The Wasp Queen

By Julie Stielstra

In an age when the old sorceries have mostly died out, a single unexpected burst of magic upends the lives of three households. Selfish heiress Vespasia Marchand berates an ill woman in the street, a woman who was once a renowned spell-caster. Her granddaughter Melu has inherited her gift, though it has not been nurtured. In a fit of anger, the

• Language: English
• Publisher: LITTLE FOX PRESS
• Release date: Feb 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987569719

Book preview

I

PROLOGUE

When Linnea was born to the King Ranulph and Queen Callao, there was feasting, drinking, music and dancing for an entire day. If she had been a boy, it would have been three days, plus a tournament and horse races. But the polished and beribboned horses were led away, the competitors sheathed their lances and quivered their arrows, and made do with cups of wine from oaken barrels dragged up from the cellars and platters of pig and deer.

Truth be told, the king and queen were not disappointed. They had lived for some years with a dwindling hope of any child at all. But the birth was difficult; the queen bled and burned with fever for many weeks afterward, moaning for the infant they did not dare to give her to suckle. The king knelt every day, twice a day, begging someone or something for his wife’s life, and who knows if that made any difference, but she lived. She lived in a slow, dark, mournful place, sleeping away hours, day and night, in a shuttered room with a single candle. Each day, then, the king brought his tiny daughter into the bedchamber, and nestled there with his wife, simply hoping their heartbeats and the touch of their skin would warm Callao's soul back to life again. Again, who knows if it helped, but one day she sat up, held out her arms for the child and managed a wan, tear-damp smile for her husband. The doctors warned them that if she had another child, it might kill her.

Linnea remembered none of this.

She mostly remembered sun in the gardens, ducks in the pond, half-wild barn cats who would not let her touch them, and dancing in the great hall while the musicians chuckled and played lively jigs to make her laugh. Her mother was tall, pale, gentle, and loving. Her father was short, dark, solemn and often worried.

Ranulph wanted to be a good king. He wanted everyone around him to be contented. He did not want to go to wars (luckily, their neighbors were similarly peaceful). He even banned hanging, beheading, witch-burning, dog fighting, cock fighting, bull baiting, and the drowning of unwanted kittens. Which, of course, made some people angry with him, and that upset him, but after all, he was the king and could make those rules. There were a lot of cats at the castle. They just kept showing up, somehow.

II

Vespasia Marchand was fuming. An old woman in front of her was wandering and wobbling, taking up the walkway along the narrow side street. She fumbled with her stick, leaning a hand on the housefronts to keep upright. Her clothes were faded homespun, ragged at the hem.

Ginevra, stop treading on my heels! Vespasia snapped at her lady’s maid, who followed silently with a cloth-covered basket of their purchases. This old crone must be drunk, she muttered. She could not get past the old woman without stepping down into the muddy street, which she was not inclined to do. So she fumed.

The old woman stopped, leaning against the wall, with closed eyes and short breath. Then she dropped to her knees, bowed her head, and vomited onto the boards. Vespasia nearly gagged. Then she gave up her fine soft leather boots for lost (but there were others at home), shouldered past the old woman and turned a scornful face on her.

What is the matter with you? she cried. Falling down, sick drunk on the public way at midmorning! Disgusting! I don’t know why the watch doesn’t keep embarrassments like you off the street, so decent people can go by.

The old woman huddled at her feet, sighing, her face in her hands.

Gran! A teenaged girl with a cloud of dark hair rushed up out of the street and knelt by the old woman. She shouted at Vespasia: She’s ill, not drunk, you nasty bitch! She wiped the woman’s mouth with her sleeve, brushing back her hair, and spoke soothingly, urgently, Gran, it’s all right, we’re here. What were you thinking? You shouldn’t have gone out on your own… shhh, keep your eyes closed, it will pass…

Another woman pushed past Vespasia and cradled the old woman. Oh, Mother, here we are. Just sit quiet, wait a bit, we’ll get you home.

Home is where she ought to be, all right! Vespasia said. Keep her home and out of people’s way!

The girl stood up and pointed a finger at Vespasia.

You don’t know anything. My grandmother is ill, she has dizzy spells that come on and knock her right down. You are a heartless bitch, and you should not be on the street! You are like a… a hornet! Mean and vicious and only out to sting and hurt! You should be a wasp, a hornet… And she uttered a guttural phrase of consonants and r’s, ending with a final hard click in her throat.

The old woman gasped and lifted her head.

No! she groaned. Melu, don’t!

But she had.

Pain crackled through Vespasia’s limbs. Her muscles shriveled and shrank, her ribs contracted and melted. Her eyes swelled and grew blank and shining, and the world around her suddenly grew huge and blurred and unseeable. Vespasia’s beautiful yellow and black dress sagged to the grimy boards. A wasp crept out of the neckline, where it sat with damp, crinkled wings trembling.

Quick as thought, the maid Ginevra snatched the cloth from her basket and dropped it over the wasp, gathering it up in the folds. It buzzed furiously.

Melu! What have you done! cried the girl’s mother. Mother, undo this!

I can’t, said the old woman. Only she can undo it. Melu, break it! Break it now!

I can’t, whispered Melu. I don’t know how!

Her grandmother closed her eyes, rocking her head back in despair. Never cast a spell unless you know how to unlock it, because only you can. She closed her eyes again, wheezing, thinking, searching her mind for some way out.

I can only say how it can be ended. If the wasp stings someone else in a certain place, in the neck, where the blood pulse is under the skin, the wasp can enter that person. The wasp will occupy that person, and live as that person to whatever end that person has. Otherwise, she will remain a wasp, living a wasp’s ordinary life and dying a wasp’s ordinary death. That’s all I can remember.

She sat back against her daughter. Her granddaughter stood frozen in the enormity of what she had done, out of impulse, out of anger, out of insufficient knowledge.

Ginevra, gingerly holding the buzzing kerchief in her hand, looked sorrowfully at the girl.

You’re right, she said slowly. She was a selfish, cruel woman. And good luck to her. She shook out the kerchief. The wasp hovered, whined, and swung away, out of sight, trailing her thready legs. Ginevra ducked without thinking, then chuckled grimly. No fear! She wouldn’t want to have my life! Here, let me help you. The woman’s walking stick had tipped off the walkway into the mud, and Ginevra picked it up, wiping off the dirt with the handkerchief. It was unusual - a shaft of dark, polished wood hard as iron; the handle was sheathed in bright brass and shaped into the head of a lioness, the eyes set with topaz.

They lifted the old woman to her feet. Melu and her family headed slowly down the narrow street. Ginevra stooped and stuffed the empty yellow dress into her basket and strode off in the opposite direction.

III

Ginevra Hawkeshaw knew she had been mostly fortunate. She had grown up in the handsome, spacious house where she still lived, where her mother had been lady’s maid to Madame Marchand, Vespasia’s mother. There had always been blazing fireplaces in winter, plenty to eat from the hands of an expert and good-hearted cook. Madame Marchand was imperious and proud, cool-hearted but not cruel. When her baby daughter proved colicky, screaming and wailing for hours of every day and night, Ginevra was old enough to be pressed into service. Barefoot in her nightgown, she carried, rocked, sang, massaged, and whispered to the miserable child. Twenty-five years later, here she was, still serving and soothing the adult Vespasia’s tempers and whims, wearing the clothes she was ordered to wear (always plain brown stuff dresses, so as not to distract from her mistress’s brilliant attire), sleeping and waking as her mistress determined.

She had been lucky, she reminded herself. There had been a wash of horror as she watched Vespasia Marchand’s body twist and dwindle, witnessing something no one would believe any more. It was an assault, wasn’t it? Surely a crime? But committed by a heedless, angry girl… She could not justify – nor could she deny - the tendril of pleasure that twined through her mind when that sharp little insect crawled out of the over-styled, pretentious gown. She was glad. The reality, the requisites of continuing her life, would rise up soon enough, but for this moment, she felt… liberated. And she did not want to say the word that would bring harm to those who had freed her.

IV

Poor Vespasia could not have known that the frail old woman called Rena, sick with a whirling vertigo, had once been a spellcaster of some skill. She was not a powerful witch, but was good with fevers and fainting, worry and lovesickness, often foretelling turns of fate in a way that led people to bring them about - or prevent them - themselves. She told people looking for curses to find someone else. She was well-known to the local women, and could ease monthly pains, could help bring children to those who longed for them and prevent them for those who did not. Age and illness had enfeebled her, and she said it was a burden she was glad to lay down; she could just be a normal person and cook and tend the house and enjoy her meals and wine. Sometimes older boys and girls would still bashfully visit and ask for a love charm, and she would be kind and tease them a little and offer a sachet of something that smelled good, and nature would take its course.

The gift had skipped a generation: Melu’s mother Thirza had nothing of it, but she had married a man who did, a North African shaman with profound skills of healing and direction of natural forces. Khalid could call up the wind and the rain, or stop it; he knew when the sun or moon would disappear or reappear; he could stop fits or delirium by simply laying his long golden palms on a person’s breast and speaking soft unfamiliar phrases. Melu had known little of him: when she was still a toddler, he had been murdered by a furious man who had walked into his hut to find his wife gasping with those dark hands upon her bosom. The husband struck Khalid down with a shovel to the back of his head; the wife screamed, coughed, turned blue and died from the heart seizure for which she had begged the healer to come to her. They banished the husband from the town forever, and buried the wife and Melu’s father on the same day.

They didn’t exactly keep the knowledge from Melu, but she had no encouragement to learn it. But the books and scrolls from her father’s library were still in the shelves. They were dusty, tattered, with cracked spines and missing pages, but Melu had gone poking through them quietly on her own. Some - from his home country - she could not read, but she rifled the others. The first time she turned a bootlace into a very small snake - by just saying the words written down on a fading page! - she was thrilled and carefully set the little snake free on the doorstep. Turning the snake back into the bootlace didn’t occur to her. She leafed randomly through the pages, trying out this and that… most of the time, the tricks worked. And if they didn’t, well, no real harm done - the bootlace just stayed a bootlace.

But not this time.

V

Vespasia was astonished. She was flying. She was not flapping her arms; the wings seemed to be an entirely separate mechanism that worked almost of their own accord. She sailed above the street,