The man was out on yet another of his expeditions. He was searching for something. Estegi said she had heard him say that he only needed two things: power over death, and an heir. I didn’t care. Everything was calmer when he was away. I could be in peace. I was hungrier than before; the child inside me wanted its portion. But I still kept back as much as we could dry and save. Estegi pilfered a little from the stores. Our supplies were growing slowly but surely.
What we were lacking was money. And time.
It was not yet spring, but we had to leave during the pre-summer forward winds. That is what I had decided. I should still be carrying the child inside me by then. We hadn’t much time.
“Can we not just take the boat?” whispered Sulani one night in Orseola’s room, where we had started to meet. Orseola rarely slept at night anyway.
“It’s in Shukurin now,” I answered. “It’s two days’ travel there by foot. We’ve not that much time. One night only. Come morning light, his guards and soldiers will come to find us before we’ve got halfway. But if we can get Naondel sailed up along the river to Ameka, the town west of Ohaddin, then we can reach it before dawn. And I don’t believe they will search for us on the river.”
“I do not want to steal,” said Estegi. “My cousin can bring the money to Shukurin and sail it to Ameka.”
“Attempting to steal a boat is risky. It might be there, or not. It might be locked, maybe with a chain. Someone might discover and pursue us.” Sulani sighed. “Oh well. So we must buy it. But we cannot get that kind of money together.”
“I can sell my jewellery.” Orseola was lying on her back on her bed and staring up at the dreamsnares spinning slowly around on their threads.
“What jewellery?” I had never seen her wear anything other than dreamsnares.
“The ones the Sovereign gave me in thanks. For the dreams I have woven.” She rolled onto her stomach and pulled out a jewellery box from under her bed. Estegi, Sulani and I leant forward. When Orseola lifted the lid all three of us gasped. The box was filled with hair chains of silver and gold, arm bands, finger rings, ankle chains and many other ornaments. Everything in silver or gold and set with many precious stones.
“Could you not have mentioned this before?” Sulani’s voice was quiet and full of menace.
“Dead things of metal.” Orseola shrugged her shoulders. “I forgot I had them.”
The man’s absence made it easier for Estegi to sell the jewellery. She was no saleswoman, she did not know how to haggle. She had never visited the bazaars outside the palace walls before. She was swindled. Still we made enough for Naondel. We dared not sell everything; it attracted watchful eyes and questions. But an anklet and a few hair chains were enough to buy an old fishing boat. Then we sent Estegi to ask her cousin to buy it from the fisherman and sail it up to Ameka. The night I learnt through Estegi’s whispers that she had succeeded in the task was the best of my life since I had left my father and mother’s little mortar house by the sea.
I had begun to grow heavy and was finding it more and more difficult to move. I knew that we had no time to lose. The child could not be born in Ohaddin. Naondel was our way out. Freedom was close. But then Iona came to the dairahesi. Her arrival changed everything.
Iona
, DAERA, CHRONICLE THIS ACCOUNT ON IONA’s behalf, as she can no longer do it herself. This is Iona’s story, from before she came to Ohaddin.
The island smelt of honey. The scent reached Iona long before she could clearly distinguish the island through the heat haze. She was surprised. She had been prepared for many eventualities, but had not imagined that the island would have a fragrance of its own. As the boat neared land its origin was revealed. The black rocks were dotted with delicate flowers. The island looked hard and uninviting in the distance. It consisted of rocks reminiscent of giant slanted lizard scales with razor-sharp edges. But between these scales grew hardy wee flowers in pink, yellow, purple and white. They were the source of the scent she was met by. She took it as a good omen.
She undressed before stepping on land, as Alinda had instructed her. The oarsman sat with his back to her. If he turned around it would be punishable by death. But he did not concern her in the least. Was he old or young? Fair or dark? Haggard or handsome? It did not matter. As she removed her coat and gold-embroidered slippers, her silken dress and underclothes, it was not the gaze of men that occupied her thoughts.
Mild breezes brushed her skin like fine silk; they served as sufficient clothing for her. She climbed out of the boat with a single step and knocked on the thwart as a signal to the oarsman. She did not look back when she heard the creaking of the oars. She had no need to see the boat grow smaller and smaller and disappear into the distance. She knew what was happening. She knew the oarsman was rowing away, never to return. She was concerned only with what lay before her.
The island was the size of a large pasture, rounded like a small hill, where no trees or bushes grew. At its highest point stood the small temple. The sky was a brilliant blue, holding the island in a tender embrace. Alinda was right, thought Iona: it is beautiful. She stood there awhile with her feet in the cool water, feeling the stones roll under her soles. There was no other place on earth she would rather be. It was a wondrous sensation. To know that one has found their place.
She took her time walking up to the temple. She wanted to prolong each moment. Sea-snatchers flew all around her like bolts of silver lightning. The air was filled with their shrill cries. They made their nests on the roof of the temple as they had done for hundreds of years. They had seen girls like her come to the island throughout the ages, consumed with their mission. The birds had never seen any of the girls leave.
Iona would be the first.
The rocks hurt her feet, but she thought nothing of it. Soon pain would cease to matter, she thought, and was filled with a joy so intense it made her quite dizzy. To think that all this had been granted to her! A butterfly fluttered past, lemon-yellow wings with edges tinged as black as grief. She was surprised to see it this far from the mainland, but then she understood that the flowers provided nourishment for it and its kind, and they in turn became food for the birds who fertilized the flowers with their droppings. The perfect cycle of life and death. Another good omen. Never had she felt the presence of the cycle so profoundly. Never had she encountered such a feeling of holiness.
She climbed the last part up to the temple that awaited her, and her alone. It was small and grey, built with a type of stone not unlike the black island rocks. To one ignorant of its existence it would be easy to sail past. This was intentional. Here only the anointed may come. On the ground around the temple was a circle of white shards which, according to the beliefs of Iona’s people, represented an unbroken protective ring around the heart. She had been told of the circle but it was a different thing to see it with her own eyes. A shiver went along her spine as she carefully stepped over the white splinters and on towards the temple.
The door was coloured eggshell-blue but the paint had flaked to reveal the bare grey wood underneath. She wrinkled her forehead, perplexed and incensed that disrepair could be permitted in this holy place. She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
It was a bare little room. In one corner stood a table with a little velvet-dressed altar laid with the athame, the stone and the bread, in the form of some dry ears of wheat. Two windows, one on each side of the house, let light in through window panes of real glass, but the glass was so fly-specked and dingy that it was difficult to see through. The floor was bare. There were no traces of the previous anointees.
Iona had expected something different. Something… more. She thought about the temple back home, with all its grand chambers and halls. All the gold, the silk cloths, the carved red wood, the fragrances of incense and costly oils. Wax candles in every room. And Alinda’s residence. Even the chamber where she received pilgrims had thick mats of blue and gold on its floor, and walls embellished with painted frescoes of The Eternal Cyc
le. One of them depicted this very island, with the temple on its summit, and a bloody sea foaming against the rocks.
Iona reflected that the artist had forgotten about the flowers.
She went in. The floor was cold beneath her feet. She walked forward to the altar table and touched the ears of wheat. They crumbled apart. They must have been very old. The athame’s blade was blunt. Only the stone looked as it always had, grey and smooth with a light band around it, dissecting a lighter circle in its centre. In the temple back home the stones were polished until they were perfectly even and smooth, and often oiled until they shone. It was clear that the only polishing this stone had received was from the ocean itself. She thought to herself, contrarily, that it was more beautiful than all the temple stones, because it was pure unto itself.
There, too, it smelt of honey. She saw no signs of the previous anointee. Iona re-emerged, knowing that her most important task was at hand. The sun was high in the sky, and it warmed her neck and back as she searched among the rocks along the shore. First she walked around the entire island, focusing on the rocky crevices along the waterfront. Then she widened her search to the shallow water surrounding the land. It was turquoise and clear, free from seaweed, and though she could see far, she found nothing other than sea urchins and mussels. When night came and the sun sank down in streaks and banks of rose, purple and gold, she was still empty-handed.
With the darkness came the cold. She was above things like cold and pain now. This was what she had been taught. She went into the temple and lay down on the floor. It was as cold as ice. She tried to hear Alinda’s voice inside her. What would she have advised now? “This is a holy place. Not a place for the body, but for the mind. Think, Iona. What is required of you?”
At once she knew, and her mind became calm. She sat up and prayed.
So passed the first night.
The dawn was magnificent. Iona’s joints were stiff from the night of cold discomfort, but to see the sun rise, to see day conquer night yet again, restored hope and warmth within her. She resumed her searching at once. Carefully, without stepping on a single sea urchin, she waded out until she came to deeper water and could start swimming. It was one of the first things she had had to learn as the anointee: to swim, for this very purpose. The waters around the Matheli Peninsula were warm and the seabed was sandy. Alinda used to hold her up by the belly and speak to her in her soft, silky voice. She had been so proud of Iona when she took her first strokes on her own. Iona had been proud of herself. After that she took every opportunity to swim and dive. Just as she took every opportunity to practise all the skills her anointment required.
How strange that she was finally here. In the very time and place all her schooling had centred around. That the last ten years of her life had been preparing for. This was the end.
She dived in. The sea enveloped her and shut out all sounds. She opened her eyes.
The water was clearer than in Matheli. She could see to the bottom. Small fish caught the light as they swam by. Salt stung her eyes, but she forced herself to keep them open. She swept her eyes across the ocean floor below. Stones, sand, rocks, sea urchins. How would she ever find what she sought?
This was her mission. Failure was unthinkable. She said a prayer—not one of Alinda’s, but a prayer of her own making; imbued with a feeling rather than a prayer of prepared words. Then she came up for air, and dived down again. Spying, scouting. Stones, sand, sea urchins, fish. Came back up for air. Continued, stroke after stroke.
A white glint in a crack in the rocks caught her attention. When she had to come up for air, she did not open her eyes at all above the water’s surface, so as not to be blinded by the sun. She dived back down. Opened her eyes. There, in a crack among rocks newly disturbed, something shone white. She swam down and stretched out her hands. The skull was stuck fast in the crack and she had to prise it loose. The rocky edges were sharp and ripped open a gash on her wrist. She felt no pain, but saw her red blood seep through the skull’s empty eye sockets.
Blood. Blood attracted predators. She lifted her gaze, and for the first time looked out through the sea instead of down to the bottom. It was never-ending. She could see far, until eventually everything disappeared into dark, unfathomable depths. Depths that could conceal absolutely anything. Absolutely anything might be drawn here by the smell of her blood.
She was gripped by an unexpected and all-consuming fear. She gasped and got a mouth and lungful of sea water. She had to get away, at once. She kicked herself upward with several strong strokes and burst through the surface, coughing for air. At any moment something could grab hold of her, drag her down underwater, sink teeth and claws into her defenceless flesh. She kicked gracelessly to shore, scraped her belly on the sharp rocks, scratched a knee on a sea urchin—there must be more and more blood filling the water, she had to get up, away, she had to escape. Coughing and trembling, she staggered onto land. She could not stay by the water’s edge, she must go farther, into the temple, as far from the sea as she possibly could. Only when the door slammed shut behind her did she dare stop, and her breathing slowed.
She held the skull wedged under one arm. She laid it carefully down on the velvet, next to the athame, stone and wheat. Then she mustered the courage to peek out of the window.
The ocean spanned huge and glittering around the island. Nothing other than the waves broke the surface. Nothing could be seen to move out there except birds. It was difficult to say for sure as the window panes were so dirty. Long she stood and gazed. Then she went to the other window and continued to stare. She did not go outside.
As the sun began to sink towards the horizon, Iona sat on the floor, examining her wounds. None of them was especially deep, but she knew that they could start to smart and fester if she did not wash them. Yet she had nothing to wash or bind them with. Nothing like that would be found here. This was not a place for living: it was a place for dying. She had believed that she was prepared for her death, but on that day she saw that her certainty had been false, her confidence an illusion. She covered her face with her hands in shame. How could she disappoint Alinda so? Disappoint all of Matheli, all the faith the people had vested in her? To be the offering, that others might live and thrive and reproduce. Her role in The Eternal Cycle was clear: her death, for their life.
She sat and prayed. But she came upon no answer, not in the received prayers, not inside herself. Only when the colours of the sunset filled the dirty window panes did a thought occur to her. Something she had been taught. Not from Alinda, not in Matheli, but at home on the farm. She had so few memories from there. Milk warm from the cow. The scent of cut grass. Red poppies in her hands. A song, an embrace, a few words. And then a piece of advice, uttered by someone aged—not her mother, she believed, but someone even older. Father’s mother? A near-toothless mouth telling her how to clean wounds if nothing else was at hand.
She sat up straight. There were no bowls in the temple. No vessels at all. Nothing that could serve her purpose. Except the skull.
She stood up and walked over to the altar. The skull was entirely smooth and clean. It had been lying in the water for a long time and small fish and crabs had polished away the tiniest last fragments of flesh. All the teeth remained in the jaws. The skull was surprisingly small. Either she had been a slight one, Iona’s predecessor, or very young. She had been sent to the island when Alinda was still a child. Many years of plenty had followed the offering, so they had not had reason to send another anointee for a long time. Therefore Iona was permitted to reside in Matheli for ten whole years.
Iona wondered what her name was.
Suddenly it struck her: she had never heard their names. Her predecessors were all of them nameless girls. How soon would it be before her own name was forgotten?
“Forgive me,” she whispered to the girl’s skull.
She squatted and held the skull between her thighs. She had not drunk anything since leaving the mainland. On the island one had to fast. Th
ere was nothing to eat, nothing to drink. But she had not relieved herself since she arrived—the thought had not even occurred to her—and she was able to fill the skull halfway. She braved her way outside the temple door and carefully cleaned the sores on her stomach, thighs and legs, feet and toes with her own urine. It stung, which was good. It meant it was cleaning the wounds.
She knew that she should wash the skull, but she could not bring herself to leave the temple and go down to the sea. She laid the skull beside her on the floor, huddled up next to it and felt a little less alone.
So passed Iona’s second day on the island.
The next morning the wind was up. Grey cloud banks chased each other across the sky. She was very cold, and nearly delirious with thirst. The salt water she had swallowed the day before had only worsened her thirst. She knew what she must do next: shatter the skull against the rocks, with help from the stone and blade, and spread the shards in a white circle around the temple so that her predecessor might be reunited with her sisters. Just as she had done with the skull of her predecessor before her. Just as the next girl would do with Iona’s skull when she came here. That was the rite, that was the code. That was how she had been taught. If she did not fulfil this, one of the most important parts of her destiny, what was all her learning worth? What was her life worth?
Yet she could not bring herself to do it. Not just yet. The skull was her only company. Her only vessel. She had already defiled it with urine. That must be taboo. So what would it matter if she did not then fulfil her task immediately. She would do it, a little later.
She sat on the floor and watched the sun rise through the dirty eastern window, and suddenly the sight of the dingy glass filled her with a sanctimonious rage. She took the skull with her down to the sea, not caring whether there was something hiding in the depths, waiting to seize her as soon she set foot in the water. That was why she was there after all. She filled the skull with water, carried it up to the temple and leant it against the wall so that no water spilt. Then she went to the altar, removed the stone, wheat and athame and turned the velvet cushion upside down. She was lucky, for the velvet cloth was attached to the bottom of the wood only with small tacks which were easy to pick out with the blade. Only when she had got halfway through the row of tacks did she realize what she was doing. She was desecrating an altar. She dropped the athame to the floor. It was abhorrent. How could she?
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