Bird of Chaos: Book One of the Harpy's Curse

by Susie Mander

  The high priestess pushed her fingers into my mouth and felt along my moist gums. Wiping her hands on her black gown, she said, “Good.” She felt down my neck then placed her ear to my bony chest and listened to my breathing. She pressed her cold fingers to my belly. “Do you feel anything here?”

  I shook my head to indicate no.

  “And here?”

  I tried to feel something, I so desperately wanted to please her, but I could not lie. I shook my head again.

  “Any sign?” said my mother, leaning forwards slightly.

  “Be patient,” said Maud, then to me, “This will be a little unpleasant. Would you please…?” She lifted my knees so they fell to the side.

  I locked eyes with my mother. “It’s all right,” she whispered.

  And then the high priestess disappeared into the gorge between my legs like a swimmer diving into a vast lake. The pain was intense: heat burning through muscle. I bit the inside of my cheek. I felt her prodding and poking inside me. I imagined the shape of her hands moving beneath the skin on my stomach as she explored my insides. Eyes watering, I shut it out and tried to find rayta. My mother squeezed my hand.

  “Interesting. Very interesting. There seems to be…Yes, yes!” Maud was excited. “Yes, there it is!”

  “What? Show me.” And my mother joined the high priestess at my feet. She ignored my question—“What is it? What, mother? Tell me.”—and said, “There is no doubt?”

  “None. Her gift will rival even yours.” Maud wiped her hands on a cloth, picked up her staff and walked across the room. “The prophecy says a daughter of Tibuta, a being of sophrosyne, of balance, will be born and hers will be the most magnificent gift and with it she will have the potential for both chaos and salvation. I have seen it for myself— Have faith. Tibuta will have a ruler balanced enough to unify our people and put an end to the suffering. You must be proud.”

  “Of course,” my mother said without conviction. She straightened, her face creased with worry…or something else. “Only we must not get ahead of ourselves. You said the same thing about Evada and look what happened to her. There is a chance my daughter will not live up to your expectations.”

  “I have faith she will.”

  “Yes but anything could happen. If she catches an ague or—”

  The high priestess slammed her staff against the floor. “Reckless child. Do not invite condemnation into your home.” I began to cry. My mother picked me up and held me to her. “Ashaylah, you should be happy,” the high priestess said.

  “I am,” she said in a voice that suggested otherwise. She placed me on the ground, took my hand in hers, thanked our religious leader and led me out. On the landing at the top of the pyramid she bent down to speak to me. “You are never to visit the high priestess, you hear me?” she said, her face like slate. “That woman spreads lies and damnation and I will not have her using you the way she used Evada.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “And Verne, you must promise me not to speak of this to anyone, you understand? Not even your father, not Nanny Blan, not anyone. If you do they will be in a lot of trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  She hesitated, “If you tell them they will be cursed. Icelos will take them. You don’t want your father or Nanny Blan to die, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good. Now come along.”

  We departed hand in hand and as we reached the bottom of the pyramid I swore to myself that I would never betray her. Why? Because I trusted her. She was my mother. So when we arrived at the palace and stepped down from the palanquin and my father asked, “Who’s my favourite girl?” I said, “I am” and let him spin me around and around. When he put me back down and said, “Well?” and my mother shook her head, I said nothing.

  “So she’ll have no gift at all?”

  “It would seem that way,” my mother said, shrugging.

  “So we try again.”

  “One child to distract you is bad enough. I’ll not share you with another,” she said.

  I looked from my mother to my father. The hostility that existed between them was a dark shadow. I wanted to tell them to cast the shadow aside, to hold hands and make up. I did not. And my silence condemned me to a childhood tainted by guilt.

  The queen pulled her hand back as if she were about to slap me, changed her mind and sent the tavli board flying across the room. It hit the wall and shattered. My father and I sat in stunned silence, watching the black and white ivory checkers spin on the marble floor. In the prickly awkwardness that ensued, my mother fixed her eyes on my father. Her face was pale, sickly. “I’ve had enough. This is…this is absurd.”

  I could hear Nanny Blan stirring in the room adjoining mine. All that was left of the fire in the pit in the centre of my solar was a mound of glowing coals. The long drapes kept the night at bay. The walls, as in the rest of the palace, were decorated with frescos of sea creatures: in this case dolphins leaping through the waves and whales expelling water through their blowholes, black-and-white-striped sea snakes and conch shells, their soft pink lips symbolic of the woman’s sex.

  My father tore his eyes away from the tavli board and looked at his wife. “It’s just a board game.” His face was drawn out, all deep valleys and long shadows after another sleepless night comforting me while I dreamt of anarchy.

  I dug my nails into the edge of the table and tried to escape to a happier place. I was seven. Since my testing, my parents’ bitterness had grown. It simmered below the surface, barely masked by false enthusiasm and promises that they still loved one another. Occasionally it bubbled over and when it did, I put my hands over my ears, squeezed my eyes shut and yelled, “Stop fighting!”

  “Please stop,” I whimpered. I blamed myself for our family’s disintegration.

  “Is it true you’ve set up a cot in her room?” the queen said, ignoring me. She pulled her nightgown tightly around her thin frame.

  “She has nightmares. I tell her stories.”

  I was so young I did not question his motives. I coveted his love. He was my best friend, my only friend, and to doubt his authenticity was to doubt the very foundations of my existence. When I looked at him I did not see a man, a father or a daroon; I saw only my reflection in his tiger eyes. We were one and the same, father and daughter, inseparable.

  Later I would come to suspect that he used me to fill the void left by my mother.

  “You…you shame me. After all I have done for you. They think—I have heard my attendants whispering—The affection you show her is not natural.”

  “You don’t honestly think I would…not with my own daughter?”

  A single tear dribbled down my mother’s cheek, which she wiped violently away. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Surely not that?”

  Her voice was tiny. She ground her foot into the marble. “You bring her so many gifts.”

  It was true. Whether it was my Name Day or not he would inevitable surprise me with some trinket or other: pressed flowers or jewellery, interesting rocks or games. His tokens of affection were particularly abundant when I was sick or had done well in one of our lessons. I think he did it to secure my love when he could not secure hers.

  “I am her father,” he said, tucking a strand of long dark hair behind his ear.

  “You never bring me anything.”

  “If I am such a disappointment, have me sacrificed.”

  My mother’s voice trembled. “Maybe I will.”

  My father was quiet for a long time. Finally he nodded. “Whatever you want.” He took my hand and led me to bed.

  “Jammeson, this has to stop,” my mother called. There was an edge of desperation to her voice. She was about to lose control. When she did it would be like water boiling over. The fire would hiss and crackle. Steam would fill the air.

  My bed was suspended from four ropes and it swayed slightly when my father sat beside me. He carried a single candle, which he placed on t
he bedside table. He kissed me on the forehead. “Good night, angelfish.”

  “Are you and Mum going to be all right? She won’t really sacrifice you, will she?”

  “I’ll do whatever I can to make sure she doesn’t.”

  “Good,” I said and was immensely relieved. I burrowed into the covers.

  “Your mother likes to make threats. She doesn’t mean it. Now, let me go speak some sense into her. Wish me luck.” He winked at me.

  “How dare you?” my mother said, entering my room. Her eyes were streaked with viscous tears. She took my father by the shoulder and yanked him aside. “I was talking to you. Are you blind to my tears? Have you no heart?”

  “Ashaylah, enough. This is not the time or the place.” He pushed past her, heading for the door.

  “Come back here.”

  My father kept walking. My mother stalked after him like a prowling beast. The silence hummed in their wake. I stared at my father’s empty cot. I could see the shape of him in the mattress. I clutched at my aching heart and reminded myself that their happiness was more important than…than anything, really.

  Nanny Blan found me weeping quietly. She lowered her immense rump onto the bed beside me and stroked my hair. “What ails you, precious one?”

  “They will never stop fighting,” I said, punching my pillow.

  She pursed her lips and shook her head, “Who knows? Who knows?”

  “My mother is…is broken.”

  She laughed, “Maybe. Maybe not. I know it upset yer but yer mother has certain expectations of the daroon. A man and a woman…they need time together.” She folded me into her immense arms and listened as I poured out all my disappointment. When I was finished I made her swear that she, at least, would never leave me.

  “Of course I’ll never leave yer,” she said.

  After the incident with the tavli board my mother made sure my days were so filled with training that I barely had time to realise how much I missed my father. I had my own etiquette teacher, Arkantha. I studied strategy with Alberthia, or Bertha for short, a former-hoplite and head trainer with the Unit. I practised political theory, diplomacy and Tibutan history with Galen, a retired soldier who preferred to spend his time in the library. But by far my favourite lessons were in manna, spear fighting and sword fighting with Drayk, head of the Queen’s Guard and one of our best soldiers.

  On the eve of my first day of manna training I tossed and turned with a head full of children laughing. Stax, my satryx and another present from my father, lay at my feet and squeaked every time I moved to remind me she was there. Despite a sleepless night, I woke early. I removed all the jewellery my father had given me and wrapped it in a piece of silk then placed it in a gold box on my dresser. It would remain there for the rest of my life.

  I took Stax out from among the furs and held her up to my cheek to nuzzle her body. Her white fur made my eyes water. “Be good,” I said, and kissed her on the head before replacing her on my bed.

  Nanny Blan waddled into my room adjusting the floral headscarf she wore over her dark frizzy hair. To me her clothes were unusual: she hid herself beneath a tent of a gown even in the hottest weather, the floral design stretching across her huge bust. “Yer up early,” she said, admiring my roughspun tunic and sharkskin vest and breeches.

  “I’ve got training,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Mother’s instructions?”

  I nodded.

  “At least ye’ll be with people your own age.”

  Before I left, Nanny Blan pulled me into the mountains and valleys of her immense body and hugged me. Her kiss on my cheek was wet and warm. She told me to be good.

  I pushed the whalebone helmet on and my skull rattled inside it like a macadamia in its shell. “I will,” I said, my voice muffled by two tusks protruding from my chin. “Don’t sit on Stax.” I turned and ran down stairs.

  I stood in the portico looking out over the palace. A group of slaves knelt with tiny knives to trim each blade of grass along the Walk. When I reached the edge of the gardens I looked back at the long, U-shaped, dazzling marble Royal Apartments. I saw my father standing in the upstairs balcony and waved. I knew he had seen me: I could see it in his eyes. “Father! Down here!” I called and waved again. He made no gesture. Instead, he turned away and disappeared into a dark alcove. I swallowed, fighting back a wave of emotion so strong I thought I would cry. Then I ran.

  I ran past groundsmen clipping topiary hedges, past a group of women laughing and whistling at the men, and past Friance, an attendant, who was known for offending people by saying whatever came into his head. There was no sieve between his brain and his mouth, they said. He waved to me but I kept on running. I could not explain my father’s behaviour but I thought I could outrun the pain. I did not stop until I reached the Barracks.

  The Barracks is a double-storeyed white building in another U-shape, with a cloister along both levels, tucked up beside the palace Wall near the West Gate. At the centre of the courtyard is a flagpole with the Tibutan flag, a gold snake eating its own tail on a black background. It was hanging limp in the still air. Fedwyn Tower cast its shadow over the ground. Hoplites walked along the Wall carrying thirteen-foot bronze-tipped spears and bronze-and-timber shields.

  I reached the arena expecting the sound of children’s laughter. I removed the helmet and threw it over the arena wall, wiped the tears from my eyes and put on a brave face to meet my new friends. I clambered up the stones and stood on the top of the wall with my hand shielding my eyes from the sun. It was like taking a giant step towards some undefined goal: growing up, success, or arriving at whatever destination it is we are all working towards. But there were no children in the arena. The immortal stood alone beneath a lone sycamore tree.

  Drayk the immortal looked like any other young man to me, though when he smiled there were dimples in his cheeks and his face was covered in a soft blond beard. He had strong bones and a serious expression that could make even the most confident person doubt herself. “You’re late,” he said, thick arms crossed. His dress uniform—the black breeches and slim black tunic—was like a second skin, a part of him. His boots were polished.

  “Where are all the children?”

  “Your mother feels it is better that you train alone. She doesn’t want you to feel intimidated by the other children, some of whom are gifted.”

  I had to concentrate hard to stop my bottom lip from wobbling.

  “Once you have trained with me and proven your skill with a spear, I will make the recommendation that you join the Unit myself. Until then,” he cocked his head, “worry less about the restrictions people place on you and more about the restrictions you place on yourself. We have work to do.”

  Willing myself to remain calm, I jumped down from the wall and landed firmly on both feet. Drayk passed me the spear; my hand barely fit around its shaft. As his hand brushed against mine I watched for sparks. He was an immortal after all—surely there had to be some sign of this upon his person. Nothing happened. I frowned. “Is it true you are an immortal?” I was blunt the way only children and the brave can be.

  “What do you think?” he said. His beautiful grey eyes were full of mischief.

  I shrugged. “Nanny Blan said you were magic but I don’t see anything magic about you. You look normal to me.”

  “There is no such thing as magic, little miss. The gods made me this way and it will be the gods who unmake me once the gate to the Elysian Fields opens. I am sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Can you do anything?”

  To this he laughed. “I have been on this earth long enough to know a few decent stories. I can tell you about the time of the serpents, the rule of Emperor and the fall of the allegiance between the four nations.”

  “Tell me about the serpents.”

  So he did.

  I dropped my weapon, climbed to the top of the wall and sat with my legs dangling over the edge. Drayk leant against his spear. His voice was rich chocolat
e. “My mother Avery was the kindest woman you could ever imagine. You see, the women of Caspius are a different breed. They care for their men in a way you Tibutans cannot understand. But that is a story for another time, for when you have grown.”

  “Our women care for their men,” I said. I was feeling particularly defensive since my parents’ fight.

  “But on the mainland it is different,” he said and was about to continue when I cut him off.

  “Different how?”

  He looked impatient as if I was ruining his story. “For one, there are no daroons and no consorts. A man is a man. And a woman is a woman. Rai made man first and woman second. She is the wife of man. That’s what the word means. That’s why it’s longer.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said and laughed. “The word ‘woman’ is longer because Shea and Ayfra came down from the Elysian Fields and endowed women with more powers and more potential than man. A man is what’s left when you take away all that Shea and Ayfra gave us. That is why the word ‘man’ is shorter.”

  Drayk shook his head. “You couldn’t be further from the truth. But we could debate this until sunset and I have work to do. Do you want to hear my story or not?”

  I nodded.

  “Then listen. I was born the first time at the start of the Age of Peace in Farsala, Caspius. We lived on the edge of the town square where the buildings had to be washed every few weeks to remove the soot. Our neighbours Fillio and Neos regularly pillaged the outer homesteads while the townspeople defended themselves with pickaxes and forks.

  “When I announced I wanted to capture a serpent’s stone, it was my mother who said, ‘Drayk, you can achieve anything you set your mind to’—”

  “And your father?” I interrupted.

  “Sobrietas had left him. My mother tried to hide it from us but at night he would sit alone in his study, smoking his poison until long after we had gone to bed. Then the demons would enter his body. He would drag himself along the hall, banging and cursing until my sister and I thought we were truly condemned. Afterwards, he would fall to his knees and sob like a child, begging for our forgiveness. In the morning he would enter parliament as if the night’s storm never happened, while my mother and I waited outside. ‘Why not go in?’ I asked her. But she was not permitted to enter that sacred house and all my life she could not tell me what my father did in there.”