The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Melli grinned. “And the wolves went away?” she asked.

  “The wolves went away,” said Davin reassuringly, and Melli breathed a sigh of relief.

  I felt much calmer now, too. More like myself. My head was still full of questions, but the deadened feeling was nearly gone.

  “One more,” demanded Melli. “Davin, tell another one! ‘The Squirrel Story,’ please….”

  Davin looked questioningly at Mama. Mama nodded. And Davin began to tell “The Squirrel Story.”

  It was almost like those thunder nights when we would all get up and gather by the hearth to drink tea and sing and tell stories until the storm had passed. But it was still daylight outside. And this was only fog, not thunder. And suddenly Beastie began to bark, one short sharp wroof after the other.

  Davin paused in midstory.

  “Go on,” said Mama.

  “But, Beastie—we have to look!”

  “No. Go on with the story.”

  Davin opened his mouth to object. Then he closed it again. Mama was holding her mug so tightly that her knuckles looked white, and Melli’s lip was trembling again. Belle wrested herself free from Rose’s grasp and ran to the door to stand growling, all her sharp young teeth showing.

  Hesitantly, Davin picked up the thread of his story. But outside, Beastie’s barking rose to a furious howl, then abruptly became a fighting snarl. And then he wasn’t barking anymore. He screamed. He squealed like a puppy.

  “I’m going outside!” said Davin, surging to his feet.

  Mama caught his arm. “No, Davin. There’s nothing you can do. You’ll only make it worse.”

  “Make what worse? Mama, what is happening?”

  Silence descended outside, with all the suddenness of a thunderclap. As if the whole world was holding its breath. Mama muttered a few words I didn’t understand. A foreign language, I think. It sounded like a prayer. Slowly she set down her mug and pressed her fingertips to her temples, the way she sometimes did when she had a headache.

  Something had happened. We could all feel it. Belle gave a brief howl and started scratching at the door with one paw. On the floorboards in front of the shuttered windows, pale strips had appeared. Strips of sunlight.

  “The fog is gone,” said Davin. “Can I go outside now?”

  “Yes,” said Mama in a tired voice. “Now, you may.”

  Beastie lay by the woodpile next to the sheep shed. One side was dark with blood, and his neck and muzzle and throat were bloody also. He was still breathing when we found him. But before Mama had time to do anything for his wounds, he gave a strange, stumbling sigh, and died.

  DINA

  Blackmaster

  I couldn’t stop crying. Beastie. He had been with us forever. Ever since I was small, anyway. He guarded us when Mama was away. He was the only animal who had come into the Highlands with us, the only one Drakan’s men hadn’t chased off or butchered. I knew he was old for a dog and that he had to die someday. But this was different. He hadn’t just died. Somebody or something had killed him.

  Mama sat with Beastie’s head in her lap, pale as death, stroking his neck over and over again even though he could no longer feel her touch.

  “Why did you tell him to guard us?” I screamed at her. “Why couldn’t he stay in the house with us and be safe?”

  She didn’t answer me. “Davin, get Callan,” she said. “Ride as fast as you can.”

  Davin made no objection. He just saddled Falk and rode off, going up the hill at a full gallop.

  Nervously, Belle crept up to Beastie’s still form. She sniffed at him, and began to make a low whining noise in her throat. Rose wrapped her arms around her and buried her face in black and white fur—lucky Rose, who still had a dog to hug. Melli was looking at Beastie in white-faced silence. She wasn’t even crying. Perhaps she hadn’t quite realized that he was dead.

  I fetched a bucket of water from the pump and began to wash away the blood from Beastie’s gray flank. I’m not sure why. I probably just wanted him to look more like himself again. Instead, it only made his wounds more visible: two long slashes along the ribs and a deep stab close to his heart. Someone had used a knife on him.

  No. Not just “someone.” It was him—the stranger. The one who had said he was “the girl’s father.”

  “Mama, who is he? Is he really my father?”

  “No more than a serpent is mother to the eggs it lays.”

  That meant yes, didn’t it?

  “And Davin? Melli?”

  “No. Just you.”

  Just me.

  It was just me who had a serpent for a father. Just me.

  I stared at my hands, pink from water and blood. Then I got to my feet. I couldn’t stay still anymore, not even for a second. If I didn’t move, I’d burst. I spun around and took off.

  “Dina! Stay here!” called Mama, sounding frightened. But I couldn’t. It was all I could do to stop running when I reached the orchard.

  Davin wasn’t fully my brother. And Melli wasn’t fully my sister. I might have known. I had always been the strange one. I only had to look in the mirror. Davin and Melli looked like Mama—they all had the same silky-smooth auburn hair. I was the only one who had coarse black troll’s hair. Just me.

  “Dina.” Mama had followed me. “Please, my love, go into the house. You mustn’t run off like that. It’s dangerous.”

  I was shaking all over. Suddenly I felt so dizzy I had to sit down. The slender apple trees were completely black, and the daylight very white.

  “What is his name?” I asked.

  “Sezuan.”

  “That’s a weird name.”

  “He is not from around here. He comes from Colmonte.”

  “So do we. Or so you’ve said. The Tonerres.”

  “Yes, but in a different way. It’s a long story. The important thing is not what he is called, but what he is. Do you know what a Blackmaster is?”

  “A sort of wizard.”

  “Not really. No more than a Shamer is a sort of witch.”

  “Is a Blackmaster like a Shamer?”

  “No, not that either. A Shamer sees the truth and forces other people to see it too. A Blackmaster does the opposite. He can throw a glamor on you so that you see things that aren’t there, or so that you cannot see the things that are.”

  “Did he make the fog?”

  “Perhaps. At any rate, he used it. The glamor comes more easily when it is hard for us to see clearly in the first place. Dina, he is very, very dangerous.”

  “Why did you send Beastie out to fight him, then?”

  “Because animals are often harder to fool than people. They depend more on senses other than sight. And Beastie did defend us. It is because of him that we are still ourselves. That Sezuan did not manage to sway us to his will. But he’ll be back, Dina. He will try again.”

  Mama sat down beside me in the grass and put her arm around me. Now we’ll both have wet bottoms, I thought, with the part of my head that went on noticing things like that even when it didn’t matter.

  “That’s why we have to leave,” said Mama.

  At first I didn’t think I’d heard her right.

  “Leave?” I said cautiously. “To go where? And for how long?”

  “Just away from here. And Dina, it might be… for good.”

  “No!” She couldn’t mean that. Not again. Not now when everything had become… become almost ordinary again. We had planted apple trees. We had built the cottage. “You can’t—We can’t just run away from him. Just because he is a Blackmaster.”

  “I ran away from him before you were even born,” she said sadly. “I can barely protect myself from him. I do not know how to protect my children.”

  “Me, you mean. It’s just me he wants. I’m the only serpent spawn in this family.”

  “Dina! Don’t talk like that!”

  “Why not?” I said bitterly. “It’s true, isn’t it?” I rose. “But what I don’t understand, what I really, really don’t
understand, is how you came to have his child. Why was I even born?”

  Mama opened her mouth, but I gave her no time to answer. I just walked off and left her. An apple twig brushed my shoulder, and I ducked to avoid damaging the tender buds. And then I thought, It doesn’t matter. If we’re leaving anyway, why should I care if there are ever apples on this tree?

  DINA

  The Leaving

  Callan tried to talk my mother out of it. The Tonerres had friends here, he said. The Kensie clan would protect the Shamer and her children. Mama merely shook her head and kept packing things. In the yard outside, Davin was burying Beastie. “Let him lie where he can see who is coming and going,” Mama had said. “That’s how he likes it.”

  “If ye leave, who will be protecting ye?” said Callan, opening and closing his big hands as if he wanted to wrap them around something. “The lad shows promise, I’ll grant ye, but he is still too young. Medama, this is recklessness.”

  “I’m sorry, Callan. I have no choice.”

  “Let me get some good men together. We’ll rid ye of the bastard.”

  “Swords and good men are no use against a Blackmaster,” said Mama. “How can you hit something you can’t even see? And you will see Sezuan only when he wants to be seen.”

  She would listen to no one. Not to Davin and me and Rose and Melli, not to Callan, not to Maudi. Not one night more would she spend in Yew Tree Cottage. Callan barely managed to persuade her to stay the night at Maudi’s and set off in full daylight, at least. I had trouble sleeping. On the other side of a thin wooden wall, I could hear the murmuring voices, Callan’s, Mama’s, Maudi’s, arguing and making plans. But that was not what was keeping me awake. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him: the flute player, standing in the middle of a lake making his music, while the mist curled and danced around him like a living thing.

  Next day, in the gray dawn, we packed up the last of the things we could bring. There wasn’t much room in the cart when you considered that it would soon hold everything we had in this world. So much of what we had worked for or made or bought during the last two years had to be left behind.

  I felt so miserable. The leaving itself was bad enough. But at the same time I felt as if it was my fault that we had to leave at all, because it was my father we were fleeing from.

  Sometimes, especially when I had been angry with Mama about something, I had dreamed of finding my father. He would be nice, of course, and brave and strong. He would have a fine-looking horse and beautiful clothes, silks and velvets and the like. And most importantly, he would have been searching for me all his life, and now that he had found me, his face would shine with happiness and joy. That’s how I had dreamed it. Instead, I got Sezuan Blackmaster.

  There was a bare spot of dark brown dirt in the yard where Davin had buried Beastie. I felt like leaving a flower, or something, but Beastie wouldn’t care about flowers. He would rather have a bit of sausage and a good scratch behind the ears, and I could give him neither of those things now. I hoped there was a dog heaven somewhere, where he could run around all day sniffing at exciting scents, digging holes wherever he wanted to, with a good bone to chew whenever he felt like it. He deserved that, and more. What he didn’t deserve was for his family to leave him when he was barely cold in his grave.

  I hated Sezuan. And I came close to hating Mama for making us leave.

  “Dina,” said Mama softly, from the carter’s box. “It is time.”

  I leaned my forehead against Silky’s warm neck for a moment. The last thing I wanted was to get up on her back to ride away. But there was nothing I could do. Davin was already mounted on Falk, and between the shafts of the cart stood a strong dun mare that Maudi had told us to take so that Falk wouldn’t have to play cart-horse.

  “Shall I give ye a leg up?” asked Callan. He had agreed to go with us on the first part of our journey. Until we were clear of the Highlands at least, and perhaps even farther than that; he hadn’t really said.

  I shook my head. I could do it myself, I just didn’t want to. Not quite yet.

  Nico and Master Maunus had come to see us off and to say good-bye. Now they were fighting—as usual. What was unusual was that they did it in whispers instead of yelling at each other the way they normally did.

  “You have a duty. An obligation!” said Master Maunus in a furious low voice, looking over his shoulder to see if Mama had heard.

  “Yes, but not the one you think. She saved my life!”

  “One life—when the lives of thousands depend on you. Bad enough that you skulk around up here playing the shepherd. You simply cannot go traipsing all over the countryside like a… like a common tinker!”

  Nico took a deep breath and spoke out in very calm and measured tones:

  “Scold all you want, Master. My mind is made up.”

  And then he smiled, embraced his tutor, and kissed his furrowed brow.

  Master Maunus looked completely flustered.

  “Well, that—Well, then, but…,” he stuttered. And then ran out of words completely.

  “Stay with Maudi, Master. Or move into Yew Tree Cottage. When this is over, I’ll come back. Or send for you. I promise.”

  And so it was that when we left Yew Tree Cottage, Nico came with us. And Master Maunus stayed behind.

  DAVIN

  Owl Night

  The night before we left Yew Tree Cottage I had a row with my mother.

  I couldn’t find my sword. I had just finished burying Beastie, and the only thing I could think of was how soon I could find the evil bastard who killed our dog. No way was I going to let myself and my family be driven out of house and home by a Puff-Adder like him. But when I dug into the thatch on the sheep shed where I usually kept my sword, all I could find was straw. I searched all along one side and practically buried my arm to the shoulder, thinking it had to be there somewhere.

  “It’s not there,” said Mama.

  Startled, I spun around to face her. I hadn’t meant to involve her in this.

  “Where is it, then?” I tried to sound matter-of-fact.

  “Davin, this is not something you can fight with a sword.”

  I knew then that she had taken it, and a surge of anger ran through me.

  “What did you do with it?”

  “Listen to me, Davin. You must not try to find him.”

  She had no need to say his name. We both knew who she was talking about.

  “He kills our dog. He kills Beastie—and you think he should get away with it?”

  She dropped her glance but did not answer.

  “Maybe you think it doesn’t matter. Maybe you think, Oh, he was just a dog. Nothing to get excited about. Just a dumb dog.”

  “I’m as grieved as you are.”

  “Well, you could have fooled me!”

  Mama merely looked tired.

  “We’re sleeping at Maudi’s place tonight,” she said. “And tomorrow morning, we leave.”

  Now it was my turn not to answer. If I had to do without the sword, I would. I had my bow. Well, Callan’s bow that he had lent me. And in any case, an arrow might be a better weapon against sorcerous scum like him. That way, I wouldn’t have to get in close. And if only I could find him tonight, there would be no need for us to go anywhere tomorrow.

  Sometimes I might as well be made from glass. Mama could see right through me without even trying.

  “You will not do it, Davin,” she said. “I need you. What would I do, what would the girls do, if he lured you into some bottomless bog, or made you step off a cliff so that all we ever found of you were the shattered bones?”

  “Mama—”

  “No. I’ll not let you. You can have the sword back tomorrow. Tonight you will stay indoors. Do you understand?”

  There wasn’t much I could do, not when she spoke in that voice. But I couldn’t just meekly stand by either.

  “Only cowards run without a fight!”

  “Then I suppose that makes me a coward,” she said. “
But it will be as I have said.”

  “But why?”

  “Because we have no other choice.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Mama didn’t give me back my sword until we were ready to leave the next day. I took it without saying anything and tied it across my back where it would be within easy reach. No matter what Mama said, if Sezuan Puff-Adder tried anything, I’d be ready!

  Dina would be riding Silky, and I had Falk. Mama and Rose and Melli rode in the cart. Maudi had told me to take a Kensie horse for the cart, and I had picked a strong dun mare whom we hadn’t yet chosen a name for. It was one of the ones we had taken from Valdracu’s men after the battle of Hog’s Gorge last year, so I felt I had just as much right to it as anybody else.

  Black-Arse had come to say good-bye. He patted me clumsily on the shoulder and didn’t know what to say. Suddenly I felt horribly envious of Dina. Rose was coming with us. I was the only one who’d be losing my best friend. But after the mess I’d got him into last year, one could hardly blame Black-Arse’s mother for threatening him with hellfire and retribution and no supper for a year if he so much as thought about coming with us. And anyone who knew Black-Arse also knew that the no-supper threat had a real sting to it.

  “When ye find somewhere—somewhere to live, that is,” said Black-Arse, “ye can send word, can ye not? And I could visit someday.”

  I nodded. “Yes. That would be nice.” And highly unlikely, I thought. I looked at the ground, at Falk’s black legs and hooves. “Take care of yourself,” I said. “Stay out of trouble.”

  Black-Arse’s eyebrows rose until they nearly met in the middle. “Why is it we cannot just kill this… this Blackmaster?”

  “I don’t understand either,” I said. “Mama says swords are no good against him because you can’t see him. But yesterday I saw him just fine.”

  All the same, I had this constant unease, like an itch you couldn’t scratch. Where was he? What did Mama mean when she said that you couldn’t see Sezuan unless he wanted to be seen? How close could he come without being noticed? The hill above us? The sheep shed corner? Or might he suddenly appear right under Falk’s soft, black nose?