by Jasmine Giacomo
Imka set the golden, egg-shaped stone in the shadows of the abandoned hovel’s dusty shelf and balanced it on its wide bottom, hoping that this time, finally, it would remain unseen.
Her new home was outside the nearby town walls; a fine market for her goods. She looked around at the broken chair and table the previous owner had left behind. They looked mendable. Her eyes slid to the golden stone, and she murmured, “You know I‘d hide you if your display weren‘t part of the arrangement.”
She turned away and began to empty her large, lumpy pack of her few worldly possessions – another dress, a cooking pot, a bit of bent wire, a few small jars of potions and honeys. A voice hallooed from without, and Imka looked up, a frizzy gray tendril of hair across her light eyes. “Ja?” she called.
A young woman with two boys in tow, all carrying firewood, came into view through the hovel’s doorway. “Good morrow, madam,” the dark-haired woman said. “Be you newly arrived in Sherbourne?”
“Ja. I have just arrived. This place is empty?” she asked, and smiled when the younger woman nodded.
“My name is Anna, and these rapscallions are George and Will,” she patted a free hand on the boys’ heads in order.
“Pleasure,” Imka said, setting her pot next to the dusty hearth. “I am Imka.”
“What is your wire for?” Anna asked, watching the older woman separate its bent ends from her extra dress.
Imka smiled. “It holds honeycomb pieces as the honey drains out. I am a bee woman.”
Anna’s eyes widened in pleased surprise. “You will sell your honey?”
“Ja. When I have some.”
George peered around the dim room. “Where’s your bees, then?” he asked. “You got ‘em inna pot for carrying?” Anna shushed him.
“They’ll be along soon,” Imka said, unperturbed.
“But you have so little with you. Surely, as a bee woman, you would have brought more?” Anna asked, her voice hesitant.
“I could not save more than this.”
Anna’s face softened in pity; no doubt she was incorrectly imagining a house fire. “I understand. Sherbourne folk are generous in their alms; I have a feeling they’ll be very welcoming to a bee woman.”
“I have no higher hope,” Imka said, wistful. She shared pleasantries with Anna for a few minutes more, then the woman and her boys left.
They hadn’t noticed the gleaming stone. Imka smiled.
News of the bee woman spread through town. Winter was just birthing a new spring, and more than a few citizens were looking forward to a summer supply of honey. In hopes of making the bee woman welcome, several kind souls shared with her. A few of the town’s sons crafted her a low cot, and the cooper’s wife donated an old mattress. Jars of preserved food – later to hold her honey – and the odd baked good showed up outside Imka’s door, wrapped in bright swatches of cloth. Imka recycled the cloth into bright strips and tied them into lively bows around the jars’ necks. Her roof received thatch additions just before a three-day storm rolled in. Friendly laborers stopped by to chat with her on their way to the fields or herds.
Those who stopped by in the first few days were amazed to see full-fledged beehives in the open field behind the hovel. Upright logs, wide as a man’s leg and just as long, boasted carved niches in their centers. They buzzed with bees who sought out the earliest flowers across the meadows.
Word of Imka’s bee-charming, as the locals called it, reached the mayor’s ears, and during his next tax-rounds, he stopped by her humble home, his retinue in tow.
“Good day, Mistress Imka,” he greeted her, stepping into her front room. A portly man with thinning dark hair, his smile was nevertheless charming. Three men joined him; the sandy-haired one bore a cumbersome writing board with an inkwell fixed in the corner, while the other two – burly and red-faced – frowned and looked around, as if Imka might have a band of gypsies lurking behind her new shop counter.
“Good day, Mayor Thomas. I’ve been expecting you.” She held out a clean jar of honey wrapped with a bright red cloth bow, and he accepted it with a surprised smile.
“Thank you. I’ve come to discuss terms. This land, though outside the walls of Sherbourne, is still within its charter, as are the fields for kine and wheat. Since you already have a trade,” he hefted the small honey jar, “I will be perfectly happy to accept payment twice a year in honey jars.”
Imka smiled. “I thought you might. My bees are efficient; I use a special technique from my homeland. I will have thirty jars of honey for you, twice a year. Is this enough?”
Mayor Thomas opened the jar in his hand. The honey gleamed at him like a golden coin, and he smiled. “That will be enough, Mistress.”
Another golden light caught his eye, and he looked toward a shelf across the room. Between a pair of bowls and a bone hair-comb, the egg-shaped stone shone in the dimness. He blinked. His men looked in the same direction, but could not seem to find what entranced their mayor.
He asked, “What is that strange object, Mistress? I’ve not seen its like.”
A small frown creased Imka’s forehead. “’Tis a Bee Stone, sir.”
“A Bee Stone? It is shaped like an egg.”
“Ja. It is an efficient shape.”
Mayor Thomas licked his lips. “I would take this stone in lieu of your honey payments, Mistress.”
Imka’s eyebrows rose, and she whuffed a laugh. “Sir, ’tis but a bauble, a nothing, a child’s amusement. ‘Tis not fit for a man of your standing.”
The mayor frowned. His eyes remained on the Bee Stone. Finally he sighed. “Yes, of course. Thirty jars, then, by high summer.”
The secretary jotted notes as the mayor brushed past him, and soon Imka had her home to herself again. Her lips pressed together, and she glared at the Bee Stone, then softened her gaze.
“It’s not your fault, I know,” she told it. “Let us hope he forgets about you. It can happen.”
Weeks passed, and Imka began harvesting and selling her honey. She bartered it for more home repairs, a new set of boots, and even a young jenny. She used the donkey to pull Anna’s cart, carrying goods for both of them, to the weekly market. Her friends proclaimed her honey as the sweetest and richest they’d ever eaten. She built more hives in her field, and they were quickly filled with swarms of bees. When high summer arrived, she barely missed the thirty jars she paid to Mayor Thomas.
The mayor sent her a hand-penned letter soon after he collected his taxes, thanking her for the delightful honey, saying he‘d had none better. He delicately inquired if she’d consider giving him the Bee Stone if he valued it as five years’ taxes.
Imka read the note in the evening, by the light of a fine oil lamp, as she rested in a new chair in the corner of her whitewashed home. Her neat bun of gray hair and the lace at the neckline of her green summer dress caught the light as she leaned onto her knees. She crumpled the fine paper into a wad, eyes tensing with lines of worry. After a moment, she stood from her chair and stepped to the shelf.
“He’ll come for you. It’s only a matter of time.”
Come the autumn equinox, the bees began to sense winter’s approach, and Imka knew their time was nearing its end. She came in the back way from the cool, crisp morning, skirts scattered with bits of hay from the jenny‘s breakfast, and found Mayor Thomas standing alone in her front room. His eyes were locked on the Bee Stone. Dusting off her her hands, she stepped forward and cleared her throat.
“Good morrow, Mistress,” he greeted her.
“Good morrow, Mayor Thomas. Would you like some honey this day, perhaps for your secretary, or a fellow council member? I have a fresh batch from earlier this week, full of late summer flowers.”
“Thank you, but not this time. I’ve…I’ve come to see the stone. I think of it often. Is it a foreign jewel? I’ve never seen its like.”
Imka paused before answering. In the past, she’d raged at, warned or insulted questioners, to no avail. Once the Bee Stone drew them in, it rarely let go. Once they were fully under its spell, her strange behavior was turned against her. “Nein, it is not a jewel, sir. It is no true stone at all.”
“What is it, then?”
“It is a secret,” she said, helpless in the face of his fascination. “The secret to my bees. A family tradition my mother taught me when I was but a child.”
Mayor Thomas’ eyes were filled with the egg that gleamed from the shadowy shelf. “I must have it. Please, mistress. I will give you all that I possess, if you will give me this Bee Stone. I know you said it was not appropriate for my station, but I don’t care anymore. I need it.”
“Very well,” Imka said slowly. “Perhaps I was wrong, and the Bee Stone is an appropriate gift for you after all. Take it; I want nothing for it.” She took up a thick blue cloth and used it to pick the stone up. She wrapped the egg thoroughly and pressed it into the mayor’s hand. “Listen closely, I beg you. This stone has magic properties, and they are not to be trifled with. Never touch the stone with your skin. Keep it in the shadows, indoors, at all times. Never let a single ray of sunlight fall upon its surface, and you will enjoy the beauty of the Bee Stone for the rest of your natural life.”
The mayor looked down at the blue bundle and frowned. “Why do you warn me thus?”
“Because you are the only man in all Sherbourne that has seen the Bee Stone. It is invisible to the others.” She caught his look of delight and added, “Tis not a compliment, sir. Those with an eye for glints and gleams, and a heart for hoarding, see the stone and wish to possess it. Once they have it in hand,” she looked at the blue cloth, “the Bee Stone begs them for the light of day. And when it feels the sun‘s warmth…”
“Yes?”
“It is a beautiful thing. From a distance. No one close to a Bee Stone in its first rays of light sees anything else, ever again.”
The mayor frowned at her as if she were slightly mad. “Right. Well. Thank you.”
Imka sighed. They never listened. “Good day to you, sir. I must be packing for market soon.” She bustled away, gathering jars, a bent wire. The mayor walked slowly out into the sunlight of morning, clutching his gift, and Imka paused, listening, fearful. But nothing reached her ears besides the hoof beats of mayor’s horse trotting back toward the town walls. Imka slumped in relief.
Hands flying, she began mixing potions and honey on a table next to the hearth. She added them to her smallest iron pot until it cast its own golden light upwards on her face.
She stepped across the room to retrieve the chicken eggs that young Will had brought over earlier, and said to them, “You know what I’m doing. I made the mayor’s stone in more of a hurry than this last time.”
Eggs in hand, she poked holes in their ends, blowing out their gooey insides and frying them in a pan on the coals. By then, the golden potion had simmered long enough, and she tucked a tiny glass funnel into the top of the first eggshell and poured. Soon all five eggshells were full and cooling.
She scattered the coals, then ate the fried eggs as she moved around the small house, gathering her honey supplies, a pair of dresses and her new boots. She put them in her pack, resting it by the door. When she’d packed and eaten, she returned to the hearth. Reaching high, she plucked an aromatic bundle of twigs from the rafters and lit their ends on the cooling embers of the fire, then blew them out as she headed back outside.
The bees were buzzing sluggishly in the cool air, just starting their morning flower runs. She stepped toward the nearest hive, waving her smoking bundle at them. When she saw a clear space among the insects, she reached in and touched the hive.
“Es ist Zeitrechnung zu wegfallen,” she chanted. The hive crumbled to dark ashes. The buzzing bees died in midair and plummeted to earth about her, an insectoid rain. The Bee Stone in the center of the hive cracked and began to ooze back into a liquid honey form, its magic spent.
She took her smoldering bundle to the next hive, and the next. In droves, the industrious creatures that supported her livelihood died.
When all was death and ash, she hurried back inside and scooped up her pack.
“G’morrow, Bee Woman,” George’s boisterous voice rang out at the front door, startling her. “You goin’ somewhere?”
“Ja, George,” she replied, hefting the pack to her shoulders. Her eyes flicked from the dark-haired boy back to the rows of honey on her shelves. His mother Anna had been a true friend and a welcoming neighbor; Imka would miss her. “How many jars of honey can you carry at one time?”
After George began trotting home with nine jars of honey carried in the long tails of his oversized shirt, Imka wrapped the rest in long rolls of sacking and tucked them into her donkey’s packbags. Taking the jenny’s halter in hand, she realized her fingers were shaking madly.
It was never easy, the fleeing. They’d come for her, even if they didn’t know it yet.
Imka the Bee Woman stepped onto the road that led away from Sherbourne and turned her back to its doomed mayor.
“She’s gone, sir. No one has seen her in a week.” The sandy-haired secretary stood before the mayor, dry-washing his hands.
“That’s a shame,” Mayor Thomas said, turning around and admiring his new chain of office in the mirror his body servant held. “The people here really loved her honey.” His eyes fastened on an egg-shaped jewel in the reflection, gleaming golden in the center of the wide silver links that draped nearly to the edge of his black shoulder ruffs. “Rather prestigious, isn’t it?” he murmured, and heard obsequious agreement from everyone in the room. “I hope he’s not offended that mine’s bigger than his.” He chortled at his own joke.
“Sir,” a page puffed, sticking his head into the room, “it’s time.”
The mayor led his staff out onto the dais, where they awaited the imminent arrival of the Prince of Wales on his tour of the countryside. The low clouds of early morning were beginning to clear up, and he had a single pang of worry about what the bee woman had said. His jewel was so happy to be outside, though, that he dismissed her as a paranoid worrywart. Soon, the Prince of Wales himself would lay eyes upon the Bee Stone and have to admit that the mayor of Sherbourne was his better.
Mayor Thomas stood straighter. His defining moment was nearly upon him.
As the prince rode into town, with much fanfare and waving of banners, trailed by dozens of courtiers and servants, the sun broke out upon Sherbourne. It danced on pikes and golden threads and sword hilts. It gleamed along armor lines and smiling teeth. The watching townsfolk, already cheering, broke into spontaneous whoops and applause as the sun gifted their prince with its glory.
Yet the mayor was distracted by an odd buzzing. It seemed to be coming from the very air before him, and he looked about for its source. Suddenly it stopped, and a flicker of motion caught his eye. He looked down. Upon his bright golden egg sat the largest bee he had ever seen: a queen. She fluttered her wings at him. He frowned, uncomprehending, and raised a hand, swatting her away.
The buzzing of thousands of wings filled the air around him then, and he watched, horrified, as an entire hive’s worth of bees shot out of the jewel on his chest into the air of the town square. They arced through the sky, wings agleam, and when they were directly overhead, they swarmed him, led by their enraged queen. Men and women near him fled, crying out in superstitious fear. He swatted his arms at them and stumbled off the dais, desperate to flee their white-hot stings, but they were in his ears, his mouth, his nose. They wriggled down his throat.
The armsmen of the prince drew steel as the madman wearing the angry hive ran toward their column, though they looked bemused as they considered how they were supposed to fight a thousand bees with their swords.
An enterprising archer took the raving, screaming mayor out with a quick arrow to the chest, and by luck it pierced the Bee Stone, cleaving its golden surface. Mayor Thomas collapsed, dying, and the bees in the air dropped from the sky, instantly slain. An ooze of honey appeared on the mayor’s chest, beneath several dozen bee corpses who clung there, including the queen.
The townsfolk, unaware of the Bee Stone’s former existence, crossed themselves and murmured dark words.
“Verily, has someone tried to slay me with a hive of bees?” the prince asked, trying to lighten the bizarre situation.
“Perchance she has, my liege,” the secretary said, peeping out from behind his writing board. “’T’were just last week our bee woman left suddenly.” He paused. “Never did like the look of her, that bee-witch.”
Others took their cue from him, protesting their love of their prince, God and country. Imka’s image received warts, a lazy eye that could see the Devil, and a black cat familiar within minutes, and various petty crimes became her additional sins.
“Another witch in England,” the prince said, shaking his head. “Send some men to ride ‘round and see if she’s gone to ground nearby.” He squinted at the mayor’s corpse. “Perchance she can tell me why that glorious stone upon the mayor’s chain melted to honey.”
“What stone, my liege?”
© 2009 Jasmine Giacomo
Original fiction debuting in Residential Aliens.
Tags: fantasy, Jasmine Giacomo, short story