BOOK THREE

BLANKET COMPANIONS

THE MYTH:

Then Great Alta drew apart the curtain of her hair and showed them the plains of war. On the right side were the armies of the light. On the left side were the armies of the night. Yet when the sun set and the moon rose they were the same.

“They are blanket companions,” quoth Great Alta. “They are to one another sword and shield, shadow and light. I would have you learn of war so you may live in peace.”

And she set them down on the bloody plain for their schooling.

THE LEGEND:

There is a barren plain in the center of the Dales, where but one kind of flower grows—the Harvest Rose. Little grass, and it quite brown; little water, and it undrinkable; only dust and gravel and the Harvest Rose.

It is said that once the plain was a forest of great trees, so tall they seemed to pierce the sky. And the cat and the coney lived in harmony there.

But one day two giants met on that plain, their heads helmeted but their bodies bare. For three days and three nights they wrestled with one another. Their mighty feet stomped the good earth into dust. Their mighty hands tore trees from the ground. They flailed at each other with the trees as though with mere cudgels or sticks. And at last, when the two of them lay dying, side by side, they ripped off their helmets only to discover they were so alike, they might have been twins.

The blood from the battle watered the torn and dying earth. And at each drop grew the Harvest Rose, a blood-red blossom with a white face imprinted on the petals, each and every face the same.

THE STORY:

When they emerged from a final copse of trees lining the great meadow, the moon was full overhead.

“The moon?” Jenna was puzzled. “When we left it was not moon time.”

“It has been more than one moon since you left, sister,” a voice whispered in her ear. Jenna turned slightly. Skada was sitting behind her. Her face was a good deal thinner than Jenna remembered. And older, somehow.

“Just how many moons …” Jenna began, then glanced past Skada to stare at the rest of her companions.

Catrona and Katri on the bay mare stared back. There was a streak of white running through Catrona’s short cap of hair, a matching streak in Katri’s. Jareth, with his green collar tight across his throat, had a leaner look and Marek a downy moustache feathering his lip. Sandor’s cheeks were sprinkled with the beginnings of a beard. But it was Petra who had changed the most. She was no longer a girl but a young woman, with a soft curve of breast showing beneath her tunic.

Jenna put a hand up to her own face, as if she might feel any change there, but her fingers held no memories.

“Look at us! Look!” Marek said, his voice booming into the night.

“I …” Sandor began and then, as if surprised by the depth of the syllable, stopped.

Opening his mouth, Jareth strained for a sound. When none came, he closed it again, shaking his head slowly at first, then faster and faster, banging his fist on his thigh in frustration.

It was Petra who spoke for them all. “The legends are true. Cocooned in time, the Grenna said. But they did not say how much time. How long …” her voice trailed off.

Jenna got off her horse, followed by Skada. Turning to her dark sister, she asked: “How many more than one moon, Skada?”

“I do not know. Many. After a time, I lost the count.”

“Yet we ate not nor did we sleep,” Catrona said. “We hold no memory of those passages through time. How can that be?”

“It is because of Alta,” Petra said.

“And the Grenna,” Catrona added.

“It be because of Anna,” Marek and Sandor said together.

They all dismounted and the boys were quickly introduced to Katri and Skada. But the dark sisters’ arrival was only a small, familiar mystery inside the larger one. It was the question of time that consumed them all.

“Is it one year or …” Catrona hesitated.

“Or hundreds?” Katri finished for her.

“Hundreds!” Marek seemed surprised at the possibility. “It be not hundreds. What about our Ma then?”

“And our Da?”

“What about our sisters?” Petra asked. “And the warnings?”

Jenna twisted the priestess ring around her little finger. She was not heedless of the sisters. But she had to know first where they were—what time and what place. Staring at Jareth, she whispered, “You have not mentioned his Mai.” She did not add her own names: Pynt and A-ma and all the sisters at Selden Hame. What use was such a tally when they were so lost? She would not even think of Carum, would not conjure his face now. But Skada knew. She reached out and touched Jenna’s hand.

They were not tired, but they thought it best to rest the night. In the daylight they might discover the path, might recognize some familiar landmark. Besides, the horses would fare better in the day without the added burden of the dark sisters. And they all needed to think.

“To focus,” Catrona said, using the very word and tone Jenna remembered from their days in Selden Hame when Catrona had taught her about living in the woods.

As part of that focus, they taught the boys how to match them breath for breath around a small campfire. Catrona felt the need for light far exceeded the danger. She told the boys the story about the five beasts who quarreled before they discovered that breath was the most important part of life. Jenna recalled Mother Alta telling that tale, and how it sat heavily in the priestess’ sour mouth. Catrona’s telling was far more sprightly. The boys laughed when she was done, even Jareth, though his laughter was silent.

After the story, Marek and Sandor regaled them with rhymes their Da had taught them, all about pulling the ferry across the water. Teaching rhymes, Catrona called them.

“Every craft and every guild has them,” she said. “The baker, the herdsman, the miller …”

Jareth interrupted by placing his hand on Catrona’s. He gestured to himself.

“A miller … a miller,” muttered Katri.

They were all embarrassed into silence until Petra began to sing a lullaby in a sweet voice that soon had them all rubbing their eyes.

“We will rise with the sun,” Jenna said.

“Before the sun,” Catrona amended.

THE SONG:

Sisters’ Lullay

Hush and sleep ye,

Shush and keep ye,

Safe within the

Hame’s strong walls

Naught shall harm ye.

We shall charm ye

With the song the

Night bird calls.

Sisters strong shall

Keep the cradle

Sisters long shall

Watch the way

Sisters all shall

Guard and guide ye

Till ye wake at

Break of day.

Hush and sleep ye,

Shush and keep ye,

Alta watches

From above.

We will praise ye,

We will raise ye,

Light and dark in

Alta’s love.

THE STORY:

They drifted into sleep one after another until only Jenna and Skada were awake, side by side on Jenna’s blanket.

“I have missed you,” Skada said. “And missed this world, so bright and deafening.”

“Which have you missed more?”

“In equal measure.” Skada laughed. Then she whispered, “But it has been hard on you.”

“It has been harder on the others,” Jenna said. “And the fault …”

“… is not yours, dear sister,” Skada said. “This is a time when a circle closes. That you are the clasp is not a fault, merely an accident of time.”

“Jareth said I was a linchpin.”

“We will miss his clear voice.”

Jenna thought about that. It was what she had been feeling, but had not dared to say aloud. “I …”

“We. Is it so difficult to accept that you are not alone, Jenna? That we all share the burden?”

Suddenly Jenna remembered Alta’s words: You want to be and not to be the Anna. How easily Alta had said it. How hard it was to accept. She wanted to be the center, the clasp, the linchpin, but she did not want the enormous weight of it. Yet she could not have the one without the other. How much easier to share. Not I but we. She reached out and touched Skada’s hand. They did not speak again, just lay there hand in hand until sleep finally claimed them.

“Jenna! Jenna!” The voice seemed far away, a dying fall of sound. Jenna awoke with a start to a day bright with birdsong. Catrona was shaking her by the shoulder. She sat up, almost reluctant to leave the comfort of sleep.

Looking around, Jenna saw the horses cropping grass by a well-worn roadside, the others still asleep.

“Catrona, I had the strangest dream,” she began. “There was a vast meadow and …” She stopped. A wide streak of white ran through Catrona’s hair and the runes across her brow were deeper than Jenna remembered.

“No dream, little Jen. The meadow, the grove, the hearth and hall. No dream. Unless two can dream the same.”

Jenna stood slowly. Two might possibly dream alike but that did not explain the age creeping across Catrona’s face. Or the fact that Duty, who had just lifted her face from the grass, had a dusting of white hairs on her nose. Or that Jareth, beginning to stir, wore a collar of green around his neck.

“No dream,” Jenna agreed. “But if it is true, then where are we? And when are we?”

“As for where,” Catrona said, “that I know now. This is the road to Wilma’s Crossing Hame. It has not changed that much in the thirty years since I was last here.”

“Thirty?” Jenna asked.

“I was a girl missioning here,” Catrona said. “It was my last stop—and a dare.”

“Why a dare?” Jenna asked.

“Because it was so far from my own Hame and across the famous forest of the Grenna and because it was the very first Hame. And because I had boasted too much about not being afraid to come.”

“And were you afraid?”

Catrona laughed. “Of course I was afraid. I may have been a bit of a boaster, but I was no fool. I never saw any Grenna, of course. Doubted they existed. But fog and mist and men I found plenty. As for the men, well, I kicked my way out of several encounters and marched with a black eye but my maidenhead intact into Wilma’s Crossing Hame.” She chuckled at the memory.

“And …”

“And they laughed at me and gave me a hot bath and told me the facts of a woman’s life, which somehow I had neglected to listen to when my Mother Alta imparted them. I got my flow that next week and had a man on the way back to my own Hame. Katri never forgave me for not waiting for her.”

Jenna blushed furiously.

“Yes, this is the road to Wilma’s Crossing. There the road goes back through the forest.” She pointed to the long, empty path. “And there are Alta’s Pins.” She pointed ahead to a pair of rolling hillocks, grass-covered dunes that stretched for almost a mile. “Nothing like them in the whole of the Dales.”

“Thirty years,” Jenna mused. She combed through her hair with her fingers, then braided it up, twisting a dark ribband around the bottom to hold the plait in place.

“Thirty—or more,” Catrona said.

“How much more?”

“I would tell you if I knew, child. I puzzled all night on it.” Giving Jenna a swift, sure hug, she added, “As for that dream we both had, I recall there was food in it as well.” She went to her own blanket and the saddlebags that she had used for a pillow. Opening up the flap of one, she rummaged around. “Yes, here. Quite a dream, that can supply such as this.” She pulled out two loaves of a braided bread and a leather flask. “Come, girl, First up, first fed, we used to say in the army.” She broke off the heel of the bread and handed it to Jenna. “In fact, First up, finest fed. As I recall, you were always partial to the ends, even as a babe.”

Jenna took the bread gratefully and started chewing. At the first bite, a sharp burst of some sweet herb filled her mouth. She sighed.

Smiling at her, Catrona took a long draught from the flask, then grinned. “The red. She gave us the red. Bless her.”

At that, Jenna laughed. “Only you, Catrona, would bless someone for wine.” But she reached out and took a sip herself. She was careful not to mention to Catrona that the wine was not red at all but the gentle rosy drink that she preferred. Either Catrona was losing her judgment, or there was a strange magic at work here. It was not worth mentioning either way.

The others were up soon after, finishing off both loaves of bread and the flask which, though no one remarked it greatly, supplied milk for Petra and some kind of dark liquid for each of the boys, which Jenna thought might be tea.

They saddled the horses and were away just as the sun climbed between the rolling hills Catrona had called Alta’s Pins.

“As I remember it,” Catrona told them, “it is but a morning’s walk from here to the Hame.”

“Then it will be a short ride with the horses fresh,” said Jenna.

Following Catrona, they threaded their way in a single line through the Pins and across a boggy meadow that was full of spring wildflowers, white, yellow, and blue. Quite soon they saw the wreckage of several buildings jagged against the clean slate of sky.

“Too late,” Jenna whispered to herself as they neared the ruined Hame. She braced herself for the inevitable bodies and the horrible smell of death. “Too late for any of them.” The whisper took on Sorrel’s accent and she cursed herself and her companions for spending the time they had in Alta’s grove.

Dismounting at the broken gate, they wandered through the silent ruins. Vines twisted up between fallen stones. The weedy arberry had taken root in the cracks. There was a scattering of linseed along the pathways, the blue flowers bending in a passing wind. But there were no bodies; there were no bones.

“This be not happening yesterday,” Marek remarked cautiously, his fingers smoothing down his new moustache.

“Nor the day before that,” Petra added. She plucked up a yellow flower and crushed it against her palm. “How long …” her voice trailed off.

Squatting, Catrona smoothed her hand across the gravelly ruin of a side wall. “A year. Or two. Or more. It takes a season at least for arberry and linseed, tansy and hound’s tooth, to take hold in a waste. A season at least for vines to begin to twist up through the walls.”

Sandor’s eyes grew wide. “And see how high they go.”

Jareth measured the vines and they were five times the width of his hand, from little finger to thumb. He spread his hand, counting silently. Five.

Sitting down heavily on a great stone, Jenna drew in a deep latani breath. When she finally spoke she hoped her tones were measured. “We must find out what year it is. Whether one has passed or …” Glancing at Jareth, whose hand still silently tallied the length of the vines, she finished her thought. “Or five. We must know how long since we rode out.”

“And then find out what damage to the Hames,” Petra said.

Jenna nodded. “And then …”

“Hush! Now!” From her squatting position, Catrona had flung herself onto the ground, ear down, listening. For a moment she was still. Then suddenly she sat up. With a sweep of her hand, she whispered, “Riders!”

“Our horses …” Jenna cried, but she threw herself down on the ground and felt the pounding of the earth under her cheek. The riders were close. Saying no more, she drew her sword from its sheath and lay on the ground, waiting. All of her anger, unhappiness, and fear were focused for what was sure to be a fierce battle. The ground foretold many horsemen.

Petra and the boys flung themselves down as well, the boys wriggling about to draw their knives.

Jenna could see between two of the fallen stones, as if through the narrow line of an arrow slit. At first all she could make out were the trees across the road; then a gray cloud of dust from the horses’ hooves rising up against the background, obscuring the trees. Slowly, the front line of the oncoming riders resolved itself and Jenna could see that one of the lead horses was gray.

“A gray!” she called over to Catrona, not sure if her voice could be heard in the building thunder. “A company of king’s horse.”

Catrona nodded.

Jenna could feel a shiver run across the back of her shoulders, as if something cold had snaked its way over her neck. Then she shook her head and whatever it was she had felt was gone. Looking aside at the others, she nodded. The boys nodded back but Petra’s eyes were wide and unseeing. Jenna guessed she was praying.

A prayer would not be amiss, she thought, trying to remember one. But the pounding of the hooves and the rising dust and the sun on her head and the fear that her friends might die because of her pushed all prayer from her mind except the one word: now … now … now.

Then Catrona leaped up, sword raised, and Jenna followed, screaming what was left of her fear into the faces of the galloping troop. She could feel heat in her face and the remains of the rosy wine threatening to leave her stomach and a throbbing of a vein over her right eye.

And then suddenly the first of the horses, a black gelding, was pulled to a rearing stop by its rider. Behind it, the gray and then the others fanned out. There were more than twenty-one. Many more.

Jenna’s sword hand began to shake. She reached over with her left hand and grasped her right wrist to hold it steady. She heard a strange braying coming from Catrona’s direction and could not make it out. She dared a quick glance.

Catrona was laughing and lowering her sword. Laughing!

The man on the black horse was laughing as well. When the noise had settled, he spoke. “Well, well, well, Catkin. Like an old copper, ye turn op in the oddest of hands.” He grinned, showing a mouth gapped with uneven teeth. His beard was luxuriantly black and white; his eyes narrow and the piercing blue of a cold spring sky; his tongue strange to Jenna’s ears.

Catrona sheathed her sword. “As often as not I turn up in your hands, Piet.”

The man Piet dismounted. He was a big man, his solid flesh starting to run to fat, but he moved with a feline grace. “Ye’ve not been in my hands for so lang a time, girl.”

“How long a time?” Catrona asked, almost casually.

Jenna held her breath.

Piet narrowed his eyes even more and grinned. Her caution had not fooled him. “Looking for compliments at yourn age, my catkin? Or somewhat more, eh?” He laughed. Jenna had been expecting a cold sound, and calculating, but it was full and warm. “And where is that dark, daring sister of yourn?”

“She is around,” Catrona said. She held out her hand to him and he took it. Instead of shaking it, he simply held it, his massive fingers wrapping hers.

Jenna was surprised that Catrona let her hand be prisoned that way.

“I’ve missed ye, girl. No doubt of it. Nane to drink me doon like ye can, after a good fight. And nane like ye ever for a blanket companion, eh?”

Catrona laughed lightly, gaily, a sound Jenna had never heard her make before.

Clearing her throat, Jenna moved toward Catrona. Petra came over to stand by her side. The three boys, knives still tightly in their hands, clustered together.

“The kittens are restless,” Piet said, dropping her hand at last. “Introduce us to this litter of yourn.”

Catrona turned and signaled them to her and they came like bidden children, though Jenna was not happy at the thought.

“The boys are from Callatown. Sandor and Marek are, as you can see, brothers. And the small one is Jareth.”

Piet put out his hand to them each in turn, nodding and saying their names aloud. Sandor and Marek gave him greeting but Jareth’s silence troubled the big man.

“He is mute,” Catrona explained.

“From birth?” asked Piet. “Can he sign his wishes?”

“God touched,” Petra said, stepping forward. “And it is new.”

“Ah, the collar,” said Piet, as if he understood. “And ye child, what name is yourn?”

“I am no child, but priestess-trained. My name is Petra.” She lifted her head and stared into his eyes.

“Ye be a child still to me, for all ye speak daily with gods. But well come, Petra. I like children—and I like priestesses. They all speak in riddles. It makes a big man like me feel small.” He grinned at her. She could not help but grin back.

“And this beauty,” he said, turning toward Jenna.

“Watch your tongue,” Catrona said, “or she will have it. She is the best of us. She is the reason we are here.”

At her tone, his grin faded at once. “And what do ye mean, me girl.”

“She is Jo-an-enna. She is the White One. The Anna.”

For a long moment Piet stared at Jenna, measuring her by some internal reckoning. Then he shook his head and laughed out loud, a wilder braying than Catrona’s. When the bold laughter had run its course, he stared at her again. “The White One? Have ye taken leave … Catrona? Ye’ve never owned such nonsense afore. The White One! She’s nowt but a girl.”

“Nonetheless …” Catrona began.

Just then the man on the gray dismounted and walked over to them, limping badly, his right leg swinging stiffly from an unbending knee. “Jo-an-enna, you say. Could you be called else? A pet name? Or a family name?” His face was clearly thinned down with old pain, but Jenna thought there was something terribly familiar about his cheeks and the long lashes and the hair.

“Jenna,” she whispered, staring at him. “I am called Jenna by my friends.” The limping man was and was not like Carum. But how many years had it been? He was taller and darker and she felt nothing when she looked at him but a vague tug of reminiscence. Nothing at all. How could that possibly be?

“Are you Carum’s White Jenna, then?” he asked. Something narrowed in his face so that he had a fox’s look, sly, calculating, cautious, and feral. Carum had never looked like that.

Jenna breathed out slowly. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath till it sighed out of her. “You are not Carum,” she said, but it was almost a question.

He grinned, looking more wolflike than fox. “I—Carum? What a thing I shall have to tell him when I see him next. Five years goes by and the girl he loves mistakes his older brother for …”

“His older brother!” It was an explosion of sound and relief. “No wonder you look like him. You must be …” She reached back in memory and pulled out a name. “You must be Pike.”

“Pike … I have not been called that in years.”

Piet interrupted smoothly, “He is Gorum. King Gorum. Majesty-in-exile now. Best remember.”

“Five years in exile then? We have much to talk about, Piet,” said Catrona.

“And plenty of time afore dark to speak of it,” Piet said. “And after dark—well, plenty of time for that, too, eh?”

Catrona patted his hand.

“But why do ye call this girl the White One?” asked Piet. “What signs brought ye to it? Ye, Catrona, of all folk?”

The forty or so men dismounted, gathering around noisily.

Looking them all over, Catrona snorted. “I will tell it once the horses are pastured and we have split a bottle and some bread.” She smiled at Piet. “You do have bread? And bottles?”

“What army goes without?” asked Piet.

“Is this an army?” Catrona countered. “Ragtag, and scarcely one shield amongst three? No helms. No pikes—begging your pardon, Majesty.” She made a quick almost mocking obeisance.

“It is but part of one,” Piet admitted.

“And the rest?”

“On a rade. With his brother.”

“His brother?” Jenna could feel a strange ache suddenly start up in her belly.

“Him that’s called Longbow,” Piet answered.

“Longbow? Carum? On a rade? It cannot possibly be. He is a scholar, not a fighter,” Jenna said.

“Perhaps back then when there weren’t no war, twas a scholar, gel. Perhaps he bain reading up on bow shooting in his books. He is a good shot now, though he doesna like swords yet,” Piet said. He gave Jenna another searching look, then spoke to Catrona. “Come into the Hame, gel. It’s nowt but shambles, but the kitchen still stands. We have bottles well hidden. And bread. And a couple of deer hanging.”

“Well, well, well,” Catrona mused. “When you are not on a rade, you are in a well-stocked kitchen.” She patted Piet’s belly. “This is not just five years’ growth.”

Laughing, Piet put his hand over hers. “This belly’s been longer than five years growing, gel, as well ye know. And I’ve been slimming these last months. But ye be no great beauty yersel. There’s gray in yer hair now.”

“At least I have it all.”

“I have enough,” he said, laughing.

Jenna’s mouth drew down into a thin line, her eyes narrowing. “Should there be guards?”

“We own the road,” the king said, a bit petulantly.

“Not good enough,” Petra whispered. “You missed our coming.”

“What makes ye think ye were missed?” Piet asked.

“You were just not accounted a problem,” said the king.

“Not good enough,” Jenna seconded, “for the sisters who dwelt here first.”

“That is an old, old story,” Piet said, his hand still over Catrona’s. “And not a pretty one. This is a new.”

“Tell us,” Jenna demanded. “Tell us the story. Now!”

“How is it ye know it not?” came a voice out of the crowd. “If ye be the Anna?”

“And where have ye been all these years?” asked another, a man with a scar lacing his right eye like a mask. “Under the hill or somewhat?”

Jareth’s hand went suddenly to his collar, and Sandor made a small, sharp sound, like a startled daw.

“Yes,” Catrona said slowly, drawing the word out as she drew her hand away from Piet’s. She turned toward the questioner. “That is exactly where we have been. Under the hill.”

Piet barked a laugh. “Ye have never been a good teller, my girl. And until this moment, I would have called ye the hard-headest warrior I have ever known. But now …” He shook his head. “Five years ye’ve been gone. I went seeking ye, at that Hame of yourn. Looking for fighters, we were. And nane seen the hide of ye. And now ye appear with a child’s tale and asking us to believe it.”

Sandor murmured, as much to the ground as the men near him: “She be saying you would not believe.”

“And she is right,” the king said. “Under the hill. Which of us can believe such a story.”

“Believe it.” Jenna spoke the words angrily. “Believe it. Though we still scarcely can credit it ourselves.” She would say no more.

When the horses were unsaddled and hobbled to graze outside the walls, they gathered in the open kitchen, where an unbroken chimney thrust up against the sky. There they started a fire in the hearth and set stew pots to boil. It was then that Pike, the king-in-exile as the men called him, began the tale.

THE HISTORY

The so-called Gender Wars took place over a period of no less than five years and no more than twenty, if the Book of Battles is to be believed. The disparity in numbers is due to the fact that the G’runs counted by the years in a king’s reign rather than by a running tally. As they did not count in the years when the usurper K’las was on the throne, it is unclear exactly how long the battles continued. The reign of the king-in-exile (or the King in the Hills, as Doyle translates it) may be counted sequentially with K’las’ reign or simultaneously. We have few notes from the Continent that refer even obliquely to the doings in the Dales at that time. It was as if a great cloak of mist had been wrapped around the island kingdom. If K’las himself ever penned any histories, they were likely burned by his enemies. History is always written by the victors.

Magon, of course, makes much of the difference in counts, citing legend and folk stories of the strange passage of time “under the hill” in Faeryland. But as such passages are common coin in the world’s folklore (cf Magon’s own “Telling Time in Faerie” Journal of International Folklore, Vol. 365, #7) such maunderings do little to add to our working knowledge of the awful, devastating Dale wars.

That these were wars of succession rather than a war of men against women, no matter the appellation that has carried down to modern times, is quite certain. In the Book of Battles we see lists of both sexes fighting side by side. This was not one great war but a series of small skirmishes over a number of years in which first one and then another king was placed on the precarious throne.

The seeds of this particular anarchy had been sown when the G’runs, a patriarchal society from the Continent, had conquered the learning-centered matriarchy of Alta worshippers. But over the four hundred years of conquest, the bloodlines thinned for the G’runs married only within narrow clans, hardly ever mixing with the lower, conquered classes. The once-united clans began to vie for power after a G’runian king made the mistake of taking a Dalian for his second wife, naming their son a legitimate heir. One chief of a powerful northern clan, a crafty warrior named K’las, managed to orchestrate a bloodless coup. As he was hereditary head of the clan armies (the Kingsmen) as well as a provincial governor, he had a strong power base. He ruled, as such army-backed leaders often do, with an iron fist. Or, as it says in the Book of Battles “never his hand came out in friendship but in anger.” Of course, the book was penned by a member of the opposing party and so we must read carefully between the lines, as first Doyle and then Cowan have done. (See especially Cowan’s intriguing “The Kallas Controversy,” Journal of the Isles, History IV, 7).

There is a popular legend known as “The King Under the Hill,” found in some thirty-three variants in both the Upper and Lower Dales, in which the king is killed upon his throne and his three sons flee the province. One is slaughtered from the back, one is badly wounded, and the third, called majesty-in-exile, lives under the hill with the Greenfolk until his troops rally and call him forth into the light of day. Magon has taken great pains in trying to justify the legend with the history as we have been able to reconstruct it. But much of his verification rests heavily on his own much-disputed thesis about an historical figure he calls the White One or the Anna or the White Goddess who fights side by side with the king. Magon mixes folklore and history liberally in a soup that ends up lacking both the meat of verifiable research or the good hearty flavoring of the folk. Cowan, on the other hand, lays down a solid substrata of history, reminding us that there is only mention of one son in the Continental books of the period, not three, and he most probably the bastard of the Dale woman, the G’run king’s second wife. Also, it would be well for us to remember, three is a potent number popular in folklore.

According to Cowan, the battles for the throne involved not only the overthrown G’runians but a good many of the Dalites as well. After four hundred years of unquestioned subservience to the invaders, the indigenous populations (the Upper Dalite sheep farmers and fisherfolk and the Lower Dalite artisans and city dwellers) had had enough. Young men called Jennisaries (named after one of the martyred leaders, Cowan hypothesizes brilliantly) roamed the countryside destroying the towns and Hames they considered of G’run manufacture. The ruins of one such incursion can still be seen today in the Wilhelm Valley. According to Cowan—and I can only agree wholeheartedly with her—it was not torn down and sown over with sturdy grass as others of its kind because it had become a shrine. The legend goes that it was here that the martyred Jen was murdered and the king crowned.

That the eager young Jennisaries pledged themselves to the new G’run king in exchange for a vow that he would marry one of theirs is something both Cowan and Magon agree upon, though they agree on little else, because it clearly states in the Book of Battles that “So it is pledged that the dark king and the light queen shall wed, bringing day and night into the circle, that the people themselves might rule.”

However, much else in the Book of Battles remains unclear. For example, there is little that can be said about the final evocation:

See where the queen has gone,

Where her footsteps flower,

For they lead into the hill,

They lead under the hill,

Where she waits for her call,

Where she waits for her king,

Where she waits for her bright companions.

Neither Doyle nor Cowan can offer any easy solution to the puzzle of that final piece. And we must utterly reject Magon’s ridiculous proposal that the poetry means exactly what it says—that some queen (presumably the one of Dale extraction) remains neither living nor dead under the hill waiting to be recalled to a battle which has yet to be fought.

THE STORY:

“My father,” the king-in-exile said, “was a good man and a kind man. But he was also a blunt man, given to speaking his mind. That is good breeding in a farmer but not in a king. He had little talent for the sly exercise of politics and he did not understand compromise. He went where his heart led.” Pike’s face softened with the memory.

“His wife …” prompted the man with the scarred eye.

Someone poked up the fire in the broken hearth.

“His first wife, my mother, died giving me birth. She had had trouble birthing my older brother, Jorum, and the doctors warned her that she dared have no more. Jorum was so big he had torn her all up inside. But kingdoms need heirs. One is not a safe number. So I was sown in that ruined terrain. And killed her leaving it.” He spoke dryly. It was obviously a story well rehearsed, and the emotion had been leeched from it by so many tellings.

Jenna said in a low voice, “I killed my own mother in just that way.” Hesitating, she added, “My first mother.”

The men nearest her murmured, turning that bit of information over and over, and one repeated out loud, “First mother.”

Gorum seemed not to hear, but continued staring silently into the fire. Then he shook himself all over and went on. “The midwife was a lovely little Dale woman, small and dark. She sang lullabies with a voice like a slightly demented turtledove. She nursed me through that first cold year when my father could not think about babies because they made him so angry.”

Jenna burst out, “My second mother was a midwife. She died carrying me in her arms.”

Some of the men nodded, as if acknowledging something as yet unsaid, but Gorum simply stared at Jenna for a long moment, then turned back to the fire and his tale.

“On the day I walked toward him, taking my first baby steps away from her arms, he forgave me. I called him Papa, which she had so carefully rehearsed with me, and he wept and called me his Good Son. He married her in secret at the year’s turning, not so much for love but for gratitude. His real love was buried in my mother’s grave. When three years later she gave birth to a healthy babe, and she herself still strong, he announced the marriage and claimed the child an heir.”

“That was Carum?” Jenna asked.

Gorum smiled at her, the first generous smile she had won from him. “That was Carum. He was small like his mother so, unlike the rest of us, he learned the art of compromise.”

“Here, he’s not so small as that,” cried out a wiry, short man from the sitting crowd. “He be a head taller than me. That’s not short.”

“Short may-be,” said another, “but he baint called Longbow for nowt.”

The men chuckled at that. Even Sandor and Marek smiled.

Jenna blushed, though she was not sure why, and Catrona sitting next to her put a hand on hers.

“Do not mind them. You will have to get used to it. Men in a mob are all randy-mouthed. It means nothing,” she whispered.

“It means less than nothing to me,” Jenna replied, “since I do not know what they mean.”

“Then why have you flushed like some spring maiden at a court dance?” asked Catrona.

Jenna looked down at her hands and twisted the priestess ring around her little finger. “I do not know,” she said. “I am not sure. I do not even know what a court dance is!”

The king-in-exile laughed along with his men, then took a deep draught of his wine. “The marriage was the mistake Kalas had hoped for. A mistake he could use directly against the king. It was only an excuse, of course. He would have found another in time.

“He began to spread rumors, and those rumors sparked small rebellions: knives in taverns, rocks at the king’s gate. What Kalas promised was the sanctity of the clans against the mixing of blood and seed with the Dales. Sanctity! As if we had not been sowing babes throughout the Dales for four hundred years! There was never an uncompromised clan on this island since the first days our forefathers set foot here.

“I have bred horses, boy and man, and this I know—the lines without a wild strain thin out. Bones break, blood runs rose. The people of the Dales make the clans stronger, not weaker. My uncle, Lord Kalas, will find this out in the end.”

“To the king!” two of the men shouted spontaneously, raising their cups.

“To the kingdom,” countered Gorum, raising his.

“To the Dales!” Jenna said, standing. In the late afternoon sun her white hair seemed haloed in light, electric with the puzzling wind.

The rest of the men leaped to their feet, foremost among them Piet and the king-in-exile.

“To the Dales!” they shouted, the thunder of their voices bounding back oddly from the broken walls and cracked stones. “The Dales.”

They raised their cups, draining the last of the wine in the resounding silence. And into that silence there insinuated another sound, a low, insistent pounding.

“Horses!” Catrona cried. She was quick to reach for her sword, but Piet was quicker.

Placing his hand over hers, he said, “Those are our own.”

“How can you know?” Jenna asked, coming close to him.

“Our watch would have given warning.”

“Your watch!” Jenna laughed. “They gave no warning of us.”

“We needed no warning of ye—two warrior girls and a priestess all on our side and three unarmed boys.”

“What if the watch were slain. That was done at one of the Hames …” She hesitated, remembering the girls slaughtered at Nill’s. “Then there would be no warning.”

“Ye do not understand horses, girl. A man’s eye may be fooled but never a horse’s nose.” He put his finger alongside his nose. “Their horses have been fed on oats and ours on open graze. A horse can smell the difference. But look!” He pointed to the horses still quietly nibbling on the sparse grass outside the walls. “They seem content.”

“Oh!” Jenna could think of no other answer.

Piet smiled and clapped her on the back. “How could ye know horses, girl, stuck away all your life in a Hame. Now, me—I was taught by a hard man, name of Parke. Oft I felt the weight of his hand. But he taught me well. His teachings have kept me alive all these years.” He spoke with a blunt jollity, but having finished what he had to say, turned and walked purposely out of the kitchen, his hand never straying far from his sword.

As if his movement were a signal, the rest of the men went quickly to what seemed to be appointed places, seven standing around the king-in-exile.

Jenna spoke hurriedly to the boys. “See how the seven guard the king. Do likewise with Petra.”

“I need no such guard,” Petra began.

“Do it!” Jenna said.

The boys did as they were bid, Jareth drawing his blade, and Jenna went back to Catrona’s side.

“You did not tell me about Piet,” Jenna whispered.

“You did not ask,” Catrona said.

“I did not know the questions.”

“Then you deserved no answer.”

Jenna nodded. Catrona had been her teacher, her guardian, her sister, and one of her many mothers at Selden Hame. But, Jenna suddenly realized, she had known little—she had known nothing—about Catrona. And she had never asked.

“Now, why have you told me nothing about this Longbow who calls you White Jenna and has loved you for five years?” Catrona asked.

“You did not ask,” said Jenna. “Besides—there is nothing to tell.”

“Yet!” Catrona laughed. Then her voice got strangely serious. “Did Amalda ever get a chance to explain to you the way of a woman with a man? Or did Mother Alta as part of her preparation for your mission? Though …” She made an explosive sound that was supposed to be a laugh but was much too bitter for one. “Though I would guess that one knows aught of it, as Piet would say. She loves only herself—and her dark sister. Perhaps I should tell you …” She glanced at Jenna.

Jenna colored. “I know what I need to know.”

Nodding, Catrona said, “Yes—I judge you do. And the rest you can learn. But remember, sweet Jen, what they say: Experience is rarely a gentle master.”

The dust of the approaching riders so filled the air then, Jenna was forced to raise a hand to wipe her tearing eyes. When she could see again, there were fully a hundred dark horses milling outside the walls and occasionally pushing in through the broken gates. The smell of them was overwhelming.

Jenna saw a single gray horse in the crowd. If the king had been riding one, she thought Carum might be on the other. Carum! She began shoving her way toward the gray.

Using her shoulder, she pushed first one horse then another aside. As often she was pushed back by a large dark shoulder or rump. I shall be flattened for sure, she thought. I shall smell like a horse. She wondered suddenly about her hair, about the clothes she had slept in for days, about the face that must have changed in the five years—five years!—since he had seen her. She thought about turning back, but the horses held her hostage to her first impulse.

And then the gray loomed before her. Putting a hand on its neck, she found that her hand was shaking. All around her men were dismounting and cursing pleasantly at one another. Suddenly, she did not dare look.

Only the man on the gray remained in his saddle. At last she raised her face to stare up at him. He was enormous, towering over her on the gray. Heavily bearded, with long black hair bound up in seven braids, he stared back. Each of the braids was tied off with a piece of crimson thread. A red and gold headband, smudged with dirt and blood, was pulled so tight around his forehead, the skin was taut below it. There was a deep gash over his right eye. As he looked at Jenna, his mouth twisted into a strange smile. It was then she noticed his hands were tied behind him.

Starting to turn away, Jenna heard his harsh laugh.

“So,” he said, “some of Alta’s fighting sluts still live.”

She paused, her hands growing icy, the palms wet. Drawing in three careful latani breaths, she forced herself to move away from him without speaking. She would not draw sword against him. Whoever he was, he was injured. And bound. But her eyes were as wet as her palms. With anger, she reminded herself, not sorrow or fear. Blinded with the tears, she bumped into one of the men.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

“I am not.”

The voice was deep, deeper than she remembered, as if time or pain had sanded it. He wore a vest without a shirt and his arms were tanned and well muscled. Around his neck, on a leather thong, was a ring with a crest. His head was helmless and his light brown hair, now almost shoulder length, was tangled from the ride. The lashes were as long as she remembered, so beautiful on the boy, even more compelling on the grown man. There was a faint scar running from his left eye that lent him a slightly wanton look. His eyes were as blue as speedwells. He was exactly as tall as she.

“Carum,” she whispered, wondering that her heart had not stuttered in her breast.

“I said we would see one another again, my White Jenna.”

“You said … a lot of things,” Jenna reminded him. “Not all of them true.”

“I have been true,” he replied, “though I heard reports that you had died. Still I did not—could not—credit them.”

“And I heard that you are not called Longbow for nothing.” She bit her lip wishing she could recall the words.

For a moment he looked startled, then he grinned. “I shoot well, Jenna. That’s all. Stories feed the mind when the belly is not full.”

She forgave neither of them for the exchange.

Carum reached out and touched a piece of hair that had strayed across her brow. “Do we meet to quarrel? We parted with a kiss.”

“Much has happened since then,” Jenna said. “I left you in safety to return to a Hame full of dead sisters.”

“I know. I couldn’t rest there having heard what news Pike had of the other Hames. I feared desperately for you yet I couldn’t leave Pike with his wounds. But I told the others all about you. How you were the White One of prophecy, the Anna. How Ox and Hound had bowed before you. They were ready to love you for what you had become.”

“And you?”

“I already loved you. For what you were.”

“You knew nothing of what I was. Of what I am.”

“I know everything I need to know, Jenna.” He smiled shyly and she saw the boy behind the face of the man, yet she could not seem to stop picking quarrels.

“How can you know?”

“My heart knows. It knew from the first moment I saw you and cried you merci. I cry it again. Here. Now.”

Jenna shook her head. “You have grown a fine tongue. Is that what a prince who shoots well says.”

“Carum! You are safely returned.” It was the king. He threw his arms around his brother. “I always worry, you know.” He smiled at Jenna. “I do not forget he is my baby brother.”

“Not only returned safely, Gorum, but having surprised and killed a company of the usurper’s horse and captured the man on the gray.” He turned to his own mount and untied something from the saddlebag. It was a helm. He held it out to his brother.

Jenna felt herself turn cold. She had seen a helm like that before, had held one in her hands, had thrown it into an open grave. She stared at the thing in Carum’s hands. It was dark, covered with a hairy hide. There were two ears standing stiff at the top and a snout and mouth with bloody fangs.

“The Bear!” Jenna whispered.

“By Alta’s Hairs!” Gorum cried. “You have captured the bloody Bear. Well done, brother.” He took the helm from Carum’s hands and held it above his head. “The Bear!” he cried. “We have the Bear!”

The name echoed around the encampment, and the men who had been waiting joined the returning riders cheering the capture.

THE BALLAD:

King Kalas and His Sons

King Kalas had four sons

And four sons had he,

And they rambled around

In the northern countrie.

And they rambled around

Without ever a care,

The Hound and the Bull

And the Cat and the Bear.

The Hound was a hunter,

The Hound was a spy,

The Hound could shoot down,

Any bird on the fly.

The Hound was out hunting

When brought down was he

Alone as he rambled

The northern countrie.

King Kalas had three sons,

And three sons had he,

And they rambled around

In the northern countrie.

And they rambled around

Without ever a care.

And they were the Bull

And the Cat and the Bear.

The Bull was a gorer,

The Bull was a knight,

And never a man who would

Run from a fight.

The Bull was out fighting

When brought down was he

Alone as he rambled

The northern countrie.

King Kalas had two sons,

And two sons had he,

And they rambled around

In the northern countrie.

And they rambled around

Without ever a care.

And the names they were called

Were the Cat and the Bear.

The Cat was a shadow,

The Cat was a snare,

Sometimes you knew not

When the Cat was right there.

The Cat was out hiding

When brought down was he

Alone as he rambled

The northern countrie.

King Kalas had one son,

And one son had he,

And he rambled around

In the northern countrie.

And he rambled around

Without ever a care,

And the name he went under

Was Kalas’ Bear.

The Bear was a bully,

The Bear was a brag,

His mouth was brimmed over

With bluster and swag.

The Bear was out boasting

When brought down was he

Alone as he rambled

The northern countrie.

King Kalas had no sons,

And no sons had he

To ramble around

In the northern countrie.

Though late in the evening

The ghosts are seen there

Of the Hound and the Bull

And the Cat and the Bear.

THE STORY:

After the horses were unsaddled, brushed, and set out to graze, the men gathered for food in the Hame’s roofless kitchen. Jenna heard bits and pieces of the story of the battle as she stood, tongue-tied, by Carum’s side. He was so at ease with the men, trading banter and small slanders without hesitation, she wondered what had happened to the shy, scholarly boy she had known so briefly. War had happened to him, she thought suddenly. And something more. That the something more might be the passage of five years was a traitorous thought she pushed far away.

They had come upon the company of horse near a small town. “Karenton,” Jenna had heard one man say. “Karen’s Town,” another. Surprise and numbers had been in their favor. The usurper’s bloody men had never had a chance. Some of them had even begged to surrender, but no quarter had been given. Except for the Bear. Longbow had insisted that he would be delivered in chains to the feet of the king-in-exile.

When they spoke of the Bear, the men’s mouths had been soiled with his name and deeds. They called him “Slaughterer of a Thousand Women,” and “Butcher of Bertram’s Rest,” and yet even as they spoke of the horrors, Jenna could not help thinking that there was admiration as well in their voices. The details of his merciless killings seemed more like tales to frighten young children. She had walked deliberately over to the tree where he had been bound to see whether the sign of his bloodlust was imprinted upon his face.

One of his braids had unraveled into three kinked strands, but otherwise he looked as he had on his horse: big, hairy, leering, but no more a beast than others of the men milling around.

There were two guards standing by him, swords drawn.

“Best not get close,” said one, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

“He’s a tricker,” said the other, the man with the scarred eye.

“He’s bound,” Jenna pointed out. “And what can he do to me with his hands and legs so prisoned?”

The Bear’s head went back at that and he laughed a loud, roaring laugh. Then he turned to the first guard. “She wants to know what I can do without hands or legs? Do you want to tell her—or shall I?”

The guard slapped him hard with the back of his hand, so hard his lower lip split open and his mouth filled with blood.

“Do not speak to the White One that way,” he said.

“The White One?”

“The Anna. Who made your brothers the Hound and the Bull bow low.”

The Bear sucked on his lower lip until the bleeding stopped, then he stared at Jenna, grinning. His teeth were stained. “So, you are that girl, the one who lost her dolly at the Hound’s grave. The one who lopped off the Bull’s hand so he died a long, horrible death when the green took him. That girl. I will have something special for you, later.”

This time the scarred-eye man slapped him. The Bear laughed again.

“I took no pleasure in the killings,” said Jenna.

“Well—I do. And pleasure in other things as well.”

If Jenna had hoped for forgiveness or understanding, she got none. Not from the Bear nor from the guards, who stared at her puzzled.

“Killing them two was a blessing,” the man with the scarred eye pronounced.

“Death is an odd sort of blessing,” Jenna said. “The old wisdom is right: Kill once, mourn ever.” She walked away.

The Bear’s voice boomed after her. “We add, Kill twice, mourn never! I will have something special for you. Later. And you’ll remember it ever, you will!”

She thought she heard the sound of yet another slap. And his laughter following. But she did not turn around.

Carum was standing with his brother, Piet, and Catrona, away from the knots of men recounting battles and bawdy tales. As Jenna headed toward them, Carum detached himself from his companions and met her halfway. She stopped and he stopped. Though inches apart, they did not touch.

“Jenna …” he began, hesitated, looked down.

“You said to me once that there are some people, I forget their names, who believe that love is the first word God memorized,” Jenna whispered, conscious of the men all around them.

“The Carolians,” he whispered back, still not looking at her.

“I thought about that. I tried to understand it. I think I understood it when you said it but I do not know what it means now.”

Carum nodded and looked up. “So much time between us,” he said.

“So much blood,” she added.

“Is it gone?” His voice, while still strong, held a wisp of agony.

She reached out and touched a piece of hair that had strayed across his forehead, remembering his earlier touch. “You have lived the past five years, Carum Longbow. But I have not.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I tell you, you will not believe me.”

“Tell me. I will believe.”

She spoke of the Grenna, the cave, the grove. She described Alta in her green and gold dress. She told him of the collar, the wristlet, and crown. All the while he shook his head, as if unable to credit it.

“I said you would not believe.”

Reaching out, Carum took her hands in his. He twisted the priestess ring slowly around her little ringer, then twined his fingers in hers. “We have a saying in my clan that If you have no meat, eat bread. Jenna, what you say is unbelievable. But I have no better explanation. You would not lie to me. You have been gone these five years, not a word of you but rumors and tales. You say you lived under the hill along with the Greenfolk and Alta. You say the five years were but a day and a night. Meat or bread. You offer me bread. What can I do but take it from your fingers.” He held her hands against his chest and she could feel his heart beating under the leather vest.

“You are seventeen plus five years old. You have lived each year. I am thirteen plus five years, yet I feel thirteen still.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You … you were never thirteen, Jenna. You are ageless. But I have the patience of a tree. I will wait.”

“How long?”

“How long does a larch wait? How long does an oak?” He dropped her hands, but she could still feel the touch, as if his skin had fitted exactly over hers.

Side by side, they walked back to where the king, Piet, and Catrona waited.

The sun was low on the horizon, staining the sky with red. A small, cool wind puzzled around the broken walls of the compound, lifting dust and swirling it up and over their boots. From across the road, birds cried out their evening songs, decorating the deeper rumble of the men’s voices.

Seeing Jenna, the boys and Petra came forward. They followed her, then stood in a circle, shoulder to shoulder while the king spoke to them in low, urgent tones.

“We have been waiting long for you—or something like you, Jenna. The men have fought hard, but we have been so alone.”

“This is all there be to our army,” Piet interrupted. “Good men. Brave. Loyal. None better. But they be all.”

Catrona nodded her head, as if counting.

Jenna nodded, too, adding, “But what can we do? We are but six bodies more. Yet we are ready to help, if it means helping the sisters.”

Piet cleared his throat as if preparing to speak, but it was the king who did the talking. “Already the men are speaking about you. The White One. The Anna. Who made the Bull and Hound bow low. They have recalled the old stories all afternoon.”

“Good men they be,” Piet added, “but not cautious in their beliefs.”

“You do not believe I am the Anna,” Jenna said, both relieved and a bit annoyed.

“Belief is an old dog in a new collar,” Piet said.

“There are the signs,” Carum said, putting his hand up and counting them out on his fingers. “The three mothers, the white hair, the Bull and the Hound, the …”

“You do not need to convince me, little brother,” the king said. “I know how much we need her. As does Piet. Our belief is not necessary here. But for the men …”

“If we had the Anna,” Piet added, “think how many others would join us just to march by her side.”

“But I am the ending before I am the beginning,” Jenna pointed out. “Remember, that is in the story, too.”

“We have already had enough endings,” the king said, slapping his bad leg. “My father is dead. Murdered. My stepmother, too. My older brother killed foully in his bath, his blood mixing with the soapy water. So I am king now in truth. But that toad, Kalas, sits upon the throne, poisoning the very air he breathes with his piji breath, while we are forced to live in these ruins and make due with a rock for a throne.” His voice roughened as he spoke, his eyes narrowing until they were smudges on his face.

Jenna thought once again that he looked like a wolf, or a dog let run too long in the woods.

“You have had a lot of endings, too,” Carum reminded Jenna gently.

Remembering the women, their tunics and aprons stiff with blood, laid side by side in the ruined Hames, Jenna shuddered.

Gorum added, as an afterthought, “Yes, the senseless slaughter of the women in ten Hames. The rape of their daughters.” He spoke the words slowly, articulating them with care, but his voice growing raspy again at the finish. “Is that ending enough for you, Anna?”

“Ten?” It was Catrona. “Ten Hames?” Her eyes stared unseeing.

“I do not know,” Jenna whispered. “I do not know what is enough.” She reached out and touched Catrona’s shoulder.

Gorum smiled his wolfish smile. “It will be enough for these men. Enough so that they will gladly follow their king. And their queen. For that is in the story as well.”

“No!” Carum cried, understanding before anyone else.

“There must be some sign,” the king said slowly, as if talking to children, “some sign for the men here and now. What better sign—than a wedding. My father married a woman of the Dales. And so can I.”

“Never!” Carum cried again. “You cannot think it.”

“I think what is necessary, brother,” Gorum said. “I think what is best for the kingdom. That is what a king does. That is what a king has to do. That is why you would make a terrible king and it is lucky for the Dales that I am still alive.”

“Nevertheless, you shall not force her,” Carum said.

“I shall do what must be done.” Gorum was no longer smiling. “And so shall you. And so shall she.”

For a moment they were all silent, so silent the birdsong seemed like a battle cry. Then Jenna spoke.

“Never! There is nothing here for you.” She struck herself on the breast with a closed fist.

Gorum leaned toward her. “My dear child,” he said softly, “the first lesson in kingship my father taught me was that In the council of kings the heart has little to say. There is nothing in here”—he struck himself on the chest—“for you either. I love you only through my little brother’s eyes. But the people will love you, for your white hair and your history. Kingship is all symbols and signs.”

“No!” Jenna said. “You cannot make me. If you do, you would be no better than the toad on the throne, for all your breath is sweeter. What good is kingship if the heart cannot speak aloud?”

“She is right,” Catrona said. “And while you talked much to me this past hour, you said nothing about any marriage.”

“The weddings of kings do not concern you, woman of the Hames,” Gorum said, turning sharply toward her.

Before Catrona could answer, Petra had moved into the center of the circle, her voice pitched in the strange priestess tone. “As long as men speak to women thus, the ending is not yet reached, whether one Hame is gone. Or ten. Or all.”

“Right!” Marek shouted.

“This is our fight as well as yours, Majesty,” Catrona said. “Indeed, it was our fight first.”

“First before Kalas stole the throne? Never!” exclaimed the king.

“First when Garuns be stealing our land,” Sandor said, as surprised as any of them at his outburst.

Hand to his throat, Jareth strained to speak, but what warning he had to give remained unsaid.

“First or last,” Carum said, his hand lightly resting on Jenna’s shoulder, “our kingship will not be bought back with such a coin.”

“My kingdom, brother. Not yours. Do not forget it. My kingdom until I die. And my heirs thereafter.”

“I will not be the king’s bride,” Jenna said. “Nor give him heirs. No matter what the prophecy.”

Petra intruded with the same strange oracular voice. “On the slant,” she intoned. “Prophecy must always be read on the slant. We read it through slotted eyes or we read it wrong.”

“Still, there must be a sign,” the king said, trying to snatch back the momentum along with the power. “And this sign …”

“I know what sign the men be taking,” Piet said suddenly. “It is not weddings that claim them.” He wheeled from their circle and called out to the restless men. “Come. Come witness the White One’s return.”

They gathered uneasily, a great crowded circle around the smaller one.

Piet went over to one man, whispering hurriedly in his ear. The man nodded once and, unsmiling, pushed through the circle.

“Tell them,” Piet said softly to the king. “Tell them who she is. They’ll know her soon enow.”

The king held up his hand and there was an immediate silence. Jenna thought it a miracle that so many men could keep so still.

“You have heard of Her,” the king began. “And spoken of Her.”

Without thinking, Jenna stood straighter, shoulders back, head high.

“She is the White One.”

Petra broke in, her soft voice pitched loud enough so that all could hear her: “And the prophet says a white babe with black eyes shall be born unto a virgin in the winter of the year. The ox in the field, the hound at the hearth, the bear in the cave, the cat in the tree, all, all shall bow before her, singing …”

The men who were Garunian joined her, in the same singsong manner. “… Holy, holy, holiest of sisters, who is both black and white, both dark and light, your coming is the beginning and it is the end.”

Petra completed the speaking of the prophecy alone. “Three times shall her mother die and three times shall she be orphaned and she shall be set apart that all shall know her.”

“She is white and dark,” cried out a man from the crowd.

“And I heard her talk of three mothers,” another shouted.

“And …” the king said, “it was her sword that slew the Hound, dropping him into a lonely grave, to rescue Prince Carum.”

There was a moment of silence; then suddenly the men shouted as one, “The Hound!”

“And her sword cut off the hand of the Bull, Kalas’ great pet ox, who later died wasting of the green illness,” the king continued.

This time there was no silence. “The Bull!” they shouted back at him.

Just then the man Piet had sent away pushed through the crowd leading the lumbering, bound captive by the front of his shirt.

Piet whispered hurriedly in the king’s ear and the king smiled slowly. Jenna did not like that smile.

“The prophecy says the ox and the hound, the bear and the cat, shall bow before her, singing …” The king held his hand high.

“Down. Down. Down,” the men began to chant as Piet pushed the bound Bear to his knees before the king, pulling his shirt open so that the mat of black chest hair showed.

“Sing, you bastard,” shouted the king. “Sing.”

The Bear looked up and spit on the king’s right hand, silencing the men. Piet drew his sword. The Bear grinned at him. Piet nodded twice, then turned and handed the sword to Jenna.

“Kill him. Kill him now, girl. Then they will follow ye for e’er and ye can marry who ye will!”

Jenna hefted the sword in both hands. It was twice as heavy as her own. She walked over to the kneeling man and stared at him.

“What do you say?” she whispered into his upturned face.

“I say you are Alta’s bitch,” he answered. “And no better than the dogs who follow when you are in heat. Strike now for you will not have the chance again.”

She raised the sword above her head, drew in three latani breaths and began to count the hundred-chant to steady herself. Before ten were done, she felt again the strange lightening and she pulled out of her body to stare down at the scene below. There was the kneeling prisoner, laughing up into her face, with Piet, Carum and the king at his back, and the larger crowd of the king’s ragtag army and her friends before him. Beyond, smelling the rising excitement, the hobbled horses stirred restlessly.

Jenna felt herself drawn toward the three men at the Bear’s back, away from the heat of the crowd. Her translucent fingers reached down to touch them one at a time on the very center of the skull. Piet was a solid white flame, the colors unchanging. The king was a cylinder of blue-white ice that burned to the touch. And Carum …

She hesitated before touching Carum. She remembered how he had felt the other time she had let herself be pulled into him at Nill’s Hame; how she had been drawn past pockets that were restful and pockets filled with a wild, alien heat. She had fled back into the air again, grateful to be unconsumed by his passions.

But she was stronger now. She reached out, touched him, and let herself fall.

He seemed deeper than before, with more pockets. There were the restful ones, the fretful ones, and ones filled with strange, engaging objects for which she had no name. The alien heat was there still, but somehow it did not frighten her now. Down and down, as if there was no end to him, as if she could explore forever.

Forever. She did not have forever. Her arms ached. She suddenly recalled the sword she was holding. Leaping into her body again, she stared down into the Bear’s leering face.

“Kill him … kill him … kill him …” The chant was unrelenting. Jenna felt her arms shaking. Slowly she lowered the sword. When its point rested lightly on the Bear’s chest, over the heart, she frowned.

The men were suddenly silent. The Bear’s eyes were wide, preparing to look directly at his death. The entire clearing hushed, as if drawing a single breath, waiting.

“I … I cannot kill him this way,” Jenna whispered. She took a step back and let the sword point drift slowly toward the ground.

The Bear’s head went back. He roared and the roar turned into a laugh. Then he stared at Jenna. “I would not be so foolish, little bitch. What will your hunting pack do to you now?”

“They will do what they will,” Jenna said to him quietly. “But if I am no better than you, then the ending is indeed at hand. With no beginning after.” She dropped the sword and walked away.

Carum followed, the men parting to let them through. Only Jareth was smiling.

They walked silently past the broken walls, across the road, and into the trees. Jenna sagged against the thick trunk of an oak and bit her lower lip. Still she said nothing. When Carum reached out to touch her shoulder, she shrugged away his touch.

“No,” she whispered.

“I understand.”

“How can you understand when I do not understand myself.”

“Jenna, you’re thirteen going on forever. How could you possibly kill an unarmed man?”

“He is no man. He is a monster.”

“He is a murderer. He is a slayer of women. He is a slaughterer of children. He is beyond saving.” Carum’s voice was steady. “But he is a man.”

“And I am but a woman?”

“No—you are the Anna. You’re better than he is. Than Gorum is. Than we all are.”

“No, I am just me. Jenna. Jo-an-enna. A woman of the Hames. A woman of the Dales. Do not make me more than I am. My Mother Alta once called me a tree shading the little flowers—but I am not such a tree.”

Carum smiled slowly at her. It was the face of the boy she remembered. “To me you are no tree, no flower, no goddess. You are Jenna. I kissed you once and I know. But for all of them you are The Anna. And when you put on Her mantle, you are more than just Jenna.”

“Jenna could not kill a bound man whatever the Anna might do.”

“Jen, the Anna is the best you are. And better. She wouldn’t have slain him that way, either.”

She leaned over and kissed him quickly on the mouth. “Thank you, Carum. Your brother is wrong: you should be king.” Then, before he could make more than a slight sound, she turned and walked back across the road.

He had to run to catch up.

The large circle of men had broken into many smaller, knotted groups, arguing loudly. The bound prisoner was nowhere to be seen. Jenna found Catrona in the middle of one of the loudest circles, her hands moving rapidly as if they were a second and third argument.

“Catrona!” Jenna called.

The men in the circle turned and, seeing her, seemed to shrink away, leaving her face-to-face with Catrona.

“One thrust, Jenna,” Catrona said. “One thrust and we would have had them. I taught you that stroke with this hand.” She held up her right hand. “And now all that training for naught.”

“You also taught me that in the Book of Light it is written that: To kill is not to cure. Surely that means killing a bound man.”

“Do not quote the Book to me like some petty priestess,” Catrona said. “The Book also says: A stroke may save a limb. Like any maunderings of holy writ, the Book can say whatever you want it to say.” She was shaking with anger. “Jenna, you must think. Think. We need these men. We need this army. We need this king. I would not have you marry him to get his followers. But Piet was right. There was another, a better, way. And the Bear will be killed eventually—by this angry crowd, as like as not. If you had done it then, coldly and with great flourish, it would have fed the tale.”

“I am no story,” Jenna cried. “I am no tale. I am real. I feel. I hurt. I bleed. I cannot just kill without conscience.”

“A warrior has no conscience until after the war is done,” Catrona said.

Jenna put her face in her hands and wept.

Catrona turned away.

The moon rose, pale and thin, over the ruined Hame, climbing until it crowned the kitchen chimney. Jenna stood alone while throughout the encampment the arguments raged.

“You were right,” came a voice from behind her.

Turning slowly, she saw Skada.

“And you were wrong,” Skada said.

“How can I be both?”

“You should not have killed him, but you could have done it with words that would have still made them believe.”

“What words?” Jenna asked.

“You might have said: The Bull has bowed down, he need not die by my hand.”

Jenna nodded. “And I could have said the moon is black, but I did not.”

Nodding back, Skada laughed. “No, you did not. And now, my dear Anna, who is both dark”—she pointed to herself—“and light”—she pointed to Jenna—“you are in a fix.”

“We are in a fix,” Jenna amended.

“So now it is we! At last you are including me, sharing the burden, parceling out the guilt.” Skada’s mouth twisted with amusement.

“How can you laugh at such a time?”

“Jenna, there is always time to laugh. And part of you is laughing already, which is why I can. I am not other than you. I am you.”

“Well, I do not feel like laughing,” Jenna said miserably.

“Well, I do,” said Skada. She put back her head and let out a delighted roar of laughter.

Unable to help herself, Jenna did the same.

“There,” Skada said, “feel better?”

“Not really.”

“Not at all?” Skada grinned.

“You are impossible,” Jenna said, shaking her head.

Imitating her, Skada shook her own head. “No, I am not impossible. I am hungry. Let us find something to eat.”

Arm in arm, they walked toward the kitchen.

Jareth stopped them halfway. He tried to talk with his hands, painstakingly spelling out his concerns. His frantic fingers wove complicated messages, but all Jenna could read was a warning.

“The cat …” Jenna said.

“The bull …” Skada added.

Jareth’s eyes pleaded with them, his throat straining with the effort to speak.

“We will be careful,” Jenna promised. “Do not worry. You have warned us well.” When they were away from him, Jenna whispered, “I would cut that collar from his neck and let him speak.”

“Whatever the consequences?” Skada asked.

“Whatever the consequences.” Jenna’s face was tight with anger. “How can Alta’s magic be good when it punishes Her followers and Her enemies equally? Ten Hames gone. Jareth silenced. We are made murderers and monsters in Her name.”

“And heroes,” Skada said.

Jenna turned suddenly to face Skada. “Look around, sister. Look with care. Do you see any heroes here?”

They looked together. By the kitchen’s chimney stood the king, a cup in his hand. He was staring sullenly into it as if he read some unhappy future there. By his side towered two guards in dirt brown tunics and torn trews. One was polishing his blade with his sleeve. Around the fires that blossomed throughout the compound were groups of men drinking and telling stories. Near the gate, a small fire illuminated the smudged faces of Petra and the boys. She was describing something with her hands. In a far corner, where the ruins of a staircase still acended five steps into the air, sat Piet. On one side of him was Catrona, on the other Karri. They were both whispering into his ears. Smiling, he stretched his arms out and enfolded them both in his embrace. They stood together and walked off down the road in the moonlight.

“What does a hero look like?” Skada asked quietly. “Polished helm, fresh tunic, clean hair, and a mouth full of white teeth?”

“Not … not like this anyway,” Jenna answered.

Skada shook her head. It was as if a breeze blew across Jenna’s face. “You are wrong, sister. We are all heroes here.”

THE TALE:

There was once a tyrant of whom it was prophesied that he would be overthrown only when a hero who was not born of womankind, who neither rode nor walked, who bore neither pike nor sword, could conquer him.

Long reigned the tyrant and many were the men, women, and children who were swept away by the bloody winds of his wrath.

One day, in a small village, a child was born, ripped from her dead mother’s womb by the midwife’s knife, lifted out through the stomach, though not from the canal. She was put to suck at the teat of a she goat, raised with the goat’s own kids.

As the child grew, so did the kids, one male and one female. And they played together as if they were all in the same family. They played butt-head and climb-hill and leap-o’er-me and other games beside. And the girl grew tall and beautiful despite her poor beginnings.

The years went by, and still the tyrant reigned. But he grew old and sour. He even longed for death. But the prophecy held true and there was no hero, not even the greatest swordsman, who could kill him—though many tried.

One day, the girl and her goats came into the capital city. As was her wont, she rode atop first one, then the other, her feet dragging along the ground.

The tyrant was out walking and saw the girl who, though astride, was not riding, for her feet were on the ground. He stopped her and asked, “Child, how was it you were born?”

“I was not born but taken from my dead mother.”

“Ah,” said the tyrant. “And how is it you ride?”

“I do not ride, for this is my brother. And this is my sister. It is but a game we play.”

“Ah,” said the tyrant. “You must marry me, for you are my destiny.”

So they were wed and he died, smiling, on his wedding night, conquered by love. So the prophecy was true. And the sages say surely a hero is not easily known for who could tell that a girl astride two goats could be a hero when many men with swords were not.

THE STORY:

“Jenna!” Carum found them as they stood.

Jenna turned and Skada, in perfect unison, turned with her.

Carum stared, first at one, then the other. “It is true, then. Not twins, but sister light and sister dark. I never dared credit it.”

“It is true,” they said together.

“All the time?”

“You spoke to me before alone,” Jenna said.

“The moon,” Skada added. “Or a good fire. And then I will appear.”

Carum’s face looked troubled, but he did not speak.

“Or a candle by the bed.” Skada laughed. “Do not make your forehead like a pool rippled by a stone, Carum. Blow out the candle, and I am gone.”

“I would not have you gone, sister,” Jenna said, reaching out for Skada’s hand.

“There are times when you will,” Skada said in a low voice. “And times when you will not.” She spoke softly to Carum. “I know her mind and I know her heart, for they are mine as well. Walk into the trees, young prince, where the branches overlace the forest floor. No moon can pierce that canopy nor can a dark sister appear by her light sister’s side there.”

“But you will still know …”

She shrugged. “Jenna is what she is. You loved her before. And kissed her knowing.”

“I did not know.”

“I am what I am,” Jenna said. “And you did, too, know.”

He shook his head unhappily, but at last admitted, “I knew. And I did not know.”

And knowing? Skada left the question unasked but he heard it anyway.

“Come into the woods, Jenna,” he whispered. “That we may talk. Alone.”

Jenna looked at Skada who nodded. Jenna nodded back, slowly. Then the three walked across the road, the moonlight bright overhead. When they reached the treeline, Skada began to tremble like a leaf in a breeze though the night was warm. There was a steady peep-peep of frogs from a nearby pond. Skada smiled tremulously as they walked into the woods and flickered like a shadow for a moment more, then was gone.

“Skada …” Jenna said, turning.

Carum’s hand was on her forearm. “Don’t go back,” he begged. “Don’t bring her back. Not right now.”

They moved deeper into the dark, just the two of them. But they did not touch again.

Jenna had never talked so long and so intensely with anyone before. They rehearsed their entire lives to one another. Jenna told Carum about growing up in a Hame, and he in turn spoke movingly about life in the Garunian court. She remembered stories and songs which she shared with him; he parceled out tales from the Continent which had been reshaped by four hundred years in the Dales. They spoke about everything except the future. It was as if the past had to be dealt with thoroughly, first; and all the time they had not known each other accounted for. In the beginning they spoke hesitantly, offering each piece of the past as a gift that might be refused. But soon the words came tumbling too quickly; they interrupted each other over and over as one past overlapped the other.

“That happened to me, too,” Jenna said as a memory of Carum’s triggered her own.

“It was that way with me,” Carum said, prodded by one of Jenna’s tales.

It was as if their lives were suddenly braided together, there in the darkling woods so far from home.

In the middle of one of Carum’s stories about his father, a man who had not let kingship intrude upon his own hearth, there was a sudden great, horrible shouting from the ruins of the Hame, and the loud stampede of horses. Jenna and Carum stood as one, though they could make nothing of the words or the cries.

“Something awful …” Jenna began.

“… has happened,” Carum concluded, grabbing for her hand and yanking her to her feet. They ran quickly toward the sound.

Once they were on the road, the moon, almost down beyond the line of trees beyond the Hame, lent them Skada’s faint presence.

“What is it?” Jenna called to her dark sister as they ran.

“I know no more than you,” Skada answered, her voice a shadow.

Racing through the broken gates, they headed toward the angry boil of men centered by the hearth. Carum plowed a path through them, with Jenna and Skada in his wake.

“Is it the king?” Carum cried.

There were a number of answers, none of them clear.

“The Bear!” someone called.

“Got loose,” said another.

“The bastard. He done ’er.”

“Gone. Gone to tell.” It was the first man.

“No, Henk’s got ’em.”

“B’aint true. Got his horse. Got the king, too.”

“Nah.”

“The king!” Carum grabbed the man’s shoulder who had mentioned his brother. “Did he hurt him? Did he hurt Pike? Did he hurt the king?”

“Not he,” the man said, shaking his head so fiercely long black hair covered his right eye. “Look!” He pointed.

The men moved apart and Jenna could see that the king and Petra were bending over something, but in the shadowy dark she could not tell what held them so. Then she saw it was Piet, sitting on the ground by the broken stair, cradling a body in his arms. When Jenna went over and spoke his name, he looked up. His mouth, with its uneven teeth, opened and closed like a fish; his sky-colored eyes were clouded over.

Jenna knelt on one side, Carum the other. In the darkened corner, Skada was gone. Putting her hand out to touch the body Piet held, Jenna was unable to say the name.

It was Carum who whispered it. “Catrona.”

Catrona opened her eyes and tried to smile up at Jenna. There was blood on her tunic and blood trickling down her right arm. “We were so busy … we did not hear … did not see … I missed the thread, Jenna.”

“What does she mean—missed the thread?” Carum asked.

“She taught me the Eye-Mind Game,” Jenna whispered, remembering. “A game to train the senses. There was a thread. I saw it. She did not. It was all so long ago.”

“Jenna … the thread …” Catrona struggled.

“Hush, girl, hush,” Piet whispered. “Talking takes yer breath.”

Jenna picked up Catrona’s right hand and it lay in hers boneless and still. She remembered when Catrona had first shown her how to thrust, with a sword that was much too heavy for her because Jenna had been too stubborn to set it down. Your hand is your strength, Catrona had said, but it is the heart that strikes the blow.

“What happened,” Jenna whispered.

The king explained. “The Bear—who should have been dead by your hand—worked himself loose. He strangled the guards. Took their swords. When he went for a horse, he came upon Piet and his blanket companion, away from the rest. He thrust Catrona from behind, nearly skewering Piet as well. Then he was gone. Others have gone after him. I doubt they’ll find him in the dark.” He recited the facts as if reading them, little emotion in his voice.

Jenna stared at the ground. Should have been dead by your hand. He was right and there was no apology strong enough. She shook her head.

“What good are you to me, White Jenna? You have caused the death of three good fighters. No one will follow you now.” His voice was low so that only those bending over could hear.

Catrona struggled to sit up, away from Piet’s arms. “No, she is the one. On the slant. Listen to the priestess. On … the … slant.” She fell back, exhausted by the effort.

“Oh, Catrona, my catkin, don’t ye be going,” Piet cried. He began to weep soundlessly.

“I will not let her die,” Jenna said.

Piet stared up at her, fighting to control his sobs. “Ye is too late, girl. She are dead already.”

“Do not sew the shroud before there is a corpse? Catrona said suddenly. “Do they not say that in the Dales?” She coughed and bright red blood frothed from her mouth.

“I will take her to Alta’s grove. She will not die there,” Jenna said. “Alta said I could bring one back. It will be Catrona.” She slipped her arms under Catrona’s body, trying to wrest her from Piet’s grasp.

The movement caused Catrona to gasp and another frothing of blood bubbled out of her mouth. She swallowed it down. “Let me die here, Jenna, in Piet’s arms. There are no shadows in Alta’s grove. No shadows. I would not live forever without Katri. That is no life.” She smiled and looked up into Piet’s face. “You are alright, my Piet. For a man.”

“I’ve always loved ye alone, girl. Ever since that first time. Your first. And mine. We were children then. I thought to find ye when the king was on the throne. To grow old with ye, my girl. To grow old …” He bent his back and whispered into her ear. She smiled again and closed her eyes. For a moment Piet did not move, just sat with his mouth against Catrona’s ear. Then he put his cheek against hers. No one else moved.

At last he sat back up. “That’s it, then. That’s the end of it.” His eyes were dry but there was a dark furrow across his brow.

Petra bent over Catrona’s body, putting her palm on Catrona’s forehead. She recited in a calm, low voice:

“In the name of Alta’s cave,

The dark and lonely grave

And all who swing twixt

Light and light,

Great Alta

Take this woman,

Take this warrior,

Take this sister

Into your sight.

Wrap her in your hair

And cradled there

Let her be a babe again.”

The men were silent until she finished the prayer, and then a low murmur of voices began: angry, passionate sounds. A few cursed Jenna out loud, calling her a “bloodless bitch” and “Kalas’ helpmeet.”

Petra turned slowly from Catrona’s body and stared around at them. She raised her hands for silence and they were, unaccountably, still. “Fools,” she cried. “You are all fools. Do you not see what this means. Catrona herself said it. You must read this death on the slant.”

An anonymous voice called out, “What do you mean?”

“Who has died here? Catrona. A warrior of the Hames. Also known as Cat. Cat! So the Cat has been slain, and all because the Anna chose not to slay the Bear first.”

“But it be the wrong Cat!” the man with the scarred eye said, pushing his way to the front of the pack of men.

“And how do you know which Cat Alta meant?” Petra asked. “Or which Cat the Garuns’ own prophecy named?”

“But I thought …” he began.

“You must not think on prophecy. When it comes, you just know.” Petra’s face was alive with her feelings. She raised her voice. “Catrona … Cat herself reminded us before she died. She said: She is the one. The one who made the Hound and the Bull and now the Cat bow low.”

“No!” Jenna cried, slamming her fist on the ground. “Catrona’s death was not written.” But her protest was swallowed up in the rising swell of the men’s shouts.

“The Anna! The Anna! The Anna!” The chorus was loud and Petra, hands above her head, fists clenched, was leading it. “THE ANNA! THE ANNA! THE ANNA!”

No! Jenna thought. Not for this. Do not accept me for this. But the shouts went on.

“Men in mobs—so unpredictable. So easily swayed,” whispered the king. He grinned and put his hands under Jenna’s elbows and pulled her up to stand by his side. “One minute you are a villain, the next a saint. You need not be a king’s bride, now, child. You are the Anna. They have said so. The Anna for now.”

The Anna for this turning. Will-less, she stood beside him as the chants continued.

“ANNA! ANNA! ANNA!”

The horizon behind them was stained with first light. The birds, unable to compete with the cries of men, had taken flight and the sky was peppered with them. Even Carum joined the shouting chorus that echoed back and forth across the ruined walls. Only Jareth, who could make no sound, and Piet, who was still holding Catrona’s body against his chest, were still.

THE BALLAD:

Death of the Cat

The trees were growing high

And the wind was in the west

When a hunter aimed his arrow

Into the Cat’s broad chest.

And she died, she died

Against her lover’s breast

And we laid her in the earth

So long and narrow.

It was early, so early

In the graying of the morn,

When we sang of the days

Before the Cat was born.

And how from her mother

She was so swiftly torn,

As we laid her in the earth

So long and narrow.

So, come all ye young fighting men

And listen unto me,

Do not place your affections

Upon a girl so free

For she’ll take the mortal wound

Another meant for thee,

And you’ll lay her in the earth

So long and narrow.

THE STORY:

They buried the two guards by the broken gates, but Jenna and Petra insisted that Catrona’s body had to lie in state between two great fires until they could find the Hame’s burial cave. Piet agreed. When the second fire was lit, Katri’s body appeared by Catrona’s side and Marek, who had not wept before, suddenly broke into loud, embarrassing sobs which even his brother could not stop.

By evening the boys had found the cave, and they accompanied Jenna and Petra and Carum who carried Catrona’s body up on a wooden bier. The king and Piet stayed behind, drinking toasts to the dead warriors with the rest of the men.

“Toasts to Lord Cres, the God of Fine Battles,” Carum explained as they trudged up the hill with their bitter burden.

Remembering what he had once told her about those toasts, Jenna added, “May you drink his strong wines and eat his meat forever.”

“And throw the bones over your shoulder for the Dogs of War,” Carum ended.

Petra shivered. “What a horrible prayer.”

“Is it any wonder I prefer none,” Carum said.

They placed the bier before the entrance to the cave, and Jenna went ahead to light torches in the wall. The cave was cool and dry and there were many shrouded bodies lying about. She had to be careful where she stepped. When she lit the great torches, the bodies of the dark sisters in their careful wrappings appeared, crowding the cave further.

Leaving the cavern, she took a deep breath. The shrouded bones of the dead sisters had not frightened her.

She had been to burials in her own Hame and she knew that the bodies were just the cast-off homes of the women who now lived, suckled against Alta’s breast. But those were just bones and what lay at her feet in its bier, wrapped tightly in a torn shirt and blanket, was Catrona: her sister, her teacher, her friend. And the victim of Jenna’s conscience.

Kneeling, Jenna put her hand on the corpse’s breast. “I swear to you, Cat, the Bear will know my vengeance. I swear to you, another Cat shall die as well. That may or may not be written in any prophecy, but it is written clearly on my heart.”

She stood. “Petra and I alone will take her into the cave. It is a holy place and a holy time.”

“We understand,” Carum said.

The other boys nodded.

Jenna picked up Catrona’s body and, with Petra following, went in.

When they left again, it was dark. There was no moon.

They rode out of the ruined Hame at first light, a silent army. Petra rode Catrona’s horse, which left only Marek and Sandor doubled up, though they did not seem to mind.

The king, Carum, and Piet rode at the head of the troop, but Jenna refused a place at the front. Shaking her head, she guided Duty to the middle of the pack. The men smiled when she rode among them, thinking she did it for love, never guessing she did it in order to push away the memory of Catrona’s lifeless hand in hers.

One thrust, Jenna. She heard Catrona’s voice at every turning. One thrust … and now all that training for naught. Her face was grim with the memory. She took Catrona’s death as the death of her own innocence. What did it matter that she had already killed one man, maimed another in the heat of battle? What did it matter that she had buried a hundred dead sisters? It was this death that gnawed and fretted her. She felt herself growing old, the years like a cold river rushing past, and she unable to stop the flow.

Jenna spoke to no one as they rode relentlessly down the road, but her mind rehearsed what had been. One thrust … one thrust, dead Catrona continued to rebuke. One thrust.

As they galloped, Jenna flexed her right hand as if feeling the sword again, pommel tight against her palm. Her fingers retained the weight of Piet’s heavy blade. She longed to take the moment back, thrusting surely, finally, into the Bear’s burly chest. What satisfaction it would bring her now, the slipping of the sharp edges through his flesh, past bone, to strike at last the bloody, pulsing heart. One thrust. She could feel his heart’s blood spurt up the sword to her wrist, run along the blue branchings of her veins, race past the crook of elbow, across the muscles of her forearm, and snake under her right breast to lodge in her own ready heart.

Lifting her arm at the thought, she watched, fascinated, as if she could actually see the Bear’s blood traveling along the route of her arm, as if she felt the jolt of it entering her heart.

She dropped her arm to her side. One thrust. Yet it was not in her. She was not such a killer. Even to bring Catrona back she would not kill a bound man. She could not. The Anna could not. And she was the Anna. There was no question of that now. It was not prophecy that told her. Nor Carum’s impassioned belief. Nor Alta’s soft persuasions in the Grenna’s grove. Nor the king’s wily importunings. Nor all the shoutings of the men. It was simply this: the blood running from hand to heart rejected the wild hatred of the Bear and his brothers. She was the Anna. For this time and this turning and this now.

Jenna urged Duty forward. The other horsemen parted to let her through and she galloped to the lead of the riders, taking her place between the king and Carum, only slightly ahead.

THE MYTH:

Then Great Alta drew up the dead warriors with the ladders of her hair, dark warrior by the golden hair, light warrior by the black. She set them to her breast, saying, “You are my own dear babes, you are my own sweet flesh, you are now my own bright companions.”