by Jane Yolen
Her husband went down more slowly, as if he had been pole-axed, and buried his face in his hands.
Jenna rolled her eyes up and sighed. She heard Petra’s quick intake of breath and priestess voice behind her.
Mothered Three,
Blessed be.
“Stop that,” she hissed back at the girl.
From her knees, Martine heard only the rhyme. She put her hands up, palms together, and cried out, “Yes, yes, that’s it. Oh, White One, what can we do? What can we say?”
“As for what you can do,” Catrona said quickly, “you can give us three good horses, for we are on a great mission of mercy and it would not do for the White One to walk. And as for what you can say, you can say yes to us and no to any man who asks.”
“Yes, yes,” Martine cried again, and when her husband did not answer fast enough, she elbowed him.
He rose, still not looking again at Jenna, and mumbled, “Yes, yes, I can give you three. And they will be good. Anyone says Geo Hosfetter gives not good horses is …” He sidled out of the door still talking. They could hear his footsteps going away at a run.
“I will go and help him choose,” said Catrona.
“Let the White One stay a moment more,” begged Martine. “She is my own flesh, my own blood. Let her tell me her own tale. I have tea. I have cakes.” She gestured in toward the neat, well-lit kitchen.
Jenna opened her mouth to accept and Petra whispered by her ear, “Dark sisters will be there. Let me talk.” Jenna closed her mouth and looked stern.
“The White One does not break bread with any. She fasts on this mission and has taken a vow of silence until it is done. I am Her priestess and Her mouth.”
Jenna rolled her eyes up again, but kept silent.
“Of course, of course,” Martine said, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Better that you tell Her all you know so She may weigh its significance.”
“Of course, of course,” Martine said again. “What shall I tell? That my sister, the White One’s mother, was tall and red-haired and made, we all thought, like the rest of us for easy birthing. But something was twisted up there. She died giving the child life. And then that wicked midwife stole the babe away, afore any of us got to see it. We knew the child was a girl because she told her own daughter she was taking it to one of the … you know … Homes.”
“Hames,” Petra corrected automatically.
“The closest one. Up the road and into the mountains, it was.”
“Selden Hame,” Petra prompted.
But the woman could only tell the story in her own meandering way. “Selling the babe, most likely. Some midwives be like that, you know.” Suddenly afraid she might have offended them, she added quickly, “Not that you Alters buy children. Not that.”
“We reap the hillsides; we do not pay the sowers,” said Petra.
“I meant that. Yes, I did.” Martine’s hands wrangled with one another.
“And the father?”
“Died not a year later. Heart broken. Lost wife and child all to once. And crazed. Saw Alter women everywhere, he did. On the farm. At the hearth. In his bed. Two at a time. Double crazed he was.” She shook her head. “Poor man.”
“Poor man,” Petra echoed, her voice soothingly soft.
Jenna bit her lip. Her mother. Her father. She tried to credit it and could not. Her mother had not lived under such a cozy, thatched roof, dying with her thighs covered in blood. Her mothers—and there were many of them—lived in Selden Hame. And they would not die in blood if she could help it. She turned abruptly and left Martine of the wrangling hands to Petra’s comforting. Striding quickly across the farmyard, she headed toward the barn.
The sky above was a steely blue, and a bright pink sat on the horizon behind the barn and the fields. Once the sun slipped below the world’s rim, there would be another hour before dark. And then there would be a moon. With the moon, the dark sisters Skada and Katri would reappear. Petra had been right to warn her about going into the candle-lit kitchen. Hearthlight and candlelight could also call the sisters out. No need to frighten these poor, silly strangers. Strangers! Jenna tried to force herself to think of them as her aunt and uncle. No, there was no blood between them. None at all. It was a mistake, that was all. But a mistake that was bringing them three horses. Horses! She never wanted to ride one of those broad-beamed, hard-on-the-rear, teeth-rattling beasts again.
Just as she thought of them, from behind the barn came Catrona leading three sleek mares, two reddish brown and one almost pure white. The farmer strode behind her looking, somehow, relieved. When Catrona spotted Jenna, she grinned, then quickly composed her mouth into a more respectful expression.
“Do these meet your approval, White One?” she asked Jenna.
Jenna nodded. The snow-colored mare threw her head back and whinnied.
“The white is yours, Anna,” said Catrona. “The man insists on it.” She held out the reins. “And he takes no coin for them.”
Jenna drew in a deep breath, willing herself to like the horse. Reaching for the reins, she pulled on them gently and the horse took a few steps toward her. She patted it on the neck and the horse nuzzled her ear. Jenna smiled tentatively.
“See, White One,” Geo Hosfetter said, still not looking directly at her, “the horse knows that she is yours.” He bobbed his head twice. “Her name is …”
“Her old name does not matter,” Petra said suddenly from behind Jenna. “She shall have a new one. For, as you know, it says in the prophecy:
The White One, the Anna,
Shall ride, shall ride,
And sisters with Her
Side by side.
The horse She sits on
All astride,
It will be called … DUTY!”
“Oh, yes, oh yes,” Martine said, hurrying up to them, “I know that. Duty, that’s the name. Of course. Duty.”
“Duty!” Jenna said, laughing, once they had ridden away from the farm. “What kind of a name is Duty?”
“And where did you learn that prophecy? I never heard it,” Catrona said.
“It was the best I could do at the moment’s spur,” Petra admitted. “I apologize for that sixth line. It was a bit … well … shaky.”
“You mean you made it up?” Catrona shook her head.
Petra, nodding vigorously, smiled.
“It is a special trick of hers,” Jenna said. “She was famous for it at Nill’s Hame. Prophecies and poetry on the moment. But, Petra—Duty!”
“Never mind,” Petra answered. “They will tell their neighbors and the story will grow and grow. By the time you hear it again, you will be mounted on Beauty or on Booty and the tale will add that the White One, Blessed be, rode off, pockets ajingle with coin or followed by one hundred men all crying out with love.”
“Or they will call the horse Dirty, which she will surely be, for we will have little time to keep her clean.” Jenna pulled on her right braid. “So why did you get me a white horse, Catrona?”
“He insisted on it. ‘The white one for the White One,’ he said. ‘And a pair of matched bays for her servants.’”
“Servants!” Petra shouted. At her voice the little bay mare startled and tried to bolt and it took a mighty sawing on the reins to control her. When the horse was steady again, Petra shrugged ruefully at her friends.
“I would not trust that horse in a fight,” Jenna said.
“But she should run like the wind,” Catrona pointed out. “Look at her legs. And as they say in the Dales, The gift horse is the swifter.”
“Then let her show us her heels,” said Jenna. “We have no more time for talking.”
Catrona nodded.
They kicked their mounts into trots.
They were just through the town of Selden, with its neat little houses lining the cobbled lanes, and starting over the new bridge, when the partial moon rose. By its light, Skada and Katri reappeared, riding double-behind their light sisters.
J
enna knew Skada was there by the familiar breath behind her; the horse knew sooner because of the added weight. It slowed its pace to accommodate the second body but did not flinch.
“Fine horse,” Skada whispered in Jenna’s ear.
Turning her head slightly, Jenna said, “What do you know about horses, fine or otherwise?”
“I may know little, but at least I am not set against them for no reason.”
“No reason!” Jenna said. “Ask my bottom and ask my thighs about reasons.” But she said no more and focused her attention on the long bridge as they clattered across.
Once they were on the other side, Catrona signaled them to stop. They dismounted and left the horses to graze on the roadside grass.
“Why did we stop?” Petra asked. In the moonlight her face had a carved look. Her hair, which had been tightly braided and crowned, had shaken loose of its pins and the plaits now fell down along her spine. There were dark circles under her eyes, but Jenna could not tell if they were from weariness or sorrow. She put her arm around the girl’s shoulder and Skada, like a parenthesis, closed her in from the other side.
“Horses, like humans, need to rest,” Jenna reminded her. “It would not do to kill them on the very first day.”
“Nor ourselves,” Catrona said, stretching. “It has been a long time since I have ridden a horse. Those are not muscles I exercise regularly.” She bent over and put her palms on the ground and Katri did the same.
“My horse is not tired,” said Petra.
“He carries one. Ours will have to carry two through a night of strong moonlight,” Skada said. “Unfortunately no one has ever trained horses to call up their shadows.”
“Are there horses where you come from?” Petra asked.
“We have what you have,” said Katri. “But we leave it behind to come here.”
Catrona rubbed her horse’s nose and the horse responded by nuzzling her. “We will go another few hours and then sleep.” She held the horse’s head between her hands and blew gently into its nostrils. “This rest is just for breathing.”
“And for bottoms,” Jenna and Skada said together.
Petra laughed, but Catrona and Katri stared up at the sky.
“Look,” Katri said. “See how the moon sits on the Old Hanging Man’s brow.”
They looked. The cliffs, with their wild jut of stone, seemed crowned with the moon. A shred of cloud was just beginning to cross the moon’s spotty face.
“I think it will cloud over soon,” Catrona said.
“That will be for the good,” added Katri.
“But then you and Skada …” Jenna began.
“… will be gone,” Catrona finished. “But since we are just riding, not fighting, the horses will have an easier time of it.”
“As will we,” Skada said.
“No sore bottoms.” Jenna laughed.
“No sore …” Skada started to say, but just then the cloud covered the moon and she was gone.
“Mount up,” called Catrona, vaulting onto her horse’s back.
Jenna and Petra had slightly more trouble climbing back on theirs. Finally Jenna held the bay’s reins while Petra got on. Then she caught her own horse and handed its reins to Petra.
“Steady her,” Jenna said.
“Talking to your servant?” asked Petra.
“Please,” said Jenna.
“Duty awaits,” Petra joked. “So, Jenna, go to your Duty!”
“Enough,” Jenna said. When she was up at last, the reins gathered back in her own hands, Jenna looked down the road. Catrona was already around the first bend, Petra halfway there. Jenna kicked her heels into Duty’s white sides, and the horse started bouncing along. Gritting her teeth, Jenna kicked harder. This time the horse took off at a gallop, sending clouds of dust behind them, obscuring even the dark silhouette of the Old Hanging Man.
THE SONG:
Ballad of the Twelve Sisters
There were twelve sisters by a lake,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
A handsome sailor one did take,
And that day a child was born.
A handsome sailor one did wed,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
The other sisters wished her dead
On the day the child was born.
“Oh, sister, give me your right hand,”
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
Eleven to the one demand
On the day the child was born.
They laid her down upon the hill,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
And took her babe against her will
On the day the child was born.
They left her on the cold hillside,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
Convinced that her new babe had died
On the day the child was born.
She wept red tears, and she wept gray,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
Till she had wept her life away,
On the day her child was born.
The sailor’s heart it broke in two,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
The sisters all their act did rue
From the day the child was born.
And from their graves grew rose and briar,
Rosemary, bayberry, thistle and thorn,
Twined till they could grow no higher,
From the day the child was born.
THE STORY:
“I am sorry,” Jenna said. “I have acted foully since we left the Hame. It is as if my tongue and my mind have no connection. I cannot think what makes me act this way.”
They had stopped for the night, scarcely a hundred feet off the road, in a small clearing only slightly larger than a room. There was a rug-sized meadow with great oaks overarching it, branches laced together like a cozy roof. Still, Catrona would not let them light a fire for fear of alerting any passersby.
They ate their dark traveling bread and the last of the cheese in silence. Nearby the horses grazed contentedly, hobbled by braided vines. When they had first dismounted, Catrona had shown them how to twist the green rope and secure it to the horses’ front feet, tight enough to keep the horses from running off, slack enough so that they did not stumble.
Jenna decided, after much thought, that the slow, steady crunching progress the horses made was a comforting sound, not annoying. But she felt neither steady nor particularly happy about her own progress the past few days. An apology was necessary, and so she offered it.
“What is there to be sorry about?” asked Catrona. “You have slept little and seen too much this past fortnight. You have been torn from and shorn of much you know. Your young life has been turned completely upside-down.”
“You speak of Petra, not of me,” Jenna said, shaking her head. “And yet her mood remains sunny.”
“What is it they say in the Lower Dales? That: A crow is not a cat, nor does it bear kits. Jenna, if you were Petra, you would be sunny despite all. It is her way. But you are Jenna of Selna’s line …” Catrona said.
“But I am not of Selna’s line,” Jenna interrupted. “Not truly.” Appalled at the whine in her voice, she buried her face in her hands, as much in shame as in sorrow.
“So. That is it.” Catrona chuckled. “How can White Jenna, the Anna, the mighty warrior who killed the Hound and cut off the Bull’s hand, as in the prophecies; who has ridden off to save the world of the Hames with her companions by her side; how could she have been born between the thighs of a woman like that.” She jerked her head back to indicate the direction from which they had just come. “But, Jenna, it is bearing, not blood, that counts. You are a true daughter of the Hames. As am I.”
“Do you know your mother?” Jenna asked, her voice quiet.
“Seventeen generations of them,” Catrona said placidly. “As do you. I remember you reciting them, and never a hesitation.”
Petra spoke for the first time.
“And I can say my lines, too, Jenna, though my birth mother left me at the Hame doorstep when I was not yet weaned, with a note that said only, ‘My man will not abide another such as this.’”
“I know,” Jenna said, her voice a misery. “I know all the tales. I know that half the daughters of the Hames come there abandoned or betrayed. Or both. And it never bothered me until now.”
“Until that silly woman and her sillier husband claimed you,” Petra said, moving next to Jenna and stroking her hair. “But their claim is water, Jenna. And you are stone. Water flows over stone and moves on. But the stone remains.”
“She is right, Jenna,” Catrona said. “And you are wrong to worry over such nonsense. You have more mothers than you can count, and yet you count that story more than all the rest.”
“I will count it no longer,” Jenna said. She stood, brushed the cheese and bread crumbs from her breast, and stretched. “I shall take the first watch.” She looked up at the heavy lacings of the oak and the one small patch of cloud-covered sky, then sighed and stared down at her hands. The ring on her littlest finger, the one the priestess had given her to use as identification, was a reminder of her task. She should think of that, and not of this other silliness. At least, she thought, Skada is not here to bruise me about it.
But the watch seemed longer without Skada’s company, and despite her promise not to think about Martine and Geo Hosfetter—their names as silly as their manners—she could think of nothing else. If she had stayed with her true mother, her birth mother, she would surely have been as awful as they. She spent her watch braiding and unbraiding her long white hair and musing about a life she had never lived.
Morning began with a noisy fanfare of birdsong from a dozen different tiny throats, mellow and chipping, thin and full. Jenna sat up for a moment and just listened, trying to distinguish one from another.
