Vonda McIntyre - Dreamsnake

Three hours passed slowly while the drug worked on Sand. Snake was lying fully clothed but barefoot, wide-awake, on the bed when Gabriel tapped on the door. Snake sat up, held Sand gently behind the head and let him wrap himself around her wrist and arm. and let Gabriel in.

The young man looked at Sand warily, fascinated enough to overcome an obvious trepidation.

“I won’t let him strike,” Snake said.

“I just wondered what they feel like.”

Snake extended her arm toward him, and he reached out to stroke Sand’s smooth patterned scales. He drew back his hand without comment.

Back in the mayor’s bedchamber, Brian, looking not so downcast, was content to have his master under his care once more. The mayor was a lachrymose drunk. Moaning almost tunefully, he wept as Snake approached him, fat tears sliding down his cheeks. The moans ceased when the mayor saw Snake. She stopped at the foot of his bed. He watched her fearfully.

“How much has he drunk?”

“As much as he will,” Gabriel said.

“It would be better if he were unconscious,” Snake said, taking pity on him.

“I’ve seen him drink till dawn with the council members but I’ve never seen him unconscious.”

The mayor squinted at them blearily. “No more brandy,” he said. “No more.” The words were forceful despite a slight slurring. “If I’m awake you can’t cut off my leg.”

“That’s quite true,” Snake said. “Stay awake, then.”

His gaze fastened on Sand, the rattler’s unblinking stare and flicking tongue, and he began to tremble. “Some other way,” he said. “There must be another way—”

“You are trying my patience,” Snake said. She knew she would lose her temper in another moment, or, worse, she would begin to cry for Jesse again. She could only remember how much she had wished to help her, while she could heal this man so easily.

The mayor lay back in his bed. Snake could feel him still trembling, but at least he was silent. Gabriel and Brian stood one on either side of him. Snake pulled the blankets loose from the foot of the bed and let them lie in a visual barricade across the mayor’s knees.

“I want to see,” he whispered.

His leg was purple and swollen. “You do not,” Snake said. “Brian, please open the windows.” The old servant hurried to obey, pulling aside the curtains, swinging glass panels open to the darkness outside. Cool fresh air drifted across the room.

“When Sand strikes you,” Snake said, “you’ll feel a sharp pain. Then the area around the bite will go numb. That will be just above the wound. The numbness will spread slowly, because your circulation is almost cut off. But when it spreads far enough I’ll drain the wound. After that the antitoxin will work more effectively.”

The mayor’s flushed cheeks paled. He did not say anything, but Brian put a glass to his lips and the mayor drank deeply. The flush returned.

Well, Snake thought, some people you should tell, some people you shouldn’t.

Snake tossed Brian a clean cloth. “Pour some of the brandy on this and lay it across his nose and mouth. You and Gabriel can do the same thing for yourselves if you want. This won’t be pleasant. And both of you drink — one good gulp each. Then hold his shoulders easily. Don’t let him sit up abruptly; he’ll frighten the rattler.”

“Yes, healer,” Brian said.

Snake cleaned the skin above the deep wound in the mayor’s calf.

Lucky not to have tetanus as well, she thought, remembering Ao and the other collectors. Healers came through Mountainside occasionally, though they had come more frequently in the past. Perhaps the mayor had been vaccinated, once he knew he would not have to see a serpent.

Snake unwrapped Sand from her arm and held him behind the bulge of his jaw, letting him flick his tongue against the discolored skin. He arranged himself into a thick coil on the bed. When Snake was satisfied with his position, she released his head.

He struck.

The mayor cried out.

Sand bit only once, and quickly, so fast he was back in his coil before an observer could be sure he had moved. But the mayor was sure. He had begun trembling violently again. Dark blood and pus oozed from the two small puncture wounds.

The rest of Snake’s work was smelly and messy but routine. She opened the wound and let it drain. Snake hoped Gabriel had not eaten much dinner, for he looked ready to lose it, even with the brandy-soaked cloth over his face. Brian stood stoically by his master’s shoulder, soothing him, keeping him still.

By the time Snake had finished, the swelling in the mayor’s leg was already considerably reduced. He would be well in a few weeks.

“Brian, come here, would you?”

The old man obeyed her hesitantly, but he relaxed when he saw what she had done. “It looks better,” he said. “Already better than when he last let me look at it.”

“Good. It will keep draining, so it’s got to be kept clean.” She showed him how to dress the wound and bandage it. He called a young servant to take away the soiled cloths, and soon the stench of infection and dying flesh had dissipated. Gabriel was sitting on the bed, sponging his father’s forehead. Sometime earlier the brandy-soaked cloth had slipped from his face to the floor, and he had not bothered to replace it. He no longer looked so pale.

Snake gathered Sand up and let him slide across her shoulders.

“If the wound hurts him badly, or his temperature rises again — if there’s any change that isn’t an improvement — come get me. Otherwise I’ll see him in the morning.”

“Thank you, healer,” Brian said.

Snake hesitated as she passed Gabriel, but he did not look up. His father lay very still, breathing heavily, asleep or nearly so.

Snake shrugged and left the mayor’s tower, returned to her room and put Sand in his compartment, then wandered downstairs until she found the kitchen. Another of the mayor’s ubiquitous and innumerable servants made her some supper, and she went to bed.

The mayor felt better in the morning. Brian had clearly been up all night beside him, yet he accepted his orders — not exactly cheerfully, for that was not Brian’s style, but without reservation or resentment.

“Will it leave a scar?” the mayor asked.

“Yes,” Snake said, surprised. “Of course. Several. I took out quite a lot of dead muscle, and it will never all fill back in. You probably won’t limp, though.”

“Brian, where’s my tea?” The tone of the mayor’s voice revealed his annoyance at Snake’s reply.

“It’s coming, sir.” The fragrance of spices drifted into the room. The mayor drank his tea alone, ignoring Snake while she rebandaged his leg.

When she left, scowling, Brian followed her to the hall outside.

“Healer, forgive him. He’s not used to illness. He expects things to go his way.”

“So I noticed.”

“I mean… he thinks of himself scarred… He feels betrayed by himself…” Brian spread his hands, unable to find the right words.

It was not that uncommon to find people who did not believe they could get sick; Snake was used to difficult patients who wanted to get back to normal too soon, despite the need for recuperation, and who became querulous when they could not.

“That doesn’t give him the right to treat people the way he does,” Snake said.

Brian looked at the floor. “He’s a good man, healer.”

Sorry she had let her anger — no, her annoyance and hurt pride — touch him, Snake spoke again, more gently.

“Are you bound here?”

“No! Oh, no, healer, I’m free. The mayor doesn’t allow bonding in Mountainside. Drivers who come with bondservants are sent out of the city, and their people can choose to go with them or give the city a year’s service. If they stay the mayor buys their papers from the driver.”