by Autumn Canter
On the round-top hill, crowned with an oak tree dropping acorns for the harvest, Amana holds her girl. Two years grown with wind teased hair and bare feet. The little one squirms to be set down. Doing so allows her to watch fondly as the child bounds through the crackling leaves and squats to lift and toss them, goldenrod yellow and scented like spice, up and over her head. Amana is not able to help but think how those little bare feet are mashing over a dead king’s rotting bones buried and trussed up in the oak roots.
It took the two of them to dig the hole using naught but bare hands and filched kitchen spoons. Cutting night to morn into the earth. Broken nails and broken spoons and the broken, bloody king at that dawning near three years past when the child was but a little tadpole swimming round her momma’s belly. Tipsy spill and the king was tumbling down into his new bed- lined with oak root and squirmy worms digging to and fro.
Wicked, wicked man.
“Mam. Mam!” The girl tugs at Amana’s skirts and holds up a fat, pink worm between two fingers. “Look it at it, Mam. I dug it up from under a stone. Figure I can feed it to the goosie down at the river.”
Stone that marked the head of the wicked man’s grave. Worm that might have burrowed right through his old crusted skull bone. Through the gapping hole that once held a fierce, blue eye bloodshot red.
Never should have laid his tricky hands on no woman or the wrong woman, should say.
Well, it was getting late and she had an old promise to keep. She took the baby’s hand after the worm was slipped into an apron pocket for safe keeping. “Come now my little one, there is something left to be done this day and the sun is low for home and rest.”
The child skips ahead looking ever so much like her mother. Amana follows, leaving the old bones to their resting. She hopes it is not an easy rest. Hopes the worms squirming in and around him keep his soul screaming in hell. He, after all, deserved no less.
***
Three years earlier, with winter holding the land hard as a fist, Amana sweated in the kitchen. Her work was of the good sort. She weren’t the head chief and didn’t covet that. Too much stresses hanging down on the old woman’s head and too much yelling for pot boys and scullery maids to get to hopping when a feast was in the process. Amana liked her silent tasks- chopping this, seasoning that, stir, stir, stirring over great steam leaking pots and testing it all for proper flavor. She had a good tongue for it and the head cook knew it too and knew her a good steady worker. She never got a spoon upside her head like some did. Her life was quite and peace. She had friends to spend time with in town late evenings and a man she was growing sweet on that she thought had the eye for her.
It all changed when she met October with no inclining or warning coming on. October, after all, was but a maid. She laundered sheets and dusted off trinkets on shelving. She wore the house white like all else, unflattering loose robes, stiff starched aprons and all her hair bound up under a cap that tied under her pointy chin in a bow. Castle rat in the warren maze of servant stairs. Cobwebs on her shoulders. Dust on her nose.
October looked nothing special, more like a half growed kid than a woman. No breasts to her and any curves all hidden up under cloth. Round rosy cheeks and dark snapping eyes. Her lower teeth were crooked as old leaning tombstones, but her smile was pretty and frequent- even after puking out her guts in a dirty pot the sink boy had yet to scrubbing.
“She just up-gutted in my pot I was about to clean, Cook!” It was the sink boy, all pimply, who watched Amana’s bosom when he thought she weren’t looking. The lout. And now he was shrieking fit to kill her eardrums in his breaking-up voice.
The cook glanced over to Amana and the glance was clear. She was to handle it. The sink boy just happened to be near to her (curse him) where she stood chopping peppers on the woodblock with a great old knife. One she was tempted to poke the boy with right in his annoying throat. But he wasn’t larking on about naught. Indeed there was a someone puking right into a pot and, being finished with it, mopping at her mouth with the corner of her apron.
Hey now, she thought to say. You should take that into the yard or a privy. This is the kitchen! Are you daft?
But she never had a chance to even open her mouth. This was when she first looked face to face with October. October, who smiled up at her. That same smile she would give to a king before poking out his eyes with a buttering knife.
***
October was mischief. She came into the kitchens daily to take Amana by the hand during her lunching hour. She showed her abandoned gardens, leaning towers, hidden stairs and darkened ways of the castle. She knew the songs of couriers and the dances of queens. She could recite fancy poetry and the priests’ dreary prose. She was brave as soldiers and wild adventurous.
While pretending to dance with a dashing partner, she said, my mam called me October being that was the month I was born. A pretty month, but a death month too with winter coming on and breathing down our necks. She wanted to call me after my grandmam, but was afraid to bring up her spook from the grave. She curtsied deep and winked, showing a dimple in one cheek.
Silly October, taking Amana by the hand into the cobwebby, abandoned rooms of dead princes killed off in war and plague. Oh, and there was that one that cut off all the fingers of one hand and then jumped right out the tower window. But no one was to speak of that. Hush, hush. None left here to inherit the crown. Maybe a distant cousin would rule. Seemed the king would live forever. Let’s hope he dies soon! Ha! Ha!
In the garden under the spreading oak sending down wirly-twirl seeds that spring, Amana asked- Who is your little one’s da then October? Wouldn’t you tell me yet?
But October only smiled big and pressed her hand flat to her stomach. I’ll tell you when the time is right Amana and only then cause you’ll be knowing why.
***
How he caught sight of her, she didn’t know. King’s didn’t visit their kitchens or their staff to inspect. They had hirelings for such. But he must’va known he wanted her or how else did a cook end up serving drink to a passel of lords after victuals?
Amana was so nervous, her hand shook pouring the wine. Rubbing all the evening at a stain from fat drippings that had darkened her bodice. All because they might be looking at the spot and thinking less of her. She belonged in the kitchen, not trapped with all these men and her wrists going numb from the tray. Weren’t there fancy maids for this? Not kitchen staff with red chapped hands.
Then she was alone with him as all his guests had made their fare-thee-wells and chuckled towards her darkened corner. Bastards the all, knowing what he meant to do with her. Her heart thumping wild under her breast and her knowing even while not knowing. Yes, even then.
He forced himself onto her- all wild blue eyes and dangerous beauty turned ugly in the moment. His crown scrapping her cheek and making a miniature river of the blood like the one that ran out between her thighs when he was finished with her.
***
“Another maiden slain,” he had said and chuckled. “Have some wine and get back to your tasks” He dumped the dregs over her face, pressed open her mouth and choked her with the remains.
She chopped her tears into the carrots that afternoon and when October came in smiling wild, she froze like a hound set to treeing. What been done wrong to you Amana?
There was no embracing from her and no pity, just a silent staring rage that pinched up her face. We must have done with him.
***
They sat toe to toe under the golden leaves of the oak munching on stale bread and slivers of browned apples. The evening sun dappled October’s pointed face and made her skin glow. You ain’t never seen my hair. So she took it down, silver as moon glow tamed into tight braids and wound about her head. My mam said never to let it be seen ‘cause only them have it, the royal ones. He done to my mother what he done to you. He done it to many girls who can’t say no cause a’ their station. And if he knows they quicken he gets them killed. Makes it look an accident, you know. Had one fell down the stairs, but she was pushed.. Poison another so she puked up her lungs over her great, big belly.
But my mam, she was smart, see? So she made herself a reputation. She took any and all up her skirts, so who knows what man put the kindle in her. She weren’t even sure till she seen this hair of mine. It broke her though, yeah. She caught something from it. It wasted her.
But that don’t have to be your fate, love. I’ll take care of it and if you kindle, well we can have babes together, like sisters us.
October took Amana’s hand. She was cold as ice, but her eyes were warm.
***
October has a way of moving like a forest thing. Walking on the outsides of her feet wearing nothing but little slippers. Gliding around the edges of the halls so she wouldn’t stir the rushes on only her tipy toes. Maybes like a rabbit knowing a hawk is circling up above. Maybes more like a vixen in the farmer’s henhouse more likely, knowing her.
When they went on to get the king, she went about in nothing but her shift and stockings. Looking like a wraith in the moonlight coming down through the shuttered windows. Her hair was twining down around her face, silver glow. She was skinny as a reed from the babe swimming in her, ‘cept for her breasts having grown full for the milk days ahead.
Here now Amana, you just let me have it done and but bear witness to it.
And that was how it went. Watching October creep onto his sleeping chest and pluck at his beard till he came to wakefulness.
“You?” he sleepily asked, eyes round and red from drinking.
“You think of my mother. I am what you made on her and now I’m returning the favor to you.”
When she had done it, she took the crown from its cushion and set it on her head. It shouldn’t have fit, but it did. Beaten gold clutching at her brow and her tangled hair like a lover desperate. It knew its own blood and it knew its heir.
***
There was blood all over and about the silk bedding and on October too. Amana was scared, but she was also full of joy. Let them hang her. Let them strap her back bloody, shave her head, put her in the dark piss, stink cells and see if she cared. She still felt the stab of her broken maidenhead- the dull, empty ache in her he had caused. Ruined. Spoiled. Good for nothing but a whore or spinster.
Strong as bulls October was, dragging the bloody king’s dead weight down the hall and Amana following after with an ermine lined cape over her shoulders flecked in blood. Her heart was still all a’ flutter from jumping on the great feathered bed till October collapsed atop the pillows shrieking with laughter.
They tumbled him down the stairs whilst giggling into their hands. Then stopped at the kitchens to nibble the cheese and sample the wine before taking him out to the gardens. It was like a feasting day, so fun.
***
Dig, dig, dig into the dirt and the netted fingers of the roots. Dig laughing from exhaustion. Tumble the old king down and put the dirt over his face and into his open mouth. October took Amana’s hand again. Pressing Amana’s dirty fingers to her still flat belly, slightly rounded just below her navel- a little hill filling up Amana’s palm. Eye to eye, nose to nose, smile to smile. A spot of blood on her cheek like a kiss. You make me a promise Amana. Holding tight, tight, tight to her hand.
Anything.
***
“Mam. Mam, where are we going?” The girl skipping and waving her arms as she goes on, a spot of dirt smeared over her nose.
“Shush now, child. Shush now” Amana takes up the little hand and the girl looks up solemnly.
“We’re going in there?” she whispers behind a cupped palm.
“Yes”
They aren’t even questioned as they move through the servant gate. The girl is all eyes and her mouth hangs open showing the gap between her two front teeth. Through the steam of the kitchens, into the halls, weaving like thread between the servants. To the doors carved with vine and set with leaf of gold. Amana ignores the guards and slides away from their grasping hands. Feels a tug at her kerchief and all her hair spilling down. A gasp, a shout and the girl cowering into her skirts.
“Here she is October. Here’s your girl. I kept my promise. I brought her home.” She thrusts the baby, crying now, before her. “Your baby girl. Your little one, here. Home now. Home.”
October returns her smile, her silver hair falling all around her face, the crown tarnished on her dirty brow. She stands before the gilt mirror and raises her hand high, lifts the circlet and sets it on the child’s head. It grips tight. It knows its own. “A new Queen. A little Queen and now it’s time for us to go” They move towards one another, rest brow to brow, the glass going to fog between them.
***
October hangs from the branches of the oak swaying in the wind, silver hair hiding her blackened face. The old cook remembered her fondly as an oddly, quite girl who disappeared from the keep the very same night the king was killed. Her abandoned dress was found outside his door beside two dead guards- one killed with a cleaver to the throat and the other’s face bashed flat with an iron pan. Who could have thought it of the little mite, so quite and lonely, chopping onions till the tears rolled down her cheeks?
The old cook turns to her companion and continues the story being told from mouth to mouth, ear to ear, up and down the city streets.
“Mad and cackling, she returned to the court, so it’s said. Her brow white like a sun depraved root, where the crown had pinched her skin these past three years. In her apron an old buttering knife, a bent and tarnished spoon, and a worm- a great fat one.
“Mad, fair, silver haired, she held forth her sobbing child saying, ‘King’s blood twice over this. The new little Queen, this here.’
“Ministers and nobles all a’flutter, cause the proof is plain to see and the old laws stand. Little Queen with a snotty nose and dirt on her face saying nothing but, ‘Mam Mam Mam’. Maybe they would have kept the mother crowned, obvious she was blooded and obvious she was the next in line, what with all the heirs dead these many years. Ah, but she was crazy, wild running up and down the tables spilling wine and mashing parchment. She admitted to killing him. Burying him under the oak. Popping out his eyes with the buttering knife and digging his grave with naught but a spoon and her broken nails.
“She kissed the girl goodbye and went on to her fate, dismissing the swift cut that was her right as his daughter, even born on the wrong side of the sheets as she was. Wanted to be hung. Hung only from the oak.
“The best part of the whole damned story is that it was heard she looked out into nothing and said this and only this, little sense it makes, ‘Sweet October.’ Now, what think you that is all about, eh?”
About the Author
Autumn lives in upstate New York with her comic guru husband, baby son, four belligerent felines and hundreds of books. Were there an apocalypse, she is confident she will be entertained as long as there is a source of light by which to read. Writing is her hobby, reading her passion. You can learn more about her, than you ever wanted to know, at her blog.
©2008 Autumn Canter
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