“You ran in here like a kalinx to defend me, Number Nine. Suppose you’d found me in the grip of four well-armed men? Or did you merely think I was in a Zastis dream?”
Rem said nothing.
“I think I can trust you,” said Kesarh. “Of course, I’ll have you killed if I find I can’t. And I would find out, my Rem.”
“I’m sure you would, my lord.”
“However this happened, this gambit with the snake, someone was at the root of it. Someone—maybe Suthamun himself.”
“Or an heir, jealous of your sudden fame. His brothers. Prince Jornil.”
“That’s astute. But then, I should have died in battle with the pirates, shouldn’t I? This was a provision if I did not.”
“You sent no victory messenger to Istris,” Rem said.
“Quite. I may send one now. News of my victory, and my . . . nearness to death from snake-bite. I mean to take refuge from any further hopeful assassins. A very safe refuge, but a place where I’ll be allowed one companion only, and where besides I’ll need some sincerity—Ever milked snake-poison, Rem?”
“No, my lord.”
“You are about to. That thing over there is indeed venomous, but dead. Safe, unless your hands are open anywhere.”
“No, sir.”
“Then I’ll direct you. Use your knife.” As Rem went by him, the Prince lounged back on the bed. He indicated the beer-wine jug. “Drink, if you want.”
Rem drank.
“A beaten child,” said Kesarh, his eyes shut, “continually tries to placate and to earn the favor and affection of its harsh parent. Is that what you would do?”
“I’m older than you, my lord. Almost two years, I think.” Rem bent over the snake and forced wide the jaws as directed. “And where is your lordship’s refuge to be?” Rem inquired.
The dark voice was barely audible from the bed.
“Ankabek of the goddess.”
The departure was circumspect. Only after they were gone was Tjis to discover what had occurred. No doubt unsavory rumor would take up the tale. A prince, Vis in appearance, all at once a hero, all at once in danger of his life. The idea of treachery would be but too apparent.
The guardian, privy to calamity, had already muttered a phrase or two most unguardedly indicative of such suspicions.
The ship was a lightweight skimmer with a discreet sail, perfumed strongly by fish. Four Tjisine rowers had been taken on. The guard sergeant of the Prince Am Xai’s men, and one soldier, had gone aboard with him. It had been done at first light. The Prince could not walk and had had to be carried to the ship. It alarmed the guardian to see Am Xai so sick. Having seen the corpse of the snake, the guardian was fairly certain his recent savior would not live, despite the healing skills of Anack’s priests.
The ship put off around the headland, and disappeared.
She ran well, taking all the early breeze, the rowers fierce at their oars. They had been given gold, and besides owed him something, the man now a tossing shadow under the sketch of awning.
The morning went by with strips of heat-wavering coast to port and flashes of sun on the oar-smashed water. Later, as they turned more northerly, hints of Dorthar’s edges grew visible, far off and blue as sapphire, more pastel than the sea. A current drove in across the straits hereabouts, sucked toward the smaller island. They chased it and bore on.
The Tjisine ship beached at the landing place of holy Ankabek not long before sunset, at the same spot, and almost the same hour, that the temple barge had brought Val Nardia.
They, however, were not looked for.
As the rowers hung exhausted over their oars, a group of men came from the stony village on the slope. There was a short discussion, and one man boarded to look down on the lord under the awning.
Then the men went away, and Kesarh cursed them in two or three vicious phrases. Nevertheless, before the sun quite met the sea, they were back with a stretcher of matting between poles. The temple would receive the invalid. The rest might sojourn on the beach till morning. They must then return to Karmiss.
Kesarh, his light-skinned face the color of the bone beneath, eyes bruised, skin polished by sweat, his hair and garments drenched with it, began to rave and cry out: His life was threatened—he must keep someone by him.
Seeing the state he was in, not wishing to tax him further, the porters accepted that Rem should also go with them.
There was not much to be seen in the afterglow, red sky, red leaves on the tall trees. Then night fell. Finally the coal-black temple stood up on the coppery air above. Turning aside, the men with the stretcher took a subsidiary path that ended among a group of buildings. Lights were burning in this area, while the temple loomed lightless and soulless at the head of the incline, removed in every way.
The stretcher was carried into a cell with cream-washed walls. Kesarh, lifted from the matting to the pallet-bed, seemed to be unconscious.
“Someone will come to you.”
The men filed out and vanished again into the descending groves of trees.
Rem looked over at the bed and Kesarh grinned at him. The cell was lit by a wick floating in oil. This, and the illness, far milder than it seemed, lent to the Prince’s feverish face a glaze of pure evil.
A minute or so after, a priest came across the clearing between the buildings, and passed into the cell.
Rem had heard of the priests and priestesses of Ankabek. They modeled themselves, apparently, upon the Lowland religious of the Shadowless Plains. If to be a black ghost was the intention, then they had done well.
The hooded figure bent over Kesarh.
“Who are you?” said Kesarh, clearly. “Are you my death?”
“Your death is not here,” said the priest.
Rem’s spine crawled.
The priest asked no questions, but touched Kesarh gently at the forehead, throat and groin. Kesarh thrust the hands away. They were pale hands, paler than his own.
“The poison of the snake has almost left you,” said the priest. “I shall have medicines prepared. Rest. You will be well.”
“No,” said Kesarh, with a desperate breathless rage, “I’m dying. Don’t you think I know?”
“Life is sacred. You will be tended.”
“Too late.”
The priest drew back.
Kesarh said in a loud distinct whispering, “My sister is here. The only kindred I have. My sister, the Princess Val Nardia, from the court at Istris.”
“Yes,” said the priest.
“I must see her,” said Kesarh. “Talk with her, before I die.”
The skin twitched once more across Rem’s shoulderblades. Discomforted, he moved nearer to the doorway, farther from Kesarh.
The priest had not answered.
Kesarh cried out: “Will you deny me? Tell her I’m here, and why. Dying. Tell her, do you hear?” The ache of the poison in his veins seemed to turn to knives and awls. He fell back, clawing the mattress, his eyes blind.
On his left forearm the puncture wounds of the serpent’s fangs, discolored and open, showed violently in the yellow light.
When almost every drop of venom had been forced from the sacs of the snake, Kesarh had dragged it off the floor and slammed the points of the teeth through into his flesh. There was enough slaverous filth on them by then to do the work he wanted. No longer enough to do more than that. He had needed, as he said, some sincerity, to earn the protection of the sacred island. The pain at least was doubtless real, as the fever was. A small sacrifice for his plan. But now there seemed to be also some second plan, tangled with the first.
Rem leaned in the doorway. The scene beyond the cell was impartial and nothing to do with them. The night was very fragrant from the trees. White stars were netted among the boughs. The red Star smoked.