The One-Armed Queen

by Yolen, Jane;

Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!

  Make it and take it wherever you go.

  Traveling swiftly or traveling slow,

  It will keep you filled up in the morning.

  This wasn’t a trip I was planning to make

  As I fled through the door with some good journeycake.

  But my horse was all saddled, so off I did ride

  Thankful I still had my head and my hide.

  Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!

  Make it and take it wherever you go.

  Travel on water, on ice, or on snow,

  It will keep you filled up till the morning.

  The master was after me, likewise the noose,

  I had to go quickly and lightly and loose.

  So I grabbed what I could and I let the rest be;

  I didn’t have much—but at least I had me.

  Journeycake ho! Journeycake ho!

  Make it and take it wherever you go.

  And if you’ve no money, you’ll still have the dough

  To keep you filled up in the morning.

  THE STORY:

  Seven took up the reins of her horse, Sarai led the big black, and together they walked across the meadow toward the stream. Scillia let out a deep relieved sigh. A sound answered her, and she listened for a moment before realizing it was just a song thrush. She forced herself to relax, but at the same time she listened a moment more. Just because the sun was out did not mean they were safe. Sarai’s mother’s face came back to her. That had all been done in the daylight.

  She glanced around the meadow. It was awfully quiet, except for a lone squirrel busy at the near end of the field. Squirrels, she thought, could mean buried nuts. And nuts would be a wonderful change from journeycake. She went over and scraped about with her foot, but either the squirrel had already found his wintered-over nuts, or he was as hungry as she. All she found was an owl pellet, old and brittle, with a shrew’s skull inside. She made a face. Not much eating in shrews, even if she could catch one. They were not worth the effort. This wood, she told herself, is but a meager larder.

  There were a few new ferns, but she did not want to start a fire to boil them. The less attention she brought to the Hollow before nightfall the better. But on a mossy path, she found three different kinds of mushrooms and that—at least—was promising. One kind had an inky top and she knew it was especially good eating. The others were chancy this time of year. Still there were enough of the blackcaps for Sarai and Seven to have a meal. And perhaps further along some for herself as well. She was bending over to collect them and heard a muffled yell and then the high scream of a girl.

  Without stopping to think, she straightened up and was running across the field in a single fluid motion, unsheathing her sword as she ran. When she came to the crest of the hillside leading to the stream, she saw there were two men in leather face masks—Garuns—more intent on having their way with Seven than killing her.

  Anger rather than fear steadied Scillia, and she gripped her sword hilt tightly.

  The men did not notice her, for Seven’s screaming masked other sounds. And, since there was no sign of the black horse, it might mean the men didn’t know there was more than one girl at the stream. The one man atop Seven was holding both her hands over her head with one massive paw, loosening the leather string on his pants with the other.

  Scillia knew which one to tackle first. The more dangerous one was on his feet still; the other would be too busy for the moment, and with his pants around his ankles would be effectively bound. She half ran, half slid down the grassy slope and came up silently behind the standing man. At the last minute she coughed and, when he turned at the sound, spitted him expertly. His face as he died was full of surprise as much—she was sure—that he had been killed by a woman as that he was dead.

  When he fell, she braced her foot against his chest and pulled out her sword. She made a face at the sound. Suddenly she was a girl again and the sword slicing through the man’s chest felt like a knife through venison. She shook head, then turned, throwing herself atop the second man.

  “Wait your turn, Brun—” he cried, thinking it his friend. He was dead before he could finish the name. Scillia pushed him off Seven who was still screaming.

  Throwing her sword to one side, Scillia gathered Seven to her, saying, “There, hush, girl. They are both dead and can no longer hurt you.” But Seven continued to scream, pushing Scillia away, and it took a minute to understand.

  “Three,” the girl was screaming. “Three. One finished and went after your horse.”

  The sword was too far for her to reach and besides, it was already too late. Someone had caught her hair up from behind, jerking her backward.

  “Carnes!” came a man’s voice, straining through the leather mask. It was the Garunian word for a female jackal.

  Scillia let herself go slack against him, a trick her mother had shown her. She was ready to fling herself forward and catch him off guard, when the man cursed and dropped his hold on her hair, for a thrown rock had caught him in the back of the head. Scillia seized the opportunity and pitched forward.

  Seven screamed again, a cry this time of fury not terror. She stood and picked up the sword, then flung it at the man’s head. It struck point first between the eyes of the mask. It did not sink in terribly deep; the mask’s leather was too stiff for that. But it was deep enough to kill him. He tumbled backward slowly, like a mountain falling, his head resting finally on Sarai’s feet. She had a second rock ready to fling. When she saw he did not move she dropped the rock and threw herself onto Scillia’s chest.

  “I did not save my ma,” she sobbed “I could not let him take you, too.”

  Scillia hugged Sarai, then looked up at Seven. “Alta’s hairs!” she said. “You could have killed me with that sword.”

  “No chance of that,” Seven said. “He was much too big to miss.” Her words were brave, but the tremor in her voice and the tears running down her cheeks gave them the lie.

  “Did you learn that at Selden Hame?” Scillia whispered, rocking the weeping child as she spoke.

  “It’s the Game,” Seven said, finally.

  “Game?”

  “The Game of Wands.” She tried to smile and failed. “The mothers taught us. ‘Round the circle, round the ring,’” she began in a breathy voice.

  “I know, child,” Scillia said, gathering her in as well. “I once called it a silly sport. How was I to know?” And she thought how her own mother had taught her only games of peace. Well, it will be the children who are my teachers now.

  THE RHYMES:

  Trot trot to Selden,

  Trot o’er the lea,

  They caught seven children,

  But they never caught me.

  —Ball-bouncing rhyme, South Dales

  Ride a black horse,

  Ride a grey mare,

  Follow the lady

  If only you dare.

  —Toe-and-finger-count game, South Dales

  The number of the beast

  Is three times seven.

  All good children

  Go to Heaven.

  —Counting out rhyme, North Dales

  THE STORY:

  Well before the lowest tide, Sarana led the men along the shore, leaving their horses in the willow copse. Three of them carried the withy ladder and they slipped through the dark, being silent a shadows.

  This time luck was with them. They were not seen.

  The wind off the ocean was cold and they were all shivering by the time they got to the rocks below the castle, but it did not slow them down. They set the ladder against the wall, sighting on the single dark window above them, then anchored the bottom of the ladder between two boulders, with a man on each side. The ladder was within a hand’s span of the window and Sarana let out a sigh of relief.

  “I’ll go first,” she whispered. “I know what to expect. Or at least I knew better than anyone else. If I scream, scatter and find some other way to divert them from loo
king out toward the sea.”

  “We should have gone the other side, then,” muttered Malwen and several of the men grunted their agreement.

  “We no longer have the numbers for that sort of thing,” Sarana reminded them, though in truth she half believed him right. Without another word, she began to scramble up the ladder, pleased that the rungs held.

  Near the top, she slowed and felt cautiously with her right hand over the sill, something biting deeply into her palm.

  “Alta’s braid!” she cursed quietly. How could she have forgotten the broken glass? She inched up two more rungs, keeping her head and body to the side of the window, and carefully peered in.

  The window was not boarded up but inside the wine cellar it was pitch black. Not a single torch lit the rooms. That is odd, she thought, remembering the flickering light of the prison. She listened carefully for a moment longer, than scrambled down the ladder.

  “What is it?” someone asked. “Were you seen?”

  “There is no one there,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Malwen asked sourly.

  “Just that. The rooms are dark, empty. Can we make a torch before I go back?”

  “I can,” someone whispered, and was gone back up the beach, returning shortly with a stick of driftwood wound round with dry grasses. “It won’t last long.”

  “I just need it for a short while to see what is wrong up there.” She felt in her leather pocket for her flints. “Give it me. I’ll signal as soon as I know.”

  “A scream will do,” Malwen said. He hadn’t meant it to relieve the tension but everyone laughed.

  Sarana scrambled back up the ladder, with less caution this time, though made awkward by the driftwood torch. She balanced for a moment on the sill, and leaned the torch against the side of the window. Then she got out her flints, struck a spark, and lit the torch. She held it in front of her into the cavernous dark and the light flowed like water over the wall and floor. She could see nothing that might be a danger, so she jumped down, slipped on a wine bottle, and stifled a yell. But her head hit the floor hard and she not only saw the torch, but repeating stars as well.

  When the stars finally cleared and there was only a nasty throbbing at the back of her head, she got up and carefully looked around in the torch’s flickering light. The rooms were empty of prisoners and the door out into the hall gaped wide open. Torches in the hall lit the passageway. She was not sure what that meant—whether it was a trap or simple abandonment—but she was about to go back to the window and call the others up when she heard footsteps coming down the stone stairs toward her. Quickly she guttered her torch and faded back into the second room, standing by the door where she could see but not be seen.

  Two men with torches—Garun guards as far as she could tell—entered the wine cellar and after them came two other men, probably servers. One was saying something about the king and his feast. She could not hear it all. Silently she drew her sword and then reached as well to the knife on her belt.

  She waited a long awful moment until the guards were nicely silhouetted in the doorway. Then she stepped full into the doorway of the second room which was still in the dark. Flinging her knife at the one guard’s head, she followed its path before either man realized there was only one of her. She cut the second guard crosswise from neck to underarm, then swung around and thrust the first guard through as well, though he was already falling, the knife through his left eye.

  Immediately she stood up with her sword raised, but the servers were both on their knees before her.

  “Is it the queen?” one asked, unable to raise his head to be sure.

  “I serve the queen,” she said, horrified at how squeaky her voice sounded.

  “Then we serve you,” said the other man. “The usurper is quite mad.”

  She let them stand, but slowly, and had them pull the two dead Garuns out of the light. Then, still sighting them with her raised sword, she had them carry the torches to the open window.

  Leaning out the window, she called down. “Come on up. Even Malwen, I think, will be able to make it through with our help.”

  By the evening hundreds were gathered at Greener’s Hollow, mostly women, all armed. Scillia was one of the few on horseback. Her arm around young Sarai, she addressed her troops under a moon that had a blackened side.

  “I have heard of the Garuns who daily rape and kill. I have seen their handiwork. They have turned our green woods and hillsides, our valleys and farmyards, into slaughteries. We have been their cattle too many days. Now they will become ours.”

  She paused and let them cheer her because it would make them warm while the message she brought them could only bring them chill.

  “We will fight hill by hill if we must, blade of grass by gold of grain. Green and gold then are our colors. Theirs will be the red of blood, the brown of the earth where they shall lie.” Again another cheer, and she waited.

  “But know this—though I was born a warrior, I was not bred up to it. My mother and father wanted me to know only peace.”

  “Alta bless them!” shouted someone from the crowd.

  “My mother said she would wait in the Grenna’s Grove till the Dales should need her again. We need her now,” Scillia said. “But we have only me.”

  Sarai twisted in the saddle and looked up at her. “We want you, Scillia!” she cried. Her little voice managed to be heard by those in the front who picked up the cry.

  “We want you, Scillia! Scillia! Scillia!” The chant continued till it had gone out to those furthest from her.

  With that cry still ringing, Scillia led them out of the Hollow and down the long road toward Berick Castle where the enemy waited.

  The feast was laid out for a party of twenty. More “lords and ladies” than that Cook had not been able to find. He hoped, with Alta’s blessing, that the king would not be displeased.

  Several maids and one of the assistant gardeners had been conscripted to wear the old queen’s clothes, though the fit was poor. And Scillia’s wardrobe was all one-sleeved and too obvious for them to dare. The king might be mad, but he was not stupid.

  Every man from the kitchen, with the exception of the cook himself, was dressed in King Carum’s clothes. Cook was too fat to fit and, besides, someone had to make the meal. Three gardeners and the boy who had delivered flour from the mill were dressed for the feast as well.

  They all waited silently in the great dining hall, the room that had not been used since well before King Carum’s illness. All the torches were ablaze and five of the seven-branched candelabra lit the table so that not a shadow was seen. The king had been explicit on that point.

  “I want light,” he had said, not once but many times as he was being dressed.

  Old Halles had been practically apoplectic on the matter.

  There were silver platters on side tables piled high with rabbit and venison, cress salads, fresh mushrooms, and goblets ready for the wine. Cook looked uneasily out into the hall. He had sent the wine steward and his assistant down to the cellar long ago and they had not yet returned. The assistant had to be threatened in order to make him go down into the wine cellar. There was a story—no more than that, Cook was sure—that the cellar was haunted now. That the spirits of the dead prisoners—Jareth and Petra and old Piet and the rest—were waiting to be released and were smashing bottles in their frustration. The problem was, the servers could often hear the sound of those smashing bottles and the story had taken on a life of its own.

  Rats, the cook thought. Or Garun soldiers getting drunk. That is all it is. Then he smiled. Perhaps they are the same thing.

  He glanced once again out the hall and this time saw an odd parade coming toward the room. The king was in the front and right beside him came two Garun soldiers carrying the dead prince in a chair, four other guards behind them. The body was slumped over and when they turned into the brightly lit dining hall, Cook could see how grey the corpse’s skin was, how ruled with red and yellow and b
lack lines. His face, Cook thought, looks more like a pudding than a person. It took him a minute to see that what was sitting in Corrine’s lap was a slipper with a part of his foot and leg. The poor corpse was starting to fall to pieces.

  The soldiers carrying the chair were almost as grey-faced as the dead man. Only the king showed any kind of animation.

  “Set my dear brother at the foot, two pretty ladies on either side,” he said. “And I shall be at the head, of course.”

  Cook prayed to Alta that the two ladies chosen—one a scullery maid and the other a gardener—would not have hysterics any time soon. He signalled to the servers to begin bringing the food to the dining table.

  The corpse’s chair was put in place and the two guards remained close by. The other four Garuns stood at attention on either side of the door to the hall.

  And where, Cook wondered a bit crankily, is the wine?

  At that very moment, the wine steward, his assistant, and three men Cook did not immediately recognize, entered carrying bottles. The three were dressed in shirt sleeves and leather pants, and one had a red smear of what might have been blood soaking his sleeve. Cook certainly had his suspicions. But the entire evening being already so strange, he did not voice them and left by the side door back to the kitchen to finish preparing the rest of the meal.

  King Jemson clapped his hands with delight. “Wine now for my guests. And the special bottle of Salubrian Red for my brother.” He gestured grandly to the foot of the table where the corpse had further collapsed against the chair.

  The wine steward nodded but his assistant suddenly, and without apparent reason, dropped one of the bottles he was carrying. It crashed on the floor, soaking into the rushes and spraying both the king and the guests seated by his right side.

  Jemson screamed, a sound like a woman in labor. Two of the Garun guards rushed over to help him, kneeling down to mop up the spill with table napkins. At that same moment, one of the new servers—the girthy man with the bloody sleeve—lifted the wine bottles he was carrying by the necks and brought them down, simultaneously, on the heads of the kneeling guards. Meanwhile his companions flung their bottles at the two guards by the door. The guards tried to catch the bottles and missed, cursing wildly as the bottles exploded in front of them.