The Serpent Gift

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  I stood there in the middle of the floor in nothing but my skirt and bodice. He did not seem particularly worried that I might run away. He hadn’t even locked the door. But then, where would I go? I had made a bargain with the Devil, and now he owned me.

  DINA

  The Music of the Flute

  When we left Sagisloc, it was on foot.

  “Why aren’t we sailing?” I asked.

  Sezuan shook his head. “There are monsters in the lake,” he said, and I wasn’t quite sure whether I was meant to believe him or not.

  “It would be faster,” I said stubbornly.

  He stopped and looked at me with an irritation he didn’t bother to hide. “Are you going to argue with me all the way to the Sagisburg? It will be a very long trip, then, Medamina.”

  It would be a long trip anyway, I thought. He hadn’t even hired horses for us. Instead, he had bought a small gray donkey that carried all our belongings, and a new blouse and skirt for me so that I no longer looked like a grayling. Couldn’t he at least have bought a mule, so we could ride? He didn’t seem to be short of money.

  He was doing it on purpose, I decided. He wanted this trip to be a long one, so that he had more time to “get to know me,” as he called it. But he would not succeed in making a Blackmaster of me. Not even if it took us the rest of the year to get to the Sagisburg.

  I kicked at a rock that went flying down the path. The donkey twitched its ears and snorted. Sezuan threw me an irritated glance, but didn’t say anything.

  The road followed the bank of the lake for the first few miles. I could see the gray-clad workers harvesting the reeds, just like Davin and Nico had done the first few days. If there really were monsters in the lake, the workers would have been eaten, I thought. I might get used to the fact that half of everything Sezuan said to me was a lie. The trouble lay in deciding which half to believe.

  We walked in silence most of the morning. I had a headache, and my shoulder ached, and I kept thinking of Mama, and of Davin and Nico. The sun was burning, and the road dust made my eyes water, and when there was finally a breeze from the lake, it was full of little pesky creatures that bit or stung or swarmed so closely that they kept getting into your nostrils when you breathed. Every once in a while carts rumbled by, drawn by oxen or horses. We didn’t meet anyone else who was stupid enough to travel through the noontime heat on foot.

  A little past midday we came to a small town, not much more than a village, but big enough to have a sizable inn. And I was so heavy-headed and dry-mouthed by then that I was glad of the rest, even though it slowed us down even more.

  I couldn’t see how Sezuan did it. On the road, people had passed us without a second glance. But as we trudged into the dusty little square in front of the inn, he grew taller and more important-looking with every step. When he called for the stable boy in a firm voice, the lad came running to take the donkey as though it were a four-horse carriage with plumes and silver buckles and a coat of arms enameled on the door. When the people at the Golden Swan had treated Sezuan as though he were a prince royal, I thought it was because they knew he was rich even though he didn’t always look it. But how could a stranger like the stable groom know that before Sezuan had even loosened his purse strings? People who come wandering in with a donkey were not usually the ones who crossed your palm with silver at every opportunity.

  It continued as we entered the dining room. Respectfully, our host apologized for the fact that his “establishment” could only offer us a single course, a humble lamb stew. But if Mesire’s time permitted, he would be pleased to slaughter a few pigeons or a capon?

  “No, thank you,” said Sezuan. “Lamb will be perfectly adequate. And if we may have a pitcher of wine and a pitcher of water?”

  The stew arrived, and I ate some of it even though my headache didn’t leave room for much in the way of appetite. I drank a lot of water, which helped. Or water with a bit of wine in it, because Sezuan insisted.

  “There is no knowing about the water in a place like this,” he said. “And there’s nothing more unsavory than a vomiting child.”

  Would a vomiting adult be more wholesome? I didn’t think so, but I obediently drank what he gave me, even though the wine added a sour-sweet, yeasty flavor to the water.

  “Is the meal to your liking?” asked our host tentatively. He looked as if he wished he had killed a capon for us.

  “Delicious,” said Sezuan. “My good man, I do believe this is the best lamb stew I have had in my life. Mesire may be proud of his inn and his kitchen.”

  A delighted flush spread across our host’s face, from the tip of his thinly bearded chin to the top of his balding crown.

  “Mesire is too kind,” he said, bowing deeply. “Perhaps we may offer a small almond cake for dessert? On the house, of course.”

  I had to hand it to him—Sezuan had a way with people. But the strangest thing of all happened when we left. Sezuan handed the host a single coin. I was fairly certain it was copper, and a copper penny was certainly not what one usually paid for two helpings of lamb stew, water, wine, a good feed for the donkey, and so on. But the man acted as if he had been given a gold mark. He beamed from ear to ear, bowing and scraping, and wished “his lordship” a pleasant journey. The groom got nothing at all except a few words of praise, but he too bowed and smiled and wished us well.

  When we had gone a little way, I gathered my courage.

  “That copper penny?”

  “What about it?” said Sezuan.

  “The innkeeper, he thought it was gold, didn’t he?”

  “He may have.”

  “But—but that means you cheated him!”

  “How so? Did he seem unhappy?”

  “No, but…” But he had still been cheated. “What happens when he finds out?”

  “He won’t. He will remember that his inn had a visit from a fine gentleman who praised his food and paid him royally. He will remember it with happiness and pride, and he will boast about it to his neighbors. That is a sort of payment too.”

  “But that won’t feed his family.”

  “Not feed their bellies, perhaps. But joy has a value too, doesn’t it? That innkeeper’s heart has been well fed. And because of the sum I had to put up to release your precious mother from the Foundation, we are not exactly wealthy, I’ll have you know.”

  Was that why he hadn’t hired a boat? And why we didn’t have horses? He wasn’t as rich as I’d thought, apparently. Or else he was lying to me, and was as rich as Prince Arthos himself. If only I knew what to believe.

  “You cheated him,” I said stubbornly. Mama would definitely think he should be ashamed of himself. But he didn’t seem to be. For a moment, he merely looked thoughtful.

  “I didn’t let him kill the capon,” he said finally.

  We spent the night on a farm, a large and busy one that had a whole crowd of graylings right then to help with harvesting the hay. The farmwife, a thin dry woman who looked at first as if she never even smiled, was soon blushing and giggling at Sezuan as if she was no older than me. It was “Mesire” this and “Mesire” that and “if it pleases the gentleman.” And all that for the price of another copper coin. After we had eaten, the graylings outside at a rough plank table and the proper farmhands inside with us, Sezuan brought out the flute and began to play.

  I tried not to listen. Covertly, I took a bit of bread and rolled it between my fingers and put one bread plug in each ear, but it didn’t do much good. The notes moved against me like a cat who wants to be stroked, and they brought sights and sounds with them, of things that weren’t there. A starlit night, a shower of roses, a horse’s nose. Everything soft and beautiful and lovely. The scent of clover. Mama’s lips against my cheek as she kissed me good night.

  I was crying. Tears were running down my cheeks like raindrops down a windowpane, and I wasn’t the only one. While dusk was falling softly around us, no lamps were lit, because everyone sat still and unmoving, even the graylings outsid
e. But I was the one Sezuan was watching as he played, I was the one his eyes rested on. And I knew it was for me he played.

  I got up.

  It wasn’t easy: the music wanted me to stay. But perhaps my sticky little bread lumps did some good after all. Because while all the others were still sitting as frozen as if they never meant to move again, I staggered through the kitchen door, past the listening graylings, and on to the rainwater barrel by the gable. I took a deep breath and stuck my head in the barrel, never caring that leaves and drowned insects floated on the surface.

  So unfair. That such music should come from such a man.

  I stood there with water soaking my shirt, and probably with my hair full of dead mosquitos, and all I wanted was for all of us to be home, Nico and Davin, and Mama and Melli and Rose, home at Yew Tree Cottage when we had never even heard of Sezuan and his flute.

  Silence fell inside the house. The notes stopped coming, and it was quite a while after that before anyone dared break the spell by talking. Only very slowly did ordinary chatter start up again.

  Sezuan came outside.

  “Dina?” he called softly, peering into the darkness.

  I didn’t answer. But he came directly toward me, as if he had some kind of invisible leash on me.

  “Didn’t you like the music?” he asked.

  “No,” I lied. “I suppose I’m not very musical.”

  I had actually hoped that he would be hurt, and perhaps angry. He wasn’t. On the contrary. He smiled so widely that his teeth glittered in the darkness. As if I had finally done something right. As if I had done something he had been waiting for for a long time. Did he know I was lying?

  “Come inside, my daughter,” he said. “I won’t play again tonight.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “What?”

  “Daughter.”

  “Why do you dislike it? I thought you and your mother were all set on telling the truth.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  He smiled again, in his slow, lazy way. “Don’t stay out too long, my daughter,” he said, and went back inside himself.

  I stood there in the gathering dusk and didn’t know whether to go or stay. If I went in now, it would seem as if I came out of obedience to Sezuan. But being out here all night on my own, tired, road-weary, and downhearted, wasn’t very appealing either.

  I ended up climbing the fence of the paddock where they had put our donkey. It wasn’t the same as cuddling up against Silky’s warm, smooth neck, but it was better than nothing, and the donkey good-naturedly allowed it and even seemed to think being cuddled was quite nice for a change.

  Suddenly its long, furry ears came up.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Can you hear something?”

  I don’t know why I always talk to the animals when they can’t talk back, but I do. And in a way I suppose the donkey did answer me. It snorted, reared back from me, and took off at a gallop.

  I stared into the summer dark, which by now had become quite dense and starless. Clouds hid the moon and crowded heavily above the lake and the hills.

  “Hello?” My voice sounded very wobbly and uncertain. Was there a rustling over there by the barn? A… a presence? “Anybody out there?”

  There was no answer. Perhaps it was just a cat. Or a grayling. But a grayling would have answered me, wouldn’t he? I didn’t know. And I was far from brave enough to walk boldly up to the barn to look. I just climbed back across the fence and hurried back to the house, where there would be lights and people. Even if one of the people was Sezuan.

  Before we walked on the next morning, the farmwife gave us a big bundle full of bread and ham and other good things. That was the best we had for quite a while, because even though people kept on receiving Sezuan as though a royal entourage had arrived, farms became fewer and farther apart, and the people who lived on them had less to share. The soil was poor and sparse here at the foot of the Sagis range. The fields were small terraces surrounded by stone walls to retain what farming soil there was, and it took a lot of stone-dragging and water-fetching and careful nurturing to make a crop grow. Grazing animals were few as well, so the meals were mostly made with beans and onions and a special kind of small, mealy potato they grew here. Luxury was a rabbit stew.

  It felt as if we were walking and walking without ever really getting anywhere. The road was steep and rocky and wound uphill in serpentine curves so that you could walk for miles and still look down to see the same tree you passed seven loops ago. It was enough to make anyone lose heart.

  We had paused in the midday heat to eat and catch our breath and let the donkey graze a little. The grass was dry and yellow and full of grasshoppers, but that means nothing to a donkey worth the name. It was so hot that the air flickered across the rocks, and the lake by now was mostly a memory and every once in a while a distant glitter to our right.

  Sezuan brought out the flute. He always had it with him, I had realized, usually in a sort of sheath on his belt, the way another man might have worn a sword. In the two days that had passed since that night at the farm, he had not touched it. Now he held it out to me.

  “Do you want to look at it?”

  I stared at it as though he was trying to give me a venomous snake.

  “No, thank you.”

  He smiled. “The flute hasn’t hurt anybody. You do not need to be scared of it. Here, go on. Try.”

  I shook my head.

  He looked at it for a while as if considering whether to force me to take it. Then he put it on the ground between us.

  “I’ll fetch us some more water,” he said, and disappeared down the mountain path with our water skin at his back.

  I eyed the flute. It had been painted in red and black spirals, like the egg he had once given me. It reminded me a bit of the markings on a salamander. And it was like no other flute I had ever seen. It was much longer, and not even the most nimble-fingered flutist would have been able to reach the holes farthest from the mouthpiece if it hadn’t been for a clever system of vents and stoppers that looked like… looked like it was made from bone. I shivered a little even in the heat. What—or who—had provided the bone for this?

  It was beautiful, in an alien sort of way. And it wasn’t really the fault of the flute that it belonged to a man like Sezuan. I reached out and stroked the smooth black finish. I wondered how those vents really worked.

  I looked around quickly. No sign of Sezuan.

  I raised the flute to my mouth. Tentatively, I blew.

  Nothing happened, or nearly nothing. A thin hiss of air with no tune or melody to it, that was all.

  I blew a little harder. Then harder still. And finally as hard as I could.

  “It’s not enough to blow hard. You have to purse your lips. Make it more precise.”

  I pursed my lips and tried to make it more precise. At once I could feel that this was how it was done. And from the flute came a single, plaintive note, like a lonely bird on a mountain.

  “Put your finger here. It will deepen the tone.”

  I put my forefinger where he told me. Then the next finger, and the next. The note deepened and became darker, became a shrieking owl, a cold night breeze blowing through a lonely cave.

  It was a wonderful flute. I never wanted to let go of it again.

  Sezuan smiled. He was standing right in front of me. Had, indeed, been standing there for quite a while. And suddenly I came to my senses again. I put the flute back on the ground. I would have liked to just fling it away, but I couldn’t bear to think that it might break.

  “You tricked me.”

  “How so?” he said. “Did I pick up the flute and put it in your hands?”

  No. I had done that. Me myself. And I felt sick to my soul, because what if… what if that meant that I really did have the serpent gift?

  “You played beautifully,” he said. “Not many people can coax a note from the flute in their first attempt.”

  It was as if he knew my fear
and deliberately fanned it. I got up, so hurriedly that I nearly stumbled, and began walking, almost blind with tears. In front of my feet the grasshoppers sprang into the air and floated for a moment on red wings, like little butterflies, before they landed and became grasshoppers again. I too had been a different kind of being for a brief moment, when I had floated on the notes of the flute. But it wouldn’t happen again, I silently promised. I was my mother’s daughter, and Sezuan would not succeed in making me his.

  “Dina. Wait.”

  I didn’t want to wait, but I still slowed my pace a little. I needed his help to save Davin and Nico. Once they were free, though, I would oust him from our lives. Whatever the cost!

  Suddenly there was a series of sharp cracks and a longer rattle. I looked up just as something hit me on the shoulder and threw me onto my hands and knees. A shower of stones and dirt tumbled on me and continued down the mountainside. I coughed and got a mouthful of dust and gravel and coughed again, and several more pebbles rained down on me so that I ended up on my belly with my arms folded around my head, just waiting for it to stop.

  “Dina. Are you all right?”

  Sezuan pulled me up with one hand and brushed dirt and gravel off me with the other. And wasn’t he the one who couldn’t abide filth? I thought in some confusion. Now he would get dirty himself, wouldn’t he?

  “Are you hurt?” he repeated, and did actually look both frightened and worried.

  “No,” I muttered. “I don’t think so. I think the cut on my shoulder is bleeding again, though.” I could feel a wet and sticky sensation by my shoulder blade.

  He peered up the mountainside.

  “Did you see what happened?” he asked. “Did you see anybody?”

  My attention suddenly sharpened.

  “What do you mean, anybody?” I said. “Did you see anybody?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not—not that I am sure of.”

  I suddenly remembered the man in the chestnut tree, and the noises by the dark barn.