“No farther down?”

“No. My arm was stiff for a long time.” She rotated her left shoulder: it was not as limber as it should have been. “I was lucky. If it was worse and I couldn’t ride, then I wouldn’t be worth keeping alive to anybody.”

Snake released her breath slowly with great relief. She had seen people burned so badly they had no sex left at all, neither external organs nor capacity for pleasurable sensation. Snake thanked all the gods of all the people of the world for what Melissa had told her. Ras had hurt her, but the pain was because she was a child and he was a large and brutal adult, not because the fire had destroyed all other feeling except pain.

“People can do things for each other that give them both pleasure,” Snake said. “That’s why Gabriel and I were together. I wanted him to touch me and he wanted me to touch him. But when someone touches another person without caring how they feel — against their wishes!” She stopped, for she could not understand anyone twisted enough to turn sexuality into assault. “Ras is an evil man,” she said again.

“The other one didn’t hurt you?”

“No. We were having fun.”

“All right,” Melissa said reluctantly.

“I can show you.”

“No! Please don’t.”

“Don’t worry,” Snake said. “Don’t worry. From now on nobody will do anything to you that you don’t want.”

“Mistress Snake, you can’t stop him. I can’t stop him. You have to go away, and I have to stay here.”

Anything would be better than staying here, Snake had thought. Anything. Even exile. Like the dream she had been searching for, the answers slipped up into Snake’s mind, and she laughed and cried at herself for not seeing them sooner.

“Would you come with me, if you could?”

“Come with you?”

“Yes.”

“Mistress Snake — !”

“Healers adopt their children, did you know that? I didn’t realize it before, but I’ve been looking for someone for a long time.”

“But you could have anybody.”

“I want you, if you’ll have me as your parent.”

Melissa huddled against her. “They’ll never let me go,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

Snake, stroked Melissa’s hair and stared out the window at the darkness and the scattered lights of wealthy, beautiful Mountainside. Some time later, just on the edge of sleep, Melissa whispered, “I’m scared.”

Chapter 8

Snake woke at the first rays of scarlet morning sun. Melissa was gone. She must have slipped out and returned to the stable, and Snake was afraid for her.

Snake unfolded herself from the window seat and padded back to her room, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The tower was silent and cool. Her room was empty. Just as well that Gabriel had left, for though she was annoyed at him she did not want to dissipate her anger. It was not he who deserved it, and she had better uses for it. After washing she dressed, looking out over the valley. The eastern peaks still shadowed much of its floor. As she watched, the darkness crept back from the stable and its geometric white-fenced paddocks. Everything was still.

Suddenly, a horse strode from shade to sunlight. Tremendously lengthened, its shadow sprang from its hooves and marched like a giant through the sparkling grass. It was the big piebald stallion, with Melissa perched on his back.

The stallion broke into a canter and moved smoothly across the field. Snake wished she too were riding through the morning with the wind on her face; she could almost hear the hollow drumming of hooves on earth, smell the fragrance of new grass, see glistening dewdrops flung up by her passing.

The stallion galloped across the field, mane and tail flying. Melissa hunched close over his withers. One of the high stone boundary walls loomed before them.

Snake caught her breath, certain the stallion was out of Melissa’s control. His pace never slackened. Snake leaned forward as if she could reach out and stop them before the horse threw the child against the wall. She could see the tension in him, but Melissa sat still and calm. The horse steadied and sailed over the barrier, clean.

A few paces later his canter slowed; he trotted a few steps and then walked, sedately, grandly, toward the stable, as if he, like Melissa, were in no hurry to return.

If she had had any doubts about the truth of anything Melissa had told her, they were gone now. She had not doubted that Ras abused the child: Melissa’s distress and confusion were all too real. Snake had wondered if riding Gabriel’s horse had been an understandable fantasy, but it was equally real and it made Snake understand how difficult it might be to free her young friend. Melissa was valuable to Ras and he would not want to let her go. Snake was afraid to go straight to the mayor, with whom she had no rapport, and denounce Ras for the twisted thing he was. Who would believe her? In daylight she herself had trouble believing such a thing could ever happen, and Melissa was too frightened to accuse Ras directly. Snake did not blame her.

Snake went to the other tower and knocked on the mayor’s door. As the noise echoed in the stone hallways she realized how early it was. But she did not really care; she was in no mood for conventional courtesy.

Brian opened the door. “Yes, mistress?”

“I’ve come to speak to the mayor about my payment.”

He bowed her inside. “He’s awake. I’m sure he’ll see you.”

Snake lifted one eyebrow at the implication that he might choose not to see her. But the servant had spoken the way a man does who worships another person beyond consideration for any other customs. Brian did not deserve her anger either.

“He’s been wakeful all night,” Brian said, leading her toward the tower room. “The scab itches so badly — perhaps you could — ?”

“If it isn’t infected it’s a matter for the chemist, not for me,” Snake said coldly.

Brian glanced back at her. “But, mistress—”

“I’ll speak to him alone, Brian. Will you please send for the stablemaster and for Melissa?”

“Melissa?” It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Is that the red-haired child?”

“Yes.”

“Mistress, are you sure you wish her to come here?”

“Please do as I ask.”

He bowed slightly, his face again the mask of a perfect servant. Snake stepped past him into the mayor’s bedroom.

The mayor lay contorted on his bed, sheets and blankets in a tangle around him and on the floor. The bandages and dressing sagged away from his leg and the clean brown scab. His expression one of pleasure and relief, he scratched the healing wound slowly.

He saw Snake and tried to pull the bandages back up, smiling guiltily.

“It does itch,” he said. “I suppose that means it’s getting well?”

“Scratch all you want,” Snake said. “I’ll be two days gone by the time you reinfect it.”

He snatched his hand away and pushed himself back up on his pillows. Awkwardly trying to straighten the bedclothes, he looked around, irritable again. “Where’s Brian?”

“He’s doing a favor for me.”

“I see.” Snake detected more annoyance in his tone, but the mayor let the subject drop. “Did you want to see me about something?”

“My payment.”

“Of course — I should have brought it up myself. I had no idea you were leaving us so soon, my dear.”

Snake hated endearments from people toward whom she did not feel dear. Grum must have said the same words to her fifty times, a hundred times a day, and they had not grated the way this man’s did.

“I know of no town that refuses Mountainside currency,” he said. “They know we never adulterate the metal or short-weigh the coins. However, we can pay you in precious stones if you prefer.”

“I want neither,” Snake said. “I want Melissa.”

“Melissa? A citizen? Healer, it took me twenty years to overcome Mountainside’s reputation as a place of bonding! We free bondservants, we don’t take them.”