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When Raguel reached the top of the tower, sweat streaming down the vines he had climbed up, he still felt full of strength and energy. He actually had less and less with every step, but he was exhilarated by the climb. A sensible Knight would have written a missive, somewhere before that tower, and he would have sent it back to the mountain village with the strange bartender. It would have information such that the next warrior from the Order in that area might be able to navigate their way through the valley and forests to the Hierophant's tower without a guide.

Raguel was not the most sensible Knight, but he had reason for not doing this. Each of the obstacles he had been courteously shown the way around would stop an invasion of the Serpents' lands. If warriors from the Order started turning up further into the fiefdom than they should have, surprising the snakes, this would be taken as a sign of aggression. Raguel knew that that was how the Order felt when a demon or monster turned up in their countries.

'Their' countries. Raguel had never been very clear on what level of influence the Order held politically, only what they did to earn it.

No-one had greeted him in the domed hallway at the top of the tower, yet, so Raguel sat on the clay-red marble, and began to read over the scrolls that Worl had given him. Things to barter with. Religious topics to veer away from. The nature and symptoms of the plague.

An amphiptere - which is an adder with little wings - fluttered over to curl around Raguel's broad neck for warmth. The air was thinner up here, drier and colder. Raguel was comforted by it after the oppressive heat of the swamp and forests, but it would doubtless be uncomfortable for the water-loving serpents.

Doubtless? Probably. Perhaps there were asps here, from the desert. When did Raguel get so obsessed with what snakes wanted?

The amphiptere's fin-like wings folded down to fat, chartreuse spikes, pointing away from Raguel's neck, and its red little eyes shone down on the paper. When Raguel looked down at his guest, its focus and curiosity reminded him of a child's... no, a kitten's. He brushed his beard on it a little, and though he was certain snakes didn't express themselves as cats did, the tiny serpent nuzzled back.

Faced with what was bound to be protracted debate, Raguel felt more and more lost.

"Just be yourself," the winged viper said.

"Wait, you can speak?"

It yawned, paused as if about to answer, then flew away.

-

The room in the abbey was austere, but gently so. Grey brick and white tapestry. Magdalene had requested no special decoration, and her friends and many brothers knew not to send flowers. (She famously hated them.) As a dowager Baroness' daughter with three elder brothers, she had never expected nor wished for finery, and had intended to live by weaving before meeting Raguel.

Her skin was crimson, filled with blood, for half the day, then, when it wasn't white and drained. The sickness moved between either phase for no clear reason. The bride God had chosen for him would occasionally twist in anguish as some part of her was eaten or torn by the disease.

Raguel had kissed her head, and smiled to her, softly, holding her hands in what was one of her last moments of lucidity.

"At least," Raguel murmured, "you shall die a maid."

Magdalene coughed and spluttered.

-

After an hour or so of reading, and, Raguel did not admit, resting his overworked limbs and body, he started to worry that the priest might not have lived there, and that no-one was coming. There was, in fact, no obvious door or stairway - the tower's roof just had a dome and a few pillars.

Then, Raguel heard a yell: "Hello!"

"Hello?"

"So, there's someone on my roof!" The voice was loud, and male, and not very deep.

"Yes, it's me!" said Raguel, certain the snake-lord would have been told through the - Lord, through the grapevine - that a messenger from the Order was coming.

"Who's 'me'?"

Raguel sighed, and walked to where he thought the noise was coming from.

"I am Brother Raguel, Knight of the Order of Saint Parthos! I have come with a message, and a plea, from my Elders!"

"Saint Patrick?!"

"No, Saint Parthos!"

"Oh, fair enough! Why are you on the roof if you have a message?!"

Raguel was close enough to the edge that he could see all the way down to the bottom of the tower, and all the way across the jade valley to the volcanoes at the other end, which began to show their redness as the sun set. He sat down, and realised that he no longer needed to shout.

"I made a mistake," Raguel laughed. "I thought the thick vine on the tower would let me reach your Hierophant, Paean, more quickly. There do not seem to be any stairs or windows, here."

"I am Paean," the voice replied, its consonants taking a little too long now, "and it is not short for RaPaeanzel, if you catch my meaning. My chambers are halfway down the tower. There are no stairs there, because it is the roof. There is no use in you trying to climb down, now, sir, I won't have you strain yourself on my behalf. I will climb up there in a second with some wine and food, and we can have supper together."

"That -- my thanks, my Lord."

"No, just Paean."

"My thanks, my Lord Paean."

"Just shut up until I get there." Raguel obeyed.

-

Presently, once the sun was fully down, a man with skin like dark brown copper clambered up onto the roof. His body was bricked up in muscle, and shone in the light of the Moon as though wet, or oiled. On either shoulder was an emerald green serpent, coiled in a pile that could have mimicked pauldrons. His chest had no nipples, and his eyes did not blink. Since he was nude but for a simple cloth skirt --

"You must be Paean's guard," Raguel said, pleasantly.

"No," he said, "I'm Paean." Paean's smile didn't show his teeth, but it was warm and intense, almost hot. He stretched his arm out to his kingdom below, and a pair of serpents offered a broad platter of bread and a large jug of wine to him. He sat in the centre of the marble floor, and gestured for Raguel to join him.

No goblets?

Raguel ducked his head down, and apologised, to be met with Paean's hand waving in front of his face.

"No apologies are allowed here on my sacred roof, Brother Raguel. I am just Paean, as I tried to say before. I am not 'Sir' Paean or 'Lord' Paean. Will you be just Raguel, in turn?" Now that Paean was closer to Raguel, he could see that his lips weren't fully shut - there was always a small gap in the centre. A thick, red, forked tongue poked out now and then, even occasionally sliding out fully, waving languidly up and down in Raguel's direction.

These Pagans were supposed to be perverted brutes. Raguel's education had not prepared him for the devil, really, he thought.

"Yes, sir - um, Paean. Are there other rules for your sacred roof I should know?" Paean took a swig of the wine, and handed him the jar. This was how it would be, then. Raguel could handle his drink.

Even very good drink. The wine was rich, but did not feel strong. Raguel thought about beef as he ate the game-bird strips offered to him.

"No, I've never been here. I'm making this up as I go along." Paean tore into his bread with - yes, with spike-teeth, and multiple rows of them. That explained Cern's comments about teeth, back on the other end of the mountains. The longer Raguel was in proximity to this man, the more inhuman he seemed. It would make killing him easier.

'I didn't mean that,' Raguel thought. Paean had done nothing to him, and his people had been kind.

"I..." Apologise for my manner, beg your forgiveness, "must ask your permission to speak of the Order's request of you."

"Not during dinner, lad." Paean's lazy smile was wider than a man's. The moon was high above them now, and the light so dim that he could see the shine where Paean's body caught the light better than he could see the brown and black patterns of his skin. A small bird fluttered near him, silhouetted against the moonlight, and one of the snakes on Paean's shoulders leapt for it - leapt its full length - and Raguel could just barely see that the snake was rooted into Paean's shoulder, like a weed. Or a second pair of arms. "Save the sensitive politics for when we're good and drunk. I want to know what it's like in the Order, these days. Are you still making your tonic wines in St. Wycombe's?"

"It burned down," Raguel said, instantly suspicious. "There were... heresies."

"Heresies?" Paean twitched his head a little, such that Raguel got the impression of eyes narrowing - but of course, a snake's eyes cannot narrow, no more than they can blink. "Were you putting elderflower in it, then?"

"They had begun to worship outside of doctrine," Raguel said.

"Oh," Paean said, "'no other god but me', mm?"

"No," Raguel continued, "they had decided to do away with the Abrahamic God altogether. They had begun... to involve the wine with their rituals."

"Your normal rituals involve wine. Speak plainly, lad, I'm an old heathen and I can withstand your judgement of other people." He wiggled the jug in Raguel's direction. It was nearly one-quarter finished. Raguel took a gulp, steeling himself, and handed it back.

"They had been conceiving children to throw them in with the wine."

Paean spat his wine out and spilled some of it onto his shoulder-python as it lunged out to prevent more loss.

"No!"

"Yes, they did." Wasn't he Pagan? Wasn't human sacrifice the basis of this, too? "It was some sort of recycling thing. The monks and nuns, together, did it."

"No, that's awful!" Paean put his food down, holding onto his stomach. He had just swallowed a live bird whole, what was his problem? "Their own children!"

"We burned the abbey down," Raguel explained, "and exorcised it thoroughly. The abbot, monks and nuns were put on trial by the local government, and hung. They were tried with child murder, rather than witchcraft."

"To say nothing of fraud. It's not wine with a rotting corpse in it."

"Oh, no, because they were in wine, the infants were apparently not that badly -"

"Raguel, shut up about corpses when we're eating."

"Yes, Paean."

-

Olives and game-bird and sausage and bread and oil. All good. Necessary, Raguel didn't want to admit.

When they were finished the wine, Paean looked at Raguel. Well, he thought he did. The light was very low, now.

"I've decided how we will conduct our negotiations," Paean said. "First, I'm going to put some torches up here on the roof, if you can stomach being up here." There was absolutely no wind, so there was no problem. "Then, my boy, we're going to fight."

"Fight...?" Raguel's heart sank. He had done something terribly wrong with his dead baby story, he was sure.

"Yes. We will wrestle. The rules..." Paean lay back, legs crossed tightly. It was difficult to work out which of the curling muscles Raguel saw belonged to which leg, or what part of it. It was just - something, coiled and tapering at the same time. "No punching, no kicking. Definitely no biting. No strangulation. Victory upon surrender. You may lightly slap - or I may lightly slap - whatever holds you, to end the match."

"But what - are you going to just make up rules about what you'll do about this depending on who wins?"

"No. After the match, you'll explain your position, and I'll consider it based on your performance. If you're good, then... hm." Paean's hand waved in a wide, wobbling circle. His tone was absent, sing-song, like a dreaming little girl. "I will tell you some vulnerable information about myself during the match, and it will be your job to remember."

"Do you not think this is a little childish?"

"Not as childish as calling a foreign Lord childish before negotiations begin, little one." Raguel blushed. He hoped Paean could not see in the dark. "Let's get those torches."