Serpent's Reach (2 page)

Ruil-sept of the Meth-marens, with Hald beside them. Raen stopped dead. So did others. The welcome lost all its warmth. Save under friendly Thon colours, neither Ruil nor Hald would have dared set foot here.

But after some delay, her kinsmen stepped aside and let them pass the gates. The aircraft disgorged more, Thon and Yalt, but there were now no welcomes at all; and something else they produced—a score of azi, sunsuited and visored and anonymous.

Armed azi. Raen stared at them in disbelief, nervously skirting round the area of the landing; she sought the gates with several backward glances, angry to the depth of her small experience of Ruil, the Meth-marens’ left-hand line. Ruil had come for trouble; and the guard-azi were Ruil’s arrogant show, she was sure of it. Then would have no reason.

She put on a certain arrogance as she walked in the gates. Sul-sept azi closed them securely after her, leaving the intruder-azi outside in the heat. She wished sunstroke on them, and sullenly made her way into the House, the whole day spoiled.

It was a lasting strangeness to see Ruil-sept’s black among the white-bordered Sul cloaks—and as much so to see Hald red-and-black; and incredible to find them admitted to the dining hall, where House councils and dinners took place simultaneously.

Raen sat next her mother and found security in her—Morel, her mother, who had gotten her of an Ilit who himself was bloodkin to Thon; she wondered if any of these present were distant relatives. If it were so, her mother, who would know, said nothing, and deepstudy had given her no clues.

Grandfather headed the table…more than grandfather, but that was shortest, eldest of Meth-marens,
the
Meth-maren, who was grey-haired and bent with the decades that he had lived, five hundred passes of Cerdin about its suns eldest of all Sul-sept, of Ruil too, so that they had to respect him. Raen regarded him with awe, seldom now as he came out of his seclusion in west-wing, rarely to venture into domestic concerns, more often to Council down at Alpha, where he wielded the power of a considerable bloc of votes. Meth-marens, unlike other Houses whose members were scattered from world to world across the Reach, stayed close to home, to Kethiuy. Of the twenty-seven Houses and fifty-eight septs within those Houses that composed the Family, Meth-maren Sul was the only one whose duties rarely took him elsewhere, away from Cerdin and the hives. The Family’s post was here, between the hives and Men, while Meth-maren Ruil hovered about the area of Alpha and guested where they could, Houseless since the split.

Hald remembered that day, that Meth-maren and Meth-maren had fought. Hald had bled for it, sheltering Red assassins; and it was a powerful persuasion that brought Halds and both septs of Meth-maren again under the same roof.

It had taken all the influence of Thon and Yalt together to persuade Grandfather to accept this gathering, Halds and the divided Meth-marens at the same dinner table, carefully separated by Thong and Yalts. It needed a certain bravado on the part of Halds and Ruils to eat and drink what Sul gave them.

Raen herself felt her stomach unsettled, and she declined when the serving-azi brought the neat elaborate dish “Coffee,” she said, and the azi Mev whispered the order at once to one of his fellows: it arrived instantly, for she was eldest’s great-granddaughter’s daughter in direct descent, and there was in the House a hierarchy of inheritance. She was to a certain extent pampered, and to another, burdened, for the sake of that birthright It mandated her presence at table tonight in the fast place, and made it necessary to mix with her elders, most of whom had resentment for the fact. She tried to bear herself with her mother’s studied disdain for the proceedings, but there was a Ruil across the table, cousin Bron, and she avoided his eyes when possible: they were hot and insolent.

“We hope for a reconciliation,” the Thon elder was saying, at the other end of the table. He had risen, to begin what he had come to say. “Meth-maren, will you let Ruil speak here? Or would you prefer intermediaries still?”

“You’re going to say,” Grandfather intoned in his reedy voice, “that we should take in this left-hand branch of ours. It diverged of its own accord. It’s not welcome in Kethiuy. It’s trouble to us, and the hives avoid it. Ruil-sept alienated them, and that wasn’t our doing. This is hive territory. Those who can’t live under those terms can’t live here.”

“Our talents,” said Tel Ruil Meth-maren, “lie with other hives, the ones Sul can’t manage.”

“Reds and golds.” Grandfather’s chin wobbled with his anger. “You deceive yourself, Tel a Ruil. They’ve no love of humankind, least of all of Ruil. I know you’ve had red contacts. It’s rumoured. I know what you’re up to and why you’ve gone to the trouble of drawing non and Yalt into this. Your plans to build on Kethiuy take are unacceptable.”

“You’re head of House,” Tel said. He had an unfortunate voice, nasal and whining. “You ought to be impartial to sept, eldest. But you carry on feuds from before any of the rest of us were born. Maybe Sul sept feels some jealousy—that Ruil can handle the two hives Sul can’t touch. They’ve come to us, not we to them. They preferred us. Thon saw; non will witness it. All within the pact. Red-hive has promised us its co-operation if we can secure that holding near its lands, on the lake. We’ve come
asking,
eldest. That’s all. Asking.”

“We support the request,” the Thon said.

“Yalt agrees,” said the other eldest. “It’s good sense, Meth-maren, to end this quarrel, and to get some good out of it.”

“And does Hald ask the same?”

There was silence. Raen sat still, her heart pounding.

The Hald eldest rose. “We have a certain involvement here, Meth-maren. The old feud has gone on beyond its usefulness. If it’s settled now, then we have to be involved, or the Meth-marens will have peace and we’ll have none. We’re walling to forget the past. Understand that.”

“You’re here to stand up with Ruil.”

“Obligation, Meth-maren.”

They did not say friendship. Raen herself did not miss that implication, and there was a space of silence while Run glowered.

“We have opportunities,” the Hald said further, “that ought not to be neglected.”

“At least talk on the matter,” said Yalt. “We ask you to do that.”

“No,” some of the House muttered. But Eldest did not refuse. His old eyes wandered over them all, and finally he nodded.

Raen’s mother swore softly. “Leave,” she said to Raen. And when Raen looked at her in offense: “Go on.”

Others, even adult and senior, were being dismissed from what was becoming elder council. There was no objection possible. She kissed her mother’s cheek, pressed her hand, and sullenly made her retreat among the others, younger folk under thirty and third and fourth-rank elders, inconsiderable in council.

There was a muttering gathering in the hall just outside, her cousins no happier than she with what was toward.

 
No peace
, she heard.
Not with Ruil
.

And:
Reds and golds
, she beard, reminding her of the hillside and the meeting which had diverted her. She had told no one of that. She was too arrogant to contribute that meaningless fragment to the general turmoil in the hall. She skirted the vicinities of her chattering cousins, male and female, and brushed off the attentions of an azi, walked the corridor in a fit of irritation—both at being cast out and at reckoning what Ruil-sept proposed. Kethiuy lake belonged to Sul-sept, beautiful and pristine. Sul had cared to keep the shores as they were, had laboured to make the boat-launches as inconspicuous as possible, to keep all evidence of man out of view. Ruil wanted a site which would obtrude into their sight, to plant themselves right where Sul must constantly look at them and reckon with them. This business of reds and golds: this was surely something Ruil had concocted to obtain backing from other Houses. There was no possibility that they could do what they claimed, interceding with the wild hives.

Lies. Outright lies.

She shrugged past the azi at the door and sought the cool, clean sir of the porch. She filled her lungs with it, looking out into the dark where the candletrees framed Kethiuy lake; and the ugly aircraft sat in her view, gleaming with lights.

Armed azi, as if this were some frontier holding. She was indignant at their presence, and no little uneasy by reason of it.

A step sounded by her. She saw three men, the one nearest in Hald’s dark Colour. She froze, recalling herself unarmed, having come from the table. Childish pride held her from the flight prudence dictated.

It was a tall man who faced her. She stared up at him with her back to the door and the light from the slit windows giving her a better look at him: mid-thirties, beta-reckoning; on a Kontrin, that could be anywhere between thirty and three hundred. The face was gaunt and grim: Pal Hald, she recognised him suddenly, with the
déjà vu
of deepstudy. The two with him, she did not know.

And Pol was trouble. He had lost kin to Meth-marens. Tie was also reputed frivolous, a libertine, a jester, a player of pranks. She could not connect that report with that gaunt face until quite suddenly he grinned at her and shed half a dozen apparent years.

“Good evening, little Meth-maren.”

“Good evening yourself, Pol Hald.”

“What, could I know your name?”

She lifted her head a degree higher. “I’m not in your studytapes
yet
, ser Hald. My name is Raen.”

“Tand and Morn,” he said with a shrug at the kinsmen at his back, the one young and boyish, the other lean-faced and much like himself, like enough for full kin. Isis grin did not fade. He reached out with complete affrontery and touch her under the chin. “Raen. I’ll remember that.”

She took a step backward, feeling a rush of blood to her face. She had no experience to deal with such a move, and the embarrassment became rage. “And who sent you out here, Skulking round the windows?”

“We’re set to watch the aircraft, little Meth-maren. To be sure Meth-maren hospitality is what it should be.”

She did not like the sound of that, and turned abruptly, seized the door handle, afraid for the instant that they would stop her; but they made no move to do so, and she delayed to glower resentment at them, determined to make it clear she was not being chased off her own doorstep. “I seem to have left my gun inside,” she said. “I usually carry it for pests.”

Pol’s gaunt face went serious then, quite, quite sober.

“Good evening, Meth-maren,” he said.

She opened the door and went in, into the safe light, among her own kin.

There was the drone of an engine toward dawn. Aircraft taking off, Raen thought, turning in her bed and burrowing into the pillows. The talk down in the dining hall had gone on and on, sometimes loudly enough to be heard outside the doors, generally not. The gathering in the hall outside had drifted off at last toward duties or pleasures: there was a certain lack of law in the House, younger men and lesser elders piqued by their exclusion, seeking to make clear their displeasure. A few became drunk. A few turned to bizarre amusements, and the azi maid who had bedded herself down in Raen’s room had fled here in panic.

Lia had taken her in, Lia her own azi, a female nearing her fatal fortieth year. Raen blinked and looked at Lia, who had fallen asleep in a chair by the door, while the fugitive maid had curled up on a pallet in the corner…dear old Lia was upset by the commotion in the House, and had surely taken that uncomfortable post out of worry for her security.

Love. That was Lia, whose ample arms had sheltered her all her fifteen years. Her mother was authority, was beauty, was affection and safety, but Lia was love, lab-bred for motherhood, sterile though azi were.

And she could not slip past such a guard. She tried to rise and dress in silence enough, but Lia wakened and began to fuss over her, choosing her clothes with care, wakening the sleeping maid to draw a bath and make the bed, supervising every detail. Raen bore this, for impatient as she was to learn how things stood downstairs, she had infinite patience with Lia, who could be hurt by refusal. Lia was thirty-nine. There remained only this last year, before whatever defect was bred into her, killed her. Raen knew this with great regret, though she was not sure that Lia knew her own age. She would on no account make a day of Lia’s life unhappy; and on no account would she let Lia know the reason of her attitude.

It’s part of growing up,
her mother had told her.
The price of Immortality. Azi and betas come and go, the azi quickest of all. We all love them when we’re young. When one loses one’s nurse, one begins to learn what we are, and what they are; and that’s a valuable lesson, Raen. Learn to enjoy, and to say goodbye.

Lia offered her the cloak of Colour, and she decided it was proper to wear it; she fastened it and let Lia adjust it, then walked to the window, where the first light of dawn showed the landing.

One aircraft still remained. It was not over.

She went out into the corridor and down, past the council room where a few of her elder cousins and relations lounged disconsolately. They were not in the mood to brief a fifteen year old, be she heir-line or not; she sensed that and listened, heard voices still talking inside.

She shook her head in disgust and walked on, thinking of breakfast, though she rarely ate that meal. Lessons, at least, were still suspended, but she would have traded a week of holidays to have Ruff and their friends out of Sal’s vicinity. She recalled the three Halds and wondered whether they were still occupying the porch.

They were not. She stood on the porch with her hands on her hips and breathed deeply. The area was clear and the azi were heading out to fields as they did every morning. A golden light touched the candletrees and the hedges at this most beautiful hour, before alpha Hydri showed its true face and scorched the heavens.

There was only the single aircraft befouling the landscape.

And then she saw movement at the corner of the house.

An azi, sunsuited at this hour.

“What are you doing there?” she shouted at him. And then she saw shadows skittering in a living wave across the lawn, tall, stiltlike forms moving with eye-blurring speed.