The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  THE FABLE:

  The mice in the stable wanted a king and they asked one of their own to lead them.

  King Mouse proved a good king. He found them warm places in the winter and cool burrows for the summer. He managed the grain supplies well. Still the mice were not happy, for they had to hide from hawks and owls. They had to run from weasels and wolves.

  “We need a king who is not just like us: long tail, quivering disposition, and a passion for cheese,” they said.… “We need someone bigger and stronger to lead us into the light.”

  So they held a great assembly and threw down King Mouse.

  “Now who shall we get to lead us?” they cried.

  “Why not Cat from the big home?” called out one young mouse in a loud voice. Loud, that is, for a mouse. “Cat is big and rough. No one troubles him. He will keep us safe.”

  “Safe from what?” asked one old mouse. “Safe for what?” But he had been King Mouse’s chief advisor and besides his voice was weak with his age. Even those who heard him did not listen.

  So the mice sent an emissary to ask Cat to be their king.

  And a second.

  And a third.

  When the fourth emissary escaped Cat’s claws by just a whisker, the mice understood at last what the old one had been trying to tell them. They rallied once again behind King Mouse, too late for some, but in time for most.

  THE STORY:

  Jenna was half a day down the eastern road before she had fully thought out which direction she meant to take. The white mare plodded dutifully along, unmindful of the familiar burden on her back, until Jenna reined her in sharply at a crossroads.

  “I think,” Jenna said to the horse as if expecting a conversation, “that we should go where we are not expected. By ourselves least of all. What do you think?”

  The mare shook her head, an answer that had more to do with the sudden reining-in than Jenna’s question.

  “Everyone knows how I love the woods and the mountains,” Jenna said. “But my son has brought with him a contagion from across the sea. Let us go to some lonely shingle and camp there on the sand. Perhaps if I stare across the water long enough, Alta will send me a sign and I will at last understand what it is I must do.”

  She urged the horse southward and the mare once again shook her head. But Jenna did not notice, or at least did not take it as any kind of message, for she was already contemplating some interior notions of tides. And so it was in silence that the horse and Jenna continued down the grassy road that led, eventually, to the sea.

  The first evening they camped off the path, close enough for access but far enough away to be hidden from prying eyes. Jenna was neither particularly hungry or tired, but she knew how quickly both could come upon the unprepared traveler so she forced herself to eat a creditable meal of journeycake and spring greens boiled in water from a nearby stream to which she added a touch of dried herbs and salt from her waist pouches. She was long past the days when she felt she had to be pure in her approach to camping, eating only what the fields or an evening’s hunt provided. And she always carried tea leaves in a small separate pouch—hawthorn mixed with sage and balm for her traveling, and a smaller pouch of boneset sweetened with wild mint in case of the damp.

  Skada ate with her while the fire was great enough to shed some light. They were both quite mellow with the evening and the hot tea, and Skada even recited one of Petra’s old praises to the evening’s drink:

  When one’s hands are idle,

  And night sneaks in like an old friend,

  Welcome him with a cup of agrimony,

  Make him welcome with a cup of sweet balm tea.

  “Unfortunately not only night might sneak in,” Jenna said after a bit. “Our fire could signal to footpads and other night men. Good-bye, sweet sister.”

  Skada made no protest and disappeared as soon as Jenna damped the fire, for there was no moon to keep her in the camp.

  Using a small log as a back rest, Jenna gazed up at the scattering of stars through the bare overhang of branches. It had been years since she had thought much about the priestess who had run Selden Hame, and how the women there had spoken of Great Alta hiding her glory in a single leaf. But that particular phrase came to her now.

  “Hiding in a tea leaf as easily,” Jenna murmured. She sipped the now cold tea, savoring its homey taste. The priestess had said something else as well. What was it? Jenna closed her eyes, trying to remember, tracking back to the day that she and Pynt and the other girls—how young they were then!—had been praying. For someone. For something. And the priestess had said …

  “What?” Jenna whispered. “What had she said?”

  And then suddenly it came to her: Sometimes Great Alta; she who runs across the surface of the rivers, who hides her glory in a single leaf, sometimes she tests us and we are too small to see the pattern. All we feel is the pain. But there is a pattern, and that you must believe.

  Did she believe? Could she believe?

  She burst into loud, hot tears, surprising herself and disturbing the mare who stamped her feet and houghed sharply through her nose. But Jenna could not stop herself from crying. She continued to weep until she thought her chest would burst with aching and her eyes would never see again. She was not someone used to tears.

  It took a long time before she was cried out and lay, head on the log, squinting up through swollen eyes. The stars seemed to swim about in a blurry sea of sky.

  Thank Alta no one saw that! she thought. Not even Skada. She threw out the remains of the cold tea with a wide sweep of her hand. Then she stood and stretched her cramped legs. At last she spread out her blanket and lay down to sleep. If she had dreams, she did not remember anything about them.

  It took another full day of riding before they got to the sea. Jenna did not expect to cry again, thinking that in that one night she had cried enough for a lifetime. But as she sat on the silent beach gazing out across the lapping waves with dusk gathering its skirts around her, she began to weep once more. This time her sobs were loud enough that grey-coated seals rose up from the skerries to stare at her. Two even dove into the water to swim within a few feet of shore, their heads and shoulders high out of the sea, watching warily, curiously.

  She did not see them through her clouded eyes, but her horse did and trembled while grazing on beach grass. When the mare whuffled at the seals, Jenna turned and looked at the horse. When she turned back to see what had so frightened her mare, the seals were gone.

  But Duty’s alarm recalled Jenna to herself. She felt she was a danger to both of them, giving in to such strong emotion. As beautiful as the shingle was in the growing dark, with the glow along the horizon line that separated sky from sea, it was not a safe place, and Jenna was a woman alone. A warrior—true. But she recalled Scillia’s words spoken thirteen years earlier, a warrior no longer young. She needed to remain alert, to be ready, not to be disarmed by her own tears.

  She wondered briefly if she dared light any kind of fire on the wide swath of beach, or even higher up on the peaty cliffs that sheered off into the sea. That way Skada could company her, and she would have a blanket companion, a partner in any fight. But she decided at last that the fire itself was more danger than it was worth. She fell asleep sitting up, the cliff at her back and her sword on her lap, lulled into dreams by the sound of the ebbing sea.

  Morning showed her the long shallow paths of the low tide, a greater beach than any she had ever seen, even in Berick Harbor. She wandered out between the tidal pools, picking up fluted shells and creatures whorled into shell mazes. Berick never had such a great tide. The water lowered, of course, but it did not uncover such swatches of land. Why—she could almost walk the flats straight across to the land of the Garuns.

  “And what would I say to King Kras when I got there?” she wondered aloud. “That he has changed my boy beyond all recognition?” She knew in her heart of hearts that was not true. In some awful way, Jemmie’s years with the Garuns had only m
ade him more of what he had been from the first. It was true. She had sent them a little boy. They had returned him a littler man. It was not Jem’s fault. Or the Garuns. “Or even ours,” she whispered. “He is what he is.” But still, she knew he had to be stopped before he hurt himself, before he hurt the Dales. “Piet is right about that,” Jenna told herself. “And who but I can stop him?”

  She turned and, with the sun at her back, stared up at the peaty cliffs. There were ten horsemen ranged along the top gazing down at her.

  I should have spoken to him before I left, she thought wearily. I expect it is too late now.

  THE HISTORY:

  Editor

  Pasden University Press

  Sir:

  Pasden University Press has issued many monographs by the late and hardly lamented Dr. Magic Magon, most of them abusing Dalian historical subjects. I am sure you are aware that much of Dr. Magon’s work has been seriously discredited in the last few years. His scholarly star is on the wane; my father’s star is once more on the rise.

  I have in my possession several articles of my father’s, never published, that might well be expanded into monographs by myself. I have followed in his footsteps, becoming a scholar in the field of archeohistography, studying Dalian history and iconography under Drs. Doyle and Macdonald at Colebrook College, and musicology under Dr. Eldridge. I received my doctorate at the University of Berike-on-Sea. A selected bibliography of my articles and my father’s follows.

  The piece I am most interested in enlarging into a monograph is the enclosed study of folk songs after the fall of the so-called Anna of the Dales. My father calls this time the Interregnum and explains that while this term usually refers to “the period between kings, in the case of the Dales it was more like a semicolon.” (He was ever the aphorist.)

  My one area of disagreement with my father—which I shall carefully limn in the monograph with complete documentation—is that I feel there really was an historical Anna (or Jenna or Janna or Jo-Hanna, all simple cognates) though I am certain she was but a minor tribal figure who fought alongside the others during the disastrous Gender Wars. A hazy shadow wraps about this real figure; bards remake history to please their own masters. Later tellers borrow what they need to craft a better story. This is not new to any folklorist or archeohistographer. But I plan to show in this monograph how history and story—a word which grows out of it like a child following a parent—can prove the heretofore unprovable: In the fall of a hero is the rise of a nation.

  And I will be the child building upon the father’s shoulders, thus lifting us both (and the monograph) to a higher plane.

  I look forward to hearing from you and working with you—I hope—in the very near future.

  THE STORY:

  After a moment of fear Jenna recognized the horsemen, soldiers who patrolled the coast roads. She waved and one of them—the obvious leader—hailed her in return, urging his horse down the grassy cliffside slope.

  “We do not wish to disturb you,” he said, when he realized who it was, “but we check out all strangers on the shore.”

  “As you should, captain,” Jenna replied. “Though the disturbances have been few.”

  “Even a few is too many,” the captain replied. “I will leave you, my queen, to finish your …”

  “My mood is over,” Jenna replied easily. “And there is much troubling me at home. I would ride back quickly, and not alone. Can you spare me two of your soldiers?”

  “I can spare all for you, Anna,” he replied. “We are done with the patrol and are about to be relieved.”

  “Two will be plenty,” Jenna said. “I need to move quickly and safely back to Berick. Three together will be an unassailable force on the road against which footpads and highwaymen will stand down.”

  “Especially if those three are armed and riding fast,” the captain agreed.

  “Especially then.”

  She saddled her horse speedily and rode easily up the slope after him to the spot where the soldiers were waiting. The captain chose two immediately: a well-muscled woman about thirty years old with corn-colored hair cropped short as an old man’s, and a scarred veteran closer to fifty who sat his horse as if he no longer knew where his own legs ended and the horse’s barreled body began.

  “Sarana and Voss will make a fine escort, Anna,” the captain told her.

  “We will make fine companions,” she countered. “Sarana, Voss.” She nodded at them. “You will shorten the road for me.”

  Voss nodded back curtly, but Sarana gave her the goddess sign and Jenna smiled at them both. Then she turned back to the captain. “My thanks, good captain. We will feed them well at Berick before sending them back to you. But now we must ride, and ride hard.”

  At first the road was empty of travelers and the three kept a steady pace, galloping for a while, then fast-walking the horses, then settling them to a trot. It was a pattern the horses could keep up for hours, but Jenna made sure they gave the beasts plenty of times to rest and graze.

  “I am in a hurry,” she explained, “but I will not kill a horse for it.”

  Voss grunted his approval and took advantage of each rest to lie down on the verge of the road and catnap. It seemed to matter little whether there were rocks beneath him or moss, he closed his eyes and was immediately asleep, his breathy snores sawing the air. But Sarana took the rest stops as a time to walk about, stretching her legs and simultaneously putting a hand to the small of her back.

  “If you ache,” Jenna said, “I could give you a rub.”

  “The queen’s touch?” Sarana snorted. “I don’t believe in that.”

  “Nor do I,” Jenna said. “My touch will not—as some think—cure scurvy or bring down swellings in the neck. But I am a fair hand at rubbing out aches and I’ve a lotion my infirmarer makes me carry whenever I go for my long ride-abouts.”

  Sarana ran a hand through her stubbly hair. “That I wouldn’t mind.” Without a word more, she stripped off her guard’s coat and shirt. She wore nothing—binding or vest—beneath and seemed to have no embarrassment at being naked before a stranger.

  “Sit,” Jenna commanded.

  Sarana sat on a high, flat stone, her back to Jenna, and Jenna was horrified to see that her back read like an old river valley, scars meandering like watercourses across it.

  “Who did such a thing to you?” Jenna asked.

  “My mam and pap,” Sarana said evenly. “It’s why I joined the guards as soon as they’d have me. I knew no one else would ever hurt me as much as my own kin. Don’t you mind it, ma’am. I don’t. Not any more.”

  Jenna got out the lotion and spread it gently across the scarred back. “I’ll be careful.”

  “It don’t hurt,” Sarana told her. “Not for years.”

  Jenna put more strength in the rub-down then, pressing her fingers deep into the woman’s taut flesh. She knew it was a silly notion, but she could feel every one of the scars rising up in protest against her fingertips.

  After a long while Sarana gave a contented sigh. “It’s been a time since I felt so good. You do have a fair hand, Anna.”

  They heard Voss starting to stir in the grass.

  “I thank you, ma’am,” Sarana said slipping quickly back into her shirt and coat. “I’ll ride days on that rub, I will.”

  They rode on, sharing the last of Jenna’s journeycake and a skin of raw wine Voss carried “for medicinal purposes.” The trip—which had taken Jenna two nights and two long days in the going—was shortened greatly in the return. They came upon the towers of Berick Castle as a dark shadow under the brilliant predawn sky.

  Jenna reined in her horse, calling to the others. “We must go more slowly now, or an alarm will be raised. Follow in my track.”

  They were riding one by one by one, Jenna’s white horse almost gleaming as the sun rose behind them, when ahead the great gates of the shadowy castle opened and they could see twenty or so torches lighting the way. A single rider galloped out to meet the
m.

  “Scillia!” Jenna breathed, for she knew her daughter’s one-armed outline at once. Fearing the worst, she kicked her horse forward and it gave her full heart in its gallop.

  “Quickly, Mother,” Scillia cried out. “Thank Alta you have returned. It is Father. The infirmarer fears this time for his life. I was going this morning to trail you.”

  Jenna nodded, thinking: Not too late then, but late enough.

  They raced back to the castle together, leaving Jenna’s companions far behind.

  The infirmarer had no encouraging words and the Altan healer was even more blunt.

  “He worsens by the hour,” the healer said, her own face greyer than Carum’s from sitting up with him. “All of a sudden he took a turn. I would not put a time on it, but it will be soon. I am sorry, Anna. Though the ballads already have it he reigned fifty years, you and I know the truth of it. This is the end, and not half that time.”

  “My children all know? And the council?”

  The healer smoothed down her hair which was almost as white as Jenna’s. “Your daughter knows and understands. It is she who has been handling the duties these two days. As for the boys, the Garun prince has been all but unmanned by the thought. I have given him a sleeping draught for the nights, but these past two days he has been like a ravening beast. Prince Corrine seems to blame himself for his father’s sickness, though what blame there is for in an illness of the lung, I do not know. He does not listen to me, though, and has sat up through both day and night at his father’s bedside trying to lighten the king’s waking moments. He will make himself ill if he does not get some rest. Then I will have two patients and not the one. As to the council, I have not spoken to them. It is not my place.”

  “I will see them anon,” Jenna said. “Let me see my husband now.”

  She went into the chamber they had shared the past twenty-five years and drew the heavy drapes away from the window to let in both light and air. Then slowly she turned and stared at the figure on the bed. He was much too still. When she neared the bed, his eyelids fluttered open.