The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  And then she told them about her return to Nill’s Hame and all she had found there. By the time she was done, even some of the warriors were weeping, and those who did not sat stone-faced or shook their heads slowly back and forth, as if by their denial they could make it not so.

  Jenna stopped speaking at the moment in the story when she had brought the tiny Mother Alta, the last of them, down the stairs in her arms. A deep sigh ran around the room, but the priestess was not part of it. She leaned forward in her chair and her dark sister moved with her. “Tell me how you called your shadow forth, how one so young managed it. I understand this much: that you thought you had lost one shadow and needed another. But I need to know how you did it. For if you can do it, perhaps others can. It is a breach that must be repaired.”

  Jenna gasped. She had not thought of it that way—that having lost her dark Pynt, having lost Carum, she had needed a replacement. Was Skada only that? A poor substitute? But Skada’s shoulder suddenly touched hers and she turned her head slightly, looking slantwise at her.

  “Be careful,” Skada whispered. “Or you will bruise yourself on that flinty heart.”

  Jenna nodded and Skada nodded back, a movement so slight no one could have noticed.

  “I called and she answered,” Jenna said to the priestess.

  “I would have come sooner had she asked sooner,” Skada added.

  Then Jenna told of finding Pynt and the children in the hidden rooms and leading them away from the slaughterhouse, over the meadows, under the nose of the Old Hanging Man, and home.

  Now dry-eyed, Petra spoke up. “Jo-an-enna has told you what has happened, but not who she is. My Mother Alta named her. Now your Mother must tell you the same.”

  Mother Alta turned her head by moving her entire body slowly, as if a mountain had turned. She stared angrily at the girl, but Petra stared back defiantly.

  “What do you mean?” Donya asked Petra.

  But Catrona turned to the priestess. “Tell us, Mother.” There was a strange challenge in her voice.

  “Tell us,” the other women echoed.

  Sensing she was losing control of them, Mother Alta leaned back slowly and held up her hands so that the blue goddess sign showed. Her sister followed suit, and their four palms flashed the powerful signal to quiet the room.

  When she had their complete attention, she waited a beat longer, then began. “What young Petra means,” she said, letting her voice linger on the word young, “is that there is a story about the Anna, the white avatar of the Goddess, that is still told in some of the more backward Hames.”

  Petra shook her head. “Nill’s Hame was no backwater community. And the Anna is no story, Mother, as well you know. It is a prophecy.” She took two steps into the semicircle, looked around at the women to gather in their attention, and began to recite the prophecy in that singsong voice priestesses affected for such things.

  The babe as white as snow,

  A maiden tall shall grow,

  And ox and hound bow low,

  And bear and cat also.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  No one moved as Petra continued. “Was Jenna not a white babe now grown straight and tall? Have not both the Bull and the Hound already fallen to her?”

  There was a low grunt of agreement from some of the women. Before they were fully quieted, Petra went on.

  She shall bring forth the end,

  And sever friend from friend.

  The brothers all shall bend,

  And we begin again.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  “What is that verse?” Mother Alta asked. “I have never heard those five lines.”

  “Do you think I made them up?” asked Perta. “And me so-young?”

  The women’s low mutterings began again.

  Petra leaned toward the priestess and spoke as if to her alone, though her voice rang clearly in the room. “Never was there more of an ending than Nill’s Hame, where sister from sister, mother from daughter, was severed. Surely Jenna was the harbinger of that end.”

  “I reject it!” Mother Alta roared above the women, who were now openly arguing. “I reject it utterly. I have asked for a sign from Great Alta and she has given me none. The heavens do not roar. The ground does not open up. All this was promised in the writings.” She looked around the hall, her hands up, no longer signaling but pleading. “Did I not seek out the truth of it myself? It was I who, fourteen years ago, followed backward Selna and Marjo’s trail. Yes, I, a priestess, who read the woodsign. In the town of Slipskin I found a farmer who spilled out his tale into my arms. This girl, this child you claim a wonder, was his, born from between his wife’s dead thighs. Jo-an-enna killed her mother. Is that the act of an avatar of Alta? She killed the midwife as well. And she was the cause of her foster mother’s death. Tell me, all you women who have born or fostered a child, is this the One you would follow?”

  “Would you blame the infant for its mother’s death? Would you shame the innocent? No blame, no shame—it is written in the Book,” Petra said. But her voice, being still a child’s, was weak compared with the full modulations of Mother Alta’s.

  The priestess stood, and her sister rose beside her. “Would I withhold from you such a miracle? Would I keep from you such a savior?” Seeing the women wavering, she pressed her advantage. “Who is she? I will tell you who she is. She is Jo-an-enna, a girl of this Hame. You watched when she spit pap from her baby mouth. You changed her soiled pants. You nursed her through rosy fever and dabbed at her dripping nose. She is your sister, your daughter, your friend, that is who she is. What more would you have her be?”

  Jenna looked around slowly at the rolling sea of faces. She could not read what lay written there. Pulling into herself, she began the breathing chant and within a space of ten counts once again started to feel the strange lightening. Slipping the gross bonds of her body, she lifted above it to survey all who quarreled below. In that other state, all was-silent and she could see each woman purely. Most clearly of all she could see herself. She wondered at the still, white center she found there. Her body was like the others, yet at the core there was a difference. Did that make her a savior, an avatar, the Anna? She did not know. But what seemed clear now was that Petra was right. Events would move forward whether she believed or not. She could be swept along, possibly drowned, like a child in the Halla. Or she could dig a channel to control the waters as the townsfolk of Selden had done with their flood. It was that simple.

  She let herself slip back into her body and opened her eyes. Moving into the center of the half circle, she raised her right hand. Skada did the same.

  “Sisters,” she began, her voice trembling, “Listen to me. I am the Anna! I am the Goddess’ good right hand. I go to warn the Hames that the time of the endings, the time of the beginnings, is here. I am the Anna. Who goes with me?”

  For a long moment there was silence and Jenna suddenly feared that the priestess had won and that she was cut off from all of them, now and forever.

  Then Pynt said, “If I were fit, I would go with you, Anna. But my place is here, here helping with the children even as I heal.”

  “I will go with you, Anna,” cried Petra, “for I know prophecy even though I do not know how to use a sword.”

  “And I,” called out Catrona. “With my sister by my side.” Her dark twin nodded.

  “We will go, too,” Amalda and Sammor said together.

  Jenna looked at them and shook her head. “No, my fourth mothers. You must stay. Selden Hame needs to ready itself for what comes soon. The time of endings. Your arms are needed here. I will go with Petra and Catrona and, at the moon times, we shall have our dark sisters with us. We are messengers, after all, not a mob.” Then she turned and spoke to the priestess. “We would go with your blessing, Mother, but we will go whether you give it or not.”

  Slumped against her chair, Mother Alta suddenly looked old. She waved her hand in a feeble sign that might have been a blessing. Her dark sister’
s motion was feebler still. Neither of them spoke.

  “I know the way to most of the Hames,” Catrona said. “And I know where there is a map.”

  “And I know all the words to be said,” Petra added.

  Jenna laughed. “What more can a savior want?”

  “A sword would be helpful,” Skada said. “And perhaps a sense of the absurd.”

  It took no more than an hour to arm and provision them, and Donya outdid herself with the parcels and packs. It was as if she were supplying an army, but they could not tell her no.

  Skada whispered to Petra as they watched the food being packed, “Was it not strange that Mother Alta was unfamiliar with the second part of the prophecy?”

  Petra smiled. “Not strange at all,” she said. “I made it up. It is my one great trick. I was famous for reciting poems to order at Nill’s Hame.”

  And then they were off on the road from the Hame into history, a road that glistened under the waning moon in a night lit by the flickering of a thousand thousand stars. As the five of them strode down the path, the women of Selden Hame cried out behind them in a long, wavering ululation that was part prayer, part dirge, and part farewell.

  THE MYTH:

  Then Great Alta set the queen of shadows and the queen of light onto the earth and commanded them to go forth.

  “And you two shall wear my face,” quoth Great Alta. “And you shall speak with my mouth. And you shall do my bidding for all time.”

  Where the one stepped, there sprang fire and the earth was scorched beneath her feet. Where the other stepped, there fell soothing rains and blossoms grew. So it was and so it will be. Blessed be.

  THE MUSIC OF THE DALES

  Prophecy

  Lord Gorum

  2. I’ve been far afoot, with my staff in my hand,

  The bull, the bear, the cat, and the hound,

  I have been out walking my dead father’s land,

  And the brothers have pulled me down.

  3. I looked in the mountains, I looked in the sea,

  The bull, the bear, the cat, and the hound,

  A-looking for someone a-looking for me,

  And the brothers have pulled me down.

  4. What have ye for supper, Lord Gorum, my son?

  The bull, the bear, the cat, and the hound,

  What have ye for supper, my pretty young one?

  And the brothers have pulled me down.

  5. I’ve nothing for supper and nothing to rise,

  The bull, the bear, the cat, and the hound,

  But fed on the look in my own true love’s eyes,

  And the brothers have pulled me down.

  6. What will ye leave to that true love, my son?

  The bull, the bear, the cat, and the hound.

  What will she leave you, my handsome young one?

  And the brothers have pulled me down.

  7. My kingdom, my crown, my name, and my grave,

  The bull, the bear, the cat, and the hound,

  Her hair, her heart, her place in the cave,

  And the brothers have pulled me down.

  Lullaby to the Cat’s Babe

  The Ballad of White Jenna

  2. Thirty and three rode side by side,

  And by the moonlight fortified.

  “Fight on, my sisters,” Jenna cried.

  “Fight for the Great White Alta.”

  3. The blood flowed swift, like good red wine,

  As sisters took the battle line.

  “This kingdom I will claim for mine

  And for the heart of Alta!”

  4. Thirty and three rode out that day

  To hold the dreaded foe at bay,

  But never more they passed this way

  Led by the hand of Jenna.

  5. Yet still, some say, in darkest night,

  The sisters can be heard to fight

  And you will see a flash of white

  The long white braid of Jenna.

  The Ballad of the Selden Babe

  2. A maiden went to Seldentown,

  A maid no more was she,

  Her hair hung loose about her neck,

  Her gown about her knee,

  A babe was slung upon her back,

  A bonny babe was he.

  3. She went into the clearing wild,

  She went too far from town,

  A man came up behind her

  And he cut her neck around,

  A man came up behind her

  And he pushed that fair maid down

  4. “And will ye have your way wi’ me,

  Or will ye cut me dead,

  Or do ye hope to take from me

  My long-lost maidenhead?

  Why have ye brought me far from town

  Upon this grass-green bed?”

  5. He never spoke a single word,

  Nor gave to her his name,

  Nor whence and where his parentage,

  Nor from which town he came,

  He only thought to bring her low

  And heap her high with shame.

  6. But as he set about his plan,

  And went about his work,

  The babe upon the maiden’s back

  Had touched her hidden dirk,

  And from its sheath had taken it

  All in the clearing’s mirk.

  7. And one and two, the tiny hands

  Did fell the evil man,

  Who all upon his mother had

  Commenced the wicked plan.

  God grant us all such bonny babes

  And a good and long life span.

  Alta’s Song

  2. But from that mother I was torn,

  Fire and water and all,

  And to a hillside I was borne,

  Great Alta take my soul.

  3. And on that hillside was I laid,

  Fire and water and all,

  And taken up all by a maid,

  Great Alta save my soul.

  4. And one and two and three we rode

  Fire and water and all,

  Till others took the heavy load,

  Great Alta take my soul.

  5. Let all good women hark to me,

  Fire and water and all,

  For fostering shall set thee free,

  Great Alta save my soul,

  Come Ye Women

  White Jenna

  Jane Yolen

  For Beth and Tappan

  and new beginnings

  SYNOPSIS

  For years, the birth of a girl child in the Dales had been no cause of great rejoicing. After the first of the Garunian Wars, when the patriarchal tribes from the mainland had sailed across to slaughter the men and conquer the island country, there had been a surplus of women in the Dales. Forced into polygamous marriages or forced to expose excess girl babies on the hillsides, a woman’s lot was not enviable. However, early on, a few of them had begun to reap the hillsides of the grim harvest, saving the infants and raising them in small, walled communities called Hames.

  The centuries passed and the Hames were left alone. Eventually there were seventeen such separated communities filled with women, worshippers of Great Alta, the Goddess who had once been the ruling deity of all the Dales before being supplanted by the Garunian pantheon of gods. As the population regained its balance, the Hames became sanctuaries for dissident women.

  The Altites, as they were called, continued to take in the few fosterlings brought them, but to keep up their ranks often went outside the walls to breed themselves, leaving any male babies with the fathers and carrying the girl children back to the Hames. Women of the Hames also went outside as skilled warriors-for-hire, fighting in the king’s army for a few years, thus honing their own skills and learning the latest in tactics and weaponry. However, the young girls were kept away from the outside as much as possible, until puberty and their mission year when they traveled to several other Hames as part of their education.

  What went on behind the Hame walls was a mystery to the commonfolk of th
e Dales as well as to their Garunian overlords. Though the commonfolk still spoke of Alta, worshipping her as the consort of Lord Cres, who was the dark warrior god of the Garunians, and as the goddess of childbirth and the homey virtues, the only pure Alta worship belonged to the Hames. Yet as much as the commonfolk of the Dales mentioned Alta in their prayers, they could not even come close to guessing the secret She had gifted the Altite women. Trained from childhood in special breathing exercises, memorizing the words of their goddess as set down in the Book of Light, the Altites had learned how to call up their dark sisters, their shadow souls, when they reached puberty. Ever after, these dark sisters would appear with the moon or in candlelight or firelight, walking and talking, fighting and making love, side by side with their light counterparts.

  There was persistent prophecy, rumor, and myth about one white-haired girl to be born to three mothers, all of whom would die giving her birth. This White Babe, as she was called, would become a warrior queen, a goddess, known alternately as the White One or the Anna, an old Dale word meaning “white.” The prophecy, with typical gnomic misdirection, said that the child would be both white and black, both light and dark. She would conquer ox, hound, bear, and cat, signaling the end of an old era and heralding in a new.

  The Garunians, who had carried a similar prophecy across the sea with them, feared such a phenomenon as a threat to their rule. So to confound the locals, they named their warlords Bull, Hound, Bear, and Cat. The Dalites told frequently quoted cante-fables about the White One’s coming. And the Altite priestesses had a clear charge: nurture the White Babe and warn the other Hames when she is born.

  So when a child, white-haired, dark-eyed, and seemingly preternatural in her abilities, was born to a Dale farmer’s wife who died in childbirth, the story of Sister Light, Sister Dark was begun. The midwife, upon instructions of the farmer crazed by his bereavement, took the child to be fostered at Selden Hame, the Hame closest to their town. On the trip, the midwife herself was killed by a cat, and the cat, in turn, killed by a pair of Selden Hame light/dark sisters who were out hunting. They took the child to foster, but it was a late and first fostering for this particular pair. They grew to quarreling, a quarrel which eventually led to the light sister’s exile and then the pair’s death. Three mothers, and all dead, because of the strange white-haired child.