Read Dragonfly Song Online

Authors: Wendy Orr

Dragonfly Song (19 page)

They leave the chamber door open so Aissa can share the music and laughter, though she can't hear enough to understand the stories. The smoke from the Hall hearth fire drifts in, and she has a lamp – a small dish of oil with a floating, burning wick – so she's not in the dark.

Roula brings her honey cake and a drink of goat milk mixed with wine.
It must taste better in the Hall
, thinks Aissa.
Maybe nothing tastes as good when you're sitting outside the party.

Not that I want to be in the Hall with all the Hall folk.

Or in the kitchen with the servants.

Or anywhere but here!

So she sits and spins, because she's finally got her own spindle and has learned to comb wool, and to spin and weave. She doesn't like it as much as she thought she would, but the quiet rhythm is comforting – and she's pleased that she can do it, just the same as everyone else. Gold-Cat likes it too. He bats at the spindle and makes it spin. He claws the wool and tangles it.

‘Stop it!' Aissa thinks at him.

Gold-Cat cocks his head to one side as if he's trying to hear, and taps the spindle again. Aissa laughs.

The sound of her own laughter still surprises her.

Now the days get longer but the nights are colder; the rain comes hard and there's more and more illness for the wise-women to see to. Roula and Aissa are learning
fast. When the barley is harvested in the spring, Roula will graduate to be a full wise-woman.

Aissa will never do that, but she likes the learning, and loves travelling around the island to wherever they're needed. She doesn't enter homes in the town, where they know her, but the other islanders don't always recognise the cursed child in the clean young server. Or if they do, they're too sick to care.

One bright, almost-spring day she goes with Lyra to see a fisherman with a terrible, hacking cough. Aissa fetches a jug of water from the river and builds up the fire for Lyra to boil mountain herbs into a tea.

‘You're the girl they call No-Name!' the fisherman says, when his coughing has stopped enough to let him speak.

‘She's the wise-women's server,' Lyra snaps.

‘Yes, yes; I'm grateful. It's just – be careful on the cliffs on your own. Nasta's mother . . . she hasn't been right in the head since her brother died. He was the chief then, you know; she thought that made her quite grand. Then he drowned, and her baby, Nasta, came early with the shock.'

Her brother was the chief! Nasta's uncle . . . the Lady's husband . . . the baby's father. The baby that was me.

Nasta is my cousin.

Wouldn't she hate to know that!

It's hard not to smile.

‘When I'm well,' says the sick fisher, ‘pass by here on your way to the beach. It would be an honour to watch out for you.'

18

THE SHIP IN SPRING

Spring comes to the hills

with its new life and flowers.

The swallows fly in,

then the herons and cranes –

nearly the year's full cycle

since the Bull King's ship,

Firefly Night,

the bull dancer lottery

and Aissa's exile.

Now,

gathering greens with the wise-women

Aissa almost forgets

she's not one of them,

and so do they,

watching her grow

with big-sister pride.

Aissa one of the group

when Kelya tells them

that the signs are right

for the barley to be cut

and in the morning,

the oracle will say

the harvest is early

and must start that night

at the rise of the moon.

Kelya always knows

what the oracle means

even before the Lady says it.

Sometimes Aissa wonders –

but no;

the Lady's oracle

comes straight from the goddess –

it can't be Kelya.

Next evening

as the full moon rises,

the chief and the guards,

the men of the hunters,

fishers, farmers and town,

line the path to the barley

with bright flaming torches

lighting the Lady

as she leads Kelya,

Lena, Lyra and Roula,

then Fila and Nasta –

but not Aissa –

to the shimmering, moonlit

field of barley.

Roula carries a wine jug

and a basket of barley cakes;

the Lady pours wine to the ground

for the goddess to drink,

scatters the cakes

for the goddess to eat,

and sings her request

for a full-basket harvest

so they can offer

the same again next year.

With her curved bronze knife

like a sickle new moon

the Lady cuts the first heads

from the barley stalks;

hands the knife to Kelya

then Lena, then Lyra

and Roula too, for the very first time.

But Aissa

is not with them

nor with the women

from the town and the Hall

who reap the barley

in the coming days.

Between two worlds

belonging to neither,

watching in darkness –

careful that no one's polluted

by her standing close –

suddenly

rage burns through her,

darker than the night,

hotter than the torches

the men hold high.

Rage at the Lady,

her mother, not mother

who wanted her dead

and doesn't know she's alive.

Rage at Kelya,

for not dropping the baby

off the cliff as she should have;

rage at herself

for being made wrong;

rage at the goddess

for making her so.

Her rage burns on

against the Lady,

against herself

and the goddess,

but she can't hold it

against Kelya

because even in her fury

she is glad she's alive.

Luki watches the Lady's barley harvest and wishes he were home. His family's barley is a small field and doesn't take long to reap, because the whole family works together, everyone who's old enough to use a sickle without cutting off their fingers. His mother says men are just as good as women, and if the goddess wants the barley brought in on time she shouldn't care who does it.

Luki's only task this year was to hold a torch while the Lady and the wise-women made the first cuts.

Aissa wasn't with them. He still watches for her, the girl who doesn't speak but can sing snakes like the Lady. She's grown taller now she's the wise-women's server and doesn't live under a rock. Sometimes he tries to catch her eye but she still scurries away as if she's afraid of being spat at or stoned. It hurts that she's forgotten how he tried to help.

He never thinks that she might be avoiding him for his own good.

In the middle of the barley harvest, when all the town girls are helping with the reaping and the boys are busy with the girls' other chores as well as their own, the guard Tigo is looking for someone to race the bull dancers. Luki sees Aissa at the back gate, her gathering basket on her arm.

He points imperiously. ‘That girl! Call her.'

‘Girl at the gate!' Tigo bellows, because he can't figure out what to call her now – but what Luki wants, Luki should get.

Aissa turns. Her face lights up so that for an instant anyone can read it:
I'm going to race the bull dancers!

‘Tigo!' Nasta wails. ‘Can't you see – that's No-Name!'

‘She's the wise-women's server,' Tigo mutters.

No one hears him. Nasta is shrieking as if she's walked into a hornet's nest. ‘We're the bull dancers! Are you trying to bring us bad luck? Don't you know she's cursed?'

On and on – she's still going when Aissa slips out the gate.

‘Are you afraid she would beat us?' Luki asks, which makes Nasta even louder – but Luki's curious, because he's seen Aissa run and he thinks she's faster than him, maybe even faster than Nasta. Of course he wants his fellow bull dancer to be quick and agile to give them both a chance of staying alive. He'd just like to see her lose once.

But soon we'll be gone and Aissa can race with the new bull dancers.

He stops feeling sorry for her. Maybe she's still a servant and some people spit at her, but when he leaves for the Bull King's land, Aissa will stay safely at home. Sometimes he feels his life is dripping away from him, one spring day at a time. But the ship is late this year, and each day that it doesn't come is another day to wonder if it never will.

Then late one morning, after the full moon, the Bull King's ship returns. Last year's dancers aren't on it. They have disappeared like all the dancers before them.

Luki hadn't known how much he'd been hoping he wouldn't have to go. He's not a coward, but he's a realist: if anyone ever survives the bulls, it will be a natural athlete with balance sure as Milli-Cat's, reflexes fast as a snake's tongue, and light-footed as a goat. Someone like Nasta. Not Luki.

Now there's no more hope.

But I can go home for a day
, he thinks. A last night on the farm with his family . . . it's almost worth facing the Bull King for that.

The running rushing panic

like every other year;

Nasta's father leaving his boat

to run with his wife

up to the Hall

to take their precious daughter

home for a day

and the last visit

to their clan's sacred shrine.

Luki, racing out the back gate,

not wasting time

to run around the walls,

stops

to touch hands with Aissa,

a last thank you

for saving him from the snake.

Aissa, too shocked to refuse,

presses her hand to his

for the first time,

because it's too late

for people to mock him

for kindness to her.

She can only hope

it's also too late

for her curse to taint him

since he needs

all the luck he can get –

though she sees the shock

in Tigo's eyes

at her bad-luck touch –

Tigo, sent to guard the bull dancer

across the hills

and bring him back safe

at dawn.

Feeling the dread

all that long, long day

and anxious night,

like all the other ship days

and not like any other

because she is safe with the wise-women,

but this time she cares

what will become of a dancer.

Dawn comes,

the Lady's song so strong

Aissa feels it

tremble through her body

as if she could rise with the sun –

and as the last notes die

and the praise begins

she almost wishes

she could give up her safety

to hide as she used to

and feel it alone.

Then the trembling grows,

the ground quivers,

birds wheel in the sky,

dogs howl and babies wail,

water shoots from the well,

and the great oil jar at the kitchen door

topples and smashes

with a flood of oil.

The earth swells

like a wave from the sea –

and a booming crash

shakes the world.

A silence follows

louder than sound,

broken by screams

and fisherfolk running

up to the gates.

The goddess of fishers

has taken her cliff

and her shrine,

her image and offerings,

back to the sea,

and Nasta's mother

and Nasta

with them.

Aissa knows it's her fault

for worshipping

the fisherfolk's goddess –

till a voice in her head says,

‘It wasn't you she took.'

Her heart stops

then beats as surely

as if it had always known

the way things would be.

While the square erupts –

people crying to the gods,

asking why;

weeping women

clutching their children,

servants skidding in oil

and the braver folk rushing

to the cove to help –

stillness

settles on Aissa.

Blind to the world

she sees

Nasta and her mother

destroying the patterns

Aissa left for the goddess.

Deaf to the screams

she hears,

‘Your father was a fisher.

It was your shrine

to honour as you did.'

She feels the wise-women

close around her

in a ring of protection.

‘Little one,' says Kelya,

‘You've been touched by the goddess.'

Aissa wakes from her trance,

feels light pouring through her,

her eyes now

sharp as eagles',

her ears like a wolf's

and she knows

what she must do.

The Bull King's captain

shaken by the omen –

though he doesn't know

the bull dancer's gone –

tells the Lady

the tide and winds are right –

he'll still sail this morning

and all the tribute

must be on board.

‘Your spears

and sharp bronze axes

mean that you

can take our children,'

says the Lady.

‘But the gods have spoken –

beware your own king's fate

if he doesn't listen.'

The guard who speaks

the Bull King's tongue

is pale with fear

at the captain's reply:

‘My king serves the Earthshaker,

the god and bull

who spoke this morning –

and he'll take his tribute.'

Now Luki and Tigo

and Luki's family

run in, panting

from the long hike home;

ready for what must be.

They approach the Lady,

and Aissa does too –

wise-women behind her,

like Luki's family

behind him –

the Lady chose Nasta's name

in the lottery

but Nasta is gone

and now the gods

have chosen Aissa.

Through a mist

she hears the Lady,

‘These are our dancers,

sent to serve your king

and save our island.

I must give them

the goddess's blessing

one last time

before they go.'

The sanctuary is dark:

Roula brings flares,

lights the torches

set around the walls

till shadows flicker

on pale faces:

the Lady and the chief,

Luki with his family,

Aissa with hers.

‘This is the girl called No-Name,'

says the Lady to Kelya.

‘Until she became our server,'

says Kelya,

her blind eyes staring

straight at the Lady's.

‘Her name is Aissa.'

And the Lady –

who stood up straight

when the earth trembled,

when the cliff crashed,

and the bull dancer was lost –

crumples at the knees

and starts to fall

like any grieving mother

till the chief catches her.

‘Aissa?' she whispers.

‘Aissa,' says Kelya.

‘Twelve years ago I did a great wrong

but now it seems

that it was right.

And if you want

me to go to the cliff,

I'm too old to care.'

‘The sea's taken enough for one day,'

says the Lady.

‘The oracle will tell us

how we must appease the goddess –

but for this, I thank you.'

‘Thank the child,' says Kelya.

‘It was she who chose,

or the goddess in her.'

The Lady finally

looks at Aissa,

straight in her eyes,

as if she could search

into her soul.

‘Thank you,' she says,

with hand on heart,

her voice cracking

so when she sings their blessing

she sounds like Fila,

with a voice to scare toads.

Aissa still wishing

the Lady would touch her

with a mother's love

as Luki's mother is hugging him

and his father holding tight to his hand,

but the Lady

is the ruler again;

her voice clears

to sing a last song

and when she kisses Aissa

on the top of the head,

it is just the same way

that she kisses Luki.

The chief does the same,

but Kelya

hugs Aissa so hard

it seems she'll never

let her go.

‘It's time,' says the Lady.

‘Be well,

and return to us next year.'

They leave the darkness,

blinking in

the brightness of day,

to the impatient Bull King's men

and Fila, waiting for her mother,

uncertain what to do

in the chaos of the shaken town.

Then Milli-Cat,

tail up and waving,

leads her family

in a loving coil around Aissa's legs,

and Gold-Cat jumps

straight to her shoulders.

Aissa holds him,

feeling her heart

break to leave him,

turns to Fila

and gives her the cat.

Fila's eyes

open wide with surprise;

she can't put hand on heart

because she's hugging the cat

but she says thank you

not just in her voice

but in her eyes and smile.

And Aissa knows

Gold-Cat will be safe

and even happy.

‘Now!' shouts the captain

as the jostling people

race back from the cliff

and grieving cove

to touch the tributes' god-luck hands.

And no one spits

at Aissa.

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