Dreamsnake (17 page)

Melissa laughed sharply. “My pay! Kids don’t get paid. Ras is my guardian. I
have to do what he says. I have to stay with him. That’s law.”

“It’s a terrible law. I know he hurts you—the law wouldn’t make you stay with
someone like him. Let me talk to the mayor, maybe he can fix it so you can do
what you want.”

“Mistress, no!” Melissa flung herself down at the side of the bed, kneeling,
clutching the sheets. “Who else would take me? Nobody! They’d leave me with him,
but they would’ve made me say bad things about him. And then he’ll just, he’ll
just be meaner. Please don’t change anything!”

Snake drew her from her knees and put her arms around her, but Melissa
huddled in on herself, pulling back from Snake’s embrace, then, suddenly,
flinching forward with a sharp gasp as Snake, releasing her, slid her hand
across the child’s shoulder blade.

“Melissa, what is it?”

“Nothing!”

Snake loosened Melissa’s shirttail and looked at her back. She had been
beaten with a piece of leather, or a switch: something that would hurt but not
draw blood, not prevent Melissa from working.

“How—” She stopped. “Oh, damn. Ras was angry at me, wasn’t he? I reprimanded
him and just got you into trouble, didn’t I?”

“Mistress Snake, when he wants to hit, he hits. He doesn’t plan it. It’s the
same whether it’s me or the horses.” She stepped back, glancing at the door.

“Don’t go. Stay here tonight. Tomorrow we can think of something to do.”

“No, please, mistress, it’s all right. Never mind. I’ve been here all my
life. I know how to get along. Don’t do anything. Please. I’ve got to go.”

“Wait—”

But Melissa slipped out of the room. The door closed behind her. By the time
Snake climbed out of bed and stumbled after her, she was halfway to the stairs.
Snake supported herself against the doorjamb, leaning out into the hall. “We
have to talk about this!” she called, but Melissa ran silently down the stairs
and vanished.

Snake limped back to her luxurious bed, got under her warm blankets, and
turned down the lamp, thinking of Melissa out in the dark, chilly night.
Awakening slowly, Snake lay very still, wishing she could sleep through the day
and have it over. She was so seldom sick that she had difficulty making herself
take it easy when she was ill. Considering the stern lectures she had given
Gabriel’s father, she would make quite a fool of herself if she did not follow
her own advice now. Snake sighed. She could work hard all day; she could make
long journeys on foot or on horseback, and she would be all right. But anger and
adrenalin and the violence of a fight combined against her.

Gathering herself, she moved slowly. She caught her breath and froze. The
ache in her right knee, where the arthritis was worst, turned sharp. Her knee
was swollen and stiff and she ached in all her joints. She was used to the
aches. But today, for the first time, the worst twinges had spread to her right
shoulder. She lay back. If she forced herself to travel today, she would be laid
up even longer soon, somewhere out on the desert. She could make herself ignore
pain when that was necessary, but it took a great deal of energy and had to be
paid for afterwards. Right now her body had no energy to spare.

She still could not remember where she had left her belt, nor, now that she
thought about it, why she had been looking for it during the night—Snake sat up
abruptly, remembering Melissa, and almost cried out. But guilt was as strong as
the protests of her body. She had to do something. Yet confronting Ras would not
help her young friend. Snake had seen that already. She did not know what she
could do. For the moment she did not even know if she could get herself into the
bathroom.

That much, at least, she managed. And her belt pouch was there as well,
neatly hung on a hook with her belt and knife. As far as she recalled she had
left all her things where they fell. She was slightly embarrassed, for she was
not ordinarily quite so untidy.

Her forehead was bruised and the long shallow cut thickly scabbed: nothing to
be done about that. Snake got her aspirin from the belt pouch, took a heavy
dose, and limped back to bed. Waiting for sleep she wondered how much more
frequent the arthritis attacks would get as she grew older. They were
inevitable, but it was not inevitable that she would have such a comfortable
place in which to recover.

The sun was high and scarlet beyond thin gray clouds when she woke again. Her
ears rang faintly from the aspirin. She bent her right knee tentatively and felt
relief when she found it more limber and less sore. The hesitant knock that had
awakened her came again.

“Come in.”

Gabriel opened the door and leaned inside.

“Snake, are you all right?”

“Yes, come on in.”

Gabriel entered as she sat up.

“I’m sorry if I woke you but I looked in a couple of times and you never even
moved.”

Snake pulled aside the bedclothes and showed him her knee. Much of the
swelling had gone down, but it was clearly not normal, and the bruises had
turned black and purple.

“Good lords,” Gabriel said.

“It’ll be better by morning,” Snake said. She moved over so he could sit
beside her. “Could be worse, I guess.”

“I sprained my knee once and it looked like a melon for a week. Tomorrow, you
say? Healers must heal fast.”

“I didn’t sprain it last night, I only bruised it. The swelling’s mostly
arthritis.”

“Arthritis! I thought you never get sick.”

“I never catch contagious diseases. Healers always get arthritis, unless we
get something worse.” She shrugged. “It’s because of the immunities I told you
about. Sometimes they go a little wrong and attack the same body that formed
them.” She saw no reason to describe the really serious diseases healers were
prone to. Gabriel offered to get her some breakfast and she found to her
surprise that she was hungry.

Snake spent the day taking hot baths and lying in bed, asleep from so much
aspirin. That was the effect it had on her, at least. Every so often Gabriel
came in and sat with her for a while, or Larril brought a tray, or Brian
reported on how the mayor was getting along. Gabriel’s father had not needed
Snake’s care since the night he had tried to get up; Brian was a much better
nurse than she.

She was anxious to leave, anxious to cross the valley and the next ridge of
mountains, anxious to get started on her trip to the city. Its potentialities
fascinated her. And she was anxious to leave the mayor’s castle. She was as
comfortable as she had ever been, even back home in the healers’ station. Yet
the residence was an unpleasant place in which to live: familiarity with it
brought a clearer perception of the emotional strains between the people. There
was too much building and not enough family; too much power and no protection
against it. The mayor kept his strengths to himself, without passing them on,
and Ras’s strength was misused. As much as Snake wanted to leave, she did not
know how she could without doing something for Melissa. Melissa
…

The mayor had a library, and Larril had brought Snake some of its books. She
tried to read. Ordinarily she would have absorbed several in a day, reading much
too fast, she knew, for proper appreciation. But this time she was bored and
restless and distracted and disturbed.

Midafternoon. Snake got up and limped to a chair by the window where she
could look out over the valley. Gabriel was not even here to talk to, for he had
gone to Mountainside to give out the description of the crazy. She hoped someone
would find the madman, and she hoped he could be helped. A long trip lay ahead
of her and she did not relish the thought of having to worry about her pursuer
the whole time. This season of the year she would find no caravans heading
toward the city; she would travel alone or not at all.

Grum’s invitation to stay the winter at her village was even more attractive
now. But the idea of spending half a year crippled in her profession, without
knowing whether she would ever be able to redeem herself, was unendurable. She
would go to the city, or she would return to the healers’ station and receive
her teachers’ judgment.

Grum. Perhaps Melissa could go to her, if Snake could free the child from
Mountainside. Grum was neither beautiful nor obsessed with physical beauty;
Melissa’s scars would not repel her.

But it would take days to send a message to Grum and receive an answer, for
her village lay far to the north. Snake had to admit to herself, too, that she
did not know Grum well enough to ask her to take on a responsibility like this
one. Snake sighed and combed her fingers through her hair, wishing the problem
would submerge in her subconscious and reemerge solved, like a dream. She stared
around the room as if something in it would tell her what to do.

The table by the window held a basket of fruit, a plate of cookies, cheese,
and a tray of small meat pies. The mayor’s staff was too generous in its
treatment of invalids; during the long day Snake had not even had the diversion
of waiting for and looking forward to meals. She had urged Gabriel, and Larril
and Brian and the other servants who had come to make the bed, polish the
windows, brush away the crumbs (she still had no idea how many people worked to
manage the residence and to serve Gabriel and his father; every time she learned
another name a new face would appear) to help themselves to the treats, but most
of the serving dishes were still almost full.

On impulse, Snake emptied the basket of all but the most succulent pieces of
fruit, then refilled it with cookies and cheese and meat pies wrapped in
napkins. She started to write a note, changed her mind, and drew a coiled
serpent on a bit of paper. She folded the slip in among the bundles and tucked a
napkin over everything, then rang the call-bell.

A young boy appeared—still another servant she had not encountered before—and
she asked him to take the basket to the stable and put it in the loft above
Squirrel’s stall. The boy was only thirteen or fourteen, lanky with rapid
growth, so she made him promise not to raid the basket. In turn she promised him
all he wanted of what remained on the table. He did not look underfed, but Snake
had never known a child undergoing a growth-spurt who was not always a little
bit hungry.

“Is that a satisfactory bargain?” she asked.

The boy grinned. His teeth were large and white and very slightly crooked; he
would be a handsome young man. Snake reflected that in Mountainside even
adolescents had clear complexions.

“Yes, mistress,” he said.

“Good. Be sure the stablemaster doesn’t see you. He can hunt up his own meals
as far as I’m concerned.”

“Yes, mistress!” The boy grinned again, took the basket, and left the room.
From his voice, Snake decided Melissa was not the only defenseless child to feel
Ras’s temper. But that was no help to Melissa. The servant boy was in no better
position to speak against Ras than Melissa was.

She wanted to talk to the child, but the day passed and Melissa did not
appear. Snake was afraid to send any more definite message than the one in the
basket; she did not want Melissa beaten again because of a stranger’s meddling.

It was already dark when Gabriel returned to the castle and came to Snake’s
room. He was preoccupied, but he had not forgotten his promise to replace
Snake’s ruined shirt.

“Nothing,” he said. “No one in desert robes. No one acting strangely.”

Snake tried on the shirt, which fit surprisingly well. The one she had bought
had been brown, a rough homespun weave. This one was of a much softer fabric,
silky thin strong white material block-printed with intricate blue designs.
Snake shrugged and held out her arms, brushing her fingertips over the rich
color. “He buys new clothes—he’s a different person. A room at an inn, and
nobody sees him. He probably isn’t any more unusual than any other stranger
passing through.“

“Most of the strangers came through weeks ago,” Gabriel said, then sighed.
“But you’re right. Even now he wouldn’t be remarked on.”

Snake gazed out the window. She could see a few lights, those of valley
farms, widely scattered.

“How’s your knee?”

“It’s all right now.” The swelling was gone and the ache had subsided to what
was normal during changeable weather. One thing she had liked about the black
desert, despite the heat, was the constancy of its weather. There she had never
awakened in the morning feeling like some infirm centenarian.

“That’s good,” Gabriel said, with a hopeful, questioning, tentative note in
his voice.

“Healers
do
heal fast,” Snake said. “When we have good reason to.”
She thrust aside her worries, grinned, and was rewarded with Gabriel’s radiant
smile.

This time the sound of the door opening did not frighten Snake. She awakened
easily and pushed herself up on her elbow.

“Melissa?” She turned the lamp up just enough for them to see each other, for
she did not want to disturb Gabriel.

“I got the basket,” Melissa said. “The things were good. Squirrel likes
cheese but Swift doesn’t.”

Snake laughed. “I’m glad you came up here. I wanted to talk.”

“Yeah.” Melissa let her breath out slowly. “Where would I go? If I could.”

“I don’t know if you can believe this, after all Ras has said. You could be a
jockey, if that’s what you want, almost anyplace but Mountainside. You might
have to work a little harder at first, but people would value you for who you
are and what you can do.” The words sounded hollow even to Snake: You fool, she
thought, you’re telling a frightened child to go out in the world and succeed
all alone. She searched for something better to say.

Lying beside her, one hand flung over her hip, Gabriel shifted and muttered.
Snake glanced over her shoulder and put her hand on his. “It’s all right,
Gabriel,” she said. “Go back to sleep.” He sighed and the instant of wakefulness
passed.