The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  What Garuns were not killed in that first onslaught, were quickly captured. Sarana was everywhere, her shirt stained bright red, then black with blood.

  Scillia proved able enough in the battle, but after the first minutes her heart was not in it. She knew at once that they had won and she could not bring herself to strike just for the killing. So she stood to one side and watched as the Dale folk—women even more than men—put fleeing Garuns to the sword. Tears rained down her cheeks.

  This is not what I want, she thought. This is not the way I would rule. But she could not think how to stop them, what word would recall them to their senses. The slaughter went on till over half the Garuns were dead.

  By then it was clear even to the bloodthirstiest of the Dalites that the Garuns who were left proved no threat. The killings eased to an end, and the rest of the Garuns were bound with leather ties—arms, wrists, knees, and ankles.

  The infirmarers spent their time first working on the few Dales folk who had been hurt, Voss and the cook’s boy among them, before they turned their attention to the Garuns.

  Sarana found Scillia and kneeled before her. “My queen,” she said.

  Scillia shook her head, and bending down, raised Sarana up. “Do not call me that,” she whispered hoarsely. “How can I be queen now? I cannot rule over such a bloody place. I would have my brother Corrine be king.”

  She does not know, Sarana thought. Someone must inform her. And then she knew that she alone was the only one who could tell the queen.

  “You must come with me, Scillia,” Sarana said. “There is something you must see.”

  They stood in the dining room together, side by side, but not touching. Scillia no longer wept but she was rigid with sorrow. Sarana did not dare to climb the mountain of that grief.

  Earlier she had sent everyone else away so that the queen might mourn by herself. She had meant to leave as well. But then Sarana could not go. Not when the queen was so very much alone.

  Scillia had surprised her by weeping as much for Jemson as for Corrine.

  “He died a boy still,” was Scillia’s only explanation. “He never had a chance to grow up.”

  He was a man, with a man’s capacity for evil, Sarana thought. She did not say it aloud.

  “But Corrie died a hero,” Scillia added. Then she turned to Sarana and, quite surprisingly, smiled. “Songs will be written about him. And stories told. He will like that.” She turned and said over her shoulder, “I will like that, too.”

  Then she walked out of the room.

  The two princes were buried side by side, Jemson in his dinner finery and Corrine sewn up in a golden bag made from his favorite caftan. It was the only way to keep his parts all together. Scillia was right. There were songs made about him almost at once. Two were sung at the funeral: “Pile Them On, Boys!” and “The Death of Prince Corrine.”

  The dead Garuns were burned in a pyre that flamed late into the night. The Garun prisoners were long debated about, for Scillia knew they could not very well be kept in the wine cellar for long. There were simply too many of them.

  “And while we could stone and mortar the window, they would always be a dangerous presence,” Sarana added.

  In the end their fates were decided by a council made up of Sarana, Jano, the fenmaster Goff, old Halles—Cook having declined—the harbor master of Berick, the headman of Josteen, and the boat mistress of Southport. Chained together seven in a line, the remaining Garuns were rowed out in small boats from the tiny harbor in Southport. Behind the boats large masted rafts were towed. Halfway across the water, but long before the Garun shore was in sight, the prisoners were transferred to the rafts with a flask of fresh water each and one journeycake.

  “Tides and wind helping,” the boat mistress said, “they can make it to shore. But chained like that—only if they work together.” She smiled. “I do not know if they will manage. A Dales crew might.”

  Jano laughed. “Not if half were from Southport and half from Josteen.”

  She cocked her head at him, then broke into laughter. “Been troubled by bottom feeders, have you?” she said. She did not expect an answer.

  How did it all end? How does any story end? They lived happily, they lived long, they lived ever after. And then they died. The saga of the Dales is not so different.

  Scillia refused the crown. Supposedly she said, “The land has had enough blood shed in the Anna’s name. It is time to take a different path.”

  Instead, she turned the ruling of the kingdom over to a circle of councillors. So none is higher, none is lower, goes the story. She was not to know it, but in this she echoed the Greena. In her own way, Scillia changed the Dales more than ever her mother had done. She returned to Selden Hame with the girls—Sarai and Seven and Tween—where she learned the Game of Wands from old Marget. In the end she played it better than any of the two-handed sisters at the Hame. None of the girls stayed on at the Hame, but when Scillia died of a lump in her breast they all returned with their own children to do her honor as their mother. And to weep at her grave.

  Gadwess outlived his childless brother, becoming king of the Garuns when he was quite old. It took him five years of careful politics, but he managed a treaty with the Dales that has lasted—with only one or two minor disturbances—till this day.

  Seven and Tween married a Josteen fisherman and had five children, all girls. Sarai went to Berick as a councillor for the women of the South, and lived there till she was seventy-five. She adopted three children with her blanket companion, Allema, who had once worked as as assistant gardener in the castle. They named the children Carum, Jenna, and Sil.

  Sarana captained her own Riding in the north after serving a month as a farm worker for an old lady she said she owed a promise to. Voss and Malwen became her unlikely lieutenants in the Riding. They harried the remaining Garuns unmercifully till the last of them was dead, some seven years later. Voss was killed in one of the encounters. Malwen took a blow meant for Sarana during another, and though he lived, he was never quite the same after. Sarana retired from the guard to care for him till he died, cursing her heartily, though she never took that as mean-spirited. She knew how to read his eyes and they had spoken a blessing at the end. But she lived on alone after that to a ripe old age in a little house that faced the sea, tending a small cottage garden and spending hours staring across the water, as if keeping a watch out for Garun ships. She never saw Scillia again.

  Jano gave up his captaincy and went to dwell in the fens where he learned enough to become a fenmaster, which surprised all the fen folk except Goff. Jano spent quiet days fishing the silvery waters, or piloting people over the hidden causeways. At last he married Goff’s sister, and they had a son who went to Berick as a member of the council for a year. But he so hated the city he came back before his term was over to live the rest of his life in the fens in his parents’ home.

  Old Halles died the year after the princes, of a shock it was said. Cook took to drinking and frequented the wine cellar more than the kitchen. And the laughing man, who had helped rescue the young Prince Corrine from the cat—well he made a living telling stories about the family of White Jenna, some of them true and some of them false and all of them told with great good humor.

  As for Jenna and Carum, it is said they are waiting in the Grove till the Dales needs them again. But if they did not come at Scillia’s call, I am not sure they will come at ours.

  THE MYTH:

  Then Great Alta took three children and set them next to the One-Armed Queen.

  “One of you is for war,” quoth she. “And one is for peace. And one is for the time that is in-between.”

  “But which is which?” asked the children.

  Great Alta smiled. “The question is never which,” she said. “But why.”

  The Wisdoms of the Dales

  A snake sheds an old skin but still he does not go skinless.

  Before you make a friend, eat dirt with him.

  A woman’s m
outh is like a spring flood. (From the Garunian)

  The King should be servant to the State.

  One can never repay one’s debts to one’s mother.

  A girl is never too young for the Game.

  Do not roll up your trousers before you get to the stream.

  The sharper the thorn, the sweeter the rose.

  Do not speak to a man’s girlchild lest you come bearing a wedding ring.

  Dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.

  Help first, chat later.

  If you cannot swim, do not go near the water.

  Never trust a cat to do a dog’s job. (Garunian adage)

  Sorry puts no coins in the purse.

  What you give away with love, you keep.

  Better a calf of one’s own than a cow owned by another.

  If your mouth turns into a knife, it will cut off your lips.

  Let a new wind blow through an old place.

  Storm in Berick, sun in Bewick.

  To speak is to sow and to listen is to reap.

  Do not measure a shroud before there is a corpse.

  Kill once, mourn ever.

  Stretch your feet according to your blanket.

  Even a highest tree has an axe at its foot.

  The anvil must be patient. Only the hammer can be strong. (From the Garunian)

  Easier to love a dead hero than a live king.

  Two sisters, two sides.

  The skate and the eel do not swim the same, but they both live in the sea.

  Art is inborn, craft outborn.

  An hour makes a difference between the wise man and the fool.

  Drink with Garuns, use a long straw.

  Blood is blood no matter who sucks it.

  A good shepherd tells his sheep of green grass, not grey wolves.

  A knife wound heals, a tongue wound festers.

  To take is not to keep.

  Small keys open big doors. (From the Garunian)

  A hard head hides a soft tongue. (From the Garunian)

  Both the hunter and the hunted pray to a god.

  The spider sits in the center of its web and entices the fly to come to it. (From the Garunian)

  The further north, the greater noise. (From the Garunian)

  A white ewe may have a black lamb. (From the Garunian)

  You can call a rock a fish but it still cannot swim.

  A rabbit cannot put its paws on the deer’s horns.

  Better late in the pan than never in the pot.

  Many mothers are best.

  All history begins between a woman’s legs.

  Man is wood, woman water.

  Water weights wood.

  Many will show you the way once your cart is turned over.

  The Music of the Dales

  The Two Kings

  Stolidly

  The one ruled East, the one ruled West,

  Lonely, oh lonely, the queen rides down.

  The one ruled East, the one ruled West,

  And neither ruled the kingdom best,

  The queen rides in the valley-o.

  Ill fares the land where two are king,

  Lonely, oh lonely, the queen rides down.

  Ill fares the land where two are king,

  For names and swords and bells do ring,

  And blood flows down the valley-o.

  Pynt’s Lullay

  Achingly

  Sleep, my child, for the past is a dream,

  And women do weep that it’s gone.

  But we shall not weep anymore for the past

  For after each sleep comes the dawn.

  Sleep, my child, into dawn’s eager light

  And wake to the song of the dove.

  Forget all the dreams of the past, for the past

  Is present in all of my love.

  Song of the Three Mothers

  With passion

  One is the mother who bred me,

  A moment of passion and heat.

  Two is the mother who fed me

  Her blood and milk and meat.

  Three is the mother who led me

  Through love and pain and war.

  She is the mother who’s wed me

  To all that is worth living for.

  (Chorus) One to make me,

  Two to take me,

  Three to carry me away.

  The Feast Song

  With Spirit

  Bring in the black breads, the brown breads, the gold,

  Bring in the honey-sweet beer.

  Bring in the onions and garlic and cloves,

  Bring in the cup of good cheer.

  Bring in the berries, red, purple, and black,

  Bring in the caramelized candy.

  Bring in the fruit pies, the cakes, and the tarts,

  Bring in the possets and brandy.

  (Chorus) Fast day to feast day to fast day again,

  We feed down from castle to cottage.

  One week we’re ample with courses to spare,

  Dining on venison, wild pig, and bear,

  Finishing off with both apple and pear.

  Next week we dine upon pottage.

  The Dark Sister’s Lullaby

  With sweet passion

  Come to me, sister, the night will be deep,

  And sleep comes not easily soon.

  I’ll cradle you closely, my promises keep,

  My night for the light of your moon.

  Come to me, sister, the stars all take flight,

  Come kiss me this once ere I go.

  I’ll cradle you carefully night after night

  As I did in the dark long ago.

  The Warrior’s Song

  In a gallop

  Swords are now red that were shiny and new,

  Arms that were white are now blackened and blue;

  Still we are sisters and always are true,

  And we will win through to the morning.

  You kill the man who is fast on our track.

  I kill the man who has you on your back.

  We parry and thrust and we sever and hack,

  We always win through to the morning.

  But when we grow old and our hands lose their guile,

  And we cannot kill with a casual smile,

  Pray turn on me straight with your usual style

  And I’ll run you through, too, in the morning.

  Jemmie Over the Water

  With longing

  He rode the wild waves to his land,

  Sing Jemmie over the water,

  They gave him but the back of the hand,

  Oh, will ye come home to me.

  He left in winter, back in spring,

  Sing Jemmie over the water;

  To find his sister crowned the king,

  Sing Jemmie over the sea.

  An’ will ye take silver, will ye take gold,

  Sing Jemmie over the water,

  Or will ye take the throne to hold,

  Oh will ye come home to me.

  I neither gold nor silver make,

  Sing Jemmie over the water,

  But I the throne will surely take,

  Sing Jemmie over the sea.

  So, kill the girl upon the throne,

  Sing Jemmie over the water,

  And then, oh then, will I come home,

  Oh I will come home to thee.

  The Ballad of Corrine Lackland

  Plainly

  The one of them was Jem the Bold

  Who fought with either hand,

  The younger was Prince Corrine

  Who was left with little land.

  As they were drinking ale and wine

  Within his brother’s hall,

  Prince Corrine pointed to a port

  That opened in the wall.

  “That green gate is to Faerieland,

  Where Mother dear does dwell.”

  “Nay, brother,” quoth the bold Jemson,

  “That is the gate to hell.

  “But if you’re sure, my broth
er dear,

  Then you the path shall find.

  And as I am king on the throne,

  I shall remain behind.”

  He pushed his brother through the port,

  Far down Lackland did fall.

  His portion was six feet of earth

  And death to bear his pall.

  Fen Love Song

  With sweet joy

  Little skin boat, so rough and so new,

  Speed the boat o’er, speed the boat o’er,

  Tell him I love him and that I be true.

  Speed the bonnie boat o’er.

  (Chorus)

  Little skin boat, so taut and so trim,

  Speed the boat o’er, speed the boat o’er,

  Take this my token, be bringing it him,

  Speed the bonnie boat o’er.

  (Chorus)

  If he refuses, I’ll jump in my boat,

  Speed the boat o’er, speed the boat o’er,

  Over the fenway to sink or to float,

  Speed the bonnie boat o’er.

  (Chorus)

  Journeycake ho!

  With a bounce

  This wasn’t a trip I was planning to make

  As I fled through the door with some good journeycake.

  But my horse was all saddled, so off I did ride

  Thankful I still had my head and my hide.

  Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!

  Make it and take it wherever you go.

  Travel on water, on ice, or on snow,

  It will keep you filled up till the morning.

  The master was after me, likewise the noose,

  I had to go quickly and lightly and loose.

  So I grabbed what I could and I let the rest be;

  I didn’t have much—but at least I had me.

  Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!

  Make it and take it wherever you go.

  And if you’ve no money, you’ll still have the dough

  To keep you filled up in the morning.

  A Personal History by Jane Yolen

  I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!