The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  That child, Jo-an-enna, called Jenna, was mothered by the entire Selden Hame, for the priestess, Mother Alta, suspected the child was the prophecy’s fulfillment, and wished to have a hand in any glory.

  Young Jenna grew up beloved in her community by all except the suspicious and jealous Mother Alta. Instead of choosing to be a priestess, Jenna chose the warrior/hunter path, going through training with her special best friend Marga, called Pynt. Little, lithe dark-haired Pynt was called Jenna’s shadow, and indeed the two were inseparable.

  At thirteen, Jenna did not understand the priestess’ enmity nor why she was sent to a different Hame for the beginning of her mission year. Resentful, angry, alone for the first time in her life, Jenna was forced to leave her friends and take a different path. She headed toward Nill’s Hame, across the Sea of Bells, a great meadow pied with lilies-of-the-valley.

  But despite orders to the contrary, Pynt deserted Selinda and Alna, the other two mission-going girls, and tracked her best friend. The two were reunited halfway to Nill’s Hame in the dense fog that settled almost daily over the Sea of Bells. Startled by a strange baying, fearing it to be the Fog Demon they had been warned about in tales, they stood back-to-back, swords drawn, waiting.

  The strange howling chivvied a young man into their path who, it turned out, was the third son of the true king. This boy—for he was only a few years older than they—was Carum Longbow, in training as a scholar. He cried them merci, using the old formula. They pledged his safety and, in the fog, Jenna killed the man who had been trailing him, one of the usurper Lord Kalas’ dread warlords known as the Hound.

  Burying the Hound in a shallow grave, with his fearsome Hound’s helm thrown on top of his body, the three made their way out of the forest to Nill’s Hame. It was a strange trio: Pynt jealous of Carum’s attention to Jenna and Jenna’s attention to Carum; Carum falling under the spell of the tall, white-haired girl; Jenna befuddled by her own conflicting emotions.

  Men were not allowed in a Hame, so Carum was disguised. As he was yet beardless and—while tall enough—was not very muscular, the disguise was accomplished with marginal success, despite his grousing. The three were led up to the room of the priestess of Nill’s Hame, a strange, powerful Mother Alta who was blind, crippled, with six fingers on each hand. She recognized Jenna as the Anna of the prophecy, having once been thought to be that prodigy herself. Mother Alta showed Jenna how she had already fulfilled the beginning of the prophecy: being white-haired, with a dark companion, burying three mothers, making “the hound bow low.” Jenna alone was unconvinced.

  As the girls had promised to take Carum to safety to one of the walled “Rests,” sanctuaries that even Lord Kalas did not dare violate, Jenna, Pynt, and Carum started out the back way from the Hame. But they were set upon while still in reach of the walls of the Hame by Lord Kalas’ men who had tracked them from the Hound’s hasty grave.

  Pynt was mortally wounded and carried back to the Hame by Carum. Covering their retreat, Jenna cut off the hand of one of Kalas’ men. When she got back into the Hame carrying this grisly trophy with her, Carum recognized the ring on the hand as belonging to the Bull. Jenna had made the bull/ox “bow low” as well. Surely now she had to admit she was the White One. But Jenna would have none of it. She insisted she was just an ordinary girl caught up in extraordinary events.

  Leaving Pynt to the ministrations of the infirmarer, and with instructions as to the location of the Rest by a water route, Jenna and Carum leaped from the third floor of the Hame straight down into the treacherous river below, linked together by a child’s play rope.

  Almost drowned, they managed to make it to shore and find their way to Bertram’s Rest. Being a woman, Jenna could not enter the men’s sanctuary, so she left Carum at the gate. He kissed her tenderly, promising everything in that one kiss, and Jenna returned to the Hame by the back route.

  But it was silent at the Hame. Too silent. When Jenna came closer, she saw why. All the women had been slaughtered; many of them lying next to the men they had killed. The courtyard was filled with them, the stairs, the halls. Jenna raced desperately through the Hame to discover anyone alive, to find her wounded friend Pynt. Eventually, she came upon the place where the brave women of Nill’s Hame had made their last stand: in the priestess’ room. All the women of Nill’s were dead and the children—including Pynt—were gone.

  Sorrowing beyond measure, Jenna spent the entire day carrying the bodies of the women down to the kitchen and the Great Hall, laying them out side by side, with enough room between for their dark sisters. Then she returned to the priestess’ room to bring down the great wood-framed mirror. Standing before it in the priestess’ room, Jenna unknowingly recited part of the ritual of Sisterhood which called forth the dark sisters. Though a year too young and untrained in the proper rites, Jenna’s great need and the intensity of her calling brought her own dark sister Skada out of the mirrored world.

  Skada—as dark-haired as Jenna was light. Skada—who spoke the things that Jenna had never dared speak. Skada—who urged Jenna to deeds that Jenna never dared dream.

  Jenna and Skada together tried to lift the mirror to bring it downstairs for the funeral pyre. But when they moved it, they triggered a secret door which opened under Jenna’s feet, exposing a passageway where the children of Nill’s Hame had been hidden from the marauding men. Pynt was there, too, bedridden and still desperately ill from her wound, but alive.

  Jenna, Skada, and the young priestess-in-training Petra set the funeral pyre. Then they led the troop of children, some only babes carried by their older sisters, along the Sea of Bells and back through the woods to Selden Hame.

  There the story of their adventures was told and Jenna lay claim to the title of White Goddess, not because she believed in it, but because she felt it would help the cause: the other Hames must be warned. Suddenly afraid of what Jenna’s title might mean, the priestess denied her; but, with Petra’s help (she invented prophecy in instant rhyme), Jenna convinced the rest that she was indeed the Anna of whom it was written that she is the beginning and the end.

  Accompanied by Skada, Petra, and the twinned older warriors light Catrona and dark Katri, sworn enemies of Selden’s Mother Alta, Jenna went forth on the road.

  Prophecy

  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, “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.” Three times shall her mother die and three times shall she be orphaned and she shall be set apart that all shall know her.

  BOOK ONE

  MESSENGERS

  THE MYTH:

  Then Great Alta looked down upon her messengers, those whom she had severed from her so that they might be bound more closely to her. She looked upon the white sister and the dark, the young sister and the old.

  “I shall not speak to you that you may hear. I shall not show myself to you that you may see. For a child must be set free to find her own destiny, even if that destiny be the one the mother has foretold.”

  And then Great Alta made the straight path crooked before them and the crooked path straight. She set traps for them and pits that they might be comforted when they escaped, that they might remember her loving kindness and rejoice in it.

  THE LEGEND:

  It was in the town of Slipskin, now called New Moulting, soft into the core of the new year’s spring, that three young women, and one of them White Jenna, rode out upon a great gray horse.

  His back was as broad as a barn door, his withers could not be spanned. Each hoof struck fire from the road. Where his feet paced, there crooked paths were made smooth and mountains laid low, straight paths were pitted and gullies cut from the hills.

  There are folk in New Moulting who say it was no horse at all, but a beast sent by Alt
a herself to carry them over the miles. There are footprints still near the old road into Slipskin, carved right into the stone. And downriver, in the town of Selden, there are three great ribs of the thing set over the church door that all might see them and wonder.

  THE STORY:

  The road was a gray ribbon in the moonlight, threading between trees. Five women stood on the road, listening to a ululating cry behind them.

  Two of the women, Catrona and Katri, were clearly middle-aged, with lines like runes across their brows. They had short-cropped hair and wore their swords with a casual authority.

  The youngest, Petra, stood with her shoulders squared. There was a defiance in the out-thrust of her chin, but her eyes were softer and her tongue licked her lips nervously.

  Jenna was the extremely tall girl, not yet a woman for all that her hair was as white as the moonlight. Whiter, as it had no shadows. The other tall girl, but a hairbreadth smaller, and a bit thinner, and dark, was Skada.

  “I will miss the sound of their voices,” Jenna said.

  “I will not,” Skada answered. “Voices have a binding power. It is best for us to look ahead now. We are messengers, not memorizers.”

  “And we have far to go,” Catrona said. “With many Hames to warn.” She drew a map from her leather pocket and spread the crackling parchment upon the ground. With Katri’s help she smoothed it out and pointed to a dark spot. “We are here, Selden Hame. The swiftest route would be there, down the river road into Selden itself, across the bridge. Then we go along the river with our backs to the Old Hanging Man, never losing sight of these twin peaks.” She pointed to the arching lines on the map.

  “Alta’s Breast,” said Skada.

  “You learned your lessons well,” said Katri.

  “What Jenna knows, I know.”

  Catrona continued moving her finger along the route. “The road goes on and on, with no forks or false trails to this Hame.” Her finger tapped the map twice and Katri’s did the same.

  “Calla’s Ford Hame,” said Jenna. “Where Selinda and Alna have begun their mission year. It will be good to see them. I have missed them …”

  “But not much,” murmured Skada.

  “Is it the best place to start?” Jenna asked. “Or should we go farther out? Closer to the king’s court?”

  Catrona smiled. “The Hames are in a great circle. Look here.” And she pointed to one after another, calling out the names of the Hames as if in a single long poem. “Selden, Calla’s Ford, Wilma’s Crossing, Josstown, Calamarie, Carpenter’s, Krisston, West Dale, Annsville, Crimerci, Lara’s Well, Sammiton, East James, John-o-the-Mill’s, Carter’s Tracing, North Brook, and Nill’s Hame. The king’s court is in the center.”

  “So none will complain if we visit Calla’s Ford first,” Katri said, her finger resting, as did Catrona’s, on the last Hame. “As it is closest.”

  “And as our own Hame’s children are there,” added Catrona.

  “But we must be quick,” Jenna reminded them all.

  Catrona and Katri stood simultaneously, Catrona folding the map along its old creases. She put it back in the leather pocket and handed it to Petra.

  “Here, child, in case we should be parted from one another,” Catrona said.

  “But I am the least worthy,” Petra said. “Should not Jenna …”

  “Now that Jenna has seen the map once, she has it for good. She is warrior-trained in the Eye-Mind Game and could recite the names and places for you even now. Am I right, Jenna?” Catrona asked.

  Jenna hesitated for a moment, seeing again the map as it had lain under Catrona’s hands. She began to recite slowly but with complete confidence, outlining as she spoke with her foot in the road’s dirt, “Selden, Calla’s Ford, Wilma’s Crossing, Josstown …”

  “I believe you,” said Petra, holding out her hand. “I will take the map.” She tied the leather pocket’s strings around her belt.

  They started off down the road, walking steadily, each an arm’s length apart. There was little sound in their going and Catrona on the right and Jenna on the far left kept careful watch of the road’s perimeter. Only young Petra, in the center, seemed in the least uneasy. Once or twice she turned to look behind them, back toward the place where the long, low cry of the Selden Hame farewell had echoed.

  THE SONG:

  Anna at the Turning

  Gray in the moonlight, green in the sun,

  Dark in the evening, bright in the dawn,

  Ever the meadow goes endlessly on,

  And Anna at each turning.

  Sweet in the springtide, sour in fall,

  Winter casts snow, a white velvet caul.

  Passage in summer is swiftest of all,

  And Anna at each turning.

  Look to the meadows and look to the hills,

  Look to the rocks where the swift river spills,

  Look to the farmland the farmer still tills

  For Anna is returning.

  THE STORY:

  They stopped only once in the woods to sleep under a blackthorn tree by a swift-flowing stream. Taking turns, they kept the night watch, leaving Petra the shortest time, and that near dawn when she would have awakened anyway. Besides, as Catrona reminded them, with the moon they watched in pairs and Petra was alone.

  There was nothing to disturb their rest except the mourning of owls back and forth across the stream, and the constant murmur of the water. Once on Jenna and Skada’s watch, there was a light crackle of underbrush.

  “Hare,” Jenna whispered to her dark sister, alert for more.

  “Hare,” Skada agreed. They both relaxed. Slightly.

  By early eve of the next day they had passed the outlying farms of Slipskin, neatly tilled land, well cleared of rocks and roots by generations of farmers. Each acre was gently fuzzed over with green. In one field twenty horses were pastured on blue-green grass.

  “There,” said Catrona, “a man who sells horses. Probably supplies the king. We could borrow one or two and he would never know the difference.”

  Petra shook her head. “We had horses and flocks at my Hame. Believe me, our shepherds knew every beast by name.”

  Catrona snorted. “I know that, child. Just testing.”

  “I will not ride a horse again,” Jenna said. “Once was enough.”

  “I doubt we could get three off him anyway,” Catrona said. “But if we could get one, one of us could ride ahead. We need swiftness whatever the cost.”

  Unhappily, Jenna had to agree.

  “Let me do the talking,” Catrona added. “I have spent much time among men and know what to say.”

  “I have spent no time at all with them,” admitted Petra.

  Jenna said nothing, but her finger strayed to her lips and she was glad that it was still daylight and Skada not there to remind her just what she had—and had not—said to Carum when he had kissed her. Two men she had known: one she had kissed and one she had killed. She knew as little as Petra. “Yes, you speak,” she said to Catrona. “We will wait behind.”

  “But mind you, look fetching,” said Catrona.

  “Fetching?” Jenna asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “Men like that.” Catrona threw back her head, laughing loudly.

  Although they weren’t sure what Catrona meant by fetching, both Jenna and Petra managed to smile at the farmer when he opened the dark wood door. He stared at them for a moment, as if unsure of what he was seeing, then called over his shoulder, “Martine, Martine, come quick.”

  “What is it?” a voice called from the room behind him.

  He did not speak again until his wife, a rosy giantess, stood next to him, a full head higher than his own balding crown.

  “There, the big girl, look at ’er. Look, woman.”

  She stared as well.

  “We are Alta’s own,” Catrona began, stopping when she saw that they were paying no attention to her but were rather staring at Jenna. She spoke again, loudly. “My name is Catrona, from Selden Hame. My sis
ters and I …”

  “By the blessing, Geo, you are right. Who else could it be,” the farmer’s wife said, her cheeks bright red. “Except for the hair, she’s the spit of my poor dead sister.”

  Catrona suddenly understood. “You think Jenna a fosterling from your family? Of all houses, that we should have stopped here.”

  “Naaa, naaa,” the farmer said, shaking his head and sounding remarkably like a penned beast. “She has eleven sisters, and all the same. Not fifty years ago the hillsides would’ve been full of ’em. But we got low on girls ’round here and so now girls is a commodity. You be thinking of staying, I could set you up with good husbands.” He shook his head again. “Well, the niece, maybe, and the little one there. We need breeders, you know. That’s why Martine’s sisters, they all got spoke for early. Good stock. Not a holding this side of the Slip don’t house one of ’em. T’would be harder to miss one than find one, as they say of blackbirds in a flock. It would be …”

  Martine pushed her husband aside and walked past Catrona to Jenna’s side. Together, their relationship was obvious. “She has the Dougal height, the Hiat eyes, remember Geo like you said when we was courtin’, my eyes was dark eyes of a spring. And my sister Ardeen went white afore she was fifteen, and my sister Jarden afore she was twenty. Give your aunt a hug, girl.”

  Jenna did not move, her mind whirling.

  “Her mother was bringing her to us to foster, out in the woods when a cat killed her,” Catrona said. “My own sisters gave yours a decent grave and said the words you like over her. Her fosterer died, or I would tell her of you.”

  “Nonsense!” Martine said, turning from Jenna to speak directly to Catrona. “Her mother died at birth. Lay there bleeding like a pig stuck for market while the mid-wife bore the child away. If your sister fostered her, then …” She stopped a minute and counted on her fingers. “One for my poor dead sister, two for the midwife, and three be your sister. Oh, my Blessed be!” She dropped suddenly to her knees, her hands covering her mouth. “The White One, triple mothered. Of my own flesh and blood. Who could have guessed?”