Queens of Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  “And a few kudos to our grand dames up there for bringing you through your illness, Shanendra.” Aria rested her hand on Shann’s hair. “This clan is in deep grief, but we have our queen strong and steady at the helm again.”

  “So many,” Brenna murmured. “Seventy-nine sisters gone.”

  “Yes.” Shann cupped her hands around her mug of tea as if to warm them. “But we could have lost four times that number, Brenna. The plan you and Jesstin devised was courageous and sound, and it worked. You and the sisters who rode with you saved hundreds of lives.”

  “And you brought us Samantha’s beautiful little daughter.” Aria’s large eyes were warm with compassion.

  “And sperm,” Dana added proudly.

  Sarah cackled and slapped Dana’s leg.

  “Ah, yes, the sperm.” Shann smiled sweetly at the heavens. “Brenna, meet with me soon to devise some way of storing our stolen specimens long-term. Everyone will want to claim their shot at motherhood at once, and I refuse to have two hundred Amazons going into labor in the same week.”

  “Wow. You’re right, lady.” Kyla grinned, and Jess’s heart lifted at the fresh happiness in her eyes, a welcome glimpse of Kyla’s younger self. It had livened all of them, the thought of welcoming new souls to Tristaine. “We’ll have to have at least a zillion meetings to plan for all this, you guys. Our mothers’ guild is going to triple in size!”

  “Now, there’s a grim notion.” Sarah lit her pipe, scowling, the firelight gleaming off her bald head. “Those cretins were a hotbed of maternal stupidity through this siege, lady. What should we do with Bethany and her ilk?”

  Shann refilled Aria’s mug and her own before she replied. “Bethany and Perry and several others galvanized the dissent in our clan. They were following their own lights, but they were dangerously blind to reason.”

  “In the City, they’d be locked away for life,” Dana said soberly. “Any kind of political rebellion means a Prison sentence down there.”

  “Hell,” Sarah grumbled, “even a moral sewer like the City has good ideas now and again.”

  “Oh hush, you old crank.” Aria tossed a pinecone at Sarah’s foot. “Lady, what are you pondering in that judicious mind of yours? You look troubled.”

  “Just thoughtful, sweet girl.” Shann searched the gradually lightening sky. “Tristaine follows the system of government Lady Artemis bequeathed to us centuries ago, but our monarchy is a difficult legacy, adanin—rife with risk of abuse. Bethany’s crime was defying her queen—refusing to obey my sovereign command. We must never condemn an Amazon for challenging authority without careful consideration.”

  “But Shann, do you really doubt the wisdom of your decision?” Brenna looked puzzled. “Because medically, practically, ethically—every way I can imagine, forbidding anyone to leave our mesa was the right call.”

  “It was,” Shann nodded, “and my heart rests easy there. But I rely on my Council to hold the frightening power of my crown in check, in this and all things. Are we in agreement in this matter?”

  Jess studied each face in their circle. Brenna was watching Shann with a thoughtful expression, and it occurred to Jess that Elise was not the only queen Shann was preparing for Tristaine’s crown. “We are, lady. Those who violated your rule endangered our clan, and they must answer for it.”

  Shann folded her hands in her lap. “All right, we’re in accord. The leaders of the dissent will be required to serve Tristaine’s guilds to atone for their choices. The physically strong will put in extra hours cleaning Hakan’s stables after their regular day’s work is finished. The others will toil for our weavers and healers. They must perform these added labors daily until Tristaine’s first snowfall in the coming season.”

  “Old Bethany is tough and stringy as a mountain goat, she can handle mucking out the stables.” Sarah looked cheered at the prospect. “Lady, order Hakan to load our horses’ feed with extra bran!”

  They heard it then, the unique swirl of birdsong that signaled the rising of the sun. Moments later the first rays of dawn bathed their circle in gold light, and Jess took Brenna’s hand.

  “It’s time to say our farewells to Samantha, dear ones.” Shann held Brenna’s gaze for a long, private moment. “Our Mothers have chosen a beautiful morning to welcome our little sister to the stars.”

  *

  Amazons chose different paths to the spirit realm, according to their natures.

  Warriors were often cremated, to launch their spirits heavenward with the same fiery passion that infused their spirits. Many in the artists’ guild rested on pallets in the limbs of high trees, returning to the elements in the free open air and the rustling music of wind through leaves.

  Samantha had not chosen a guild, but she had taken great pleasure in the restful beauty of Tristaine’s gardens and orchards. She would be laid to rest as many of their growers preferred, nestled in the fertile earth that sustained their clan.

  Her body had been lovingly prepared and wrapped in a shroud of white linen, barely visible beneath the thick carpet of wildflowers strewn over the pallet on which it lay. Samantha would be buried near their most lush and brilliant flowerbed, a short distance away up a gently sloping hill.

  Women were gathering around the bier now, and more were joining them. This farewell would have been well attended even if Samantha had not been the daughter of a queen. Brenna clasped hands with one Amazon after another to hear their condolences and realized her younger sister had touched even more hearts than she knew.

  “Brenna?” Jenny patted her arm, and Brenna turned to embrace her with a grateful sigh.

  “Hello, Jen. It’s good to see you.”

  “Eva’s on her—ah, Eva’s here.” Jenny smiled as her partner joined them, balancing Elise on one hip.

  “Good morning, Elise.” Brenna’s throat tightened as she kissed her niece’s cheek. “How are you, sweetie?”

  “Morning, fine,” Elise replied. She found a smile for Brenna, but her little face was wan.

  “She didn’t feel like breakfast this morning,” Eva said. Then she gulped and stepped back as Shann approached them. “Oh. Hello, your—highness.”

  “Good morning, Eva, Jenny. Thank you for being here.” Shann smiled at them warmly, and touched Elise’s face. “Adanin, I believe we’re ready.”

  “Shann, Oisin and Jackson can carry your chair.” Brenna was still a little concerned about Shann’s pallor. “There’s no need for you to walk up there.”

  “It’s not far, Brenna.” Shann gazed at the bier. “I don’t need carrying. I want to walk my daughter home.”

  Elise patted Eva’s breast. “Put me down.”

  Eva threw a questioning look at Brenna, then lowered Elise to the ground. The little girl looked up at Shann solemnly, ready to walk her mother home. Shann and Brenna took her hands.

  Samantha’s last journey began. She was lifted to the shoulders of the four Amazons selected for that honor, including Dana and Jess. Kyla stood immediately behind her cortege. She turned and waited for Shann’s nod, and then looked at Brenna, and sketched a sign of love and comfort in the air with her fingers.

  Sammy had been mesmerized the first time she heard Kyla sing. Beautiful even when she was a girl, Kyla’s voice was full-throated and glorious now. The melody she sang as they began their walk to the gardens was one of Tristaine’s oldest dirges, a song so moving its first notes invited the natural release of tears.

  Brenna made no effort to restrain her own. She was blinded, but she didn’t need to see clearly to follow this familiar path, holding Elise’s small hand. The crowd made its way up the grassy hill, Kyla’s mournful song giving poignant voice to their grief.

  When its last notes dwindled, an expectant hush fell over the women following Samantha’s bier. Brenna brushed her hand across her eyes and saw a few smiles break out on the faces around her. Amazon funerals began in sorrow, but they also celebrated the woman lost to the clan.

  “Do you remember when Sammy learned
to ride?” Dana’s call sounded first. She threw a glance back at the throng, grinning. “It took her about five seconds. Hell, she taught me how to stay on a horse! Remember when we raced to the canyon, lady? Sammy out rode some of our best!”

  There was laughter, and several shouts of agreement.

  “Our little sister helped me spin my yarn, many a time.” An older voice rose somewhere off to Brenna’s left. “She sat at my feet and listened to my stories by the hour. Her sweet face is before me still, lady, and always will be.”

  Someone else called out praise for Samantha’s bravery during their battle with the demon queen, and Brenna smiled through her tears. Sammy would be the first to admit that through the battle with the demon queen, she was either throwing up or trying not to faint with terror. But she’d stayed beside Brenna through those long, terrible nights, and it warmed her to hear her sister’s courage praised. Another Amazon drew more soft laughter by recalling Sammy’s lavish love for the clan’s many dogs.

  Kyla began singing again as they crested the hill, and a dazzling carpet of colorful flowers opened before them. This time her song held no grief, just a melodic appreciation for the gift Samantha’s life had been to her friends. The fond stories continued as the women gathered at the south end of the flower field, and the towering oak tree that would keep watch over the new grave.

  “Here.” Elise let go of Shann’s and Brenna’s hands, and rummaged in her shirt. She withdrew a neatly folded sheet of parchment, and opened it carefully.

  Brenna crouched beside Elise. “What is it, honey?”

  “It’s for my mom.” Elise handed her the sheet. “See?”

  Elise would probably never grow to be one of Tristaine’s great artists. Hardly the work of a prodigy, her drawing held all the crudity of a three-year-old’s scrawl. But it was Sammy’s face. She was there, in the primitive quirk of line and curve, and the very roughness of the sketch brought her smile to life. Elise had never laid eyes on her mother, but somehow she had rendered her image with loving faithfulness.

  Brenna couldn’t speak. She handed Shann the parchment, and the queen studied it for a long moment. Her fingers trembled slightly.

  “Do you like it?” Elise’s brows puckered with worry.

  “Oh, Elise. Sweet girl.” Shann released a long breath. “It’s beautiful. Just like our Sammy.”

  “It’s for my mom,” Elise said again. She sounded apologetic. “But I can drawer you one if you want. So we won’t forget.”

  “I would like that very much,” Shann told her. She gave the drawing back to Elise.

  The gathering around the oak tree stood quietly now. They watched the small girl go to her mother’s bier, the parchment balanced in her hands. She laid it carefully on the wildflowers covering the pallet and placed stems on its edges to hold it in place.

  “Here,” Elise whispered. She spoke a few more words too softly for Brenna to hear, a private message intended only for her mother.

  A light breeze stirred the high grass, and the field of bright blossoms bowed in gentle waves. Brenna closed her eyes and opened her senses, hoping again for any faint sign of Samantha in the mystic ethers beyond this world. She waited, but all she heard was the scattered birdsong of Tristaine’s gardens.

  When she opened her eyes, Shann was standing before the bier, her hands resting on Elise’s shoulders. She was, in the same heartbeat, an Amazon queen and a mother whose child died in her arms. Her fingers sifted through Elise’s fine auburn hair, the same shade as Samantha’s at that age.

  “I named her Joanna.” Shann’s voice was as low and intimate as a lullaby. “She graced my life for less than a year before the City took her. Before I lost her to the terrible system her father and I, and many others, were trying to fight.”

  A murmur ran through the women, honoring their queen’s memory of that long-ago devastation.

  “I couldn’t protect my baby from the horrors of a Youth Home,” Shann continued. “I wasn’t there to teach her to look beyond the oppressive fear of the City, to better and kinder ways of seeing the world. But someone was there.” She sought out Brenna. “My eldest, my Rebecca. She watched over her little sister through the bleakest childhood imaginable, and helped her grow into an honorable and loving young woman.”

  Brenna’s vision blurred again. She felt Jess’s strong hands cup her shoulders, and she leaned back against her gratefully.

  “All our blessings on your journey, Samantha.” Shann’s gaze moved to the jagged peaks beyond their mesa. Elise peered up at her grandmother’s face, then looked toward the mountains too. “Wherever your spirit travels, Tristaine will always shelter you. You will find an eternal and loving family waiting for you here. And as surely as I know Gaia lives, I know Her kindness will allow our reunion one day.” Shann lowered her head. “Sleep well, my Sammy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Jess’s arms enfolded Brenna’s waist. Brenna closed her eyes and prepared herself to say her own private goodbye.

  Find happiness, little sister. It’s there for you, somewhere out there, and you so richly deserve it. Find friendship. Find love. And, Sammy, please, find me again. I’ll search for you forever.

  Kyla’s last song, an ethereal aria, enveloped them in a beauty that held melancholy and solace in equal measures. Above them, high in the limbs of the oak, a solitary wren sang its own benediction, and Brenna turned into Jess’s waiting arms.

  *

  “It’s good to feel your strength returning, Jesstin.” Shann walked arm in arm with Jess through the gold light of late afternoon. The weather had been sweetly mild in the three days since Samantha’s funeral, but there was a bare hint of crispness in the air, a harbinger of the turning season. “Brenna had to threaten to tie you to your bed to get you to rest, but it seems your uncanny resilience has won out at last.”

  Jess murmured agreement, searching the wide pasture of waving grass for Brenna and Elise.

  “Of course, I’m assuming Brenna ties you to the bed with some regularity, in any case.”

  “Lady.” Jess stopped abruptly.

  “Just seeing if you were listening, adanin.” Shann pressed Jess’s arm, obviously pleased with herself. “Forgive me if I offended your chivalrous sensibilities.”

  “Forgive any scandalous reference to your daughter, lady.” Jess lowered her voice. “But I do tie better knots.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” Shann said quickly. “Have our two little sisters deserted us again?”

  Jess grinned and turned to look back down their path. Kyla and Dana had fallen some distance behind. They were trying to walk with their faces cemented together. Dana was quite a bit taller than Kyla, so keeping their lips locked made for rather stumbling progress.

  “You’d think they were trying to best the sperm,” Jess sighed.

  Shann glanced behind her and laughed softly. “They’re not alone, dear one. Tristaine is seeing the dawn of a great surge of romantic energy, and we’re all the better for it. It’s the irresistible call of life after so much loss. You’ve felt it, Jess.”

  “Aye, I have.” Jess spotted Brenna and Elise down at the bottom of the pasture, small figures at this distance. “I do.”

  Shann looked at Jess appraisingly. “You’re stronger now in many ways, Jesstin. The City demons that haunted you were vicious, and you faced them with great courage. You led your adanin through terrible dangers bravely and well, and proved again that my Dyan’s faith in you was wisdom itself.”

  “Thank you, lady.” Jess smiled at her queen. “You were right. An Amazon’s terrors are better borne with her sisters at her back.”

  Jess reached behind her in time to plant a hand on Dana’s chest and prevent her and Kyla from walking into them.

  “Whoops! Sorry.” Dana didn’t look particularly contrite.

  Kyla adjusted her hair quickly. “Are they here, lady?”

  “Yes, we’ve found them.” Shann nodded toward the lower end of the pasture. “They look quite content and I’m s
orry to disturb them, but it’s time Elise had her nap.”

  And Brenna hers, Jess thought, with pleased anticipation. Shann was right. She and Brenna had both been touched by the rising desire that swept so many in their clan in recent nights.

  Brenna’s hair was a gold gleam in the distance. She sat gracefully and still in the high grass, Elise in her lap. Neither of them had seen their sisters watching them from the small rise. They were focused on the prancing antics of a small speckled puppy that danced in circles around them.

  “Animals will always befriend Elise, just as they did her mother.” Shann’s smile was wistful. “I don’t need to share my kin’s second sight to know she has that blessing.”

  “This child has many blessings.” Jess slipped her arm around Kyla’s shoulders, and kissed the top of her head.

  “Yeah, in her teachers alone.” Dana shaded her eyes. “Shann will show Elise how to be a queen, and Brenna will let her in on all the mysteries of the spirit world.”

  “That teaching has already started.” Kyla leaned against Jess. “Look at them, down there. Elise is listening to our seer like she’s revealing the marvels of the universe. I wonder what sacred secrets of the mystic realms Brenna’s telling her?”

  *

  “What did she call the toy?” Elise asked.

  “She named him Hippo.”

  “Like your horse!”

  “Just like my horse.” Brenna brushed a strand of grass from Elise’s hair.

  “I won’t name you Hippo.” Elise scratched the upturned belly of the blissful puppy sprawled by her foot. “You’re too little.”

  “You’ll think of a good name.” Brenna glanced up and saw the far-off women watching them. “Look, our sisters are here. You about ready for your nap, honey?”