Lisa Smedman - Viper's Kiss

Karrell lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it then rose to her feet. “I will find a servant,” she said. “Someone who can bring us food.”

Arvin nodded and watched her leave. Then he stripped off his shirt and pants, preparing himself for his meditations. He lowered himself to the floor and assumed the bhujanga asana. The stone tiles were cold against his bare legs and palms; the sensation helped him ignore his aches and pains, helped him focus.

Toward the end of his meditations, he heard hurried footsteps in the corridor outside the chapel. He rose to his feet as a soldier strode into the room. The soldier was one of those who had been standing vigil outside Glisena’s chamber earlier—a man with short black hair and eyes as gray as steel. His eyes were wide and worried.

“The baron demands your presence,” he announced. “At once.”

Arvin looked around. “Where is Karrell? Have you seen her? She—”

“There is no time,” the soldier said, gesturing impatiently. “High Watcher Davinu needs you.”

Arvin nodded as he pulled on his shirt and pants. He told himself not to worry—Karrell was probably eating in the kitchen or somewhere else in the palace. She wouldn’t abandon him a second time. Not after he’d promised to help her. He’d find her later, after the clerics had dealt with the demon.

As he followed the soldier from the room, he wondered what it would be like to listen in on a demon’s thoughts as it was being born.

He shuddered. He was certain the experience wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.

As Arvin strode along behind the soldier, he glanced this way and that, looking for Karrell. He didn’t think she’d desert him a second time, especially after he’d at last convinced her how dangerous Zelia was, but a lingering worry still nagged at him.

They passed the practice hall where servants were busy oiling and cleaning the equipment, and several rooms in which still more servants cleaned fireplaces, swept the floors, and dusted furniture. Arvin was amazed to see life at the palace apparently carrying on as if nothing untoward was happening. Only the clerics, it seemed, knew of the life-and-death struggle Glisena was facing.

They passed the council chamber where Arvin had first spoken to Foesmasher, following his arrival in Ormpetarr. Arvin glanced inside and saw two women polishing the many shields that hung on the wall. One of them caught his eye at once: a middle-aged woman with graying hair. It took Arvin a moment to remember where he had seen her before, but when he did, he halted abruptly.

The woman had been at Naneth’s house, the night Foesmasher had burst into it, searching for the midwife—she’d been the one the soldiers had taken away for questioning. It seemed just a little coincidental that she should turn out to be one of the palace servants.

“I need to speak to someone,” Arvin told the soldier. “It won’t take long—no more than a moment.”

The soldier grabbed Arvin’s elbow. “There’s no time. Lord Foesmasher—”

“Will want to hear what I’m about to find out,” Arvin finished for him. “That servant,” he said, nodding into the room, “is somehow involved in what’s happened to Glisena. I intend to find out what she knows.”

The soldier stared at him a moment, indecision in his eyes. Then his hand fell away. “Just be quick,” he said.

“I will.”

Arvin entered the council chamber and walked to the far end of the room, pretending to be admiring the model ships that stood on the table. As he passed the two servants, he manifested the power that would let him listen in on their thoughts. Silver sparkles erupted from his forehead, vanishing even as the woman with the graying hair turned around. Her eyes had a distant expression, as if she were listening to some half-heard sound. When they focused on Arvin, she nodded and bobbed a curtsey.

The other servant—a girl in her teens, glanced over her shoulder then continued with her work. Her thoughts were superficial: musings about one of the stable hands—how handsome he was—and a slight irritation that the baron’s guest had trod on her clean floor. Arvin focused instead on the thoughts of the older woman, the one he suspected of being Naneth’s spy. She was worried about something, but not clearly articulating her fears.

Arvin would help her along.

He gestured for her to approach. She did, holding a rag that smelled of beeswax. So far, her thoughts were a mix of annoyance at having been interrupted and puzzlement about what Arvin could possibly want. She didn’t remember him.

He leaned toward her and spoke in a low voice. “I know who you serve,” he said.

The woman frowned. Of course he did, she thought. She served the baron. What did this man really want with her?

Arvin was impressed. If the servant was a spy, she was a good one. “I know why you were at Naneth’s home, the other night,” he continued. “About your… arrangement with her.”

That made her eyes widen. And her thoughts begin to flow. Who was this man, and how did he know about Naneth? Would he tell her husband? She prayed to Helm that he wouldn’t. Ewainn was so proud—he would crumble if he knew the fault had been his, all along. She’d thought he’d find out, when she’d been hauled before the Eyes for questioning four nights ago, but all they’d wanted to know, it turned out, was where the midwife was. And just as well, that Naneth had disappeared. Now she wouldn’t have to pay the midwife—coin Ewainn would notice was missing, sooner or later. If he’d pressed her, she might have had to explain to Ewainn that he wasn’t the one who quickened a child in her—that the midwife had used magic to do it.

Arvin struggled to keep his expression neutral. This woman was pregnant? He’d assumed, when he’d overheard her protest to the baron’s soldiers that she was just one of Naneth’s customers, that she had gone to the midwife’s home to arrange for Naneth to deliver a daughter’s child. With her graying hair, he’d taken her to be a pending grandmother.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my lord,” she choked out at last.

“Yes, you do,” Arvin said, more gently, this time. He glanced pointedly down at her stomach; it had a slight but unmistakable bulge. “When did Naneth cast the spell?”

Her hands twisted the rag. “A tenday and a hand ago.”

Arvin glanced once more at her stomach. She was three months along, at least. “What date?” he asked. “The fifth.”

Arvin nodded. The same night the demon had been bound into Glisena’s womb. The night Glisena, thinking her pregnancy merely hastened along, had fled the palace.

Arvin stared at the servant, thinking furiously. Should he tell her that the child in her womb was really that of Glisena and Dmetrio? Seven days from now, Naneth would be as good as dead. No one except Arvin would ever know the baby wasn’t the serving woman’s.

Until the first time it turned into a serpent.

How would the woman’s husband react to that, Arvin wondered.

In the doorway, the soldier cleared his throat impatiently. “‘At once,’ the baron said. Not a tenday from now.”

Arvin touched the servant’s hand. “Your name?” he asked gently.

Why does he want to know? she thought in a panicky voice. But she answered obediently, as her years of servitude dictated. “Belinna.”

“We’ll talk again, Belinna. Later. In private. There’s something about your child that you need to know. In the meantime, your secret is safe with me.” Ending his manifestation, he strode back to the soldier.

As he once more followed the soldier down the hall, he wondered whether he should tell Glisena he’d located her child. It would certainly bolster her for the ordeal she was about to face, but it would result in anguish for Belinna when Glisena reclaimed her child. Belinna had already come to regard the infant inside her as her own, to love it. That much Arvin had seen in her eyes and heard in her thoughts.