Queen of the Warrior Bees

by Jean Gill

  If Mielitta could talk to her before the Maturity Ceremony, she could warn her, tell her of an escape plan. Drianne could nod, shake her head. Or Kermon could interpret her thoughts so Mielitta didn’t mistake them. That would mean trusting Kermon. Did she? How could she know that his soul-reading was the truth?

  What if Drianne wanted to be forged, to be an adult, to belong? The Test and Ceremony would change her as they changed all girls. What if she was prepared to marry Bastien? This was the way of the Citadel. Hannah would be ecstatic if she were chosen by Bastien and she was not the only one. He would be a powerful mage and Drianne would be under his protection. He might mature, become less radical under Drianne’s influence, grow independent from his father. Bastien and Rinduran already disagreed.

  She sighed. To be revisited. At least she had a few days to come up with a plan. Probably. She sighed again.

  When the door creaked open, she was at the top of the stepladder, so she couldn’t recognise the visitor until he spoke.

  ‘The stones be with you, Mielitta.’

  Jannlou.

  ‘Thank you, Mage Jannlou, Apprentice Mage Jannlou. And with you,’ she answered mechanically, concentrating hard on Fossils of the Neoplastine Era. ‘Is there a book you seek?’

  ‘No. I want to talk to you.’

  She glanced down and immediately regretted doing so. Jannlou picked up the pile of books on the stool, put them on the floor and sat, immediately above the distortion in the woodette caused by the dead fly. What if the mage sensed the aberration? What if he moved that other pile of books, beneath the stool and saw the corpse and the ripple? He’d guess it was her doing.

  Jannlou shifted restlessly.

  She had to keep him distracted and looking up, so she stayed on the highest step, pretending to continue her work.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ seemed a simple enough question but apparently it wasn’t.

  Silence ensued.

  As if dragging the words out of the walls themselves, Jannlou said, ‘I know you don’t trust me, that you remember running from me, from us. I want you to know that it wasn’t like you thought.’ He finished lamely, ‘I never actually hurt you.’

  She sparked. ‘Never hurt me? You think living in fear is nothing? You think the words you all shouted are nothing? You think a gang bigger than you, stronger than you, laughing and crowding round, prodding you – you think that’s nothing? And those so-funny practical jokes! You think humiliation is nothing? Pity you don’t get a bit more of it then!’ The moment she drew breath she realised how stupid she’d been. She should have been the one rendered mute, for her own safety.

  ‘You don’t need to bite my head off,’ he told her, looking puzzled rather than outraged at her disrespect. ‘I’m trying to say sorry. I’d like to explain–’ He shook his head. ‘But I can’t. It’s too dangerous.’

  She’d already spoken too freely so she controlled her curiosity. ‘I told you before. Childhood matters can be left behind in childhood,’ she told him briskly and gave an inane smile for good measure. Blue eyes observed her steadily. Silver wriggling in the purple depths, like fish in the stream, like slippery thoughts. The male scent of sun-warmed earth rose to her flared nostrils.

  ‘That’s not the only thing,’ he continued. ‘You’re different. I believe you when you say the forging didn’t work properly with you. I feel like I can share my thoughts with you.’

  She giggled nervously. The nerves were genuine. Different was not a word she wanted as a compliment. ‘I’m just an ordinary woman, Mage Jannlou.’ She allowed herself a touch of pride. ‘Though I am Assistant Librarian.’

  As if she hadn’t spoken, he continued, ‘You must wonder, like I do, why we do all that weapons training, to excel at something which has no use, us with swords, you with your bow – I saw how good you were. Yet there is no real combat here and conflicts are solved by mages, with craft.’

  Mielitta didn’t allow herself to think. She could do that later. ‘Perfection requires that children and men keep fit and have a harmless outlet for their competitive hormones so training and sports are required.’

  ‘But there is no point to them! We might as well run on a grassette treadmill for exercise.’

  ‘I do not question the wisdom of the stones and the mages in their Perfect choices.’ And neither should you, she thought, intrigued despite herself.

  ‘It’s not just weapons training. It’s everything about the way we live. Activities are random and pointless, to give the illusion of purpose. Artisans create objects we don’t need, that could be better made by magecraft anyway. We are told that such work exhausts mages, and yet the choice of what it’s used for makes no sense.’

  ‘It’s Perfection.’

  Jannlou looked down his nose at her. ‘Perfection has become a creed that men follow blindly or manipulate to their own ends.’

  Mielitta gasped. ‘May the stones forgive you.’

  ‘The stones.’ His tone was bitter.

  ‘You are a mage. You are so lucky to receive the wisdom of our ancestors directly. I wish I could!’ In case he hadn’t got the message, she added, ‘Maybe one day, I’ll be chosen as a representative and I could go into the stones. If a mage ever finds me worthy…’ Now she would find out how deep his interest in her really was.

  His bitterness increased. ‘I can’t even–’ He shook his head and broke off, changed the subject to one just as shocking.

  ‘I don’t see why women can’t carry on with weapons training or any other activity they want to.’

  ‘Like smith-work.’ The words were out before she could stop them. If he were setting traps to expose her as a traitor, she could at least try not to fall into them.

  He was kicking the books under the stool as he swung his legs to and fro. Any minute now, he would realise, move the books and discover the mess she’d made in the fabric of the floor.

  ‘Yes, like smith-work.’ He showed no sign of finding her reply odd. His legs stopped swinging. ‘And you shouldn’t be forged differently from men.’

  Sidestepping making a treasonous reply was tricky as Mielitta had no idea what really took place apart from the vague hints she’d picked up from Hannah and her friends. ‘Perhaps your mother could explain Perfection from a woman’s point of view,’ she hedged.

  His face darkened. She’d judged that wrong too. ‘My mother’s dead.’

  ‘May she return to the stones,’ Mielitta said automatically but then she was ashamed of giving him nothing but a platitude. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know who my mother was. Or my father. I’m a foundling.’

  The set lines of his face softened. ‘I know. Everybody knows how Mage Declan found you.’ He smiled at her weakly. ‘It’s a great story. I’m not surprised you love the walls.’

  ‘When did your mother die?’ she asked, not sure whether it was better to let him talk or change the subject again. There didn’t seem to be any safe subjects.

  ‘Years ago. From allergy. I was eleven.’

  Her heart sank. The dead fly. She’d let the Forest in and other mothers would die. ‘I-I-I’m sorry,’ she stammered again.

  ‘Don’t be. She wasn’t.’ The silence dragged and presumably he felt it would be polite to explain such an extraordinary statement. ‘She was allergic from babyhood and she told me–’ he swallowed. ‘She believed Perfection caused it, the Citadel, our way of life. She told me,’ he lowered his voice although only the two of them were in the room, ‘she told me the cure was in the Forest.’

  Mielitta’s heart pounded and her gasp came a little late, when she remembered that ought to be her reaction. As lightly as she could, she forced herself to reply, ‘But the Council Mages told us there is a traitor here who has let the Forest in and more people have died of allergy. So your mother was–,’ she searched for the tactful word, ‘–mistaken. I’m really sorry she was so ill – but maybe the illness affected her mind.’ Dead fly, she thought.

  ‘Maybe,’ he conceded
. ‘She never had the chance to test her theory so I don’t know. Maybe those dying now have had too big a dose of natural forces when they’ve lived too long in the Citadel. Survived, she called it. She said we weren’t meant to live like this, that there must be another way. We won’t know, will we, unless we try another way?’

  Oh, stones. What should she say now? If he was trying to entrap her, he was doing a great job. She remembered Crimvert saying much the same as Jannlou’s mother, about existing not living; look what had happened to him. She said nothing.

  ‘I thought,’ he said slowly, ‘that you might be interested in what she thought.’

  Hating herself, she replied, ‘It must have been very hard for you, a mage, to listen to such treason from your own mother. She must have suffered to speak so against Perfection.’

  Jannlou’s expression closed down. ‘Yes, she suffered,’ he said shortly. ‘All her stunted life.’ He rose abruptly and left without any attempt to speak the formula of parting.

  Mielitta backed down the steps, piled books on top of the stool again, and straightened the heap underneath so that the fly was well buried. She tried to focus on devising an escape plan for Drianne but Jannlou’s words refused to stay on their To be revisited shelf and reverberated round her head like bees.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Alone in her chamber, Mielitta kicked herself for having missed the chance to visit Drianne. She should have asked Jannlou to take her. But maybe it was for the best. She wasn’t sure such a request would have been wise. She didn’t know what to make of Jannlou any more but she did know what to make of Bastien and it was all bad. Not that Jannlou would see it that way. He might well tell his long-time friend every word he exchanged with Mielitta, and she with Drianne, in all innocence.

  Or Jannlou might be as deceitful as Bastien – more so, as he was better at setting verbal traps, which she kept falling into. At some stage, she’d run out of luck and would face the mages’ righteous anger. It was more likely to be Magaram and Shenagra who’d punish her than Bastien. She shivered. She knew what that punishment was likely to be but whatever the risk, she had to reach Drianne somehow, and soon.

  As a last resort, she would launch a surprise attack during the Ceremony, with the full force of arrows and bees. Maybe the power that had surged through her when she rescued Drianne from Bastien and Jannlou would be enough to extricate the girl from the Maturity Ceremony and give them time to flee.

  She would need her weapons and skills in top condition, just in case. She pulled the quiver out from under the bed and inspected each arrow, one at a time. No splits in the wood, no crushed featherettes in the flights or dints in the arrowheads. No frayed loops on her bow.

  She stroked the wooden bow, old-style yew, a gift from Tannlei for her fourteenth-year disappointment at still being a child. The bow was used to her draw and nobody else was allowed to touch it. However much they’d harassed her, even Bastien and Jannlou had never tried to steal her bow – and never would. As Apprentice Mages, they couldn’t risk an accusation of theft or even the attempt. Such a crime against Perfection ranked with breaking into a bedchamber – unthinkable.

  She nocked an arrow just to check the tension. A drawn bow is seven-eighths broken so never test it empty. She found a rough edge in the nock, which she sanded smooth with glasspaper. Then she tested it again. Perfect.

  Perhaps that was part of the laxness in the Citadel that Rinduran had complained of, her archery teacher’s love of historic materials. But Declan used wood and steel in the forge. It was as Jannlou had said – no logic in how Perfection was implemented.

  She had some basic equipment in her pack: a knife, some glasspaper, two spare flights, one shaft. She pulled the neck-chain up from her bodice and fingered the steel of the arrowhead. Kermon’s work was perfection, not only in the patterned steel, but even in its blunt edges, appropriate for its use, purely decorative. Mielitta knew that if she could only hone the edges of the arrowhead again, it would be as sharp as it was strong, her lucky, deadly arrow.

  She could go to the forge early, before anyone was awake, don the smith’s gauntlets. It would be child’s play to oil and whet the arrowhead until it was sharp. Even easier to shave the end of a wooden shaft to fit into the tubular end of the steel arrowhead. But then she would need to light the forge, wait and, when it was hot enough, heat the steel tube to the exact shade of cherry red required. If it turned white, it was too hot and would set fire to the wood. If not hot enough, it wouldn’t char the wood enough for the shaft to enter the tube and stay there. She knew every step, from hammering the pin into the tube on the stone anvil, the final reinforcement, right down to quenching the head in oil.

  No, it wasn’t any lack of technique that was her problem. It was the secrecy. It wasn’t possible to light the forge, wait the time required, pursue all the stages, without Declan appearing during the process. She was under no illusions as to how angry he would be at anybody else using his forge without permission, let alone a lady. Worst of all, he would doubt that she was a lady. At best, he would swallow her story about a problem in her forging but she suspected he knew more than she did and would smell a rat. Another of those book sayings that expressed exactly what she meant. She was the rat. And he would smell her rattiness.

  She fingered her arrowhead again, longing to give it the chance to fulfil its purpose. What a waste of such workmanship! Kermon’s workmanship. Once more, her thoughts brought her back to the Apprentice Smith. He could complete his work on her arrow, put an edge back on, without Declan being suspicious. He’d been just as upset as she was when he was made to blunt the arrowhead. He could take her to Drianne, perform his soul-reader magecraft.

  But she trusted Kermon even less than she trusted Jannlou. Kermon’s ambitions were in the open but nevertheless he was getting everything he wanted, which was suspect in itself. He’d taken what should have been her place in the smithy. He’d appeared so conveniently to interpret for Drianne and win the mages’ plaudits, and Mielitta would never know whether his words matched Drianne’s thoughts.

  Drones. You can’t trust them.

  She ignored the buzzing of bee disapproval at such poor community spirit but their longing for the Forest matched her own. She told herself that practising her archery was the best she could do for Drianne at the moment. Her heart leapt at the promise of water, sun and honey, storms forgotten.

  The slow way, she admonished her bees. No whooshing and nausea. I’m doing this as a human.

  She rolled her practical shirt and britches up into a ball and strapped her quiver round her waist. She put her bow over her shoulder and threw a cloak around herself to disguise her weaponry as much as possible. No doubt she looked hunchbacked and strange but if challenged, she would simper and use her planned excuse, that she was on an errand to a knight in the archery yard. Besides which, it was so early that nobody would be around. Perfect ways were predictable ways.

  Mielitta glided at the quickest pace a lady could be expected to manage, along the familiar passages, down to the narrow path by the dripping rockface. She paused to touch the walls, for luck or a blessing from the ancestors, but she felt no connection. If they were indifferent to her fate, why had they sent her here? Why didn’t they open to her as the Forest did, calling her with its wild colours and scents?

  At least her hurry this time was only from her own sense of urgency, not from her enemies’ pursuit. She remembered Jannlou and Bastien shouting behind her, imagined their faces when they reached the blank rock and she’d gone. She smiled. She recalled their chase so vividly she even thought she heard footsteps echoing behind her and she shook her head at her foolish imagination.

  ‘Radium,’ she called, rushing through the water gate, feeling the different tastes of the rainbow colours, allowing her bee senses to enjoy the blues and ultraviolet.

  She stooped by the stream, cupped and drank the water of the day in her hands, today’s flavours of ochre, granite and lightning. The storm had left i
ts taste in the water and she quenched a thirst that had not left her since her last visit to the Forest. The purified drink that sustained the Citadel kept her from dying but this water made her feel alive. She remembered Jannlou’s treasonous quote, his mother’s words: ‘I am surviving, not living.’

  The meadow grass looked so soft and springy that Mielitta threw off her shoes and swirled her skirts in a dance, humming softly to her own tune. Her bees joined in, a chorus of thrums that made the earth itself seem to vibrate. The grass was spongy and sun-warmed under her feet and when she had skipped and whirled herself dizzy, the water sparkled, inviting. She took another drink, wondered if she was allowed to stand in the stream.

  Allowed. What did allowed mean in the Forest?

  She took off her cloak and carefully laid her clothes parcel and weaponry on it. Then she hitched up her skirts and stepped into the running water, gasping at its unexpected chill. What was pleasant to the mouth was startling on her feet but after the initial shock, the tickle of cold water over her toes made her giggle.

  She stepped boldly out into the stream and slipped on a large pebble that was slick with moss. Waving her arms to keep her balance just made her giggle more and she landed with a thump on her bottom, the icy freshness striking her through her lavender gown and Mage Fabrisse’s best embroidery.

  She stood up with some difficulty and watched rivulets run down the clinging fabric of her dress, dancing into the stream to continue on their way. She preferred not to think about the flavours she might have added to today’s water. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy being a human-shaped waterfall, then she waded to dry ground, clumsy with the weight of her soaked gown.

  She quickly stripped, spread out her wet clothes on some large rocks and donned her britches. Her fancy underwear was soaked through so she bound her breasts with a scarf as she had all the long years of her puberty. Her woman’s clothes would soon dry in the sunshine and she had work to do. She could pick them up on the way back. She laced up her boots, grabbed bow and quiver, and raced into the woods, not looking behind her.