The One-Armed Queen

  They sat for a while in companionable silence while a green finch serenaded them from one of the trees.

  “Mother,” Scillia said at last. “I have been thinking.”

  Jenna did not mean to, but she set her shoulders, waiting for an outburst. “About …?”

  “About having a dark sister. I mean—a real dark sister.”

  “Not a mother as a dark sister, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want one?”

  “I am not certain.”

  “Once gotten, never given away.”

  “That is why I am not certain. You and Skada do not always …”

  “Always?”

  “Agree.”

  “No more than you and your brothers.”

  “That is different.”

  “Yes. Different. But the same.”

  Scillia sighed.

  “I am not even certain I could tell you how to call up a dark sister, now that the hames are gone. There is a period of training, you know. An entire ritual, involving special breathing, prayers. And the help of the hame sisters around you.” She did not mention that she had called up Skada at a time of tragedy and despair, when she was alone and surrounded by the dead.

  Scillia looked at her sharply. “There is still Selden Hame.”

  “But as you pointed out, only old women live there now. One can only call up a dark sister as a girl newly turned woman. They may not remember all the parts of the ritual. You saw how badly we stumbled on the Bearing ceremony.”

  Scillia got a sour look on her face.

  “And not all who call are answered.”

  “I thought …”

  “Then you thought wrong.” Jenna stood. “There was a girl at Selden Hame when I was a girl who tried and failed.” She paused, remembering. “It was awful.”

  “But if I really want to try?”

  Jenna reached a hand to Scillia and pulled her up. “Then I will help you, of course. After all, I am your mother.”

  They stayed the night at the battlefield, building a large campfire next to one of the mounds. They ate what was nearly the last of their provisions and made a thin soup slightly flavored with winter roots.

  Scillia sat a long time by Iluna’s grave, but Jenna remained close to the fire, not for the warmth but for Skada’s companionship. Skada, however, was notably silent, so much so that Jenna was forced, at last, to comment on it.

  “No words of wisdom, sister?” she asked. “No bitter commentary?”

  “For once you have done everything right,” said Skada.

  “To have come so far for such small praise.”

  “Far indeed,” Skada said. “But will you know when it is far enough?”

  “Far enough for what?”

  “Far enough to cut the leading strings.”

  Jenna shook her head, “She has cut them herself.”

  Skada shook her head at the same time. “And tied them up again, more firmly than before. The knots may be different, but the string pulls the same.”

  “And would you have had me let her fight three men, be raped, sliced open, and die unshriven?”

  “Those are not the strings I am talking about, and well you know …” but the fire burned low and Skada was gone.

  “… it,” Jenna said, finishing her dark sister’s sentence.

  She did not get up to stoke the coals again until just before laying down next to her sleeping daughter. Then she turned her back to the flames so as not to have to see Skada again, though she could feel her close behind.

  They left camp at first light and Jenna, at least, did not look back at the field. She knew that they still had a few good hours’ ride to the forests near M’dorah. And then they would have to leave the horses and pack in through a tangle before coming to the M’doran plain.

  Weather luck was with them at least. Though they were now well in the north and west, signs of spring—early and welcome—were everywhere. Jenna pointed out small, curling ferns shoving through the earth by the roots of some of the larger trees. And a green finch sang to its mate from the branch of an oak. Above them the sky was still the bleached bone color of late winter, but the ground held a different promise. Jenna always believed earth before sky.

  As they rode along, Jenna thought about what Skada had said at the campfire. Have I pulled the string tighter? she wondered. Have I encouraged Scillia to knot it up again? Surely she had given Scillia plenty of leeway to go on alone. Alta’s wounds! I even offered to make her a map. And they had been getting along beautifully until Skada’s thoughtless words had set this trap between them. Now, Jenna thought angrily, I shall have to watch every word and every gesture.

  She was still fretting when they reached a fork in the road, and she knew it to be the turning to M’dorah. Dismounting and leading the horses off the path, Jenna hid them in a small copse, hobbling them loosely. Then she showed Scillia how to take what they would need for rest of the day.

  “And blankets for warmth.”

  “It is coming spring, mother. I saw the ferns. And heard the bird singing.”

  “That was a green finch,” Jenna said. “All early signs. Don’t you remember:

  “When you hear the green finch sing,

  Heralding the first of spring,

  Do not shed your heavy cotte,

  Winter’s reign is over—”

  “NOT!” Scillia filled in the final line. “I thought that was but a nursery rhyme.”

  “Some of those rhymes began in the farmyard and field; they were only later brought into the nursery,” said Jenna. “Do not be too quick to dismiss what you hear growing up. In the Hame we had many such rhymes to memorize. Besides, M’dorah is a high place and so it will be colder than down here.”

  “Where eagles dare not rest?”

  Jenna smiled. “Not quite that high, perhaps. But there is nothing at the top to stop the wind now.”

  Jenna had not remembered the woods being such a tangle of beech and oak, whitethorn and larch. Still, thirteen years more undergrowth certainly made walking difficult, and the sharp ascent of the trail soon had them both puffing badly.

  Luckily the higher they got, the sparser the trees and bushes. Pretty soon they could see clear space ahead.

  “At last,” Jenna said.

  “M’dorah?”

  “At least the M’doran plain.”

  As the path crested over the last rise, Scillia could see what Jenna meant. Before them was a wide, treeless plateau that was covered with gigantic, towering rocks rising like teeth from the ground. Some of the rocks were needle points, others huge towers of stone.

  The sight, even a second time, was so stunning that for a moment Jenna could not speak.

  Breaking the silence at last, Scillia asked, “But which one is M’dorah?”

  Jenna pointed to the far side of the plain. “That one, the broad crowned rock there. Once it had a wooden hame atop, an aerie even eagles envied.”

  Scillia squinted. “How did they get up there?”

  “By a hinged ladder of rope and wood.”

  “I mean the first M’dorans.”

  Jenna laughed. “Arguing first causes like a child learning of Great Alta?”

  “But …”

  “How do you think they got up?”

  Scillia shrugged. “Surely there are steps carved in the stone. Or handholds and footholds.”

  Jenna shook her head.

  “Or a slope around the back?”

  Again Jenna shook her head, and without a word more began walking across the plain. Still speaking, Scillia had to run to catch up.

  “A kite! They made a kite of sticks and cloth. A huge kite, and flew someone to the top.”

  Jenna did not stop her strides. “Now that is one method I had not considered. I had no kites as a child.”

  “But then how …”

  “Wait till we get there to ask. Save your breath for the walk. We want to be there before dark.”

  They walked for wel
l over an hour before reaching the foot of M’dorah’s rock. It was a grey granite, sheer for ten feet, then bowing out, muffin-like, before rising again in another sheer cliff face for thirty or forty feet. There were half a dozen ladders hanging over the sides, disappearing at the top of the rounded surface.

  “Look, we can still climb up,” Scillia cried.

  “Perhaps,” Jenna said. “But remember how old these ladders are, how many years they have weathered here. They are but rope and wood. Consider this well—are they still safe?”

  Scillia looked both chastened and angry. “But to have come so far …”

  “Far enough,” Jenna said, suddenly recalling Skada’s words.

  “Do you mean me to fail after all?” Scillia asked, her voice holding a tone of accusation that had been missing since the ash tree.

  “I do not mean you to fall,” Jenna said. “Caution is but the first part of any adventure.”

  “So says The Book of Light?”

  “So says the Book of Jenna,” Jenna replied patiently.

  Scillia ignored her and went to the nearest rope ladder. She gave it a strong one-handed tug. “See, Mother, it’s …” But whatever else she was going to say about the ladder ended when the pieces of rope near the top end gave way, sending a dozen wooden rungs showering down on her. “Ow … ow … ow!”

  Jenna bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  All of the rope ladders proved as flimsy, rotted away by the years of weather.

  “Never mind,” Jenna said, “we have yet to check the opposite side.”

  “Will any ropes there be stronger?” asked Scillia wearily. “Would sun and rain be less harsh around back?”

  “It is,” Jenna pointed out, “the south-facing side. Stranger things have been known to happen.”

  So they made their way around the rock, finding a half dozen more rope ladders, none of them strong enough to bear their weight.

  In the end, they could not find a way up without constructing an entire scaffolding. And that—as Jenna pointed out—was something two women and four hands could not manage. “We would need a whole crew of willing workers.”

  “Then I have failed,” Scillia said.

  “Failed in what?”

  “To find my mother root.” Scillia looked up to the top of the rock which was now barely visible in the fading light.

  “You found the grave of the one who first bore you in her arms. And you have ridden far with the mother who has loved you for thirteen years. What else are you seeking, child?” Jenna could not keep the exasperation from her voice.

  Still staring at the top of the rock, Scillia said, “More than ash, Mother. More than grave dirt. Probably more than there is to find.”

  “I found my birth mother,” Jenna said suddenly. “Or at least I found out who she was.”

  “You never said …”

  “Because it made no difference. She had given me birth all right, but she was not my mother where and when it mattered. Blood counts a great deal less than love.”

  “At least you knew,” Scillia said. “My birth mother could be a farm wife or a beer maid.” She looked once more up to the top of M’dorah.

  “Or she could be dead,” Jenna said. “Mine was.”

  “I only hope she is dead,” Scillia said. “Else I would hate her for giving me up.”

  “I expect that whoever she is—or was—farmwife or beer maid or princess, for that matter, you will know who she is when you are queen.”

  “Why do you say that?” The sun was dropping fast and shadows played around Scillia’s face, making her suddenly look far older than her years, making her look—Jenna thought—like a stranger.

  “Because when a one-armed queen is on the throne, anyone who ever gave away a one-armed daughter will come forward to claim you,” said Skada. There was only a sliver of moonlight, but it was enough for Skada to appear since there was not a cloud in the sky. “And blood counts most when there is coinage at stake. And a crown.”

  “Skada!” both Jenna and Scillia cried together.

  “Now are we going to stand around this forsaken plain till we freeze to death, or are we going to pull those blankets around us and jog-trot back to our horses? I am ready for a good bed and home.”

  THE MYTH:

  Great Alta took the girl child and set her on the eagle’s nest. “Fly!” quoth Great Alta, “And I shall be the wind beneath your wings.”

  Then Great Alta set the girl on the ground. “Crawl. And I shall be the ground below your belly.”

  At last Great Alta set the girl on the throne. “But sit. And I shall be the shadow behind you that all but you shall be able to see.”

  three

  Turnings and Returnings

  THE MYTH:

  Then Great Alta took the boy and turned him ten times around. “Now,” quoth she, “you are a man.”

  The new man took his first steps and fell down, crying, “How can I be a man when I still walk like a boy?”

  “Take smaller steps,” quoth Great Alta.

  THE LEGEND:

  In the town of South Berike there is a ghost of a drowned boy who wanders the harbor on the fourth day of spring. Some say he is a fisher lad, part of a six-man skimmer that overturned in a storm off the Skerry Light.

  Some say he was the cabin boy on the Ginger Pye, the factory ship lost in the Great Storm of ’37, one of seventeen bodies that washed ashore in two days.

  But some say he is the lost prince Jemuel, drowned in a rough crossing, come home at last and no one left to welcome him ashore, so he wanders the strand forever.

  THE STORY:

  It was thirteen years before Jemson came home, in the late springtide, sailing under an oyster-colored sky that tumbled out rain for the disembarking.

  His father had turned fifty in the fall and was failing quickly, or so it was said by the Garuns, though that was not the real reason Jemson had returned. Thirteen years had been the term set by the hostage agreement. It was time that both boys sailed for home. Jemson would have stayed if he could, but he knew where duty lay, unpleasant though it might be.

  Was Carum indeed failing? Jemson could not tell. His father seemed as tall as ever, a mighty oak under whose branches saplings did not thrive.

  Well, Jemson knew that was not strictly true. Corrie had turned into a big, fleshy man with cheeks like polished apples. If not an oak, at least an ash. And an ass, too! He laughed silently at his own rough joke, but without any real humor.

  And I, first born, am the short one in the family. Even my mother is taller. That Scillia was taller than he did not count. She was not of his blood really, and blood—he knew well—was the coinage of royalty. Besides, she was only a girl. And a homely girl at that. Hardly worth flattering.

  He had landed in Berick Harbor with less fanfare than he had left. Only a small bustle of townfolk was there to greet him, people he supposed he should have recalled well but did not.

  There had been a greying woman, Petra, at the head of the bustle who claimed she was his mother’s dear friend. “Do you not remember me, Jemmie? I’m the one who can always make your mother laugh.”

  “A talent, madam, I never had,” he said, bowing his head to her. But there was no warmth in his greeting, no pretense at intimacy.

  Her husband, Jareth, was equally familiar in his address, calling him “Young Jem,” and speaking of his youthful antics, all of which made Jemson sound like an absolute jackass of a child. Jemson did not remember any such child and, besides, a royal should never be remembered as less than perfect.

  “My title, sir, is Prince Jemson, and I prefer you address me that way.” Better to begin as he intended to go on. Old Faulk, his Garunian tutor, would have given him grudging, grunting approval for the way he handled that. It pleased him enormously that Jareth flushed from the reproval and his wife’s eyes got like hard pebbles. Satisfied that the lesson had gone home, Jemson turned away to look at the troop waiting for him.

  There were seven guardsmen
under the command of a sloppy veteran who would have to be reprimanded later, for his jacket buttons were not properly shined and he should never have led out an uneven number of men on such an assignment. Six or eight would have been proper. Twenty or thirty would have been better. A hundred would not have been amiss. Jemson ground his teeth in anger, a sound he no longer heard, but one that set the grey woman to shaking her head.

  The return of the eldest son and heir to such a greeting! Jemson could scarce credit it. Neither his father nor mother—nor yet his brother nor sister—had bestirred themselves to meet his ship, though of course the ship was five hours early and the weather drear. He knew that Gadwess, for all that he was not the Garunian heir, was to be hailed on his return with a parade of hundreds and a great banquet whatever the time, whatever the kind of day. Crown Prince Malwess had included Jemson in on the planning. There were to be minstrels and jugglers and an indoor archery shoot which Malwess would no doubt win. He was a wonderful shot, especially when there was no wind to contest his aim.

  And no Dales prince to pace him! Jemson thought with a small, knowing smile. He was himself a better shot than Malwess, especially outdoors, especially with a moving target. But he would not be there to pull for the prize. Damn the hostage agreement anyway!

  No matter that the excuse in the Dales was that it had been a hard winter and the farmers had few extra supplies to spare for any feast, great or small. The winter had been just as severe on the Continent, the snow up to the eaves of lowland houses, and wolves in packs chasing after sledges. Jemson bit his lip and ground his teeth again. The Garunian farmers had complained as well, of course. It was the nature of farmers to complain: about wind, about rain, about sun, about everything. But a royal homecoming deserved some sacrifice. The Garunian people understood this. But not—it seemed—the people of the Dales.

  Jemson was not at all happy.

  The later, intimate dinner held in his honor for the family and a few of his parents’ closest friends only added to the insult. The food was unimaginative, the talk as stolid as farmers’ conversation, the wine just this side of vinegar. His mother kept wanting to touch him—on the hand, on the cheek, as if to excuse herself for not being at the harbor. Her real excuse—that she had been out riding and had not known of the early landing of his ship—was unacceptable. Jemson told them what he thought, straight out, without bothering to couch it in courtly terms. They deserved no face-saving.