White Jenna Page 10

  The men nearest her murmured, turning that bit of information over and over, and one repeated out loud, “First mother.”

  Gorum seemed not to hear, but continued staring silently into the fire. Then he shook himself all over and went on. “The midwife was a lovely little Dale woman, small and dark. She sang lullabies with a voice like a slightly demented turtledove. She nursed me through that first cold year when my father could not think about babies because they made him so angry.”

  Jenna burst out, “My second mother was a midwife. She died carrying me in her arms.”

  Some of the men nodded, as if acknowledging something as yet unsaid, but Gorum simply stared at Jenna for a long moment, then turned back to the fire and his tale.

  “On the day I walked toward him, taking my first baby steps away from her arms, he forgave me. I called him Papa, which she had so carefully rehearsed with me, and he wept and called me his Good Son. He married her in secret at the year’s turning, not so much for love but for gratitude. His real love was buried in my mother’s grave. When three years later she gave birth to a healthy babe, and she herself still strong, he announced the marriage and claimed the child an heir.”

  “That was Carum?” Jenna asked.

  Gorum smiled at her, the first generous smile she had won from him. “That was Carum. He was small like his mother so, unlike the rest of us, he learned the art of compromise.”

  “Here, he’s not so small as that,” cried out a wiry, short man from the sitting crowd. “He be a head taller than me. That’s not short.”

  “Short may-be,” said another, “but he baint called Longbow for nowt.”

  The men chuckled at that. Even Sandor and Marek smiled.

  Jenna blushed, though she was not sure why, and Catrona sitting next to her put a hand on hers.

  “Do not mind them. You will have to get used to it. Men in a mob are all randy-mouthed. It means nothing,” she whispered.

  “It means less than nothing to me,” Jenna replied, “since I do not know what they mean.”

  “Then why have you flushed like some spring maiden at a court dance?” asked Catrona.

  Jenna looked down at her hands and twisted the priestess ring around her little finger. “I do not know,” she said. “I am not sure. I do not even know what a court dance is!”

  The king-in-exile laughed along with his men, then took a deep draught of his wine. “The marriage was the mistake Kalas had hoped for. A mistake he could use directly against the king. It was only an excuse, of course. He would have found another in time.

  “He began to spread rumors, and those rumors sparked small rebellions: knives in taverns, rocks at the king’s gate. What Kalas promised was the sanctity of the clans against the mixing of blood and seed with the Dales. Sanctity! As if we had not been sowing babes throughout the Dales for four hundred years! There was never an uncompromised clan on this island since the first days our forefathers set foot here.

  “I have bred horses, boy and man, and this I know—the lines without a wild strain thin out. Bones break, blood runs rose. The people of the Dales make the clans stronger, not weaker. My uncle, Lord Kalas, will find this out in the end.”

  “To the king!” two of the men shouted spontaneously, raising their cups.

  “To the kingdom,” countered Gorum, raising his.

  “To the Dales!” Jenna said, standing. In the late afternoon sun her white hair seemed haloed in light, electric with the puzzling wind.

  The rest of the men leaped to their feet, foremost among them Piet and the king-in-exile.

  “To the Dales!” they shouted, the thunder of their voices bounding back oddly from the broken walls and cracked stones. “The Dales.”

  They raised their cups, draining the last of the wine in the resounding silence. And into that silence there insinuated another sound, a low, insistent pounding.

  “Horses!” Catrona cried. She was quick to reach for her sword, but Piet was quicker.

  Placing his hand over hers, he said, “Those are our own.”

  “How can you know?” Jenna asked, coming close to him.

  “Our watch would have given warning.”

  “Your watch!” Jenna laughed. “They gave no warning of us.”

  “We needed no warning of ye—two warrior girls and a priestess all on our side and three unarmed boys.”

  “What if the watch were slain. That was done at one of the Hames …” She hesitated, remembering the girls slaughtered at Nill’s. “Then there would be no warning.”

  “Ye do not understand horses, girl. A man’s eye may be fooled but never a horse’s nose.” He put his finger alongside his nose. “Their horses have been fed on oats and ours on open graze. A horse can smell the difference. But look!” He pointed to the horses still quietly nibbling on the sparse grass outside the walls. “They seem content.”

  “Oh!” Jenna could think of no other answer.

  Piet smiled and clapped her on the back. “How could ye know horses, girl, stuck away all your life in a Hame. Now, me—I was taught by a hard man, name of Parke. Oft I felt the weight of his hand. But he taught me well. His teachings have kept me alive all these years.” He spoke with a blunt jollity, but having finished what he had to say, turned and walked purposely out of the kitchen, his hand never straying far from his sword.

  As if his movement were a signal, the rest of the men went quickly to what seemed to be appointed places, seven standing around the king-in-exile.

  Jenna spoke hurriedly to the boys. “See how the seven guard the king. Do likewise with Petra.”

  “I need no such guard,” Petra began.

  “Do it!” Jenna said.

  The boys did as they were bid, Jareth drawing his blade, and Jenna went back to Catrona’s side.

  “You did not tell me about Piet,” Jenna whispered.

  “You did not ask,” Catrona said.

  “I did not know the questions.”

  “Then you deserved no answer.”

  Jenna nodded. Catrona had been her teacher, her guardian, her sister, and one of her many mothers at Selden Hame. But, Jenna suddenly realized, she had known little—she had known nothing—about Catrona. And she had never asked.

  “Now, why have you told me nothing about this Longbow who calls you White Jenna and has loved you for five years?” Catrona asked.

  “You did not ask,” said Jenna. “Besides—there is nothing to tell.”

  “Yet!” Catrona laughed. Then her voice got strangely serious. “Did Amalda ever get a chance to explain to you the way of a woman with a man? Or did Mother Alta as part of her preparation for your mission? Though …” She made an explosive sound that was supposed to be a laugh but was much too bitter for one. “Though I would guess that one knows aught of it, as Piet would say. She loves only herself—and her dark sister. Perhaps I should tell you …” She glanced at Jenna.

  Jenna colored. “I know what I need to know.”

  Nodding, Catrona said, “Yes—I judge you do. And the rest you can learn. But remember, sweet Jen, what they say: Experience is rarely a gentle master.”

  The dust of the approaching riders so filled the air then, Jenna was forced to raise a hand to wipe her tearing eyes. When she could see again, there were fully a hundred dark horses milling outside the walls and occasionally pushing in through the broken gates. The smell of them was overwhelming.

  Jenna saw a single gray horse in the crowd. If the king had been riding one, she thought Carum might be on the other. Carum! She began shoving her way toward the gray.

  Using her shoulder, she pushed first one horse then another aside. As often she was pushed back by a large dark shoulder or rump. I shall be flattened for sure, she thought. I shall smell like a horse. She wondered suddenly about her hair, about the clothes she had slept in for days, about the face that must have changed in the five years—five years!—since he had seen her. She thought about turning back, but the horses held her hostage to her first impulse.

  A
nd then the gray loomed before her. Putting a hand on its neck, she found that her hand was shaking. All around her men were dismounting and cursing pleasantly at one another. Suddenly, she did not dare look.

  Only the man on the gray remained in his saddle. At last she raised her face to stare up at him. He was enormous, towering over her on the gray. Heavily bearded, with long black hair bound up in seven braids, he stared back. Each of the braids was tied off with a piece of crimson thread. A red and gold headband, smudged with dirt and blood, was pulled so tight around his forehead, the skin was taut below it. There was a deep gash over his right eye. As he looked at Jenna, his mouth twisted into a strange smile. It was then she noticed his hands were tied behind him.

  Starting to turn away, Jenna heard his harsh laugh.

  “So,” he said, “some of Alta’s fighting sluts still live.”

  She paused, her hands growing icy, the palms wet. Drawing in three careful latani breaths, she forced herself to move away from him without speaking. She would not draw sword against him. Whoever he was, he was injured. And bound. But her eyes were as wet as her palms. With anger, she reminded herself, not sorrow or fear. Blinded with the tears, she bumped into one of the men.

  “I am sorry,” she whispered.

  “I am not.”

  The voice was deep, deeper than she remembered, as if time or pain had sanded it. He wore a vest without a shirt and his arms were tanned and well muscled. Around his neck, on a leather thong, was a ring with a crest. His head was helmless and his light brown hair, now almost shoulder length, was tangled from the ride. The lashes were as long as she remembered, so beautiful on the boy, even more compelling on the grown man. There was a faint scar running from his left eye that lent him a slightly wanton look. His eyes were as blue as speedwells. He was exactly as tall as she.

  “Carum,” she whispered, wondering that her heart had not stuttered in her breast.

  “I said we would see one another again, my White Jenna.”

  “You said … a lot of things,” Jenna reminded him. “Not all of them true.”

  “I have been true,” he replied, “though I heard reports that you had died. Still I did not—could not—credit them.”

  “And I heard that you are not called Longbow for nothing.” She bit her lip wishing she could recall the words.

  For a moment he looked startled, then he grinned. “I shoot well, Jenna. That’s all. Stories feed the mind when the belly is not full.”

  She forgave neither of them for the exchange.

  Carum reached out and touched a piece of hair that had strayed across her brow. “Do we meet to quarrel? We parted with a kiss.”

  “Much has happened since then,” Jenna said. “I left you in safety to return to a Hame full of dead sisters.”

  “I know. I couldn’t rest there having heard what news Pike had of the other Hames. I feared desperately for you yet I couldn’t leave Pike with his wounds. But I told the others all about you. How you were the White One of prophecy, the Anna. How Ox and Hound had bowed before you. They were ready to love you for what you had become.”

  “And you?”

  “I already loved you. For what you were.”

  “You knew nothing of what I was. Of what I am.”

  “I know everything I need to know, Jenna.” He smiled shyly and she saw the boy behind the face of the man, yet she could not seem to stop picking quarrels.

  “How can you know?”

  “My heart knows. It knew from the first moment I saw you and cried you merci. I cry it again. Here. Now.”

  Jenna shook her head. “You have grown a fine tongue. Is that what a prince who shoots well says.”

  “Carum! You are safely returned.” It was the king. He threw his arms around his brother. “I always worry, you know.” He smiled at Jenna. “I do not forget he is my baby brother.”

  “Not only returned safely, Gorum, but having surprised and killed a company of the usurper’s horse and captured the man on the gray.” He turned to his own mount and untied something from the saddlebag. It was a helm. He held it out to his brother.

  Jenna felt herself turn cold. She had seen a helm like that before, had held one in her hands, had thrown it into an open grave. She stared at the thing in Carum’s hands. It was dark, covered with a hairy hide. There were two ears standing stiff at the top and a snout and mouth with bloody fangs.

  “The Bear!” Jenna whispered.

  “By Alta’s Hairs!” Gorum cried. “You have captured the bloody Bear. Well done, brother.” He took the helm from Carum’s hands and held it above his head. “The Bear!” he cried. “We have the Bear!”

  The name echoed around the encampment, and the men who had been waiting joined the returning riders cheering the capture.

  THE BALLAD:

  King Kalas and His Sons

  King Kalas had four sons

  And four sons had he,

  And they rambled around

  In the northern countrie.

  And they rambled around

  Without ever a care,

  The Hound and the Bull

  And the Cat and the Bear.

  The Hound was a hunter,

  The Hound was a spy,

  The Hound could shoot down,

  Any bird on the fly.

  The Hound was out hunting

  When brought down was he

  Alone as he rambled

  The northern countrie.

  King Kalas had three sons,

  And three sons had he,

  And they rambled around

  In the northern countrie.

  And they rambled around

  Without ever a care.

  And they were the Bull

  And the Cat and the Bear.

  The Bull was a gorer,

  The Bull was a knight,

  And never a man who would

  Run from a fight.

  The Bull was out fighting

  When brought down was he

  Alone as he rambled

  The northern countrie.

  King Kalas had two sons,

  And two sons had he,

  And they rambled around

  In the northern countrie.

  And they rambled around

  Without ever a care.

  And the names they were called

  Were the Cat and the Bear.

  The Cat was a shadow,

  The Cat was a snare,

  Sometimes you knew not

  When the Cat was right there.

  The Cat was out hiding

  When brought down was he

  Alone as he rambled

  The northern countrie.

  King Kalas had one son,

  And one son had he,

  And he rambled around

  In the northern countrie.

  And he rambled around

  Without ever a care,

  And the name he went under

  Was Kalas’ Bear.

  The Bear was a bully,

  The Bear was a brag,

  His mouth was brimmed over

  With bluster and swag.

  The Bear was out boasting

  When brought down was he

  Alone as he rambled

  The northern countrie.

  King Kalas had no sons,

  And no sons had he

  To ramble around

  In the northern countrie.

  Though late in the evening

  The ghosts are seen there

  Of the Hound and the Bull

  And the Cat and the Bear.

  THE STORY:

  After the horses were unsaddled, brushed, and set out to graze, the men gathered for food in the Hame’s roofless kitchen. Jenna heard bits and pieces of the story of the battle as she stood, tongue-tied, by Carum’s side. He was so at ease with the men, trading banter and small slanders without hesitation, she wondered what had happened to the shy, scholarly boy she had known so briefly. War had happened to him, she thought suddenly. And som
ething more. That the something more might be the passage of five years was a traitorous thought she pushed far away.

  They had come upon the company of horse near a small town. “Karenton,” Jenna had heard one man say. “Karen’s Town,” another. Surprise and numbers had been in their favor. The usurper’s bloody men had never had a chance. Some of them had even begged to surrender, but no quarter had been given. Except for the Bear. Longbow had insisted that he would be delivered in chains to the feet of the king-in-exile.

  When they spoke of the Bear, the men’s mouths had been soiled with his name and deeds. They called him “Slaughterer of a Thousand Women,” and “Butcher of Bertram’s Rest,” and yet even as they spoke of the horrors, Jenna could not help thinking that there was admiration as well in their voices. The details of his merciless killings seemed more like tales to frighten young children. She had walked deliberately over to the tree where he had been bound to see whether the sign of his bloodlust was imprinted upon his face.

  One of his braids had unraveled into three kinked strands, but otherwise he looked as he had on his horse: big, hairy, leering, but no more a beast than others of the men milling around.

  There were two guards standing by him, swords drawn.

  “Best not get close,” said one, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

  “He’s a tricker,” said the other, the man with the scarred eye.

  “He’s bound,” Jenna pointed out. “And what can he do to me with his hands and legs so prisoned?”

  The Bear’s head went back at that and he laughed a loud, roaring laugh. Then he turned to the first guard. “She wants to know what I can do without hands or legs? Do you want to tell her—or shall I?”

  The guard slapped him hard with the back of his hand, so hard his lower lip split open and his mouth filled with blood.

  “Do not speak to the White One that way,” he said.

  “The White One?”

  “The Anna. Who made your brothers the Hound and the Bull bow low.”

  The Bear sucked on his lower lip until the bleeding stopped, then he stared at Jenna, grinning. His teeth were stained. “So, you are that girl, the one who lost her dolly at the Hound’s grave. The one who lopped off the Bull’s hand so he died a long, horrible death when the green took him. That girl. I will have something special for you, later.”