Dragonfly Song

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: