The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  They say that every year, at the spring’s rind, the folks of Callatown build a great bonfire. Its light keeps away the spirits of the eleven who rise like mist above the Calla waves, trying to sing every man down to his death. And they say that Colm and Jennet were buried in a single grave whose mound rises higher than the ruins of the king’s tower. On that mound—and nowhere else in the Dales—grows the flower known as Colm’s Sorrow. It is a flower as light as her hair, with an eye as dark as his, and it rains its petals down like tears throughout all of the long spring days.

  THE STORY:

  The fires burned quickly and the long, thin column of smoke wrote the sisters’ epitaph against the spring sky. Catrona and Jenna stood dry-eyed, watching the curling smoke. But Petra buried her face in her hands, sobbing in soft little spurts. The townsfolk wept noisily. Only Jerem’s boy was still, staling off to the west, where the sky was clear.

  At last Jenna turned away, walking toward Duty who had waited so patiently by the broken wall. She patted the horse’s nose with great concentration, as if the soft nostrils were the only thing that mattered in the world. She inhaled the heavy horse smell.

  Catrona came over and put a hand on her shoulder. “We must go now, Jenna. And quickly.”

  Jenna did not look up from the horse.

  “Do you go to fight?” It was Jerem’s boy, who had come up behind them. Small, wiry, he had a look of passionate intensity.

  Catrona turned. “We go to warn the other Hames,” she said sharply.

  “And fight if we must.” Jenna spoke softly, as much to the horse as the boy.

  “Let me go with you,” the boy begged. “I must go. For Mai’s sake. For my own.”

  “Your father will need you, boy,” Catrona said.

  “He be having less to do now that so many be gone,” he answered. “And if you do not let me go with you, I go anyway. I be your shadow. You be looking behind at every turning and at every straightaway, and I be there following.”

  Jenna, her hand still on Duty’s nose, stared at him. The boy’s dark green eyes bore into her own. “He will, too,” she said softly to Catrona. “I have seen that look before.”

  “Where?”

  “In her mirror,” Petra said joining them.

  “And in Pynt’s eyes,” Jenna added.

  Catrona said nothing more but strode to her horse and mounted it with swift ease. Then she jerked on the reins and the startled mare turned toward the fallen Hame gate.

  Petra’s horse stood still while she climbed up, its withers trembling slightly, like ripples on a pond.

  Jenna ran her hand along Duty’s head and down her neck with slow deliberation. Then suddenly she grabbed hold of the saddle’s horn and pulled herself up in a single, swift motion.

  “Hummmph!” was Catrona’s only comment, for she had turned in her saddle to watch the girls mount, but a smile played around her mouth before resolving itself in a frown.

  They sat, motionless, on their horses for a long moment. Then Jenna leaned down and held out her hand to the boy. He grinned up at her and took it. Pulling hard, Jenna lifted him onto the saddle behind her. He settled easily as if well used to riding double.

  “Jareth, boy, where be you going?” Jerem ran over, grabbing onto the boy’s right knee.

  “He rides with us,” Jenna said.

  “He cannot. He must not. He be but a boy.”

  “A boy!” Catrona laughed. “He was promised in marriage. If he is man enough to wed, he is man enough to fight. How old do you think these girls are?” Her voice carried only to Jerem’s ears. It was Petra, standing up in her stirrups, who addressed the rest of the villagers.

  “We ride with the Anna, the White One, She who was thrice mothered and thrice orphaned.”

  The Calla’s Ford folk gathered around to listen. Grete and her husband stood in the front, Jerem still by his son’s knee. They were silent, staring at Jenna.

  “We follow Her,” Petra continued, pointing dramatically. “For She has already made both hound and ox bow down. Who would deny Her?” She paused.

  Feeling that it was her turn to speak, Jenna drew her sword from its sheath and raised it above her head, wondering if she looked foolish, hoping she appeared noble. “I am the ending and I am the beginning,” she cried out. “Who rides with me?”

  From behind her Jareth called, “I ride with you, Anna.”

  “And I!” It was a dull-haired, long-legged boy.

  “And I!” Standing by him, one who might have been his twin.

  “And I!”

  “And I!”

  “And I!” The last was Harmon who, caught up in the moment, had snatched off his hat and thrown it into the air causing Petra’s horse to back away nervously. The commotion gave Grete time to put her hand forcefully on her husband’s shoulder, and he sank back, hatless, against her.

  In the end, three boys volunteered. Jareth was given his father’s blessing and Grete and Harmon’s two sons took a loan of their father’s spavined gelding. Riding double, they tracked behind the mares down the darkening road toward the west.

  THE MYTH:

  Then Great Alta said, “You shall ride to the North and you shall ride to the South; you shall ride to the East and you shall ride to the West. And there great armies will rise up beside you. You and your blanket companions shall match sword with sword and might with might that the blood shed between you shall wash away the stain left by the careless men.”

  BOOK TWO

  THE LONG RIDING

  THE MYTH:

  The Great Alta reached into the sinkhole of night and drew up three boy babes. One was light, and two were dark, and they were weak and pulling in the sun of her face.

  “And you shall grow and grow and grow,” quoth she, “until you are like giants in the land. You shall ride over the world that evil may know fear.”

  Then Great Alta pulled them by the hair and by the bottoms of their feet until they were as large as towers, until they were giants in the land. She set them down by the fordside and sprinkled their foreheads with water and their feet with ashes that they might better endure the long riding.

  THE LEGEND:

  Three heroes rode out of the East. One was light as day, one as bright as noon, one as dark as eve. And their horses were caparisoned the same: one in silver as the dawn, one in gold as midday, and one in ebon as the night. They carried crown and collar and ring.

  Their swords flashed as they rode and the woods rang with their battle song:

  We serve the queen of light

  We serve the queen of night

  On the long riding.

  Wherever they rode, they dealt death to the enemies of the White One, the Anna. And they were known as The Three.

  The tapestry in room 4/Town Hall/Calla’s Cross (pictured above) is from the Great Renascence in the Weaver’s Gift Period. Legend has it it was finished the week after The Three had ridden by, a patent impossibility. Such tapestries were often years in the weaving. Note especially how it pictures three knights in full armor, swords upraised, riding straight toward the viewer. One is in silver armor on a gray horse; one is in black armor on a black horse; and one is in gold armor on a horse whose skin is the color of old gold. Their visors are up and one can see their eyes. They seem to be laughing.

  THE STORY:

  Night came quickly and they were only scant miles down the road, but Catrona pulled them all up with a hand sign.

  “You, boy!” she called to Jerem’s son.

  “Jareth,” Jenna reminded her, even before he could speak for himself.

  “Jareth, then,” Catrona said. “Climb down from behind the Anna now and give her poor horse a rest. Best you ride for a while with Petra there.” She pointed.

  The boy pushed himself off the rear of the horse, landing as lightly as a cat, and went over to Petra’s mare. Petra reached down to help him up, but he shook off her hand, went behind the horse, gave a little run-jump, and was behind her, grinning.

  “
I be handling a lot of horses,” he explained shyly, “when the owners came to grind their grain. One told me a horse be making a giant of a small man. That’s when I knew I had to ride.”

  Catrona nodded, but Jenna slipped her horse between them and leaned over, speaking softly. “Why have him switch now? Duty is not tiring.”

  Looking up at the darkening sky, Catrona whispered back. “The moon will be up soon and our dark sisters here. No need to frighten the boys or overburden Duty.”

  “I forgot.” Jenna bit her lower lip. “Alta, how could I have forgot?”

  Catrona smiled. “You are but days new to having a dark sister share your life. And even I, who have lived side by side with Katri for thirty years, sometimes forget. Not Katri, not the fact of her. But sometimes I forget to be prepared for her. She is ever a surprise, though she is the better part of me.”

  “Then we must warn the boys,” Jenna said. “But what do we say?”

  “We say to them what we always say—in the army or in bed—for a man hears and sees what he wants,” Catrona said. “Do not worry so. In the Lower Dales they say A man’s eye is bigger than his belly and smaller than his brain.” Laughing, she turned her horse toward Petra and the gelding upon which Grete and Harmon’s boys sat, legs dangling down.

  “Soon we will be met by two sisters of the night,” she began, in a voice of easy authority. “They are friends of ours who will travel along the way with us. But they come when they will and they leave when they will and they are not fond of the day. As long as they decide to remain with us, they will be our dearest allies, our boon companions on the road.” She looked carefully at the boys. “Do you understand?”

  The boys nodded, Jareth quickly and the other two with a bit more caution, as if it took them more time to sort through what Catrona meant.

  “We be seeing such night sisters afore,” Jareth said. “They be helping my Da once at mill and Sandor and Marek’s Da at ferry. They be there when we needed them though never when we called.”

  Sandor and Marek nodded.

  “Good. Then you will not be frightened or confused when these two appear. Their names are Katri and Skada. Katri is the older.” She smiled. “Even older than me.”

  “Catrona!” It was Petra who seemed shocked.

  Catrona smiled mischievously. “Well, maybe only a little older.”

  “We be neither confused nor frightened,” said Jareth solemnly, “for we be in the presence of Anna.”

  Sandor shook his head. And Marek, like his brother, shook his head as well. Otherwise they did not move, staring at Jenna with worshipful eyes.

  “Let us dismount and feed the horses. And ourselves.” Catrona climbed off her horse.

  “But there be no food,” Sandor said.

  “None,” added Marek.

  Jenna laughed, a short barking sound. “We have the woods as our larder,” she said. “So we can never starve.”

  THE SONG:

  The Long Riding

  Into the valley, come riding, come riding,

  Into the meadow and into the dell,

  Into the moonlight where shadows are gliding,

  Into the forest where enemies hiding,

  Riding, riding, Three come ariding

  Into the mouth of hell.

  Into the village come riding, come riding,

  Into the hames where the sweet women dwell,

  Into the rests where the men are abiding,

  Into the forest where enemies hiding,

  Riding, riding, Three come ariding

  Into the mouth of hell.

  THE STORY:

  They showed the boys how to search the woods for food, and Jareth discovered a bird’s nest with three eggs. The other two boys came up empty-handed, but Jenna found a ring of tasty mushrooms and Catrona a stream whose bank was dotted with cress. Petra, who had waited with the horses, came upon the greatest cache of all, a stand of nettles which stung the back of her hands. She was still complaining about them when Jenna reappeared, trailed by Jareth.

  “Nettles!” Jenna said. “Then we can have nettle tea.”

  “But we dare not be making a fire, Anna,” Jareth reminded.

  “We can make a small fire in a deep tunnel,” she said, “just enough to heat water to steep tea if your friends can find leaves that are dry enough.”

  They had cress salad sprinkled with hard-boiled egg, mushrooms, and half the tea, a feast.

  “The rest of the tea I will store in my water pouch,” Catrona said as they buried the tunneled fire. “Nettle tea is as good cold as hot. And I have a surprise.” She reached into her leather pocket and pulled out a rough-weave cloth packet. Slowly she unwrapped a large piece of journeycake.

  “Where …” Petra began.

  “From the Hame kitchen,” Catrona said quietly. “I knew they would have had us take it. Any old soldier knows that in battle one takes quickly and saves regrets for the morning.”

  They nodded, one after another, and held out their hands for a share.

  The dark sisters did not come for the moon had finished its full phase and, without fire, the small light of the stars was not strong enough to call them forth. Jenna lay on her blanket staring up at the patterns in the sky, counting their names to herself in the hope that the roll call would lull her to sleep: Alta’s Dipper, Hame’s Horn, the Cat, the Great Hound. But she could not sleep and at last stood up and walked, barefooted, to the place where the white horse and its companion bays slept standing. When she placed her hand on Duty’s soft nose, the horse blew through its nostrils lightly, a sound at once strange and comforting.

  “Anna?” It was a soft voice.

  Jenna turned around. Jareth was moving toward her quietly.

  “Anna, be that you?”

  “Yes.”

  He reached the horse and touched it lightly on the nose, careful to keep the horse’s head between them. “I be on watch and heard you. Be there something wrong?”

  “No. Yes. I could not sleep.”

  “You be thinking about Calla’s Ford Hame?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I am thinking about all the hames, Jareth. But that is not why I am restless.”

  “Can you tell me, Anna?”

  “Do not, for Alta’s blessed sake, call me that,” she said, her voice edged with anger.

  “Call you what?”

  “Anna. That is not my name. My name is Jo-an-enna. My friends call me Jenna.”

  Jareth was quiet for a moment. “But I be thinking you be … I mean, she said you be … that be …”

  “It seems I am,” said Jenna. “Or may be. But that is only a title, something put upon me. It is not what I am in truth.”

  Jareth thought about that a minute, then whispered, “Then who be you? In truth?”

  “Just a girl. And the daughter of many mothers.”

  “That be what they say of Anna. That she be thrice mothered.”

  “And so I was.”

  “And white-haired.”

  “And so I am.”

  “And the hound and ox …”

  “So they did. But I eat like you. And I pass wind if there are beans in the pot. And when I have too much to drink, I must find a place in the woods to …”

  “Anna,” Jareth said, reaching across Duty’s nose to touch her arm. “No one be saying that Anna be not human. No one be calling her a goddess without water or wind. She be … she be linchpin, axletree, link between old carriage and new wheel.”

  “But linchpins and axletrees are made by humans,” Jenna said. “Not by Alta.”

  “Exactly,” Jareth answered. “It be prophecy that be the Goddess’ own.”

  Jenna was silent a long time, thinking about what Jareth had said. At last she sighed. “Thank you, Jareth. I think … I think I shall be able to sleep now.”

  “You be welcome,” he answered, coming around to the front of the horse. “But I be afraid you get no sleep yet. It be your turn at watch.” He laughed, holding out his hand, “Jenna.”<
br />
  She took his hand. It was as firm in her own as Catrona’s. Or Skada’s.

  They left before morning light, going out of the forest and crossing three towns in quick succession where no lamps were yet lit and their horses’ hooves the only sound. In the last town, Jenna, Petra, and Catrona waited by the edge while the boys found them food, for Jareth had cousins there.

  Once they stopped to wash the trail dirt from their faces in a small, meandering stream. Five or six times they stopped to relieve themselves and let the horses graze. They slept fitfully through a night that spit intermittent rain, soaking them despite a lean-to of split saplings. Otherwise, they remained on horseback all that day and into the next.

  “I smell of horse,” Petra complained mildly at their waking.

  “You smell no different than a horse,” Jenna amended.

  They laughed heartily at her words, the first such since finding the devastation at the Hame. After that their mood was somewhat lighter, even though their muscles ached and both Marek and Sandor had saddle sores.

  On the eve of the second day they crested a small hill where the beginnings of a great forest spread out below them. Mile after mile of unbroken woods lay on either side of a winding road.

  “That is King’s Way,” Catrona said, pointing to the road. “There is no other through this wilderness. Wilma’s Crossing is on the other side.”

  “Be it not dangerous to stay …” Sandor began, running his fingers through his matted hair.

  “… on the King’s Way?” finished his brother.

  “There is less danger on it than off. This wold is known to only a few and the few are the Greenfolk. They”—Catrona spit between her second and little fingers—” they are not likely to help us. More likely to take our heads. Or our fingers. They like the small bones. Wear them dangling from their ears.”

  Marek and Sandor looked nervously at one another, but Jareth laughed.

  “My Da be speaking often of the Greenfolk. The Grenna, he be calling them. He be saying no such thing about taking bones. They be to themselves,” Jareth said. “And that be all.”

  Catrona smiled at him. “True, they are to themselves. They call this forest their own and do not favor intruders.”