The White Serpent

by Tanith Lee

  “Well,” he said, as they got up to the fort, “do you know where you’ll be lodging in Moiyah?”

  “Oh. Some inn.”

  “Don’t think I’m prying. But this compensation. I’ll be in charge of that. I’ll need to have some means to meet you in the city.”

  “Ah, the compensation. Well, sergeant, isn’t there a famous wine-shop called the Amber Anklet?”

  “For sure. On Amber Street. And I can recommend it. A lot of Dortharians drink there.”

  “Do they? A Xarabian told me about it. Say you go there and ask for me. When I get your message, I’ll call on you.”

  Chacor, having no fixed abode in the city, and feeling they were now playing a silly game, said, “I tell you what. Be at the Anklet the first evening of the new month.”

  “That’s Zastis. Won’t you be engaged elsewhere?”

  “I’ll make sure I’m not.”

  Yennef gave him an odd look. Did Yennef now think he was being propositioned?

  “You’re too generous,” said Yennef, “all this care about getting me requited for a few ragged blows with a lent sword.”

  “Moiyan codes,” said Chacor. “Even if I hated your insides, my friend, I’d have to do it.”

  • • •

  He rode for the city full-tilt, and half a mile off—to increase the drama—the sky soured purple and a summer storm of grandiose violence encompassed him.

  Vanek’s studio on Marble Street was the first place he went.

  There was some flurry there, for they were getting the buckets uncovered on the roof to catch the downpour. (Rain water, when no salt wind was blowing from the sea, was judged the better for the studio’s needs than that of the public cisterns.) Vanek was not present. The apprentices were running everywhere at once, the studio offices empty but for desks, and the outer shop contained one attendant and one rich mix idler, poking amid a cupboardful of ivories after a “something.” Of Rehger there was no hint. A clerk, hastening to his midday snack, informed Chacor that seeking Rehger meant the house of Arn Yr.

  Chacor pelted out, remounted and dashed through the running streets under the pouring rain.

  He knew from Jerish, now set up with Annah in the married state on Amber Street, that her father was away with Pretty Girl, trading along the Xarabian coast and up to Ommos. The steward in the outer hall of the house told Chacor that Arn Yr’s wife was also away, at an embroidery group in the home of a friend. They were approaching the whereabouts of Rehger, when Arn Yr’s younger daughter appeared suddenly from a doorway.

  The steward fell silent.

  Chacor and Elissi, equally silent, looked at one another.

  He was like a being of fire, so fast-ridden, so keyed up, and so drenched by the tempest that even now straddled the roof and drummed the slates.

  She was luminously beautiful, with garden flowers in her hand—she had been arranging them in a vase— scarcely tinted with summer and now extremely pale.

  “Thank you,” she said to the steward. “Won’t you come in here?” she asked Chacor.

  For a fact, seeing her had checked him. He had thought of her, been reminded of her by innumerable items on endless occasions. Now a sort of calm flowed over him, as once before in her presence. He thanked her in turn, and walked into the room which gave on a covered corner of the garden.

  She laid the flowers on a table. She stood gazing at him. Her whole body seemed expressive of a question.

  Intent on his own question, he did not think how it must appear to her. She saw he had ridden there headlong, through the rain, on some impassioned errand. Because she wanted this to be herself, how could she suspect that it was not?

  “Elissi—I know you’ll pardon the state of me and my hurry, it’s on a matter of importance—”

  She stood and gazed on him.

  Something did then communicate itself, but the impetus of all the past days was not to be turned in a moment.

  “I must speak to Rehger the Lydian,” Chacor said. Her face went white. “I—they—told me he was here.” Chacor ended, not hearing what he said. He had just realized, after all, what she had been thinking.

  In a few instants she lowered her eyes and moved to the table where she had laid the flowers.

  “I’m so sorry, Chacor, but he isn’t here. Didn’t Jerish say, Rehger has lodgings near the Academy. If he isn’t with Master Vanek—”

  “Elissi,” said Chacor.

  She was arranging the flowers in the vase, with quiet steady hands.

  “Of course, he does visit father. But father is voyaging.”

  “Elissi—”

  She paused, looked at him, shook her head as if to say, A silly mistake, no harm has been done.

  It occurred to Chacor that, although the prospect of astoundingly surprising both Yennef Am Lan and Rehger Am Ly Dis had been his motive for charging into Moiyah at midday in a thunderstorm, perhaps it was not all the reason. Of course Jerish must have mentioned Rehger lived by the Academy of Arms, where he still took Swordsman’s exercise. Chacor now seemed to recall this. And Vanek’s clerk had also said that Vanek himself would return in half an hour. Chacor might have waited. In fact, the clerk had not, had he, said Rehger was at Arn Yr’s house at all. He had said Chacor should ask there. Superfluous. Yet here, everything muddled, Chacor had rushed.

  Destiny had presented itself to Chacor on the Plains in the shape of Rehger’s father, arrived in accordance with a psychic prophesy now almost a year old. Destiny—or call it Anackire—did exist. Maybe he had always supposed so, or wanted it, that sense of being held, however lightly, in a vast cupped hand. Whatever you did, whatever befell you, it was possible at certain moments to cease floundering, to let go. To float, and to fall, through inner space.

  There she poised above the flowers, in the shadow a figurine of silver.

  Chacor said, “What I told you. That isn’t why I came here. Or, it was, but now is not. If I speak to your father, will he cast me through an upper window?”

  “Speak about what?” said she. Her voice was colorless. Had she not felt the levinbolt strike the house?

  “You. Isn’t it the custom here? To get permission of a girl’s father?”

  She put down the flowers again but did not turn to him now.

  “What are you saying, Chacor?”

  What was he saying? Before, it was always, I’m dying for you, let me have you. It had even been, now and then, falsely, I love you. Before the billowy bed or the warm hillside accommodated them.

  To keep himself in order, not to shame himself with sugary words he could not speak, he spoke instead the ancient marriage oath of a prince of Corhl.

  “By the goddess, I will take and have you, now and all my days. You shall be mine as my own flesh is mine. As my necessary bones are mine, so needful you shall be to me. And I will spill my blood for you. I will come together with you to make the magic of lifegiving. The goddess is a woman. She hears what I say. Let me be no more a man if ever I deny these words.”

  It was old, the oath, if not as old as the jungles and the swamps, old as the first speaking men who had known themselves Corrah’s. Chacor himself had heard his own father make the oath many times, marrying carelessly this woman and that. In the common mouth of Corhl, the words had become debased. But they remained the Words, and he had given them to her, to this pale girl of the Lowlands. And having said them, burning and proud, astonished and elated, irrevocably fixed now to the course, he added, “By the law of Corhl, I’ve married you, Elissi. But by the law of Moih we must be betrothed, I know. If your father lets me have you. Beautiful Elissi.”

  She had waited for him to stop. Now, she picked up another flower and put it into the vase.

  The storm was over, and the rain had slackened on the path outside. Chacor sobered. “At least,” he said, “say yes.”

  “No,”
said Elissi.

  • • •

  Months after, she assured him it was not feminine vengeance. The reverse had been so abrupt, she had not trusted him to know, she said. She had given him doubt’s benefit, in case he might at leisure repent. But in a way, which she did not refer to, it was also her insight. He was a warrior, Chacor, a hunter. The prey had been too readily caught, there was no duel. So she gave him one, a chase and a fight. She let him, now he was sure he wanted her, pursue and battle through the whole of Zastis. And to tangle matters further, there came that afternoon an alarm of Alisaarian pirates back up the coast, and a recall to the fort.

  The business with Rehger and Yennef tallied with the rest. A deputy sent to the Amber Anklet on the correct evening either missed the Lan, or the Lan was not there.

  It became an affair of, I will tell Rehger when the alert’s off and I catch up to the fellow. Then, alert, over, I’ll keep it to myself. Is anything so pat? Probably the likeness was imagined. For by then, thwarted by Elissi, the sense of destiny was wearing thin.

  She consented before winter, when the sintal blooms were dropping with a fermenting perfume, making the fish tipsy in Arn’s tank. Arn, home from a successful trip, had already acquiesced. Rehger was nowhere to be found. And Yennef—he had been an hallucination, an excuse for allowing oneself to acknowledge love.

  “Yes, I love you,” she said.

  She put her arms about Chacor’s neck and he kissed her, kissed her, thinking there was nothing so sweet and alive and holy on the earth, for she had made him suffer long enough for that. Lovers who love are gods, poets said in Free Alisaar. “Of course,” she said. “That is Anackire.”

  And thus Chacor found, despite himself, he had been married to Moih, to the Lowlands, to the Dream of the serpent goddess. A Moiyan wedding indeed.

  15. Anackire’s Design

  THE RAIDING PARTY MARCHED up Amber Street to the thud of drums, clash of cymbals, and whirr of rattles, their torches flapping. All along the sunset avenues, the crowds of Moiyah applauded and donated them fortune, and commented that the bridegroom was a charmer.

  Chacor, who had reached the city friendless and lacking occupation almost two years before, was now a captain of one hundred, and included two other captains and a major (Jerish) in his warlike wedding band. They were all barking with laughter and exchanging jests and, as tradition decreed, vowing to put Arn Yr’s house to the torch if he refused them. Caught up in the play, intent on his role, crazy to get his girl that wretched custom had also not allowed him near for seven days, the last thing on Chacor’s mind was Rehger, absently invited to the feast, or a man once met by the Dragon Gate.

  The Amber Anklet Inn was busy, and through the open doors, in the courtyard, a host of drinkers saw the Raiding Party and came howling out, offering gratis cups of wine. This likewise was tradition, and while the young men fortified themselves the cries went up: “You make that ruffian give her over! Burn the house down if he won’t.” An inn girl ran to Chacor and kissed him, and when she drew back, he saw Yennef Am Lan standing five feet away, meeting his eyes, but not eagerly.

  Chacor gave a louder bark. The Lan immediately shifted, as if to slip aside into the inn.

  “Jerish,” said Chacor, “Baed, all of you, there’s a man there I asked to my wedding who wouldn’t come.”

  “Must be a friend of her wicked father’s!” shouted Captain Baed, entering farther into things. “Get him!”

  Yennef was not quick enough to elude a determined sortie of this kind, with the inn drinkers noisily assisting on all sides.

  “Not go to his wedding? Thrash the felon!”

  Yennef was brought to Chacor. Yennef was all smiles now.

  “Well met again. Am I to understand you’re going to claim a bride, sergeant?”

  “Captain, my dear old friend,” said Chacor, embracing Yennef. “So happy you’ll be with me.”

  “To the hilt. What else?”

  Chacor said to Jerish: “I mean it. I’m deadly in earnest. Don’t let that darling get away.”

  “Tsk. Your mind should be only on Elissi.”

  “It is. But this is the matter of Anackire.”

  Jerish raised his brows. Chacor’s use of such a phrase amused him. Nevertheless he said to Baed, “We’re to keep him close, that one. We’re serious, you understand.”

  Tiddly and obliging, Baed agreed.

  All in communion then, the Raiding Party marched on, Yennef borne in its midst.

  • • •

  “Open your doors! Open your doors!”

  Neighbors on balconies and leaning over sills threw ribbons and flowers.

  “Open up, or we’ll burn you out!”

  The doors were opened.

  Arn Yr, in elegant regalia, stood with a drawn sword in the hall.

  “My daughter you shall not have.”

  “I have sworn to have her,” said Chacor in ringing tones, enjoying it after all. “I have sworn by my gods. By Anackire,” he added, to see Arn Yr’s face.

  “No,” said Arn Yr. “My daughter must remain with me. She is my jewel.”

  “She shall be that to me,” said Chacor. “Are you with me, my boys?” he asked the Raiders. They yelled and stamped, and Arn Yr’s servants came pounding into the hall, grinning hugely and toting cudgels.

  Then the priest spoke from the stair.

  “Men, now listen to the voice of the woman.”

  And down the stair came Elissi.

  She wore the Moih wedding-gown that was passed, mother to daughter, sister to sister, aunt to niece, cousin to cousin, for generations. It was a loose garment of woven thread-of-gold, belted by a sash of white silk. On the bride’s hair clung a rippling veil of sintal yellow. She was like every proper bride, more lovely than life.

  She said, “My father, you are dear to me, but in the natural way I must leave you. Here is the man I choose.”

  And Arn Yr threw down his sword and made the mock gesture of weeping.

  And Chacor, in whose birthplace men were not permitted tears of any sort, having forgotten it, waited for Elissi to cross the floor and take his hand, which she did.

  Then the priest came down in his dark robe with its fringes of Moiyan gold, and married them before their witnesses, by the fallen sword, in the sight of something which was not named, a goddess, or their own souls, or only the wakening stars above the roof.

  • • •

  The wedding feast, for which three interconnecting rooms had been opened, the double doors taken off their hinges, sailed like a shining lighted ship into the night.

  Master Vanek found, with some interest at his elbow, glamorous and not entirely sober, the bridegroom.

  “Master Vanek, where’s your apprentice?”

  “Which?”

  “The very talented one, whose casts for silver work go to Sheep Lane.”

  Vanek looked lost, then he said, “But we’ve got farther than that. You mean Rehger Am Ly.”

  “Don’t tell me he isn’t here.”

  “I suppose he is, if you asked him to be. Have one of these salt-grapes.”

  “Delicious. I must find him. Before I forget him altogether.”

  “Hmm,” said Vanek. He called over another man, very nearly deformed, for his greatly muscled neck, torso and arms dwarfed the two bandy legs beneath. “Have you seen the Lydian?”

  “In a cloud of women,” said this man, amicably, “discussing the price of bronze with Arn’s officer of deck.”

  He led Chacor across the three rooms, introducing himself as they went as the sculptor Mur. He said his name with such diffidence, Chacor became aware he must be well-known in Moih, and had the social wit to thank him for coming to the wedding.

  The last room opened on a stair to the garden. Rehger and two Moiyan beauties, one sable, one saffron, were on the terrace with Arn’s
deck master, and some others.

  Mur stood surveying the scene. He indicated the Lydian, as if Chacor did not know him. “What a Raldnor he made,” said Mur, after a moment. His face expressed an absorbed, nonsexual admiration. “He fought professionally at Saardsinmey. By the goddess. He could hardly have made his body better if he’d hewn and carved it.” Mur tugged at his lip. “You heard of the mishap?”

  “Up at the fort, we get little—”

  “The statue was twice life-size, drawn out of the finest marble. I supervised the cutting of the block myself. I worked day and night. With such stone and such a model, it was a dedication, not a labor. Finished, it seemed to me some of my best work was in it, although the expression of the face—with that I could never satisfy myself.”

  (Chacor fretted at Mur’s shoulder. Three rooms distant, Elissi was blooming. Corrah-Anackire speed this anecdote.)

  “The features were kingly enough. I had no problem in that way. It’s no use taking a body from one and the head from another—a bedding in Aarl that is. But there was some obstacle. If I’d understood it, perhaps I could have surmounted it.” Mur made a sign with his left hand, averting dark thoughts. “The statue was completed despite my niggling, and to schedule. It was then moved, under guard, to Xarabiss. A couple of miles from the winter palace at Xarar, from a clear sky, a freak summer storm. A river burst its banks and came down on the riders. The zeebas panicked, awash to their girths. Men were swept under and almost drowned. The platform toppled over. The head of the statue—was smashed off.”

  Chacor swore swiftly. Even upon his hot impatience this ill-omened thing struck chill.

  “Does Rehger know that?”

  “Yes. He took it sensibly. The racers say, if a man heeded every stray shadow on the track, he’d be thrown at the first lap.”

  “What of the Xarab king?”

  “Refused the statue and any repair. He said the gods were against it. But he still paid up.”