by Susie Mander
“But how did you endure it? It seems so…unfair.”
“The way I have endured twenty-five lives. By reminding myself that it is for the common good, and that I was put on this earth to serve.”
I wanted to ask him more, to enquire about the fear, about how his hands must have trembled as he held the seal. Had the snap been loud when he wrung its neck? Instead I thanked him and let him return to his work. I promised myself that when I was queen, no man would ever have to kill a baby seal.
That evening, long after the moon had risen in the autumn sky, I was woken by chanting outside my window like the low hum of a bee. I put my pillow over my head. When the noise did not dissipate I crept into my solar. The room was dim. Embers glowed in the fire pit in the centre of the room. I climbed onto the bench beneath the window and flung back the thick silk curtains. Beneath my window was a crowd wearing hoods: black swimming on black.
I left my apartment. Bolt, startled by my sudden appearance, tried to turn me around and direct me back to bed, but I pushed him off. “I want to see,” I said in a voice he knew would turn to screaming and tears if I did not get my way.
Bolt’s eyes glowed like two rubies in the dark. He sighed in submission.
“Thank you, Bolt,” I said, hugging him around the legs.
At the top of the double staircase I jumped onto the polished timber railing and rode it side-saddle, sliding and wobbling until I landed with a gentle plod at the bottom. I waited for Bolt who took two steps at a time to catch up.
Outside, we snuck along the portico that ran the length of the apartments and watched the crowd from behind a column. Bolt reminded me of a boy who feared his mother’s reprimand. He glanced anxiously over one shoulder and turned to me, pressing his finger to his lips to indicate that we should be quiet.
I nodded in acknowledgement.
The group of hooded figures moved out into the gardens, where they were obscured by boxwood dolphins and turtles. Their voices drowned out the sound of running water from the fountains. The light from their whale-oil torches danced like a thousand fireflies above the pittosporum hedge.
Bolt and I were swept up in a sea of people. As one, we flowed out of the palace and through the dark streets of Elea Bay. The conversation around me was excited, celebratory. I recognised my teacher Galen and Edric, the stableboy. They walked hand in hand. I kept my head down so they did not see me but I heard much of what they said.
“Do you think they will pass the test?” Edric said in his gentle, soothing voice.
“Only the gods can tell,” Galen said.
“I hope so. I imagine the pain is great and it would be an injustice to fail after all that training.”
I saw John the Fowler, who always had feathers in his hair and Cook, who carried a lavender posy near his nose.
Outside the Wall they fell silent, huddling close together. “Best to travel in a group,” John said, glancing around uneasily. I followed his gaze. The streets were haunted by shadows.
We continued along the Holy Way. I swam up the canal past the marble figures of my ancestors to the Sacred Precinct while Bolt walked along the path beside me watching for Shark’s Teeth. He took my hand and helped me out of the canal. There were war-wits positioned outside the precinct, patrolling. Their bare arms slick with oil. Their eyes searched the dark for a sign of trouble.
I heard the tympanums. The gates to the Sacred Precinct were flung open and we entered the arena as gladiators. People roared. Hundreds of tattooed fleets pummelled their instruments, their big almond eyes glistening black in the firelight, their four thin arms, too thin to be so strong, blurred into an aura around them and their naked bodies, always painted white, writhed to the beat. Behind them a row of war-wits, a good head taller than the general populace, kept the roaring crowd under control.
Bolt looked uneasy, guilty.
“Just a few moments, then I promise I will return,” I said.
The drummers stopped. A cloaked figure ascended the pyramid temple via the steep stairs. At the top she was greeted by another. She turned to the crowd and removed her hood. I saw her face: white in the moonlight, a gold band around her head. It was my mother. Her accomplice was the high priestess. I was surprised to see them together after the years of estrangement Mum had insisted on.
The queen raised her hand and slowly the people in the front row fell quiet. “Death,” she called to silence the rest, “is the realm of darkness. It is a towering flood, the hand that chokes. It covers all it finds in mud. It knows no master and is no slave. Yet it conquers all.” She paused. The only sound was of someone clearing her throat. “But life, life is given to us by the First Mother so that we may fight the darkness.” She threw up her hands and there was a roar so loud I thought I would be swept away.
Bolt glanced down at me as if to say, “Young highness, this is not for your eyes.”
I turned my back on him. “I’m nine,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. During this exchange I missed much of my mother’s speech.
“…life must be protected by the soldiers who dedicate themselves so we may prosper. Bring me the first!” the queen roared.
The crowd parted to let a young man through. The drummers drummed as he climbed the stairs—to me he seemed lonely, afraid—and at the top he turned to us and discarded his cloak. He was naked from the waist up. It was the boy from earlier that day. It was he who had struggled to keep his hair out of his face, the one who had been so keen to please Drayk.
Antoine.
I held my breath, my heart thundering in my chest.
Antoine climbed onto the altar and lay on his back. The high priestess handed my mother something—it caught the light—and she raised it over her head. “Do you intend to kill me as you have killed others?” she called loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Loyalty guides my hand,” the boy responded. “I kill for you, to give you life.”
“From now you will serve the First Mother and your queen. It is a great honour to join the Queen’s Guard. Endure this final trial and receive this distinction.” My mother drove the knife into the boy’s chest.
“No!” My scream was drowned by the thunderous uproar from the crowd. As blood oozed from the wound, the crowd cheered like a forest of shaking branches. My mother wrenched the knife through his flesh to leave the mark of the trefoil knot. I felt the impact in my own chest. I brought my hand to my heart to check it was still whole.
The queen held the bloody knife up for all to see.
Another roar.
“What is she doing here? Bolt, you should know better,” a voice said above me. Drayk’s face swum into view. It was creased with concern. He wore a black cape flung over one arm and looked magnificent, like Rai the god of war and king of all the gods in the old religion of the mainland. “Highness, we better get you home.”
“Is that Princess Verne?” someone said behind me their voice incredulous. I turned to see a balding head and a gut like a wine barrel. Stained brown breeches were held up by leather suspenders.
“That’s what he said,” said a dumpling of a woman with a missing tooth. Her grey hair hung limp around a face scarred from the pox.
Drayk looked uncomfortable. “No, no…” he said, shuffling between us. I peered around his legs to get a better view.
“It is,” the man insisted. He was joined by a reedy friend with a black moustache who looked like he was ready to break up a fight.
“What’s this now?” said the second man.
“She’s the heir apparent,” said the first man, nodding to me.
“Really?” said the second.
“What’s she doing here? Don’t you know the Shark’s Teeth are out there,” said the woman, nodding to the darkness beyond the gate.
Drayk’s hand inadvertently slipped to the hilt of his sword. He spoke with a hint of irritation, guiding me around them. “Thank you yes. I was aware of it. If you’ll excuse me, I must get her home—”
“Wait,” sa
id the woman, making Drayk stiffen. She flashed him a gummy grin. “We can help you.” She pulled back a flap in her peplos to reveal an old dagger secured to her hip with a leather belt.
Drayk took a step back. “I would prefer the army accompany her.”
The woman stuck her chin in the air in indignation. “Suit yourself.”
There was a scream somewhere near the temple. The crowd, which had been flat like sheet metal, rippled and corrugated. Voices stopped abruptly and formed pools of silence. Useless questions were muttered to dazed companions. There was another scream as a hooded figure fought his way through to the temple steps. He drew a sword and was quickly joined by more hooded figures. Hesitation. And then panic. A thousand people turned to flee.
“Heritia’s blood,” Drayk swore.
“Quick, follow me,” said the woman, taking my hand and yanking me to the left. Drayk and Bolt had no choice but to follow.
I remember shuffling feet, shoving, screaming, and an elbow to the back of my head. The portly man went ahead, pushing people out of the way. We exited through a side gate and circled around to the Holy Way where there was space for Drayk to lift me onto his back. All I could do was hold on as he ran. The moustached man and the woman guarded my flanks. Bolt took up the rear.
We were half way along the Holy Way when we slowed to a walk. The canal was empty, its water like glass. Drayk’s breath was laboured. He burned beneath me.
“The guards must have killed them,” the woman said but no one responded. We were too busy listening. Behind us was the sound of the heaving crowd and the war-wits who fought to keep them under control. I was vaguely aware of a shearwater circling overhead but in hindsight she was always there, my silent companion. Silence folded in around us as each of us contemplated every dark shadow.
After a time I became bored with fear. A child’s mind is like that; easily distracted, never truly appreciative of danger. “I can walk,” I said, climbing off Drayk’s back. The immortal glanced down at me, concern obvious on his face. “I am unharmed. It just frightened me,” I said as we passed beneath the defaced statue of Kratos.
“And so it should. What were you doing out of bed anyway?”
I shrugged. “I heard the people in black and I had to see for myself.”
“And did you like what you saw?’
I shook my head.
“Good.”
We walked on for some time. Then, picking up as if no time had passed at all, the woman with the missing tooth said, “Why not? It’s the Tibutan way.”
“It’s not right to harm a soldier if you expect him to fight for you. He should love and trust you. He’ll face enough hurt on the battlefield.”
None of the adults said anything and for a moment I thought I had spoken out of turn. My cheeks burned. We walked on.
“She has a point,” said the skinny man to my right.
“Perhaps. But you can’t go around changing things willy nilly,” said the woman.
“Why not?” I said.
“You just can’t. People won’t like it.”
“But what if it’s good for them?” I was acutely aware of Drayk watching me, preparing to interrupt. He held his tongue.
“Who knows what’s good for a person? How can you tell?” said the woman.
“You should ask them.”
She nodded slowly, considering what I had said. Grey hair fell in her face. “Yes,” she said very slowly. “You probably should.”
“When you are queen, you can change all this. But for now you must do as you are told and stay in bed,” Drayk said.
“When I am queen, no one will have their hearts cut out and our soldiers will be proud not fearful.”
He chuckled, perhaps because he did not believe it possible that I could change the Tibutan way or perhaps because I mistakenly thought the boy’s heart had been cut out. “In that case, I will happily serve you.”
“And I,” said the round bald man walking ahead.
“Me too,” said his skinny companion with the moustache.
The woman thought for a moment. “Yes, you are going to make a good queen one day.”
No one spoke again until we reached the West Gate. Each of us felt we had carried a great weight a long distance and were pleased to lay it down outside the palace Wall. The woman knelt down so she was at eye level. “Highness, it was a pleasure serving you.” When I did not offer my ring, she groped for my hand. Though they were watching attentively, neither Drayk nor Bolt made a move to stop her. She kissed the golden snake.
I curtsied, which seemed to please her.
“Highness,” said the man over his wine barrel gut, nodding in acknowledgement. The man with the moustache took my tiny hand in both of his.
“Good luck.”
“Thank you,” I said, grinning. Drayk thanked each of them in turn, pressing a gold coin into their palms which they accepted despite their insistence that it was not necessary. Then with a hand on each of my shoulders the immortal lead me through a wicket in the gate while Bolt trailed sheepishly behind. I waved at my makeshift guards. Returning the gesture, they called good luck and goodbye.
Outside my bedroom Drayk turned me around and knelt before me. “I’m very disappointed.”
I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t have run away like that. Will you promise to be good?”
I put my arms around his neck and hugged him. “Yes. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” I unwrapped myself, took the immortal’s hand and looked deep into his eyes. “And I promise to be a good queen. I will make Tibuta better.”
He stood in the doorway while I crawled into bed. “If anyone can do it, you can.”
It was the people who made me fall in love with Tibuta. Sure, the city was like a familiar tune: easy to hum, difficult to get out of your head. And it was my tune. But take away the people who filled it, the instruments who provided the bass and the treble, the melodies and harmonies, and I was left with nothing but noise. If it hadn’t been for Hero I probably would have sought out a superior song much sooner.
Hero was the simplest kind of friend. The sort who assumed little and forgave a lot. One whose criticism was so tactful it often left me scratching my head, wondering what he had meant. One who rarely spoke out against others but would happily listen to you complain for hours.
I don’t remember meeting Hero as such—he was always there, coming and going with my other cousins like the seasons—but my fondest memory of him was when the polemarch of Veraura and Minesend, Gelesia Golding, invited my mother and I to her palace to celebrate the arrival of her son’s gift. Chase was nine, the same age as me. Hero was seven.
The palace was in the south of the city on the border between Veraura and Minesend. It was perched high on the top of a hill between the districts, and the only way to get up there was a zigzag road lined with fig trees. It was summer and the deep purple fruit were ripe and splitting. The heat buzzed.
The palace was a relatively recent addition to the landscape. With only one storey, it had been built quickly and cheaply to keep up with the expanding city. The brick walls were made from mine tailings covered in a thin cracked marble veneer. The rest was mostly recycled timber and cheap limestone. There was barely a garden to speak of, only a gravelly courtyard. The fountains were dry since the aqueduct across the valley had clogged up and no one had bothered to clear it.
Gelesia and her son Chase greeted us at the bottom of a sooty grey stairway that led to a timber double door. There were no war-wits, only a kylon lying at their feet, her swollen teats pink against her dark fur.
Gelesia looked like she had been blasted by a strong wind. Her hair was a tangle of tight curls and her peplos was twisted and tangled. Her gift, the storm, was said to be a reflection of her troubled atrama. The poor woman had lived alone since sacrificing her daroon and they said his absence had hastened her mental deterioration. Some speculated she blamed Chase for the death of the daughters who would have succeeded her
though in truth one died of an ague, the other in infancy.
Gelesia’s smile was uneasy and she looked up or away, unwilling to maintain eye contact. “Kiss her ring,” she said to the boy, who hid behind her skirt, half of his face in shadow.
Chase was a stern, contemplative child who rarely smiled. But what really set him apart was his complexion. While most of the Golding family were dark haired and olive skinned he was blond and fair. He would grow up to be the most handsome and aloof of the lot of us.
My mother nudged me and I stumbled forwards, remembering to curtsey—low enough to show my respect but not so low that I implied he was my superior. Chase blushed and buried his head in his mother’s peplos.
“Ashaylah,” a woman called and waved from the top of the stairs. It was Thera Brunt of Lete and Bidwell Heights, a district leader and my mother’s cousin. She was tall and beautiful in a sharp, spindly sort of way—a woman whose bitterness, I assumed, was the result of having two sons. She floated gracefully down the stairs, holding her peplos out from her feet.
Her sons Odell and Hero followed her. Odell was eleven and the oldest of our group. He was a tall, lanky, awkward boy with a rodent face and cold eyes. His hair was straight and spiked. His lips were fixed in a permanent smirk.
Herodotus, or Hero for short, was the youngest. He looked out of place among his family. He was a good foot shorter than Odell, and had dark curls and a thick squat body. Of my cousins, he would become my favourite. He ran ahead of his mother and came up short just in front of me. “Verne! Can we play?”
I looked him up and down and finding no reason to deny him I nodded. “But only if we don’t have to do kids’ stuff.”
That evening the celebration was to take part in the grand ballroom of Veraura palace. Hero and I had been crawling into the spaces between the walls and were covered in cobwebs. We followed the smell of roast dolphin to the ballroom, where a single, shabby looking war-wit stood guard outside a large timber door. Music and laughter came to us from inside. Just as I placed my hand on the bronze doorknob, the door flung open. Hero’s mother, Thera, stood blocking our way. “What do you think you are doing?”