The Serpent

by David Drake

  “Would you like me to come along with you?” May said, looking at me with fixed determination.

  “No,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. “We’re just going to chat.”

  May had been friends with Morseth—and Reaves—from before I’d come to Dun Add. I’d never asked how well they’d known one another. It was none of my business.

  I did know that Morseth had never been a man to ignore a pretty girl, and there were very few girls prettier than May.

  May’s presence at a meeting between me and Morseth would have added a level of tension. I didn’t want to risk a bad result.

  Our townhouse was on South Street. Morseth and his friend Reaves were across the street from one another two blocks to the west. A doorman I didn’t recognize let me in and I found Reaves already talking with Morseth.

  Morseth jumped up when he saw me. “Pal!” he called. “Lord knows I didn’t expect you’d be fighting for Lady Hope! How do you know her?”

  “I don’t, really,” I said. The friends had been drinking wine when I came in. The servant brought in a third glass and filled it for me. I took a sip, but I don’t like wine and this was a strong vintage. Me getting drunk wouldn’t make the discussion easier.

  “May brought her over to fix her broach that her sister Joy had scratched. It’s an Ancient artifact, and I fixed it.”

  “If you don’t really know her…” Morseth said. “Maybe we can work something out. I sure don’t want to fight you, buddy.”

  “And I don’t want to fight you, Morseth,” I said. “I’m in this for justice, same as I was when Lord Baran went after the Consort. You remember that, Morseth. A lot of better qualified people wouldn’t stand up for her because they thought she was having an affair with Lord Clain.”

  “She was having an affair!” Reaves said.

  “Sure she was!” I said, sipping enough wine to cut the dryness of my mouth.

  “I didn’t like how Jolene and Clain were carrying on,” I said. My voice was rising despite me. “We aren’t sophisticated people on Beune. But I thought justice was more important than somebody’s private life. And I still think that!”

  CHAPTER 16

  Preparation for Combat

  I was really wrung out when I got home at midday after hours of sparring. May drew me a large mug of ale before I sat down, and said, “I hope it’s gone better than you look.”

  “It hasn’t,” I said. “Morseth is going to kill me. Literally. Sure as sunrise.”

  May sat down on the bench close to me. She leaned her breast onto my left biceps. “Morseth’s your friend,” she said. “He doesn’t want to kill you.”

  “He’s Lady Joy’s Champion,” I said. “I’m Hope’s Champion. I’ve never known Morseth to go less than full house in fighting a battle.”

  “Do you think there’s anything I can do?” May said.

  I stopped myself before I blurted, “Go to Morseth and beg him to spare me?” I wasn’t willing for that to happen—and it wouldn’t make any difference. Morseth was a friend of May’s but that wasn’t going to stop him from doing his job.

  “Go to a temple and pray,” I said instead. “I doubt it will do much good, but I doubt anything will.”

  “Dear,” May said, “I’m not willing to write you off yet.” She leaned over and kissed me. “You beat Lord Baran, after all.”

  Listening to somebody positive really did make me feel better.

  “Morseth is probably better than Baran was,” I said. I was thinking now rather than just reacting gloomily. “And Baran didn’t take me seriously. Morseth will.”

  “Can you wear him down?” May asked. “The way you did Baran?”

  We kissed again. My hands were fondling her bodice. I was definitely feeling better. “I didn’t really wear Baran down,” I said. “He just got impatient. Morseth’s too smart for that to work with him.”

  Morseth was very smart. He’d made an able replacement for Lord Clain when Clain visited his distant holdings in order to let the talk about him and Jolene cool off. Letting the talk die down was the Commonwealth’s best available option, because the couple themselves weren’t going to cool down if they were on the same node.

  I don’t know how Jon felt about it. That was nothing I’d discuss with him or with any other man. I’d heard folks say that Jon couldn’t afford to get crossways with a warrior as important to the Commonwealth as Clain was. I’m not sophisticated, but I’ve seen enough of Jon to doubt that being afraid would have kept him from doing any bloody thing if he wanted to do it.

  He surely cared for Jolene—and for Clain too; they were friends. It wouldn’t have gone over well in Beune, but I’d learned when I first came to Dun Add that what was true in Beune didn’t always hold for the rest of the universe.

  I didn’t like it but I’m not the Almighty. My mom may have thought she spoke for Him when she talked about right and wrong, but I never believed that even when I pretty much followed her rules for myself.

  “I know you, Pal,” May said. “You’ll think of something.”

  “I’ve thought of something,” I said. “But I’m not willing to cripple my friend Morseth.”

  “Not even if it means he kills you?” she said, getting back to the same place as Clain had.

  “That’s on Morseth!” I said. “What he’s got to live with for the rest of his life.”

  There wasn’t much way you could end a real fight without at least one party being dead or crippled. Not with full-power weapons. I’d gotten out of my first fight just bruised because Guntram had dropped both parties into blackness, but that couldn’t happen in a judicial duel like this.

  “Unless Joy is suddenly struck by sisterly affection, and that’s not going to happen,” I said, “the fight isn’t going to end in a good way.”

  I started wondering if I’d be willing to cut Morseth’s foot off when I came down to cases. His foot or my life. I hoped I wouldn’t decide to do that, but I’m not always the man I wish I were. Might Jon stop the combat because Morseth and I were both important to the Commonwealth?

  No, because justice under the laws was even more important to him. If you change the laws when you don’t like the result, that’s not the sort of impartial justice that people believe in at the core of their beings. For that you need justice that doesn’t change.

  “Maybe the Almighty will intervene to change Joy’s mind,” May said, starting to tug me upstairs to the bedroom. That was usually her response to a difficult situation, and a pretty good one.

  I was going to miss living with her a lot.

  CHAPTER 17

  Preparations

  The next morning I was about to go to the practice hall to meet Guntram again when May said, “Come back home at noon, will you? We’ll have lunch together and I hope to have a friend in.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’d be better off with a break then anyway.”

  Another time I’d have argued that I wasn’t in a mood for company—which was more true than not any day of my life. But it was something May wanted and I didn’t feel like saying no to her about anything right at the moment. Anyway, a break was a good idea.

  I started thinking about wearing Morseth down. I didn’t think I could do it, but apart from divine intervention, it was the best chance I had if I wasn’t willing to trick him and cut his foot off.

  I didn’t know what the real difference was between a trick, and me getting home with a thrust because Lord Morseth got tired and sloppy. The wound had to be serious enough to end the fight, and weapons did a great deal of damage at full power.

  I’d always done what I thought was right, whether or not I had cold reason on my side. Reason can trick you. My gut never had.

  * * *

  I was in the practice hall when a courier summoned me to come to Jolene’s suite at midday. My first thought of course was that something had happened to May, but it was midmorning, still two hours short of noon, so this wasn’t an emergency. I told Guntram I’d run two more
jousts and then had to go off for a meeting. I had no idea what the Consort might want me for and I didn’t like mysteries, but it wasn’t my place to question her.

  I didn’t go home to change clothes but I did take a shower after the second bout. Since I’d begun living with May I always dressed presentably if not in the highest fashion. When I first came to Dun Add I dressed for work as I had as a peasant.

  May felt that was impolite when I was meeting important people. I didn’t see how that could be, but Mom had raised me to be polite and May knew a lot more about important people than I did. In any case so long as quality clothes were cut loosely I could fight in them as well as I could in the shirt and breeches I’d wear for plowing.

  “Ma’am?” I said when I was ushered into the suite. Nothing unusual was going on. Lord Trent, a recent Champion, was present beside the Consort and half a dozen ladies in waiting.

  Jolene said, “Come, Pal. I need you at a discussion. It won’t take long.”

  The back entrance to the Leader’s sanctum was guarded by a Champion named Monroe. Not one of my friends, but a skilled warrior and certainly to be trusted to keep unauthorized people away from Jon.

  Jolene opened the inner door without knocking. Clain was sitting across Jon’s small desk from him. Both men jumped up when they saw us but Jolene waved them back down.

  “I brought Lord Pal up so that all three of you understand what I’m doing,” she said. I stood in the doorway for lack of space in the private office. That meant the door could be closed but if anybody cared they could move the meeting to somewhere else.

  “Pal represented me when Lord Baran accused me of poisoning his friend Lord Gismonde,” Jolene continued. Both men remembered very well, though Clain had been absent from Dun Add when it happened.

  “At the time I thought it would be improper for him to wear my favor during the duel, because I’m the Leader’s Consort,” Jolene said. “And frankly I was angry to be put in such a position. I thought Pal would certainly lose and Baran would have me boiled in oil as his intention very publicly was. Pal, I apologize.”

  “Milady, I didn’t think I could intervene without irreparable harm to the Commonwealth!” Jon said.

  “And I was on the eastern Marches and had no idea of what was going on in Dun Add!” Clain said. “You know I’d have been back at once if I had known. I was back as soon as I learned.”

  “Yes, that’s certainly true,” Jolene agreed. “Lord Baran probably counted on both those things. But I was terrified of dying and it caused me to behave uncharitably to Lord Pal.”

  “Ma’am, you were under a great deal of stress,” I said. “And you behaved fine.”

  “I did not behave well,” the Consort said. “And I can’t change the past but I can make clear my pride at being associated with your further pursuit of justice, Lord Pal. Will you wear my favor when you fight on behalf of Lady Hope?”

  “If it’s all right with the Leader…?” I said.

  “It is,” said Jon. “Lady Jolene is her own person, and I would say that even if I disagreed with her choice. Which I do not.”

  “I echo my friend Jon,” Clain said. “I only wish I’d been back in time to fight Baran.”

  “In that case I’m honored to accept, your ladyship,” I said to Jolene.

  “Then let’s return to my apartment,” the Consort said. “I want to inform Lady May, and tell her I’m embarrassed not to have owned my indebtedness sooner.”

  * * *

  Guntram and I were in the practice hall but we were using a machine which Guntram had specially modified rather than one of the fifty-odd machines ready for anybody who happened to show up. There were in fact more than a score of Aspirants working at other machines now, facing randomly generated opponents.

  The one Guntram had modified for me projected simulacra of Lord Morseth. Guntram had compiled it from every time Morseth had used the machines in the hall, and had sorted the responses to pick the best counter to whatever I did. The practice machines were deceptively simple in appearance: two crystal rods slanting up from a crystal base. Ordinarily there was a plain dial control to determine the opponent’s skill level.

  As set, every option the device I was using offered was a simulacrum of Lord Morseth. The quick lesson I took from that is that Morseth was very bloody good. I wasn’t surprised by that, but knowing that in the back of my mind was different from studying the warrior as a potential opponent whom I would have to beat.

  And I was hanged as to how I was going to do that. I said to Guntram, “I’m going to go for a long session now.”

  He switched on the device, and I was facing my friend Morseth. He swung overhand at me; instead of guiding his blow into the ground with my weapon as I habitually would, I merely angled the shield slightly and let it take almost the full force of the stroke. I thrust for the center of his shield. The straight shot was hard enough that it must have felt warm to Morseth’s left forearm behind the shield. He was uncomfortable and he’d moved away.

  My equipment was as good as any in Dun Add: it was light and handy, but had the concentrated power of gear of twice the weight and bulk. The problem is that a warrior as big and strong as Morseth could handle big heavy hardware as easily as I did mine.

  I thrust again for the same point. Morseth swung again as though I was a tent peg which he was driving into the ground.

  My shield absorbed the blow, though I’m not sure it had ever had a workout like this before. As a matter of taste I met slashing blows with my own weapon and redirected my opponent’s effort into the ground or empty air. Morseth would not expect this slogging response from me.

  I prodded his shield once more in the same place. Morseth backed two steps and did something I’d never seen a warrior do before: he transferred his shield to his right hand and with the weapon in his left hand he advanced again with another overhand blow. I suppose his left arm wasn’t as strong as his right, but it was sure strong enough.

  I thrust again but didn’t hit quite the same point because the angle had changed.

  For the remainder of the round I went back to my usual technique of deflecting my opponent’s blows. I switched off my gear at the end of the round and saw Lord Clain watching me from the sidelines. I called out, “Guntram, I’ll wait a while before starting the next round.”

  Guntram obediently took the practice machine out of sequence. I turned to Clain and said, “Been watching for long, sir?”

  “Most of the latest round,” Clain said. “If I may ask, Lord Pal…?”

  “Anything,” I replied. I owed Clain deference as Chancellor of the Commonwealth but still more as the paramount warrior of my acquaintance.

  He nodded. “Were you trying to wear Morseth down initially?”

  I forgot deference and barked a laugh. “No, I was not,” I said. “I was attacking his shield, because unlike Morseth himself it has a failure point. He then switched hands between his weapon and shield, so not even that worked.”

  “You’re both exceptional warriors,” Clain said. “Ah, Pal. If you don’t mind my asking…?”

  “Anything you want to ask,” I said.

  “You and Lord Morseth are friends, are you not, I believe?”

  “We are,” I agreed.

  “Is there any chance that Lord Morseth would use less than his full abilities in fighting you?” Clain asked.

  “No bloody chance in the world!” I said, sounding hotter than I meant to be. Clain didn’t mean to insult my friend. “To tell the truth, the problem is more the other way.”

  “You would slack off in a bout with Morseth?” Clain said, sounding incredulous.

  Put that way it was nonsense. “No,” I said. “But what you asked was if I’d use less than my full abilities. You saw what happened when I pecked at the same point on his shield?”

  “He changed hands,” Clain said, frowning.

  “Yes, and while he was doing that he was open,” I explained. “I’d never seen that done before and I wasn’
t ready for it.”

  “I’ve combined all of Morseth’s combats I have access to,” Guntram explained. “The only time he changed hands like that is when he was being pressed by a group of three attackers, but the device sorts among possible responses for the most suitable one.”

  Clain chuckled. “The device thinks you’re the equivalent of three bandits, Lord Pal,” he said. “And I venture that it’s right.”

  “Three bandits, sure,” I said, thinking about the guards at Allingham, “but Morseth is a friend of mine. He’s open when he’s changing hands but I’d have to cut his foot off to take advantage of it. That would cripple him for life if he even survived. I won’t do that to a friend.”

  Clain considered that for a moment, then said, “You can never predict how a battle will go. But it’s my opinion that if you don’t defeat Morseth that way, he will kill you instead.”

  I grimaced. “That’s pretty much what I figure too,” I said. I’d been fighting his likeness all morning so I had a valid opinion.

  Clain nodded instead of commenting. He knew that not all decisions were rational—or maybe my decision not to cripple Morseth was rational because I knew I’d have to live with the consequences.

  “Who will be standing on the sidelines for you, Lord Pal?” Clain asked, as I was preparing to ask Guntram to switch on the training device again.

  I laughed. “Well, at the moment I told Lady Hope I’d stand up for her, I figured to ask Morseth if he was in town.”

  A skilled warrior outside the actual fight could see things that the participant himself could not. I didn’t need a coach in the sense of telling me how to fight, but the person in a fight wasn’t in the best place to see how his opponent moved when he wasn’t actually striking.

  “Have you asked Reaves in Morseth’s stead?” Clain asked.

  “I thought about that,” I said. “Reaves and I are friends, and he’s not thrilled about Morseth backing Joy. Who’s a nasty bitch, so far as I can see.”

  “There’s others that feel that way about her,” Clain said. “But Jon will follow the law so long as she does.”