by Wendy Orr
It’s not easy. Shoulders are dislocated; arms are broken and so are ribs; ankles are sprained. Aissa has a bruise spreading like a purple flower on her thigh. ‘From the bar?’ asks Luki.
With her fingers, Aissa mimes a handspring crashing to the ground.
They’d worked out signs when no one could speak the same language. Now, even though they can understand simple commands, it’s still easier to use signs in their mixed dialect groups. For the first time in her life, Aissa can communicate nearly as well as anyone else.
Not only that, she’s as good as anyone else. She’s small and wiry; years of hard work have made her strong, and a life of hiding has made her quick and agile. She’d turned cartwheels of relief when she joined the wise-women; now she can do them elegantly, and handsprings besides, and that is pure joy.
She points to a red welt across Luki’s side. It looks as if he’s been beaten, except that they never get beaten here.
‘Crashed across the bar,’ Luki says ruefully. ‘I was lucky I didn’t break a rib.’
But soreness only matters if it means more mistakes. Welts and bruises will heal; they’re lucky to earn them. Because it’s not just the injured who are sent away – anyone who doesn’t learn fast enough gets pointed to the sidelines, and disappears before nightfall.
No one knows where they go. There are whispers of sacrifice. One girl decides they’re sent home: the next day she jumps so badly that she disappears too.
A full moon cycle later, only fifty-nine trainees are left. They still haven’t seen a bull.
But something is about to happen. Aissa’s sure of it. Mia and Niko used to only note trainees who were doing something wrong – now they’re discussing her perfect flip. She feels sick with fear for the rest of the day.
The next morning they’re divided again. Thirteen boys and five tall girls are told to race circuits around the ring. Luki is one of them. They run for an hour at a time.
Aissa’s in a group practising acrobatics. There’s no bar for the next ten days, just handsprings and backflips, leaps and catches: a different routine for each group, over and over. The world whirls; she doesn’t know which way is up and which way is down.
But it’s nearly the solstice, the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. Aissa guesses that the new dancers are going to be part of the Bull King’s celebrations.
The fear in her belly
is still there –
part of her
always –
but even it
is not the same
because it’s shared
with her companions:
the fear of failing,
of pain
or death by bull,
and though the fear of hate,
of spit, slaps and stones,
lurks deep inside
it’s no longer real.
Reality now
is this new life,
a different world from the one she’s known –
though even here
crickets chirp and frogs croak,
larks sing and eagles soar;
there are geckos on the walls,
lizards on the ground,
and the sun still rises in the east –
so it seems that some things
are the same
in every world.
The Bull King’s language
is still strange
but every day Aissa learns more,
hearing words
from people on the tiered seats
watching them train.
The words she learns
are bets and guesses
of who will live
and who will die
or be sent to slavery.
‘Not me,’ she vows,
and her anger glows bright –
even though servitude
is better than the sacrifice
some had imagined –
Aissa knows
what it is to be a slave
and she’s not going back
to that misery again.
She hates to think
that’s where Luki is,
despised and trapped –
because Luki and the runners
disappeared
the morning after they were chosen –
and Luki belongs to the hills.
He’d felt trapped
even in the freedom
of the Lady’s Hall,
when Aissa envied him.
But one night
Luki and the runners
are back in the dining hall,
and there’s time to whisper
before they’re sent to the dorms.
‘We’ve been catching bulls:
little ones first –
calves sent back to their mothers
after we’d caught and tied them
with our ropes.
They were tame,
from the Bull King’s herd.
But that was just practice.
After that we went to the woods
where the bulls live wild
like the boars at home.’
Luki shudders,
and his eyes grow dark.
‘We caught the bull
the king’s men wanted,
a year old, they said,
not full grown –
like us, they said –
but huge and strong.
He killed a boy,
before we had him tied –
threw him through the air
like your friend Milli-Cat
would throw a mouse,
and the life thrown out of him.’
Aissa sees
the sadness in his eyes
and wonders if she was wrong
to think she’d choose death
before slavery;
the dead boy might say
he’d rather be alive.
21
THE DANCE OF SUMMER SOLSTICE
Slaves arrive at dawn to dismantle the bullring fence and stadium seats. Mia and Niko send the runners for a quick jog and watch each group of acrobats go through their routines. Once to warm up and again to perfect it, then they’re sent in pairs to the bathrooms with scented oils, scrapers and combs.
Aissa’s guessed right: even the Bull King celebrates the longest day. The dancers need to be clean and perfect to honour the gods.
Aissa is with Zeta, a strong, tall girl who’d been in the runners’ group with Luki. They oil their bodies and scrape the dirt off with short leather straps; wash each other’s hair and plait it into seven tails, exactly how Niko demonstrated.
Zeta doesn’t speak till it’s her turn to wash Aissa’s hair, but once she starts talking she can’t stop. Her eyes carry the same shock and grief as Luki’s, and Aissa guesses that the story she’s telling is the same, though ‘bull’ and ‘boy’ are the only words she understands.
Mia comes to inspect them. She undoes one of Zeta’s plaits and makes Aissa do it again, checks that their hands and short-bitten nails are scrubbed spotless, and gives them their new clothes. Shorts and tops like the ones they’ve been training in, but bright and new.
New clothes, that no one else has ever worn! For a moment the thrill drowns out the fear bees in Aissa’s belly.
‘Rest now!’ Mia says, when she’s satisfied that their blouses are crossed and tucked perfectly, the belt tight enough to hold everything together and loose enough to breathe.
Rest? Aissa thinks. She wants to run and cartwheel, even meet the bull if she has to. The fear will only buzz stronger the longer they wait.
It’s the slowest siesta she’s ever known. No one sleeps.
Finally Mia and Niko call them. The acrobats and runners are separated again; Aissa presses Zeta’s hand as she joins the group following Mia out of the hall that’s been their home.
Panic rises in her throat like vomit. Why are we being separated? I didn’t see Luki to say goodbye!<
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They follow the road to the palace – another word they’ve learned – and through a maze of gates to a small room with a basin, where a woman waits for them. Mia stops and salutes.
The Lady! Aissa thinks. The woman has a round, pregnant belly, and is beautifully dressed in a flowing red robe embroidered with birds and flowers. She is holding a jug painted with the sign of the sacred double axe.
‘Hold out your hands!’ Mia orders, and as each acrobat offers their outstretched hands, the priestess pours water over them, murmuring words none of them know but all understand. They are being cleansed to meet the gods.
The fear in Aissa’s belly settles from bumblebee buzzing into a solemn, heavy mass.
Mia leads them through a hallway to a last gate. On the other side is a courtyard, its flat paving stones covered with a layer of sand. The fences and tiered seats from their training arena have been raised around it, in front of the great red pillars and open corridors of the palace.
So the bull can’t get into the rooms! Aissa guesses, and shudders. Suddenly the bull is more real than it’s ever been – though she still hasn’t seen one.
The palace rises above the barricades; people are crowded at windows, on roofs, and in red-painted balcony boxes. A musician is playing a lyre, though it’s hard to hear him over the rumble of the crowd; he stands in front of a pair of tall stone horns, looking up at the biggest balcony box.
The Bull King is in the balcony.
His head is a bull, and his body is a man’s. Aissa’s skin crawls as if she’s covered with spiders; her plaits feel as if they’re standing on end. The king is more terrifying than her worst nightmare. She can’t look away; can’t see anything else. It’s a long moment before she even notices the woman beside him.
If the priestess who washed their hands was the Lady, this is the Lady of Ladies, the Mother of all – although beside the monstrous king, she looks small and human. Her skirt is layered with red and green flounces, belling out wide from her tight gold belt. More gold glints from necklaces, bracelets and the tiara around her piled-high hair.
Niko opens the gate. ‘Go!’ he says. ‘What are you afraid of? There’s no bull for you today.’
But there are so many faces,
so many watching eyes
Aissa can’t move
and neither can
the other dancers.
Mia and Niko order them
but they can’t lead
because Mia and Niko
are not perfect
and only the perfect
can dance for the gods.
‘Get out there!’ they hiss,
‘You know what to do:
the tumblers first,
the leapers last.
Don’t forget to salute
the king and the Mother.’
And in that moment,
Aissa is glad
that she recognised the Mother
and is no longer afraid
because she’s lived with enough fear
to know what’s real.
She leads her group
onto the court,
the others following
in an anxious huddle –
not dancing as acrobats should –
salutes, hand on heart,
to the balcony box,
though she tries not to see
the bull-headed king.
Then she claps her hands,
stamps her feet
till the others join in
and the first tumblers spring,
roll and tumble
forward and back
over and over in a ring
then join the clappers
and the next begin,
until it’s time for Aissa’s group,
four of them,
handspringing to the centre.
They know they can do it,
they’ve done it before –
though sometimes
they still get it wrong.
One boy drops to hands and knees;
the first girl flips,
lands on his back
and springs off again.
Aissa sees
their grins of relief
but doesn’t have time
to notice
because the second boy’s kneeling
and Aissa springs –
leaps from feet to hands,
feels the sand and stone beneath her palms,
pushes hard again,
faster than thought,
flipping up
so her feet land
on the kneeling boy’s shoulders;
he grips her ankles tight
and stands –
and so does Aissa, arms spread wide,
then springs from his shoulders,
flying
like a bird set free.
The audience cheers,
and when Mia and Niko open the gate
they are smiling.
Now the acrobats are audience
crowded behind the fence,
and three bull dancers
run in:
two girls and a boy,
survivors from the years before
beautiful and perfect –
like Mia and Niko before they were gored –
stopping to salute
below the Bull King’s box
saying words Aissa doesn’t know
but the Bull King
and the Mother do;
they nod
and the king answers,
with the deep hollow thunder
of Earthshaker’s trumpet,
the sacred conch –
and the crowd roars.
Now Mia and Niko pull a gate across
to make a pen
to keep acrobats safe
and beside them,
through the corridor
of gates and fences,
comes the bull.
His shoulders are higher
than the tallest man’s head;
his horns wide,
long and sharp,
just like Luki and Zeta
and the guard at home said –
but it’s bigger when it’s real.
Luki and Zeta
and the other runners
run behind him,
flapping capes
as if scaring birds from crops.
The bull prancing and snorting,
the dancers circling;
the bull lowers his head to charge –
a girl dancer
grabs his ripping horns,
which makes the bull
throw up his head,
tossing the girl
into a handspring
just like Aissa did
onto the kneeling boy’s shoulders –
except this girl lands
on the back
of a charging bull.
Faster than blinking
the dancer somersaults
off the bull’s tail to the ground
where the other girl catches her
and the bull
charges the boy.
Aissa watching,
feeling every move
right through her body,
hearing the crowd roar
as each dancer leaps,
as if they were roaring for her.
The bull wearies of charging
and stumbles to a halt;
the dancers salute the balcony
as the crowd screams their names
throwing flowers
and promises of gold,
till they trot out,
gleaming with sweat
but fresher than the bull,
who is alone in the ring
bellowing
a confused sort of protest.
The runners return
flapping their capes
to make him run again
till his legs are trembling,
mouth frothing
and nose dripping blood.
They herd him to the centre,
Aissa no longer watching –
all she can see
is the three dancers,
proud and perfect
in the seats below
the Bull King’s balcony.
‘One day I’ll be there –
me, the cursed child,
No-Name the privy cleaner,
being cheered and admired –
and it’s started today.’
A scream
shatters her dreaming;
the crowd gasping
because the bull –
not as tired as he’d seemed –
has charged Zeta’s cape,
and his sharp horn
has ripped through her shoulder.
Luki leaps,
daring the bull
with his own flapping cape,
tempting him away
as Zeta falls to the ground,
blood gushing free.
The bull stands,
his head hanging low
his knees shaking
as if he’ll fall
while the Bull King and the Mother
leave their balcony –
the king with his bull’s head
and his two-headed axe,
the Mother with a bowl and a knife.
They cross the courtyard
to the bull
and while Luki and another boy
roll Zeta gently
onto a cape
and carry her away,
the king chops the bull’s neck
with the sharp bronze axe.
The bull drops to its knees
and the king takes the knife
to slice the throat
while the Mother catches
the gushing blood
in the golden bowl.
They cross to the tall stone horns
and the Bull King shouts
in his deep hollow voice
that the god can hear
as the Mother pours
the bull’s dark blood
onto the sacred horns –
a drink for the gods
though Zeta’s blood
has already been taken.
Aissa weeps
to see her curse strike Zeta.
If she hadn’t been dreaming –
if she’d been watching –
maybe she could have
called the bull.
But she didn’t even try.
Now the bull is dead
and men with ropes are rushing
to haul the corpse away,
while girls dance down
from the tiered seats
to twirl in the courtyard
in butterfly brightness,
praising the gods
for the sacrifice of blood.
But Aissa stares again at the royal box: