Cards of Grief

by Jane Yolen

  “When there is neither plukenna nor ladanna but only an in-between state…” she began.

  “Love is not in between,” I said, “but better than both.”

  “That I do not believe.”

  “Perhaps you cannot.”

  “Perhaps there is no need.”

  It was not an argument but an antiphony and my heart beat with the rhythm of it. Her eyes were bright and, in the darkening Hall, seemed to glow.

  Just then B’oremos joined us. “Thus ends the first night of mourning,” he said. “We must feast, now, eating the portion which would ordinarily have gone to your Queen.”

  I smiled. “Then we will have much to eat.”

  Linni looked scandalized, but B’oremos clapped me on the back and though he did not laugh, I believe he came very close to it.

  “Come back to my apartment. There will be plenty of good food. Mar-keshan prepared it early. Gray will come, too.”

  “Gray?”

  “Lina-Lania. The Gray Wanderer. It is what we call her.”

  “Gray.” I rolled it in my mouth, not quite liking the sound or implication.

  Linni saw my hesitation. “Which name do you prefer?”

  “Linni. It reminds me of the linnet, a little singing bird of Earth, my world.”

  “And what is the color of that bird?” she asked.

  I smiled. “There is one variation called a gray linnet,” I said.

  “There,” she said. “Words of two worlds cannot lie. Call me what you will.”

  “Linni,” I said. “I will leave you Gray in B’oremos’s mouth. For in our world that is a color that is somber, washed out, sad, without sparkle. It does not suit you.”

  “You do not, in fact, know what suits me yet, Man Without Tears,” said Linni. “I sense that hesitation in you. A wondering and a holding back. A poem not yet sung.”

  I smiled directly at her, closing B’oremos out. “I will sing that poem someday, I promise you.”

  B’oremos insinuated himself back between us. Taking my right hand he pulled me out of the Hall of Grief across the cobbled streets to the palace, then through the maze of hallways to his rooms. Linni followed.

  Did the Queen know that you had gone with them instead of back to the ship for your vigil?

  I didn’t know, nor, I must admit, did I give it any thought at the time. I told myself I was observing, studying, learning; a true anthro. But I think, in fact, I was enjoying.

  Ladanna.

  I beg your pardon, sir?

  I was just musing. Carry on, Aaron.

  In B’oremos’s room I sank back against a fall of cushions as easily as if I had done so all my life. B’oremos lay back on his own, his foot touching against mine. Only Linni sat upright, like a punctuation mark between us.

  I asked questions, phrased more like statements and B’oremos gave me answers phrased more like puzzles. It was almost a game between us and I was beginning to fit into their way of thinking. Just as there is a moment in the learning of a language when one suddenly dreams in the new tongue and knows it, so there is this moment of acculturation. We are told of it in the classroom, but the explanation is lame. When it comes, though, there is no mistaking it.

  I had quite forgotten Dr. Z’s “death,” and so, when a servant arrived summoning B’oremos to the Queen’s Apartment, I was unprepared for his heavy sigh.

  “Grief makes her think of her immortalities,” he said.

  “Grief?” I asked. “Immortalities?” The long day and the glasses of wine that B’oremos served, much stronger than any I had yet tried, were making me slow.

  “The death of your Queen grieves her and she thinks of the time when she, herself a Queen, will be in the Cave without the comfort of blood daughters to mourn her. She longs for another child. Tonight she insists on being sown and we will all be rewarded if there is a harvest.”

  “She asked me,” I said. “She invited me to her room but I told her no.”

  B’oremos and Linni looked shocked.

  “One does not deny a Queen,” Linni said.

  “We do our sowing with love,” I said. “And with love there is always a choice.”

  “A man has no choice in these matters,” said B’oremos. “A man has so little time, it must be expended in the service of the Queen. She calls and I…” He brushed his hand across the front of his chiton and there was a noticeable bulge there. “I am a man and must answer.” He looked at me grimly. “Either you are playing with us and are not a man or—”

  “I am a man,” I said simply.

  “Or for you time runs at a different pace,” Linni finished.

  To this I made no answer. I did not dare.

  B’oremos touched my shoulder and left quickly by a door that was hidden behind a drapery, and Linni and I were left alone.

  “Is time different for you?” she asked.

  I tried to think of a way to phrase it so that it would not further compromise our mission. “We count in a different way,” I said at last.

  She was silent for a while, her angular face solemn, reminding me of madonnas on the glass windows of cathedrals on old Earth. Finally she looked at me. “You have much to teach us, sky-farer.”

  “I am here to learn, not to teach,” I said, my mind strangely sharp. I seemed to see each word before pronouncing it. Absently, I reached out to pluck a word out of the air, turned it over in my hand, and said, “The word is ladanna.”

  “I will teach you the difference between plukenna and ladanna,” said Linni, “without words.” She said it earnestly. “For it is certain I cannot teach a man to grieve unless he feels that grief here.” She moved over to sit close to me and touched me over the heart, her hand palm down, fingers spread wide.

  “But where does a man feel the difference between plukenna and ladanna if not here?” I said, covering her hand with mine. Hers trembled beneath.

  “I have never been touched,” she answered, then added as if the simple statement needed explaining. “In my village I was odd, even odder than the usual Royal sowing. And here, as I am the Queen’s Own Griever, I am Untouchable. Do you understand what that means?”

  “Little linnet,” I said, almost whispering, “sweet singer. I, too, have never been touched. I’ve been too busy studying and learning. But now—it would also be against all my vows to touch you.”

  Her hand moved off my heart and onto my lips.

  I kissed her fingers one by one. They were roughened and there was a crescent-shaped scar on her left thumb. Then I dropped her hand and reached for my cup of wine and drained it. On the bottom lay a single small black seed like a period at the end of a sentence.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  She took the cup and looked, then put her hand to her brow. “It is what is left of a Lumin nut after it has been soaked in wine. B’oremos had those three Kernels which your Dot’der’tsee gave back to him. He has put one in the cup for you.”

  “Oh, God. Am I a dead man?” I asked, beginning to feel a warmth swelling up my legs. If this was death, it was not at all unpleasant.

  “Oh, no, A’ron, not dead. Three kernels bring death. Two will give you nightmares and hysteria. But one…” Her voice became soft and out of focus. “One is for a night of wild rejoicing.”

  “Have you, too, drunk wine with a kernel?” I asked, suddenly eager for her answer.

  She looked into her cup, drained it, looked again. Her eyes were golden and wide. “We will be unable to stop what has already begun,” she said. “If there is a fault, if there has been a betrayal, it is B’oremos’s. You—and I—we are innocent.” She rose, blew out the candles one by one by one, then came toward me in the lingering shadows and lay down by my side.

  The first kiss and the first touch were sweet, but not as sweet as all the ones that followed.

  You need not describe any more, Aaron.

  Thank you, sir, but I could not even if ordered. The Lumin muddled my senses and I’m not sure what was real and what was not. B
ut I love her, sir. And I know she loves me.

  What makes you say that?

  Because as she was blowing the candles out, I looked into her cup. There was no little black seed in it.

  Ladies and gentlemen, you have all heard Aaron Spenser’s testimony. I want you to consider it carefully. There are three things to examine: motive for contamination, method of contamination, and of course whether in fact contamination has occurred.

  Excuse me, sir, but there is something that I don’t understand. What happened between Linni and me was personal. When B’oremos returned, Linni and I had already parted, she to her own room and I back to the ship, where I was to help prepare Dr. Z’s transfer into a transsleep capsule. Linni and I had decided that we needed time to sort through our feelings about what had happened, though we were not going to speak of it to anyone else. She reminded me that vows broken under the influence of Lumin do not count. So I have been puzzled all along at this Court Martial. But as I promised to tell the truth of it to this court, I have—to the best of my ability.

  However, that day, without warning, I was sent up here, ostensibly to accompany the casket, which, as medical officer of the landing party, N’Jymnbo should have done. And I have been up here over twenty days, not being allowed to contact Linni. I’ve been given makework—translations of some tapes, chordings of grief songs. But no one will tell me what is happening on planetfall, sir. Even Dr. Z avoids me. I admit a certain amount of cultural contamination happened, but—as I tried to explain—there were circumstances.

  Aaron, circumstances have changed. Greatly. This morning Dr. N’Jymnbo flew up with a present from the Queen.

  A present, sir?

  A seven-pound squalling present, Aaron. Blond, too, which is something never seen before on L’Lal’lor, though she has their golden eyes. Your twenty days labtime has been almost a full year down below, you know.

  A girl baby, sir?

  Yes, Aaron.

  And what of Linni?

  From what we understand, she believes the child was a boy and born dead. And as you know, if the Queen herself had not offered the child to us, we would have had to take her anyway. She is a living contamination there. Here she is simply a beautiful, healthy baby, a citizen of the Federation.

  May I—may I see my child, sir?

  See her? Aaron, if you are found guilty, as I fully expect you to be, you will have the job of raising her.

  Thank you, sir.

  Should I reread the charge, Captain Macdonald?

  Do so, Lieutenant.

  Aaron Spenser, the charge is Cultural Contamination as defined by the USS Code #27. The specification is that you willfully and unlawfully violated the Cultural Contact Contamination Act in regards to your relationship with an inhabitant or inhabitants of the planet Henderson’s IV, thus influencing—to the good or to the bad—all culture within their closed system forever.

  Ladies and gentlemen, the vote is yours. In the case of a tie, I shall be forced to cast the deciding vote. Consider carefully.

  Court Martial Inquiry dismissed.

  We will meet back here in 0800 hours.

  Sir, we have voted.

  What say you to the charge, Yeoman Peterson?

  Guilty, sir, with extenuating circumstances.

  “Circumstances” is a word that seems to pop up with surprising regularity in these proceedings.

  Begging your pardon, sir, but the proper form—

  Form, schmorm, as my great-grandmother used to say. Ladies and gentlemen, what recommendation for sentence?

  Five years’ work aboard space lab, sir, including child-rearing. No further contact during that period with Henderson’s IV or any of its inhabitants.

  Excuse me, sir. But…

  Is there something wrong with the form now, Lieutenant?

  I just thought that you might like to add that, at the end of that time, the words Court Martial Sentence be deleted from Anthro First Class Spenser’s records. Because of the extenuating circumstances, sir. It’s permitted, sir, in Article 763 of the Court Martial Code.

  Why, Lieutenant, a heart beats beneath that iron exterior.

  It’s…um…regulation issue at the Academy, sir.

  A joke, too. I’m beginning to like you, Lieutenant. And I would like to do that, add that. Use the proper numbers and article references.

  Yes, sir.

  Any last words before I dismiss us all, Aaron?

  What about Linni, sir?

  That, my boy, is up to her—and her people. I suspect, though, that she will be forgiven if she is anywhere near the artist you say she is. Whether she, herself, will forgive—that is beyond my guessing.

  Then, sir, I’d like to see my child.

  Tape 9: QUEEN OF SHADOWS

  Place: Queen’s Throne Room

  Time: Queen’s Time 76, Thirteenth Matriarchy, labtime 2137.5 A.D.

  Speaker: Queen to Aaron Spenser

  Permission: Queen’s own

  A QUEEN DOES NOT tell stories. She tells the truth. Even her lies are true. That is the prerogative of Royalty. So what I am about to tell you is, of course, true. What you choose to believe, seeing that you are neither a Royal nor of our world, is your own concern. But know this, man from the sky, I am the Queen and I speak true.

  Only a Queen can bear Queens and since a Queen speaks the truth, whomever she designates as the father of her children is so. If you do not understand this about our world, you understand nothing.

  We grieve for our dead and dying in a way that makes the passage beautiful and gives the grieven one immortality. So our greatest grievers, the ones who bring many mourners into the lines, who give us life after death, are the ones we cherish the most. We do many things for them, things that may appear not true but become true with the telling. If I choose to name Lina-Lania my child and you the father, it will be so. Oh, do not look so worried, A’ron. I am past such namings now. I am tired, burned away. There is little time left for me, now, so I would tell you—of all people—why. And is that not why you are here? To find out why. Why I did what I did to the Gray Wanderer, the greatest of all our grievers, and my favorite. Why I took her from you. Why I told her truths which she could not accept and yet, by accepting them as she was bound to do, betrayed you forever.

  We are both older now, though you do not look as if more than a year or two has passed. And I, like all Queens, have not changed either. It is a strange mortality we women of the Royals have. We do not age until the day we die and then, in a moment, we turn into a dried-out husk, ashes inside, ready for the pylons. I saw my mother and my sisters transformed that way, in seconds their beauty gray dust over bones. It is why our people view our husks—to see for themselves that we are indeed dust.

  I see by your face that you do not believe this. Believe it. A Queen has told you so.

  But as old as we are, A’ron, the Gray Wanderer is older still. Fifty years have passed since you spoke to her last, and those fifty years have been etched like poems onto her face. Her hands are writ with the calligraphy of time. Those are her metaphors, not mine. She gives everything to me. I am her Queen.

  It was prophesied that she would be the child to lead us, that she would be betrayed but would forgive the betrayal. And that is why I have chosen you, now, to learn the truth, or at least as much of the truth as a Queen will tell. Believe it or not. Believe what you will or what you can. You have my permission to write it down, though we know that only what is held in the mouth is true.

  And you may tell all this to your own Queen, for I know that she never died but lives on despite her death, which makes her a greater Queen than I, an inheritor of a stranger immortality. I know this because, like all Queens, I have my spies. And some of them are liars and some of them are not. But I know that this thing is true, for she did not dry up as a Queen must, but died and lived in her glass box.

  Come then, sit by me with your back against this black cushion, which my favorites have used for so many years. See, it is embroidered
with the great red creature your own Queen favored. I have placed it close to me always, that her immortality may touch my own. The Gray Wanderer often lay there, occupying that same place, her back where your back now rests. She occupied it—but we never touched. Touching would have been a violation of her vows, and how could she, then, grieve for me when I die?

  And now she lives in a cave far up in the hills and thinks I know not where she stays. She can see the palace from that hill, but I can see the hill from the twin towers, so what is there between us but air?

  She will not talk to me, she says, because I tryst with men from the sky. She says their love is cold and barren and a lie. But I know better and I know, too, that when it is time she will come and grieve for me because she has never revoked her vows. She is a griever. She is the Queen’s Own Griever.

  What cave? Where?

  Do not rush away, seeking her. Not yet, A’ron. What you find in that cave is not what you expect. Listen to my story first. Trust the truth of it and then I will give you leave to go.

  We will sit here, just the two of us, until the fingers of the shadow world reach into ours and the tale is done.

  I like this time, the cusp of day, when the world sits between light and dark. It makes me remember. Queens have long memories, A’ron, and I like to indulge mine.

  Do you not fear my anger?

  Time does not hone anger, A’ron. It blunts it. What you have is not anger but a long sorrow. A grief. We are a people who understand grief. I am not afraid of you. Are you afraid of me?

  I do not understand.

  Your Linni is changed beyond loving. She is now an old, old woman. But you and I have aged little. Once you ran from my bed in fear, now you will run from hers. I have no interest in you now. Though your face is still such a pretty one, it is too broad between the eyes for my liking. I prefer my boys simpler and fifty years—or five—is a long time to set a preference.

  So you know about the time changes.

  A Queen knows everything. I know past and present and future. I see so clearly I see the shadows. Do you know that I am called Queen of Shadows?