The Legend

    A few remained late into the night to talk about her, long after she had gone to the inn's attic room, a serving girl following with the lodging's best blankets. A gold piece had quieted the innkeeper woman's suspicions and inspired an offer of the inn's largest room in the north gable-not terribly sumptuous, but the best that could be had at the establishment. Anoria as she claimed to be called, had turned it down in favor of the smaller, more secluded attic room.
    "My things will be arriving tomorrow" she had said. "I shall need three or four servants to help me move them inside.
    "What could she be bringing to require all that?" asked the innkeeper, rolling the gold piece thoughtfully around in her hand.
    "Only someone from around these parts would know the name of Anoria. Even we local folk have never actually seen the name written. Then why have we never seen this woman before, or anyone who resembles her?" The speaker was a weaver whose ancestors, like most of those present, had never remembered living anywhere other than the tiny unnamed village.
    "Perhaps she met someone in her travels who told her about the writing that's supposed to be up there," suggested a woman vaguely, gesturing up in the general direction of the tower. She and her brothers were travelling north to Scotland, having become discontented with the newfangled ways taking hold further south. They had seemed eager to get to their rooms for the night but were drawn in to the excitement of the occasion.
    "Who from up here ever goes anywhere?" snorted a dairyman. "She would have had to hear it from someone who had passed through, and what would they care about the old legends?'
    "Is there a legend?" asked the traveling woman.
    "Oh, you hear this, you hear that. The children talk about it," said a widowed seamstress who, like a number of these country women, had no compunction about staying late at the local tavern like the men. "The name sounds Roman, so people say she was at least partially one of them. Some say a Roman woman was walled up in the tower, to avenge the murder of Boudicca and her daughters."
     "Some of the children say she was a dark sorceress, or a murderess, and still haunts the place. But of course children talk like that," added the innkeeper.        
    "I've heard she was a sorceress of light, and her spirit watches over the village, said the dairyman, who was rather religious and not altogether devoid of the old ways. "That's what people used to say when I was a boy. You must admit, with all the invasions and what have you, we have had surprisingly little trouble here."
    "Considering we have fairly good land to offer," said the farmer who had given Anoria his flagon earlier.
    "You do at any rate," said another and the little group laughed.
    "Everyone in town will be up here tomorrow to see her," someone pointed out.
    "She is wonderful for my little inn. I wonder if I can persuade her to take up residence here," mused the innkeeper.
    "I wonder if she'll give some of us good wages to make that old tower house livable," said an enterprising young man who worked the dairy farm from time to time.
    "She'll want to live there eventually. And I believe she will find a way to do that Anoria," said the seamstress, rolling the unusual name off her tongue.
   

     The wagon which drew up to the door the following afternoon drew everyone from their homes and fields to watch. The chests and crates were numerous, far too numerous to fit into the inn. Anoria paid the innkeeper for the services of three of her servants, who were really more or less thralls although no one would have truly stopped them if they had thought to venture out of the village.
    "You cannot fit them into that attic room said the woman dubiously. "Is there anything that would get ruined in the cellar?'
    "Oh, I am not moving them here. I am moving them into my house, said Anoria simply.
    "Your house! But really!" began the innkeeper,half shocked at the woman's audacity and half horrified at losing such a profitable lodger.
    "But of course. These are my landholdings. No one else has ownership of them. If you chose to trace my ancestry back, you could find all the documents. But I doubt if anyone wants that old place enough to challenge me on it." As she spoke the word she very idly played with a blade which her listeners only just realized she had been wearing at her side all along. The Celtic pewter work was interesting rather than overly elaborate, and there were jewels set in the quillons that looked too refined to be ancient. The metalwork had too blended in with the light embroidery of her skirts. Her handling did not seem like that of someone who was unfamiliar with daggers, or wore them merely as ornament.
    "Well, it's all the same to me," said the landowner who had been at the inn the previous night, "if it's all the same to everyone else of any import." Since the village was remote and unnamed, belonging to no county or shire, it had no council or burghers to speak of. This made everyday procedures more difficult, and others more expedient.
    Anoria looked up. No one spoke. She gestured at her borrowed workers and said softly, "I would like my things moved now." Her voice boded no argument, but she did not waste her energy summoning a commanding demeanor for servants.
    "It may be locked up somehow," suggested a craftsman whose  skill was not unknown in metal workings.
    "If I need your services, I will send  for you and pay you for your trouble," promised the stranger graciously.
    As it turned out, the building was quite accessible, too accessible in fact, so the craftsman was hired by Anoria to create locks for the doors. The interior was not overly mystifying except by virtue of the fact that it had not been touched in centuries, several sets of servants were called in to clear the dust, many succumbing to coughing and sneezing as a result. The floors were earthen in the older part, wooden in the tower; the windows were simply openings with close iron grillwork and shutters; the hearth was large and primitive, of dark stone; and there were a couple of bronze mirrors and farming tools which Anoria said were quite functional with a bit of care. Her fingers lingered a bit on the mosaic.
    Of course none of the villagers could read, and the curious few she had allowed to follow her inside could only trust her reaction of obvious satisfaction at the characters. She pulled away her little candlestick and read in a soft, awed voice, "Anoria. Anoria...."

        By the next morning the entire village had kept at least one vigil through the night, watching the silent stone structure for any sign of motion or change. There was none. A single candle guttered in the window of the old tower on the lower floor, growing fainter and fainter as the eastern horizon became indigo, then deep grey, then lavender, and at last pale grey. That tone remained throughout the next day, and the next, and the next. The air was heavy as though rain would fall, but although the mist and the dew were heavy on the moors and the clouds were pendulous, nothing fell from the sky.  

    Anoria never left the little building in all those three days. Occasionally the faint peal of an ancient, rusted bell sounded through the door of the tower. Obviously prompted beforehand, the youths who had helped her move her belongings would take turns going to the door. Each time the one who went to her would go down to the village, throw a coin down at the marketplace, and go back with food or wine. Although the other villagers questioned them, the servants could only shake their heads.

   "It's just an old house," they would insist, adding that they were not allowed past the door. There was nothing else to see. The windows were opaque and narrow, not requiring curtains. Anoria did not appear to be decorating. She appeared at the door in the same magnificent, though increasingly dusty dress.

    "She was polishing a fine lady's cup last time," was the most they could get out of one very young thrall on the third evening. "Silver. Carved things on it. People with wings. Like that." He pointed at the little brown stone church that stood at the end of the village, where the inhabitants often went to pray or spend time alone although there was no real congregation.

    "Angels, you mean," said the innkeeper woman, looking duly impressed.

"Or faeries," said the blacksmith, who held a dim opinion of gewgaws on good solid metals and feared otherworldy beings of any variety.

    "Or faeries," agreed the innkeeper, but in a very different voice.

    At dawn on the fourth day...by which time everyone had drifted back into their everyday lives... Anoria emerged soundlessly. She was wearing simpler dress of simpler fabric, but by no means coarse. Her skirt cleared the ground and was obviously meant for work or walking; her laced bodice was plain; her soft top had the look of a well-to-do free farm woman. She had chosen twilight tones, which combined with her careful quiet walk, gave the strong impression of wanting to remain undetected still.

    This was not to be.

    Another figure never before seen in the tiny unnamed village was headed toward the cluster of shops and houses which the woman was plainly trying to avoid; she had headed toward the highroad which skirted the town and saw the form only through her peripheral vision. She clearly looked away.

        There was a greyish hooded cloak, and grey overland boots, and long sandy hair. A hasty glance could make as much out, even in the thick northern mists of morning.

    Three dairymaids, heading across the pasture with bucket yokes across their back and village gossip on their lips, stopped dead in their tracks. The streets of the town were between them and Anoria. It was a fairly narrow space, where the lanes lined with little stone, wood and thatchroof buildings tapered to a thin, peninsular space cut into the enormous stretches of heathered moorland. Nevertheless it protected them from immediate detection, and the eldest among them ceased the chatter with a jab of her elbow into the ribs of one companion and a sharp "Hsst!" into the other. All three stopped dead first to look only at Anoria, her bearing and her rich dark hair identifying her in the pale morning, and then to watch the transaction that was obviously about to take place.

    "Should I say greetings, lady, or should I wait for you to invite me to your gracious home?" said a male voice softly. The girls could not quite make out every intonation, but with their earthy country intuition, they caught better the syllables that were unspoken.

    "You are welcome to MY home at any time," the woman said clearly, and this the young women caught sharply.

    "Many centuries have elapsed since your ancestors were there, lady," the man said even more softly, for now he had taken a step closer to her.

    "Draw closer; we will never be able to hear now," said the youngest of the dairymaids.

    "Quiet! Not all of us. Watch these," said the eldest, kneeling swiftly to ease her filled buckets down and the yoke off her shoulders. Thus unburdened, she slipped closer to the two figures.

    She was just in time to hear the conclusion of his statement..."and the name could be a coincidence."

    "But not the writing, and you know it," Anoria responded. Her hand had gone quickly up to conceal something, and the dairymaid noticed a braided leather strand around the woman's throat. Whatever amulet was on the end was not clearly visible, but through the light gray of her spun shirt there was a dark outline. It was iron or some other dark, coarse ore, not in keeping with Anoria's obvious fine taste. The girl was able to quickly deduce, of course, that the lettering not only bore her name but bore it in the same lettering which was rumored to be etched somewhere in the house. For several of the thralls and villagers clustered outside had watched her examine the walls and sills, candle in hand, and heard her whisper her own name with evident satisfaction.

    "Come home. Your people need you. These are not your people. You have not even been out among them, except for the first night you came."

    "You have been watching me yet," Anoria's face was distressed.

    "It is easy to watch from the briar patches up past the tower. I have only seen whether you have come through the door. Had you been home, you would not have sequestered yourself so."

    "I need time," Anoria whispered.

    "You have been here, you have seen. Now come home. Please."

    "I cannot!" Anoria turned sharply, too sharply, and caught sight of the girl's full sleeve against the slim evergreen tree she leaned soundlessly against. Not in terror but in mortification, the girl slipped in between two houses, the little earthen alleyway taking her not further from Anoria and her companion but closer.

    "Quickly! Go get someone," the elder of the two remaining dairymaids ordered the youngest of her cohorts who obeyed. She was light on her feet and quick, but not quick enough for the hooded figure who swept down on her. The other girl, now genuinely frightened, found herself face to face with the angry new chatelaine of the little near-castle.

    "Don't," she whispered. The youngest had begun to cry out shrilly, neither a scream nor a shout, simply a conveyance of distress which was understood and answered by all her fellow townspeople. Farmhouses, cottages adjacent to tiny shops, the inn, the smithy all opened their doors. Before anyone could sweep down on him, the man dropped the girl, who he had started to lift into the air. She fell softly, but cried out again in dismay as she struck the dewy, soft earth.

    "Go back to your dairy, and stop listening to what is not your affair," said the man clearly. His words stopped the physical motion of the  advancing farm folk, who had naturally misread his intent and were advancing upon him with various cruelly sharp farmyard and household tools.

   Nevertheless he had touched one of their own, and they replaced their brandished makeshift weapons with angry words. "Go! Leave this place. Do not be seen in our village again." The girl stood, her pallor replaced by rising color in her cheeks. She had a moment of melodrama, the most attention anyone local had received since Anoria had swept down upon them. Anoria. Where was Anoria? Where were the girl's friends?

    "Come home, Bridget," said the dairyman gently. He was a grandfatherly man, the girl had no living family, since the last bout of illness in the village six years ago, and she stayed with her employer's family; she would receive no more than a gentle verbal reproof for her part in the misdemeanor. The other two were sisters and they were in the care yet a third sister and her hot-tempered brother. He would probably lock them out of doors tonight once he learned of their part in the spectacle. The middle girl walked slowly into the crowd.

    "You too, Gvynidd," the dairyman whispered to her, and she walked toward them. She would not go back home. She wanted to slip through the shadows and walk unencumbered, like Anoria. She was fascinated as only a young girl can be with another female. She had felt this restlessness since Anoria came.

    Where was Anoria?

    "Your sister?" the dairyman asked Gvynidd.

    "Prudwen was caught," the girl was barely able to speak. She looked at little Bridget's wide eyes. "By her."

    "By Anoria," Bridget said in the same choked voice.

    But the crowd had followed around the houses and walked forward with the two. They found them still facing one another at a distance. Prudwen they escorted by the elbows, two of the farm boys obviously relishing the task; Prudwen, as her name implied, was extremely pretty. Anoria no one dared touch, but they returned her even gaze and she followed them with dignity. There was no anger in her face. The people were protecting their own.

    "What shall we do with her, lady?" one of the boys leered softly. Prudwen flushed, and rolled her eyes, although she looked not altogether displeased.

    "Keep her indoors more until she learns to behave," said Anoria evenly. The boys laughed in the same tone. "At least get me my bucket back!" Prudwen exclaimed.

    "We'll do that," one of the boys said with unexpected grimness. Prudwen tossed her hair back and looked at the dairyman. Her look did not plea for help. He did not offer it.

    "Well, the least you could do after creating all that trouble is to get me something warm in the tavern," Anoria told the hooded man...actually, his hood had been thrown back long ago. He was a traveller, a country man. One like the villagers. He was easier to comprehend than Anoria.

    "Indeed. I made as many inquiries to find you as you did to find this village," he said lightly. The innkeeper woman, standing in her doorway in her nightdress, pulled herself out of her trance. She snapped a finger at a serving girl, flung her door open wide, and gestured to those assembled to come inside. Anoria was still good for business.

    "It was difficult with an unnamed village," Anoria said. They followed the serving girl into the tavern, and so did several of the others.

    "Perhaps we ought to call the village Anoria as well," the blacksmith said, settling near the fire. His tone was nettled. The strangers had upset the comfortable rhythm of his world.

    "Undoubtedly it was so named, since it is so clearly carved in the house," said the man.

    "You've never been in the house, Keliwyr, don't talk of things you know nothing of," snapped Anoria. She put her cloak on a chair near the fire. It had been damp outside. Without waiting for a serving girl she took up the poker and stirred the fire herself.

    "The others heard you reading, looking at the walls. You found what your were looking for, didn't you?" asked the man. "Didn't you?"

    "I did," said Anoria.

    "Can't you come home to your people then?" he asked. The serving girl was bringing spiced wine. Anoria looked up, sharply aware that her conversation was still being monitored. Her fellow customers looked down quickly, began murmuring snatches of common conversation, farmer's talk.

    "It appears these are my people," Anoria smiled in amusement, but it was not contemptuous at all.

    There was silence for a little while, silence as warm bread and cheese and apples were served, silence as one of the thralls poked the fire, rewarded with a smile by Anoria whom he had waited upon at the castle. He flushed.

    The door flung open sometime later. Prudwen, dragged in by quite a fair number of the local boys, half walked, half tripped through the door. One of them flung her slightly from him. The serving girl moved hesitantly toward the group.

    "No need for you today, dear. Prudwen will serve us," said one of them with a faintly dangerous smile. "No offense meant to you, darling," he added, giving the serving girl a quick kiss on the cheek. Prudwen, her color still high, nodded to the serving girl who handed her the tray. Anoria watched, amused.

    "You haven't changed," Keliwyr said, watching her amusement.

    "Not terribly," agreed Anoria. "Sit down, dear," she said to the serving maid. "You have no need to serve, so enjoy the fire."

    "But I'll find myself listening to you, and then I'll wind up like Prudy," objected the girl, watching the dairymaid obey the snapping fingers of the youths.

    "The dairymaid? She doesn't look terribly unhappy to me," said Anoria. "What is it you so want to know?"

    "Oh just-just everything," blurted the serving maid. "How you knew to come here. How you found us in spite of everything. About the old tower...why our town has no name. You know, I can tell," she concluded quickly, flushing.

    "Do you think so? It isn't all that mysterious. I have the amulet, the lettering matches that in the castle. I don't know of more complicated property laws in these parts."

    "But how you found us," insisted the girl, with newfound courage now she was relieved of her server's duties.

    Anoria looked at Keliwyr. "You're determined to live among them, you're going to have to tell eventually," he said. "Or you'll never have a moment's peace."

    Anoria looked steadily at him for a moment. "Dairymaid, bring some more wine over here," she commanded and as the girl obeyed, "I will tell you the story of Anoria."

    "You mean your story?" asked the serving girl, seated at her feet.

    "It is to become my story. But that is not how it starts out," said Anoria. "Now will you stop interrupting, and listen?"

    "Yes," and the serving girl's voice was echoed by several spectators.

    "Very well," said the woman, drinking deeply of her warm wine. "Here is the story of Anoria."

House Of Anoria Part 2

"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...

Nearly a millenium passed, and the world changed immensely, more immensely than could possibly be imagined.

Northreed changed comparatively little until very late in history, and even then only minimally.

No one was there in those days to ask if Keliwyr had kept his promise.

And then...

She returned on an early autumn toward twilight; those few close to her, who had been allowed to remain at the little castle for extended periods of time, had known that this was her favorite time of day and season. How she had spent the elapsing centuries she would never let any human being know. Whether she had left, and returned; whether in her time on earth she had lived out her willing suffering virtually alone with one keeper or knelt at the feet of many; these things would not be known.

But when she returned she was more than a bit of a local legend; a piece of lore and color for the district. Her image, or an image thought to be hers, was on the door of the tavern she had once stayed in, and transmitted by seeming magic across little screens accessible across the globe. The brocade dress she had arrived in and the tattered, whip-torn black dress she had left in were replicated at masquerades and subculture gatherings in the town for years. Girls and effeminate young men took renditions of her name as persona monickers.

For a time she had been the rage among certain sets in London and Glasgow, to be replaced by her more openly bloodthirsty sisters in legend, Elizabeth Bathory, Lucrezia Borgia, the nonexistent Countess Dracula. The tiny Anoria Museum was a must-see to cult followers and literary students aspiring to see their name on shelves beside the masters of the macabre.

No one was the wiser for her entrance into the town. She arrived this time at the tiny Victorian-gingerbread Northreed station, still dressed in black and still with a head of thick rich undyed black tresses. She carried a man's black knapsack with bits of fabric and metal visible through the gaps. The low wide leather belt over her long skirt had wide loops in it. Many passed through Northreed dressed so;  the enormous amounts of carved silver metal and amulets were the regalia of many who flocked to the quaint little town with its bit of history.

"Where can one get a bit to drink here?" she asked the stationmaster, turning strong clear eyes on him. But she was already stepping away, headed in the right direction for Anoria Tavern.

"Order Anoria's Blood, it's the best drink in the north country," the stationmaster called as he headed back toward the train that would connect with another and another and another to get him back to "civilization."

"Oh, please," she said, laughing outright. It sounded strong and clear on the air, as though her laughter had been contained and forcedly soft for many years. She allowed it again, just for an instant, as though to hear its sound fully.

It rose again as she saw the portrait of what was supposed to be her. She stood in front of it for several minutes, and her hand lifted toward the glass of the tavern. It was mounted on an antique-looking easel, but appeared to be executed digitally. She looked thoughtful, as though there was a great deal she had experienced from a distance and needed to partake of firsthand. After a moment she rested her hand gently on the very ancient doorknob.

And after another moment she let it swing open.

The woman behind the counter was strong, earthy, familiar. She looked a bit more health-conscious than her predecessor of so many centuries before, but the fierce androgyny was still there. Not an anomaly in her own time like the innkeeper who had first greeted Anoria, this woman had fitted into a mold, with black denim and a black leather jacket. The customers at the bar looked similar; the character of the place had established over time. There were other vivid differences: imitation Tiffany lamps hanging from the oak beams; a green-topped, worn billiards table; machines for games, some with metal balls and some with screen images in motion.

A back room had been added, evidently during the Edwardian era, with elaborate scrollwork and a small version of a sweeping staircase. Miniature opulence. It was early, but a few young people in varying shades of black and varying degrees of jewelry ornamentation, some with intricate black eye paint swirled up past their brows, sat at the tables in the newer room. Small bright screens sat on a few tables against the wall. The ones not in use shone out the windowfront imaginary-image of Anoria on their desktop.

Heads turned, but no more than they would for any attractive woman walking alone through the door. The imaginary Anoria was vastly different from the real one. Anoria had never worn dragon images, or had hair to her ankles, or painted her face. And no one would have reason to think that the ancient pact had only recently been seen to its completion.

"Are you staying for the Dark Castle tonight?" asked the bartender as she poured cherry brandy into a snifter and added some sort of fruit combination. Odd for a biker barkeep, but Anoria's Blood was the house special. Anoria paid, the humor not lost on her, but obviously concentrating on the currency as though it were unfamiliar. The bartender, lighting a miniature cigar, did not seem to notice.

"That's every Saturday, our regular event. Band called Heart of Darkness and our house deejay tonight. Starts picking up around eleven." Unasked, the bartender refilled Anoria's glass.

"I'll come back. I wanted to see the museum. It's in the old castle?" Anoria asked casually, too casually. Now the bartender looked more closely, putting her beer bottle back on the counter. She was not sure why.

"Sure it is, everybody knows that. It's closed for the day, though," she said. She stepped closer, examining the newcomer in the light of the inaccurate pseudo-Tiffany.

"That is fine. I will come back. Thank you," said Anoria. She was a bit more cavalier with the currency the second time, and the bartender openly stared.

"You are welcome at any time," she said, watching her swift exit.

Dusk was falling in earnest as the dark-haired woman took the now  cobblestoned footpath up to the little castle of which she once had been the self-appointed chatelaine. Pavement had been a necessity, but Northreed would never see asphalt. It would have taken away from their attraction and charm, and perhaps more than that. Perhaps desecrated something.

The door, with its neo-neo-Euro-Gothic sign depicting white figures on a black background in various stages of coffin-raising, courtship and bloodletting, was securely locked. Anoria, without hesitation, drew out the key. The key which had long been out of her possession, but which still, apparently, felt natural in her hand.

The museum would not be open until the following afternoon at one. It should have been deathly quiet, with the few tiny burglarproof lights illuminating the few authentic pieces and many reproductions of racks, pillories, and spikeless, headless "iron maidens." It should have been utterly still, and an alarm should have sounded, piercing the air in a way it had rarely been pierced before.

But a youthful, male voice said, "Welcome, lady." And it seemed a thousand voices echoed after that.

In the twilit greyness behind the door, her face took on a soft radiance for a moment. Then she closed the door after her, softly.

She did not return for the Saturday night event, nor to the tavern again the next day. The museum opened the following day, the young people and literary eccentrics flooded through the doors, and the day went on as usual. If there was a heightened sense of excitement in the atmosphere, rather more intense passion than usual during the dancing, it was put down to the stars, the phases of the moon.

Except by the bartender, who would always wonder.

Someone noticed the alarm had not been put on at the castle. But they paid it little attention, knowing crime was unheard of even today in Northreed. If asked, none of the guests at the tavern would have remembered Anoria.

But there was a great deal of money in the cash register. And she had left behind her knapsack.

Filled with exotic, ancient fabric. Carved chalices and daggers.

And a coiled snake whip.

As told by Magdalena....

THE END

Medieval Garb by ANORIA

www.leatherworks.com