by Wendy Orr
The day after she returns from the cave, she and the other young priestesses strap on strong sandals, put on divided skirts that let them walk nearly as freely as an acrobat’s shorts, and follow a Sister into the hills where the purple autumn crocus blooms. They spend the morning collecting the flowers with orange stamens of sacred saffron, while the sun shines on them and a cool north breeze blows their hair. Aissa is flooded with the joy of the hills, and the peace of knowing she’s safe. Suddenly it bursts out of her and she’s whirling, spinning in the dance of praise. The Sister smiles.
There are more duties, too, as she goes deeper into the life of a priestess.
She goes to the crypt where the snakes live, and takes her turn at carrying the pot up to the morning room. One full-moon night she hands the bowl to a Sister to collect the blood when the Mother offers a lamb to the goddess. During the day, it’s the king who offers sacrifices to his god, but sometimes, at night, the goddess needs her own.
And although the king rules the land of warriors, navies and their taxes, the Mother’s scribes in the craftsfolk’s wing keep their own records of what is due to the goddess: clay tablets inscribed with details of goods and gold owed.
‘But it’s always wise,’ says the Mother, ‘to remind people that they’re working for the gods, not the scribes.’
So every half-moon, a Sister takes a trainee down to the scribes to collect the tablets for the Mother to study.
Aissa has never been in this part of the palace. She follows the Sister to room after room of different trades and arts. Rows of weavers sit at looms strung with brightly coloured flax or wool, potters spin their wheels to shape wet clay into bowls and vases; sculptors chip stone into statues and carve tiny gemstones that jewellers set into rings or amulets. The metalworkers, dripping with sweat from the heat of their furnaces, form molten gold into the finest jewellery – Aissa sees a bee so real it looks as if the living insect has been simply dipped in gold – or mix copper and tin into bronze for exquisite figurines or sharp-edged swords.
Her head spins with heat, new sights and smells, and with the strangeness of knowing that so many details – everything that has been produced, where the raw materials came from, who’s been paid, what is owed – are recorded on these tablets for the Mother and Sisters to see.
All the young priestesses spend time every afternoon learning to read and write. Aissa knows her own name-sign, but now she learns the symbols for the goddess and the bull, for gold or copper ingots, shells for purple dye, wood for the furnaces, and every other thing that goes in or out of the palace. It’s not easy learning to copy each one, and it’s even harder to remember them all. But as Aissa scratches the symbols into the soft clay of the practice tablet, she thinks of the words in there, speaking without a voice, for anyone to hear, and knows that the goddess has given her a glimpse of the most powerful magic of all.
The Mother also judges family disputes and women’s business. Like the Lady, she listens to the wise-women, but one day in five, the women from palace and country are granted an audience with the Mother herself. The apprentice priestesses sit on benches either side of the throne as the Mother’s questions probe and her judgement rings out, clear and strong.
Some of the girls get restless, but Aissa is used to listening. That’s why she understands the bull king’s language now – and why she hears so many secrets.
‘Promise you won’t tell . . .’
How am I going to do that? Aissa thinks, though she doesn’t roll her eyes at the stupidity anymore, not since she made a girl cry. Now she nods, looking serious.
So she probably knows more than anyone else about who’s got a crush on a young priest or a guard, or even one of the other priestesses, about fears of rejection, of not being beautiful, of becoming ill. Aissa had never known that other people – lucky, perfect people – had so many fears.
Or so much to bicker about.
‘My roommate bumped me when Sister was watching me dance,’ a sow-faced girl whines.
‘Cessie won’t talk to me because I bumped into her when she was dancing,’ her roommate whispers.
Tell each other and sort it out! Aissa wants to sign, the way she might have with the acrobats – but they wouldn’t come to her for consolation if they thought she’d give advice.
And it’s probably just as well that they can’t hear her thinking, Do you really think your friend talking to another girl at dinner is a problem? That the world is going to end because someone laughed when you tripped on the stairs?
Maybe it’s worse because winter’s coming; it’s not as cold as home, but it’s chilly enough for the Mother to keep a brazier of burning coals in her rooms, and for the girls to need an extra fleece on their beds at night.
After ten days of rain keep them inside the palace, not even venturing into the courtyards, it feels as if the whole hive of priestesses is about to explode.
The Mother feels it too. She arrives in the middle of a writing lesson. Everyone scratches harder at their soft clay tablets – Aissa smudges her ox symbol and has to rub it smooth and start again. But the priestess hasn’t come to inspect; she is followed by servants carrying goblets and a jug of honeyed wine.
‘That’s enough writing for a grey afternoon!’ she announces, and while the girls drink their wine, the servants open the folding doors to make two rooms into one big one.
‘Now move the benches and tables to the side – even the goddess needs to be cheered up on a day like this.’ Aissa still has to stop herself from jumping up to help servants move furniture. It’s been hard to learn that something as wonderful as dancing is her duty just as much as privy cleaning was No-Name’s.
So she plays the rattle, clicking in time as the other girls’ voices flood her body; they dance until the goddess is praised and the girls can’t think anymore, and dance on till they drop.
Aissa has just finished bleeding for the third time. Tomorrow is the bull dance to celebrate winter’s shortest day and the next turning of the seasons. Aissa will be dancing with the priestesses – and she’ll see Luki. If he’s still alive.
23
THE BULL DANCE IN MIDWINTER
Luki is still alive. It sometimes surprises him. From the confines of the training ring and hall, he’s watched the seasons cycle from spring to winter; he’s seen the hills go brown in summer and start to green again with the winter rains; he’s watched the barley fields being sown, workers on their way to the olive groves for harvest, the grape pickers passing with carts and baskets of purple grapes. He’s watched the cranes and swallows migrate south for the winter, and wondered if he’ll still be here to see them return in spring.
He tries not to wonder if he’ll see his own home again. Maybe he can dare to hope if he survives the dance of the shortest day.
The worst thing about the winter rains is training inside the hall. They’re no freer in the arena, but Luki feels that he can breathe. After ten days of being inside he doesn’t sleep as well at night; there seems to be more time to think and worry. He wonders about Aissa, doing whatever a junior priestess does inside that palace. He wonders if she thinks about how they have changed places since he was the god-luck dancer and she was the cursed child. Bull dancers are honoured here once they’re successful, but the trainees are truly slaves. At least Aissa was able to roam free when she was an outcast.
But on a good day, when the sun is shining and the air is cool, and he does a perfect one-handed vault over a bull-high rail, Luki wishes that Aissa could see it.
Painting her eyes
more carefully than ever before,
offering her face
for friends to inspect –
wiping a smudge and starting again.
Brushing hair,
curling ringlets,
not such a chore today
because
just like the other
chattering girls
Aissa is buzzing inside:
today she will be
; one of the elegant priestesses,
seen by the world
for the very first time.
Her skirt,
new
woven fine
flounced red,
yellow and green;
her blouse fresh and pure.
Looking in the mirror,
she likes what she sees,
which makes her giggle –
which surprises her friends
into giggling more.
So Aissa hides her face
kissing the top
of the white cat’s head,
and straightens the hem
of a roommate’s skirt,
caught up in a twirl.
The wardrobe Sister
calls to inspect them,
and Sister
is pleased too.
Now in a troop
winding through the maze
the walls painted
with flowers and ferns,
ladies on balconies,
men with gifts,
and Aissa’s favourite:
a spotted goat
that she strokes for luck.
The royal box
is for the Bull King and his boys,
the Mother and Sisters.
The cloud of young priestesses
and apprentices like Aissa
have their own space
in the tiered seats below,
high enough to see the ring
and the crowd;
near the side gate
where they’ll go down
to dance at the end.
Aissa’s still buzzing
as if a dragonfly
lives in her belly
when the Bull King enters
in the horned mask
that chills Aissa’s heart
and turns
her buzzing dragonfly
to stone
because he is not the same
as the red-haired man in the palace
laughing or eating,
playing board games with his sons,
or even
the stern-faced man
talking to warriors
when bad-news whispers
come across the hills.
The rain has stopped
though the sand is damp.
In the ring
three young men wrestle,
their bodies covered
with olive oil
so they slide out
from each other’s grip
until one
throws another
hard on the ground
and pins him with his knee,
before the third man
does the same to him.
The crowd’s not happy
because most of them
had bet on the first.
Five acrobats take their place –
tumbling, rolling,
a girl flying higher
than Aissa had
half a year ago –
but the crowd is waiting
to see the bull.
It thunders in,
with six runners
flapping their capes –
but none of them is Luki.
Now the bull dancers enter,
the people screaming
just to see them
before they’ve so much as
started to leap –
the apprentices
and some of the priestesses
scream too
because the dancers are perfect –
as beautiful in their way
as the priestesses themselves.
But this time, behind the three
come the new dancers,
dressed the same,
though without the swagger.
Aissa
doesn’t think she knows them
till a boy turns his head
and it’s Luki.
She wonders how
she hadn’t known him –
and the others too,
now that she sees the person
behind each dancer –
but half a year of training
has changed them all
as it’s changed her:
they are athletes now.
Strong and muscled,
they’ve learned to watch a bull,
while Aissa’s learned
how to curl hair
and write lists.
Now the bull is charging,
last year’s dancers are leaping,
Luki and his companions
ready to catch and steady
or wave a cape;
the bull forgetting
who’s sprung off behind him,
seeing only the next
in front,
until
as he starts to tire –
and the dancers do too –
one of the leapers,
showered with gold outside the ring
but no safer in it,
slips as she springs
over the bull’s neck,
and skids down his side.
The bull swings his great head
and spies the girl on the ground
with her leg twisted
and crumpled under.
Luki behind,
waiting to catch her,
rushes to challenge
but the bull
circles the fallen girl,
pawing the ground
with a hoof that’s bigger
than her head;
the crowd is standing,
waving and screaming.
And Aissa is singing,
a full deep note
she’s never heard.
The bull shakes his head
trots towards her,
and Aissa’s friends
push her down in her seat,
clapping hands over her mouth
before the Bull King
and the Mother
can hear.
Aissa is shaking –
it’s never wise
to defy the gods
and she doesn’t know
if that’s what her singing has done –
or if the Mother will think so.
Watching, not seeing,
the rest of the dance
enough to know
that no one is injured,
apart from the bull
sacrificed at the end.
As the men with ropes
come to haul him away,
Aissa and her friends
run down from the stands
hand in hand
singing and dancing into the ring
to praise the bull’s gift.
Aissa opens her mouth –
but her song has gone.
So she stamps and rattles
her castanets,
twirling with the others,
hoping all will be well
when they return to their rooms
before the feast
of the sacrificed bull.
But the Mother sends for her –
a servant at the chamber door –
the other girls tiptoe
and whisper;
her friends squeeze her hand
but don’t want
to walk with her.
The Mother’s eyes are shining –
a hard, clear anger,
and her mouth is tight.
‘So you found your song?
It wasn’t quite
what I’d intended.
A song like yours
comes from the goddess –
but you have used it
to thwart a sacrifice
and defy the gods.
‘If you were a priestess,
sworn and blooded,
you would die for this –
and though the omens tell me
to let you live
and learn,
>
you can never
be a Sister now.
I won’t have a slave
knowing goddess secrets –
so how can you
best serve
and atone?’
The Mother studies her
as if Aissa has an answer –
there is only one
that Aissa can see.
Tucking her skirts
into her belt
and hoping she still
remembers how
after six soft-living moons –
she leaps to her hands,
springing over and over
around the room.
The Mother nods.
Her face is hard
and her voice as sharp
as the Bull King’s axe.
‘So be it.
You’ll return to the ring.
But you’ve made your choice
and if you sing the bull
to save your skin
or that of your fellows,
you will all
be sacrificed with him
in the great spring games.’
24
MEETING THE BULLS
‘So you think jumping bulls is going to be easier than being a priestess?’ Mia demands.
Aissa shakes her head. She hadn’t exactly expected a welcome, but – maybe she had. Mia had seemed so sad to see her leave.
‘You’ve got a lot of training to catch up on,’ says Niko. ‘Look how soft you are!’
‘But your hair’s nice,’ says pretty Sunya. ‘Can you show us how you did it?’
‘Aissa’s going to be far too busy getting fit to worry about hair!’ Mia snaps, and makes sure that she’s right. Aissa has her own program to build up strength while the others are fine-tuning skills.
‘Doesn’t matter how beautiful your handstand is, if you can’t hold it on a bull’s horns,’ says Niko – it’s his favourite saying, Aissa thinks; he seems to say it every time she does something well. ‘And for that, you need a grip that could crush clam shells.’
Sometimes Aissa thinks that Mia and Niko can’t forgive her for missing half a year of training. On better days she knows that they can’t afford to – because the bull won’t.
Mia and Niko are too proud to ask exactly why she’s come back, as if changing from acrobat to priestess and back again happens all the time, but they’re as curious as everyone else.
‘You sang the bull!’ Luki exclaims. ‘That’s why he pulled away!’
Aissa nods.
The acrobats are desperate for miracles. It had been frightening to see the queen of bull dancers slip and fall. Her leg will never be strong enough to dance again – but they’d all seen the bull turn away from killing her.