by Jean Gill
The Young Queen took a break from laying to order nectar and good honey for herself and the Queen Mother. As the storm diminished to the patter of raindrops, Mielitta accepted nectar by tongue and savoured the moment. If only she could believe her own pep-talk. She was too young for what she faced at the Citadel. Everything was her fault and she feared for Drianne, felt guilty and responsible. But she knew one thing for certain. She would never give up her bees.
Chapter Twenty
The ten volunteers were helped onto the dais, stumbling like sleepwalkers as they came to the front to address the Hall. Mielitta was relieved to see Drianne among them. The summons to the beehive could not have been worse-timed but what could she have done if she had been in the Citadel? Her attempt to use a scout bee for observation had been a near-disaster. But it had caused some damage, she thought with satisfaction.
Rinduran stood behind the volunteers and the black patch over his right eye was stark against his pale skin. She’d hoped he was allergic but no such luck. She had an idea how much the sting hurt, though. She could imagine the burning inflammation from bee venom in such a sensitive place, the blindness. Before she’d jerked free, she’d felt the sting splinter into two lancets, each saw edged needle impossible to withdraw. Underneath that black patch was a blind eye marred by a black dart. A fitting memorial to the little scout bee of whom he’d been so contemptuous. Let him think again before sneering at bees.
‘In the name of all that is Perfect,’ Magaram declaimed, ‘the representatives of the people bear witness to the wisdom of the stones.’ It was rare that speech-making began with such portentous formality and Mielitta’s stomach lurched. What had happened to these citizens in only twenty-four hours, that made them look ten years older? Of course, they had seen ghosts, but was the past so painful to confront?
‘Begin,’ Magaram waved his black-clad arm at the woman on the extreme left of the line, her face as pale as her hair. Drianne was at the other end; due to speak last, Mielitta assumed.
‘Thanks be to the stones, we don’t suffer weather!’ The woman’s voice broke on the dreaded word and there was a gasp in the Hall. ‘I was shown skin-burn and drought from the fiery sun, corpses as swollen as the rivers they’d drowned in, dwellings ripped from their foundations by gigantic windstorms, stones made of ice, water falling incessantly from the sky. Our ancestors had nowhere to go that was safe from weather. This horror was their daily life.’
There was a murmur around the Hall and people looked at each in the peaceful atmosphere and gentle greylight, trying to imagine weather.
Mielitta didn’t have to imagine it.
Warm happy. Flutter of breeze wings, the bees suggested, tentative.
Winds breaking trees, she thought. Sky crashing, breaking apart in blinding light like a sting in the eye. Huddling in the hive, while the wind wails and wants blood. It is all weather. You can’t choose only what is gentle. You let all the wildness in or you keep it all out.
She concentrated on the dais again, where the second volunteer was speaking, his voice enhanced by the speechcraft.
‘Our people are many colours, none better or worse than another,’ he said, ‘thanks be to the stones. I saw people ill-treated because of their colour. I saw fear and hatred of difference. Their eyes did not see people but only colours of people. We see all people as people.’
Unless they’re green, thought Mielitta. Nobody really believed that the experiment which produced Hamel was a good idea or they would have repeated it to produce more green people. So there were limits to this colour blindness. Acceptance based on what was usual. And what about mages? Weren’t they seen as different? Or women?
As if in response to her last thought, the third volunteer said, ‘Thanks to the stones, we have Perfect relationships between men and women.’ She swallowed hard, shook her head as if to clear away the worst memories of her ordeal. ‘Women denied their biology, used magecraft to choose times for mating and procreation. Their demands drained the mages so there was no magecraft left for healing because it was wasted on women’s selfishness. They wished for dominance and,’ she paused, ‘some gained it.’
There was a shocked silence in the Hall.
‘And men were forced into increasing violence against women, could only be restrained by magecraft. Everybody suffered and this could only end in our extinction. Thanks be to Perfection, we have men’s ways and women’s ways so we live together without violence.’
‘Thanks be,’ murmured Mielitta, along with a thousand others, but she wasn’t thankful. She knew she should be but she wasn’t. She was infected by bees and she knew that her life could be different, should be different.
With growing resentment, she listened to the other volunteers thanking the stones for their wisdom, confirming the Citadel as creation finished, in its Perfection. She did not doubt the truth of their horror stories but she could not accept the conclusions.
She heard how magecraft had taken people’s employment.
No work, murmured the bees sadly.
Without employment, people had become angry and violent. In the Citadel, magecraft was controlled so as to leave appropriate occupations for all citizens.
She listened to more atrocities: people without rooms of their own, overcrowded even to the extent that they filled boats, villages, countries and died – or killed each other.
The bees puzzled over the concept of overcrowding and gave up on it as bizarrely human. However, they did understand starvation and buzzed sympathetically as a volunteer described empty-bellied children sucking stones as pretend food.
More than one volunteer spoke of food and thanked the stones for daily sustenance and water, for the lack of obesity or famine, for the absence of liquor that brought forgetfulness, violence and anger.
All the descriptions of past life were as painful to hear as for the volunteers to describe but when one spoke of what was in the food, she retched just at the memory of what she’d experienced. Killing-sheds for the animals, which were chopped up and served as food.
The greed and selfishness over food vied with extremes of hunger – unbelievable! People ate what they liked, poisoning not only their own bodies with dead creatures and substances such as salt and sugar, but also condemning their fellow-citizens to disease and death from allergies. As more and more people were diagnosed with lethal intolerances to foodstuffs, others defended their right to eat and drink as they chose. Thanks be to Perfection that every citizen in the Citadel was nourished in complete safety and optimal health. The many lived according to the needs of the minority, as was humane.
Finally, it was Drianne’s turn and all eyes were on the slight figure of the youngest volunteer. Rinduran pushed his way in between the volunteers to stand beside her and he grabbed her hand, as if in reassurance.
There was some muttered curiosity about his damaged eye, which he quelled swiftly. ‘I was injured yesterday in defence of the Citadel, may Perfection be preserved.’
Magaram chimed in, ‘Mage Rinduran was subject to a vile attack from the enemy without, and thanks to his heroism not one citizen was harmed!’
If any of the volunteers saw events differently, none seemed anxious to speak, least of all Drianne, who stood passive and silent in the grip of Mage Rinduran, who continued, ‘You have heard the testimony of your brave representatives and you can see how tough the ordeal was for them. I have endured immersion in the walls for years, to better serve you, and none knows better than I the dangers.
‘I prepared these citizens as if they were my own children, made sure of their safety and exit routes but alas, this one was young and heedless…’ He shook his head sadly as he looked at Drianne, never letting her hand drop.
He whispered something to her and she raised her other hand to point at her mouth while she also shook her head.
‘She forgot her instructions and stayed too long in scenes so shocking that those of us who can still speak of them prefer not to. For this fragile girl, it was all too
much. The trauma has taken her tongue and she can no longer speak.’
Drianne! screamed Mielitta in silence, remembering the words ‘We can mute her’, the shared glance between father and son.
Amid murmurs of sympathy, another robed mage, in grey, pushed through to stand on the other side of Drianne. Kermon.
He looked at her but he spoke to the Hall. ‘I can speak for this lady.’
‘She has lost her tongue, young man,’ repeated Rinduran as if Kermon was deaf or daft, or both.
‘I am a soul-reader,’ said Kermon simply. ‘I will read in her soul what she wishes to tell the Hall and I will speak her truth.’
‘Poor girl,’ whispered Hannah to Mielitta. ‘I can’t imagine what she must have been though. Barbaric it was back then, barbaric!’
‘Barbaric!’ agreed Mielitta, too loud and with too much vehemence, looking at Rinduran’s hand gripping Drianne. Hannah looked at her oddly and she remembered that all citizens were on the alert for strange behaviour. She had to try to fit in.
‘My heart goes out to that girl,’ Mielitta said, quietly. And it did.
Hannah smiled her understanding.
‘I need to be the only one in contact.’ Kermon spoke quietly but with the authority of his gift and Rinduran dropped Drianne’s hand. She rubbed her wrist as she stood waiting, silent.
Bastard. Mielitta longed to hear Drianne’s testimony, what the stones had shown somebody she trusted, but she was afraid for her friend. What if that testimony ran counter to Perfection? Eleven citizens had already demonstrated what that would mean.
Kermon put his hands gently either side of Drianne’s face and looked at her in silent communion. Mielitta fingered her arrowhead, remembered creating the patterns in her mind’s eye. She’d been the subject of just such a look but she’d felt no intruder in her mind, not like during Shenagra’s infiltration. Nor had he touched her. Maybe that had been a ploy to remove Rinduran’s physical constraint. Or maybe Drianne needed the reassurance of touch as she had not.
‘Ooh, it’s exciting isn’t it?’ Hannah squealed.
‘Ooh, I know,’ Mielitta squeaked back. ‘I can’t wait to hear what he says.’ For good measure, she added, ‘He’s good-looking, isn’t he?’ She’d have to wash her mouth out later.
‘Just what I was thinking,’ Hannah agreed. ‘I hope he’s going to the Courtship Dance. Imagine, if he asked you…’
‘Amazing,’ Mielitta concurred, giggling. Stones! There are so many stupid women.
Kermon’s voice stopped all gossip. ‘These are the words of Drianne, chosen representative of the people, who went into the stones in her twelfth year, the five hundred and thirty fifth year of Perfection.
‘I had only seen one living creature not human,’ began Kermon, his mage’s voice giving gravitas to the girl’s words. And fluency. To hear Drianne’s words in a male voice, without a stutter, changed their worth.
Mielitta knew what that one living creature had been, remembered Drianne stroking the bee, its trust and happy vibrations, its death.
‘So I spoke the search words to find all living creatures, to know the world before we made the barrier between us and the Forest.’
If the previous testimonies had drawn gasps and horror, the mention of the Forest created turmoil. The mages turned to each other and their unease showed although they kept their comments off speechcraft and inaudible to the Hall.
Magaram spoke. ‘Usually we do not name our enemy but these are special circumstances and this girl has suffered deeply on our behalf so we forgive the lapse.’ The weight of his glare at Kermon was a clear enough warning to translate Drianne’s thoughts in appropriate language.
Kermon bowed his head once in understanding but his hands stayed gently on Drianne’s face, the connection unbroken.
Did soul-reading flow in both directions, like her contact with the bees? wondered Mielitta.
‘I saw animals and fish being farmed. They were nourished and their products harvested. Some were killed and eaten.’ This was less shocking a second time of hearing and the audience began to lose interest, especially as there were long silences, as if Kermon was listening to Drianne. The statements that followed were short, presumably summaries of longer descriptions – thanks be to Perfection. Nobody wanted details of more horrors but after the initial novelty of a mute girl speaking, the exercise had become tedious.
‘People lived with animals as their friends,’ Kermon announced, reviving interest – and disgust.
‘Filthy!’ Hannah’s mouth pursed in distaste.
‘Many people lived in separate buildings, not communities, and they preferred to live with animals, not people, as companions. They called such animals pets. And they liked to see wild creatures and plant life around them. Birds on trees, wolves, bears and squirrels in the F– countryside. Even though these animals ate each other. They thought this was natural and –’
Whatever Kermon had been about to say was interrupted by Magaram, whose voice carried over the growing noise in the Hall.
‘I don’t think we need any further examples of past depravity and insanitary conditions.’ He spoke to Drianne. ‘Thank you for your courage in enduring such terrible conditions and reporting here.’
Then he included the Hall again. ‘We can all understand how such a horrific experience left this young volunteer traumatised and speechless! We thank her for bringing the truth back so all may know the origins of Perfection and be thankful.
‘If any have doubted the need for a barrier, let him doubt no longer! You have heard what happens when people allow the enemy into their lives, seduced by some ideal of Nature. You have heard what Nature truly is – violence and disease, tempests and poison.’ His voice rose to a climax. ‘Eating each other!’ He banged on the table and amplified each blow with speechcraft to emphasise his words. ‘If the enemy brings war to us, then we shall retaliate, obliterate, annihilate! Perfection will win!’
Magaram allowed time for the cheers and shouts of ‘Praise Perfection!’ to die down, none more enthusiastic than Mielitta’s, although, like Hannah and the other ladies she maintained womanly restraint even in her fervour.
‘While the mages prepare for battle, every citizen can do his or her part. Stay vigilant! And stay true to the ways of our community! We will prepare for the next generation in our customary manner with a Maturity Test and Ceremony a week today. Mage Bastien and Mage Shenagra have chosen those for testing and it is with pleasure that I announce that this young lady – what was her name again?’
‘Drianne,’ said Kermon quietly.
‘Drianne has been selected for the Maturity Test and I am sure she will grace our Hall again in a beautiful gown, blooming in her new womanhood.’
Kermon had no excuse for leaving his hands on her face, nor for preventing Rinduran from grabbing Drianne’s wrist once more. Bastien came to the front, basking in the limelight and edged Kermon out of the way. He and his father sandwiched Drianne between them and raised her arms in a victory salute. She was swaying so much she might have fallen otherwise.
‘Poor girl,’ Hannah said again. ‘What an exhausting experience. She needs plenty of rest so that she can enjoy the Ceremony and put all this behind her. I remember my Ceremony like it was yesterday,’ she giggled. ‘Well it was only a few months ago but you know what it’s like. Womanhood changes everything, opens your eyes.’
‘Yes,’ said Mielitta, wondering whether Hannah even remembered the conversation they’d had about the Maturity Test. ‘That it does.’ She watched Drianne being half-carried off the dais. ‘Poor girl,’ she echoed. She had to think of a way to help her.
Part of her mind was pondering the testimonies, cataloguing them as To be revisited.
Pets, she labelled her bees.
She felt what she had come to recognise as bee laughter.
Wild things, was their retort.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mielitta trailed a hand along the walls as she walked the familiar passage
from her chamber to the library. Newly conscious of the history contained in the stone, she reached out, seeking its wisdom. The witnesses’ reports had only added to her longing to explore the past, especially her own past. However many times Declan told the story of her finding, she felt anew the mystery behind her emergence from the wall as a baby like a bee-grub from comb. If only she could go into the wall and find out more. But the stone was dead to her touch, shutting her out.
She turned inwards, seeking the solace of the bees, but they too were quiet. With a sigh, she entered the library and sought the one comfort that never let her down. Work, she told herself and sensed a sleepy echo. Shifting and cataloguing books took on its usual rhythm while her subconscious worked on the problem of rescuing Drianne.
She kept seeing Rinduran’s hand gripping the young girl, the exchange of glances between him and Bastien. Drianne’s words uttered in Kermon’s voice had conveyed what the mages wanted to hear but was that really what Drianne felt? In spite of all the times they had used the archery yard together, Mielitta barely knew the girl.
What would Tannlei have said? If Drianne did have a crush on her, then Mielitta was in some sense her leader, however hard she’d tried to keep her distance. When she’d intervened to prevent Bastien bullying the girl or worse, she’d taken sides and declared her responsibility. For one follower. Tannlei’s words came back to her. Don’t ask how many followers make a person a leader. Ask what a person does to earn that title.
Facts. Drianne was mute. She was selected for the Maturity Test. Bastien wanted to ‘cure’ her and marry her. Rinduran thought it safer to suppress her. The Maturity Test would be in a week’s time and meanwhile Drianne was with the other candidates in their hall.
Assumptions – a different shelf in Mielitta’s mind. Drianne was in danger but probably not until the Maturity Test. Then she would either be forced to marry Bastien or she’d be suppressed: rape or ashes. Mielitta stopped her imagination pursuing either fate further and filed them both under Impossible. Her stutter had been ‘cured’ and her soul was no doubt next but for now, she was still Drianne.