The One-Armed Queen

by Jane Yolen

  “Come, come,” Corrie said, enjoying their confoundment. “Take me at once to my dear brother. We are of the same blood, though not—it is clear—of the same aroma. I shall give him what advice I can.” He held out his hand.

  They both drew their swords, as if his hand offered them some danger, and in this manner they marched Corrie between them up the stairs.

  Oh dear Gadwess, Corrie thought, if only you could have heard. The first blood to me, I believe. And he smiled.

  They walked quickly and without further conversation up the stairs and into Jemson’s chambers, the room that had once been Carum and Jenna’s. It was midday and warm, but there were torches lit on every wall and a fire roaring in the hearth.

  Jemson lay propped up in the great bed, a dozen pillows behind him. A small table held a full tea—hyssop by the smell—with many little cakes, some iced and some plain.

  Corrie refused to stare at the cakes, but he could feel his mouth fill with water. Porridge was not entirely satisfying for an only meal. Sketching another insulting bow, he said “Throne still too hard a seat, brother, that you must lie abed at noon?”

  “You smell,” Jemson answered.

  “I could have bathed in wine, I suppose,” Corrie remarked, less to Jemson than to the guards who hovered by his side. “There was plenty of it where I have been staying. Perhaps I could have found vinegar in the older bottles and used it as we do for the horses, to keep down the flies.” He smiled at Jemson. There was no mirth in it.

  “It is your own fault, you know,” Jemson said. He sounded like a whiny child. “All your own fault. You should be my chief friend. We are brothers.”

  “I know we are brothers,” said Corrie. “It was not I who put my brother in a dungeon.”

  “Well it was not I who refused to support my brother as king.”

  “As far as I know, mother is still queen and this is the Dales, not a possession of the Garunian royal family.”

  “Ah—mother.” Jemson sat up in bed. “She’s dead, you know.”

  “I know no such thing.”

  Jemson looked up slyly. It was a look Corrie remembered well enough from their childhood. “But what if she is?”

  “Then,” Corrie spoke slowly, knowing it had to be said if he were to remain true to himself, but knowing as well it could mean his death. “Then Scillia is queen after.”

  “But what of our blood?” Jemson asked, sitting straight up and turning as red as blood in his face. “And what of the times I have saved you?”

  “What times are those?” Corrie asked back.

  “Why, now—I have taken you from the dungeon where you would surely have died.”

  “Of too much wine? Or of too much dirt?”

  Jemson shivered. “It is cold and damp down there. And not at all pleasant.”

  “That is true, Jemmie,” Corrie said, smiling slowly. “But that is also true of ships where sailors labor and mines where men dig for gold. It is true of the flooded rows where rice is grown and of many a forest wherein the woodsmen labor. And they do not have access to all that vintage wine!”

  “Must you always joke?”

  “Must you always take offense where none is offered?” Corrine knew this was not actually true. He had already offered plenty of offense to Jemson.

  “Well, perhaps you were not ready to die in the dungeon. But what of the time I saved you from the cat?”

  “Scillia saved me from the cat. You stayed on shore and stained your pants.” The minute he said it, Corrie was sorry. His mother had always warned: A knife wound heals, a tongue wound festers. He could have said the same thing without the hurt, especially in front of the guards who would—as guards always do—tell tales in the morning.

  Jemson stood. He was shaking with anger. “Well I will not even attempt to save you a third time. The next we talk it will be with Sir Malfas by my side, and that conversation will not be anywhere near this pleasant for we mean to find out where Scillia and her toads are hiding. I am king now. I will remain king. All my life I have been trained to mount this throne. You had best make your peace with that if you wish to stay alive.”

  “To take is not to keep,” Corrie reminded him.

  “The Garuns say rather, Small keys open big doors.”

  “And small men,” Corrie said, determined to outlast him, “need bigger men behind them.”

  But it was Jemson who had the last word. “Take him away.”

  They did not even let Corrine change clothes but brought him directly down to the wine cellar again. This time they rough-handled him as well. He was thrust not at all gently through the open door and when it was slammed behind him, he heard the younger guard cursing him with such originality that Corrie had to laugh.

  “A man without a tongue cannot laugh,” warned the young guard’s voice through the door.

  This time Corrie knew better than to answer back.

  When he turned around, Piet, Jareth, and Petra, along with the two tall soldiers, Manger and Tollum, peered out at him from the first archway.

  “Thank Alta, you are alive,” Petra cried, running up to him and embracing him.

  “Alive but not at all happy with what I have learned.”

  “And that is …?” Jareth asked.

  Corrie held a finger up to his lips and wordlessly led them all back into the barracks room for he feared listeners at the door. When they were as far from the door as possible, Corrie began to speak.

  “My brother has now firmly claimed the throne, believing that mother is dead; he says not how he knows. He is entirely out of touch with what is real otherwise, so I do not entirely credit it. But he is far more dangerous than I could have guessed. I do not think any of us can count ourselves safe here in this musty cellar. I had hoped if we were out of his sight, we were out of his thoughts. Jemmie had never such a long memory. But he has Malfas to remind him of us every day and he has become a jackal’s pup trying to please its master. He has even threatened my life, complaining all the while that our blood should be the greater binder. He is mad with this kingship. Quite mad. And he believes we all know where Scillia is hiding. With Malfas holding the sword, Jemmie will have us fall on it if we do not betray her to him.”

  “We could not even if we wanted to,” Petra said. “None of us knows where she is save, perhaps, that girl Sarana and she is away from here.”

  “Sir, should we not try and escape, too?” It was Tollum, the taller of the two soldiers. He addressed his question to Piet. “At least send the boys and the smaller women through the window. We could widen it tonight and …”

  “We will do it once the evening porridge bowls are collected,” said Corrie, even before Piet could answer. “After having converse with Jemmie and knowing him to be mad, it is the only sane thing left for us to do.”

  “It will put us all in danger,” Piet cautioned. “If they make noise; if they are seen; if one stumbles into the ocean and …”

  “We are all in danger already, old friend,” said Jareth. He began to cough again and the spasms this time were so bad, they had to break open another bottle of wine and get him to drink a good draught which served to soothe his throat enough that he was able to continue helping with the plans.

  The night meal did not come quick enough for any of them. Then they waited quite some time more, till there was little noise beyond the door except a low snoring.

  “I believe the guards are napping,” Corrie said when he tiptoed back from the front room.

  Having devised the unstacking of the bottles and the rack before, they worked with the ease of familiarity, though Petra found she had to caution the boys more and more often about being quiet. Everyone seemed to think the work a lark this time. They knew it was possible and therefore they lost what natural caution they had had the first time.

  Because of this, they were not prepared for the sudden rush of wind through the opened portal when most of the bottles at the top of the rack had been taken away. The gust was cold and brisk and shu
ddered the rack, which was no longer firmly attached to the wall. Several of the bottles on the lower shelves began to rattle and one fell to the ground, breaking with a tremendous crash.

  “Here!” came a shout from beyond the door. “What is going on in there?”

  Piet grabbed Manger by the collar. “Quick, man—into the next room and take up a bottle of the white wine. I shall take another. I want you to hit me as hard as ever you can.” He grabbed up the broken bottle of red and followed the soldier, shouting at him “You traitor. You gall-ridden cretinous boob!” He took a swing at Manger’s back, missing him by a great deal.

  Manger understood at once and raced into the room where the white wines were housed. He grabbed up two of the finer Garunian spring wines. One he dropped immediately on the floor, the other he held above his head, shouting back “You are no captain of mine. I say give him the bitch, and good riddance to her.”

  The door was opened and four guardsmen, swords drawn, came in.

  “Put those bottles down,” the leader of the guards said. “Now.”

  Manger put his bottle down at once, but Piet took his time, making a half-hearted lunge at Manger who shrugged back into the arms of the guards.

  “He will kill me,” Manger cried to them. “Take me with you.”

  “If he kills you, it is one less Dalite for us to worry about,” said the leader. “But if I hear more in here, I will run you both through and sleep well after. Now old man, drop that bottle.”

  Piet let the bottle drop and it exploded on the floor, drenching him and the guard near him.

  “You dog spittle!” the guard cried and raised his sword as if to strike Piet.

  “Leave them,” his leader warned. “He is probably the one who knows the most.”

  “And will tell the least,” said the drenched guard.

  “We do not know that for sure,” said his leader. “Remember how it goes: A hard head hides a soft tongue. Now go back to your other room, old man. Away from this door. Leave this one …” he nodded at Manger “alone or it will go hard with you.” Then he looked up and saw that the rest of the prisoners were crowded into the archway. “Go, all of you. This show is over.”

  Piet turned his back, shrugged extravagantly so that none of the guards could miss it, and winked at the prisoners in the doorway. Then he moved toward them and they made a small passageway to let him through.

  The guards backed through the open door and slammed it shut. The sound of the key in the lock was all that could be heard.

  Manger waited by the door, whimpering “Take me with you, please.…” until the guards all left. Then he walked back into the back room. “I am sorry for calling the queen such a name,” he said to Corrie.

  Corrie laughed. “I have called her worse for no such good cause,” he said. “That was quite a performance. I have never seen its like.”

  “We must be gentler,” said Petra.

  “And quieter,” Jareth said.

  “And quicker,” added Piet.

  They got the boys out, having to add Petra’s petticoat to the lowering line in place of the missing cape. One boy was to make his way back into the town roundabout, so as to let the loyal townsfolk know what was happening inside the castle. The other three were to go by the low road along the coast to the north.

  “Do not take chances,” Petra warned them.

  And Corrie added, “The queen would not have you be martyrs. Nor would I.”

  The four boys had all nodded seriously, except for one, a ten-year-old, who had spoken up gallantly. “My father was killed in the first war,” he said. “It is not wrong to die for what is right.”

  Corrie had put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “They say up north: Both the hunter and the hunted pray to a god.”

  “But sir,” the boy answered, “we pray to Alta and they to Lord Cres.” At the Garunian god’s name he spit expertly to the side.

  “You cannot dispute that,” said Piet, smiling.

  “Nor shall I,” Corrie said. “Go, my good boys, may Alta speed the soles of your feet.” He stood at the window and helped lift the boys, one at a time through the window. The youngest went first.

  But after they had all gone, and Petra after them, one of the servers—a smallish man with large shoulders—got stuck in the opening. It took much hauling and muffled moans on his part before they could bring him back in.

  And by then it was too late.

  The door was flung open, and in came two guards, three of the boys marched between them.

  No one dared speak, to ask about the fourth boy, the ten-year-old who had spit at Lord Cres’ name. Or about Petra. And the guards did not leave, but were locked in with them.

  There were to be no more attempts at escape.

  THE HISTORY:

  Editor

  Nature and History

  Dear Sir:

  In my late father’s notes are some interesting musings on forms of execution as portrayed in the folk songs of the Dales, particularly the so-called Interregnum. I am very interested in putting together an article using his notes as my starting place. The emphasis of the article will be the difference between the ideals of the Interregnum (a beginning democracy, an emphasis on jail as a retraining ground for uneducated felons, the freeing of political prisoners, the opening of the first public hospitals, the restructuring of the army, cf Cowan’s seminal article “From Idea to Ideal: A First Look at the Time of Kings,” Journal of the Isles, History VII, 9) and the way prisoners were actually dispatched.

  My father’s notes begin with

  1. Defenestration, as alluded to in the ever-popular “Ballad of Corrine Lackland.”

  The notes then go on to detail nine more different methods of execution in total. They include:

  2. Hanging. (“Three times around/the noose was wound/till Old Pit felt the rope./Then up he’s strung/and there he’s hung/and gone was ev’ry hope.” From “Old Pit’s Gone.”)

  3. Disemboweling: The drinking song from Berick that goes back at least a thousand years, “So drink with the devil/A toast to the queen/Reach into his belly/Where guts are so green/And ups with the hamstrings/And off with his head/If you’re in the navy/you’re better off dead!/Drink it round!”

  4. Decapitation: The humorous “Head Beneath Her Arm” from Lanard, with the chorus: “Her head well tucked/Beneath her arm/to keep herself/from further harm …”

  5. Garroting: The little known Carreltown Hymn refers obliquely to this method, and of course Carreltown is on the seacoast. When the great Garun fleet washed ashore there and the Garun sailors were left to the mercy of the locals, many eventually married into the peasantry and brought their songs with them. We believe the Carreltown hymn can be traced back to them—and the Garun custom of garroting prisoners who were of the upper classes. “The thin red line” referred to in the chorus is clearly a silken garotte.

  6. Suffocation: The only known reference to stoning, a rather obscure and gruesome method of execution, slow and painful, is found in the Lackland medley of songs. “Pile them on, lads/pile them on” is the chorus. Dr. Cat Eldridge argues rather forcefully (see his chapter “Sea Changes in Sea Chanties” in his book More Music of the Dales that this is rather an old capstan ballad badly and baldly borrowed, with a traveling chorus. But I rather agree with my father’s position here that it points to yet another form of torture/execution and feel I can easily justify its use in my article.

  The rest of the methods of execution include

  7. Drawing

  8. Savaged by Bears

  9. Pierced by Arrows

  10. Drowning.

  I know this is a very unusual article idea—and for some of your readers possibly quite unsettling. However I feel very strongly that it has a place in a magazine such as yours which has always been on the very cutting edge of Dalian research.

  THE STORY:

  It was the horse that decided Sarana, for it went lame. Not badly lame, but needing tending. She led it down the road till t
hey came upon another farmhouse, this one a poor place with but a back garden and no farm stock except for a few scrawny chickens that ran from her as if she were a butcher’s knife.

  An old woman came out to stare at her when she entered the yard.

  “I have been many days on the road,” Sarana began.

  “Weeks, likely,” the woman said in the clipped speech of the far northern Dales.

  “Weeks likely,” Sarana agreed. “My horse is lamed.”

  “Strange horse for a queen’s guard,” the woman commented, taking in her filthy uniform.

  “Strange times for a queen’s guard,” Sarana answered.

  “Get in afore yer seen.”

  “And the horse?”

  “I’ll tend to her. I know horses, though you wouldn’t guess it from this patch.” She nodded her head at the farm. “Come down but not brought down.”

  Sarana said nothing.

  “Into the house then,” the old woman said. “There’s a tub.”

  Sarana did not wait to ask her if the tub was filled, but went in and gratefully took off her clothes, folded them by the metal tub and slipped in. There was water, though it was only lukewarm, but she didn’t care. She lay back and slipped entirely under, grateful for the wetness. She could feel layers of dirt and dust and dungeon peel away. When she sat up again, the old woman was in the house and bringing her over a scrub brush and dark yellow soap.

  “Got some of those mysel,” the woman said, gesturing to Sarana’s back where the scars glistered from the wetting like runes of a terrible tale. “Why I left.”

  “Left where?”

  “My man. My home. My land. But it’s an old tale. Done with.”

  Sarana nodded.

  “So girl, do you want a meal?”

  Sarana nodded again.

  “Will you work for it?”

  “I have little time. But I will come back and work double when the queen is on the throne again.”

  “A good answer.”