White Jenna Read online

  He sat down beside her on the couch. “I am. I admit it. Horribly jealous.” His voice was once again soft.

  “And what about that oak?” She laughed. “What about that larch? Are waiting trees jealous?”

  He laughed back. “Of every passing wind. Of every flying bird. Of every squirrel on a branch and every fox in its bole. Of anything capable of moving toward you.”

  She put her hand out blindly in the dark and found his face. She could feel, even without seeing it, that his brow was ridged; he was wearing that furrowed look he got when he was thinking. She smoothed the furrows with two fingers.

  “What are you thinking of?” she asked.

  “Of how I love you despite the deaths that lie between us.”

  “Hush,” she whispered. “Do not soil your mouth with those deaths. Do not think of the Hound. Do not think of the Bull. Do not remember Catrona or the women of the Hames. We must not let their blood come between us.” She realized that she had said nothing of the other word, love, and wondered if he realized it, too.

  “I saw more of those deaths than even you have, Jo-an-enna. I cannot help think of them. I cannot help think of my part in them.” But then he did hush, giving himself over to her ministrations.

  For a long moment, her fingers on his forehead were the only contact between them. Then he put his hands up and found her waiting face in the dark. Slowly he ran his fingers down her braids, and began to unplait them. She did not move until he had shaken her hair free of its bindings, tumbling it over her shoulders, where it lay smelling of wind and riding.

  She had all she could do to remember to breathe and then, somehow, she was right next to him and his mouth was on hers. They were lying on the sofa, covered in the canopy of her hair. She felt she had to give him something, some great gift, but she could not speak the word love.

  “My true name,” she whispered at last, “is Annuanna. Annuanna. No one knows it now but my Mother Alta, my dark sister, and you.”

  “Annuanna,” he whispered into her mouth, his breath sweet with it.

  Then mouth on mouth, tongue to tongue, without ever saying the word love, they learned more than she had ever been told or he had ever discovered in his books about it, and they learned it together, far, far into the night.

  THE HISTORY:

  The sexual taboos of the ancient Garunians and Dalites differed so greatly that one would be hard put to find any commonalities. The Garunians had a sophisticated society and had borrowed eagerly from their Continental neighbors for both their hetero- and their homosexual tastes. By the time they had conquered the island kingdom of the Dales, they had been through many baroque periods of alternating orgiastic and celibate marriage modes. We have much evidence of this from Continental sources. (See Doyle’s earliest work, her doctoral thesis: “Amatory Practices, Obligatory Vows” which was later turned into the popular book I Do, We Do: Or What the Garunians Did.)

  But of the Garunians after the conquest of the Dales we know little, and must make do with educated guesses. Doyle, sensibly, assumes they carried the group marriage concept, then so popular on the Continent, across the Bay of All Souls with them. Again, with eminent sensibleness, she hypothesizes that polygamy allowed the Garunian nobles to marry within the Garun hierarchy and the Dalian upper classes; a king might have wives from both without violating the strict Dale code of sexual ethics.

  As the Dalites were matriarchal at that time (see Cowan’s brilliant “Mother and Son: How Titles Passed Through the Dalian Line,” Demographics Annual, Pasden University Press, #58.) all monies, land, and titles passed maternally so the conquest by the patriarchal Garuns must have meant quite a change. There is even evidence that the Dalites did not understand the man’s role in the creation of children, believing in some odd form of female cloning, the “mirror twins” which Magon is so fond of exploring. (Diana Burrow-Jones uncovers this attitude in her chapter “The Papa Perplex” in Encyclopedia of the Dales.) However difficult the change may have been on the Dale psyches, things evidently went relatively smoothly for four hundred years. The Garun kings took wives from the Dales, staying carefully abstinent with them but nonetheless binding the Dale tribes to them in this way. The Dale wives were given the title of priestess and made honorary mothers, or Mother Altas according to Sigel and Salmon, though their evidence is still rather fragmentary.

  Magon, of course, in his typical inane leaps, tries to prove that many of the later kings (especially Oran, father of Langbrow, and Langbrow himself) actually bedded their Dale wives, producing offspring. He cites as evidence a few old and rather coarse rhymes, including the infamous

  When Langbrow put his awl in

  To carve a wooden babe

  That of a larch and of an oak

  Was so securely made …

  as well as the tender dedicatory note writ in hand (and by whose hand we do not know) on the one extant copy we have of Langbrow’s Book of Battles: This littl booke is for thee Annuanna, my luv, my lighte. Leaving aside the fact that Langbrow’s Garunian wife was named Jo-el-ean (the infamous Jo-el-ean who refused to sit by her husband’s side and thus brought down his reign in ruin and infamy) the name Annuanna, despite its feminine ending has long been considered a man’s name, being the shortened form of Annuannatan. If in fact the dedication is in Langbrow’s hand, it makes more sense that he would sign the Book of Battles to a male friend; Annuannatan can only be his homosexual lover, his blanket companion from the army. If Dr. Magon had done this kind of root work, he would not now be making a fool of himself in scholarly circles.

  THE STORY:

  It was two days before they left New Steading, for it took that long to round up and equip two hundred young men. In fact, there were two hundred and thirty-seven by actual count, including the mayor’s oldest son. And there was new clothing for the men already following the king, as well as dozens of pikes and swords loaned by the town fathers. Carum looked splendid in a wine-colored jerkin and trews and a showy white shirt pipped with gold. The king was all in gold weave. Even Piet looked resplendent, though he had chosen green and brown “to blend in with the woods,” he had muttered, adding, “Gold is fine for ceremony, my lord, but war is another matter altogether.”

  Gorum had laughed at that. “Wherever a king is, there is ceremony.”

  “Wherever a king is, there is war,” Carum had put in, but they ignored him.

  Jenna had refused her new clothes since all they offered her were women’s skirts and bodices dressed with fancy beading. She knew the skirts would make riding difficult, guessed the beads would catch in any brush and leave an easy trail to follow. Instead she brushed out her old skins, borrowing a needle and thread to mend the few tears. She did not need to be fancy. In war one needed the proper equipment. And as Catrona had reminded her in training: In a fight anything is a sword.

  She did accept their offer of a bath, however, and spent over an hour soaking. Her only regret, as she sank into the warm water, was that the smell of Carum’s flesh on hers disappeared in the first soaping, though when she closed her eyes, she could recall its deep, tangy odor. She thought she would know him anywhere, just from that smell. Still, as the water enveloped her, she gave herself over to its ministry. Such long ridings offered only cold country streams and though she was used to the chilly lavings, having had long practice out in the woods, and washed herself dutifully every day they found so much as a catchpool, she had, after all, been brought up in a Hame with a famous deep-heated bath. It was the only bit of civilization she really missed.

  When had she taken her last hot bath? It felt like forever since she and Petra had soaked in the Hame together. But in the Dales they said: Forever is no distance at all.

  Jenna knew that the distance was there. Something had certainly changed Petra—or changed Jenna. She and Carum had emerged from the council room holding hands but once they had found the main door, had moved apart swiftly, walking down into the town square so removed from one another, they could not have touc
hed even by stretching.

  They had found Petra leaning against a wall, nibbling on a piece of chicken, eyes closed.

  “Petra!” Jenna whispered.

  Petra’s eyes opened slowly, almost reluctantly.

  “And where did you two get to?”

  Carum turned and left abruptly, without even trying to offer an excuse. Jenna refused to watch him go.

  “I saw you did not eat,” Petra continued, as if Carum had never been there at all, had not been included in her initial accusation. “So I saved a whole napkin full of food for you for later. Such theft does not come easily to me. I am trained to be a Mother Alta. And then you were nowhere to be found.”

  “I was …” Jenna began, then realized that she could say nothing to Petra. Nothing. Petra was still a girl, after all, and Jenna was a girl no longer. Change had happened, slowly, yet suddenly. And Petra had not shared it. Jenna wondered that the change did not show easily—on her cheeks, in her eyes, on her mouth, still soft from all those kisses. Reaching out, she picked off a bit of the chicken in Petra’s hand.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I am starved.”

  “No wonder,” Petra said. “If the gods do not eat of our food, they are bound to get hungry.”

  “Rarely eat,” Jenna corrected her. “He said rarely!”

  Petra handed her the leek bulb, but Jenna shook her head, so Petra chewed it herself.

  “They want me to stay here,” Petra said.

  “Who does?”

  “Everyone. The mayor …” She hesitated.

  “Perhaps you should,” Jenna said slowly, horrified at the thought.

  “They said women should not be at war. That we are not strong as men. The townsfolk said that.”

  “And what about me? What about the Anna?”

  “You are a goddess. That is different.”

  “Alta’s women should be where they will. We are trained to war as well as to peace.”

  “I knew you would say that.” Petra grinned. “And that is what I told them. That and that Alta’s priestess must ride at the Anna’s side. After all, many women have already died that you might ride on and I ride with you.”

  “That is not why they died.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Stick to your rhyme. You are clearer that way.” Jenna bit her lip. How could she have said such a cruel thing?

  But Petra laughed, missing the cruelty entirely, or dismissing it. “You are right, of course. If I am to be your priestess, I had better be very clear—or very obscure. But correct either way!” She gave Jenna a hug.

  “Whew!” Jenna said. “If you insist on eating spring leeks, your breath will be as strong as five men’s even if your arm is not.”

  They both laughed then, friends again, and walked into the town hall.

  The ride out of New Steading toward the east had been accompanied by the cheering of the townsfolk. Jenna kept Duty from prancing, having been instructed by one of the men in how to keep the horse under control. She rode next to Carum, but that was as close as they had gotten since he had walked away from Petra’s questions. After that they had both been too busy, always surrounded by men.

  Over the thudding of the horse’s hooves, the fading shouts behind them, Jenna called, “Do you … still …” She hesitated. How could she scream that word where others might hear it?

  His mouth twisted wryly, the scar under his left eye crinkling up, as if winking wantonly at her. “Of course I still remember, if that is the word you want. I remember every move. Every … thing.” He gave her a big grin. “An oak remembers. And you?”

  She smiled back. “Jo-an-enna means lover of white birches.”

  “What?” The hoofbeats had obscured her answer.

  She repeated it, calling: “If you are a tree, I am a tree.”

  “I am a man,” he said. “Not a tree.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “That I truly know.”

  Then their horses, forced by the ones following, broke into a canter which stopped all talk as they galloped on down the winding road.

  They paused at two smaller towns on the way, adding a dozen men to their force, the king showing off Jenna as if she were some sort of exotic animal imported from the Continent. Carum grumbled about it loudly, but even he had to admit the show seemed to be working.

  Piet was not so pleased. “Twelve men when we need twelve hundred,” he said. “When twelve thousand would not be amiss.”

  “Then what about women?” Jenna asked. They were stopped at the next rest, the new boys being well introduced while the horses made quick work of the grass by the roadside. “Surely we are near some Hame.” She paused, adding quietly, “There must be some Hame still unharmed close by. You said ten gone, but there were …” her voice cracked, “seventeen.”

  Piet grunted; what answer he meant to give was unclear. But the king shook his head. “These are not regular army men used to blanket companions. These are boys right off the farms or right out of their fathers’ shops. The girls they know cook and sew. If we are to keep their minds on their new swords …”

  “The women of the Hame know how to wield their swords. And they have a reason to …”

  “There is one Hame nearby,” Carum interrupted suddenly. He reached into his saddlebag and drew out a map. Spreading it across his horse’s flank, he ran a finger along a wavering black line. “We are somewhere here …”

  “Here!” Piet said, jabbing at the map with his forefinger.

  Carum nodded. “And there—” His finger pointed to a strange hatching of marks. “That is M’dorah Hame.”

  “M’dorah?” Jenna thought back to the list that Catrona had reeled off when their fateful journey had started. Selden, Calla’s Ford, Wilma’s Crossing, Josstown, Calamarie, Carpenter’s, Krisston, West Dale, Annsville, Crimerci, Lara’s Well, Sammiton, East James, John-o-the-Mill’s, Carter’s Tracing, North Brook, Nill’s … remembering Nill’s she set her jaw. But there had been no mention of a M’dorah. Aloud, she said, “I have never heard of it.”

  Looking up, Carum said, almost absently, “It’s an odd place, Jenna. Not exactly a regular Hame, at least that’s what the books say. They broke away from the first Alta and built their Hame atop an inaccessible cliff. The only way up is by rope ladder. They will have nothing to do with men. They have never sent fighters to the army. And they have never sent …”

  “M’dorah,” Petra mused. “They never send missioners out. My Mother Alta always threatened that if we did not behave, she would send us to M’dorah on our mission: High-towered Hame where eagles dare not nest. I thought it but a story.”

  “Perhaps that’s all it is,” Carum said. “But it is supposed to be nearby.”

  “Let us go,” Jenna said suddenly. “If it exists at all, we will bring back many women fighters to swell your ranks. And they will be women who want nothing to do with your men, so the boys will not be troubled by them.”

  The king laughed. “Then you do not understand boys! They can make a woman out of flowers, out of trees, out of dreams. Their bodies smell of springtide all year long.”

  Jenna blushed furiously.

  “There is nothing there. No one,” Piet growled. “It means taking time out for a mere tale.”

  “Perhaps not,” Carum put in. “Stories have to start somewhere.”

  “This one started as a joke after too much wine,” Piet groused. “And too few women.”

  “From the map,” Jenna said, “it looks to be less than a day’s ride from here. And you did say you needed more fighters. And you wanted to buy yourself time. Let me go. I will persuade them.”

  “Persuade eagles!” Piet said.

  “You are too precious to let go.” The king’s face was thoughtful.

  “I will go with her,” Carum said. “We will return.”

  Looking at the map carefully, the king traced the road from the hatched site of M’dorah. Finally he turned to Jenna. “We will camp there for the night,” he said, pointing
to the place where the road to M’dorah turned off. “You will have until morning. No sleep, but then as they say on the Continent: Surely a dream is worth a little sleep!” He laughed silently. “Piet will go with you. Carum, you will remain here.”

  He knows, Jenna thought. He knows about Carum and me. The thought embarrassed her, then made her mad, as if Gorum had sullied them by knowing.

  Carum began to protest, but Jenna nodded abruptly, cutting off his argument. “Piet,” she agreed. “And Petra. I will need my priestess with me if I am to convince them to join us.”

  “Piet for protection and the girl for conviction. An unlikely pair.” He smiled.

  “I am my own protection,” Jenna said. “And Piet is for your convictions.”

  Gorum nodded solemnly. He put his hand out. “Your hand on your return.”

  “You have my word on it,” she said. “Besides, you have here those I most care for in the world.” She gestured to Jareth, Marek, Sandor. That her circling hand did not include Carum was proof to herself that she was not being entirely truthful to the king. After all, she had not mentioned Pynt or A-ma or the other women of Selden Hame either. Surely they were the ones she most cared for.

  If the king noticed her omission, he did not mention it, holding his hand steadily toward her. She was forced to take it, feeling again its lack of warmth as palm to palm they made their pledge.

  The road to M’dorah was hardly a road at all, just an overgrown path where the trees suddenly widened. It was Piet who recognized it as a roadway, though when challenged afterward by Marek, he could not explain how he had known.

  The king called a halt and the large company encircled the meadow, setting up camp. Scouts were sent to locate water and to track ahead down the main road. But Piet, Petra, and Jenna turned along the scant path.

  Jenna looked back only once, hoping to see Carum watching. But he was nowhere in sight. She entered the trees thinking about the perfidy of men; how love, like memory, could be false; and conscious of Duty’s broad back beneath her.