by Jane Yolen
Only then did three guards run in, responding to Jemson’s scream.
“He forced me to kill the prince,” Jemson declared. “No man may force the king and live. Take him away.” He shuddered. “Take the sword away as well. It is too … ragged for royal use now.” He walked to the throne where he stood with his back to the guards and did not turn again to sit in the great chair until he was certain they were gone, and the corpse with them.
Corrie did not die at once, but he did not regain consciousness. He lay in the courtyard, scarcely breathing, till three guards at Jemson’s hest took away the stones and carried him into the king’s chamber. There they laid him on the bed.
Jemson sat the rest of the day with him, alternately sobbing and cursing. Servers came with food and took it away, uneaten, as the king refused to touched a thing.
“I will not eat again till you are restored to us,” Jemson cried. He took up Corrie’s cooling hand in his. “It was Malfas did it, you know. It was his idea. He said he knew how to make a man talk. But not a man like you, Corrie. I saved you, though, from his awful tortures. I have saved you three times, you know. It was Malfas. He will not hurt you now.”
Corrie’s hand grew colder still.
When the evening torches were lit, the infirmarer came in and pronounced Prince Corrine dead. The king did not allow them to take the body away, though he promised them a royal funeral three days hence.
“Where is my dinner?” he demanded then. “I am fair starving.” When the meal was brought, he ate enough for two and went to bed beside the corpse to sleep without dreams.
THE HISTORY:
There are three great chairs here in the Museum at Berike. It is said that one of these was the throne of Jemson-Over-the-Water.
Each chair is oversized and uncomfortable to sit on without the aid of large cushions. The arms are carved with lion’s heads and the face of two women—one maiden, one crone, both possibly representations of Alta—adorn the spool-turned back frames.
The chairs differ in this way: one is of oak and has lion claws on the forward legs. (Figure 17) One is of ash and has a crown carved into the seat back. (Figure 18) One is of ebony with a wooden canopy cantilevered from the high back. (Figure 19)
It is certain that each of these belonged to a king, but which king and which reign, no one knows for sure.
——from Treasures of the Berike Museum, page 27.
THE MYTH:
Then Great Alta took the boy and dangled him far over the throne.
“Can you stand?” asked Great Alta.
“My legs are too short,” quoth the boy.
“Rather say your heart is too small,” she replied and dropped him from a great height till he shattered on the wooden chair.
five
War
THE MYTH:
Then Great Alta took the shattered boy in one hand, the girl with one arm in the other and set them side by side in the grass.
“Do ye love each the other?” asked Great Alta.
They did not answer but only glared.
“There is blood between you then,” quoth Great Alta. “What cannot be ended, must be done.” And she took her presence away that she might not see how things were settled.
THE LEGEND:
In the town of New-Melting-by-the-Sea is a great house, sometimes called Journey’s End and sometimes Aldenshame. On the wall, in the entrance hall, hung up like a banner, is a tattered remnant of cloth. Under the cloth is the following legend:
“Alta’s Blanket, said to belong to the legendary one-armed Queen Scillia. She brought it here at the end of the War of Succession, broken in health but not in spirit. She came on foot and alone, her great horse Shadow having been slain under her by her own brother, the tyrant Jemson. It was at the end of her thousand-mile Journey of Redemption around her kingdom, and this cloth was all that was between her and the cold. To show their respect, no one along the last quarter of her route looked at her, for to see her in nothing but a bit of stranger’s weave, and it all tattered and torn through, would have shamed her, and that her people would not do.
When she came at last to Journey’s End, the three sisters who owned the house let her in, and she lived with them till her death, seven years later. When she died, the sisters hung the cloth on the wall and such was its power, cloth and wall have remained intact though the rest of the building has been much rebuilt in the years since.”
THE STORY:
By the time Sarana finally found them, Scillia and her troops were encamped on the M’doran plain. It was like a small city, with lean-tos and tents tucked in against the towering rocks. Sarana had never before seen M’dorah though she had heard about it, both in song and story. But nothing had really prepared her for the huge teeth of stone that looked as if they were biting into the sky.
She was stopped early by guards, then vouched for by her captain who greeted her with a great whoop and a hug.
“We heard you were dead,” he said. “Voss has been in mourning.”
“They exaggerated who said that.” Sarana smiled crookedly. “So the old man has been drunk again?”
“Morning and night. But we considered it in good cause. In fact when first we heard it, I got soused with him.”
“And the queen?”
“The old one or the new?”
“I was with Queen Jenna when she … took her leave of us. I found her tracks. I did not find her.”
“Nor shall you, so I hear.” The captain looked suddenly grim. “They say she is with the Green Men in the grove. And she will not return till we have need of her.”
For a moment Sarana said nothing. Then she drawled: “Do you believe that?”
He laughed without mirth. “I am not certain. But should it be true, I wish her here. We need her now. The new queen is but a girl.”
“Queen Jenna was half her age when she led us to victory.”
“Scillia is no Jenna. Nor—to give her credit—does she think she is.”
“She is who she is. I have been her brother’s guest. Trust me, you do not want to have him remain on the throne.”
“His guest?”
“In the wine cellar. It is a long story. I will tell it to you while you take me to the queen.”
The queen’s tent was at the other end of the plain against a broad, crowned rock. Sarana stared up to the top of the stone, her right hand shading her eyes.
“Was that where …?”
“M’dorah Hame sat? Yes. There was a wooden building on the top, so Queen Scillia says. In fact when we first got here, she had been two days already trying to figure out how to make a fortress up there. Even flew someone up to the top on a mammoth kite we made of sticks and cloth. But while defending such a place would have been easy, provisioning it in case of siege would have been impossible. She gave up the idea, but reluctantly.” He hesitated, rubbed two fingers across his bushy eyebrows till they stuck up like feathers. It was something he always did when he was deciding how much to say.
“Out with it, Jano,” Sarana said. She had been second in command in his troop, and in private never stood on much ceremony with him.
“She seems … distracted. At night she goes to the camp’s edge and speaks with herself. Aloud. The men say she is communicating with her mam. But there is no one there.”
“Perhaps she is not really alone,” Sarana said.
“What I do not see, I do not believe.”
“Then how can you believe in those little footprints I saw?”
“You have never been one to be guiled by what is not there. I know you, Sarana,” Jano said. “We may not have the answer to what made those prints, but I believe they exist.”
“A small distinction, captain.”
“But an important one. And this queen, while she is ready enough to talk with an unseen spirit, is not ready for a fight. Not willing to command either. We sit here and she learns the names of the men and women in the troops. But she does not tell them what to do. Nor does she
tell her captains. She is, I believe, preparing for a siege here at M’dorah rather than planning a raid there at Berick. She does not have …” His fingers went back up to his eyebrows as if he plucking at them further would be preferable to saying what he knew had to be said.
“That is her brother back there, Jano. Both of her brothers back there.” Sarana spoke softly, making sure her remarks traveled no further than the captain’s ears. “They grew up together.”
“Both? They are both against her?” The feathered eye-brows raised up a notch.
“Na, na …” For a moment Sarana reverted to the dialect of her childhood. “Prince Corrine was in the prison with me. He is for Queen Scillia wholeheartedly. He is for the Dales. But that bloody Jemson drank too deep of Garun waters. They should never have sent him over the sea.”
And that very moment, the tent flap opened and Scillia herself appeared. She looked at Sarana for a moment, almost as if she could not place her, then as if she were seeing a ghost. Finally she nodded. “You,” she said.
Sarana bowed her head slightly.
“You were with us when mother left. But you did not … we could not find … where did you go? Guards!”
Sarana waited till the guards came and stood on either side of her. She had not expected this to be easy, but even so she remained with her back straight and her head high.
“You disappeared,” Scillia said once the guards were in place. It sounded more like a complaint than a statement.
“I left to track your mother,” Sarana said.
“And did you?”
Sarana nodded. “But only as far as a ridge.” She explained about the footprints and the cliff’s edge. “And when I made it back to the castle it was night and I had no warning.”
“Ah,” Scillia said. “We at least saw the closed gates and the colors on the guards. Did they take you?”
“As easy as a cat catches a mouse.” Sarana’s mouth felt sour at the admission. But she could not tell a lie to the queen. “Your brother Jemson has made a prison of the wine cellar.”
At that Scillia smiled. “We do not do dungeons well in the Dales. Mother and Father had had a surfeit of them before the wars.” She paused. “And during.”
“I escaped but your brother Prince Corrine, and Commander Piet, and members of the council …”
“Not Jareth. Not Petra.” Scillia’s voice broke on the last syllable.
“I am afraid so. They are all in the dungeon in low condition. I did not like the sound of Councillor Jareth’s cough. But Petra will not break easily, I think. And Piet …”
“Guards, please leave us,” Scillia said. “You too, Jano. I would talk with this …”
“Sarana, Your Majesty.”
“… Sarana alone.”
Scillia escorted her into the tent and dropped the flap to emphasize that they were not to be disturbed. She gestured to a profusion of dark pillows plumped up on an otherwise, severe pile of soldier’s bedding. Sarana sat down on the blankets but would not let herself sink back against the cushions.
“Tell me all.”
“It has been a long riding, ma’am, and I am famished.” She was not so hungry that she could not report, but she wanted to see how the queen would respond.
Scillia nodded. “You talk, and I will fix us both some tea.”
“And something to eat?”
Scillia nodded her head. “Where are my manners? War makes monsters of us all. I will give you what I have.”
“Anything but journeycake, Majesty.”
“Here, in the tent, when we are alone, you must call me Scillia. I will not answer otherwise.”
“Scillia,” Sarana said, and sighed. She saw at once what Jano had meant. Scillia had neither Queen Jenna’s innate power nor King Carum’s born class. She did not seem intent on moving against an enemy who even now sat on her throne. But still there was something Sarana liked about the one-armed queen, a quiet intensity, a human-ness. That was something she liked very much. And those green eyes, dark, like a wood in shadow. She had not really noticed Scillia before, so intent had she been on the old queen and the dying king. Scillia had only been an annoyance then. But now, in the shadow of M’dorah’s towering rock, Sarana suddenly saw her differently.
It will not do to fall in love, she warned herself. Not here. Not now. Not with the queen. So instead she gave herself up to the tea and to the cakes when they came—butter cakes no less, though a bit old and crumbly.
“The cakes came with one of the farm wives,” Scillia said, as if embarrassed by the extra rations. “She insisted I have them. In fact, I have had them for some time. As you can probably tell.”
Sarana did not mind. She ate and drank as if she were starving. But it was a different kind of hunger that she was trying to stave off.
In between bites Sarana told Scillia all she knew of Jemson’s rule. “Malfas’ rule, actually,” she told the young queen. “Jemson—begging your pardon that he is your brother and all—has not the brains for kingship. No one in that poor gaol thought so. He has neither the patience nor the compassion. All he craves is the power.”
“He is as he was as a boy,” Scillia said. Then she sighed, a sound that nearly broke Sarana’s heart. “He has no thought except for himself. The Garuns did not make him different. They just applauded his bad performances, which made him act the fool all the more.”
“Majesty …”
“Scillia,” the young queen scolded.
“In this I must address you as Majesty,” Sarana said, standing and brushing off the crumbs from her shirt. “There are but seven ships worth of soldiers in and around the castle at Berick. But it may be that others are on their way. With just the soldiers you have here we can certainly stand against the few in the castle. However, should the Garuns send more …”
“I have thought long on that,” Scillia said. “And my captains and I have discussed it well into the nights. Indeed, there is not much else to do here at the foot of M’dorah.” She smiled to soften the statement. It was a lovely smile. “Have you intelligence for us?”
“I may have more, Your Majesty. I may in fact have a plan.”
At the word plan, Scillia’s entire face brightened and Sarana wondered that all the captains and all their conversations with her had not come up with something before. “It may not be anything new,” she ventured.
“My mother used to quote The Book of Light, saying A rabbit cannot put its paws on the deer’s horns. She meant, I believe, that some things are beyond even our best intentions. All our previous plans have been flawed because they were too difficult for our capabilities. Though you think us enough, we are in fact few. We are relatively weaponless, and scarcely trained, and we are …”
“We have the entire Dales at our disposal, my queen. And if we can cork the Garuns up in that castle without hope of further ships coming to save them, we will have them beat.”
“Are you forgetting something, Sarana?”
Sarana shook her head. “I do not think so.”
“The heart of the queen.”
“The heart of the queen?”
“You see, I am not sure that I even want the throne if it means killing my brother for it. He is a stupid young man, but not a beast to be slaughtered. If it means having people die in my cause, I do not want to fight. The heart of this queen is a deer’s, not a lion’s.”
“You cannot stop people wanting to give their lives for you, Majesty.”
“I can, however, refuse to lead them in the fight.”
“Some leaders lead,” Sarana said softly. “And some follow.”
Scillia turned her back and whispered, but Sarana heard her nonetheless. “And some go away and do not return.”
So, Sarana thought, that is what this is about. Queen Jenna, you will have much to answer for in the days to come. But what she said aloud was, “People have already died for you, Majesty.” It was a guess, but she had been many days on the road already. The Garuns—and here she thought of Sir Mal
fas, not Jemson—were known to have short tempers instead of a long patience. “The least you can do is go to the rescue of those who still live.”
“Rescue?” Scillia turned back and Sarana could see tears welling in her eyes, tears that never quite fell. Sarana approved of that.
“Your brother Corrine, and the councillors, and the children in the wine cellar,” Sarana said.
Scillia drew herself up, as if shaking off weakness. As if coming to a decision. Then she went to the tent flap and lifted it. “Guard!” she said, “call the council of captains.” When she turned back, Sarana was holding out her hand. Scillia took it and Sarana wondered that the touch did not sear them both, though palm to palm their hands were both cold.
“You shall be my missing arm,” Scillia said. “Dark sister to my light.”
And your blanket companion, Sarana thought, if only in my dreams.
THE HISTORY:
From a letter to the editor, Nature and History, Vol. 45
Furthermore, I have been closely examining the stories of the Blanket Companions and have come to a conclusion that it is strong evidence of a sapphic society and not, as scholars Cowan and Doyle would have it, simple warmth on a cold night among the foot soldiery.
These “Friends of the Bosom” as they are often called in late songs (cf especially the famous Blanket Song: “Oh friend of my bosom,/oh warm by my side,/my shoulder, my gauntlet,/my armor, my bride …”) would surely explain the stories of Light and Dark Sisters. Not magical replicants as Magon would have them, called up from another world, but inhabitants of very real group homes where single-sex marriages and rampant unnatural practices were not only condoned but actually encouraged by the older women called alternately altas and femmas. That these practices extended into the army (“gauntlet” and “armor” being more than mere metaphor) should not be surprising.