The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

“If there are fires,” she explained to Carum, “the Hame will be well prepared.”

  Only once did they try to visit Pynt in the upstairs hospice, but were turned away by the infirmarer at the door.

  “She sleeps,” they were told. “But I have gotten out the arrowhead, which, by luck, was not poisoned. She has taken a tisane I brewed which will help her sweat out any fever the wound produces. The wound itself I have treated with a poultice of figwort, which we call HealAll. You may believe I have done everything in my power to make her comfortable.”

  “Comfortable!” Carum said. “That’s what the physician said of my mother for the month it took her to die.”

  “Will Pynt die?” asked Jenna.

  “We all die at the last,” said the infirmarer. “But do not measure the shroud before there is a corpse. Your friend is in Alta’s good and gentle hands, those same hands that hold a nestling and take the fawn from the doe.” The lines in her forehead deepened as she spoke.

  “I hope,” Carum whispered to Jenna as they left, “that she is more original with her medicines than she is with her words.” He held tightly to Jenna’s hand, which lent comfort to them both.

  There was an early dinner in shifts in the kitchen. Jenna and Carum ate during the second round, sitting with Armina and two of her friends. Armina finished picking at the drumstick on her plate and pushed away the bones. Turning her back on her friends, she spoke urgently to Jenna.

  “When the attack comes or night falls, whichever is first, I will take you upstairs. There is another way, more difficult of course than the back path, but surely no man will find you there.”

  Carum interrupted. “Why didn’t we go there first?”

  “You will see.”

  Jenna pushed the uneaten fowl around on her plate.

  “Battle does not make you hungry,” Armina commented. “It makes me starved.”

  “My stomach argues both ways,” said Carum. He was reaching for another wing piece when there was a flurry of shouts from the Great Hall and the muffled thud-thumps of someone hammering on the gates.

  “This is it, then,” Armina said, rising. “They will be busy at the front for a long while. Those doors are a foot thick at the least and there are wicked spikes on the tops of the walls.”

  “Armina, are you coming?” asked one of her friends.

  “I have charge of these two,” Armina said, nodding at them.

  “Alta’s luck, then.”

  “You, too.”

  “You know,” Carum murmured, “they’ll have rams, the Kingsmen. And a great sling for boulders. The gates won’t outlast such implements of war.”

  “We know,” said Armina. “A number of our women have served in the king’s armies. Your way of fighting is not unknown to us.”

  “Blanket Companions!” said Carum.

  “My mother, Callilla, was one. I am the result.” Armina smiled faintly. “But the walls will buy us time. And if they are breached, still the men will find us no easy prey.” She stood.

  “But the children …” Carum said. “And the wounded.”

  “We have a place for them. Never fear. Come.”

  They followed her out of the kitchen, through the Great Hall, and up the wide front stairs to the second floor. She turned right, then left, then right.

  “I’m lost again,” Carum whispered to Jenna, who did not answer.

  Armina stopped, flung open a door, and went in. They followed at her heels and were surprised to find themselves in a kind of playroom, with toys for young children scattered across the floor.

  “We have nothing like this at Selden Hame,” murmured Jenna, looking at the half-dozen small wands and jumping ropes, hoops, and balls.

  “The windows aren’t boarded up,” Carum said. “Isn’t that dangerous? Kalas’ men could come in that way.”

  “Think you so? Then look!” commanded Armina.

  They peered out. It was a sheer drop down to the Halla, tumbling nearly a hundred feet below.

  “Oh, no,” said Jenna immediately. “I cannot swim.”

  “I can,” said Carum.

  “I shall rope you together,” Armina said as she knotted together four of the jump ropes, testing each knot by pulling against it. “These are very strong. And you shall each carry a kicker.”

  “Kicker?”

  Armina went over to a standing wardrobe, pulled the doors open, and searched through the contents of an upper shelf. She turned back with two large pieces of wood the shape of shovel heads, though twice as big. “We use these to teach our little ones how to swim. They are held so.” Gripping the flat edge, she raised the kicker overhead. “And then you kick with all your might. The wood floats, you see. As long as you hold on to it, you will not go under.”

  “I will go under,” said Jenna.

  “Even should you do so, remember, you will still be roped to Longbow, and he can swim.”

  “A little,” admitted Carum. “In quiet pools and in the palace baths. I have never tried a swift river. An unforgiving river.”

  “You must jump in,” Armina said. “There is no other way.”

  Carum turned to Jenna. “It has to be all right, Jenna. The prophecy doesn’t talk about the Anna dying. She’s to become queen and …”

  “For the goddess’ sake, I am no Anna,” Jenna said angrily. “But I am a warrior of Great Alta’s. And as I have pledged myself to your safety …” She drew in a deep breath and looked steadily at Armina. “We will jump.”

  “First we must get the ropes ready to tie around your waists. Carum, you mount that window and I the other,” said Armina. “Then I shall fling you an end outside.”

  Carum climbed onto the windowsill and, straddling the spanning bar, leaned out. Meanwhile, Armina had climbed up onto the other and flung the rope toward him. It took three tries before he could catch it, but at last he drew the rope in and secured it loosely to the bar. Armina did the same with her end, then jumped back down.

  “Now, we must fasten your sword to your side, Jenna. The river is a grasping sort. It will take it from you if it can.”

  “I can do that,” Jenna said. She found another jump rope and began to twine it around herself and the sword, knotting it securely.

  Armina picked up the kicker boards and set one by each window. “There is not much danger in this, really. It is more frightening than anything else. We older girls—as a test of courage—often come up and leap into the Halla. Without the kickers.”

  “So you told us. And of the girl who was never found,” said Carum.

  “That was just a tale. To frighten you.”

  “You’ve succeeded,” said Carum.

  “The only real danger,” Armina said, “is that you might not get out of the river in time. There are some rapids after a bit.”

  “Rapids?” asked Jenna.

  “Rough water, great whirlpools and eddies. And then there is a waterfall. You must be sure to get out early enough and on the right side.”

  “And how will we know when these rapids are approaching?” asked Jenna.

  “You will know.”

  “Then we’d better go,” said Carum. He looked at Jenna, who nodded.

  “I am ready,” she said, then added, “I think.”

  “Carum is right. You must go quickly. Carum, you get up first and tie the rope to your waist. Then, Jenna, you do the same. Less time to worry that way. I shall hand you up the boards and then count to three. On three, leap together. Oh, and you must leap at the same time, or one will drag the other.” Armina thought a minute. “There is one other thing.”

  “Now she tells us,” said Carum.

  “Do not leap straight down or you shall hit the rocks. Leap out.”

  “Anything more?” asked Carum as he climbed up and stepped over the spanning bar.

  “Do not scream. It might alert any Kingsmen about. It is getting dark and they will not be close enough to see you leap, but why take chances? And may Alta hold you both securely in her hair.”


  Jenna nodded, climbing onto the windowsill. “And to you, too, Armina. And all in this Hame. May you fight bravely and may I see you again.” She turned, stepped over the bar, untied the rope, and secured it around her waist with a double knot.

  Armina handed them each a board and began the count. “One … two …”

  Jenna felt something hot and hard in her stomach, and her mouth tasted salty. She knew that a woman of a prophecy would never feel such fear.

  “… three!”

  Jenna leaped slightly ahead of Carum but not so much that the rope pulled taut between them. She felt the rush of wind by her ears and a strange scream flew all unbidden from her mouth. There was a thin echo of that scream and Jenna realized, only as she plunged into the icy water, that Carum had been yelling as well. She hoped they had not been heard.

  Water rushed suddenly into her open mouth and the board leaped like a wild thing from her hands. Flailing about, she tried to find the surface of the river, but with her eyes closed it was all guesswork. Then, thinking she was out, she breathed in and swallowed a mouthful of water, and then everything was black and full of cold bubbles. Just as suddenly her head was in the air, and Carum was pushing a board into her hands. She heard, as if from far away, his shout, “Breathe, Jenna, please breathe.” She gulped in air and coughed out water almost at the same time. Then she pulled herself partway onto the board, conscious of its solidity under her, but she was too weak and confused to kick. Carum put his arm around her, lifting his body partly onto hers, and kicked for them both.

  After a while, Jenna’s eyes cleared of the film of water and she could see again. Her heart, while still pounding, was no longer racing quite so madly, and the fear that had inhabited her throat and bowels no longer threatened to spew forth. Breathing deeply, she called to Carum over the noise of the river in a raspy voice, “We … we are alive!”

  “Of course we’re alive,” he shouted back. “I told you I could swim. Now kick, Jenna.” He slipped away and she was suddenly conscious of the loss of his body on hers. “Kick, I say!”

  Jenna began to kick and the board moved noiselessly through the water ahead of her. “It works!” she cried, turning her head toward him.

  Carum swam by her side, as graceless as a waddling pig, but still managing to keep pace with her and her board. They were both helped along by the force of the river, and the banks on either side hurtled by with frightening speed. Scarcely had they sighted one possible landmark when they were beyond it.

  “How will we know when we are nearing the rapids?” Jenna shouted.

  “Armina said we’d know,” he called back.

  The noise of the river was such, they barely made out one word in three, but after several more tries they understood each other. Then they rounded a turn, and suddenly the noise of the river seemed to double while the water boiled about them with white pockets of foam.

  “I think we’ve found it,” Carum shouted.

  “What?”

  “I think we’ve found it.”

  “What?”

  With an effort, he kicked closer to her, grabbed her shoulder, and headed her toward the right side.

  “Just go over there.”

  They were nearer the left bank than the right, the east bank, but they fought toward the right with the last of their strength. The river drew them steadily forward. Suddenly Carum was spun away from Jenna and the rope went taut between them. He was turned around several times into a deep eddy that drew him down and then popped him up again like a cork till the rope snapped him back to Jenna’s side.

  Just as he found a footing on the rocks, Jenna was spun about in the same swirling water and the board was torn from her grasp. It shot straight up in the air and splashed down inches from Carum’s head. He ducked, nearly fell back into the channel, then steadied himself and hauled on the rope between them, dragging Jenna toward him. She was so exhausted he had to half lift, half drag her to the shore.

  They flopped down on the slippery grassy slope, breathing heavily. Jenna coughed up water twice without lifting her head from the bank. Then she sat up suddenly, turned a greenish face toward Carum, and was sick in the grass. She lay down again, unable to move away.

  “There …” Carum said, breathing deeply between words, “now … we … are … even … for … my … getting … sick … in … the … woods.”

  It took Jenna a full minute to answer. “Not … amusing,” she muttered.

  “I’m only trying to laugh and live longer,” he replied.

  This time she did not bother to respond.

  Carum sat up slowly and looked around. Then he crawled on his hands and knees up and over the embankment. Ahead of him was a long meadow pied with the pensive blue, purple, and yellow faces of heartsease. Off to the right was a copse of graceful, white-barked trees, almost ghostly in the fading light.

  “The stand of birch!” Carum called down to Jenna. “The birch that Callilla said to watch out for.”

  Jenna sat up at last and tried to wring the water from her braid, but her hands had no strength yet. “We could have passed hundreds of such stands while we were drowning,” she said.

  “Do you have a better idea of where we are?”

  “None at all.”

  “Then let’s assume we are only a day’s journey to Bertram’s Rest, Jenna, because that way we’ll both sleep easier.”

  Jenna shook her head. “How can either of us sleep easily, knowing that Pynt may die, knowing that the Hame is in danger, and knowing that we have no idea where we are or that we may be found by the Kingsmen at any minute?”

  “I don’t know, Jenna,” Carum said, “but I’m going to try.”

  She nodded, too tired to argue, and in fact they both fell asleep within minutes on the riverbank, in plain view of any passersby.

  THE HISTORY:

  The Garunian religious practices are much more thoroughly documented than any other group of the Dales from that period. There are two reasons for this. First, the Continental ancestry of the Garunians provides us with a broad base from which religious history explorers may make their speculative forays. After all, though only two authenticated Garunian documents have been found in the diggings in the Dales, there are at least twenty such (including a book of gnomic sayings) discovered by Dr. Allysen J. Carver during her twenty years of barrow work in the Continental border towns. Second, of the two Dalite documents, one is the famous essay “Oblique Prophecies” (or, as Magon persists in calling it rather too colloquially, “Prophecies on the Slant,” thus diminishing its considerable power) by the scholar-king Langbrow II, in which the system of refuges, or Rests, is mentioned.

  These walled monasteries, which were part religious retreats, part sanctuaries, part prisons, were considered sacrosanct by the Garunians, and many a wanted man apparently holed up in them, possibly (though not probably) for years. Langbrow cites a number of proverbs, some too obscure for parsing, but two seem clear enough: In the wrong, in the Rest and Better in the Rest than in the Battle. Both Magon and Temple, for once, agree on the meaning, that felons and army deserters alike took advantage of the immunity such Rests offered. Magon further hypothesizes—a bit freely considering that the length of the document is but three pages—that once a man was hounded into a Rest, he was often there for life.

  THE STORY:

  They were, in fact, less than a day’s journey away, for they began, after seven hours of sleep, with the moon still overhead. Following close by the path, they did not stay directly on it; caution, an old habit, claimed them.

  So it was a bit past noon, the sun ripe above them, when they crested a small rise and saw Bertram’s Rest in the valley below. The Rest was a series of low stone buildings in the shape of a broken cross with neat gardens and fruit trees nestled in each crook, the whole surrounded by a set of double walls. While smaller by far than Nill’s Hame, the Rest was still larger than Selden.

  “That’s it!” said Carum. “All Rests are built that way, in the bent crux sig
n.” He started to stand and Jenna pulled him down by the shirttails.

  “Wait!” she said. “We always say They stumble who run ahead of their wits. Let us watch a moment or two.”

  He knelt down again and as they watched, a troop of horsemen raced out of the western woods and gathered restlessly before the gates. Long minutes later the horsemen, on some signal, spun around and sped away toward the rise where they were huddled.

  Jenna grabbed Carum by the arm and pulled him into the densest part of the underbrush, careful not to leave a trail that the seasoned traveler might read.

  Farther on they came upon a small cliff with a tiny dark cave pocking the face. They pressed in, though it was barely big enough for the two of them. It was full of animal droppings and sour-smelling, but they stayed in it until darkness had wrapped around the woods, and the riders, whoever they were, were long gone.

  A full moon rode high in the sky and the valley was starkly illuminated.

  “We might as well have crossed by day,” Carum said, “for that moon is as strong as the sun.”

  But without a hope for clouds, and under a sky bright with a powerful moon and the scattering of stars, they raced across the grassy meadow. Luck was with them; if there were watchers, they slept at their posts.

  The walls of the Rest were higher than they had seemed from the hill, so high it would take a scaling ladder to mount them. They were topped by cruel-looking spikes.

  “A welcoming sort of place,” Jenna commented.

  “Remember, it’s got to keep people out as well as in,” Carum said.

  “I thought your people respected the sanctuary.”

  “My people are not all people,” Carum said.

  The gates were wood set into the stone walls with iron brackets. They were good, solid, unadorned gates, the only decoration a peephole about halfway up.

  Carum hammered on the door with both hands while Jenna, sword unsheathed, stood guard. For a long time nothing happened.

  “They cannot want to help those in need very much if they do not open their doors,” Jenna said.

  “Jenna, it’s the middle of the night. They’ll all be asleep.”

  “All? Are there no guards?”