by Jane Yolen
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 Malfas, 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.
In fact, until the Garunian so-called invasion, such places—while abhorrent to the general public—were tolerated because of the perceived magical nature of the sisters of the Hames. My father had only begun to sniff out the depth of this sexual scam going back several thousand years, when he died.
How much clearer can it be? From the moment of the dissolution of the Hames, after the Gender Wars, when these women—and especially the young girls—were brought back into the main body of society, sapphic practices all but disappeared in the Dales.
THE STORY:
The plan was simple enough, though execution would be difficult. There were two parts to it.
Those with them at M’dorah who knew boats would make their way southward until the marshes at Catmara, cross through the fens by the secret passageways, come up the coast around the horn of land east of Berick. They would commandeer what great ships remained in the harbor towns of Josteen and Southport, sail them by night to the Skellies, that double line of dangerous rocks cupping Berick Harbor entrance. There they would scuttle the boats, between the two lines of rocks, sealing the harbor to any more Garun ships. Jano was to lead that force.
The second group, under Scillia’s guidance, would march up to Berick from the west, making enough noise when they reached the castle foot to keep the guards from noticing what Jano’s sailors would be doing. They were not to try to take the castle—half a force would have no chance against that fortress—but they might possibly tempt some portion of the Garuns out.
“Which,” Jano said, “would then put us on an equal footing. Man to man we can beat them. We did it before. And not so long ago at that.”
“Woman to man we can beat them as well,” said Sarana. She grinned over at Jano. It was a long-standing joke between them. “And if you are not too tired from swimming to shore, you might just get what we leave alive.” She did not see Scillia’s mouth, already set in a hard line, twist downward at her comment.
And so it was decided. About a third of the assembled troops admitted to some knowledge of sailing and they gathered together to finalize their plans. The others listened to Scillia and Sarana.
“This is not a battle for a throne,” Scillia told them. “Who sits on that hard seat is not the matter here. The matter is that the Garuns have taken what is ours, imprisoned our sisters and brothers, and threaten our way of life. If we stop more G
aruns from coming in by sea to add their forces to those in Berick Castle, if we cork up those inside, even the Garuns will have to admit that they must leave us alone.”
“And what of the king over the water?” someone cried out.
Someone else added, “That pimple! That pustule!”
“That pimple is mine to squeeze,” Scillia said. “No one but me is to touch him.” She smiled when she said it that no one there should know her heart.
But Sarana did. And while the others raised a great cheer, she alone sighed.
Jano’s troops left at dawn. At his right hand was a young fenmaster, a man named Goff whose family had lived for centuries in and around the great marsh that extended between the Mandrop and the Killdown hills. Only those who understood the hidden causeways could travel across the fens, those lands which lay under brackish water. It was a family secret, passed father to son, or mother to daughter. They would need Goff to lead them over the flooded lands.
When Scillia had asked Goff how his people could live in such a place, he had smiled slowly. “We drive the big tree down,” he replied. “And we-ums live atop.” He seemed to think that explained it all.
There were few horses among Jano’s crew. Only his own soldiers and another twenty guardsmen rode good steeds. The rest—fisherfolk and farmers and a few townsmen who had joined the ragtag army when they processioned to M’dorah—were horseless or rode plow mares. Those on foot would make for slow progress but the horsemen did not dare outrun them, especially since Goff had no horse nor did he know how to ride one.
Seven days at best with such a troop, Sarana had guessed, if one was to go due south along the King’s Way. But cutting through the great swamp and around the heel of the Dales would add another three at least.
“Our troops should have a quicker time of it,” she told the captains. There were no good roads on the western route, but except for a few scattered peat bogs—which they would have to be careful to avoid for the peat-hags could haul down even a great Dales mare—the way led through second-growth forest and farmland carved out of the old King’s Wood.
So Jano and his followers left first. They did not go quietly. Instead they were lustily singing the old war songs, marching songs like “King Kalas” and “The Long Riding” and “When Jen Came Home.” Their voices held hope and promise and Sarana almost wished she were going with them until she turned and saw Scillia’s face. Her lips were drawn together in a thin line and another thin line furrowed her brow. But her eyes were clear and the color was more like meadow grass than shadowed woods now.
“My queen?” Sarana asked.
“I want to memorize their faces,” Scillia said. “I need to remember their names.”
Sarana understood. They might never see any of those spirited singers again.
When the strains of “Langbrow’s Battle Hymn” had faded, they were past the last of the M’doran rocks. The plain ended there and the forest’s edge began. Holding his hand up, Jano turned his horse around to face the marchers. They quieted at once.
“It is good to sing, comrades. It quickens the heart, it shortens the way. But it also gives notice. Best we go now as quiet as we can.” Though how a hundred can go quietly, who are not trained up to it, I know not, he thought.
He had little hope for their bedraggled army. All they had was heart. What weapons they carried were old—swords or pikes that had not been used since the Gender Wars, almost thirty years before. The swords were pitted with rust as they had, for the most part, simply hung on farmhouse walls or over an inn’s bar as a memento of the Great Fight. In fact, the first days at M’dorah he and his soldiers had to show the new recruits how to grind and polish their old blades to bring them back to some measure of usefulness. One man had even arrived with a Wirgilder ax and shield, which put his weapons at over a hundred years old since the Wirgilders had not come raiding the Dale shores for at least that long. The broad, crescent-shaped ax head had been fine, but the handle had had to be replaced. Jano took on that job himself as he wanted to feel the weight and heft of the axe, never having held one before. It had felt powerful and he almost thought he could hear the blood singing to him from the ax blade. He wondered, idly, if it were singing a victory song or one of ignoble defeat.
But odder victories had happened in wars before this, and it would never do to let the troops know his secret fears.
He said, with more confidence than he felt, “I will send scouts ahead on horse back and, at the hump of the day, hunters will be dispatched to each side to find meat for our evening meal. There is a trained soldier to lead each twenty-person unit, but should there be any complaints of that leadership, bring them direct to me. We have much to do and far to go, but we fight together under Alta’s eye and cannot fail of our purpose.”
“How far do we march this first day?” called out one of the farmers. Jano tried to remember his name and could not.
“We will not go on till some few of you drop. Every one of you is needed in this fight. But still we must get to the edge of the fens in three days. And we must be there together for we have but one fenmaster to show us the way across.”
“What if there are stragglers?” asked a woman whose shoulders were as broad and powerful as any two men of the company.
A butcher’s wife, Jano thought. Or the butcher herself. He answered her seriously. “If you cannot keep up, turn back. Do not dare the fens on your own. The queen will be glad of your company.”
“Or find another fenmaster,” added Goff, with that same slow smile. This time there was a kind of challenge in it.
It took four days, not three, to reach the marshy tidal river that marked the edge of the swamp. Jano suspected he had over-reached when counting on three days. But he was not discontented with four.
There was an unsettling mist over the river’s grey water, obscuring all. The men and women of the company spread out along the shore, trying to peer through to the other side. They whispered to one other, as occasionally a dark smudge of land seemed to appear and then disappear before them.
Goff startled them all by pulling a reed pipe from his leather pocket and blowing three shrill, ululating cries. The sound seemed to stop at the river’s edge, swallowed up by the dense fog.
“How long will this mist last?” Jano asked Goff.
“Oh—always and e’er.” The fenmaster smiled again. “’Tis Alta’s own cloak. It be our best defense.”
“When can we go across?”
“Whenever thou wishes.” Goff cocked his head. “We of the fens be nowt fuddled by the grey shroud. It be our blanket from the cradle. Hear the boats?”
Jano listened. He could hear nothing but an odd creaking as if the trees along the shoreline were stretching.
A hush had fallen over the company at Goff’s first notes but as the creaking sounds grew louder, first the men, then the women clustered together with an uneasiness born part of fear and part of wonder. Only Jano and Goff remained separate from them, Goff because he knew what to expect, and Jano because he was always ready to expect the worst.
And then a dozen dark shapes plowed through the mist to hump onto the shore where they were revealed as coracles, skin boats. Their masters leaped out and pulled the little boats the rest of the way onto land.
“Who be calling?” a woman of the fen folk asked. She was small but well-muscled, her dark skirt kirtled above her knees and a band of bright material binding her hair. At first glance she was young, at second old. “Who be blowing the signal pipe?”
“Auntie, I be,” Goff said, stepping forward.
“So thee be coming home, a bad son, a worse nephew, and expect a welcome for it.” For a moment her face was like a cloud and Jano feared they would be turned away. Then the woman laughed and opened her arms to him. “Thee mun nowt be expecting thy mum to be treating thee so.”
Goff gave her a hug that lifted her off her feet.
“And who be this great company?” the woman asked.
“Soldiers for
the queen, auntie,” Goff replied.
“We be caring nowt for queens nor kings, Goffie,” she said. “We be fen folk. We commerce the causeways. We be nowt bending our knee to woman nor man.”
“Nay, auntie, if we be nowt for the queen, then the men across the sea will be the worse.”
Jano got off his horse and came over to them. “The men across the sea are here already, mistress. If they stay, they will drain these swamps and build their fortresses on the river shore. They will commerce without you.”
“They do nowt be knowing the fens. The glassy water will eat them. The river will have its way.” The fen woman folded her arms across her chest.
“Auntie, listen,” Goff said, his face dark and serious. “I be seeing them at the Great Harbor where I be working the boats. They be taking and they be nowt giving back.”
“Alta be protecting her own.”
“Aye—as we be protecting the river.”
“Aye.”
“So will you be taking this company over the causeway.”
Jano intruded once again. “We will pay, mistress.”
“Ah—that be different.” She held out her hand.
“We will pay when the devils are back on their own shores.”
The fen mistress withdrew her hand. “Now or nowt.”
Goff shrugged and turned to Jano. “It is the fen way.”
Jano nodded. He was not surprised. “Hold, mistress. I will see what can be found.” He returned to his horse and reached into the saddle pack, pulling out a velvet bag. For a moment he held it against his heart. Then he walked back, handing it to the woman and saying loud enough that all could hear: “My father was named Sandor, one of the five who rode with the Anna into the Grenna’s grove. Some said he was a tale spinner and no such thing ever happened. But he would not retract his life. So he was most of his life without friends, but for me. He had brought back nothing to prove his tale but a single gold coin from the Grove which he never spent. All his life he worked hard as a ferryman though he had a fortune in his pocket. When he died, he left the coin to me. What better way for a ferryman’s son to use that coin than this? Mistress, carry us over the fens.”