Dragonfly Song

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.