Queen of the Warrior Bees

by Jean Gill

  Drianne cried out again but Mielitta knew that the Citadel was deaf to such an everyday occurrence. She crept up to the wooden side of the barn and listened, shutting her eyes to visualise where each person stood.

  ‘You know where she is,’ Bastien was saying, with pauses, as if he was prodding the girl. ‘You follow her everywhere. You always know where she is.’

  ‘I saw her g-g-go d-d-down, to the cellars, I think. But I cou-cou-couldn’t follow because you d-d-did.’ An involuntary cry of pain. The note of defiance had earned a blow.

  ‘But you went down later, didn’t you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I t-t-told you. She wasn’t there and she didn’t come up how she went d-d-down. She must have f-f-found a secret p-p-passage.’

  A long pause.

  ‘Maybe that’s it.’ Jannlou’s voice. ‘We’ve wasted long enough on all this. I’m bored. It’s nearly time to go and eat.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Bastien’s voice reeked unhealthy fervour. ‘A worm to catch a fish, that’s what we’ve got, like my father says. Now, girl, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to ask the bitch nicely about her day and find out where that secret passage is, for the sake of our beloved Citadel. We can’t have somebody spying, can we? Somebody knowing about a secret passage that even Jannlou here doesn’t know.’

  Drianne’s reply was unintelligible but presumably vulgar because one of the others stifled a laugh and Bastien’s voice broke with rage. Mielitta heard steel unsheathed as he shouted, ‘By the time you’ve f-f-finished spluttering, you’ll find out exactly what I can do! What use is a tongue on a girl who can’t speak and won’t f–f–.’

  Mielitta didn’t wait for his last words but rushed to Drianne’s defence, covering the final yards in a burst of superhuman speed. If it crossed her mind that an eighteen-year-old had little more chance than a twelve-year-old against this gang, she placed the thought firmly in a stoppered jar that was likely to become very crowded in the next few minutes.

  Arrow in hand, she used the advantage of surprise to jab Bastien in the thigh but her assault merely increased the fury in his eyes. He did drop the girl, but from choice, so he could focus on Mielitta as Drianne crumpled to the ground.

  ‘Padding,’ he sneered. ‘You don’t get me that way a second time. Get her,’ he ordered the others.

  Then Mielitta smelled black, a throbbing cloud of fury that turned all the unfairness in her life to murderous intent. Enough hiding, enough running. An arrow in each hand, she moved as fast as a thousand bees, stinging Bastien everywhere he was not padded, starting with his poisonous mouth. Stabbing black darts into every pore of his skin until his fear hit her nostrils, acrid yellow, driving her berserk.

  Then she turned on his friends.

  She whirled and somersaulted as if flying, loosing her rage as a weapon in itself. Somewhere in that black cloud, a voice urged caution.

  Defence, she was reminded.

  ‘Don’t kill them,’ she muttered. ‘Mustn’t kill them.’ Shaking with the internal struggle to control her darts, she stabbed just the skin surface, moving so fast they couldn’t even see her coming. She mustn’t jab too deep, mustn’t kill but the urge was so strong she wanted to feel the barb catch and rip their enemy bodies apart.

  ‘Run!’ they screamed at each other and their fear turned the air acid green, bilious, feeding Mielitta’s black cloud.

  Only Bastien and Jannlou were left, standing over the girl who still cowered on the ground, hands over her head.

  ‘Run, Jannlou,’ Bastien yelled, distancing himself. ‘She’s insane. And she’s using magecraft. It’s forbidden! We can tell your father! We have witnesses!’

  ‘No! We sort this ourselves,’ Jannlou yelled back. ‘How we’ve always done things.’

  Bastien hesitated, arms flailing as if he fought off imagined bees. Then he shook his head and was gone.

  Only Jannlou was left, hands by his side, no weapon drawn. Mielitta circled him, shifting her balance from one foot to the other, ready, humming a throaty battle song.

  He just looked at her. Blue eyes with silver flecks, purple rings, like a pansy. His sweat strengthened the brown solidity exuded by his warrior’s trained body. Mage glamour, she reminded herself.

  She should finish this. Kill him. Why not? No witnesses now. Except Drianne and she would support anything Mielitta said. She deserved this death, sweet little soul. Drianne looked up at her, eyes pleading.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she said. And she was pleading with Mielitta. The knowledge was a bucket of cold water over Mielitta’s fury but Drianne was just a child and this fight was between adults.

  Shaking, still shifting in readiness, Mielitta was between battle-blaze and conscience, waiting for Jannlou to force her next move.

  He stood stock still. ‘You said, Don’t kill them,’ he reminded her.

  She held his gaze. Blue, silver, purple. ‘Go,’ she told him.

  ‘Truce?’ he asked.

  ‘You could call it that.’ He nodded, turned his back on her and walked slowly away. She was suddenly very tired. She sat on the ground beside Drianne, took her in a hug, ignored the instinctive flinch.

  ‘I would never hurt you,’ she said.

  Drianne gave way to a child’s sobs against her shoulder, mumbling, ‘I l-l-love you.’ A child indeed.

  Mielitta sighed and squeezed the girl. ‘Love you too.’ She threw the expected response back, staccato, embarrassed, not meaning it. It was just something you said, wasn’t it.

  ‘And I wouldn’t kill them,’ she told Drianne. This reassurance came out with more conviction but, in the heat of battle, she hadn’t meant the men. She’d meant she mustn’t kill the bees, who were now part of her, who could not leave their stings beneath the surface and live. So neither could she. It wasn’t you, I cared about, she told an imaginary Jannlou. It was my bees.

  Chapter Seven

  Mielitta sat on her bed with her eyes shut, replaying the fight. Just recalling Bastien’s attack on Drianne made her body vibrate with the rage of a thousand bees, the power of a thousand darts. Bastien had accused her of unlicensed magecraft and she knew it must be true. She could never have moved so quickly, stabbed with such skill and judgement, without powers she didn’t have. Or rather didn’t have this morning, when she’d escaped Bastien and Jannlou with two all-too human jabs. She shook off her doubts that she’d touched Jannlou at all – she must have done for him to squeal.

  What if the magecraft in her fight had been somebody else’s? What if she’d been a channel for a seam of raw power, Drianne maybe? Too young to realise what was in her blood and completely untrained? She would certainly have helped Mielitta if she could. Untrained herself, Mielitta could only guess how magecraft worked from observations of the Councillors, and they worked mostly in secret. Maybe Drianne could only support someone else, not act to her own advantage.

  If Mielitta had been a channel for magecraft, there was another possibility. There had been an acknowledged mage present. Jannlou was behaving strangely these days. But why would he expend power, against the law, to defend her and Drianne against himself and his own gang? That made no sense.

  She briefly considered some random spill of magecraft from a Councillor or lesser mage, that had coincidentally affected her, but her head buzzed with annoyance at this train of thought. She scratched at her thigh.

  You know the truth. Own it.

  She opened her eyes, looked at the chest to the left of the bed, at the arrow-slit window to her right, in front of her where a small sampler with her name in faded cross-stitch hung on the wall. She had to turn her head to see in each different direction. But immediately after the bees’ attack, she’d seen differently. Her peripheral vision had doubled, colours had changed. The effects had faded but she could remember the flowers by the stream, blue and purple instead of yellow, with ultraviolet rings. There was no ultraviolet in the Citadel and she missed it. She found the Citadel dra
b and lacklustre. Since she’d visited the Forest, she saw differently.

  She sniffed and felt a vestige of rage at a lingering trace of banana coming from the empty bottle. Using her discarded shirt to protect her hand from the repellent odour, she placed the phial back in its box and closed the lid. Her heartbeat settled as she smelled only cut balsam wood, from the box itself.

  The scroll had fallen onto the floor and she sniffed, cautious, but it smelled neutral, of green ink and rag-paper. Natural pine wood, and paper, she noted, not paperette.

  When the bottle is empty, you will be full.

  No life ends while The One lives.

  In the year of the prophecy, choose well.

  She crumpled up the meaningless words. The bottle was certainly empty now and she couldn’t believe she had ever put such a vile scent on her body. No doubt that’s what had provoked the bees to attack her. She reached up to feel her head but the snood was long gone and her hair was loose. She remembered the way the bees targeted her hair and she felt reluctant to replace the snood with another like it. Her old one must be somewhere in the Forest, an anomaly, a Citadel fabrication among the mossy tree-trunks. Metal threads, she remembered, standard servant wear. From now on, she’d braid her hair with simple ribbons, keep her appearance understated, but it was going to take more than that to avoid drawing attention to herself.

  Bastien would not rest until he exposed her latest freak show to the Council, whatever Jannlou said about settling matters among themselves. Mielitta plaited her long red hair and ferreted in the chest for clean clothes while her thoughts raced. And buzzed. She shook her head but the buzzing only increased as she fought to breathe.

  Through the panic, she sensed a whiff of lavender, took a breath, calmed. This was too big, too crazy to fit in her panic jar but she did her best. Fear made bad decisions and she had much to consider.

  It’s only us, soothed the voices.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem.’

  What would Magaram do to her if she was right? If he knew she’d not only been to the Forest but brought thousands of spirit bees back inside her, with wild powers?

  She drew hose on, tied her bootlaces, analysed events as if this impossible idea was a mere fact, like having two feet, not a reason to shut her eyes and scream. If the bees were dead, why did she have to be careful not to kill them when fighting? Why should she not let darts penetrate below the skin?

  You know why, the voices in her head told her, a gentle hum that she was already getting used to.

  ‘Hive mind,’ Mielitta said aloud. This was not the solution to her loneliness she’d ever imagined would come along, but she undoubtedly had company. Bees in her bonnet.

  She laughed, a bitter taste. Then she stowed her bow and arrows under the bed, grateful for the wards on her chamber door which meant only she could enter. Designed to prevent unauthorised fertilisation, the magical barrier incidentally offered a safe place to the occupant – and her hidden belongings.

  In her chamber, Mielitta could think, without looking over her shoulder for the next threat. Her bonnetful of bees stayed respectfully quiet while she considered her immediate problems and her options. They all boiled down to one imperative. She must become ordinary, draw no attention, hold no interest. In the Citadel, there could only be one path to this goal. After all, she had become Mature today, so this was a logical consequence. Drianne would be bitterly disappointed in her but then, Drianne would become ordinary in her turn – and stay safe. She would find somebody else to l… l… Mielitta forced herself to use mockery as cruel as Bastien’s. She knew it wasn’t possible to care about little ones. They grew up.

  The Council of Ten – of Nine, Mielitta corrected herself – sat on their dais at the High Table. Off-duty servants sat together on what could be called a lowly table at the end of the Great Hall near the draughts from the door. Almost a breeze, Mielitta thought as she sipped her insipid water, ate her sustenance and smelled only humans, overlaid with the tarry pong of the soap they all used. At least none of these scents aroused the rage of bees. She wasn’t sure she could control the black waves of fury in a fight that was theirs, not hers.

  She was taller by a head than any others at her table, all of them pre-maturity. Adults did not serve, unless you counted the Stewards and Cook, who managed all service activities, from waiting at table to cleaning. Mielitta ran through a mental list of the people she must speak to the next day, and in which order. Then she would return to the Forest. She spiked a clump of moistened white crumbs on her fork, raised it and swallowed, as did everybody else on her table, everybody else in the Hall. Raise, swallow, breathe, eat, drink, live. No, not live. Exist. This is merely existence.

  Drianne was at the far end of the table, alternately flushed and white-faced, avoiding Mielitta’s eye, silent. Good. The distance begins. All the better for us both.

  The Council members had finished their meals at the High Table, served first as always, and stood up, as if to leave. No speeches today then. Thank the stones.

  But they didn’t leave. They changed places, leaving the empty seat beside Magaram unfilled. Mielitta shivered as she remembered why the seat was empty. Beware, the mage who fills Crimvert’s place. And unfortunately there were going to be speeches.

  ‘Sad loss… esteemed colleague… Crimvert.’ If you hadn’t watched Magaram reduce his esteemed colleague to a heap of ash and blow the remains into the fireplace, the eulogy would have been quite touching. Mielitta tried to concentrate but it had been a long day and she drifted into a half-doze.

  ‘Cheer!’ she was told, the instruction accompanied by a fierce elbow in her ribs. She’d survived in the Citadel long enough to get the message and join in, jumping to her feet and cheering with the rest of her table, all good citizens, while trying to figure out what in the stones’ name they were all celebrating.

  Waving her arms with joy, she looked at the High Table. Ten, she counted. The seat had been filled by somebody clasping Magaram’s hands, pumping them up and down. The Council was ten again, which was of little interest to her, however much she joined in the shouting.

  A Councillor for each seat and some rearrangement so that the new man was promoted from outside Council directly to Shenagra’s right hand. Very nice for him. Ah – this was new. Two men hovered on the edge of the dais, also pumping hands and being congratulated. They turned to face the Hall, hands clasped modestly in front of their grey apprentice mage robes, and Mielitta suddenly felt that her arms were waving too much, high above the younger servants around her. She dropped her arms, crouched a little but the two men’s gazes seemed to find her, to linger.

  ‘Our Apprentice Mages,’ announced the mage tasked with speaking above the noise, using speechcraft to be heard.

  Mielitta didn’t need to be told the names of the two Apprentice Mages. ‘Bastien and Jannlou,’ she breathed.

  ‘Do you know them?’ A little one beside her beamed up. ‘They’re so cool!’

  ‘Yes,’ sufficed. Then Mielitta added, ‘I didn’t think Bastien had much magecraft?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s been training with Jannlou for ages now and he is a,’ the little one grew round-eyed as he reported the gossip he barely understood. ‘A Late Starter. I might be a late starter too,’ he confided.

  ‘Probably,’ Mielitta replied absent-mindedly. ‘And the new Councillor? Do you know him?’ she asked, unable to identify the man who swirled his dark cloak amid a tableful of congratulations.

  Shocked at her ignorance, her neighbour enlightened her. ‘Mage Rinduran.’

  She must have looked blank.

  He sighed. ‘Bastien’s father.’

  Of course. She looked at father and son, clasping hands in congratulations. ‘Another late starter,’ she murmured. ‘But I have a feeling they’re both going to catch up very quickly.’

  Bastien’s gaze searched the hall again, stopping once more at the back, near the door. He had no need now to report her to Jannlou’s father. He had h
is own ear in the Council.

  ‘I don’t feel well,’ Mielitta whispered and, crouching to be less conspicuous, she slipped out of the door. But she felt Bastien’s gaze follow her all the way to her chamber.

  Chapter Eight

  Mielitta woke with a sense of purpose for the first time in her eighteen years. Today she would lay the trail and tomorrow she would become invisible. For years she had carried messages and observed the children as they were selected for the Maturity Ceremony. Now she would use that knowledge.

  She would have to miss archery practice in the yard, not only today but from now on. That would be one of many activities she could only continue outside the Citadel, in her other life. But all that Tannlei had taught her of mental discipline was part of her deep thinking and nobody could take that away from her.

  What was that story Tannlei had told her, about going into battle? ‘Imagine you need a companion on a difficult mission. Who do you choose?’ Of course, Mielitta had chosen the wrong ones from the options Tannlei described. She’d been very keen on the one willing to wrestle a tiger with his bare hands and found it hard to understand that someone who would go to his death without hesitation was not the best choice. Instead she should value someone who was fearful, planned well and would achieve what he or she set out to do. Today, she felt she could fit that description exactly, so she hoped Tannlei had been right.

  First, the clothes. She slipped her underthings on automatically and noticed that there was still a dark patch on her thigh from the cluster of bee-stings. Strange. Her head didn’t feel different – on the outside at least – and she’d taken far more venom in her head. Some allergic reaction on her thigh, she guessed. She scratched and raised a small weal before she realised what she was doing. It would never heal if she kept picking at it. She sighed. At least it didn’t show beneath her clothes.