Summer. The sun noon-high in a sky clear as water, save for the merest scrape of cloud above the hills to the west. The meadow white with clover, the flowers so thick upon the ground no other colour could be seen, as if some strange snow had fallen out of season.
All through the meadow, bees. Single bees searching, groups of bees gathering, great swarms of bees swirling about the tall conical bee-houses arrayed in long lines, each one new-built every spring in its own place, as had been done for centuries past and all trusted would be done for centuries to come.
Godiva, Countess of Mercia, stood on the mound before the meadows proper, where the tips of the old standing stones could still be seen, the stone women of long ago buried by later Christian rulers but their presence still felt beneath the earth.
Lady Godiva was not alone. She stood in the very centre of the mound, at its highest point, albeit only a dozen paces above the meadow. Around her, ranged close, were the women of her household, at least those who had children, for all must be mothers who came that day to sing praise to the bees. Around them were the servants of the castle, and around them, in close-standing rings that extended to the edge of the mound and beyond, down into the white clover, were the mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and even one ancient great-great-grandmother of the town of Coventry.
The song was as old as the buried stones, though the words had changed through several languages, and perhaps no longer made much sense, if anyone cared to examine them. But they did not look closely, for it was the feeling of the song that mattered, the sense of being at one with all the other women, and with the queens in their houses, the queens who were the minds and hearts and souls of this great metropolis of bees.
As the last note came from the assembled women and faded into silence, the bees answered. Deep in the hives there were thrummings and rumblings, and great droves of bees rose from the meadow and buzzed together, so many in number that the buzzing sounded like a mighty cascade, and a breeze blew across the mound, made from the beating of myriad tiny wings in unison.
Then the breeze faded, as the bees returned to their business. The women relaxed, letting go the slight stiffness of apprehension, that small fear that perhaps this year the queens would not answer the song, the meadows would fade early, and the honey would be sparse. To many families of Coventry, their bee-house and the honey it would provide might make the difference between comfort and privation, or for some, even a bare sufficiency and starvation. Few ate much of the honey themselves; it was too valuable. But sold at autumn fair, it would make silver to see them through the winter.
Godiva relaxed too, for it was a great responsibility to lead the singing, and this was only the third time she had done so. For a few minutes, lost in the song and the bee-sound, she had also managed to forget some things that were disturbing her mind, most principally the altered behaviour of her husband Leofric, the Earl of Mercia. In recent months he had become withdrawn, from his family and his court, and even more troubling, had taken certain decisions which were alienating the people of Coventry. Leofric had always been so reasonable, but now he would no longer listen to the counsel of Godiva or any of his former most trusted advisors.
This change in Leofric stemmed from the arrival in their court of one Ralph, a Norman knight and ferromancer, who Leofric had immediately appointed as his steward, replacing the good Athelbard who had served both him and his father before him well, and was not too advanced in years to continue for many years ahead.
Ralph had introduced a number of unwelcome changes, and at all times, Leofric had supported him. Most of the changes involved taxes and fees, Ralph suggesting new ways to gain money for the earl. As Leofric had never cared greatly for the accumulation of silver before, this was very strange. It was as if Ralph had some hold over the earl. Leofric wouldn’t talk to Godiva about it. Whenever she tried, he would evade her and disappear hunting.
At least it would be a good season for honey, Godiva thought, as the women on the mound dispersed and she walked back with her handmaidens to where the dozen housecarls of her bodyguard waited. The men had stayed just within earshot, in case of need, back along the old Roman road behind the mound.
The harsh clatter of horseshoes on that road broke through the quiet murmur of the women, catching Godiva’s attention. She frowned as she saw a black destrier ridden too fast coming towards them, sending the women returning to the town scuttling aside. It was, of course, Sir Ralph, as if her thinking of him had made him appear. Like the devil, she thought, and wondered. Ralph had also had his run-ins with the Bishop of Coventry and the gentler English church that still embraced much of the old Anglo-Saxon magic and tradition, the workings of holly and iron. The Normans followed the pope, of course, as the English did not, and claimed their ferromancy was the only true magic approved by God.
But she did not believe in the Devil incarnate. There was enough ordinary evil in the world and in people to not need any special manifestation. Ralph was clearly feathering his own nest while he worked to extract more coin for the earl, and surely this was explanation enough for his behaviour. But why had he ridden out to the bee-fields, on this day of all days?
Her housecarls lifted their axes as he approached, and spread out across the road. They had served her father or uncle before her, and were all veterans of numerous battles. In common with almost everyone else in the earl’s household, they did not like Ralph. Godiva suspected if he gave them an excuse, such as trying to ride through to their mistress, they would happily cut him down and be contrite about it afterwards.
Ralph slowed his war-horse to a walk, and turned the stallion aside to calm him, allowing Aelfwyn, the leader of the housecarls to swagger up, his axe now on his shoulder. They spoke quietly, Aelfwyn shaking his head and pointing back to the town, Ralph in turn gesticulating and making some sort of vehement demand. Godiva walked more quickly. It would be better for her to find out what this was about, before Aelfwyn or Ralph lost their tempers.
“What brings you here, Ralph?” she called out as she drew closer. It was not a polite greeting, but she did not care to be polite to the man. He never seemed to notice, anyway.
“I am upon the earl’s business,” said Ralph loudly. “I have come to see his famous bee-meadow.”
Godiva’s fingers curled towards becoming fists and she had to force herself to relax them, to let her arms remain at her sides.
“The bee-meadow is not the earl’s,” she said calmly. “It is held by all the women of Coventry, direct from the king, as has always been.”
“Is it?” asked Ralph, in his nasal voice that had little variation in pitch, and so disguised any emotion that might lie behind the words. “Yet there is no deed, no title, no document at all that says so, and in that absence, the bee-meadow, as anything else, must therefore be of the Earl’s demesne.”
Godiva felt an almost over-powering urge to meet this smug announcement with a command to her housecarls to cut the Norman down, and keep on hacking at him until the pieces were so small even the smallest dog, nay even the smallest rat could carry a piece away. But she resisted the surge of fury, for what he said was true, or at least true to a degree. There had been a grant of title, long ago, but it was believed destroyed when St Osburga’s was burned in the first Viking raids.
“It is recorded as such in many records,” she said. “And in the memory of the people. The earl himself I am sure would not contest it.”
“The earl has given me the duty of ensuring his lands are properly managed,” said Sir Ralph. “All his lands. Including this bee-meadow, milady.”
Godiva felt rather than saw her housecarls spreading out in a line behind her, getting ready to charge this insolent Norman.
“Go back to the castle,” she said to Sir Ralph, her voice cold and commanding. “I will discuss this with the earl.”
Sir Ralph’s eyes flickered, noting the barely-suppressed anger of the housecarls, axes held ready, knees bent to sprint forward before he could attempt to charge through and away, and there were probably too many, too close, for his ferromantic powers to turn their weapons aside. He looked as if he would say something, but instead he inclined his head with the slightest civility possible and turned his mount around.
“He needs killing,” said Aelfwyn quietly to Godiva, sunlight flashing from his axe-blade across his face, lighting up his narrowed eyes. “You want me to see to it, milady? I’ve a wooden spear for such as he, in my arms-chest. Good oak, fire-tempered.”
“No,” said Godiva. “He is a Christian, of a sort, and he is the earl’s man. No killing.”
Aelfwyn nodded, but did not respond. Godiva was fairly sure he would obey, but only for a few days. If Ralph wasn’t careful, he would meet an untimely end, and likely thus create even more problems. Godiva wanted to discover why Leofric was seemingly in Ralph’s power before she did anything to remove the Norman from Coventry, permanently or otherwise. And now there was the additional problem of making sure the bee-meadow remained the common property of the mothers of the town.
“Let us walk,” said Godiva. “Send someone back with the horses. I need to think.”
Aelfwyn signalled to the men who held the horses, and to the housecarls. Soon the small host was walking up the road, with Godiva alone in the middle, until one of her women quickened her pace to join her company.
“I fear there is more trouble, milady,” said Ceolwen, chief among Godiva’s handmaidens. A fifteen years older cousin, Ceolwen was a widow now, her husband killed in the last year fighting the Viking raiders from Ireland, and her sons and daughters were grown and married. She was very close to the countess, godmother to Godiva’s own son, and the two kept no secrets from each other.
“It seems so,” replied Godiva quietly, so only the two of them could hear. She frowned. “I have to make Leofric talk to me. There is perhaps some simple explanation for…for everything.”
“I doubt it is simple,” replied Ceolwen. “Back there…that Ralph smelled of something worse then iron magic.”
“Did he?” asked Godiva intently. She had little magic herself, and doubted most people who claimed to have greater powers, with a few exceptions. Ceolwen was one of them, for Godiva had seen her quell and send away a pack of wolves, and a great oak seemingly bend to speak to her, and though these things had happened in Godiva’s childhood, she had not forgotten.
“It is not himself, exactly,” said Ceolwen thoughtfully. “I think it is something he carries. Some object of forbidden sorcery.”
“Ferromancy is not forbidden,” said Godiva.
“It is not cold iron nor stone magic that he conceals,” said Ceolwen. “Something more malevolent, something from the deep shadows.”
“Something Bishop Osric can deal with?” asked Godiva, her frown lightening. This might be the opportunity she was looking for, if Ralph was found to be an evil sorcerer.
“I doubt it,” said Ceolwen regretfully. “I caught only the faintest scent, myself. The wind from the bee-meadow is sacred, it made whatever it is stir itself. I have not noticed it before, and I think Osric would not be able to tell if anything is amiss. He is not of the sharpest, and his power slight.”
“The dogs don’t like him,” added Godiva. “Ralph, I mean. I had thought it was because he kicks at them and is generally harsh, but it is likely he does that to hide whatever they scent.”
“Yes,” said Ceolwen. “The dogs would know.”
They were silent for a minute or two, both thinking.
“You had best go to the great oak at Awsley,” said Godiva. “I do not like to have that old hag looking into our court, but needs must. Ask her about Ralph and whatever he carries.”
“She may not choose to talk,” said Ceolwen carefully, who had a rather less orthodox opinion of the Wise Woman of Awsley and held her in much higher esteem than Godiva. “But of course I will go. What will you do?”
“First of all, talk to Leofric,” said Godiva. “In bed, tonight. This time, I will make him listen!”
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But Leofric wouldn’t listen. He left their marital bed in his nightshirt, blustering and bellowing that he could not stand another word, a strange cry when he had avoiding listening to any word beyond Ralph’s name. Godiva heard him shouting as he stomped across the hall, and out to the stables, calling for his grooms and housecarls to attend him, for he was away to his manor of Bercuswell where he would not be troubled by his woman.
Ceolwen passed the earl going out on her way in from her travels, and went to Godiva without taking off her cloak or boots.
“Leofric is afraid of something,” said Godiva. “I cannot tell whether it is for himself, or me, or for the children. Ralph holds a great power over him.”
“He does have something to fear,” said Ceolwen. “The Wise Woman of Awsley was amenable today. She looked in the water to see what she might of Ralph.”
“And?”
“She saw Ralph,” said Ceolwen, very slowly. “But that was not all.”
“What?” asked Godiva. “What do you mean?”
“She saw something of Leofric as well,” said Ceolwen. “Bound within whatever Ralph carries on that dark chain about his neck.”
“Something of Leofric?” asked Godiva, falteringly. “His soul?”
“The Wise Woman is not Christian, and she did not use that word,” replied Ceolwen. “But I think it is what she meant. She saw others as well, what she called the ‘bright shadows’ of perhaps half a dozen living men, clustered about whatever Ralph wears, caught like bees on tar-paper. He has captured them, somehow. This is why Leofric does his bidding.”
Godiva was entirely still for a moment, that shocked stillness of a warrior who has taken a wound and does not yet know it for what it is, whether a mortal blow or merely a cut to be shrugged off. Ceolwen began to reach out a hand to her, but pulled it back as Godiva drew a deep breath and spoke in measured tones.
“There is a mention of something like this in Saint Wulfstan’s Blessings and Maledictions,” she said. “Under “Maledictions”, of course. A soul-thief who lived in the time of Urakazaar of Babylon. He had some foul device, a cursed amulet that could take souls and imprison them within.”
“Yes,” said Ceolwen. “The Wise Woman called Ralph something I did not understand, a word from the little folk of long ago. She said it meant ‘creature who takes the light from others’.”
“He must be forced to release Leofric. And the others…I wonder…five other souls caught. If they are also earls or nobles of Ingland, and Ralph a Norman…but would even Duke William employ such a wicked stratagem? He is like to take the kingdom in any case.”
“Whether Ralph serves William or himself, the difficulty will be to force him to do anything,” said Ceolwen. “Nor can he be simply killed. The Wise Woman was straight on that. She said to kill him would strand the bright shadows of the others in some nether place. They would live on, but as mere husks, without joy or savour of any kind.”
“Likely he has other evil magic to protect him in any case,” said Godiva. “Saint Wulfstan categorised a creature of his type, as I have said, but he did not offer any remedy…did the Wise Woman offer any suggestion for how we might free Leofric?”
Ceolwen hesitated a moment before answering, a hesitation instantly noticed by Godiva.
“What?” she asked, a smile flickering across her care-worn face. “I take it is something you fear I will undertake, and think it too dangerous for me, so you plan to not tell me and do it yourself?”
Ceolwen laughed, caught out. “I had resolved to tell you,” she said. “I only thought for a moment I might turn you aside. In truth, I could not do what must be done in any case. It is for the leader of the women of Coventry, the singer to the bees. Or so the Wise Woman says.”
“Ah,” said Godiva quietly. “I think I understand. But surely that is only legend?”
“No. It is not simply legend. The tales speak truly of a great working of the old magic,” said Ceolwen.
“But I have no power, no skills of magic,” protested Godiva. “So how can that work?”
“You do not need power, nor arcane knowledge. The ritual itself is power,” answered Ceolwen. “And it can only be done by she who leads the singing to the bees.”
“And is the ritual as simple as the legend says?” asked Godiva. “To walk naked from the Mound of the Bee Field to the Bargain Stone in the market square?”
“You must also lay down a bunch of clover, an acorn, and a drop of blood new-pricked from a hawthorn branch. Then you may speak your lawgiving to anyone…or anything…and they must obey your rede.”
“That does not sound so difficult,” said Godiva. “Leofric will not like others to see my nakedness I suppose, but my housecarls can clear the road at least, blacken a few eyes—”
“It is not so straight a task,” said Ceolwen. “No man may see you at all, or the spell is broken.”
Godiva’s mouth quirked in momentary frustration, but her mind moved swiftly.
“No, not so straight a task,” she said. “But I think there is a way to do it, and we must do so with all speed, before Ralph hears of it. I need you to fetch Mother Halfgrim from the town.”
“Mother Halfgrim!” exclaimed Ceolwen. “Now? In the night? That cantankerous old reptile?”
“Yes,” said Godiva. “Tell her it is not the countess that needs her, but the Singer to the Bees. Before we are done, we will need many others too. There is a great deal to do.”
“I will fetch Mother Halfgrim then,” said Ceolwen, gathering up her kirtle to go. “I am eager to hear your thoughts, my lady!”
An hour later, Ceolwen returned with Mother Halfgrim, who strangely did not protest as she might be expected to do, in fact grumbling not at all. She was introduced into Godiva’s bedchamber, the two speaking for little more than ten minutes, before Mother Halfgrim emerged and returned to the town, a curious, previously unsuspected smile twisting up her toothless mouth.
Later, other women came, speaking Mother Halfgrim’s name to the sleepy housecarls, who scratched their heads and grumbled at this sudden flurry of midnight visitations, one likening it to a hive of bees all a-buzz over some invisible upset to the queen within.
Later still, a good hour before the dawn, Godiva called Aelfwyn to her, and explained what he and the other housecarls must do. He was aghast, and pulled at his moustaches, and blustered that she should not, must not, could not do as she intended. But Godiva spoke of Ralph and the thing he held, and the captive souls, and the captain quietened. At last he agreed to her commands, and went to rouse his men.
As the first small hint of the day began to show above the hills, Godiva went alone to the bee meadow. Along the way, she passed her housecarls, one by one, who were posted at fifty yard intervals, their backs to the road. They had already turned away the few folk who were about in the last dregs of the night, lawfully or not, save for those who were also following Godiva’s orders.
On the hill, the Countess of Coventry disrobed until she stood naked, her only adornment remaining a tortoiseshell comb. She pulled this free and let her long hair fall, without any attempt to twine it about herself in some show of modesty. Then she called out once, twice, three times to the bees, asking for their permission before walking down the hill to pick a good bunch of clover. She had marked an oak some ways back toward the town, which doubtless would provide the acorn, and there was a hawthorn bush close from which she would gently take a thorny branch.
◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊∆◊
While Godiva picked her clover, back in the town a man no one had seen before came from an alley, smiling and rubbing his hands. He met a band of idlers by the market square who were meant to be assembling a stand but had not yet even begun to think of doing so. In the dim, pre-dawn light none noticed that their visitor did not cast a shadow.
“A rare day today,” laughed the fellow. “Not every day a common man sees a countess naked!”
“What’s that you say?” asked Alfred, sometime leader of his band of so-called workers. “A countess naked?”
“Sure as sure,” said the man, rubbing his hands again. “As pretty a noblewoman who ever walked the land. Your own Lady Godiva, she is to walk naked as a babe through the town to the Bargain Stone.”
All eyes went to the old, black stone that rose waist-high from the cobbles like some time-worn tooth, as in fact legend had it was, the tooth of the dragon of Wessex, now remembered only on the banner of the Godwin lords. It was where deals were sealed, buyer and seller signing or marking their mark on deed or bill laid upon the smoothed flat top of the ancient tooth, if tooth it was.
“Naked?” asked a man, licking his lips. “And what’s the earl to do to any man who looks upon her? Flay him alive, or put his eyes out?”
“Earl’s gone a-hunting, and none can gainsay the lady,” said the man. “She walks alone, without her housecarls. Wait but an hour and you’ll see her treasures, as will any man who cares to look.”
“How do you—” Alfred began to ask, but the stranger was gone into the darkness, nimbly stepping between the first early rays of the sun, going elsewhere to spread his news.
“I’ll not watch,” said Begran firmly. “This sounds to be women’s business, best left alone. I remember my old mum—”
His words were lost in jeers and catcalls, led by Alfred, who had caught the stranger’s glee.
“You can close your eyes, old Begran, old gelding,” he cried, slapping him on the back. “But we are true men and we will gaze upon any beauty that offers herself, and…and aye, more too, should she cast her own eyes back!”
There was a muttering at this, and others beside Begran slunk away. But soon enough the word spread, and more men came to the square, asking if it were true that the countess herself was walking naked to the stone, and if she was, where would be best to see all that they cared to see. Small scuffles broke out over vantage points, men trying to climb on top of stalls, and others dragging them down, scuffles made worse by the absence of the town constables who were nowhere to be seen, nor the Under-Sheriff and his men, nor the housecarls of the earl.
The greatest crowd gathered at the eastern side of the market square, where the road ran in, for it would be here that the countess would first be seen. Men jostled and pitched their elbows wide, maintaining their chosen spots, shouting and hitting as the smaller and more slippery eased between them.
All this ceased as the cry went up.
“Here she comes!”
A figure hard to see with the rising sun behind her was walking up the road. The crowd of men surged forward, then inexplicably faltered and slowed, those behind roaring with frustration until they too fell silent.
Behind the first figure there were more. And not only on the main road, but coming in from the alleys on every side, walking slowly toward the square. Dozens of naked women, nay, hundreds of naked women, and the one in the lead was not the naked body of a winsome countess, but the leathery, age- and sun-worn shape of Mother Halfgrim, leader of the laundresses, those fierce, take-no-prisoner women who could crack a man’s skull with a laundry pole as easy as lift a great tub of wet clothes to their shoulders, and they were all behind her, and they were not alone.
“That’s my old mum,” said a suddenly deeply worried voice among the crowd, the harbinger of many, many other cries.
“My wife!”
“My daughters!”
“My grandmam and her sister!”
“Old Aunt Alys!”
“The ale-wife from the Oxen!”
“Oh! Oh! The lepers from Holy Cross!”
The women walked on silently, the men turning about in confusion, many shielding their eyes and looking down of their own accord, others being forced to do so as husbands and fathers and brothers and sons pulled down other mens’ hats or hoods, or slapped them in the neck.
Mother Halfgrim stopped a few paces away from the now silent crowd of cowed and ashamed menfolk.
“Go home!” she cried, fierce as ever. “Go home and do not look out, do not look out until a woman says you may! Any who look will rue it for whatever few days remain to them thereafter! ”
No one moved, until Mother Halfgrim suddenly clapped her hands and shouted.
“Go!”
At that the men broke like a rabble charged by knights, and fled back through the square, the women in the alleys parting to let them through.
Mother Halfgrim began to walk again, and the women followed. All the women, of town and castle and from villages for leagues around, all naked and marching for the square. Thousands of women, young and old and in between, and amongst them, perhaps a hundred paces behind Mother Halfgrim, walked Lady Godiva, with a smile upon her face.
The smile grew broader as the great crowd of women swirled about the market square, and Godiva weaved between them, drawing ever closer to the bargain stone, the dragon tooth. The tallest and broadest women walked with her, against the chance that some man still dared to look, but they saw none, and Godiva felt no cheating gaze, as she was sure she would.
At last, she came to the stone. The women drew close as Godiva knelt and laid the heather and the acorn upon the flat, and then with the prick of a hawthorn, added a drop of her own bright red blood. She felt a strange thrill rush through her as the blood fell on the stone, a quickening of something she had never known, a sense that she was now a part of some great and terrible power that had wakened at her call.
Lady Godiva stood and raised her voice, speaking not just to the crowd, but to the world beyond and the ancient magic that she knew awaited her call.
“I summon the Norman called Ralph, steward to my husband. Ralph, come to the stone to answer for your misdeeds!”
There was silence then, unbroken by any sound. In that stillness, women flinched at the sudden sound of heavy footsteps, boots upon the cobbles. Ralph emerged from the shadows between two houses, and advanced towards the Bargain Stone. But this was not Ralph as he was usually seen, simply a cold and remote man. The shadows companioned him now, and the sunshine itself flinched away. Even the bold laundresses stepped back, and Mother Halfgrim herself took only one of the three steps she intended to interpose herself between him and the countess.
“I come,” said Ralph. His voice was angry, tinged with fire, no longer the passionless tone of a bailiff on his master’s business. “Not because of your petty magic, your foolish ritual. It is time all was made clear to you, Lady, and to all you women. The earl does as I command, and so must you all. None can gainsay me.”
“I summoned you to a law-giving,” said Godiva, though the words were hard to find, and her teeth were inclined to want to chatter. But she knew if she faltered, all would falter, and everything would be lost. “And this is my rede. You shall recant all your works of darkness, and give up whatever you wear against your chest, so it may be destroyed.”
“Recant?” asked Ralph scornfully. “Give up my amulet? No, rather I shall use it once again. I have not bothered to capture the soul of a woman before, it seems hardly worthwhile. But you…you are a thorn in my flesh that must be dealt with lest it fester.”
He reached into his tunic, and lifted up the links of an iron necklace. A pendant hung from the chain, a small tablet of some dull red mineral. Though it was no larger than a thumbnail and seemed unremarkable, as Ralph held it high Godiva’s eyes were immediately drawn to it, and then she could not look away, nor move her head or limbs.
Whatever power was in the amulet, it held her fast. Dread filled her, and her breath grew fast and shallowed, all her instincts demanding she flee, muscles rippling but failing to instigate any movement.
“You see,” said Ralph with a sneer. “I command a greater magic than anything you think to conjure.”
Ceolwen alone of all the women moved forward, bending to pick up a loose cobblestone. But even as she rose to throw it, Ralph made a negligent gesture with his left hand, and the stone ran through her fingers like water, while others gave way beneath her feet. Ceolwen was suddenly knee-deep in what had been a solidly paved surface, held fast by the ferromantic magic Ralph also had at his command.
“So,” said Ralph. He brought the pendant closer to his lips, and spoke to it, in a language vanished from the world for five thousand years or more. With each word, Godiva felt as if chill, insubstantial claws were reaching inside her, going past skin and bone to pull at something she didn’t even know she possessed, drawing it out of her body.
Her soul was being taken, Godiva realised, and there was nothing she could do.
She cried out, and in that same moment, some deep instinct told her there was still something she could do, a faint last chance. She still commanded her voice.
In that instant of realisation, Godiva transformed her cry of pain and anguish into the beginning of the bee-song.
For several long seconds, she sang alone, but then the women closest to her began to also sing, even as they were held fast in all other ways, made as steady and unmoving as the buried stones of the hill by the meadow. More and more women joined the song, and as their voices rose in unison, Godiva knew that more than their voices were joined. She felt suddenly anchored, that the bright shadow that Ralph sought to draw from her body was no longer alone and easy prey, but linked to all the women around her, and those around them, and so on and on through all the many circles.
Thousands of bright shadows joined, so many the weight of them was too great for the amulet to move, and now her own soul was coming back to her, and Ralph’s hand was coming down as if the pendant had grown heavy, weighted down by the connection with more souls than it could ever drink. As it slowly fell, the oppressive force that had held Godiva ebbed as well, but she did not move. The song had to be completed first, and it was not yet done.
“No, no,” growled Ralph. He fumbled at his side with his free hand, trying to draw the thin, sharp dagger scabbarded at his waist. But still the amulet was dragging him down, so that he could not balance and he tumbled forward to land sprawling at Godiva’s feet.
“You cannot harm me!” he spat out. “I am no mere ironmaster, I am the Favoured of Urakazaar! No weapon wielded by man, woman or child can harm me, I cannot be slain and I will—”
His words choked off as the first great cloud of bees swarmed into his open mouth and cascaded down his throat, closely followed by the second and third that slammed into his eyes and ears.
More and more bees flew to their deaths as the song continued, thousands and thousands of them descending upon the toppled body of Ralph. As the last note slowly faded into breathlessness there was no longer an identifiable man there at all, just a lump on the ground that looked like a fallen log covered in a thick carpet of dead and dying bees.
Ceolwen stepped out of the holes in the paving and prised up a cobblestone. Very gently, she brushed back a layer of bees from Ralph’s hand to reveal the chain his lifeless fingers touched, and the tiny amulet that hung from the chain. Lifting the stone high, she brought it down with all her might.
The blow bounced off what seemed only oven-baked clay, which should have been easily crushed to dust. Ceolwen gritted her teeth and raised her hand again, but stopped as she felt Godiva’s fingers wrap around her own.
“We must do it together, I think,” said Godiva. Other women drew close, and many hands gripped the stone.
This time, when it came down, there was a great crack, as if some mighty door had been burst asunder. The tablet exploded in a waft of reddish dust. There was the brief, sickening smell of something ancient and decayed, but both dust and stench were borne away by the fresh wind, and the shadows that had defied the sunlight shrank and were likewise gone.
A single bee alighted on Godiva’s hand as she straightened up. She raised it close to her face, and breathed upon it gently.
“Thank the mothers, sister,” she said. “For all they have given us.”
The bee flew up, and circled Godiva’s head to take its bearing from the sun, before heading unerringly towards the bee meadow and the queens in their conical huts.
“They have given much,” said Ceolwen. “There will be little honey this season, and perhaps the next.”
“Yes,” said Godiva. She felt very tired, and very dirty, and very naked. “But it is done.”
“For now,” said Ceolwen.
“For now?” asked Godiva quietly.
“Seasons turn, there is birth and death and rebirth,” said Ceolwen. “For everything, even an ancient evil. Perhaps not in our time, but it will come.”
“So,” said Godiva. She looked around at the crowded market full of naked, determined women.
Her mouth settled in a grim line. This host needed no armour, no weapons, no boasts and shouting. But if she were the enemy, she would be greatly afraid.