THE HONEYCRAFTERS 
 by
Carolyn Ives Gilman 
1991

The motherhold of Magwin Ghar had prospered for nine journeys, until the day Renata Oblin came out of the west. 
The band of beeherders had come to the very brink of Dawn to begin their nectar quest.  They were erecting their dome tents on a sparse meadow beside a swift, chalky blue meltwater river.  The immobile sun hung low in the east; to the west the sunlight touched the tips of ice peaks under the dark bank of clouds that always hung at the edge of permanent night.  Here, they were at the beginning of things, where land was born from ice and night.  Everything around them was young.  
The children were playing with their enormous shadows when they saw the stranger coming down the pathless slope of scree.  They stood still to stare.  She was dressed in barbarian leathers, and coming from the west, where only storm and glaciers dwelt.  As word spread through the camp, people stepped from their tents to watch her approach.  When she drew near they saw what they had half feared, half hoped: a ceramic broodpot in a pouch strapped to her chest. 
She raised an arm in greeting and called in a clear, strong voice, "Whose motherhold is this?" 
"Magwin Ghar's," someone answered. 
She dropped to one knee to touch the ground in thanks.  When she rose, her eyes swept them all in.  "I am Renata of Oblin Motherhold.  Many whiles ago I journeyed into the Dawnland to seek my future.  I have found it.  I bring you a new hive mother!" 
She touched the broodpot at her breast, then looked around, exhilarated, as if she expected them all to cheer at her hero's deed.  But the people's looks were grave and uncertain.  Because of her, their lives were all about to change.  


Dubich Rhud had always known the day would come.  Ever since he and Magwin Ghar had walked the marriage line together it had been there, somewhere in the future: the day a challenger for the motherhold would come, and Magwin would have to face death.  But he had never guessed how full of helpless rage he would feel.  
His voice sounded eerily calm as he told her the news.  They sat inside her tent with their favorite pillows drawn close together.  The beeswax candles cast a soft light on the intricate patterns of the woven wall-rugs and the comfortable layers of carpet on the floor. 
"I am not ready to die just yet," Magwin said grimly.  She still had the look of the wrestler she once had been--strong neck, solid, muscular torso, stocky legs.  But now her close-cropped hair was the color of granite, and her face was leathery from years in the sun. 
"There cannot be two leaders in the same motherhold," Dubich said, fingering the long braids of his gray beard.  "Someone is going to die.  Unless you step aside." 
"Ha!" was Magwin's response.  She raised her arm, clenching her fist and staring at her bunched biceps.  The skin was loose, mottled with age spots.  But there was nothing old about the flash in her eyes. 
"Why not give way, Magwin?" Dubich said quietly.  "It is the way of nature.  Youth should replace age." 
"When age has nothing more to offer," Magwin said.  "I built this motherhold.  I know how to run it." 
It was not what she had said nine journeys ago, when she had been the one challenging old Borsun Ghar for control of the motherhold.  She had been a whirlwind then: a swift temper, a loud laugh, forthright and bold, with a tender side only Dubich and a few others knew about.  Gods, he had been proud of her. 
"So you will fight her?" Dubich said unwillingly. 
Magwin reached out for his hand.  There was a teasing twinkle in her eye.  "Don't worry, old man.  I still have some brain cells that are as good as new, you know." 
She loved it--the challenge, the conflict.  Once, Dubich had enjoyed watching her, advising from the shadows.  But lately, he'd lost his taste for battles.  It had been so quiet, the last journey since their children had left for other motherholds.  He had grown used to a maturer marriage and the slower rhythms of age.  He did not want to lose it all.  The stakes in this battle were just too high. 
Someone shook the door rattle and Magwin shouted, "Enter!"  It was two of the master honeycrafters, come to get good seats for the confrontation everyone expected.  Magwin welcomed them from her pillow, and Dubich rose to serve some hydromel in carved horn cups.  Soon more arrived, and more, till the tent was crowded, and people began to collect outside, where they could hear through the tent sides. 
When Renata Oblin entered the tent, Dubich was startled at how young she was--younger than their own daughter.  Yet she stood at the entrance with a careless self-confidence.  She was tall and agile, with a long braid of brown hair.  An archer, Dubich thought, or a climber. 
"You are welcome to my tent, wanderer," Magwin said formally. 
Dubich held out a cup of hydromel.  Renata shook her head and, in a supple movement of tanned limbs, settled down, legs crossed.  Now everyone knew how the land lay.  Renata would not accept hospitality from someone she intended to kill. 
"What is that around your neck?" Magwin asked. 
In answer, Renata placed the brood pot on the soft carpet, then opened it. 
People leaned forward to see.  Slowly, a large insect crawled free of the pot, too young yet to fly.  There were several indrawn breaths, for she was a larger mother bee than any in Magwin Ghar's hives; and stranger yet, she was a glossy black all over. 
"That is a fine creature," Magwin said.  Her voice was bland, but Dubich could hear the envy in it.  It had been a long time since their own hives had had an infusion of new bee-blood.  A motherhold could not last long with puny, inbred bees.  "How did you find her?" 
"I left Oblin motherhold a journeypiece ago," Renata said.  "I had five companions, young women like me who had all reached the wander-age.  They went to find new homes among other motherholds, but I was not content with that.  I turned toward the land of Dawn.  I set out to find a new hive mother and bring her back. 
"The Dawnlands are wide and cold, and constant storms rage along the boundary where night begins.  I traveled through unmapped new lands, along the edges of the glaciers.  I lived among the rockfalls, eating lichen and beetles; the sun was only an orange ball on the horizon.  I always looked for a nest where a mother bee was hatching from her winterlong slumber.  Once I found a nest but the mother had flown east hours before I got there.  I thought I was cursed. 
"But I would not give up.  At last, as I lay too tired to pull myself upright, the ground began to rock under me.  There was a roar fit to bring the sky down and near me a hillside collapsed into a valley.  Afterwards, I staggered out onto the fresh brown slope and saw there a mother bee climbing from her nest.  The avalanche had cleared away a thick layer of gravel the glaciers had left.  Without it, the mother would have perished, buried; and so would I." 
She looked around at her spellbound audience, and her voice became forceful.  "I set out to find my own people then, for I knew I was fit to lead a motherhold."  Her eyes turned to Magwin Ghar. 
"That may be true," Magwin said in a voice of calm and ice;  "but you will not lead my motherhold." 
"Then we will quarrel," Renata said.  "Look at my bee.  Have you got her equal?" 
No one answered.  Everyone knew they hadn't. 
"I can have your bee," Magwin said. 
"Do you challenge me?" 
Dubich held his breath, hoping Magwin would not be impetuous.  She must not challenge; she needed to choose the weapon.  
Magwin said nothing.  "I smell old blood here," Renata gave the ritual taunt.  "Are you afraid?" 
Still no answer. 
"Very well, then," Renata said, impatient.  "I will challenge you.  Prove your fitness to lead this motherhold." 
"All these people are witness that you have made the challenge," Magwin smiled, a predator who had trapped her prey.  "It is my right to choose the contest." 
Renata straightened in surprise at the sudden vigor of her opponent's voice.  She looked as if she suspected trickery.  "Choose, then," she said. 
"The times are gone when a holdmother needs brute force to rule.  Leadership skills are what count now.  I challenge you to a test of leadership.  Each of us will take a swarm and the people to tend it.  We will compete for one journey.  At the end, whoever produces the best honey, wins." 
"Who will judge?" Renata asked, narrow-eyed.  It was a highly unusual proposal. 
"The honey buyers of Erdrum," Magwin said.  
"Will you give me the right to pick from your swarm?" 
"They are all good bees.  You may pick if you please." 
"And what of the honeycrafters -- the hivekeepers, blenders, and refiners?" 
"Persuade as many to follow you as you can." 
A smile flashed across Renata's face, as if this challenge were to her liking.  "And equipment?" 
"We will share fairly." 
"This is not a bad proposal, old woman," Renata said.  "It is realistic." 
"Then you accept, little girl?" 
"I do." 
The listeners looked troubled, for the decision would be on their shoulders, in a sense.  Each one would have to choose whom to support.  It would be the strangest journey a motherhold had ever taken. 
Renata rose to leave, but before reaching the tent flap she paused.  "What about the loser?" she said. 
Magwin Ghar hesitated.  There was only one proper answer.  "It must be an honorable death." 
To die by one's own bees was the only way to be sure of honor.  It was a painful death, but natural. 
For the first time that night, Renata looked less than sure.  With a slightly exaggerated confidence she said, "Very well." 
When all the witnesses were gone, Magwin turned to Dubich.  "Ah, she's strong and brave, Dubich.  But she can't match me in wits." 
Dubich moved slowly around the tent, gathering the horn cups the visitors had left.  Her plan gave him a deep foreboding. 
When he didn't answer, Magwin said, "Dubich?  Are you criticizing me?" 
"I didn't say a word," he said. 
"No," she said.  "You just freeze the air with your silence.  What is your problem with my plan?" 
"This contest will set the young against the old," he said.  "The youth of the motherhold will want to follow her." 
"So?  I will have wisdom, experience, and skill on my side." 
"She will have energy and creativity on hers.  And a new mother bee.  She has a chance of winning, Magwin." 
Magwin grinned.  "It would not be a contest if she didn't." 
Dubich wanted to smash the cups and roar.  He held it back.  It was not the right way.  He must be clear-minded, clever, and quiet if he was to help her.  She must never know.  He picked up a cloak. 
"Where are you going?" she asked. 
"To the extraction tent," he said.  
But he lied.  He was going to start fighting for her. 


On the edge of camp, remote from traveled paths, lay the hive tent.  At the start of each journey, the bees were kept there till they acclimated to Dawn, resetting their biological rhythms and starting their life cycles over.  It was a dark and buzzing place.  The tall ceramic cylinders were stacked in shadowy ranks, so thick they left only a small circle open in the center.  There, alone as usual, Hivekeeper Yannas No-Name paced the claustrophobic circle of her skull. 
Normally, the quiet music of the bees calmed her, drew her from her thoughts.  She pressed her palms, then her cheek, against the side of a hive, to feel the soft vibration of their humming.  On good days, she could sense their love radiating out, washing her clean of past.  But not today.  She mouthed a silent profanity at herself.  Her life was a rotten tooth, existing only to cause her pain.  The hive circle, her last refuge, her cocoon, had trapped her in an empty round of ritual self-delusions. 
She picked up a metal bar and pried loose the lid of the nearest hive.  Inside, it was dark, crawling with buzzing shapes, like the memories inside her head.  Her skin prickled, overactive nerves fighting for her attention.  She reached in, picked a bee at random from the comb, and took it to her table, where a candle burned. 
The bee was a healthy worker, sleek and yellow.  It was half the size of her thumb, and a vestige of caution made her wonder if it were too large for her purpose.  With a shrug of careless self-riddance, she rolled up her sleeve, then placed the bee over the prominent blue vein near the elbow.  Her forearm was pocked with old red puncture marks. 
She took a sliver of wood from the tangle of gray hair behind her ear and bent forward to tease the bee.  At first it was quiet, sluggish with cold.  When at last it raised its unsheathed stinger in warning, she aimed a threatening jab at its head.  It sank its barb into her arm.  
She clenched her teeth, enjoying the pain.  Her hand twitched in spasms as the muscles convulsed.  Her face grew slick with sweat.  The bee was trying to withdraw its stinger, but the barbs prevented it; it thrashed about, its last throes pumping out all that remained in its venom sac.  At last the stinger ripped from its body and it fell twitching to the floor.  
The vein stood out, deep blue all up her arm.  She panted for breath, her heart racing unevenly.  In another person, a sting so severe would have caused convulsions.  Yannas clenched her teeth to keep from emitting a sound as the poison spread.  If there was no seizure, the lancing pain would wear away; and as it did, the gnawing void inside her would fade.  She would be able to hear the bees sing to her again. 
There was a footstep outside; someone was coming.  Yannas quickly rolled down her sleeve and flicked the dead bee into the shadows.  She turned away from the entry to seem busy and hide the trembling of her hands. 


Dubich Rhud stood for a moment holding up the tent flap to let the sunrise light in.  He watched Yannas' tall, lean form moving restlessly among the shadows.  "Have you heard?" he asked. 
Yannas turned.  Her face was flushed; angular brows, nose, and cheekbones jutted out from the gaunt, obscure landscape of her face.  "Heard what?" she said too alertly. 
Dubich frowned suspiciously and crossed the tent.  He seized the hivekeeper's arm and bared it to the candle light.  The stinger was still embedded in the skin.  With an exasperated oath, Dubich took a clip from his cloak and used it as a tweezers to pull the barb out, careful not to touch it himself.  At last he looked at Yannas' eyes.  They were glassy, bright, pain-free.  Dubich's pent-in anger erupted, and he slapped Yannas in the mouth. 
"Damn you!  I don't care what you do to yourself, but it's Magwin's life you're playing with now.  She has trusted your loyalty to save her.  God, what a delusion!  Her secret weapon, her genius -- nothing but a wretched addict.  If Renata knew, she would laugh her sides out." 
 The hivekeeper backed away, startled, fingering her face.  Her flush was gone; she was clear and cold now.  "It's not as if you didn't know." 
"You promised to cut down." 
"I have," Yannas said; but Dubich could tell it was one of her many lies.  He and Magwin had gotten used to them over the years. 
It was seven journeys since they had come across her in the Summerlands, lying in a roadside ditch, a skeleton wrapped in skin.  She had been dehydrated, near death, but when she came to consciousness in one of their tents it was not water she asked for, but sinnom.  Then they had known the fault lay with one of the motherholds.  For sinnom was a kind of honey -- dangerous, addictive, forbidden, and fabulously valuable.  Someone, lured by wealth, had perverted their bees into distillers of liquid death. 
Magwin had still been new as holdmother then.  Partly from a keen sense of honor, partly from rough kindness, she had adopted Yannas and sworn that she would turn the evil act of some unknown beekeeper into good.  No one had ever lived to give up sinnom; but coached by Magwin, Yannas had done it.  The bee venom had been the key: it dulled the craving, yet brought no pleasure itself, only pain.  Seven journeys had passed, and each one had taken two journeys' worth of life from Yannas, yet the grip of the old addiction failed to fade. 
Dubich already regretted having lashed out; it only gave her the excuse to lie.  He breathed in and tried to draw on the reserves of patience he had used raising children.  Though no child had ever given them the trouble Yannas had. 
"You have to give it up, Yannas.  If not for yourself, do it for the rest of us.  You're the greatest hivekeeper this motherhold has ever had.  You may be the greatest one living.  And Magwin has made a foolish bargain trusting her life to you." 
He told Yannas about Renata then.  Yannas watched immobile, her face as complex with shadows as her life was with falsehoods. 
"She can't win this contest without your help," Dubich finished.  
Yannas was silent a long time.  She would not look at Dubich's face.  "She was wrong to trust me," she said at last. 
"She had reason to.  She saved your life.  She would never ask for your thanks, but you owe it to her." 
"I suppose I do."  Yannas' voice was soft, but thick with irony. 
Dubich studied her face, searching for a glimmer of love or loyalty.  Droning, monotonous music filled the silence--the voice of the fine swarm Yannas had created, first as apprentice, then as assistant, finally as master hivekeeper.  
Dubich turned away, defeated.  "How is the swarm?" he asked. 
"They weathered the last journeypiece well," Yannas said.  "One hive is raising a new mother.  We will be able to start a new hive soon."  Her voice warmed when she spoke of them, as it never did for any mere human.  Not even a human who needed her gratitude.  If only, Dubich thought desperately, she felt toward us as she feels toward the bees. 
"We will have a new mother bee soon, one way or another," he said; the words ached.  "You will have to choose sides.  I hope you will choose Magwin's." 
He waited for an answer, but Yannas said nothing, and he had to leave without knowing her choice.  


When Yannas gave out word that the bees were ready to dehive, the whole camp began to stir.  Spirits were high; it was the beginning of the human journeycycle as well as the bees'.  Soon a procession of wicker litters was winding up the path to the hive tent.  A crowd of workers helped shift the heavy hives onto litters, each bound for a preselected site on the plain around them.  Yannas stood at the center of the hubbub, passing out directions.  For a space around her everything was quiet, as if her presence stilled the chaos and vitality of the day. 
She had marked the hive sites carefully in advance, and each pair of workers set off surely over the uneven ground with a sealed hive slung between them.  Soon the hives would be scattered to the alpine meadows nestling in sheltered spots amidst the glacial washwater and scree.  The nectar from these Dawn-flowers was too earthy for human tastes; but the bees needed it to strengthen them for their long pilgrimage east. 
The hive tent was only half empty when Yannas called a halt; the rest of the hives were marked as Renata's.  When the crowd had gone, Yannas slung a pack of tools over her shoulder, fastened a pouch of food to her belt, and set off to open the hives.  She always did this part alone. 
Up out of the river valley, the land was flat as far as the eye could see -- a vast, glacier-scoured plain.  A cold wind swept down off the ice from the west, unimpeded by anything but a few solitary boulders.  It was not the same place they had come to start the last journey.  That place had passed on into morning.  This was new land, released only recently from the grip of night.  Over their lifetimes, the children in camp might see this spot mature, bear fruit, and pass on into searing day; but they would never live to see it reborn.  That was left to their descendants. 
  Yannas