My Sister's Song

by Gail Carriger

  “We could send to our neighbors to the north.”

  “They would not believe that the Romans came in such number.”

  “Then we must trick the Romans.”

  “If we could convince them to enter the river, their ranks would break, their armor would sink them, they would drop their shields in order to swim. Then we could pick them off with arrows.”

  I sat slumped while they battered ideas back and forth. Nothing, I felt, could batter such a menace. Rome was truly a mighty and hungry monster. I forced myself not to think of my lost scout members. It is a warrior’s place to loose companions. No one, I noted, had asked for the names of the dead. Parents wondered, but stayed silent. Right now, it was better to wonder. Grief would muddle the head, push anger into the soul when logic was needed. Grief and anger made for bad decisions and worse strategy.

  Children were not meant to sit a war council, but somehow Arite wiggled into the hut. She went unnoticed, or at last unremarked upon. Arite looked to me, my clothing soaked with other people’s blood, her eyes wide and her face white. In that instant I remembered picking mushrooms and hearing her singing. Her face had looked the same as we sat in the stream and I reminded her of the danger in the honey. Into my head flashed another image, the Roman leader as he produced a ceramic pot from his satchel. The delight on the faces of his comrades at the unexpected treat.

  “Honey!” I spoke the thought allowed, and into silence. The council had quieted, thoughtful and sobered.

  My statement startled them.

  “Honey.” I said again, more to myself this time, “They love honey. I watched them eat it at their mid-day meal. You should have seen their enjoyment. We should give it to them.”

  “Child, our stores are nearly empty. What nonsense you talk. You think a little honey would make them treaty? Don’t be silly.”

  “No, the dreaming honey of the wet spring. Arite nearly ate some the other day. It is a curse of our lands, the Romans, they wouldn’t know. If we could get them to eat it. Even if we could get only half of them to eat it, we would have a fair chance.”

  The council looked thoughtful. The Melissai grumbled a bit at the use of their sacred honey for war purposes.

  I ignored them. “Allow the Romans to get close to the village. Pretend to accidentally lead them to our store of honey. Perhaps a secret cache in the woods. They would stop to eat it. I know they would.”

  So it was that dressed in skirts (a peculiar garment worn by the wives of Mithridates and other women south of our lands) I waited for the Romans at the edge of the village. I carried a dripping honey comb strategically peaking out of the top of a ceramic jar. I pretended not to see them, or hear them (rabbit thumpers that they were) as I passed quite near. They set a scout to follow me, believing I would lead them to the village unsuspecting. Instead, I lead him to an enormous pile of honey. All the honey we could find from the many hives we knew of and a few new ones. Every Charmer in our village was hoarse from singing, even Arite. Every beehive in the forest was deprived of its loot. The honey, slightly watery and reddish, had tingled our palms as we collected it. Now it sat, inviting and innocent, before me. The Roman scout who followed let forth a glad cry at the sight. I pretended startlement and was quickly bound, gagged, and tumbled aside. He ran to collect his comrades and the whole swarm, I counted ninety now, descended upon the honey. They ate it greedily, apparently unused to such wealth. Licking it off of fingers, hands, and each other. They were too eager to notice the slightly acidic taste.

  It took nearly an hour for the toxins to take effect. By then they were almost upon the village. Our twelve remaining warriors stood at the front of the village and watched them come. The porcupine of enemy warriors seemed undefeatable, until it began to wobble.

  I knew how the Romans felt. First a strange tingling sensation all over, then an empty dizzy feeling in the head and that horrible sickness in the stomach. Then the loss of hands and feet, limbs that would not obey commands - like unruly children. They looked quite drunk, all ninety of them, stumbling toward the village. The porcupine wiggled, weaving side to side. Bits kept falling out, meandering aside on their own. The watchers in the village began to laugh, almost hysterically, at the approaching menace. The Romans’ spears carved arches through the air, so that it looked as though the porcupine were shivering its quills. It began to loose momentum. Some of the Romans fell to the ground. Apparently, not one Roman of the group disliked the taste of honey, all had eaten a mouthful or two. A few made it to the waiting warriors, but sick as they were, they were easily killed. The rest collapsed, breathing slowly, stiff as boards or jerking slightly. They lay before our village, stretched out, the tassels on their helmets waving softly. Some died from their overindulgence. Most we stabbed, quickly and painlessly. By that time, stomachs cramped, loosing their mid-day meal on the grass, feeling as though they were being clawed from the inside, our knives were like a blessing. A release from the whirling lights, the grueling sickness. Even from my small dose I remembered seeking death.

  Of course, the real problem was then disposing of ninety bodies. Our warrior survivors from the first battle arrived that evening, in time to help us strip the Romans of their armor and their strange weaponry. Their chain-mail and their clothing would prove useful in trade. We eventually decided to drag them to a meadow where we burned as much of them as we could and buried the rest.

  I was given my own scout group. Arite made a song about the battle, and every spring we began to collect the poison honey – and not just for the Melissai to dream with.

  The Romans named it meli maenomenon, mad honey. My people used it to kill three squadrons over the next eight summers. Each time they marched toward our sea they could not resist the honey laid before them, and its golden sweetness inevitably lured them into death. So the Heptakometes kept the Inner Sea from the yearning maw of Rome and her allies for all the time of that great Empire.

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  I was inspired to write this story by an article entitled Mad Honey by Adrienne Mayor, published in a 1995 issue of Archaeology magazine (Vol. 46, Num. 6).

  Author’s Note

  This story is loosely based on historical fact. Tribes around the Black Sea did repel Roman troops using this most ingenious, and toothsome, form of chemical warfare. I wrote it while I was studying for my MSc in Archaeological Materials at Nottingham University, because it wouldn't leave me alone.

  About the Author

  New York Times Bestselling author Gail Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. Ms. Carriger then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported from London. She is fond of teeny tiny hats and tropical fruit.

  The Parasol Protectorate books are: Soulless, Changeless, Blameless, Heartless, and Timeless. Soulless won the ALA's Alex Award. She is currently writing young adult books set in the same universe ~ the Finishing School series.