The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  “I fear I am a danger to your Hame. We saw riders …” Carum began.

  “Oh, there is more to the puzzle than these few pieces,” Mother Alta said. “Something is missing. The Game is incomplete. I cannot recall all the parts.” She began to mumble to herself. “Light sister, dark sister, needle, spoon, knife, thread …”

  Pynt elbowed Jenna.

  The old woman’s head snapped up. “Come to me, Pynt, and tell me of yourself. Not what you have done, for that I know. But who you are.” The old woman gestured to her.

  Reluctantly, with Jenna pushing her, Pynt inched closer to the priestess and knelt so that her head was within reach of the six-fingered hands.

  “I am Marga, called Pynt,” she began, “daughter of the warrior Amalda, whose dark sister is Sammor. I have chosen the way of warrior and hunter. I …” She giggled as the priestess’ hand ran down her face.

  “Good, good, child. My eyes are in my fingers. They tell me you, Marga called Pynt, have dark, curly hair and a quick smile.”

  “How do you know I have dark hair? The eyes in your fingers cannot tell you that.”

  “By the coarseness of the strands. Dark hair is always coarser than light. Light hair has a fineness to it, and red hair often confuses.”

  “Oh.”

  The old woman smiled. “Besides, Armina told me you were dark like a woman of the Lower Dales. I may be old, but my memory is still sharp. When I am lucid.”

  Pynt’s cheeks flushed and the old woman laughed.

  “Are you embarrassed, child, or are you disappointed that my magic has such a mundane explanation?”

  Pynt did not answer.

  “Never mind. Go on, child.”

  “I have a scar on my right knee from wrestling with Jenna when we were seven, right before the Choosing. And my eyes are dark.”

  “Almost violet,” put in Jenna.

  “And …”

  “And you have a fine scar under your chin. More wrestling, Pynt?”

  “I fell in the kitchen in a game of Seek and Find. It bled forever. At least it seemed so at the time.”

  “Good. That is all I need to know of you now. Jenna?”

  Jenna slid over to Pynt’s place. In passing, Pynt winked and whispered, “It tickles.”

  “I am not ticklish.”

  Carum cleared his throat but said nothing.

  The priestess’ fingers started over Jenna’s face. “Speak, child.”

  “I am Jo-an-enna, called Jenna, daughter of a cat-killed woman and fostered to Selna, the great warrior of Selden Hame, and her dark sister Marjo. I am named for her, I think.”

  “You think—you do not know?”

  “They died when I was but an infant.”

  “And then who fostered you at the Hame, thrice-mothered child?”

  Her voice faltered. “No one.”

  “Our Mother Alta would let no one else foster her. It was the shame of Selden Hame,” Pynt put in. “My mother, Amalda, would have had her gladly. But there was something awful that happened when her foster mother died. Something so awful, they were not allowed to talk of it. And …”

  “Enough, Pynt,” Jenna said.

  “Let her tell,” said Mother Alta.

  But Pynt bit her lip and was still.

  The priestess’ hands returned to Jenna’s head. The right hand made the goddess sign over her; then the sixth finger of the hand caught in Jenna’s hair.

  “Are you dark, too, Jo-an-enna? Your hair is not fine enough for light, yet Pynt calls you her light sister.”

  “And I call her White Jenna,” Carum put in. “At least I call her that to myself.”

  “White Jenna?” The priestess was suddenly still, as if listening to a song no one else could hear. At last she asked quietly, pausing between each word, “And … is … your … hair … pure … white?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Jenna replied.

  Mother Alta smiled triumphantly. “The final piece of the Game!” she said. “And if I were not blind, I would have known it at once.” She sang out a low plainsong of five lines in a voice that rang clearly through the room.

  THE SONG:

  Prophecy

  The babe as white as snow,

  A maiden tall shall grow,

  And ox and hound bow low,

  And bear and cat also.

  Holy, holy, holy.

  THE STORY:

  When the song ended and the echo of it was gone as well, Jenna started up. “I am not the White Babe. Our Mother Alta said I was, but I reject that utterly. Look at me. Look!” She turned to her friends, her voice pleading. “Do I look like something from a prophecy?”

  Carum reached up and pulled her down beside him. “Hush, Jenna,” he said, stroking her hand. “Hush. This is just an old woman’s whim. Let me deal with this. It is scholar’s work.” He spoke to the priestess. “That is a Garunian prophecy, Mother. The white babe and the bowing of hound and ox and the rest. But no one takes it seriously, no real scholar.” He smiled.

  “Ah, young Longbow, and did you think you were the only scholar, the only real scholar, on the Isles?”

  Carum’s cheeks flushed. “Of course not. But I surely didn’t expect to find one here.”

  “Here, in this backwater, you mean? Amongst the warrior maidens? But we are not all warriors here, much as I must look the part to you.” She chuckled pleasantly. “Some of us must cook and some of us must clean and some of us must keep the rota of events, just as it is amongst you of the outer world. And some of us”—she leaned forward—“are real scholars.”

  Settling back in her chair, she continued. “Who knows what I might have been in your world, Carum, for I am a daughter of a Garun lord. Yes, even I. But look at my hands, look deep into my eyes, and you will see the signs of my abandonment.” She held her six-fingered hands before her face. “I was a babe wrapped in cloth of gold and left on a heath long years after white-haired Alta had reaped the hillsides. Still the women of the Hames, to honor her, culled that forbidden crop. I was brought to this Hame and raised up to lead. Years later, when my father’s line had come to its barren end, a messenger sought out all the Hames to ask whether a blind child with twelve fingers had miraculously weathered the years. But my foster mother and sisters would not give me up, nor would I have gone if asked. I had pledged myself to Alta, and Alta’s I remain.” She stopped and tapped a finger to her mouth.

  “It was clear to all that I was a strange child bound for a stranger destiny than death on a hillside. Yet no one knew what role I would play. I chose to study, and was curious about my father’s world, learning of it as I had learned all else, with my ears, the good, strong daughters of the mind. I have learned—through these ears, Carum—more than you shall ever through your eyes.”

  “I apologize for my thoughtlessness, Mother,” said Carum, striking a fist against his chest.

  “It is youth’s privilege to be thoughtless,” Mother Alta replied. “But also youth’s privilege to learn. Think, Carum Longbow. You and I may be kin in blood, but we are kindred souls. We seek connections, we look for links. You see, I know the Garunian prophecy.”

  “Only the plainsong, Mother. And it is much discredited.”

  She laughed. “You think I know only the plainsong, child? No, indeed. I know the entire prophecy: about the virgin in the winter, though we say here at the Hame that virgin is just another word for a girl. So it could be that the babe’s mother was more or less a child herself. And I know about the mothering three times. And all the rest. Know you Alta’s prophecy so well?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know it at all,” he said. “Much of Alta is closed to outsiders.”

  “And so we desire to keep it,” she answered. “But I can tell you this much: what our prophets wrote is the light sister to your dark. We hold—and we believe it utterly—that there will be a child as white as snow, as black as night, as … what color are your eyes, Jenna?”

  “Black, Mother,” Jenna replied. “But …”
/>   “As white as snow, as black as night, as red as blood.”

  “What is red about her?” asked Carum.

  “Do I know all? The language of prophecy is the language of puzzles, is the language of riddles, is the language of dreams. What is said is not always what is meant. Often we come to understanding long after the events have occurred. Perhaps the red was the Hound’s blood. Perhaps it will be Jenna’s first flow. But like the Garunians, we say clearly that this one shall be queen above all and she shall begin the world anew. The one great task laid upon Mothers of every Hame is this: to wait for her, to look for her, the white child, the Anna.”

  “The Anna,” mused Carum. “The white babe, the great white goddess.”

  Nodding, Mother Alta continued. “Many thought I was marked for the Anna myself, for my hair turned white overnight when I was eighteen. And to look upon me was to be sure I had been touched by Alta’s heavy hand. Long we waited and nothing more occurred, till at last my sisters pitied me for being naught but an unnature, a freak. Yet I, alone, never lost hope that I might be part of the workings-out of the prophecy. If not the Anna herself, at least her forerunner, her guide, the one who sings her praises. Holy, holy, holy. And now the Anna is here.”

  “No, Mother. Not here. Not me,” Jenna cried. “I am not that white babe. I am only Jenna of Selden Hame. When I have a cold, my nose runs. When I am hungry, my stomach growls. When there are beans in the stewpot, I make a stink. I am no Anna. I am just a girl.”

  “The signs cannot be ignored, my child,” Mother Alta said. “Much as you would like to. Though it is true there have been thrice-mothered girls before. And there have been white babes with hair the color of snow and eyes like watered wine. But the Hound bowed down. That cannot be forgot—the Hound bowed down.”

  “He did not bow, Mother. He died,” Jenna said. “With my sword in his throat and Pynt’s knife in his thigh.”

  “And what greater obeisance?” Mother Alta asked.

  “Might as well say the white-haired babe will have red hair,” Jenna said unhappily. “Might as well say a goat and a horse will bow to her.”

  “Might as well,” murmured Pynt.

  Mother Alta chuckled, a low, cooing sound. “Prophecies speak to us on the slant, child. We must read them through slotted eyes.”

  “You read them,” Jenna said. “I will not.”

  Carum, who had been listening to the exchange with a faraway look in his eyes, suddenly turned to the priestess. “Mother Alta,” he said slowly, “the prophecy also says that the white babe will begin the world anew. That’s the point of the whole thing, isn’t it? But to do that, one must first … must first …” He hesitated.

  “Spit it out, boy!”

  “First one must destroy the old, and that I can’t see Jenna doing.”

  “Ah, Longbow, on the slant. See the world on a slant …” she murmured and fell asleep with a strange smile on her face, as quickly and as quietly as an infant taking a nap.

  They looked at one another and, as if on a signal, all stood, opened the door carefully, and slipped out into the darkening hall.

  Armina was outside the door. “Well, what did she say? Is she still asleep?”

  “She … she asked us about our lives. Who we were. And—yes—she is asleep. But she said we must … must find refuge for me,” Carum said.

  Jenna and Pynt said nothing, their silence conspiring to agree with him.

  Armina looked puzzled for a moment. She blew air into her cheeks and the dark scar puffed out. Then she smiled. “Refuge. Of course. But first we must all eat. It will be a long trip otherwise. I will take you back to my room and bring the food there. No one else must know our plans. When it is dark, we will start out and that way I shall have Darmina for company. It is the last night before the full moon.”

  They followed her down the stairs. The wall sconce sent shadows bouncing along behind them, and they were silent for the entire time. Feeling like conspirators, they entered Armina’s room and sat uncomfortably on her bed, and stared up guiltily. She smiled at them from the door.

  “I will be back soon. With the food.” Then she closed the door behind her. Instead of the comfortable snick, the door let out a strange, ratcheting sound.

  Jenna leaped up and ran to it, trying to push it open. She turned back to her companions with a stricken look. “She has barred it. She has barred the door. It will not open.” Then she turned again to the door and hammered on it, shouting, “Armina, what are you doing? Let us out.”

  Armina’s voice strained through the thick oaken barrier. “You did not tell me the truth, sisters. Mother would never send you elsewhere for refuge. Not without telling me. I will speak with her when she wakes. Until then, stay quiet. This is a place of refuge. No harm will come to you here.”

  Jenna put her back to the door and looked at her friends. “And what do we do now?”

  In the end they did nothing. The door was impassable and the single window, while wide enough for Pynt, was too narrow a slit for either Jenna or Carum. Besides, it was too high for escape, even with all the bedclothes and Armina’s few leggings knotted together. What appeared to be the second floor was really the fourth, for the back end of the Hame was built on a cliff which fell off abruptly into a swift-flowing river. Neither of the girls could swim.

  It was well after dark, with the moon grinning through the window slits, when Armina returned. She and her dark sister opened the door and barred it with their swords, sliding the tray of food into the room with their feet before speaking.

  “Mother still sleeps,” Armina said. “You will see her first thing in the morning. Your visit tired her. So eat well, and rest.”

  Darmina smiled at them. “The bed is wide enough for two—or three, if you are so minded.”

  Armina looked at the window, where the bedclothes were still knotted and the end wound several times around the sconce. She laughed. “I see you have used your time well. When I was younger, I used to slip out of the window and dangle over the river. It was what we all did, before we were allowed to play at the Wands. But in those days we were on a lower floor and the drop was not so deadly. Except …”

  Darmina took up the narrative. “Except there was one girl, a silly twist named Mara, who had wet hands and a weak heart.”

  “It matched her chin. She let go. She screamed all the way down until the water covered her mouth.” Armina’s free hand ran up through her crest of hair.

  “She could not swim,” Darmina added.

  They ended together, “And her body was never found.”

  “Another one of your ghost stories?” asked Carum.

  “Call it a warning tale,” Armina answered. “Besides, there are guards.”

  “Why, Armina?” asked Pynt. “Why not just let us be on our way?”

  “Twice this evening Kingsmen have been to our gates asking about Longbow, calling him by name and describing him by a few choice birthmarks.”

  Carum blushed.

  “Twice we have sent them away knowing nothing,” Armina continued. “They are not singling us out. They are asking the same questions in all of the villages as well. But Longbow cried us merci, and so we must shield him.”

  “He cried us!” Jenna pointed out.

  “And in so doing, cried us all,” Darmina said. “Did not Mother Alta tell us that?”

  “But you … you were not there this afternoon when she spoke with us,” Carum began, looking first at Darmina, then at Armina. “Or at least I think it was you.” He pointed to Armina, who smiled.

  Darmina took up that smile and answered him. “Do you not understand yet, scholar, that what my light sister knows, I know?”

  Armina lowered her sword a fraction of an inch. “We wait for Mother to awaken. She will tell us what we must do. My mother, Callilla, says there is a secret passageway out of here, through the priestess’ room and down along the river. But only Mother Alta knows the way.”

  “Then for our sake, or Alta’s sake, o
r the sake of the Hame,” cried Carum, “wake her.”

  Both sisters shook their heads.

  “We cannot,” said Darmina. “The Mother is exhausted. If we wake her before time, she will be muddled and it will avail us not. And soon enough it will be morning.” She gestured with the sword toward the window, where the moon had already traveled beyond the window slit. “So sleep. And sleep well. We will have much to do tomorrow.”

  So saying, the sisters backed out of the door, slammed it, and slid the heavy bolt across it once more.

  “What do we do now?” asked Pynt.

  “What can we do?” said Carum.

  “We can eat!” Jenna said. “And worry after.”

  They broke for the tray and sat around it, and, after the first few bites, relaxed enough to eat the meal slowly, savoring the steaming pigeon pie; the pickled eggs, and the rose-colored wine. When there was nothing left but a few slivered bones and the gillyflower that had decorated the platter, they stopped.

  Pynt belched daintily and lay down on the bed. Jenna crawled up next to her. Carum looked longingly at the empty side of the bed, then lay down on the floor, under the window, and covered himself with a piece of the knotted blanket. He was conscious of the sound of the girls’ breathing, steady and sighing, from the bed. The floor was hard under him. He thought he could feel a nail unevenly hammered into the boards. Just when he had resigned himself to a sleepless night, he slipped reluctantly into a dream. It concerned Jenna, who was tied to a chair, her long, white hair blowing across her face as if stirred by a sea wind. She was crying out to him, but the voice was an infant’s, high, frantic, wordless, and thin.

  They were awakened not by the sliver of morning sun through the window slit but by Armina’s voice.

  “Mother Alta is awake and asking for you. It is a good sign. She remembers all. Come.”

  They roused quickly, and Pynt and Jenna took turns with Armina’s combs. She had brought them water in a pitcher and a bowl. The scented water felt cool on their faces. With his back to them, Carum waited until they were done, then ordered them outside.

  “Men seem to take forever cleaning themselves,” remarked Pynt as they waited.