Queen of the Warrior Bees

by Jean Gill

  She donned britches and shirt, reluctantly left her weapons in place – her enemies were rarely out of the mages’ tower before the afternoon. Whether they practised magecraft or slept in a stupor, she neither knew nor cared. What mattered was that she could traverse most of the Citadel without looking over her shoulder or carrying her bow. Today, she must change her ways.

  She left the security of her chamber, assumed the servant’s stoop she used to disguise her age and to avoid eye contact. She didn’t need ultraviolet maps to find her way round the Citadel and she was glad of peace in her head. The day would be tricky enough without contributions from the hive mind.

  She turned left, right, climbed a set of spiral stairs, took the passage towards the eastern tower, where the domestic artisans worked fabric craft: carpenter, shoemaker and seamstress. Some were mages, like Declan, using a combination of traditional skill and magecraft, and among these was the seamstress.

  The door to Mage Fabrisse’s atelier was open and at first Mielitta thought the designer was elsewhere. All she could see were two piles of material: unrolled bales of pastel dress satinette and of dun leatherette.

  ‘What? What?’ The sharp query came from underneath some pink fabric. With a heave and scrabble, Fabrisse’s head popped up in a swathe of gown-to-be.

  Mielitta looked at the ground, practising humility, which she knew would mean life or death later on. This was the easy part.

  ‘May the stones be with you, Mage Fabrisse,’ she began. ‘Mage Puggy has need of one maturity dress for a ceremony tomorrow and she apologises for the short notice.’ Fabrisse’s eyebrows had drawn together in a thundercloud so Mielitta added hastily, ‘She said only an artisan of your talents could respond to this exceptional situation.’

  ‘Exceptional?’ Fabrisse cocked her head to one side, like a tiny wren Mielitta had seen in the Forest, curious.

  ‘My mistress said you must tell nobody but…’ Fabrisse leaned greedily towards the pause, no doubt savouring the prospect of gossip.

  Mielitta whispered, ‘There will be only one child in a special ceremony, to be kept secret because she is such a late starter.’ The words were breathed rather than spoken. ‘And there must be no suggestion that starting late is inferior so this Maturity Ceremony should be done without any fuss. Just one more new adult, appropriately dressed, behaving as she should, as quickly as possible.’

  Mielitta resumed her usual robotic messenger’s tones. ‘Mage Puggy said I was to wait until the gown is ready. And that she would deny this conversation if you were foolish enough to speak of it. End of message.’

  Fabrisse’s mouth was as round as her eyes. She stood up, leaning on a silver-handled cane to do so. She pushed the waves of fabric away from her feet until she stood in an empty circle of cobblette flooring.

  ‘Size?’ she asked.

  ‘Extra extra large,’ Mielitta replied steadily. Compared with the children, she should probably add another ‘extra’. If she’d been younger, normal, this would have been a sweet moment. She was watching her ceremonial dress being made, a little girl’s dream in satinette, her future expressed in a swish and a flounce. But the last of her little girl’s dreams had been dashed years ago and this was merely part of the pretence that would keep her alive. Mage Fabrisse could pirouette and twirl but however pretty her magecraft, she was the enemy.

  The Seamstress Mage ran the cane in a circle round her body, faster and faster, picking up some lavender fabric as it swirled, shaping a gown with bodice and loose sleeves, using herself as a tailor’s dummy. As the dress gained form, Fabrisse lost hers, until she was no longer in the circle but following her bright cane in a swirl outside the new garment. She prodded with her cane, a dart here, a tuck there, laces, and the dress grew taller, cinched tighter than the Fabrisse-shape had been.

  ‘That should do.’ Fabrisse had beads of sweat on her forehead, was leaning heavily on a cane dull and immobile as its mistress. ‘Take it and go now.’

  Mielitta felt a pang of guilt as the seamstress hobbled to a seat by the window but she folded the gown over her arm. Lavender. Flower-coloured. If only it had the scent too.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said but the profile could have been stone in the misty window-light as Fabrisse looked down on the archery courtyard, her knuckles white on the cane.

  Next, the Maturity Mages, Puggy and Yacinthe.

  With the gown still draped over her arm as validation, Mielitta retraced her steps and headed for the mages’ quarters near the schoolroom. She knocked politely on the fourth door, half expecting another ‘What? What?’ response but the door merely swung open.

  ‘Enter,’ she was told and she felt a frisson as the barrier ward on the sill allowed her to stretch it for three paces into the chamber before she was held fast. Mage Puggy was sitting in front of a three-sided mirror, stroking her beautiful face smooth and creamy. She didn’t turn around, merely looked at Mielitta’s reflection in the mirror, assessed her visitor’s importance and returned her attention to her own face.

  ‘You may speak,’ she instructed.

  ‘May the stones be with you, Mage Puggy.’ Mielitta studied the floor. ‘Mage Yacinthe wishes you to know of a Maturity Ceremony she is holding tomorrow but prefers to go unnoticed and unmentioned because the new adult is a late starter.’ This time she delivered the message with no innuendoes, just a subtle shifting of the gown on her arm, to ensure it was noticed. The Maturity Mages were sharp enough politically to understand all that was not said.

  Puggy applied rouge to her parted lips then nodded. ‘Tell her she is wise.’ She turned to look briefly at Mielitta and immediately took on her everyday misglamour, looking as she had during the Council meeting: bad skin, dull eyes and lank hair.

  Mielitta sniffed. The mage still emitted her unique bouquet. Scarlet, roses, danger and a drop of blood. Why would she hide her sensuality behind such a frumpy appearance? Or was it the beauty that was mage glamour, to be indulged only in privacy? There was no understanding mages or their craft but she was never going to fall for mere glamour. Never.

  The door wards pressed Mielitta backwards, which she understood to mean she was dismissed. She had barely whisked every scrap of the gown’s bulk into the passageway when the door swung closed behind her.

  ‘And thank you too,’ she murmured to the blank solidity of the door, then she resumed her humble expression and knocked on the second door along the passage.

  This occupant opened the door herself, peered at Mielitta, then into the gloom either side of her, then pulled her into the chamber, stretching the door wards a good five paces.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ gushed Mage Yacinthe. ‘I don’t know what to do. What to do.’ Her round face wrinkled under its tight black curls. ‘It’s an honour, of course. I suppose. But I don’t even like books and Mage Crimvert had a gift for that sort of thing… that is, not that I want to justify… not that anything could excuse… and, well, here I am babbling away when you’ve brought me the advice I asked from Shenagra.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Mielitta cleared her throat. Did she dare involve Shenagra in her web of lies? There seemed to be no choice but she tried to buy some time to think. ‘Mage Puggy also has a message for you that offers a solution to your dilemma.’ She rushed on. ‘Mage Puggy wants you to know she’s holding an emergency Maturity Ceremony tomorrow but wants it to go unnoticed and unmentioned because the new adult is a late starter.’

  Mage Yacinthe frowned even harder, clearly so troubled by her own dilemma that she was deaf to the finer nuances of Mielitta’s news. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said slowly, and Mielitta’s heart sank. She couldn’t suddenly seem wise regarding the Citadel politics, after her staccato delivery of the message. Should she just repeat it, hope the words sank in? And how was she going to think up a message from Shenagra regarding the unknown problem with hated books? She shook out the dress in front of her and settled it on her other arm.

  ‘That’s a big dress,’ commented Mage Yacinthe. Mi
elitta said nothing, watched the cogs turn and prayed to all the stone gods she had ever heard of.

  ‘Big dress, late starter…’ Then the penny dropped. ‘Oh my my, celebrating late starters won’t do at the moment, no indeed. That would be taken as satirical. And we must all be so careful now. He came from nowhere, just a minor mage, but so strong in magecraft. He must have been hiding it, which isn’t good, not good at all. And to put his son in my place! Well! No, we don’t want to make a thing about late starters, indeed we don’t. Such bad timing. Mage Puggy is very wise, very wise.’ She nodded enough to set her chins wobbling, then stopped abruptly.

  ‘But how does Shenagra think this will help me find a librarian and avoid me giving offence to Mage Rinduran by refusing this wonderful promotion?’

  Mielitta felt as if she were on a high wire over the archery yard, doomed if she mis-stepped. ‘Mage Shenagra said this new adult loves books,’ she tested.

  Yacinthe brightened, then gloomed again. ‘But they’re all so stupid after the Ceremony.’

  Yes, I’ve noticed. ‘Ah but this one’s a late starter. That makes things different.’ Softly, softly, so as not to put a foot wrong.

  ‘I see! So she’ll still have enough wits about her to catalogue the books, care for them, check who visits the library, all that boring stuff, even though she’s suitably docile?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Mielitta replied, striving to keep the neutral tones of a mere messenger and not to grit her teeth. Docile!

  ‘But what about me? I can’t refuse the new mage. What does Shenagra suggest?’

  This was a bit trickier and Mielitta spoke slowly, as if recalling the words entrusted to her. ‘Of course, Mage Shenagra cannot speak of this directly, ever…’

  ‘I understand completely!’

  ‘But if you accept your new role with suitable gratitude…’

  ‘Oh.’

  That was a dangerous step but Mielitta saw no option. She’d be revealed if she promised the impossible. ‘For now, Mage Shenagra said. For now.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And let the Maturity Ceremony be directed by–’ Mielitta left enough of a pause for Yacinthe to fill the gap.

  ‘That little shit Bastien!’

  That wasn’t the answer Mielitta had expected but she swallowed her agreement in silence. So, Bastien was the son taking Yacinthe’s place, as his father moved into prominence from obscurity. Quite a family coup. Not good news for her, either. Her plan had to succeed.

  She continued, ‘Your new adult will ensure the smooth running of the library under the title of Assistant Librarian. No mage could object to that and none bar Mage Shenagra and Mage Puggy will realise that she is competent to do all that is required. You will be free to continue your work with Mage Puggy unofficially and to keep an eye on Apprentice Mage Bastien.’

  Yacinthe worked it all out in her mind, tried to think of a better alternative but couldn’t. Acceptance smoothed her face again.

  ‘It might be best.’ She sighed. ‘For now. With things as they are. What’s the new adult’s name?’

  Mielitta didn’t miss a beat. ‘Assistant Librarian,’ she told the mage.

  ‘Good, good. Thank Mage Shenagra for sending her messenger, and Mage Puggy. You may go.’ Yacinthe was watching her with sudden cunning, the same watchfulness she’d shown after opening the door. What was she watching for? Mielitta was supposed to be Shenagra’s messenger.

  Then she remembered what Shenagra did to servants who knew too much.

  She did not go. She allowed her face to go blank for a long minute.

  ‘Did you want something, Mage Yacinthe?’ she asked brightly. ‘I was passing after receiving instructions from Mage Puggy, when I heard your summons.’

  Yacinthe beamed. ‘So precise when she cleans,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, would you bring me a large pot of tea and some biscuits after you’ve delivered the gown.’

  ‘At once, Mage.’ Mielitta closed the door behind her, walked a few doors further along and waited for Shenagra’s messenger at the only access to the mages’ quarters.

  It was easy enough to identify as the chosen one the lad who’d escorted her to the Council Chamber. He detached himself from the school-going little ones, his self-importance as puffed as his britches, and continued along the passage, towards Mielitta, and Mage Yacinthe’s chamber.

  ‘Mage Shenagra told me to intercept you,’ Mielitta said to him, then remembered how young he was. All this politics was hard to keep straight! ‘To stop you,’ she explained. ‘She added something to your message and sent me instead.’

  He looked dubious – and disappointed.

  ‘The message about the librarian,’ she prompted.

  ‘About accepting it for now but the time will come for upstart Rinduran and his Bastien son you mark my words,’ he rattled off, then put his hand over his mouth. ‘I probably shouldn’t have said all that except to Mage Yacinthe.

  ‘No,’ agreed Mielitta, ‘you probably shouldn’t but it doesn’t matter because I already knew.’ And guessed close enough, she thought smugly, with the small addition of an Assistant Librarian. And now some more guessing was required.

  ‘Please say thank you to Mage Shenagra,’ she told the boy but his face stayed bright and open.

  Of course, no mage would say please to a servant! ‘Thank Mage Shenagra,’ she ordered and his eyes shuttered, his little face frozen, not long enough to notice unless you knew what to look for. Then, it was unmistakeable. His memory had been cleaned.

  ‘I’m off to get tea for Mage Yacinthe,’ Mielitta told the boy brightly.

  ‘I have to do schoolwork now,’ he replied. ‘May Perfection guide our footsteps.’

  ‘In Perfection we trust,’ replied Mielitta.

  The boy trotted back to the schoolroom, not questioning why he had gone right past it in the first place.

  No more schoolroom. No more service with the other children. The Assistant Librarian was going to spend her last day of childhood in the forge, relaxing after a hard morning’s deceit.

  Chapter Nine

  Smoke! Fire! Hide!

  Mielitta stood petrified on the threshold of the forge, her head fluttering with panic as the familiar white swirls caught at her throat. Dust motes whirled in the intermittent light of sparks as Declan heated and folded metal, heated and folded. She’d been coming here since she could toddle and nothing would keep her out of the one place she felt at home. Especially not this wave of alien panic, however strongly it flooded her with the need to dive down, deep and dark, protect the one who mattered most.

  Stop it! she told herself as much as the bees. Her crisis in the Forest had left her mentally troubled, dealing with too many new experiences and her imagination had resorted to metaphor, imaginary bees. They were like panic-man, a useful visualisation, but they were still imaginary. They’d enabled her to draw on extra reserves of fighting prowess, which was amazing, but she needed to keep such mental aids firmly in their place. Which did not include panic about smoke in a forge!

  They wanted deep and dark? That was fine by her! Deep, dark and calm, get in the jar, she told them.

  Keep the One safe, keep the One safe, they buzzed as they scuttled into deepest darkness, where the noise calmed. They seemed almost torpid as Mielitta firmly stoppered the metaphorical jar containing the metaphorical bees, and entered the forge, her home.

  Smithcraft had its own rhythm. First, sourcing the material in cold choice. Then, feeding the insatiable fire until it sucked on the raw metal thrust into its maw, transforming the steel under Declan’s watchful eye. Solitary, his face glowing red in the forge-light, he would stand, for a moment outside time, his gloved hand on the lance piercing the fire.

  Mielitta had learned weaponcraft from watching Declan’s relationship with the fire-god who lived in the forge. She could sense the slip from conscious skill to instinct. One moment, a man was sticking a metal rod into a fire; the next, a master smith touched the spirits of fire and metal in partnership, in
alchemy. As when Mielitta stopped thinking, nocked an arrow and let fly, knew whether it was true. She could have touched fire and metal this way too!

  The rhythm changed. Now came the frenzy of folding, hammering, while the metal was hot. Sparks arced fiery light in the darkness, tracing the hardened muscles of a man’s arms, the glimmer of sweat on dusty skin. Leatherette aprons sizzled and blackened. Once they’d been pristine bales on the stone floor of Mage Fabrisse’s atelier, waiting for their life to begin.

  Reminded of the news she bore, Mielitta jigged impatiently, knowing she could not interrupt yet. Not when Kermon was carrying the bucket of oil outside. She stepped out after him to watch. How could you tire of oil craft?

  Speed was all-important now. Declan burst through the door with a super-heated metal rod, ready for its final transformation. He dipped the steel into the oil and the cauldron bubbled into flame. Even through human vision, with no ultraviolet, the colours flared in extraordinary combinations. Mielitta saw maroon edges to the white bubbles bursting on the surface, deep purple and indigo, a hundred shades of yellow and reds that danced into a wordless pattern that only she could read.

  The One she read in the flames as they blazed and, too soon, died.

  Pff. Their obsessions were leaking through the jar. She must work harder at how she lived with the damage from the Forest incident. She scratched absent-mindedly at her thigh, which still itched.

  ‘Mielitta,’ Kermon greeted her with a smile, his face no less friendly for being smeared with grease.

  ‘I see you’ve been promoted to bucket-carrier,’ she told him.

  His smile faded, uncertain, and she was ashamed at her own spite.

  ‘It took me years to reach that level and I never got any further,’ she added, placatory.