by Wendy Orr
The Lady and Sarpedon lead the way, the Lady singing a hymn to the goddess,
Open your heart, Great Mother,
open your heart as you open the doors
into your underworld dark and drear
accept this woman with the gifts she bears
into your realm of winter death
and release your daughter,
maiden of spring, bringer of life,
release her into our world
to bring life to our season.
I could almost sing too. Sing with relief that I’m a stranger here and don’t have to be in the temple with the other priest-folk and the dead woman. I’ve seen sheep and goats sacrificed my whole life, but never a person. Even our belchy, bad tempered goddess doesn’t ask for that.
People chant the songs of their clans and families as they wait for the Lady to return. They don’t dance to call Kora home as we do. Pellie will be dancing now! Pellie, Rastia, Tullie and Chella calling the swallows and the Maiden home for spring. The longing to be with them stabs me, sharp as a knife.
But little Alia, dead long before the spring, won’t ever dance again. I fork my fingers against evil, promising the goddess that however long it takes to finish my Learning, I will learn the rites and dance her daughter home.
Nunu paces with Mama; I remember that I’ve locked Chance in our room, afraid that he might disgrace us during the sacrifices. I let him out and he throws himself against me, yelping with joy. His back is higher than my knees now, but he is still clumsy and doesn’t know how big he is. I rub his head and whisper that food is coming, and he stays close as a shadow by my side.
The sun is low before the priests return. Children are restless and fretful from hunger – only babies at the breast will be fed before sunset. But even the toddlers still at the sight of the Lady. Her eyes are glazed in the unmistakeable way of someone who’s been talking to the gods.
‘Our sacrifices have been accepted. The oracle speaks of great things: a meeting of the gods of sea and air, with gifts we cannot imagine.’
The crowd breathes a murmur of relief. The Lady and Sarpedon lead the way out of the courtyard; musicians pick up flutes and rattles, and the folk follow in their clans. Mama joins the procession without being reminded; as honoured guests, we walk between the priests carrying buckets of blood, and the craft-folk behind them.
A wide road leads to the barley fields ready for harvest, where the Lady pours blood for the goddess with a prayer for rich crops, and cuts the first stalks with her silver sickle. The path narrows as we reach the olive trees and grapevines, with blood and a prayer in each place.
The sun has set by the time we return to the courtyard. The stacked clay cups I saw yesterday are out in rows. I take one and watch a servant fill it with wine, and, for the first time, wish the dark red didn’t look quite so much like blood.
A fire is lit. The flames leap into the darkness, throwing heat and demon shadows. Skewered meat cooks on braziers all around the walls. My mouth waters like a dog’s; I didn’t know how hungry I was till I smelled it.
More bonfires are lit in the fields and town; we hear bursts of singing and shrieks of laughter, but we stay here, safe in the courtyard with the other priest-folk and the slaves who serve us. And in the feasting, the dancing and singing that go on till the full moon rises, I forget the horrors of the ritual, and think that all will be well.
The noise throws us from our beds.
It’s too huge to be heard; it bombards us; punching our ears. It’s the sound of the end of the world.
In the orange light bursting through the nighttime shutters, Mama and Nunu are screaming open-mouthed, hands over their ears. I can’t hear them. I’m screaming too, but I can’t hear that either.
The air quivers; the earth trembles. My bones have turned to water.
I can’t get off the ground.
Get out, get out, get out!
How? Where?
Just out! I’m never going to be trapped in a building again!
Terror forces my legs to obey. I jump to my feet, pulling a tunic over my nightshift; Nunu is doing the same for Mama. I push the door open, fighting against the wind.
A hundred suns are streaking across the darkness, as if the god of the sea has risen from the depths to juggle balls of fire. Ashes float in; the earthmother quakes, and still the noise goes on.
Something knocks my knees and rushes past.
‘Chance!’
The puppy ignores my scream and keeps on running.
The oracle was laughing at us. The gods will meet, the Lady said – but they’ve met in war.
Nunu grabs our bag of jewellery and our cloaks, and we run to the courtyard.
The sky lit by fire
as warring gods hurl
the stars from the sky,
spears of lightning
and the shredded sun
torn from its rest.
The courtyard has no roof to crush us
but is crowded with panic
and the thronging chaos
of people running
with nowhere to go,
stumbling over wine-sleeping bodies –
the lucky ones missing
the end of the world –
all of us screaming
without sound,
our voices puny against the gods’.
The Lady and priest-women
flee to the temple;
but I no longer believe
that even the holiest
sanctuary is safe.
And the courtyard crowd,
herded by terror,
sweeps us along,
pushing, shoving –
no care for class or clan –
I grab Mama’s arm,
Nunu firm on her other side –
in all these fears
the greatest is losing each other –
and if anyone stumbles
they’ll be trampled to death.
Like a river surging
we follow in Sarpedon’s wake
down the road to the harbour –
Sarpedon planning, I think,
to beseech the sea god
to make peace with the sky –
though not even the gods
could hear against their own roar.
The crowd thinning, spreading
as it reaches the streets;
but like the flares through the darkness
panic sharpens my mind:
we are ill-omened strangers
in a crowd that may search for
another sacrifice tonight.
We drop to the rear,
watching from the hill
as Sarpedon leads
his priests to the quay.
And the sea,
lit by howling balls of flame
retreats before him.
The water is gone
as if it had never been,
floating ships sink dry on empty sand –
a horror that can’t be true,
like the noise too loud to hear.
But Nunu’s face –
a mask of fear –
says she’s seen the same.
And we turn, pulling Mama with us
the crowd is surging,
some towards the sea
and some away –
but nowhere is safe
a ball of flame torches a house
and a distant hill burns –
we race back to the palace,
barely reaching the courtyard
before the rushing, screaming, trampling crowd
overwhelms us.
But the sky flares stronger;
the sea god spews his wrath,
a wave like a mountain
looming over quays and shipsheds,
swamping storehouses and sailors’ homes –
and Sarpedon and his priests
are gone.
In a demon-dream, conjured by gods
&
nbsp; the beached ships
are on water again
tossed upside down
to float through streets
with the roofs and doors
of the houses they’ve smashed.
The murdering wave,
this mountain of water,
has reached the gates –
and we have nowhere
left to go.
Hollowed by fear,
my mind floats free
from my doomed, scared body –
till rage bursts through it,
red heat thumping me back into life;
we’ve gone through too much
to be washed away now.
And Chance is too young
to survive without me –
I hope he’s somewhere high and safe.
But now, like a sigh,
the wave draws back,
leaving the houses, the boats and the people
thrown like scraps to dogs
across the smashed town.
We’re safe for the moment.
Nowhere is safe.
At least the earth isn’t shaking. We’ll go back to our room and pack to escape. It doesn’t matter where; anywhere is safer than here.
Our door is still open – and the room is still empty. Chance hasn’t come back.
But I barely have time to worry about my puppy, because Mama has collapsed onto her bed, and Nunu topples on top of her when she bends to check. She waves me away crossly when I try to pull her up; I hope that means she’s all right.
I open the shutters for more light, but my hands are slippery with sweat and shaking so badly I can hardly manage the latch. My chest is tight, and it hurts to breathe. I don’t know if that’s because I’m panting so hard or because the air is hot, with a strange burning smell that reminds me of the earthmother’s belch.
Nunu is saying something. The gods’ roaring is just loud like thunder now, not a force hammering against my skin, but I still can’t hear.
All I want to do is lie down on my own bed and hope for my puppy to find me when I wake up. Instead I make bundles and fill our baskets the way I did when we fled our ruined home. Nunu tries to get up but can’t. I think that was what she was saying.
Suddenly the booming changes, and though I can’t see it, I understand. The monstrous wave is coming again. Mama and Nunu can’t run, and there’s nowhere to go. Not even time to think before the crash as it hits the gates…and now water is coming in under the door.
Then it slowly ebbs out, leaving fronds of seaweed on the wet floor and our bundles on the chest untouched. Mama goes to sleep, Nunu frozen in fear beside her. I’m shaking too hard to move.
We have to get out of here! The next wave will get us!
I see them coming, endless, towering, mountains of water till the whole world is covered and there is nothing left.
There’s no point in running, but no choice – we have to try.
The next wave comes faster. I’m still trying to sit Mama up when I hear it.
No water comes in under the door. The courtyard, when I sidle out to check, is no damper than our floor. The one after that is lower still, so we stay.
It’s two days now, or maybe four. The gods have ended their war, but it’s an uneasy peace: ash still falls like rain, and the torn-apart sun never rises. Sometimes there’s a strange orange light and sometimes it’s the darkest of no-moon nights.
We stay in our room, because I don’t know where else to go. I dream of searching for Chance, but the dark is too fearsome and I could not leave Mama and Nunu alone. Nunu and I never sleep at the same time; one of us is always awake, waiting for danger. There is food in the kitchens but no one serving; we scavenge and bring it back to our room, keeping out of people’s way. It’s not good to be a stranger in a time of fear – and Mama is not the only one wailing now. The palace, the town, the country are flooded with keening. Sarpedon and most of his priests were swallowed by the sea, along with half the town.
It’s time outside time; I can hardly remember when the world was normal, when the sun god rose in the morning and slept at night. Now the Lady doesn’t even try to call the dawn.
I wake smelling something that isn’t ash from the sky or rot from the sea.
In the kitchen courtyard, in a massive tripod over a flickering fire, a cook stirs a lentil soup thick as porridge. She fills a bowl for me with a nod.
I count the meals in my head as I go down the torchlit corridor: nine. It’s probably only four days, maybe five, since the spring festival.
Suddenly, I realise that the haze is not so dark. I can nearly see across the courtyard, as if it’s a smoky room at dusk.
Can it be that the gods have heard our prayers, and the sun will return? And the world we know with it?
How could I even think that? The world will never be the same again.
‘A ship! A ship coming in!’
The cry comes up from the town and spreads around the palace. We can tell that it’s good news before we hear the words.
Dada! If any captain could survive that wave, and go against the winds to return to this cursed land, it would be him.
We go down to the harbour, Mama, Nunu and me, with hundreds of other people from the palace and the town. I’m torn between wanting to run all the way because I’m so sure it’s Dada, and feeling sick with fear at approaching the sea. But I don’t trust the land either: I wrap myself in my cloak and tuck the bag with our jewellery under my arm.
It’s the first time we’ve left the palace since it happened. Now there’s light, I’m sure I’ll find Chance today too. Dada, Mama and me, Chance and his mother…we’ll all be reunited.
But the light shows us more than we want to see. The devastation is worse than any demon-dream could conjure. We stumble into holes on the road where the sea god bit out rocks and spat them into the town. We climb over broken bits of houses and furniture.
I’ve been thinking that the wave wasn’t as bad as our earthquake, because the palace is still standing, but the stink says it worse. The stink of rotting things from the sea that should never be on land. The stink of death. So many people keep washing up that they haven’t all been buried yet. Drowned goats and sheep are heaped onto fires to burn, but even the fires stink. I’m afraid to look at them, in case I see my puppy.
We stand on the beach where the quay used to be, by the smashed ships and shipsheds, where the water is thick with floating pumice rocks, and watch the ship come in.
It’s not Dada’s.
I was so sure! I don’t care if no one has ever sailed the wrong way around the trade route before, everything else in the world has changed, so why couldn’t this?
Mama obviously thought so too. Her face puckers.
Please don’t wail, Mama! Not here, not now!
Nunu hums to her, rocking her gently by the shoulders.
Mama stares imperiously, shrugging off Nunu’s comforting hands. ‘Fish!’
Today Fish! means ‘By the goddess, old woman, what are you doing?’
Nunu catches my eye and grins. While she’s angry, Mama won’t be wailing.
The ship drops anchor just off the wreckage-littered beach, and the sailors splash ashore. They’re speaking a strange language but the captain can speak ours, and an old sailor in the crowd can understand the men. The news filters quickly up from the ship to the watchers.
The murdering wave was no more than a strange swell out at sea. The captain says that the gods waited to hurl it all at the land.
Can that be true? Could it be true for where Dada and Ibi were too?
For an instant there’s hope in the world.
But horror is stronger than hope –
two days sail from here
the ship passed the island
where the gods fought over land and sea,
and though gods cannot die
that island has.
The sailors’ lungs, far out to sea
burned in the smoking poi
son
steaming out from the land.
The falling ash, they say,
was the island’s blood
and the floating rocks its bones.
‘You weave like a rock floats,’
Nunu used to say when I broke my yarn
because everyone knows
rocks don’t float –
but now the world has turned
and they do.
The grey mountain the sailors describe
is not our island –
it has no town of white houses
climbing the hill from the sea,
no green slopes
or sheltered harbours –
but I shiver to think
that any land could die.
The crowd, too, murmurs and cries
an uncertain anger at gods in turmoil
and chieftains gone,
at land destroyed and tales of worse –
we are not safe here.
But before I can leave
I’m drawn to the water’s edge,
wading out to feel, around my ankles,
the bobbing roughness of rounded rocks –
because the lumps of grey, red and black,
though not of our goddess,
are the colours of my land.
Just as seeing the heaps of dead animals made it hard to believe that Chance has survived, the story of the smoking island darkens our hope for Dada and Ibi. We’re calling to the goddess from our room – Mama’s ‘no, no, no!’ is as good a prayer as any – when there’s a scrabbling at the door. I open it to a skinny, black, half-grown dog. He leaps at me; I throw my arms around him, and we both tumble to the floor.
‘Chance! You’re alive!’
Tears are streaming down my face, and if dogs could cry they’d be streaming down Chance’s too. He climbs onto my lap because he can never remember that he’s too big now, and whimpers to tell me how scared he’s been. He’s heavy and awkward, and holding him is the best thing I’ve ever felt. Nunu clucks at him, and even Mama smiles.
‘You don’t need to be afraid now you’re with me,’ I comfort him, and though he whines again and hides his head under my arm, I feel braver too now that he’s back.
Because the palace does not feel safe. It feels like a hive of bees when the queen has flown. Maybe the Lady has flown; even now there’s enough light to see, and we can guess that the dawn has arrived, she doesn’t come out to sing the sun – when the sun needs that song as never before. How can a land survive without its ritual?