Ann Leckie - Snake's Wife

I was out in the woods when the king of Therete and his son came to ask for my sister.

My hunting had been interrupted by a rainshower, and I sat under a tree on the hillside waiting for it to end when I heard horsemen on the road below. I rose, brushing away wet leaves, and quietly made my way forward so I could see. There were nearly a hundred of them, horses in brightly colored trappings, yellow and green and red, riders in gold-colored armor hunched over against the rain. I watched until they disappeared around the curve of the hill and then stood wondering whether I should stay out, and out of the way of whatever would happen when those horsemen reached the gates of the town, or whether I was curious enough to go home and see what they wanted.

A fresh spate of raindrops showered down and I looked up. Draped on a branch overhead lay a snake, brown and gold scaled, its coiled body as broad as my arm. It stared at me unblinking, head raised, tongue flickering. "Hail, Benefactor, generous and blessed," I murmured, because you never know with snakes. And this one shouldn't have been out in the cold rain.

"Son of Ysas," hissed the snake, confirming my suspicions. "Start for home."

"Why, generous one?" My father had certainly known those horsemen were on the way. If he had wanted me, he would have forbidden me to go out.

"Your questions will be answered," said the snake — the god Vosei. "Start for home."

I found my father in his hall — a long, timbered building floored with packed dirt, the carved beams of its bow-shaped ceiling stained with soot. The benches were empty for now, only a few torches lit, the fire all but embers. My father stood at the far end, my brothers before him. "Yrau!" he called, catching sight of me. He was dressed for hunting, in dark wool and leather, his sword at his side. "Come here, boy, you may as well hear this too." He raised a hand to wave me over. On his wrist was a cloth that even in the low firelight showed bloodstains — he had spoken with the god, and recently. "Sons. Iardui." That was my eldest brother. "I have had words with the god. The king of Therete has come to ask for your sister to be his son's wife."

I frowned, but it was Iardui who spoke. "He thinks to put his son over the Atevae, and so over the Vos Inei."

"He wants control of the timber trade," said Yrani, my other brother. We had plenty of timber, and Therete had very little. Much of what they used they bought from us.

"No," answered my father. "Better." He sat on the bench behind him. My brothers and I knew better than to sit ourselves. "He wants to end the curse on his line. And Artau Ehat, the lord of the sky and protector of Therete, has said to the king of Therete — or to his priests, since because of the curse the king himself isn't able to enter the god's presence — that the curse will be ended when the prince Atehatsqe marries your sister. And," he continued into our perplexed silence, "if he can get a better price for timber, so much the better."

I thought of the god speaking to me on the hillside. "The Generous One set that curse on Therete's line," I said, meaning the god Vosei. My father looked at me directly for the first time since I had come in, and smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes. I was afraid — I knew his temper.

"Indeed. If we don't allow it to be removed, that line will fail. And the Lord of the Sky will have spoken untruth." Words expressed a god's will, they were the focus of the god's power. To speak an untruth, even unwittingly, would bleed that power fruitlessly away.

I shivered, wishing I'd stopped to change into drier clothes. "We won't refuse," I said. We couldn't, not and survive the refusal for long.

"Where's the untruth?" asked Iardui, his voice doubtful. "If I say I will wear women's clothes when water runs uphill, I haven't said that water will run uphill."

My father frowned, displeased. "Don't be stupid, boy." I looked down, not wanting to meet my father's eyes if he should look my way.

"The lord of the sky has promised that the curse will be ended," ventured Yrani. "And he has said that the curse will be ended when the prince marries our sister. If he never marries our sister…" he trailed off.

"But," I said. Tentatively. I looked up.

My father was looking at me, his expression dangerously bland. "But?"

For a moment my voice failed me. "The Generous One will be gratified, and the Lord of the Sky injured, but what about us? How can we stand against Therete?" Those splendidly armed riders were only a fragment of Therete's military strength. "Surely the marriage would only benefit us."

"Benefit us, is it?" asked my father. I didn't answer — I would only make him angry if I did. "This is a dispute between Artau Ehat and Vosei. The Generous One has no intention of losing. And Vosei has said that if we refuse to allow the marriage my own son will sit enthroned in Therete."

"Alive?" asked Iardui after a moment's silence. A god's word was kept, unarguably, but they were notoriously literal about their promises.

"Alive," answered my father. "Does that suit you?"

"Yes."

"Then take your seats," said my father. We sat on benches beside his, and Iardui called to the guards outside. They threw the doors open and cousins and hangers-on who had been waiting outside crowded in. Slaves lit torches and the cousins took their seats amid noisy gossip.

I should have known what my father was planning. He was an ambitious man, and had turned his tribal headship into a position of wider influence through marriage, force of arms, and money from the timber trade. Foreign merchants called him king, which he wasn't, but he didn't object. It shouldn't have surprised me, what he was willing to risk for more power.

Likely there was nothing I could have done, even had I known. As it was I sat and watched the king of Therete come into the hall.

He was tall, dark-skinned and black-haired, wearing black and green and brilliant blue under a red cloak. Gold hung on his neck and wrists. He showed no outward sign of the curse. Prince Atehatsqe had come with him, a young man about my age, strongly resembling his father except that in him the curse was visible — along his neck and up his cheek scales glittered emerald in the firelight.

They entered with a dozen slaves carrying six carved wooden chests, and they didn't look to the right or the left as they came forward and bowed. "My brother," the king began in our language, heavily accented. "Ysas, king of Vos Inei, I greet you."

"My brother," said my father, smiling again that smile that went no further than his mouth. "I greet you."

The king of Therete's face was impassive. "My son and heir, the prince Atehatsqe, will have many wives but only one son. The mother of this son must of course be the best, the most beautiful, most suitable woman. We have heard that the daughter of Ysas is famed for her beauty and her sweetness."

"You haven't come here out of any respect for me," said my father, still smiling, "nor because my daughter is beautiful, but because you intend your son to get a child on her that is free of the curse."

The king said nothing. There was a tightness to his jaw that I didn't like.

"What you say about the curse is true," said the prince into the tense silence. "It doesn't change the fact of our respect, or your daughter's beauty."

My father laughed. "How many wives do you have, prince of Therete?"

"None."

"And your father?"

"Twenty-seven."

My father raised an eyebrow.

"She would be my queen," said the prince. "I swear it."

"And what profit for me?" asked my father.

The king of Therete made the smallest of gestures. The slaves came forward and set the chests before us, and threw the lids open. There in the torchlight gleamed gold and silver, rubies and pearls, sapphires and diamonds. "The betrothal gift," said the king. "For the wedding I am prepared to offer a great deal more."