Anoria - The Legend - Saga

ANORIA
THE LEGEND - PART II

"As I was growing up on the Continent and in the south, by the shores of the Thames and the wharfside inns of London, I used to learn as many of the old tales from the minstrels and sailors that I could. My father, as you may have guessed, was a ship's captain; my mother had been a tavern maid and went back to owning her own establishment after my father was drowned. Much like our esteemed hostess here," said Anoria, lifting her drinking vessel briefly. "I had this locket put on me as soon as I was old enough not to choke myself with it. One or two of the sailors that came from the north country talked about the legend of the house of Anoria, a haphazard-looking stone house with a little wide tower standing on a brambly patch of moorland, near a few houses and inns that did not belong to any particular shire or county.

"When I was very little, I did not know my true name. Mother called me Norrie; Father called me Little Annie sometimes as a pet name. After my mother told me what I was really called, that was when the sailors began telling me the stories. I put them together from bits and pieces.

"It seems this little patch of land was so wild, so thorny at one time that even the fiercest of invaders did not meander onto it. Perhaps it was fear; perhaps stories older still had cropped up around it like the very briars that spring up so abundantly here. The tribes of this little place have the aboriginal blood of the island...before even the mighty Celts settled here. There is a little Celt, of course, and latterly some of the tribes from above the northern ocean came in their longboats. They did not stay for very long, though; there is fertile land here but there were wider expanses elsewhere, closer to the ocean which they knew and loved. Their traces are here, of course; in this very hall, and in the lovely light skins of some of the townspeople." Here she lifted her eyes in the general direction of Prudwen, whose fair skin belied the rich deep auburn of her hair and the dark green of her eyes. One of the young men pushed the girl forward so suddenly that she found herself kneeling at Anoria's feet. She made as if to rise, but Anoria stilled her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Much as lovely Prudwen is captive here this morning, of course, the northerners took some of the village girls captive with them. It wasn't much of a sacrifice to allow the girls to go with the northerners; it seems the natives of your village here never wanted to increase much in number, to expand. As for the girls..." she laughed softly. "Do you suppose they put up very much resistance, Prudwen dear?"

"Not if...the northerners were terribly handsome, and hopefully young," Prudwen said with sudden spirit, looking sideways at the youths who had brought her in. Then she whispered, "Lady, let me go back to them!"

Anoria gave the same little laugh, but this time her eyes had strayed behind Prudwen to one of the youths behind her - he was aptly described as terribly handsome, and quite definitely young, perhaps even a year or two younger then Prudwen. He held a short rope, undoubtedly procured from one of the barns for the express purpose of securing Prudwen. Anoria nodded briefly and the boy brought the rope down quickly and sharply on the girl's shoulder. She gasped in shock, although not displeasure.

"Take her back," Anoria said, her tone indicating that she had had enough of playing with children.

"Come, Prudy," said the boy, slipping the rope in front of her and drawing her to her feet. Prudwen drew her breath in again, this time at being so near the fiercest and most magnetic of the youths. He backed over into the window seat, pulling her against him and with him.

"Only one of the women ever returned. It was years and years from the very last departure of a northerner. She had been quite young when she was taken, not even as old as..." she looked at the serving made beside her, and touched her shoulder. "Not as old as this serving girl," she said deliberately, fully aware that she had redirected the attention of some of the youths to the tavern girl at her feet.

"If a mere tavern girl is being such a lady today, she should sit in a proper seat," announced the blacksmith's dark-haired apprentice, drawing up a chair with a surprisingly peremptory manner. Before the girl could protest about being pulled away from Anoria, he sat and drew her into his lap much as Prudwen was in the other boy's. It was as though the spirit of Anoria's tale was infectious, the aura of long-gone warriors and their indomitable mannerisms pervading the room more and more as she spoke.

"She was, as I said, quite young, this girl, and truly no one from the village expected to hear from her again. Not her parents, or her younger brothers, or the young man who had been approaching her family about taking her hand in marriage. Not her closest friends or those who worked beside her. It was...fifteen years, perhaps twenty.

"As you know, of course, country women are strong. But this girl did not finish her upbringing in the country. The group that took her with them, they had given up on this island altogether. They were returning home, returning home to the north. They took her with them, this girl.

"What was her name?" asked the blacksmith's apprentice, into the breach of silence. The girl on his lap was too awed to speak, but her eyes were enormous.

"Let me guess," said the innkeeper with a rare smile.

"Of course, you are going to say Anoria. But it wasn't...at least not when she lived here. She had a Celtic name, Annwyr or Annuwyr...no, probably not that elaborate. It was probably Aneth, or something of that nature. The legends differ. But the longboat they took her back on, it was named for a warrior woman of Teutonic legend..."

"And she was called Anoria?" the tavern girl whispered hesitantly.

"By the time the minstrels got finished with it, wanting a singable name, it was Anoria. It was something strong and earthy-sounding, like a Valkyrie...Anhilde, perhaps. But it sounded very like the girl's name, and they called her by that, by the name of the ship. By the time she returned to the village, though, she was Anoria and her name was being sung all over Finland, Lapland, Germania, the Black Forest...all through the northern part of the Continent."

"Because she was so beautiful?" asked the blacksmith's apprentice, trying not to look at his captive tavern wench as he said this but failing dismally. This time Anoria's laugh was rich. "I believe she was, but no, that was not the reason. Anoria kept a very particular sort of castle, you see. She had learned a great deal from her captors, and spent time in the ship's hold in their chains...later, it is said, in a dungeon, although I am not quite sure why she was imprisoned."

"Did they need a reason?" asked the youngest dairymaid from the doorway. By now, to all intents and purposes, the entire village had crowded into the room. As it has begun to rain and thunder was rumbling in the distance, the time lost in the fields was of no account.

"I think not," announced Prudy's captor, pulling at the younger girl's arm and pulling her down to him. Prudy looked at the other girl, startled. Her eyes did not flash with resentment as one might have expected; she turned away to conceal the glitter or amusement...and something else...in her eyes.

"No, I do not suppose they did, not judging by the things that Anoria learned. As she grew older, and less fragile and pretty...but capable of drawing the men to her in a very different way...they took her up out of the dungeons, or down from the tower, I am not quite sure which it was. And she began to work alongside them in the castle, taking in the conquered and the political prisoners, the rivals and the rebels. She wore black always, and carried enormous iron keys and a wide leather belt with a whip. It is said she never drew a drop of blood or left a permanent mark, but the prisoners were terrified to be left in her keeping. Terrified...and yet it is said that great Vikings with scaled armour and long blond tresses..." here she looked at Prudwen indolently again..."used to turn away with their eyes lighting up like lanterns when they were told they would be put into Anoria's keeping.

"It is not known why she returned home. Perhaps to achieve some sort of closure. The stones were all here, the courtyard left over from some brief time of gentility, perhaps a stray Roman did indeed set sandal on these parts for a time. There was a little walled area where minstrels used to gather before this inn was built. Anoria had Baltic amber, and pirated coins and gems from all over the known world. And she had the iron keys, and the whips, and a way about her that made those things amazingly inoffensive. In no time, the strong youth contingent of the village had built this tower. I suppose she ordered her name carved over the fireplace. Probably, if you look elsewhere in the building, you will find it in various alphabets and forms. I have not explored everything yet myself.

"She spent her last days there, and the newer part of the building was put up later. For a time it was used as a granary...I have found traces of old seeds there, against the wall. After a time it was locked up and the keys taken away, probably by one of her thralls who survived her. Because she did keep thralls, the legends have said, to the very end of her life, beautiful and strong young men. One of them must have taken to the sea, or at any rate his sons after that, because the story and the amulet came to me. I cannot be descended from Anoria; it is said that she had no children, unless she left some behind in Norway or Lapland somewhere. But her thralls..."

There was a long moment's silence, and then the innkeeper said very slowly, "As you say, lady, there are no stronger property laws in these parts." "After all, this town has not even got a name because..." The blacksmith's apprentice could not finish. "It was a town of thralls," finished the serving girl, her color deepening in a manner which indicated that she fancied the idea more than a little.

"But you have not told them that you have people who wait for you elsewhere," Keliwyr said into the silence.

"They have you," said Anoria after another moment.

Twilight found the villagers heading home slowly through the last vestiges of rain, thoughtful and oddly, subtly altered. Prudwen was taken out by two of her captors, one holding each wrist by the short length of rope; the blacksmith's apprentice remained by the fire with the serving girl at his feet and the other two dairymaids were escorted out in similar captivity. But two of the youths followed Anoria home at a respectful distance. Her cloak was flung back and it was evident that the rope around her waist bore not only the newly made keys to her home but an older, heavier, more forbidding set on an enormous iron ring. And against the dusky fabric of her dress swished a sable pair of whips.

Keliwyr alone remained in the little open space that was the closest the village had to a town square. He seemed oblivious to the rain, looking not toward the tower as one might expect, but into the distance, out over the briars and the moorland. He seemed to be contemplating.

In the morning he was gone.

They came to the tower ten years later, when the world had changed greatly and the village had changed little. Except, of course, for the fact that it was commonly referred to as Anoria in the first years, later colloquialized to Noria and corrupted by travellers into Northreed. As a marsh was not far from the stretch of moor and the village was, after all, as far north as one could travel with relative ease, the name made perfect sense.

In all those years Anoria never ventured into the village again, yet every year amber and gems were sent into the townspeople's coffers as the cream of their crops were garnered for the mistress of the little tower. Wildflowers, under some unseen hand, grew to treble their usual length and breadth. And each year more of the town's most beautiful young men left their farms and fields to gravitate to the structure, sometimes under the strong hands of the longer-initiated thralls, sometimes of their own volition. They did not all stay, and they did not all remain alone, which was not surprising since their way with the young women had seemed enhanced by Anoria's gentle tutelage that morning in the inn. Hence the next generation began, and no one censured or criticized, since their lady had ensured their wealth through that and the generations to come.

From time to time the young men would travel abroad and return, with heavy chests held across their shoulders which were often marked lightly by, undoubtedly, Anoria's sharp but not wholly ungentle lash. The contents of these chests sounded metallic at times; at others a strand of fine fabric would emerge. The village girls would tease to know what was inside; they were usually whisked off to the tower afterward, only to return duly chastened but with sparkling eyes. Perhaps they would ask again, perhaps not, depending on their temperament. Usually they would.

But when Keliwyr and his companions came, it was as though something was taking place which had long been expected. The extreme silence of the moorland seemed disrupted long before they arrived, which seemed odd considering the traveller's stealth and softness of foot on his previous visit.

The morning before, Anoria's thralls gathered to them enough goods to last them months, even seasons, and took them to the tower. The most exquisite of her young men could be seen testing the strength of the locks, rapping on the door lightly to see how easily he could hear the softest knock if deeply asleep. He appeared to be answering his own knock, opening and shutting the door repeatedly. It was as though he expected all of the bondsmen to fall into a trance. And the distant hoofbeats still came closer.

The group arrived in what would be broad daylight in a less clouded, misty region. Once again, for the first time in a decade, the villagers walked out of their fields and their homes to observe the goings-on. The faces were changed in varying degrees: the innkeeper woman, more florid-faced and corpulent in her newfound wealth, well-fed on food from the outside world brought to her on the strength of Anoria's coins and jewels; the blacksmith and his apprentice, the former softer from more hours spent in the tavern, less at the forge, and the younger more confident and fleet of foot, his two serving girls standing wide-eyed nearby; Prudwen, the thrall of a thrall and the mother of two, tired but radiant with an underlying deeply-ingrained energy.

Only the innkeeper spoke. "You have come for Anoria."

There was a silence, then Keliwyr, said, "She is gravely needed."

In spite of their tremendous loyalty, no one stood in their way. There were too many of them, and they were too obviously scarred by battle and seasoned by years in the salty sea air. The people of Northreed were strong, hale and hearty, but had never had occasion to fight outside the occasional tavern brawl (which was often responded to by several young men being whisked to the tower the following day and returning a short time later a bit breathless and unwilling to remove their shirts for a week or so).

The fortress was impenetrable for three days, four days, a week. Then Keliwyr, lean and irritable from days with little sleep or food, knocked sharply on the door. "Anoria, for all of our sakes-!" he exclaimed.

After a minute or so, the beautiful young man who had tested the door so carefully let it slip open a crack. "The mistress says that you, but only you, is invited in," he said quietly, respectfully.

"Well then," said Keliwyr tersely and disappeared. The villagers waited below, sitting on the heath and the stone benches now placed in the fairly new Northreed town square. The others, the sailors, looked back at them. For several hours no words were spoken.

At long last the new tavern girl went up to them with a flagon of wine, collecting coins which were only familiar to her through Anoria. "You mean her no harm," the girl said pleadingly, as though to assuage her own guilt. "No. She is needed," said one of the seafarers. "Is she so prominent elsewhere then?" asked the girl, who spoke well as they all had come to in the last few years, since Anoria's cultivated speech patterns filtered down to the village.

"Do you not know?" several of the sailors asked, after exchanging an amazed glance.

"We have not even seen Milady Mistress in these ten years," the girl said. The sailors looked at one another, then one spoke almost impatiently. "She is the owner of the fleet, our captain, and by conquest the true High Queen of the British Isles," he said.

Even Anoria's loyal peasants could not quite accept this. "And the Gallic conquerors?" asked the blacksmith's apprentice with a bit of a smirk. "Truly, sir, we respect and appreciate Lady Anoria, and many of us personally have great cause for gratitude, but you cannot quite tell me that she defeated the Normans with a renegade pirate fleet!" A few choked sounds came from the crowd; they were amused but too reverent to show their amusement.

But the sailors were laughing in kind. "Actually, in a game, demoiselle," said one with a rather affected Norman dialect. "A card game?" demanded the innkeeper, who naturally had huffed and puffed forward, flagon in her strong fleshy hand. "A sort of duel, Mistress Innkeeper, but not with blades," the first replied, identifying her by Keliwyr's description, undoubtedly.

"What then?" insisted the woman, who had not forced herself to walk out of the dark familiarity of her tavern to hear half-stories. At that moment the door opened, and Keliwyr emerged. "She is coming out," he said. Sharply to the villagers, he said, "Step back!" Then, "Please." The tavern girl tried to back up, but was held by the Gallic sailor. The others headed back, the innkeeper woman with a bit of assistance from two of the more courtly visitors, since she had done her stint of walking for some time to come.

"Is she going to . . ." began the girl.

"Hush!" said Keliwyr. "She is coming."

And the door swung open, and the hermetic Anoria stepped out, flooding light into the interior of the tower. Which was now quite different...

"But it she couldn't have," whispered a dairymaid, looking past Anoria. "It's her castle. She can do anything she wants," snapped the innkeeper.

In the confusion one or two or the young people bowed and curtsied deeply, and slowly the rest of the villagers followed suit.

The sailors walked over toward Anoria slowly, respectfully, but definitively. She did not alter her gaze, but walked slowly out toward them, leaving the door still ajar. Her thin but elegant, black dress, trimmed with some sort of fine European lace, had seen a great deal of wear and tear. If anything, she was more intriguing dressed thus in this chilled country atmosphere. She wore a great deal of carved silver, black silver-buckled boots and a wide, low belt with a terrifyingly long, thick whip curling from below it almost to her ankle. A short crop with pewter-set stones was in one hand; the other held a man's woven travelling sack with fabric and metal visible through the sides. She dropped the sack near her ankle. Her eyes went calmly to Keliwyr.

"May I?" said Keliwyr at her side, motioning to close the door.

Anoria smiled with her eyes, her lips not moving. "I thought so many years ago you wanted to come inside."

"I did not feel welcome, lady," said Keliwyr and lifted his lantern high. Because of the deep mists of the region, villagers often carried lanterns late into the morning and well before twilight truly fell.

The iron and metal picked up the light, glinting it back coldly in shades of pewter and shadowy black. The wall was well adorned with chains and the instruments in the corner made those who had not seen them shuddered. A few faces in the crowd cautiously exchanged knowing glances, amusement at the general reaction.

"Oh, my lady," whispered the innkeeper, who had heard whisperings but had always dismissed them as flights of fancy.

Anoria was evidently not impervious to the sensitivities of some of her people. "I injure no one, innkeeper," she told her. "None have shed blood or tears in my stronghold that have not desired to do so. If you look more closely, that which I keep here has no capacity to truly harm." At their looks of expectation she said, "When I am gone, you may see for yourself."

"Going, lady?" whispered one of the youths who had not infrequently been summoned up to the little castle to do little tasks for the lady, and not infrequently been seen with crimson and violet stripes across his shoulders.

"It seems I have done with my responsibility here, and must fulfil them elsewhere," Anoria said, favoring him with a gaze startlingly replete with affection. She moved her eyes similarly across many in the crowd.

"No one tells you what to do, lady!" exclaimed the youth, leaping to his feet and facing Keliwyr and the others with fury.

"Tell them, Keliwyr," said Anoria.

"Perhaps they should hear it from you," he said.

"I am still in command here, for the moment," the mistress of the castle answered firmly.

"Very well," said the cloaked traveler, without missing a beat. "Anoria's men pulled aside a Norman ship many years ago and the men were unconscionably drunk. She challenged them for the kingdom. She declined swords or even daggers, preferring that with which she is most enamored. May I?" he asked her, and when she nodded he touched the long whip. The boy so ready to defend Anoria grimaced and rubbed his arm in memory, but did not shudder.

"I declined to demand what I had earned, not wishing such an intense responsibility," Anoria took over for them. "I could not rule an entire kingdom with such decadence. I would not have lived in this manner here in this village unless the inhabitants were ready and desiring to partake of what I had to give them." She touched her locket lightly. "I knew my past was here, my ancestry. I had to come and bring what I had to offer to you."

"But now?" asked Keliwyr.

She started to continue, then said, "You go on. I told you to speak." She flicked her wrist and there was a sharp crack against the side of Keliwyr's thigh. He started visibly and something passed between them, a kind of complicity. She tossed the short crop she was carrying into the crowd and the youth, who had walked toward her, caught it. His face lit as she whispered, "Use it well" and stepped back a few paces. She was now unarmed except for the snake whip.

"But you cannot so easily relinquish something that powerful. These are old and mystical islands with a strong, deep and ancient heritage. You cannot trivialize such kingdoms," said Keliwyr.

He walked to Anoria, stepped behind her and put both of his hands on her shoulders. The transition from the chill morning aura made her color rise and her breath draw in sharply. It was the first time the villagers had seen an external influence impact upon her, rather than the other way round. She did not stiffen or resist; it was as though she had awaited the inevitable outcome to an already written tale. It was also noticeable that while she did not draw herself up any straighter, she did not lose a hairbreadth of dignity.

"Remember my answer to you at the time, great lady," he said softly.

"I do," said Anoria quietly but clearly. He dropped his arms but did not step away. Those standing close could see that her hand dropped so that it was near to his. Her face still never changed an iota.

"She consulted me, since there are sages in my ancestry," Keliwyr told the group, speaking over her shoulder as he carried out her bidding for what it seemed would be the last time for a long time to come. "I told her that to relinquish the crown, she would have to accept the chains.

" Put simply, she could not sacrifice rule without coming into thralldom. She must choose the heights...or the abyss."

"Surely it could not be as relentless as that," pleaded a very young village girl. Plainly, like many of the young people, she idolized the mistress of the castle, and patterned herself after her image as a young girl is wont to do with her paragon.

"What say you, lady Anoria?" asked Keliwyr quietly.

"I believe you, Keliwyr," said Anoria, this time raising her voice slightly so that the others could hear distinctly.

"Your people need you. Will you come as queen...or thrall?" he asked her directly. He stepped around to face her . She returned his gaze for a moment, and then very slowly her face lit. She glanced back at the little tower for a moment, then across the occupants of her little town.

"I have been queen, of sorts, here," she answered. "And I do not wish to change what plainly must be the course of history. The Plantagenets will rule for centuries, I believe, and their descendants will bring tears and joy, destruction and reform to the islands. These things are foretold and cannot be avoided. One day the known world will be larger and far more overwhelming, and all of our descendants will look back on a simpler and quieter time than their own. Such as this is." She looked back at Keliwyr. "I will come to my other people, I will travel through this island with you and traverse its seas. I will come as thrall, and willingly." Her hands were working at the snake whip as she spoke, the dueling weapon with which he had won England. With it, she would now relinquish it.

"But in my last words as a free woman for a long time to come, I would like to ask, Keliwyr, that at the twilight of my life I return here, to Northreed as they call it...to Anoria."

"I promise, lady...queen and slave," answered Keliwyr.

Then in a graceful and tragically glorious gesture, Anoria flung the snake whip from her toward the dew-soaked brambles and heather below. It never reached the earth. Keliwyr seized it and lifted it high. There was a collective gasp from the crowd as it caught the air, snapped in a little green-gold circle to create an almost visible whirlpool of wind...

and then snapped...

ANORIA'S - LEGENDARY SAGA - PART III