Vonda McIntyre - Dreamsnake

“Come in.”

A stunningly lovely young servant entered hesitantly, and light from the corridor spilled over the bed.

“Healer, the mayor—” She gasped and stood staring at Gabriel, the blood on her hands forgotten. “The mayor…”

“I’ll be right there.” Snake got up, slipped into her new pants and the stiff new shirt, and followed the young woman to the mayor’s suite.

Blood from the opened wound soaked the bedding, but Brian had done the proper emergency things: the bleeding had nearly stopped. The mayor was ghastly pale, and his hands trembled.

“If you didn’t look so sick,” Snake said, “I’d give you the tongue-lashing you deserve.” She busied herself with the bandages. “You’re blessed with a superb nurse,” she said when Brian returned with fresh sheets and was easily within hearing. “I hope you pay him what he’s worth.”

“I thought…”

“Think all you like,” Snake said. “An admirable occupation. But don’t try to stand up again.”

“All right,” he muttered, and Snake took it as a promise.

She decided she did not need to help change the sheets. When it was necessary, or when it was for people she liked, she did not mind giving menial services. But sometimes she could be inordinately prideful. She knew she had been unforgivably short with the mayor, but she could not help it.

The young servant was taller than Snake, easily stronger than Brian; Snake expected she could handle her share of lifting the mayor and most of Brian’s as well. But she watched with a distressed expression as Snake left the room to go back to bed and padded barefoot down the hallway.

“Mistress — ?”

Snake turned. The young servant glanced around as if afraid someone might see them together.

“What’s your name?”

“Larril.”

“Larril, my name is Snake, and I hate being called ‘mistress.’ All right?”

Larril nodded but did not use Snake’s name.

Snake sighed to herself. “What’s the matter?”

“Healer… in your room I saw… a servant should not see some things. I don’t want to shame any member of this family.” Her voice was shrill and strained. “But… but Gabriel — he is—” Her words caught in confusion and shame. “If I asked Brian what to do he would have to tell his master. That would be… unpleasant. But you mustn’t be hurt. I never thought the mayor’s son would—”

“Larril,” Snake said, “Larril, it’s all right. He told me everything. The responsibility is mine.”

“You know the — the danger?”

“He told me everything,” she said again. “There’s no danger to me.”

“You’ve done a kind thing,” Larril said abruptly.

“Nonsense. I wanted him. And I have a good deal more experience at control than a twelve year old. Or an eighteen year old, for that matter.”

Larril avoided her gaze. “So do I,” she said. “And I’ve felt so sorry for him. But I — I was afraid. He is so beautiful, one might think of… one might lapse, without meaning to. I couldn’t take the chance. I still have another six months before my life is mine again.”

“You were bonded?”

Larril nodded, “I was born in Mountainside. My parents sold me. Before the mayor’s new laws, they were allowed to do that.” The tension in her voice belied her matter-of-fact words. “It was a long time before I heard the rumors that bonding had been forbidden here, but when I did, I escaped and came back.” She looked up, almost crying. “I didn’t break my word—” She straightened and spoke more confidently. “I was a child, and I had no choice in the bonding. I owed no driver my loyalty. But the city bought my papers. I do owe loyalty to the mayor.”

Snake realized how much courage it had taken Larril to speak as she had. “Thank you,” Snake said. “For telling me about Gabriel. None of this will go any farther. I’m in your debt.”

“Oh, no, healer, I did not mean—”

There was something in Larril’s voice, a sudden shame, that Snake found disturbing. She wondered if Larril thought her own motives in speaking to Snake were suspect.

“I did mean it,” Snake said again. “Is there some way I can help you?”

Larril shook her head, once, quickly, a gesture of denial that said no to her more than to Snake. “No one can help me, I think.”

“Tell me.”

Larril hesitated, then sat on the floor and angrily jerked up the cuff of her pants.

Snake sat on her heels beside her.

“Oh, my gods,” Snake said.

Larril’s heel had been pierced, between the bone and the Achilles tendon. It looked to Snake as if someone had used a hot iron on her. The scar accommodated a small ring of a gray, crystalline material. Snake took Larril’s foot in one hand and touched the ring. It showed no visible joining.

Snake frowned. “This was nothing but cruelty.”

“If you disobey them they have the right to mark you,” Larril said. “I’d tried to escape before and they said they had to make me remember my place.” Anger overcame the quietness of her voice. Snake shivered.

“Those will always bind me,” Larril said. “If it was just the scars I wouldn’t mind so much.” She withdrew her foot from Snake’s hands. “You’ve seen the domes in the mountains? That’s what the rings are made of.”

Snake glanced at her other heel, also scarred, also ringed. Now she recognized the gray, translucent substance. But she had never before seen it made into anything except the domes, which lay mysterious and inviolable in unexpected places.

“The smith tried to cut that one,” Larril said. “When he didn’t even mark it he was so embarrassed he broke an iron rod with one blow, just to prove he could.” She touched the fine tough strand of her tendon, trapped within the delicate ring. “Once the crystal hardens it’s there forever. Like the domes. Unless you cut the tendon, and then you’re lame. Sometimes I think I could almost stand that.” She jerked the cuff of her pants down to cover the ring. “As you see, no one can help. It’s vanity, I know it. Soon I will be free no matter what those things say.”

“I can’t help you here,” Snake said. “And it would be dangerous.”

“You mean you could do it?”

“It could be done, it could be tried, at the healers’ station.”

“Oh, healer—”

“Larril, there would be a risk.” On her own ankle she showed what would have to be done. “We wouldn’t cut the tendon, we’d detach it. Then the ring could come off. But you’d be in a cast for quite a while. And there’s no certainty that the tendons would heal properly, your legs might never be as strong as they are now. The tendons might not even re-attach at all.”

“I see…” Larril said, with hope and joy in her voice, perhaps not really hearing Snake at all.

“Will you promise me one thing?”

“Yes, healer, of course.”

“Don’t decide what to do yet. Don’t decide right after your service to Mountainside is over. Wait a few months. Be certain. Once you’re free you might decide it doesn’t matter to you any more.”

Larril glanced up quizzically and Snake knew she would have asked how the healer would feel in her position, but thought the question insolent.

“Will you promise?”

“Yes, healer., I promise.”

They stood up.

“Well, good night,” Snake said.

“Good night, healer.”

Snake started down the corridor.

“Healer?”

“Yes?”

Larril flung her arms around Snake and hugged her. “Thank you!” Embarrassed, she withdrew. They both turned to go their ways, but Snake glanced back.

“Larril, where do the drivers get the rings? I never heard of anyone who could work the dome material.”