might be next to be discovered, but it was hard to feel any kind of relief at this revelation.
Psamag produced a sheaf of papers and held them up in his fist, before letting them float one by one to the table. “Letters, to our good friend Captain Tenocwe from the friends of Olthaaros. It’s all here. You can look for yourselves, if you choose.” Psamag’s heavy head swung from side to side like that of a bull about to charge, and he clicked his tongue. “Oh, Teno. Why didn’t you burn them? Didn’t I teach you better than that?”
“Sir, no, sir, this is—” was all Tenocwe could manage. Psamag clapped another hand to his shoulder, and lifted him bodily off the ground.
“Will anyone speak in his defence?” said Psamag, casting his eyes across the assembly. None of Tenocwe’s mates spoke up. None of them would meet his eyes. Again they heard the noise from the pit, softly rattling.
Many of the servants turned their eyes away, and Csorwe realised they had seen this happen before. Taymiri was frozen in place, staring at the luckless Tenocwe. Csorwe had never seen her at a loss like this. If she had been closer Csorwe might have tried to catch her eye, but they were all too far apart, isolated in their own pockets of helplessness.
Every one of Psamag’s footsteps sounded on the boards like a whipcrack as he walked toward the pit. Tenocwe was struggling now, calling out to his friends for help. Many did not even look up from the table: as a show of uncaring, or because they could not face him, or because they could not bear to see what was about to happen.
“Kin betrays us,” said Psamag, still walking. Tenocwe’s wriggling troubled him no more than the empty struggles of a hooked fish. “Friends betray us. What can we rely on in this dark world, my smart captains? There’s only two things that never change. Two completely predictable things.”
Psamag’s ability to hold an audience was uncanny. The officers were rapt, with horror or with admiration or both. Talasseres Charossa was swaying ever so slightly, perhaps wondering if he was next.
“First! No man can escape the death set down for him! Isn’t that right, Teno?”
Tenocwe whimpered and fell still. The warlord held him almost tenderly, without showing any sign of weakening under his weight.
“The second sure thing is the first and most favoured of my wives. She is swift. She is terrible. And she is as loyal in her way as the hunger of the desert. Atharaisse! Sand-wife! Come up!”
The slithering in the pit grew louder and louder, mingled with the rattling of chains. Something was rushing toward them. Csorwe’s limbs twitched with the desire to flee, just to turn and run before she could even see what was coming.
It reared up over the edge of the pit like something breaking from the surface of a pool. Swift as the flash of wings, yet somehow lazy in its unfurling, it rose coil upon coil, surveying the assembled company through eyes as red as raw flesh. Atharaisse was a serpent of monstrous size, white as bone, and appalling in the intelligence that glittered in those unblinking eyes.
The skeletons in Echentyr had been nothing to this. It was the difference between a drawing and the reality. Csorwe could only stare, transfixed. Her mouth had fallen open. You could not run from something like this. You could not hope to fight it. You could only curl up and hide and make yourself small enough to escape notice. She hadn’t felt like this since the last time she had been in the presence of the Unspoken.
The wicked teardrop of Atharaisse’s head was larger than Csorwe’s whole body. Her mouth opened like a red cave, and the pink forked tongue that flickered out was thicker than a man’s arm. Her coils hushed on the stone and she brought her head in to rest on the edge of the pit.
Psamag strode toward her without hesitation, stopping only a few feet from the tip of her snout. Still, he wasn’t quite as brave as he looked. Iron hoops banded Atharaisse’s neck, fixed in place by prongs hammered through her hide and into the flesh. The white scales were stained here with trails of rust. Each hoop was made fast to the wall by heavy chains.
“How do you do, Queen of Serpents?” said Psamag, mock courteous.
Atharaisse did not open her mouth to speak, but they all heard her voice resounding in the chamber, or somehow within the coils of their own ears. The voice was a low, harsh hiss that thrummed like a swarm of bees, but Csorwe could not mistake the desperate misery in it, a yearning barely disguised.
The terror still rang in Csorwe’s ears like the discordant ringing of bells, but she found she could begin to ignore it. Was it possible that Atharaisse was from Echentyr? Were there other serpent kingdoms? Perhaps some of them had escaped the cataclysm. It was hard to imagine Sethennai had been wrong, but perhaps if Atharaisse’s ancestors had been travelling abroad at the time …
“I am hungry, sir,” said the serpent.
“You’re hungry, too?” said Psamag. “I’ve been kept from my dinner. How long has it been since you’ve dined on the meat of traitors, sand-wife?”
“Sixty days, sir,” said Atharaisse. Her eyes flicked from Psamag to Tenocwe, who had gone utterly limp, looking up at the face of his death in abject surrender. There was a wheedling note in the serpent’s voice.
Csorwe remembered the Royal Library of Echentyr, all the friezes showing the serpents as statesmen and warriors. Psamag must have utterly broken Atharaisse’s pride. A cold and unanticipated hatred flooded through her, for the General and for the whole company that sat and looked on. How unfair it was for someone to survive the vengeance of their god and then suffer like this at the hands of someone so mortal, so essentially small.
“I have a morsel here for you,” said Psamag, and without apparent thought or effort he cast Tenocwe into the pit. There was a terrible succession of noises: a shriek, and a rattle of chains, and the rush of scales on stone.
“Ahhh,” said Atharaisse, caressingly, and then there was another scream, swiftly curtailed.
The coils sank away out of sight, and there was silence so absolute that Csorwe could almost hear the pounding drumbeat of her heart.
Talasseres Charossa’s hands were fastened to the edge of the table, as though his fingertips might bore through solid wood. Psamag turned to face him, with a still more terrible smile. It wasn’t over yet. Csorwe’s fists tightened involuntarily.
“Of course,” said Psamag, “our respected Chancellor Olthaaros knew nothing about this incompetent treachery. I spoke to him today. He condemns it, in fact. So, I want no repercussions for our valued liaison. Do you hear?”
As he strode back up to his place at the head of the table, he murmured, in a loud stage whisper, “Better luck next time, Talasseres.”
He stood for a moment, surveying them all. “More wine!” he said, after a moment savouring the silence. “And bring in dinner.”
Csorwe was grateful to be able to leave the room, even briefly. Her legs felt shaky, as if she’d been in bed with a fever. She told herself sharply to ke
ep it together. She’d told Sethennai she could handle this. She’d seen death before. She’d met dangerous people. She was a dangerous person. She willed her knees to stop wobbling, and followed the others to fetch the first course.
The first course, naturally, was rock-snakes, skinned, marinated, and simmered whole in a red wine sauce. Csorwe saw now how Psamag had ended up with his reputation. Taymiri, serving Talasseres Charossa, looked almost as sickly as he did. Psamag ate the snakes with relish, and cleaned the sauce from his plate with a crust of bread.
The rest of the meal went off as expected. The stew of rock-snakes was followed by a more innocuous roast goat, and the mood in the hall relaxed somewhat.
At last, the dishes were cleared, and Csorwe and Taymiri were released. Taymiri had latched onto one of the officers, so Csorwe had to make her way back to the bunkroom alone. She didn’t mind the chance to sort through her thoughts. Really she ought to take the chance to explore the fortress, but she was still trying to make sense of all she had seen that evening and she didn’t trust herself not to get lost.
Halfway back to the bunkroom, she heard a miserable gurgle of suppressed weeping from behind one of the pantry doors. She stopped still to listen. No further sobbing followed, but there was a pause, then a series of thuds and thumps, as of somebody kicking the shit out of a crate of melons.
She opened the door. Inside, Talasseres Charossa was kicking the shit out of a crate of melons. It took him a second to notice her, by which point it was too late to pretend he had been doing anything other than what she had seen.
“Get out!” he said, in a snuffly growl that was perhaps meant to be intimidating. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and his ears drooped.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“That is none of your—this is insubordinate, you know, this is pretty fucking insubordinate, did one of the others put you up to this? Go back and tell Shadran he can eat a dick, I will not be disrespected by a waitress—”
“What’s wrong,” said Csorwe, “sir?”
“Nothing,” said Talasseres. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m not really a waitress,” she said. For a moment she teetered on the brink of telling him everything. The idea of having an ally was very tempting. He must know the fortress, and perhaps he could help her find another way in and out. But Talasseres Charossa was Olthaaros’ nephew. However much he hated his existence here, he was not someone she should trust.
“I know,” he said, “you’re a scullery maid or something. Do you think I’m going to lie awake at night like, oh no, I called that girl a waitress and, oh my god, she’s not a fucking waitress?”
Csorwe remembered his lecture about place settings and struggled against laughter.
“I’m sorry about Tenocwe,” she said, trying at random for an angle. If she wanted his information, she was going to have to find some kind of purchase.
“I don’t give a shit about Tenocwe,” said Talasseres. “Anyone that stupid deserves to be snake food. Anyone that stupid ought to cover themselves in sauce, go out into the desert, lie down on the ground, wait for snakes to come and eat them, and save the rest of us from having to sit and listen to Psamag trying to be funny.”
“Still,” said Csorwe.
“I didn’t have anything to do with Tenocwe,” said Talasseres. “I’m not stupid. It’s not my fault if my fucking uncle Olthaaros decides he’s not really all that bothered about getting me killed.”
“Oh,” said Csorwe. She had learned, from long experience with Sethennai, that sometimes you just needed to provide punctuation until someone had finished saying what they were going to say.
“Yeah,” said Talasseres. “Tlaanthothei liaison, fuck off. I’m a hostage here.”
He kicked the box of melons again, stubbed his toe, and made a noise of long-suffering disgust that could have curdled milk.
“Maybe you should leave,” she said.
He laughed very long and bitterly at this. “And how do you think I’m going to do that?” he said. “I could try the door or the Gate if I wanted a quick death, I guess, but I don’t want to give Psamag the satisfaction.”
“There are other ways, aren’t there?” said Csorwe, hoping he was too deep in his sadness to notice she was being very mysterious for a scullery maid.
“Oh, sure, there’s the way through the caves, but I’m doing my best to avoid getting eaten alive by the fucking snake,” said Talasseres. He sniffed, and tried to make it sound like he was clearing his throat. “Who are you, anyway?”
Csorwe was desperate to know what he meant by the caves, but she didn’t push her luck. “My name is Soru, sir,” she said, with a little curtsy.
“Well, Soru,” he said, “piss off.”
At last, Csorwe returned to the bunkroom. She felt as though she had been through several rounds with the Blue Boars’ finest, but she still lay awake for a long time before she could sleep. Could she use Talasseres Charossa? He couldn’t possibly be an ally, but perhaps he was a weak spot that could be exploited. That was Sethennai’s area of expertise rather than her own. But Talasseres knew the layout of the fortress, and he was clearly dying for someone who’d listen to his complaints. She could do worse than talk to him again. Next time she ran into him she’d be ready.
* * *
In the days that followed, everyone learned that Tenocwe had been executed for his treachery, but Csorwe and Taymiri never told the rest of their bunkroom about what they had seen.
A few nights later, Csorwe was woken by the sound of someone trying very hard to make no sound at all. She peered out from under her sheet and saw Taymiri dressing hastily by the light that came in under the door.
“What’s happening?” said Csorwe. She was exhausted, but maybe there had been another summons to Psamag’s hall.
Taymiri jumped, and snarled. “Go back to sleep— Oh, Soru, it’s only you. Help me with my hair.”
She had divided her hair into four braids, and directed Csorwe to drape these in artful loops from forehead to nape and fix them at the back with a silver pin. This was difficult to accomplish in half darkness, but Taymiri was more than usually patient with Csorwe’s lack of expertise. The coils of hair were smooth and heavy as woven metal. Csorwe had the sense that she should not take any time longer than necessary to do this, that it would be taking some kind of liberty.
When it was done, Taymiri looked much older, like a grown and rather intimidating woman. This somehow disquieted Csorwe, as if she ought to have recognised sooner that her friend had another side to her.
Taymiri finished tying her shoes and hauled Csorwe out into the hall. “Don’t tell the others. I’m going to meet Shadran. Captain Shadran.”
Csorwe blinked, both startled and rather impressed.
“I mean it. Don’t tell anyone. It’s not a sure thing yet, and I won’t have them crowing over me if it doesn’t come off.”
Csorwe nodded, which made Taymiri laugh for some reason.
“Of course, you never tell anyone anything,” said Taymiri. “You even looked surprised there for a minute. I didn’t think anything could surprise you.”
A moment’s pause. Taymiri smiled to herself, as though considering whether to tell something secret.
“You’re sweet,” said Taymiri, in Qarsazhi. It took Csorwe a second to make sense of the words, so she managed not to give away the fact that she understood.
Then Taymiri stood up on tiptoes and kissed her on the mouth.
Csorwe had never been kissed by anyone before. Total astonishment, like a flash of bright light, dazzled her senses. Then it was over.
“Wish me luck! I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Taymiri, laughing again, and she ran off down the hall.
Csorwe went back inside and sat on the edge of her bunk. She couldn’t have been more dazed if Taymiri had slapped her in the face. At least she would have known what to make of that. After a while she could almost believe she had imagined the whole thing, except for the cool, fadi
ng imprint of Taymiri’s lips on hers, no more substantial than dust, but somehow difficult to ignore. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and tried to go back to sleep.
It was embarrassing, in a way, that Taymiri was having so much more success than Csorwe with her secret ambitions. Sethennai was relying on her for this, and things were moving so slowly. She needed to be bolder. She needed to find out what Talasseres Charossa had meant about the caves, and about the snake. Unfortunately, she needed to return to the General’s quarters.
6
The Serpent
THERE WAS NO MOON over Tlaanthothe that night, and the clouds blotted out the stars. The fortress lanterns hung alone, a heavy baleful yellow, in otherwise unbroken darkness. It had been a week since Tenocwe’s execution. Csorwe and the others had been kept hard at work, and she hadn’t been able to get away as quickly as she’d hoped, especially since Taymiri was watching at all times.
Taymiri hadn’t mentioned the kiss, but then, they hadn’t been alone together since. It had made certain things clearer in Csorwe’s mind, but on the whole she was grateful to have her secret schemes keeping her occupied so she didn’t have to think too much about it.
In the end—whatever she had felt, whether or not she would have liked it to happen again—Taymiri had her own aims and her own loyalties, and Csorwe wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking she was a part of them, any more than Taymiri was a part of her own plan.
Earlier that night, Taymiri had sneaked away to meet Shadran again, and Csorwe didn’t think anybody else was observant enough to notice when she too slipped from the bunkroom.
By night, the stuffed heads on the walls of Psamag’s dining hall looked even more dead than before. Csorwe crept along the wall beneath them, keeping to the shadows. Despite what she was about to do, she felt almost exhilarated. For weeks she had been kept sheathed, wrapped in cloth in a dusty drawer. Now, at last, the edge would bite.
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