Read Chapter One WATER WORM AND SIREN BONE by Cidney Swanson

Prologos: HOW THE STORY IS TOLD

 

Though it is possible for mortals to outwit the fey by accident, it is rare for them to do so by design. Mortals gaining a wish may claim to have outwitted the fey, but such claims are untrue, or they are so rarely true as to make them nearly untrue. But once, there was a wise tsaritsa who by luck or design succeeded, thereby bringing peace and wealth to the Five Kingdoms. And while this story is not her story, we could not have this story without hers.

Therefore, some few words concerning the wise tsaritsa.

In the old stories, she is awarded neither honorific capitalization nor a given name. In fairness, capitalization was employed with whimsy at the time in which she lived and died, but to leave her unnamed was shortsighted, in the most charitable of interpretations. We shall therefore refer to her as Sophiya the Wise.

It was Tsaritsa Sophiya who brought about the concord between water fey and mortals titled the Tsar’s Peace—of which title, more in a moment. The treaty Sophiya engineered benefited the fey, but because it benefited mortals considerably more, it is said to be an example of “outwitting.” Even so, as mortals measure benefits in decades or generations while fey measure them in millennia, perhaps this, too, will someday prove to be a false example.

What is certain is this: history books give the Wise Tsaritsa’s agency in the Concord only a glancing mention, such that most will tell you it was Pyotr who outwitted the fey. It was not. His wife’s wits were behind the pact that brought magia into common circulation among mortals—magia stored in reliquaries and worn on chains or on fingers. It was Sophiya who advised Pyotr concerning how the siren bones littering the shores of Talisfarne might be safely gathered, without undue peril to those who did the gathering.

How did she accomplish this? By borrowing wisdom she had gained from mothering boys who came to blows so often that death was a distinct possibility.

With her sons, simply telling them to “stop” had been ineffectual. Some might have quit there, assuming their sons were unteachable. The Wise Tsaritsa did not. She knew they were choleric in temper, not stupid. (She also knew that at least some of that ferocity of temper came from her side.) So she taught them, helping them to see the benefits of not killing their siblings. When it was brought to their attention, they agreed that killing one another meant fewer playfellows (or opponents), and that state funerals were lengthy and boring affairs that interfered with the serious business of, well, fisticuffs and mock battles.

And so, borrowing from what she had learned raising her sons, the Wise Tsaritsa told her husband that the killing of fey must stop, but she also listed the benefits. Her husband listened and enacted the treaty with leaders of the fey, making it a capital offense for mortals to slay fey and vice-versa.

Sophiya’s motivations in thus advising her consort are rarely considered, but they too are important, as motivations often are. The Wise Tsaritsa did not begin by plotting to outwit the fey. Rather, she sought to obtain something they guarded—the bones of their granddams—so that one of her daughters might be healed of a troubling sickness. Everyone knew that siren bones brought health. The problem was that disturbing the shores where siren bones lay buried tended to bring death (by siren attack.)

And yet, the Tsaritsa needed the magia in the bones. Therefore, the killing had to stop.

If she had been motivated by the desire to prove she was clever enough to outwit the fey, she would likely have failed. Sirens more than any other of feykind are said to be able to see into the hearts of men. (It is less clear whether they can see into the hearts of women.) Still, because Sophiya was motivated by her love for a sickly daughter, she succeeded and is credited with having outwitted the fey. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that her husband Pyotr is thus credited.

It is all a matter of how the story is told.