by R. J. Price
“No, just my mother,” Danya said quietly. “The others, those who remained alive, cared for me until I was seven and then they lost interest, I guess. My mother started talking to me then, telling me tales about history, explaining the rights. Even explaining what she could of the rights. Talking to one of the Others isn't like a conversation. They can mainly only make odd comments, nothing that is useful, no direct questions. But Mother loved talking.”
“What did she say about protecting the rights?” Aren asked.
“It is the duty of every rank to protect the rights for everyone, especially themselves,” Danya said, flipping through the book idly. “A warrior who comes across a beaten woman will beat the man who beat her, then take her in. Once she has her feet under her, he'll beat her as well, for not standing up for herself.”
“But a beaten woman is afraid to defend herself!” Aren said.
“It was my understanding that, yes, that was the way of things. But it wasn't just when she was healed from her physical wounds. The warrior would bait her, draw her out, teach her how to defend herself, and then beat her. If she didn't try to defend, he'd do it again.”
“Av hit me once,” Aren said.
“Why ever would he do a thing like that?” Danya asked.
“He slipped his hand up my skirts, discovered who I was and my magic went off. The only way to defend myself was to knock him unconscious.”
Danya sucked in a breath. “From what you've said, Av believes in equality.”
“That was when I was kidnapped by a madman,” Aren said. “He and Jer came out to save me and once I got back to the palace, he gave me a little nudge. I was a bit dazed, you see, anyhow. I basically came to and he pegged me right in the face. Told me it wasn't nice to kiss and then hit.”
“Well, it's not nice to kiss and then hit,” Danya muttered.
“Then he refused to train me more because he claimed the throne wouldn't throw anything at me that I couldn't handle.” Aren made a motion around the chamber. “I think this says otherwise, Av. You moron. Maybe if he had trained me in the first place, I wouldn't be in this mess.”
“That sounds like anger,” Danya said with an edge to her voice.
Aren focused her emotion, and her magic, on the metal of the manacle. It was still difficult, but getting a little easier each time she felt something. Yet it seemed she felt more and more. Anger and hurt, remorse and guilt. Being left alone in the dark was terrifying. She didn't want to be alone any longer but Danya could only spend so much time with Aren without drawing more attention to her.
The magic created by her emotion was fed to neither the throne, nor the link in the manacle. Wherever her magic went, it no longer benefited anyone.
Rewel visited daily and attempted to drive Aren to emotion, but what he did draw out of her never made it farther than her wrist.
“It's best not to bury or suppress emotion,” Danya said with a sigh. “Best to feel it all. Easier later on. Might have prevented you from ending up in this spot as well.”
“You're still working under the assumption that the throne claimed the ‘right to rest’ for me,” Aren said.
“Yes, because you needed to rest. You still do. You are a highly disturbed young woman.”
“I'm not disturbed, I'm very stable,” Aren said to Danya.
“If you're stable, then I'm a queen,” Danya snapped back at Aren.
“We probably shouldn't fight,” Aren said, lowering her head. “It's not like we have other people to talk to.”
“Oh, you can be diplomatic?” Danya asked. “I'm actually quite surprised. Most who sit the throne are too impulsive to look beyond their daily emotions.”
Aren was quiet for a time, considering. “No matter what I actually need, I'm stuck here until spring. Which is—what? Six months away?”
“About four months for us. We're a bit farther north than the palace though, so winter stays here longer,” Danya said.
“That makes it almost time for the winter solstice.”
“The darkest night of the year? Yes, it's in a few weeks. Why is that important?”
“You don't celebrate on winter solstice?” Aren asked Danya. “Even in the vineyard we exchanged small gifts and had a feast. You're supposed to celebrate the lengthening of days, bring holy berry and pine into the house to freshen up the smell.”
“Holy berry and pine?” Danya laughed. “You don't bring that in to brighten up your house, Aren.”
“Why are you laughing? I don't understand. What's funny?”
Danya swallowed her laughter. “Oh, you really don't know, do you? Commoners can enforce certain changes in ranks, or do things to detect them. Holy berry and pine rouses warriors to chasing women. Unless they're already mated, then it just puts a fire in their blood.”
Aren was quiet, considering all the years her mother had pushed her youngest brother towards the arrangements and made grand claims about how they looked. She wondered, briefly, if a warrior could hide the way she could. Though a warrior didn't have to hide from her, given the fact that Aren couldn't tell the difference between a commoner and a warrior.
Besides in Av, besides in Jer.
“To draw out a healer, hang nightshade in her room. She will develop a rash all over until it is removed.”
“Queen's stone will reveal a queen,” Aren muttered.
“Bloodstone reveals a healer,” Danya said. “Commoners who learned how to control ranks through plants were labelled as witches. Controlling others is an insane belief. Everyone has the right to their own bodies and minds.”
“According to my mother, a witch is a queen who uses her magic for the wrong reasons,” Aren said. “According to the palace, a witch is a deviant. Something that exists but shouldn't exist, whose fate is determined by the throne, or the mate to the throne, not by the one who sits the throne.”
“The original witches were commoners. Spells and magic, oh so scary. But what they could do was nothing compared to a queen's rage. The term witch came to mean more over time. We have a long history.”
Danya held up the book she held as an indication to how long the history was. The rights had been transcribed a multitude of times over the years, each time carefully translated to retain the original definitions.
“A long and varied history,” Aren muttered.
“Some time ago—long ago, really—‘witch’ was changed to mean almost what the palace believes it to be, but they had a special name for the witch. It's been struck from my records, but it sounded like a rank. This rank rose up and acted like a warrior but had all the magic of a queen, could speak with the spirits and was capable, at times, of healing themselves.”
“What?” Aren exclaimed.
Danya smiled. “It's not what you think. They were not all these things. Just that, one was like a warrior, one like a queen, another like a healer. They could all speak with the spirits. That's what their rank did. By tapping into the spirit world, they could draw on these huge sums of magic, could even sit the throne if they were paired with a queen. Could fuel the world better than any queen could.”
“The queens became jealous,” Aren said.
Danya shook her head. “The queens accepted them. The problem was that warriors, upon meeting these ones, have an instinctual reaction. They get stabby, is what my mother said. Certainly some queens must have been furious. Who wouldn't be with someone else waltzing in and taking all the credit? So this other rank, this nameless group of people, were hunted to the ends of the world and burned, each one of them. Couldn't hang them, since they'd come back to life more powerful than they were before, talking in tongues. Couldn't cut off their heads, your land would spoil from the blood. Had to burn them, send them straight up to the spirits and leave nothing behind to spoil the land.”
“Were they witches?”
“Once upon a time, a woman stood up in a patriarchal world and demanded equality. She was burned at the stake for being a witch. Times come and go when a queen is burned as a
witch. There was a time when every queen was burned as a witch. Witch is simply a term, usually applied to women, usually to women who disobey or break the rules.”
“Men were never burned?” Aren asked.
Danya nodded slowly. “These women all had men. Many of the men slowed down the villagers or warriors who came for their women. The women were only caught because they flew into something like the queen's rage. Or into the queen's rage, and returned to avenge their men, who did not die easily. But yes, more women were burned than men.”
“You know a great deal about witches,” Aren muttered.
“I know a great deal about myths that are the stuff of nightmares. Rewel likes to tell all the ones about ranks and witches. My mother said that myth is based on fact.”
“And given our long history that everyone likes to bring up,” Aren muttered.
“Obviously the myth happened to someone at some point. It's only when you get into the parts where the unranked ones shared their bodies with a second spirit, or there were male queens, or other races walking our world, that's when I start wondering if maybe someone got into the drink before he started telling myths.”
“There are male queens,” Aren said to Danya. The healer swore, which made Aren smile. “Is there any of that drink around? I've never been drunk before.”
“Rewel likes to get into it for winter solstice. Suppose if other people celebrate on that day, it would explain the drinking. I'll see if I can talk him out of a bottle.”
“Wonderful, because I have nothing else to do with my time.”
“I'll bring you more books and one bottle. Nothing more than the one. Don't need you developing a bad habit.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The anger was hard enough to deal with, without visitors. With winter solstice approaching villagers and neighbours visited Ervam's home to have dinners, celebrate and exchange small presents, which gathered in one corner of the living area.
Each year pine branches were brought into the home, just a few, to lie over the doorways and lend a wonderful smell to the whole house. The colour brightened up everything, chased away the dreariness that could set in, in the winter.
Normally, Av enjoyed the spiced rum that the adults passed around in the single cup, enjoyed sharing and breaking bread with commoners. Any other year he would have enjoyed the game he played with Mie, as the young boy attempted to sneak a sip of the spiced rum. Something about winter solstice made warriors bolder, and the spiced rum was practically a rite of passage.
Mie did manage to get a sip of the rum, even managed to get a sip of rum into Anue. Av could smell it on the children's breath as they rushed away to bed, giggling to one another. A bonding moment, yet all Av wanted to do was give them both a smacked bottom for drinking what should have only been for adults.
The children spent time with other children, none of whom made an impression on Anue. Several of the visiting children had been Mie's companions as he grew. Their parents had chosen to visit Ervam to check on Mie, to see to it that he was being brought up properly after his mother's death.
On the actual day of winter solstice they lit the candles to set in the windows, as was tradition in the north, to keep out bad spirits and invite the sun back in. As his father told it, and Av dimly remembered, winter solstice was so long that there was barely any sunlight.
It was the night when the boundary between the spirit realm and the living world was said to be thinnest, when witches were said to be born. Many women had left their children to the elements, children whose only fault was to be born on the darkest night of the year.
Ervam brought in fresh pine branches and burned the older ones in the yard. With the new branches, he brought in three holly berries, which he had travelled to the village to retrieve. Each of the berries was given to each of his sons.
Av sat staring at his berry for the longest time as his hand tingled, then his torso, then his loins. He peered up at his father, wondering if the trainer had lost his damned mind. Av understood, instinctively, what was going on. Red and green were the colours of the solstice and in the startling moment he recalled the holly berries passed around to the warriors during one of the solstices he had celebrated in the north.
Ervam motioned for Av to remain where he was, then looked pointedly at Mie. The boy frowned deeply at his berry, then looked at Anue, who hadn't been given a berry. The boy then looked to his father, at the lack of berry there.
“It's not because we're boys,” Mie said to Ervam.
“No, it's not,” Ervam said. “Jer? Do you know about holly and pine?”
“It's not holly?” Jer asked. “I thought it was just holly berry that did it?”
“No, it's actually the combination of the two.” Ervam motioned up to the fresh pine branches, then to the berry in Jer's hand. “Jer, as the only one who has had a mate and a child, and a lover, do me a favour and be the one to squish that berry.”
“Am I going to need private time after this?” Jer asked jokingly.
“Yes,” Ervam said. “But between you and Av, at least I know you'll control it.”
Jer's almost-smile disappeared. His fingers curled around the berry, but not tight enough to squish it.
“I don't want to play at this, Father,” Jer whined out.
“Then don't, I simply asked you to do me a favour,” Ervam said. “You've every right to say no. Mie, don't eat that.”
The boy opened his mouth and the red berry toppled out.
Anue, becoming ever more curious, approached Mie and took the berry from him. Between two delicate fingers she held the wet berry and turned to Ervam.
“What happens if I squish it?” Anue asked.
“Don't,” Ervam growled.
The girl seemed to lose interest immediately. She gave the berry back to Mie and wiped her hand on her sleeve.
“That is something you might consider if you find yourself a warrior to mate,” Ervam said to Anue. “Winter solstice, up north, they bring in the pine, they bring in the berries and give them to the warriors. My boys here, the grown ones, not the one who would eat anything you put in his hands—Mie, spit it back out—can give you some indication of what it's like.”
“I'd rather not attempt to describe this feeling to an eleven-year-old girl,” Av said through gritted teeth.
“Not one that looks like Aren, anyhow,” Jer muttered. “Palace tradition is to bring in the pine. Em used to claim only mated warriors could feel it and, by the spirits, she'd walk by me with that sprig of pine and a holly leaf and I would just tremble. If I were a woman, my undergarments would have hit the floor every time.”
Anue frowned at Ervam. “Why would I use this on my mate, who is hypothetically,” the girl stumbled over the word, “a warrior? Wouldn't that be forcing him into something he didn't want to do?”
“In the north, the warriors are given a berry. They can either get rid of the berry, hand it to a friend who is a warrior and looking for acceptance, or they can seek out a partner of their choosing. It doesn't have to be a queen, this partner. The warrior would then give the chosen person the berry and the person, if they accept the offer, squishes the berry between their fingers and drops it to the floor.”
“Winter solstice is about adult private time?” Anue asked.
“Sex,” Av corrected. “Adult private time can mean all sorts of things, but winter solstice is more about sex.”
“It's a tradition that goes back generations, back to the original palace. Holly is difficult to find in these parts. Only a select few warriors would receive the berries, marking them as available to everyone. They would be gifted these berries by their women as a pass.”
“A pass?” Mie asked.
“Father keeps begging Mother for a free pass,” Anue muttered, turning her attention to Av. “That means a pass to have sex with another woman without getting in trouble, doesn't it?”
“It does,” Av said, unable to lie or even divert the question.
“From wh
at I was told, the men rarely took the pass. There would be a ball, and the north still has this ball, where they wear masks. The warriors who were given the berries would pretend to be confused, but always go to bed with their women.”
“How does that equal presents?” Mie asked loudly.
Ervam chuckled. “The children received presents, mainly. There would be presents and much visiting and running around and sweets until all the little children crashed from too much activity.”
“Oh,” Mie said slowly. “So the adults could do adult things.”
“Have sex,” Anue said to Mie expertly.
“No, in that case, Mie is right,” Ervam said. “The adults would dance long into the night, partaking in drink and feasting, celebrating the return of the sun. Their children would sleep well and long, giving them time to recover. Winter solstice was not just about sex, but it was created in order to make it easier.”
Anue was quiet for a long time. “Because a summer baby is blessed by the spirits.”
“Born as far away from the darkest night as possible,” Ervam said with a nod. “Having never existed during a time when the darkest night happens.”
“Who can be moody when you're having a rutting good time,” Av grumbled, setting the holly berry on the table, where it could no longer affect him.
He was thinking about Aren. His limbs were tingling in a pleasant, yet terrifying way. He regretted not being able to celebrate this holiday with Aren, that his father wasn't able to teach Aren this lesson.
“In my house,” Anue said, rocking back on her heels as she watched the adults, “we would have a feast and exchange handmade presents with one another while Mother and Father got quite drunk on wine. Once they passed out, Aren would send Brother and me to bed, but I'd sneak down. Brother would stay in his room, drinking.”
“What did Aren do after your parents went to bed?” Ervam asked.
Anue shrugged. “The servants would be eating what was left of the feast, at the table. I'd join them. They said she went outside. That's all.”
