The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  “But it will take time, Scillia,” Seven said to her.

  She looked up at the girl, tears in her eyes. “I would hope that you give me such time when mine is all gone. Besides, what is another half day to the Garuns who squat like great toads in our castle?” Standing she said, “Let this place be known from now on as ‘The Hundreds’ in honor of the slain.”

  She wondered how many would come, as she had to the mound at Bear’s Run, to remember their kin who had died so awfully here. She wept inwardly that anyone should have such a duty.

  They did not depart from that place till past dinner, but none wanted to camp the night there. The ghosts of the slain would be loud enough in their dreams.

  Arming the people in the dining room with table knives and the captured Garun swords, Sarana ordered them to barricade the doors. There were seven doors in all. It was not going to be an easy room to defend.

  The servers—and especially the gardener’s assistant—were quick to follow Sarana’s orders. She wondered that the castle folk had not revolted before, or at least run off, leaving the usurper prince to serve himself. But, something her father had always said—her mouth turned sour remembering him and his leather belt—Many will show you the way once your cart is turned over. She would not blame the Berick folk aloud, though her thoughts might rub black thinking of them.

  “The table—put it there,” she said, pointing to the main door. And when she realized the great banquet table was actually not a single piece but broke into five even sections, she ordered each section against five of the other doors.

  “And that carvery to hold the back door.”

  Which left one door still open.

  “We can pile chairs against it, and the wine tub as well,” the gardener’s assistant volunteered, kirtling up her skirts and starting in on the job.

  “Not yet,” Sarana said. “We will use that door for ourselves. One small door can be defended easily. The pass phrase will be ‘The queen lives.’”

  She knew they could hold out for a couple of days in the room if beseiged. There was enough food for that. But how they would ever get out again without losing most of their party, was another problem altogether.

  One foot at a time, one step after another, she told herself. The first thing she needed to do was to give Jano a signal that the diversion was well under way.

  “Malwen,” she said, “Check these windows. They look out on the water. See if you can manage to light some kind of signal fire. One that will be seen out to the Skellies and beyond. Perhaps the tablecloth will burn. There are certainly enough candles.”

  “Me?” He was taken aback. “You want me to do that?”

  “Either that, or serve me some wine,” she said. “You were splendid as a steward, handling that bottle as well as you do a sword.” It was the closest she could come to a compliment, but he took it as such and grinned. She had never seen him smile before. It is not, she thought, a very pretty sight.

  The men picked up in the skiffs shivered with cold, but when they saw the fire burning from the castle window, they cheered loudly. They did not know how Sarana and her troops had gotten in, for they supposed the place heavily guarded. But she had had the majority of their own people, and perhaps they had outnumbered the Garuns in the end.

  “Numbers always tell,” said a Josteen sailor to his companions.

  “Not when they are bottom eaters,” called a Southporter from the stern of the boat. As he was the only Southport lad there he was pushed into the water for his sass. He nearly drowned before the next skiff pulled him in, but if he learned any lesson from it, it was to knock in the head of the next Josteen fisherman he met.

  THE HISTORY:

  From a letter to the Editor, Nature and History:

  Sirs:

  As I have not yet heard from you about my several ideas for articles for your magazine, I am enclosing a chapter that I wrote for a children’s book to give you an idea of the range of styles I possess and so that you will understand the manner in which I can—with the proper editorial guidance—manipulate the Matter of the Dales. I hope that the enclosed will be of interest:

  The War of Deeds and Succession is a rather large title for a very small period in our history. After the death—or rather the disappearance—of the aged and ill King Carum and his warrior queen, the country was split by three rival claimants to the throne: their son, their daughter, and the G’runian prince Jemson who, being the youngest of a family of seven brothers, had no hope of inheriting the throne of G’run.

  The G’run prince, called popularly Jemson-Over-the-Water, had certainly been trained for kingship as were all princes on the Continent. He spoke the Dales language with a heavy accent and was more conversant with the brutal G’run sports of bear and bull-baiting than the songs and play-parties of the Dales, an affinity that some say carried over to his relationship with people. However, in his short time as king he did manage to put the army on a professional basis, close the last of the Hames, and introduced both hunting dogs and warm ale into the country.

  Carum’s own son, Corrine Lackland—so named because it was his older sister who was to have ruled the Dales—remained loyal to the crown, if not the particular crowned head. He was a young man of thought but not action. As a king of the Dales he would probably have been a disaster, but as a hero and a martyr he has no peer in Dalian history.

  Indeed much of what we know of this period comes from songs and stories about him. Far example, the “Ballad of Carrie Lackland” which ends this chapter, as well as the song cycle “St. Corwin of the Stones” at the back of the book. There are hundreds of other poems and songs from the South Dales especially where St. Corwin is one of the more popular saints. Badly corrupted by time and the passage of mouth and ear, these poems and songs are still recognizably about the War of Deeds and Succession. For example, the children’s game-rhyme: “Stoneman, stoneman, say your prayers/Brother Jemmy’s on the stairs.”

  The real favorite among the people, of course, was Ancillia Virginia, the virgin queen, who ascended to the throne not once but twice. The first time was on her parents’ disappearance and once again after her brother’s death and the death of the G’run prince. She was known as the One-Armed Queen because she lost her right arm at the ten-day Battle of Green Hollow where—so the stories tell us—the rivers ran red for a year after.

  The problem was that Ancillia Virginia was a queen at the time the land needed a king; gender still being an issue in the Dales. Furthermore she refused to marry or to bear a child and thereby guarantee the succession. Her death ten years later ushered in nearly thirty years of commoner kings until the Dalian Circle of Seven was finally established, a method of rule by council which—in somewhat modified form—still runs the country to this day.

  (See the Meacham Award winner for children’s fiction, “Year King” by Giles Tappan which details the life of one of the first of these rulers. Though heavily fictionalized, it is still one of the most readable accounts of life at that time.)

  from A Short History of the Dales, Grade Level sixth form

  THE STORY:

  On the third day, Scillia’s army came into Berick, marching along the coast road. As they neared the castle, someone pointed out to the Skellies, sparkling in the spring sun. It was nearing noon, the tide turning, and there was something odd about the formation in the harbor.

  “Look!”

  Scillia looked. It was a scene she knew well for her entire life had been lived in Berick. And yet—yet the scene was subtly changed.

  And then she knew. There, between the stone hands of the Skellies, were the remains of sunken ships. At least one mast, and the hump of a stern, she thought. Jano had done it. Even without Sarana and her troops.

  With that she began to weep, for Sarana and all the dead men and women left at The Hundreds, for Sarai’s mother, for her own. “I am nowt a queen,” she whispered into Sarai’s hair, “nor do I want to be if it means I must not weep for my people.” She could
not remember ever seeing White Jenna cry.

  Then, getting control of herself, she turned in the saddle, stood upright in the stirrups, and shouted “The harbor is blocked. The Garuns will not easily send more men to our shores. Now we must take the castle, my friends.”

  The cheer they sent up surrounded her, filled her up. It was still ringing in her ears when she lead them to the castle gates.

  She stared for a long time at the gate, so familiar to her and yet totally alien as well. How many times had she walked through them, and yet never noticed the carvings on the doors? The signs of Alta so cleverly worked in wood, the relief of the goddess dancing on a flower, her hands above her head.

  She looked up and saw a Garun guard on the battlements staring down at them. He began to shout.

  “My queen,” said Voss, “what is your plan?”

  Plan? she thought. I have no plan. She had not expected to come this far, or get this close, without great losses. But she did not say that to him. Thinking quickly, she said, “Sarana spoke of the wine cellar dungeon. Take one man with you, around the water side, and see if you can spot an open window about one floor up.”

  As Voss and his chosen man raced around the side, several more Garunian guards began to gather on the battlements. They were pointing down and waving their hands.

  “Scillia,” Manya said, “surely we should get out of arrow range.”

  “Indeed,” Scillia agreed, and called her troops back from the gate.

  The dining room was quiet. So were the halls outside.

  Too quiet, Sarana thought. Time to stir things up. “I want two volunteers to come with me,” she said. “One soldier and one server who knows the castle well.”

  “I will come,” Malwen said. “Since luck seems on our side.”

  “And I,” said the gardener’s assistant.

  “Then tell me your name, girl,” Sarana said. “The queen always asks. And so should I.”

  “Allema,” the girl said. “I was born in this castle. I know every hidden room.”

  “Then Allema, show us the fastest, easiest way back down to the cellar.”

  “Not that window again!” complained Malwen.

  “Only the girl will go out,” Serana said. “To go into the town. If they know the usurper is dead, perhaps the townsfolk will help us. We are only along to make sure she gets through.”

  Malwen put the crossbar of his sword to his lips. “I hear and obey.” Then he laughed. Unlike his smile, the sound was ripe and comforting.

  “Remember the pass phrase,” Sarana said to her men. “The queen lives. Let no one else in but us.”

  And then they were gone, snaking along the hall and into a servant’s passage that led down the back stairs. They met no one along the way.

  Voss and his man found the withy ladder against the wall and, seeing the open window, got up, in and through. They were just feeling their way through the first of the dark rooms—for the window shed but little light past a square patch on the floor—when they heard the sounds of steps and some whispered confidences ahead of them.

  “Back to me,” Voss growled and immediately felt his companion’s back against his. They stood that way, swords raised, waiting for the enemy to find them. The surprise, they knew, was theirs.

  A sudden torchlight blinded them both.

  “Hit for the torch hand!” Voss shouted, slashing out.

  A girl screamed.

  And then a voice he knew well cried out as well. “Voss, you fool. You utter fool!”

  “Sarana? But you’re dead!”

  “Not I, but you will be if you have injured that girl permanently.” Sarana picked up the guttering torch from the floor and held it over Allema.

  The girl was crying, but from shock, not injury. It was the end part of the torch that had taken the brunt of the blow.

  “Alta’s crown, but you have gotten slow in your dotage,” Sarana said. “In the old days, that arm would have been clean off. She was smaller than expected, I guess. And quicker.”

  “Lucky for the girl,” Voss said.

  “Lucky for you,” Sarana replied.

  Malwen brought them all to their senses. “If we are not quieter, we will have the entire Garun guard down here.”

  “Right you are,” Sarana said. “But Voss …” and she spoke more quietly, “what are you doing here?”

  “The queen stands without the gates,” he said.

  “Which queen?” Sarana could scarcely breathe.

  “The queen that is.”

  “And that is?”

  “Scillia, of course, you silly cow,” Malwen said. “Who else would it be?”

  “Is is the truth?” Sarana asked, her head swimming as if she were suddenly drunk.

  “Aye. She’s rounded up some five hundred to fight for her, but half are children or dotards. How many do you have here?”

  “A handful. The rest …”

  “Gone. I know. We saw them die. Ran for the trees when it was clear we could not help.”

  “Buried them, too,” his man put in. “Thought for sure we’d buried you. Old Voss here weeping like a …”

  “Shut up, mind you,” Voss said. “I’ll not miss an arm a second time. Even in the full dark.”

  Sarana hushed them both. “If the girl goes out with your man, you can tell the queen we are quartered in the dining room. With the dead king.”

  “The usurper is dead?” Voss sounded impressed.

  “By my hand. Do not tell the queen that. It should come from me.”

  “I’ll get this child and Nohm here out the window and down the ladder before you can say Alta’s Hame. And then I’ll accompany you back up to that room. Dead, eh?” said Voss. “I want to see it before I believe it so.”

  “It is quite so,” said Allema. “And her other brother even more so.”

  “A bundle of news, and not all of it good, I see. Well, up you go, lass. And you Nohm after. Tell the queen to storm the gates and we will take them Garuns by surprise from within.”

  Sarana, Malwen, and Voss had made it only to the second landing when they ran into a quartet of Garun soldiers making their rounds.

  “Only four,” Voss called. “I’ll have two.”

  Sarana dispatched her man by the simple expediency of kicking him in the crotch while he set himself for a sword fight. Then she chopped down with her blade and cut his neck half through.

  Quickly turning, she went to help Malwen who was having a tough time with his man, who was ten years younger and half Malwen’s weight. Malwen was down on the floor, his left leg buckled beneath him.

  Sarana got the Garun from behind right before he brought his sword down on Malwen’s right leg. The sword fell from his hand, its downward path still true enough that it took a slice of Malwen’s trouser and ran a bloody line up along his thigh.

  “Voss?” Sarana called.

  “Do you need help?’ Voss called back.

  Sarana turned and Voss was wiping his sword on the back of the guard’s shirt. Another Garun was underneath, equally dead.

  “We had better get back to the dining room and regroup,” she said.

  “I thought our group was doing fine already,” Voss said.

  “I forgive you,” Sarana told him. “For frightening the girl.”

  Nohm and Allema got down the ladder and around the castle wall to the queen’s troops as fast as they could.

  Scillia was stunned by the news. “Sarana alive?” She could hardly credit it.

  “Very alive, ma’am,” said Allema. “And gone back to the dining room which is barricaded except for one door.”

  “Which door?”

  Allema told her. “There’s words that must be said to get in.”

  “And those are?”

  “The queen lives.”

  “I do indeed,” Scillia said. She turned to her troops. “I want the men and women who have battle experience or training up front. Children are to go into the town. Knock on every door and tell them what it is
we do. Tell them: The queen is here and where are they?”

  “And what if we meet any Garuns in town?” asked Seven sensibly.

  “Run like stink,” advised Sarai. “I will.”

  In the dining room, Sarana’s instructions were brief. “Do not fight if you have neither the nerve nor the heart for it. No blame will attach to that. You have done your part already,” she said to them all. “But I and my men will be out in the halls harassing what Garuns we find. You stay here and keep the barricades up.”

  Five maids plus the oldest of the gardeners, Halles, and several of the younger pot boys elected to remain behind, but the assistant head gardener and the miller’s boy, plus three of the cooks, all of whom were still dressed in their borrowed finery, chose to go with Sarana. They were armed with Garun swords.

  “Stay behind the soldiers and follow our lead,” Sarana said. And like the mice in the story, they went nose to tail down one long hall after another.

  It was when they heard shouting from below that Sarana glanced through the nearest window. She turned to her men, laughing. “Here we have been creeping about floor after floor, and all of our foe are hand-fighting at the gates. Come on, lads! Let’s get down the stairs and give them a big surprise!”

  As they raced down the great winding staircase, one of the young cooks tripped on his long robe, and almost threatening to bowl them all over. Voss picked the boy up and skinned him out of the bulky garment. He was wearing only a shirt over hose beneath.

  “A fine figure of a fighting man,” Voss said to him. “Stay to the rear, lad. You’ve scant protection in that.”

  But the boy did not mind him and charged after Sarana with Voss having to follow after.

  They got out into the courtyard without being noticed for the Garuns—about sixty men in all—were busy trying to hold back a tidal wave of Dales folk who were pushing at the great wooden doors. The Garuns, frantically trying to shore up the gates, all had their backs to the castle.

  “With me!” shouted Sarana to her men, and a few of the Garuns turned at her voice.

  Just then the right hand gate fell inward and the rush of Scillia’s followers came in like the flooding tide.