The One-Armed Queen

  “And the man who raped me?” asked a young woman standing to one side. “I was neither handfasted nor married to him, but still he had me. And my own father called him ‘brother’ and told him to ride me the harder.”

  “And the man who cut my own mother’s throat in front of me,” added Manya, “as if she were no more than a pig for the butchering. It was then I ran off to Nill’s Hame.”

  Scillia shook her head. “We cannot waste time here countering man for man, tale for tale. We will never convince one another. History begins in the heart, I think. I cannot deny there is cruelty in the world. Certainly we have all born the Garunian yoke. But in this one thing you must trust me. There are good men here in the Dales and they will be fighting with us side by side. The throne will be won back only when we bind ourselves by friendship, not separate ourselves by history. Sisters, give me your hands on this.” She thrust her one hand forward.

  Seven and Tween grabbed her first, then the others. Manya and Sonya were near the last. But finally they too were carried, if not by Scillia’s oratory, at least by the fact that they were afraid to stand alone.

  “Sisters, if I had a second hand I would use it to hold you all fast. But I have only the one. Still I have a heart—and that you have entire.”

  Manya and Sonya did not look completely convinced, but Scillia ignored them and kept on speaking. “You must all ride on to Greener’s Hollow. We gather there tomorrow eve. Collect what weapons you can. Surely even in the ashes of your homes there can be found a sword, a pike, a knife, a bow. A simple cudgel from a stout tree will serve. If the Garuns think this a man’s war, we will prove them mistaken. If women think they cannot fight, then in this they are wrong. But I must ride now. There are several more Turnings I have to visit, bringing them news of the meeting place and time. You are the seventh. I will get no sleep this night.”

  She walked back to her horse, placed her foot in the stirrup, and pulled herself up one-handed. There was nothing awkward in the movement.

  “We will come with you this night, Scillia!” Seven and Tween cried out together.

  Scillia looked down at them, her arm around Sarai who still slept wrapped in her cloak. “I have promised one mother to take care of her child. I cannot watch after more.” Then kicking the horse into a sudden canter, which served to wake Sarai for a moment, horse and riders were quickly gone into the dark woods.

  Above the clearing the moon was a full, bright promise. Seven cocked her head to one side. “She has no dark sister and only one hand. She needs us.”

  “Do not fancy yourself, girl,” Manya said. “She has been one-handed from the first. And perhaps a queen needs time to be alone.”

  “She is not alone,” Tween pointed out. “There is the child.…”

  Seven nudged her to be quiet and Tween shut up. But the nudge was as much promise as warning. They walked away from the other women as if they no longer cared.

  THE LEGEND:

  About two hundred years ago, in Cannor’s Crossing, the wife of the town cobbler gave birth to twin girls who were joined at the hip and shoulder. The midwife took such a fright at the devilish sight, she left before the birthing was done, making her way across the ford in a shallow boat and leaving the poor mother to die in a pool of her own blood.

  What was the cobbler to do, never having seen such a thing before? He took his leather-cutting knife and severed the girls, sewing up their wounds at hip and shoulder with heavy black boot thread. Only the misfortune was that the babes had just three arms between them, so one girl got two arms, the other just one.

  The one-arm girl got married, and lived to a ripe old age, the other didn’t. No accounting for a man’s taste, I suppose. The two-armed girl stayed with her father and learned his trade. But when the old man died, she died, too, as if he—and not her sister—had been the twin and they joined together.

  My grandmother told me this story, and as she was born herself in Cannor’s Crossing, I have no reason to disbelieve it.

  THE STORY:

  Sarana and her ten fellow soldiers rode through day and night toward Berick. The horror they had seen, the bodies left unburied, haunted them and they did not dare sleep. They also did not know that a few at the rear of the marchers had escaped back into the deep woods. Only one thing was on their minds—to get to Berick and do what they could for a diversion so that Jano and his sailors might block the harbor unseen.

  When they got to the coast it was almost day, and but a quarter of that day’s journey by foot more to Berick. Sarana halted their headlong flight. The horses were near exhaustion, the riders likewise. She knew that they would have to rest before the last part of their exercise. Besides, they did not dare let themselves be seen so close to the city. There were certain to be patrols ahead of them, though they seemed to have outrun any Garuns at their back.

  “We will travel no more through the day,” she said. “We will go the rest of the way tonight.”

  “Why waste time?” asked Malwen, a short man with a notoriously short temper that had not been improved by his lack of sleep. “It is tomorrow’s morning when we should be making our noise.”

  “The time will not be wasted. We have to build ourselves a withy ladder,” Sarana said.

  “A ladder? A single ladder to scale a castle held by hundreds of Garuns?” He spit expertly to one side. “Pah! Woman, you may have had Jano and the young queen fooled, but I think you have broth for brains.”

  “We are not going to scale the castle where we will be seen. We are going around the water’s edge. It will be a low tide at the night’s middle. There is the window into the wine cellar that I wiggled out of. What goes out can go in. With luck …”

  “We have had no luck so far,” another man pointed out.

  “With luck,” Sarana continued, “the window will still be open. Without luck, we shall have to bash the boards away which will likely give away any element of surprise. But if the Garuns are still using the place as a dungeon—and I cannot see why they should have changed their plans—we will be helped by the prisoners themselves.”

  “Hah!” Malwen said. “And become prisoners ourselves. If we can squeeze through, that is.” He patted his stomach which was rather girthy.

  “Those of us who can get through will. The rest will guard the ladders down below. But if we become prisoners, it will not be to the Garuns’ pleasure, for we will be well-armed prisoners,” Sarana reminded them. “And trained fighters. There were but a few such in the dungeon when I left. My guess is that, with luck, there will be more by now.”

  “With luck, with luck, with luck,” Malwen said. Some of the others were nodding with him and it looked as if his sourness was going to carry the day.

  “Have you a better plan?” Sarana asked pointedly.

  He had not. He was a masterful complainer, but he never had any better ideas. Complaint was his one tune, though he played many variations on it. But because he was silenced by Sarana’s question, whatever support he might have had was quickly leached away.

  “Then we will go with my plan for now. Back there, before the last turning, we passed a stand of alder and willow, by the river’s edge, close to where the river opens out into the sea. We’ll retreat there. It will make good cover for the day and we can work on the ladder. We’ve no nails so we will need to bind the rungs with leather. That will mean stripping reins, belts, whatever, then wetting it down and letting things dry tight in the sun.”

  “And with luck,” Malwen added, his mouth still puckered with bile, “there will be sun.”

  Someone slapped him, not at all jocularly, on the side of the head. It was the last thing anyone said until they were back in the copse of alder and willow, cutting what they needed for the making of the withy ladder. So Malwen’s sentiment did not change what they did but it set a sour mood.

  The man designated as the king’s dresser, a middle-aged Berikian named Halles, had come to Jemson’s bedroom reluctantly. The smell in the hallway was still overpowe
ring, worse than the run-offs in the streets after a great celebration when men and women alike thought nothing of spewing their entire night’s drink on the ground. Halles wanted to put a cloth to his nose, but the cook had forewarned him.

  “Do not let the king think there is something wrong,” Cook had said. “Just humor him and get out as quick as ever you can.”

  But it was not that easy. Jemson wanted not only to be fully dressed himself, but that his brother be dressed as well.

  Halles had not always been at the court. As a young man he had fought alongside the old king—not Carum but his elder brother—had held the king’s head as he lay dying in the field. He had seen what a week or two did to an unburied corpse. There had been many such in the Gender Wars. And this body, he knew, had lain at least a fortnight on the king’s bed. Will there still be flesh? he wondered. Will there still be eyes? Will the maggot worms have burst through the clothing, through the skin? He shivered. He was not yet an old man and he had hoped to grow gracefully into his age without any more bad dreams.

  “Your Highness, Gracious Majesty,” Halles said, “I can see that you will want to be dressed in the very height of fashion for this feast. But may I point out that your brother, the good Prince Corrine …” and here he nodded vaguely in the corpse’s direction, “is already beautifully attired. His caftans are his signature and he has always worn one to the royal parties.” It was only a slight exaggeration. The caftan that Corrine had on was of painted silk, brought over from the Continent, but he knew it was now filthy from the prince’s days in the dungeon, and the stones that were his death. It would also have been wet and dry and wet again from those effusions that come with dying. Halles understood the king was mad; he hoped that the king was mad enough. “You have no way of knowing this, of course, having been so long at the Garunian court.”

  “Ah, I see,” Jemson said, as if he really understood. “Well I will not impose my will upon my brother. We are both princes together. He may wear what he has on if that is his pleasure. But come, good dresser, you must help me chose what I should wear. As you do, you must remember—I am as much Garun now as Dales. We are more fashionable on the far shores. Perhaps …” and here he giggled “… perhaps I will teach you rather more than you teach me.”

  “I am always keen to learn, Your Majesty,” said Halles. Which was true. But what was truer was that he was relieved not to have to handle the corpse. “Show me what you will.”

  Jano and his troops reached the coast in less time than they expected. The crossing of the fens had been accomplished in one long morning after their night on the isle. The horn of land that led around the coast to Berick had been empty of Garuns and they had managed to get to Josteen a full two days ahead of schedule. A few of the men were from the town and wanted to see their wives and mothers. But Jano would not let them go.

  “When we are done with what we have come to do, you can stay in Josteen forever for all I care,” he said. “But we need everyone to stay here. And we need not put your loved ones in danger by letting them know what we plan.”

  The last part of his argument settled them and they waited the two days in a small forested area east of the road till the night that had been settled upon. Then they waited some hours more, till half past the midnight low tide, when the waters were already high enough to sail out into the bay. At that point, Jano split his hundred into two groups.

  “You into Josteen,” he said, putting a Josteen man in charge. “And we will go on the extra to Southport.” It was the sister town and only one cove away. “Set five men to the oars of five skiffs.”

  “He means a sculler,” called out a Southport man.

  “Skiff or sculler,” Jano said quickly.

  “We ’uns call ’em skelleries,” said the Josteen man he had set in charge.

  “Never you mind, captain,” the Southport man put in laughing. “The Josteen lads never did know how to talk. Bottom feeders every one!”

  “We’ll show you what bottom …” called the Josteen men.

  The Southporters turned, bent over at the waist, sticking their bums toward the Josteeners. “These bottoms!” someone shouted.

  Jano growled at them. “Leave these town quarrels alone. We have work here. Save your fighting for the Garun soldiery.”

  The Southport man straighted up, turned and laughed. “Just a bit of funning, captain. To get our blood up on a cold night. Trust us. We fisher folk will not let you down.”

  Jano nodded, not certain of the townies but knowing they had no time to waste. “We must trust that Sarana’s crew will make the diversion we need so no one of the Garuns in the castle is aware of what we do. You know the plan.”

  “Aye,” came a dozen voices.

  “But I will repeat it now to be sure.”

  A Southporters laughed and one said, “True—the Josteen lads need reminding.”

  Jano ignored him. “Take the largest ships you can find and sail them to the Skellies. Once nestled between the stone hands, scuttle those ships. Stay with them till they go down to be sure. The skiffs and scullers and skelleries or whatever other bloody name you want to call them will be out there to pick you up from the sea.”

  “And make it fast!” a Josteen man said. “That water is as cold as Lord Cres’ cock-a-doo.”

  “And the fish won’t mind picking at our bones,” a Southporter added.

  “I do not like that she rides alone, with only that child with her,” Seven whispered to her dark sister. “Queen or not, she could use a bodyguard, someone who knows the roads, the woods, the ways.”

  “Then,” Tween said slowly, “we must go after her.”

  Without a word to any of the older women, they mounted their grey gelding, kicking him into a trot. It was his fastest gait because he was too old for anything else, especially with two of them riding. Once into the cover of the trees, however, Tween disappeared and, lightened, the grey went faster.

  Even in the dark it was easy enough to follow where the queen had gone. There was only one path through this part of the woods. But Seven could have found her trail off the path as well. She had learned well the art of tracking at Selden Hame under the guidance of the old singleton Marget.

  “What we learn here is for hunting game,” Marget had often said. “It is not for war. Never for war.”

  It was well then, Seven thought, that Tween and I left the Hame. She had loved the old woman and would not have wanted to disappoint her. But the training got there would serve for war as well as game, and she said a small prayer to Alta that the women at Selden remain safe during any fighting.

  Seven had no idea how long she rode in the woods because the grey slowed to a ground-eating walk that swayed so continually, she fell asleep in the saddle and did not wake again until morning was already creeping though the lacings of leaves. Still, she trusted her horse. It had been trained at the same time she had been and, besides, they were still on the one track.

  The path ahead was brilliant with sudden sunlight and opened onto a meadow dappled with early spring flowers, the place known as Greener’s Hollow. There was the queen’s own black and the queen herself—Scillia, Seven reminded herself—lying under the horse’s belly curled around the child.

  Fallen or asleep? Not knowing which, Seven rode over and dismounted even as the grey was stopping. But before she could reach the black horse, the one-armed queen was awake and on her feet on the far side of the horse, her sword in hand, the child cowering behind her.

  “Not dead then,” Seven said.

  “Not even close,” came the reply and then a laugh. “I do not know who is more frightened, girl. You or me.”

  “I am not frightened,” Seven said. “Now.” It was clear from her voice that this was no idle boast.

  “Alta’s hairs! You should be,” Scillia said, sheathing the sword. “I might have spitted you, had it been night and not day with the sun shining on your innocent face.” She sheathed the sword and stroked her horse’s neck. “See how Shade
’s flesh crawls with fright. My heart is racing still.”

  “Mine, too,” said Sarai.

  “Truly, I did not mean to fright you.”

  Scillia came around the front of her horse. “Then, young Seven, why are you here before time? I said evening at Greener’s Hollow. We had hoped to sleep till all arrived.”

  “To serve you,” Seven said.

  “There will be plenty of time for that.”

  “And Tween thought you should not be left alone.”

  “Sarai is with me.”

  Seven looked down at her feet. “Nevertheless,” she said, “we are here.”

  “Indeed you are,” Scillia said, taking pity on the girl. “And in a way I am glad of it. You and Sarai can take the horses down to the stream over there.” She motioned with her head toward the north end of the meadow. “I will find us something to eat.”

  “I have journeycake,” Seven said. “We could share it.”

  “So have I. And I am mightily tired of it. Besides, we should save what we have for those times when nothing else can be found. We have many miles still to go to get to Berick, and the Garun forces will be difficult to overcome once we are there.” She was careful not to mention what they might meet along the way. “Journeycake will not shorten the road, no matter what the songs say.”

  THE SONG:

  JOURNEYCAKE HO!

  Into the meadow and out of the woods,

  Carrying nothing but bartering goods,

  Running so fast, there is nothing to take

  But a skin full of wine and a good journeycake.

  Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!