Riding the Serpent's Back (40 page)

Red walked at his master’s side, aware that they were approaching the summer house where he was to meet Estelle in less than an hour.

“I don’t see so much of you these days, Red,” said the Principal. “Are you avoiding me?”

Red shook his head. “Oh no,” he said. “I made a similar comment to Arvinder Ethran only yesterday.” Ethran was the lawyer in charge of much of Red’s translation work. “Mind you,” Red added. “I only said it to annoy him: Arvinder has always been jealous that you choose to spend more time with one of his assistants than you do with him. No, Pieter. I have been busy, and so have you.”

Ever since the treaty Totenang had received a constant stream of delegations from the dependent and allied provinces. Red had been involved in coordinating the visits, along with the important technical task of translating documents into their native tongues to ensure no ‘accidental’ ambiguities of meaning slipped into the drafts.

They came to the summer house and Red automatically hesitated. Pieter glanced at him, not breaking his stride.

“Aren’t the statues lovely?” said Red. “Or is there some other reason for this little digression?”

He watched Pieter staring at the ground just ahead of his feet. The strain of office rarely showed on the Principal, but it was always there, just below the surface.

“Perhaps we could rearrange the day’s schedule?” suggested Red. “Why not take me out on that tub of yours and forget everything for the morning?”

Pieter shook his head. “Young people...” he said. “You see everything so simply. No. I’m okay. It’s just—”

“Just?”

Pieter stopped and faced Red. “It’s Estelle,” he said. “When we were first married she seemed so...so fresh and young, so vivacious and enthusiastic about everything. She peeled the years away from me like petals from the bud of a rose.”

Red raised his hands and said, “Please: don’t go poetic on me so early in the day.”

Pieter suddenly seemed to Red like a lost child. There was a pleading look in his eyes. “She’s drifting,” he said. “I don’t want to lose her love so quickly.”

“Was she a virgin?” asked Red. “Yes? Was she perhaps like a child with a new toy?” He pointed at the Principal’s crotch, and said, “That? I bet she played with her new toy as much as she could at first, no? Yet now she is more accustomed to it – she knows what it can do, she knows how to get pleasure from it, she knows it’s not going to be taken from her – and you mistake her contentment for waning interest. Wasn’t it like this with your first two wives?”

“I suppose so,” said Pieter. “But it’s not just the sex, it’s...it’s that at times I don’t seem able to get through to her at all. She seems to have lost interest far too quickly. I know she didn’t marry me for love, but in the first days of our marriage I thought that I could win her. I thought that I
had
won her. Now I’m not so sure.”

“It sounds to me,” said Red, “as though your wife has done no more than accustom herself to a contented acceptance of married life with remarkable swiftness. Considering her somewhat parochial background, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

“Perhaps,” said Pieter. “Maybe I’m just too old to appreciate it any more.”

“You’re harsh on yourself,” said Red. “But if you like I could speak with her. Not directly about your concerns, of course: but I could see if there is anything worrying her. Perhaps she needs some form of reassurance – her life has been so dramatically transformed recently.”

Pieter clapped him on the back. “Do what you can,” he said. “Maybe she would be more at ease with someone closer to her own age. I would be indebted to you.”

They walked on in silence and a short time later they returned to the main path through the Garden of Statues. Here, Red stopped and said, “The air is good today. I think I’ll walk a little longer before it’s time for work.”

Pieter grinned at him. “Heavy time last night, eh? I remember what it was like to be a young man: so much to try, so many distractions.”

Red smiled and nodded. “A certain young lady,” he said. “Most demanding of me.” He decided not to add that the lady was the Principal’s wife.

He stood and watched as Pieter headed out of the Garden of Statues, then he turned and went back towards the summer house.

~

If he had felt no fear, then he should certainly have felt guilty yet it had all appeared so much of a game to him.

Although their relationship was complicated by their relative positions in the hierarchy, Red considered Pieter the closest thing he had to a real friend: they shared private jokes, they had been on trips together, they discussed their problems and their conquests. But sometimes he wondered how much of that was an illusion and that their relationship was not more a marriage of convenience between Red’s ambition and the Principal’s desire to retain a grip on the real world and on his vanished youth.

Yet whatever the reason for their bond, nothing had come between them until now. Red didn’t even love Estelle, and he doubted that she really loved him either:
love
was a word they used to lubricate their passion, no more. But what they did have was excitement and lust and Red knew he had gone far past the stage where he could give that up.

Three days after their conversation in the Garden of Statues, he had asked Pieter if things had improved.

“Huh?” said the Principal. “Oh, I see. I expect so. I’ve had a lot on my mind.” They were awaiting the arrival of a barge from Tule carrying the Embodied Government’s delegation for a conference to confirm the treaty between the sister cities.

The settlements seemed unfair to Red: Totenang was to pay tributary taxes to the True Church of the Embodiment on trade in the Little Hamadryad and was also to contribute heavily to the military reinforcement of the central regions of the Rift against incursions from the south. All the city received in return was a handful of places on various councils and senates, a few vaguely worded commitments to long-term cooperation and growth, and a promise to investigate cross-financing the railway line currently under construction between the two cities.

But it wasn’t his place to question. His only role at the conference was to provide translation for a Principal from Anajash, who was attending as an observer. Red’s main influence came in the evenings when he organised the entertainments for the Anajashi party and found himself deflecting apparently casual questions about the proceedings and Pieter’s thinking.

When the conference was over and the treaty signed, Red and a number of Pieter’s advisers were rewarded with a four day cruise in the Principal’s barge. He took Jess Compney with him, and for a short time was able to lose himself in the fantasy that they might settle down together. Jess was a widow, almost exactly the same age as Red. He preferred her to Hellia, in a casual sort of way. She was intelligent and funny and she seemed genuinely to like him. Perhaps they would manage an inn at one of the holiday resorts scattered around the shore of the lakes for the rich of Tule and Totenang. It was a pleasant fantasy.

When they returned to Totenang on the afternoon of his downfall, Red was met at the gates by one of Pieter’s personal guards. “The Principal wants to see you,” he said, taking Red aside. “Immediately. You’d better at least pretend to be sober by the time we get there.”

He took Red’s arm and led him into the depths of the palace, making it clear that Red had little choice in the matter.

~

The Principal was in his changing room, pacing about like a caged animal. When the door opened and Red stumbled into the room Pieter stopped and stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at him.

When they were alone he stepped towards Red and pushed him firmly in the chest so that he stumbled back against a mirrored wall.

“Pieter!” gasped Red. “Whatever is the matter?” If he hadn’t been sober before then his head was rapidly clearing now.

“You know,” said Pieter. “Just as everyone else in this fucking palace knows. Don’t treat me like a fool.”

Red shook his head, raising his hands to fend off any more blows. “I’m sorry but I really don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“My wife,” said Pieter. “She’s been having an affair.”

Red swallowed. “But...” He stopped, fearing the drink might have freed his tongue more than his brain. Trying again, he said, “What do you know?
How
do you know?”

Pieter turned away, then went to lean where he could stare out of the window over the gardens and the rooftops of his city. “I may be stupid,” he said. “But I worked it out for myself in the end: all her moods, the way she had distanced herself from me. Her little absences. She even threw herself down the stairs the other day, and I’m sure it was only an excuse for her to avoid me and sleep in her own bed while she recovered from the ‘fragility’ as she called it.”

“Who is he? Someone from Harrat, perhaps?” It was madness: he even found
himself
considering the possibility of some abandoned, lovesick boyfriend following her to Totenang to resume an old affair.

Pieter shook his head. “I don’t know who it is,” he said.

“How long have you known about it?”

“I suspected for some time,” said the Principal. “But my suspicions were only confirmed this morning when I found this.” He held out a fold of paper for Red to see.

Red took it and opened it.
To my only dear love
, he read.
At last! I will have you again tonight! Be ready for me. Until your key finds the lock to my heart, E.
At least she had not written it in Avernan, as she often did – that would have narrowed it down to about six suspects, of which Red was the only one still with his own teeth and control of his bladder.

He gave the note back to Pieter. “I suppose there’s room for interpretation,” he said, tentatively. “I knew a girl once who wrote the most disgustingly depraved letters. It took me ages to get her to admit that she was actually writing them to herself, pretending they were from me!”

Pieter looked at him. “You believed her?” he said.

“I did,” said Red. “I was wrong of course – she went off with a farm labourer the next month – but it does suggest possibilities...”

“Such as?”

“Perhaps it was a plea for you to be more romantic towards her,” Red suggested, struggling desperately for ideas. “Have you tried sending her notes and unexpected presents, perhaps? She’s still only a girl: maybe she was pretending you had sent her the note.”

Then, suddenly, Red recalled something Estelle had once told him. “Could the note have been intended for you?” he asked. “Has she ever done anything like that?” She had written a note for the Principal once before, when he had been forced to spend the night away in Laisan. She had been cross because he hadn’t even thanked her for her thought when he got back and she had never tried again.

Red saw that Pieter must have remembered this. “Well has she?” he prompted.

Pieter nodded. “Once,” he said. “But why now? I haven’t even been away.”

“But you have been very busy,” said Red. “Perhaps all she wants is a bit more of your attention? Have you asked her about the note?”

Pieter put an arm across Red’s shoulders to guide him out of the room. “Oh I’m going to,” he said. “And I’m going to make sure she answers truthfully.”

~

One of the guest suites had been set aside for Estelle’s interrogation. Red followed Pieter into the room, past two guards. He knew it well: before the cruise he had entertained the Anajashi Principal in this suite.

The reception room was occupied by a single woman, perched on the edge of a deep sofa. She was short and plain, a hank of blonde hair woven up into a twist behind her head. Thirtyish, carrying a little extra weight...Red stopped himself assessing her. There were far more serious considerations at present. He was going to die, after all.

Pieter nodded at the woman. She stared past him, refusing to acknowledge his presence.

She was wearing the plain white smock of a votary in the True Church of the Embodiment, but Red could tell from her bearing that it was a long time since she had belonged to that junior rank.

“This is Ixima Trine,” Pieter told Red. “She is one of the True Church’s Investigators and she has kindly consented to help me in my current domestic dilemma.”

Red nodded, his suspicions confirmed. “What is Madam Trine’s role to be?” he asked.

“I will verify the truth of what is said in this room,” she said, in a scratchy voice. When she spoke her eyes twitched impatiently, but when she was silent they barely moved at all.

“That is the Talent she embodies,” said Pieter deferentially. “And I am happy that she has agreed to be with us.”

Her eyes swivelled to fix on the Principal, then flitted about his face as she said, “Happiness is not what you feel. You are scared of what I will divine. But I must apologise: I am showing off. It is easy for one such as myself to slide into pedantry. Please be assured that I will only verify that which you have requested. Can we begin? I must return to my duties in a short time.”

Red felt a strange rush of emotions. Amused that Pieter could be so casually contradicted and exposed. Fearful of the Talent the Investigator displayed. A sudden desolation that it would soon all be over. He was surprised to realise that he was not afraid to die.

“What will happen as a result of this?” he asked, seeking confirmation. “What if all your suspicions are true?”

Pieter looked away. “I will have her killed,” he said. “Her lover, too.”

Red glanced at Ixima. She was watching Pieter, but gave no indication of how true were his words. “Do we start?” she asked. When the Principal nodded, she turned her head aside and called, “Please. We are ready.”

A door opened from one of the bedrooms, and first a maid and then Estelle entered the main room of the suite.

Her hands were balled up at her sides, fingers curling and uncurling like hatchling snakes. She had been crying and as she came into the room she was chewing her lower lip. Overall, she had a kind of patched-up look, as she struggled to conceal her distress.

Red tried desperately to think of a way out. A confession? Could he direct Pieter’s venom at Red alone, and hope that Estelle might be spared? Some kind of diversion, so that they might flee? He stopped himself, knowing that panic could be his worst enemy.