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

“The city people give it to them,” Larril said. “Not enough to make anything useful. Just the rings.”

“Thank you.”

Snake went back to bed, musing about Center, which gave chains to slavers but refused to talk to healers.

Chapter 7

Snake awoke before Gabriel, at the very end of night. As dawn broke, the faint gray light illuminated the bedroom. Snake lay on her side, propped on her elbow, and watched Gabriel sleep. He was, if that were possible, even more beautiful asleep than awake.

Snake reached out, but stopped before she touched him. Usually she liked to make love in the morning. But she did not want Gabriel to wake up.

Frowning, she lay back and tried to trace her reaction. Last night had not been the most memorable sexual encounter of her life, for Gabriel was, though not exactly clumsy, still awkward with inexperience. Yet, though she had not completely been satisfied, neither had she found sleeping with Gabriel at all unpleasant.

Snake forced her thoughts deeper, and found that they disturbed her. They were all too much like fear. Certainly she did not fear Gabriel: the very idea was ridiculous. But she had never before been with a man who could not control his fertility. He made her uneasy, she could not deny it. Her own control was complete; she had confidence in herself on that matter. And even if by some freakish accident she did become pregnant, she could abort it without the overreaction that had nearly killed Gabriel’s friend Leah. No, her uneasiness had little basis in the reality of what could happen. It was merely the knowledge of Gabriel’s incapability that made her hold back from him, for she had grown up knowing her lovers would be controlled, knowing they had exactly the same confidence in her. She could not give that confidence to Gabriel, even though his difficulties were not his fault.

For the first time she truly understood how lonely he had been for the last three years, how everyone must have reacted to him and how he must have felt about himself. She sighed in sadness for him and reached out to him, stroking his body with her fingertips, waking him gradually, leaving behind all her hesitation and uneasiness.

Carrying her serpent-case, Snake hiked down the cliff to get Swift. Several of her town patients needed looking at again, and she would spend the afternoon giving vaccinations. Gabriel remained in his father’s house, packing and preparing for his trip.

Squirrel and Swift gleamed with brushing. The stable-master, Ras, was nowhere in sight. Snake entered Squirrel’s stall to inspect his newly shod feet. She scratched his ears and told him aloud that he needed exercise or he would founder. Above her, the loose hay in the loft rustled softly, but though Snake waited, she heard nothing more.

“I’ll have to ask the stablemaster to chase you around the field,” she said to her pony, and waited again.

“I’ll ride him for you, mistress,” the child whispered.

“How do I know you can ride?”

“I can ride.”

“Please come down.”

Slowly the child climbed through the hole in the ceiling, hung by her hands, and dropped to Snake’s feet. She stood with her head down.

“What’s your name?”

The little girl muttered something in two syllables. Snake went down on one knee and grasped her shoulders gently. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

She looked up, squinting through the terrible scar. The bruise was fading. “M-Melissa.” After the first hesitation she said the name defensively, as if daring Snake to deny it to her. Snake wondered what she had said the first time. “Melissa,” the child said again, lingering over the sounds.

“My name is Snake, Melissa.” Snake held out her hand and the child shook it watchfully. “Will you ride Squirrel for me?”

“Yes.”

“He might buck a little.”

Melissa grabbed the bars of the stall door’s top half and chinned herself up. “See him over there?”

The horse across the way was a tremendous piebald, well over seventeen hands. Snake had noticed him before; he flattened his ears and bared his teeth whenever anyone passed.

“I ride him,” Melissa said.

“Good lords,” Snake said in honest admiration.

“I’m the only one can,” Melissa said. “Except that other.”

“Who, Ras?”

“No,” Melissa said with contempt. “Not him. The one from the castle. With the yellow hair.”

“Gabriel.”

“I guess. But he doesn’t come down much, so I ride his horse.” Melissa jumped back to the floor. “He’s fun. But your pony is nice.”

In the face of the child’s competence, Snake gave no more cautions. “Thank you, then. I’ll be glad to have someone ride him who knows what they’re doing.”

Melissa climbed to the edge of the manger, about to hide herself in the hayloft again, before Snake could think of a way to interest her enough to talk some more. Then Melissa turned halfway toward her. “Mistress, you tell him I have permission?” All the confidence had crept from her voice.

“Of course I will,” Snake said.

Melissa vanished.

Snake saddled Swift and led her outside, where she encountered the stablemaster.

“Melissa’s going to exercise Squirrel for me,” Snake told him. “I said she could.”

“Who?”

“Melissa.”

“Someone from town?”

“Your stable-hand,” Snake said. “The redheaded child.”

“You mean Ugly?” He laughed.

Snake felt herself flushing scarlet with shock, then anger.

“How dare you taunt a child that way?”

“Taunt her? How? By telling her the truth? No one wants to look at her and it’s better she remembers it. Has she been bothering you?”

Snake mounted her horse and looked down at him. “You use your fists on someone nearer your size from now on.” She pressed her heels to Swift’s sides and the mare sprang forward, leaving the barn and Ras and the castle and the mayor behind.

The day slipped by more rapidly than Snake had expected. Hearing that a healer was in Mountainside, people from all the valley came to her, bringing young children for the protection she offered and older people with chronic ailments, some of whom, like Grum with her arthritis, she could not help. Her good fortune continued, for though she saw a few patients with bad infections, tumors, even a few contagious diseases, no one came who was dying. The people of Mountainside were nearly as healthy as they were beautiful.

She spent all afternoon working in a room on the ground floor of the inn where she had intended to lodge. It was a central spot in town, and the innkeeper made her welcome. In the evening, the last parent led the last weepy child from the room. Wishing Pauli had been here to tell them jokes and stories, Snake leaned back in her chair, stretching and yawning, and let herself relax, arms still raised, her head thrown back, eyes closed. She heard the door open, footsteps, the swish of a long garment, and smelled the warm fragrance of herb tea.

Snake sat up as Lainie, the innkeeper, placed a tray on the table nearby. Lainie was a handsome and pleasant woman of middle age, rather stout. She seated herself, poured two mugs of tea, and handed one to Snake.

“Thanks.” Snake inhaled the steam.

After they sipped their tea for a few minutes, Lainie broke the silence. “I’m glad you came,” she said. “We’ve not had a healer in Mountainside for too long.”

“I know,” Snake said. “We can’t get this far south very often.” She wondered if Lainie knew as well as she did that it was not the distance between Mountainside and the healers’ station that was the problem.

“If a healer were to settle here,” Lainie said, “I know the town would be liberal in its gratitude. I’m sure the mayor will speak to you about this when he’s better. But I’m on the council and I can assure you his proposal would be supported.”