by Wendy Orr
But that’s what I do, even though everyone else in the world is having their siesta, because I’m too thirsty to rest. I return even hotter, more tired, and impatient to have a home. Nunu and I get more rocks and build our walls higher: they’re growing well till one rock rolls out from the bottom and that whole wall crashes down.
Mama watches thoughtfully, eating a lizard.
I’ll have to fish again tomorrow.
My skin burns like fire. Blisters pop up on my sore snub nose and across my shoulders. I want to spend the day lying in a soft bed in a cool dark room, with a maid bringing me grapes, cheese and sweet wet ale…
I’m down at the sea in time to greet the dawn; the water is cool but Nunu wraps me in a cloak when I get out with my meagre morning catch. It doesn’t take long to eat.
And we need water again. I’ve never understood how constant the need for water is. Nunu helps me drop my nightshift over my head so it doesn’t catch on my blistered shoulders and wraps my skirt around me. It goes around further than it used to. I think about draping my cloak over my head to protect my sunburned face but the woollen fabric is too heavy – and I’d look even less like a servant who could be offered work.
Which doesn’t matter anyway, because Dogbreath is at the gate. ‘Get your water and get out. You won’t get work or rations till you’re in the homeless camp!’
The camp is even bigger, noisier and smellier than before. It’s like the animal sheds at the farm when everyone started getting sick. If we went there, Mama would wail, we’d be driven out, ostracised or worse…I still don’t know if that was a joke about Chance being dinner.
I drink at the well, refill my jug and leave.
But the fish I can catch with my shawl net are barely enough to keep us alive. The fishers are our only hope.
Down at the shore, everyone who’s not fishing or building is picking sea greens. The murdering wave ripped them from their rocks, scattering them high on the shore to rot, but they’re already growing again. And though they’re precious as gold, the only greens anywhere not smothered by ash, the fishers say nothing when we begin gathering too.
They trust us! I think. I’m surprised at how good that feels.
‘No!’ shouts a tall, strong-looking woman, charging at Mama and grabbing something out of her hand.
Nunu and I rush at them. Rage roars through me, fiercer and stronger because of that fleeting thought of trust. ‘Don’t you dare touch my Mama!’
Mama is screeching and trying to snatch her treasure back.
‘Bad,’ the woman tells her. ‘Make you sick. Make you die.’ She shows us a rotting oyster on an open shell, before flinging it as far away as she can.
My anger dissolves into tears. ‘Thank you,’ I say, with my hand on my heart, and Nunu does the same.
The woman nods. Then she takes us around the beach, pointing out the sea greens and shell creatures that are good to eat, and the ones that aren’t. I pay attention as if this was Kora with the next step of my Learning.
‘Priest-folk know nothing,’ the fisherwoman says suddenly.
Nunu laughs and I blush.
‘But you’re not priest-folk now – you can learn.’
I’m glad that Mama hasn’t understood. I don’t know if I understand either: I’m still Leira, and my clan is part of who I am, or who I used to be…It’s a good thing the fisherwoman isn’t waiting for an answer.
‘They say you’re living in the home of the Old Ones?’
I nod.
‘And that you have no fire?’
I nod again.
She beckons us to follow her up to a half-built shelter of salvage and pumice, like ours. The fire beside it has been banked for the day, a big log smouldering gently under a layer of sand, but she takes a stick and pokes it in till it’s glowing.
We have fire.
The moon has cycled from full to full again since the war of the gods, but my bleeding hasn’t cycled with it. It’s come with the new moon, every time since it started. Mama said that was a sign of power.
I’ve gone from maiden to crone, old as Nunu, without ever being a woman in between.
I don’t want to tell Nunu, but Nunu always knows. And I don’t want to cry, but I do. ‘What’s happened? Am I old?’
‘Not old,’ says Nunu grimly. ‘Just hungry. Your body needs food for its magic.’
My first bleeding, in the House of the Lady,
learning a woman’s blood is sacred,
her body a mystery
known only to the goddess –
who transforms that blood into life.
To be a maiden, an almost-woman,
not strong enough to bleed,
dishonours the goddess –
and I never want to see
our great mother angry again.
The fish I catch with Mama’s shawl
are barely enough to keep us alive;
the sea greens no more than a taste
and no green grows yet on the ashy hills.
At the town,
even the kind guards answer the same:
‘No one new enters the palace;
no servants needed –
especially one from the island
we dare not name.’
I can see Andras in the workshop –
it’s not far from the well
if you take the wrong path.
His head bent over his work,
hair long enough to plait
pulled back from his face
as he smooths a stone
for his mother to carve.
‘Wait!’ he calls –
and what else do I have to do?
I watch and wait
and wish.
‘Are you buying?’ calls the carver –
a small woman, with such tiny hands
I wonder that she can hold her tools
with the strength to cut stone.
‘Not today,’ I say, before I hear her laughter,
because for a moment
I was back in Tarmara
planning the trade goods I’d buy and sell
not the hungry beggar she sees.
Andras shows her the stone;
she studies it with fingers and eyes,
nods in approval.
‘You can fetch more water from the well
but I don’t want to wait
because someone walks with you.’
He flushes, and escapes.
‘She’s kinder than most,’ he says,
carrying his pitcher – not as ugly as ours –
and just for a moment I hope:
‘Would she take me as apprentice?’
‘We’ve never had anyone
outside the family,
and she doesn’t know how
we’ll trade what we have
if the world stays hungry as now.’
Home with my jug and aching heart
I ask the tall fisherwoman
if I can learn to fish with them,
but she laughs and says,
‘You mayn’t be priest-folk now
but you’re no fisher neither.’
A changing breeze
wafts a stink of purple up my nose –
choking, putrid stench of rot –
but even purple slaves
have food.
In night dreams I am small,
a lowly snail
that Mama wants to eat,
grabbing me from my path –
her round mouth opens,
teeth sharp as a wolf’s –
but Nunu shouts, ‘No!’
and pulls me away from Mama’s grasp,
throwing the me-snail as far
as her arm is strong
because I am stinking rotten
and no one who eats me
will survive.
The thrown snail flies free,
losing its shell to become a swallow
while the empty shell falls
>
to grow like barley,
rich and golden
in the purple earth.
Andras is at the gate, which makes me feel more hopeful and more embarrassed at the same time. I’m glad that I’m clean and my skirt is tied neatly over my used-to-be white shift; I’m embarrassed because I’m planning a lie.
‘I want to be listed with the homeless, to be assigned work,’ I tell him.
His face lights up; I can tell he has good news before he says it. ‘I’ve heard the palace needs more servants, now that everything’s calmer and they know what needs doing.’
‘I could be a servant!’
‘Like you used to be, in that town near Tarmara?’ A shared secret as well as a warning – not that I’m likely to forget. We’ve never mentioned our homeland again, and with my sunburned face, rough hands and torn shift, I could easily be a servant. My precious skirt is the only thing that could give me away, and even that is dirty.
‘You’ll have to see the labour guard,’ Andras adds.
‘Aren’t you the guard dog today?’
‘Just for barking, not deciding.’ He grins.
The labour guard is Dogbreath, the bad tempered captain from the first night. ‘I told you before: you can’t register for work or rations if you’re not in the homeless camp,’ he says flatly. ‘How can we know where the workers are, if they’re not all together?’
Even with my plan, the thought of the camp makes me shiver.
‘I can see that doesn’t suit you,’ he says slowly. ‘But I think there’s a way I can help.’
He’s not as nasty as he looks, I think. I am giddy with relief.
My plan is simple: we’ll go to the camp, but after dark on the first night, we’ll escape to our home on the cliff top. Mama and Nunu can stay there, while I appear at the camp first thing every morning. As a maid in the palace I can earn enough rations for them both. They never need to go back to the camp.
‘Andras!’ Dogbreath barks suddenly. ‘Take your turn up at the watch-hill. I can cover the gate without you.’
My friend – can I call a boy a friend? – looks surprised, but salutes us and leaves.
‘I don’t know where you got it, since you’re not priest-women,’ says the guard, once Andras is out of sight, ‘but I’ve seen your mother wearing a gold chain.’
The words chill like a blast of cold north wind.
‘If I had that necklace, I could arrange for you to be on the ration list without being in the camp – and make sure that you serve in a way that’s fitting for you.’
His smile is worse than his usual grumpy face.
No, no, no! That’s Mama’s birthing necklace; Dada gave it to her when she had Glaucus! I can’t take that from her!
How will we survive if I don’t?
Nunu finds a clam shell with a hole in the top, plaits reeds into a cord, and gives Mama her new necklace. Mama loves it. She keeps showing me how pretty it is. She barely notices when I take the gold one from her neck.
‘Don’t cry!’ Nunu snaps at me, wiping her face with the back of her hand. ‘Your mama understands more than you think.’
I go back to the gates. Andras is still nowhere in sight. Dogbreath holds out his hand.
‘For this, I want rations for all three of us when I work.’
He grumbles, but can’t take his eyes off the gold chain. ‘Rations for three,’ he agrees, and I drop the necklace into his hand. He tucks it into a pouch on his belt.
I will not cry in front of him.
He’s grinning again. The north-wind feeling returns.
‘I said I’d send you where it’s fitting, and I’ll keep my promises. It’s not right for you to be in the palace, after what the chief and Lady decreed. Did you think I’d forgotten where you said you’d come from? The place for you is the purple works, where no one knows or cares who you were before. I’ll put the three of you on their ration list for tomorrow – be there at sunrise.’
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!
I didn’t know I could feel so much rage against one person. It feels as if I’ve swallowed the great mother’s fire and am about to spew it all over him.
But I can’t. I have to swallow the fire down again, no matter how sick it makes me, because that’s the only way we’ll survive.
Chance’s howling fades behind me; I hope Nunu’s still holding tight to his collar, almost as much as I wish I had him by my side. I stumble as the first light begins to glint through the grey, and tears leak from my eyes. Or maybe it’s just the eye-watering stench, worse with every step. I sing the dawn as I walk, even though I don’t want the sun to rise, don’t want to get where I’m going.
The purple works are further away than I thought, and bigger. There are shelters for slaves, houses for dyers and well-built warehouses, far enough from the shore that they weren’t damaged in the flood. Or maybe the giant wave didn’t enter this sheltered cove inside the wider harbour – whatever the reason, this place survived better than anywhere else I’ve seen since that terrible night. Now it’s busy as a harbour on a sailing day. Dripping naked divers carry baskets up from the sea, squatting slaves in loincloths hammer shells with rocks, tripod cauldrons hiss over fires, clouds of stinging wasps and buzzing flies hover over pots of purple slime, overseers shout and people cry and curse at hammered fingers or stung noses.
‘The palace has sent me to work here.’
A small, pig-nosed man at the entrance studies me as if he can’t understand my words.
I try to look calm and confident. Try not to flap my hands at the flies, and most of all, try not to choke. Like the morning of the saffron picking – trying to sing the great mother’s praises and ignore her burping.
It’s the only thing that is like that morning. This smell is worse than the earthmother’s belch; it’s more disgusting than anything from this world should be. It fills the air like smoke, smothers like ash, attacks like an animal, burrowing into my skin. I will never be clean again.
‘I’ve been sent to work here,’ I repeat, more slowly and loudly in case he’s deaf. Being deaf would be a blessing, with the overwhelming din. Though not being able to smell would be better. ‘I can weave,’ I add hopefully.
Pignose laughs. ‘You think weavers work out here? If the palace wanted you to weave, you’d be in town. That’s where the wool gets spun and woven – they don’t send the fabric out till it’s ready to be dyed.’
‘I’ll do other work,’ I say, ignoring the panicked voice in my head: What other work?
‘Maybe you’ve apprenticed as a dyer?’ He sneers, because of course he knows I haven’t. ‘It’s slaves as work here. So if you’ve run away from a mistress in town, go back and face your beating – there’s nothing fit for you here.’
‘I have no mistress,’ I say, my face glowing like a liar’s though I’m telling the truth. ‘My home is gone, and my people, except for my mama and grandmother.’ I suppose Nunu’s a slave, but grandmother actually seems truer now as well as safer. ‘My mama is like a child since the earth shook; I must care for all of them. That’s why I went to the labour captain yesterday. He assigned me here and put us down for rations for the three of us, for my work.’
Pignose’s face twists as if he’s adding something up, and settles into smugness as he decides. ‘Palace don’t want you, nor town nor fishers. You’re not used to working and you’ve got no skills – you’re not worth one slave’s rations, let alone three. But if that’s what the palace says, I’ll find work for you, with shelter and rations for the others.’
Shelter in the slave quarters! Mama cried at the thought of the homeless camp, but this would kill her.
‘We don’t need shelter.’
‘Don’t think the folks at camp will let you back in when you’re working here!’
‘We’ll stay where we are.’ There’s no reason to tell him we’re not at the camp. I don’t want him to know any more about me than he has to.
He shrugs. ‘All the same to me whe
re you sleep. But if you’re not here for headcount every sunrise, all three of you will be thrown out to starve.’
‘I’ll be here.’
‘I’ll be here!’ he mimics, in a squeaky voice that sounds nothing like me.
Am I supposed to laugh? Salute? I do nothing.
‘You start with them, off to the hills to get bait for the traps.’ He points to two small boys and a girl, none of them more than seven summers old.
I can surely manage anything they can.
‘Remember: the rottener the better, that’s what the beasties like. You fill these baskets or there’ll be no rations – but even folk as used to be priests must know how to follow the vultures.’
He stares to see how I react; he wants to humiliate me as much as he can. He wants to tell me I’m a slave.
I’m not! I’m not a slave, because I can leave. There’s nothing forcing me to come back tomorrow.
Except starvation.
But I’m still me, Leira! I’m not a slave and I never will be!
I pick up the filthy baskets and follow the naked children into the hills. Out of sight of Pignose and the works, I untie my beautiful flounced skirt, fold and hide it under a rock. A rock by the root of the only olive tree on this hill, where I can see the sea to the north and the town to the south… I paint it into my mind, to make sure I can find it again tonight.
Without my skirt to cover it, the loose sides of my nightshift flap in the breeze. It’s already well shredded from catching on thorns and prickles all the way across the mountains – a few more rips and there’ll be nothing left from the waist down.
I tuck the back between my knees, knotting it with the front into loose pants. I’m covered from neck to thighs, in a place where no one else is wearing more than a loincloth – but even out of sight of anyone except these three naked children, I feel bare and ridiculous. And humiliated. Completely, absolutely, overwhelmingly humiliated.
The children watch me warily.
‘My skirt,’ I tell them. ‘Nobody touch.’
They look so frightened I relent. ‘What are you called?’
Their thin little faces fill with terror and confusion.
How can they not know their own names?
‘I’m Leira,’ I say, which seems to confuse them even more. I don’t try again. If they don’t know about names I’m guessing they don’t know what a skirt is. I’ll just hope it’ll be safe till tonight. Why did I wear it? Why was I so stupid to think I’d be allowed to weave if I looked decent?