The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  “I do not remember any such.” Jemson began to study his fingernails with great concentration.

  “And your father a scholar, your dam a fighter. How they ever threw you … still the Book knows that, too.”

  “What do you mean, man?” Jemson glared at him.

  Malfas did not moderate the insult in this bow. “A white ewe may have a black lamb,” he said. His voice was strong and was meant to carry.

  “Damn you!” Jemson stood, grabbed up the scepter which was resting against the throne, and flung it at Malfas’ head.

  Without glancing at it, Malfas reached up and plucked the scepter from the air, turned, and walked out of the room, his back offering his final insult to the young usurper king.

  The broken window was boarded up by the guards, the wine rack restored and checked every hour. The men were all shackled, wrist to wrist, except for Corrie who, as the king’s brother, still had certain privileges.

  The three boys were not bound, but they had been so maltreated by the Garuns when they were caught, they did not even dare walk into the next room without asking permission. Instead they fell asleep on the dirty pallets without speaking, though one of them cried for an hour in his sleep, a sound so despairing that Corrie sat down on the bed by his side and rubbed the child’s forehead. The boy’s exhaustion was deep and the touch did not wake him, nor did it seem to salve him.

  Corrie wanted desperately to ask about the fourth boy who had gone with them through the window and about Petra. But he feared alerting the guards who, in pairs, now stood at attention in the archway. Instead, he joined the card players. It was not an easy game, shackled as they were, but it was the only way to lighten the gloom in the wine cellar which now, truly, felt like a dungeon.

  They whispered among themselves, but without any real information the talk went in circles until one soldier in a husky voice said, “We still have the king’s sword.”

  “And what good is it, the blade ruined from sawing at that window?” said Piet. “And only the end man in our chain with a hand to swing it.”

  “There’s Prince Corrine here,” the man answered. “He’s both hands free.”

  “He’d be no match for the two of them,” Piet cautioned, gesturing with his head toward the doorway where the guards strained to hear them.

  “Then let him distract them and we can …”

  “If you are an anvil …” Piet said.

  “… be patient,” answered the soldier. “I know that one. My sergeant says that all the time. And if you are a hammer, be strong. It is time we all became hammers.”

  Corrie whispered to them. “I am more anvil than hammer it is true, but even I have lost what patience I had. There is something our poor land needs and only I can supply it.” He stood slowly and walked over to the guards. They were instantly on the alert, but he held out his hands to them. “Take me to my brother, Jemson-Over-the-Water. He will want to speak to me.”

  Piet started to stand but he could not pull the others up in time. “No, Corrie,” he cried.

  But they were already gone.

  “What is it?” asked the soldier, the one who had been speaking before. “What is it that he alone can supply?”

  Piet looked down over the boys, now sleeping peacefully, the bruises on their faces and arms beginning to show in the flickering light of the torches.

  “Blood,” he said, loudly and with great feeling now that the guards had left them alone. “Royal blood. And courage in its shedding. He means to be a martyr.”

  Corrie stood before the throne where his brother sat on three pillows, comfortable at last, his right leg crossed over the left. There was a guard standing at attention on either side of the throne and Sir Malfas waited on the left side of the dais.

  “So you have something to say to me,” Jemson said. He smiled and turned to Malfas. “I told you he would come round at last. He is my brother. Blood will tell.”

  Malfas stroked his moustache, as if the feel of it between his fingers lent him comfort or strength, but he did not respond.

  “I do,” Corrie said.

  “Well out with it then, Corrie. No games. I am serious,” Jemson said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward in the great chair.

  “No games? But I thought that Garuns loved games. And you are more than a match for any Garun at game-playing.” Corrie smiled and cocked his head to one side. He suddenly thought about Gadwess and the games they used to indulge in. Jemmie would never admit to any of those.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Malfas stirred, took a step closer to the king. “He toys with you, Majesty. There is nothing to tell.”

  The Garun’s words made Jemson’s face prune up.

  “I know where Scillia is.”

  “See—he knows where Scillia is, that dough-faced slut.” Jemson said. He grinned and spoke again to Corrie. “So …?”

  “Oh I know—but I will not say. That is what I have come to tell you.” Corrie spoke slowly, carefully, as if speaking to a child.

  Malfas went up the steps to the throne and whispered in Jemson’s ear. “He is merely playing you like a reed flute, Majesty. Do not sing to his tune.”

  Jemson shook his head violently, trying to rid himself of the Garun’s voice. His hands made fists and they trembled as he spoke. “I can make you tell, you know.”

  “No, Jemmie, you cannot.”

  “King Jemson!”

  “Mother always said: You can call a rock a fish but it still cannot swim.”

  Jemson’s whole body began to tremble. “You’ll be sorry you spoke to me like that.”

  Corrie smiled again. “I expect I will.”

  “Take him away!” Jemson shouted. “Now! Out of my sight! But not down in the dungeon again with his friends. They will laugh there. They will laugh at me. And I will not have it. I will not. What I will have, though, is Prince Corrine whipped. Like a slave. Like a dog.” He stood up partway, holding on to the arms of the throne. But his legs trembled so much, from anger, from humiliation, that he sat down again heavily. One of the three cushions skittered to the floor. “No! No! I will have him pressed. Then you will talk to me, Corrie. The stones will make you speak. Only I may not listen right away.”

  Three guards came and grabbed Corrie by the arm and they were no longer polite with him.

  Malfas shook his head. “Do not do this, Jemson. Whatever he says to you in agony will avail us nothing.”

  “He will talk. I will make him talk. And you must call me king. King Jemson. Or I will crush you, too.”

  “You will only make him a martyr, Sire. A martyr could stir a somnolent countryside. King Kras will not be pleased.”

  “King Kras can go suffocate!” Jemson screamed. “I am all the king needed here.” He looked up at the guards. “What do you wait for? I have given you your orders. Take him. Take him and guard him till the stones can be found. Then we shall see who will talk and who will not.”

  There was a note in the bottom of one of the evening porridge bowls and, as Alta’s luck would have it, Piet found it. He turned his back to the guards, slipped the note out of its messy resting place, and stuck it down the front of his tunic. When he turned back he handed the bowl to one of the boys who had the task of gathering them up.

  He waited.

  He waited till the guards were distracted by the servers taking charge of the empty bowls. Then he leaned into the guttering torchlight and read.

  Wet porridge had obscured some of the writing. But the message was still clear.

  Mada_ Petr_ __been k lled_ __hers captur__

  I am __town. All__ __t lost. Praise Al__.

  The boy had made it into town, so all was indeed not lost, as the note said. But Petra. He could not bear to think on it. Tucking the note back into his shirt, he turned away from the light.

  Shackled three down from Piet, Jareth’s eyes were closed but he was not asleep. He was still coughing badly and the spasmodic jerking kept the men on either side of him from sle
eping. Still no one complained. Jareth was a good man, a hero of the wars. Imprisonment, Piet thought, has made brothers of us, more than freedom ever did.

  He wondered briefly if anything would be served by telling Jareth of Petra’s death, then decided it would not.

  “My friends,” he said at last, “it is time we were hammers indeed.”

  Jareth eyes fluttered open. “Then Petra is dead,” he said. It was not a question but Piet was forced to nod anyway.

  The men stood as one, though the last stooped and reached under the pallet, pulling out the king’s battered sword. Then, without further consultation, they snaked quickly through the archways, and caught the Garuns off guard as they were closing the door.

  The man with the king’s sword sliced down heavily, using his left hand, the only hand he had free, his anger and hatred lending strength to it. He managed to gut one of the Garuns badly, and the man began to scream. Jareth and the others used their chains to choke off the sound. But the other Garun guard started out the door for help.

  He was hauled back roughly by Piet who grabbed him one-handed by the neck, pulling him off his feet.

  “Kill him,” one of the boys cried. “Kill him!”

  Piet brought his shackled hand up and gave a vicious twist to the man’s head. The snap as the Garun’s neck broke was as loud as a hammer on stone. Piet caught the man’s sword as he fell away.

  “For Alta!” Piet shouted. “For the queen!”

  They had three swords now, but no time to try and hack off the shackles, for the Garuns were on them. Still they managed to kill a dozen Garuns on the way up the stairs before their own losses—dead weight to be hauled along—so slowed them that they could gain only the first landing. There, back to the curving wall of the stairs, they made their final stand.

  The best part of a Garun troop was loosed on them, man after man charging down the stone steps.

  The fighting was fierce, but the ending, everyone knew, was predetermined by the numbers. Not a one of the Dales men still standing thought he would come out of the battle alive. Still they fought on to the end.

  Blow after bloody blow was delivered, was taken. In desperation, they used their fallen comrades as shields and those poor bodies were pierced till they had no more blood to bleed.

  Piet’s head was almost severed from his body but he managed a final thrust even then that took a captain down. Jareth, his cough miraculously cleared, bent over to get the sword Piet dropped, and was cut down just as his hand touched the hilt. He sighed Petra’s name at the last.

  Two of the boys were the only prisoners left alive of the fighting force and they were taken off to be hung at first light.

  The third boy had stayed behind in the cellar. Because of the noise of battle no one heard him shove the wine rack over. When it crashed to the ground it was simply one more sound, and too far from the main fighting to be counted.

  He drank several great gulps of red wine from a shattered bottle for courage. It was a red heat down his throat. Like blood, he thought, and shivered. He managed to open the boards over the window by standing on the overturned rack and using some of the slats from the rack as a prise. Then he shimmed through the open window, cutting himself on the same glass that had caught Sarana’s knee. He had no line to let himself down, but it was a full tide. So he flung himself out as far as he could, barely clearing the rocks. His right hand broke upon a stone outcropping, the three fingers furthest from the thumb and the bones in the palm, but he made it into the sea and it was hours later before he felt the pain of it.

  He swam along the shoreline till he was exhausted. Being from a fisherman’s family, the water held no fear for him, especially not this close to the sandy shore. When the tide drifted him onto the shingle, he headed north. He wanted to be as far from Berick as he could go. He never wanted to see a Garun again.

  Scillia’s guard had managed to round up several dozen more men from the farms and villages between Bear’s Run and M’dorah. Or rather they had gone to the farms and inns to see if they could beg for supplies and found eager farmers and innkeepers, often veterans of the last war, ready to fight for their queen.

  “The queen that was and the queen that will be,” became the rallying cry.

  Scillia was pleased to see the new recruits. She told them so, greeting each with a handshake and a request for a name. She rarely forgot a name after.

  But at night, sitting alone and away from the rest of the camp, she held a troubled conversation with herself. Speaking aloud, as if she were arguing with a dark sister, she set out her awful burden. She did not know that her sergeant set a watch over her, too far to hear what it was she said, but close enough to keep her from harm.

  The soldiers believed she spoke to her dead mother. And in years to come, someone who talked to herself was said to be “speaking with the Anna.”

  The burden of the conversation was the same night after night.

  How can I ask these good people to follow me?

  How can I ask them to kill for me?

  How can I not?

  They brought Corrie to the castle courtyard and forced him to lie down on his back. He was then spread-eagled, his hands and feet bound to stakes.

  Squinting in the sun, he said “It is a fine day on which to die, brother.” He did not know if Jemson were near enough to hear him, but he did not care. The news of how he died would last as long as the Dales. History was all story, after all. A martyr must die with courage. He would spin the tale out bravely to its end. Afterwards—and there would be an afterwards—would come the tears. But not his.

  The first stones were put on his hands and feet. They were uncomfortable, and they made his ankles hurt. But he only smiled. He knew that would infuriate them all.

  “Do you have aught to say?” asked one of the guards.

  “I say that you should set sail back to your own land and leave us ours.” He said it loudly, boldly, before closing his eyes against the pain and the sun.

  The next stones were placed on his chest, large enough to make breathing hard and speaking close to impossible. But still he managed by husbanding each shallow breath.

  “Where is the king’s stepsister?” asked the guard.

  “Do you mean the queen?” Corrie forced each word out. He thought he heard a few muffled cheers, but it might have only been the roaring in his ears.

  The guard did not ask him again.

  When they put the heavy stones on his hips and thighs and groin, he groaned.

  “Speak,” said a different guard. At least his voice was different. Corrie could not open his eyes to check. It was all he could do to figure out how to breathe.

  “Sire, he cannot make a sound,” the man called out, which was when Corrie knew, as he concentrated on his breathing, that Jemmie had to be close by.

  “A prince … killing a prince,” Corrie managed. “It will not sing well.” He tried to laugh but it sounded a great deal like a groan.

  “No royal blood is being spilled.” The speaker was Jem himself, and he was clearly close by.

  The guards moved forward and set another large rock on Corrie’s chest, on top of the others.

  “You …” Corrie said. Then he took another, shallower breath beneath the heavy stones. “You never understood.”

  Jem leaned over and Corrie felt his shadow blot out the sun. “I never understood what?”

  “The spirit … of the law. Only the …” He must have passed out for someone was suddenly pouring water on his face. It felt wonderfully cool. Drowning, he thought, would have been preferable. He wondered if it were too late to suggest it.

  “Will you tell me?” Jem was shouting at him. “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Tell … what?”

  “Where Scillia is. Then I can have them remove the stones.”

  “Too … late,” Corrie said. “Find her yourself.”

  “By the eyes of Lord Cres!” Jem cried. “You are making me kill you.” And when his brother did not an
swer, Jem called out to the guard, “Pile them on!”

  Then he turned and left before the biggest stones, held between two large guards, were settled onto Corrie’s chest. But even as far away as the doorway he could hear the cracking of the breastbone as the last stone was placed. He snuffled into his embroidered sleeve and went up the stairs to be alone.

  As Jemson sat alone in the throne room, Lord Malfas walked in carrying a short sword. “The prisoners are all dead, Sire. They had this.” He placed the sword in Jemson’s hand.

  “But that is my father’s short sword. The one he had in the Wars. See, here, at the hilt. This dragon carved with the bat wings. I always loved that. What awful use has it been put to? Why is it so broken and so …” he shuddered “… so bloody?”

  “It served as a prise to open the windows for their attempt at escape. And then it killed seven of my soldiers.”

  “Not your soldiers, Lord Rodergo. Mine.” Jemson hefted the sword in both hands, marvelling at how light it was to have done so much.

  “We must get your brother to talk, Sire. He must tell us where your sister is. Now. Time is precious. King Kras will only be patient so long.”

  “My father always said “An anvil must be patient. Not a hammer. Is the king across the water anvil or hammer?”

  Malfas stroked his moustache rather than return a remark. When he spoke, it was to a different part of the conversation. “I know ways to make men speak, Majesty, even when they will not.”

  “You may not spill a prince’s blood,” Jemson said. “It is the law.”

  “The law here, perhaps. But not the law across the sea.”

  “It matters not—here or there. Prince Corrine is beyond your scheming.”

  Malfas glared at him, suddenly understanding. “You little fool; what have you done?” Without waiting to hear an answer, he turned and started toward the door. “Guards!” he shouted.

  “Guard yourself!” Jemson screamed at him. “No man calls me a fool, little or big. No man sets his back to me.” He threw the sword at Malfas.

  At the scream, Lord Malfas turned and the sword—which should have given him only a glancing blow to the back of the head—rotated over and the ragged edge sawed across his neck. It was not a hard knock, but it hit him right above the bone and a jagged piece of steel tore through the skin, puncturing the artery. Blood spurted out, fountaining into the air. He had no time to cry out, simply dropping like a slaughtered pig. As he lay on the ground, the blood stained his lace collar red. His right leg twitched for a moment, as if it were dancing. Then it stopped.