Queen of the Warrior Bees

by Jean Gill

  An arrow was still in the target from the children’s efforts earlier and she made a mental note to speak to the little ones about responsibility for equipment. If she didn’t pass on Tannlei’s teachings, who would, now that the archery mentor was gone? Tannlei’s replacement only knew the mechanics of archery, not its soul, and had been as relieved to declare Mielitta a graduate, needing no further tuition, as Mielitta had been glad to practise alone. As if Tannlei could be replaced!

  Mielitta always helped the children then waited till they’d gone before she honed her skills, exercising the mental discipline as well as the physical. Today, she’d been abstracted.

  She could hear Tannlei’s voice, challenging her to do better, to teach the children what she’d learned.

  ‘You have mistaken the target, Mielitta,’ she said, as clear today as she’d been when Mielitta was a little girl, answering in frustration, ‘But I hit it, I did!’ She’d had tears in her eyes. Couldn’t this stupid woman see her arrow in the inner ring?

  ‘What is the target?’ Tannlei had asked gently. She’d shaken her head every time Mielitta replied it was the cork circle with rings and a bull’s-eye.

  ‘Think again,’ the mage insisted.

  Mielitta had practised and practised but still her teacher told her to think again. Then, one day, Mielitta was pitted in competition against one of her classmates, a red-headed boy.

  When her teacher asked, ‘What is the target, Mielitta?’ the red-headed boy stuck his tongue out at her behind Tannlei’s back.

  Mielitta answered without thinking, ‘To beat him!’

  To her surprise, Tannlei nodded slowly and gave one of her rare smiles. ‘You see, the target has changed. And yet you are still shooting arrows at the same circles.’

  Mielitta owned up. ‘But I didn’t think at all when I answered.’

  The creases deepened in her teacher’s face but the smile remained and her black eyes were kind. ‘That too is archery,’ she said. ‘When thinking happens deep inside you and does not seem like thinking, it shows the true quality of your mind. When you first held a bow, I had to tell you to put your hands here and here.’ Tannlei placed her own hands over Mielitta’s, correctly positioned on the bow. You had to think each time where to put your hands. Do you think about this now?’

  ‘No,’ she realised.

  ‘Because it is part of your deep thinking now, part of your true quality as an archer.’ Without even turning around Tannlei told off the red-headed boy for meanness of spirit and let the two rivals shoot against each other. The fun of winning soon faded but Mielitta carried on thinking and not thinking.

  From that moment on, whenever she was asked what the target was that day, she found different answers.

  ‘To shoot over my shoulder.’

  ‘To hold three arrows and fire them fast.’

  Soon she was setting and beating her own targets in performance. Then she made another breakthrough, the day she answered, ‘To kill someone!’

  Ever gentle, her teacher had said, ‘Then you will miss the mark.’

  She had, of course. Arrows loosed in anger flew wide and the worse she did, the more her frustration grew and the more danger there was that she would break something.

  ‘What have you learned, Mielitta?’

  ‘That I’m useless!’ Her sulky tone could have clouded a sunny day.

  ‘When are you useless?’

  ‘All the time.’

  Tannlei just waited. Mielitta knew what her teacher wanted but she’d been too sullen to speak the words. So Tannlei walked away, at the measured pace in which she did everything.

  Mielitta had come back the next day to return her weapons.

  ‘There’s no point me carrying on.’

  ‘What is stopping you?’

  ‘I’m no good.’

  ‘And what makes somebody good?’

  ‘Some people just aren’t any good at archery.’

  ‘What stops them learning?’

  ‘They’re clumsy or slow or whatever.’

  ‘How will they become better?’

  ‘Work, I guess. But it’s not worth it.’

  ‘So, what stops them learning?’

  ‘Themselves,’ Mielitta muttered.

  ‘Now you understand. You know what limits you and you can choose what to do about it.’

  Mielitta had gone back to the archery yard, back to work.

  And here she was again, wondering who she was and what the walls wanted from her.

  ‘What’s the target today, Mielitta?’ she asked herself as she prepared mentally for target practice, stilling her mental zigzags. She’d probably imagined the whole weirdness with the walls and she wasn’t rushing to find out how foolish she’d been. She’d check out the hidey-hole later. Her brush with magecraft had highlighted the real problem. She couldn’t go on like this, a woman with a child’s status.

  ‘You know what limits you and you can choose what to do about it,’ she told herself. She shouldn’t wait any more for somebody or something to change her life; she should do it herself. She would visit Declan in the forge, ask him to take her on as an apprentice. She’d waited long enough for him to ask her and she should take the initiative. Maybe that’s what he was waiting for, the final proof on her part that she was ready for the role.

  She marshalled her arguments and collected five arrows in her shooting hand.

  She ran across the yard, turned and loosed the first, which at least hit the outer ring of the circular target. One. Declan needed an apprentice.

  She faced the curtain wall, jumped and back-somersaulted off the wall to shoot. She felt the thrum of the bow with her whole body. Better. Sometimes more complicated was better: it forced concentration. Two. She’d watched him work since she could toddle. She was like a child to him, the natural heir. Nobody knew the smithy and its processes better.

  She smoothed a flight straight and nocked the arrow, concentrated, ran again, let fly. A clean split of the earlier arrow. Much better, even if it had spoiled a flight! Three. He would say she was a girl, not strong enough. She would quote him. ‘You always said technique and attitude compensate for strength as you age. That’s true about being a girl. If I can beat your superior strength in an archery contest – and you know I can – then you have to concede that being a girl is irrelevant!’ He’d have to concede.

  Her grip on the bow was making a ridge in her hand. She had to relax the tension but the cork target was boring. She needed a different challenge. She unlaced one boot, loosened it completely and wriggled her foot until she could free her foot in one movement. Then she breathed deeply, nocked a fourth arrow. She spun on the spot, aimed in the air and sidestepped, pinning her empty boot with the plummeting arrow. She inspected the hole. Pff. They were workboots. A Mender Mage could fix the hole in seconds. Declan could do it, though he’d scold her.

  Four. She was eighteen and stuck in limbo, ridiculous among the other children, barred from adulthood. Apprenticeship was the rational way to continue her life. No, that sounded selfish. Apprenticeship was the best way for her to contribute to the Citadel for the rest of her life. Of course she wanted to be a master smith but for now, she just needed a start.

  ‘Mielitta! That was won-won-wonderful.’

  Was there no peace! One of the older children was gazing at her starry-eyed, her stutter identifying her straight away as Drianne, Mielitta’s little shadow. Drianne was not the first to tail Mielitta, worshipping her skills, wanting to be like her. At first Mielitta had been flattered, years ago, after she’d lost the last friend of her own schooldays. But as each wave of children reached maturity, those who’d worshipped her most, blanked her most. She belonged in their past, their childhood. Their snubs hurt her more than the daily slights of her servant role. They always hit their target, drew blood.

  So she kept her distance with each new cohort of children, played teacher but avoided names. They were just little ones. She could help them but they were passing through a phas
e in which she was doomed to stay forever. But that didn’t stop her playing.

  ‘Drianne.’ Mielitta acknowledged the child. But only because she wanted something. Not because this child was any different from the others. ‘Can you shoot from there?’

  ‘Of c-c-course.’ The girl waved her bow above her head, took an arrow from the quiver slung over her shoulder. Like all the little ones, she was a static shooter. Mielitta kept her quiver round her waist, held up to six arrows in her shooting hand, for rapid release while moving. When she’d finished for the day, she would shift the quiver to her shoulder for convenience – and to keep it within reach.

  ‘Good girl! I’m going to count to three, and on three, I want you to shoot me. I’ll catch your arrow and aim it at the target.’

  Drianne was young enough to have absolute faith in her hero. She nocked her arrow, took Mielitta in her sights and waited.

  ‘One, two, three!’ called Mielitta, knowing that if the child fudged the shot she might well be hit. She felt the arrow coming, judged the half-step, the catch – right-handed – twirled, nocked and twang! Bull’s-eye. The fifth arrow, Drianne’s arrow, had arced true. She always knew when she’d loosed a perfect shot even before the clean thunk confirmed it. Five. This was the clincher. Let me show you, she told an imaginary Declan. I will make a knife fit for a Battle-Mage. Damascene steel with magical wards inlaid. I will earn this apprenticeship.

  She’d pictured it so many times. When she’d helped in selecting the metals, in making the steel sandwich that would fold a score of times, then a score more, and again. When she’d looked at a tree-trunk, pointed out the flaw that would crack the knife handle, selected grain that ran beautiful and strong. When she’d even been allowed to turn the steel in the forge. All under Declan’s supervision. Why would he have let her taste such work if he did not mean for her to pursue it further? Small hands clapped her from above.

  ‘B-b-bravo!’ yelled Drianne.

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’ Mielitta cursed herself for encouraging the girl. It was hard to remember why she should not. But if she succeeded with Declan – and how could she not? – she could permit herself such little pleasures in future. She would have status of her own.

  Buoyed up at the thought, Mielitta crossed the courtyard of patterned cobblette, which cleaned itself as her boots passed over. The balance between magical and human maintenance had been established so many lifetimes earlier that only children wondered why there was any need to work at all. It was just how it was, that servants were tasked with the Citadel interior but the outer keep maintained itself. Apart from in the forge, where Declan and the labourers who wielded hammers worked with only the magecraft needed to brand magical wards into the weapons they made.

  The forge was open, allowing some heat and smoke to escape. Fire, sweat, and the tang of metal all told Mielitta’s nose hot and she braced herself as she entered the dark haven.

  Chapter Four

  Blinking from the contrast, too bright and too dark, fire and blackness, Mielitta could see the anvil’s dark stone in the red glow of a cooling blade. Declan was of course at the centre of the action, beating and turning the future weapon on the anvil, talking to a youth beside him. Six brawny men swept filings and dust out of the way, where they could not stick to and spoil the fine metal in the making.

  Declan was singing his song of making and Mielitta waited patiently, her heart rising and falling, thrumming with the song that had been a lullaby to her in her parentless childhood.

  Finally a pause. The metal cooling on its stand, already showing patterns in blue, dull as tattoos. Until the final polish, Damascene steel hid its beauty and its power.

  Declan’s attention left the weapon and his face lit up, red in the forge-light. ‘Mielitta, I’m so glad you’ve come today. I want you to meet Kermon, my new apprentice. I’ve finally found someone!’

  The youth beside Declan held out a polite elbow, his hands being grimy, and Mielitta held it briefly. He beamed at her. ‘My first day,’ he announced.

  ‘I-I-I thought,’ stammered Mielitta, looking from Declan to Kermon. Damn! I sound like Drianne! She took a deep breath and smiled. ‘I thought so,’ she told the apprentice. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’

  ‘Oh I do,’ he assured her.

  ‘No, you really don’t,’ Mielitta grated.

  Declan looked from one to the other. ‘Is something wrong, Mielitta?’

  There was no point. ‘No, nothing. I just wish I could find something interesting to do for the rest of my life as a child.’ It came out as petulant but it was the truth. And just when she thought she’d found something, it had been stolen from her.

  Declan’s brow furrowed in concern. ‘Maybe you’ll reach maturity next year. If not, we could petition the Ten for a special role for you. There must be something you could do.’

  ‘You think so?’ Mielitta let the bitterness show.

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Declan answered the words not the sarcastic tone. ‘And you know you’re always welcome here. You can join in, the same way you always have.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Kermon told her. His expression was as open as his words. He wiped smuts across his face and smeared it blacker as he smiled, teeth whitened by their dark setting. Toned muscles were a smith’s stock-in-trade and the firelight outlined his to advantage but Mielitta was in no mood to appreciate her usurper’s attractions.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ she lied. ‘Just dropped in to see what you were working on.’ She turned and fled, before she cried in front of Declan and his new apprentice.

  Might as well prove what a complete fool I am, she told herself, brushing tears roughly from her cheek. They had no business to fall without her say-so. She didn’t like crying.

  The day won’t be any worse for me finding that a hole in a wall is just a hole in a wall, she decided. She marched along the passageways between the north and east towers until she reached the section she could see in her mind’s eye. In that, at least, she was not mistaken, and it was easy for her to identify the stone in front of the cachette. It was just as easy to roll the stone out, feel in the dark for an invisible bag.

  Seriously, Mielitta! she mocked herself. She shut her eyes, the better to squeeze back those uncontrollable tears and then she felt it, a soft oddness at first that became firmer, became unmistakeably a drawstring bag. Still with her eyes shut in case it should disappear if she opened them, she loosened the strings, let the contents escape.

  Her head pounded as the memories flooded back. She remembered every word, every action of the Council meeting. Traitor, tests, history in walls, war… all the treasonous detail returned to her mind. Two words hammered at her as if six brawny men were working her into forged steel: Forest and password. The Councillors had discussed the unmentionable as if asking for a biscuit. And she knew the password to the water gate, to get to the Forest!

  ‘Freak,’ yelled a voice by her ear, laughing as she jumped. Bastien. She’d been so deep in her memory of the night before that she hadn’t noticed them coming, and now she was surrounded. Behind Bastien, Jannlou blocked the passage in one direction and the rest of the gang blocked even the light in the other direction.

  As if a mage had read her thoughts, a light-sphere flared on the wall behind her. The walls had kept her memory: maybe they would help? But she sensed nothing in the stone. She was on her own.

  The light-sphere showed up her escape routes but it also sent mad, dark shadows gleeful on Bastien’s face. Spite personified. As he leaned towards her, Mielitta folded her arms across her breast in instinctive protection, her hands gripping her own shoulders. He was so close, she could see a terrified Mielitta doll reflected in each dilated pupil and smell his excitement. Dark, vicious, sweat and sewage.

  ‘This should be fun, boys. Just what you were hoping for, Jannlou.’

  As if she were a prize, being presented to the shiny black-haired double of his powerful father. Mielitta shuddered as she recalled Crimver
t’s death. Jannlou’s teeth gleamed between bared lips.

  ‘Perfect,’ he growled.

  Bastien’s moment of crowing was long enough for Mielitta to grab the only weapon she had. She stretched over her shoulder and took an arrow from the quiver. Bastien had leaned so far over to intimidate her, that his weight was supported by his hands against the wall, either side of where she was standing.

  In one fluid stoop, she jabbed the tip of the arrow into his thigh. He lost his balance and screamed at the pain as she jerked the arrow back and pushed past him. She had no time to wonder how much louder Bastien could have screamed if she’d misjudged the stab. If it had gone in below the skin, she’d have had to leave her precious arrow or maim him seriously with the barb. Tempting though the thought was, she hadn’t misjudged and the flesh would heal as soon as Jannlou applied magecraft.

  Jannlou. There he was, black in her path, her only escape route. She kept up her momentum, relying on the shock of the moment to spur her past him – and on the arrow in her hand, ready for a second strike. She jabbed – and nothing happened. Jannlou’s blue eyes danced with devil-light. She felt his mage’s power as she side-charged his body, unable to use her hands at all.

  ‘Aiee,’ he shrieked, hopping on one leg.

  ‘Bastard!’ she muttered.

  ‘You have no idea,’ he whispered, bending as if in pain. She paused, met his eyes as he straightened. Sad, not triumphant. And she hadn’t touched him with her arrow, however hard he rubbed his leg.

  She rushed onwards down the passage, the scent of Jannlou filling her head. Earth, night, peaty darkness, trees, the Forest. Why did the Forest come to mind?

  They would be after her as soon as Jannlou had healed himself and Bastien, mere minutes for one with his powers, so Mielitta must run. Not just run from but run to. Her feet were taking her inexorably to the water gate and she knew the password. Her life was endless humiliation and she couldn’t bear one more day. The Forest was out there. What did she have to lose?