Riding the Serpent's Back Read Online Free Page A

muffled evangelical voice came from his closed lips, and then silence.
    A middle-aged woman in greys and a batik shawl portraying the big-nosed god, Samna, barged past Leeth. “You can’t—”
    Her words were cut off abruptly as Chi turned towards her and spat the chewed wad of paper into her face. She was left behind, spluttering her disapproval, as Chi marched away, trailed by Leeth and Cotoche.
    Cotoche couldn’t match the pace he set and a gap opened up. Leeth thought that was probably just as well. As they walked he kept a cautious eye out for any sign of pursuit, but there was none. “Why does he get like that?” he asked, after a time. “He’s so changeable. Is it his drinking? Is that the reason?” He watched Cotoche’s face as she thought about her answer. He was secretly savouring the guilty pleasure of being alone with her in this strange town.
    “He’s a little boy,” she said, although Chi must have been three times her age. “He gets frustrated. He bottles everything up and then has to let go in some way. It’s a way of denying that the rest of the world can still make any kind of difference to him.” She thought a bit more, then added, “It’s in us all: our divided nature. Only Chi has more extremes. It’s like your gods: simultaneously good and bad, creating and destroying with the same stroke.” Her choice of words – your gods – underlined the differences between them, fracturing their brief spell of intimacy.
    Eventually, they caught up with Chi and together the three made their way slowly back to where the animals were tethered. They found Sunshine Chopal scrubbing around the wing-stubs of her moke, singing a soft song as she worked. Sunshine was a heavily built, middle-aged woman, who had actually lived for a time as a prostitute in Khalaham. She had been driven out ten years ago by the priests who had once numbered among her best customers.
    Leeth joined her. He scratched at the mule-sized beast’s slender neck and it pushed its craggy face affectionately into his. Although mokes were flightless cousins of coursers, their thoughts were shapeless and dull; Leeth could never form a bond with a moke – he would have to concentrate too hard, doing all the work himself.
    “No good, huh?” said Sunshine, breaking into his thoughts.
    Leeth shook his head.
    “Work registration cards, huh?”
    He nodded. “Chi didn’t take it too well.”
    “At least they didn’t arrest him,” she said. “They held me for most of an hour. They wanted to see my card, wanted to know what I do for a living. I told them I travel, do odd jobs, which is the truth. They were so patronising .” She said it as if it was the worst thing that had ever been done to her. “They wouldn’t even let me buy a maize cake, for the sake of Habna!”
    Leeth told her about Chi’s dispute with the trader. “I thought he was going to get himself shot.”
    “I expect one day that’s just what he’ll do,” said Sunshine. “He says he’s pushing back the limits. I say he’s tempting fate. We don’t always agree, the two of us. I tell him he needs a good woman of close to his own age.” She pouted, coquettishly. “But I ain’t got a butt like Cotoche has got a butt.”
    Leeth flushed, his colour deepening even further when he saw that Sunshine had noticed and was chuckling. “But I tell you something,” she added, leaning towards him across the moke’s back. “I could show you a trick or two no little girl like her could show you.” She blew at his cheeks in an age-old come-on, and Leeth backed away awkwardly.
    He felt helpless. He would never understand the ways of these people. He was foolish to even think that he might.
    When the rest of the travellers had returned it became clear that Chi’s experience was a common one: no trade without proof of registration – which was out of the question for anyone wanted by the police, or not qualified by birth for citizenship. Only one or two people had been