by Wendy Orr
Their faces glow with sudden hope. ‘You can do that! You can save us when we’re in the ring!’
Aissa’s never felt so cruel. She slowly shakes her head.
‘Do you really think the gods would allow that?’ Mia demands.
‘Don’t see why not,’ someone mutters.
The mood’s turning against Aissa – she has to tell the whole truth. It’s better than their believing that she doesn’t care enough to save them.
She draws a finger across her own throat. Everyone’s seen enough sacrifice to know what that means.
‘Fair enough.’
No, it’s not! Aissa thinks. Not the whole thing. She trills her fingers out from her mouth.
‘If you sing,’ says Luki.
Aissa draws a circle encompassing all of them, and repeats the throat-cutting sign.
‘We’ll all be killed,’ several finish.
Standing in the middle of the group, seeing their eyes and hearing them say it is infinitely worse than hearing it from the Mother in her brightly painted chamber. How can all their lives depend on her? There’s only one solution. Aissa tilts her head, offering her throat. Better to die now than cause the death of everyone else.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ says Mia.
‘Just don’t sing,’ says Niko. ‘You don’t talk – how hard can it be not to sing?’
No one can guess how hard. Aissa doesn’t understand it herself.
The threat makes it even more difficult to slide back into the group. The acrobats aren’t just stronger and more skilled than when she left, they’re a tight-knit team. Only eleven girls and fourteen boys remain. They know each other’s moves and weaknesses, and what they don’t know can be discussed, because they’ve got a language now. Partly the palace language, and partly the bullring’s own.
The crowded dorms are now spacious rooms; everyone has a bed, not just a sleeping mat, and a space for their belongings. Aissa’s wolf cloak hasn’t been moved. She wraps herself in it every night, hoping it will help her reclaim her courage.
Because right now she doesn’t feel brave. She doesn’t even have the comfort of a cat sleeping under her chin at night – the Mother’s white cat seems to know that Aissa’s disgraced, and hasn’t followed her here.
And in three quick turnings of the moon, it will be the great spring games. She’s not as strong as she should be, not as skilled as she should be, and she’s sure the others don’t quite trust her. Not even Luki.
Aissa’s wrong – it’s himself that Luki doesn’t trust. The reason he’s still alive is that he’s absolutely determined to free his island from tribute. Every time someone is trampled or gored in the dusty bullring, or sent broken into slavery, Luki sees his younger brothers and sister. That is not going to happen to them!
For the six months that Aissa was away being a priestess, it was all his responsibility. Now she’s sharing it again, and Luki’s afraid that will let him fail. He wants to survive just as badly as everyone else, but it’s the island that has given him that extra drive. That extra luck. Every morning before training starts, he stands out in the ring to gaze at the mountain in the distance. It doesn’t matter that on these winter days it’s often covered by clouds – for those moments, he transforms it to his own island’s mountain, and pledges to return and free it.
Spring creeps closer. The moon is full, shrinks to blackness and grows full again. Frogs sing night-time choruses. The air smells sweeter; the first cranes fly back from their winter homes. And tomorrow the dancers start practising on Dapple.
Dapple is one of the five bulls from the palace herd that are used for training. They’re not quite as big as the wild ones caught in the woods, but Mia and Niko warn that sometimes they’re even more dangerous. These bulls have played the game before and know what the dancers are planning.
At the last minute Mia decides that Aissa’s still not ready to leap. ‘Better to stay alive longer and be ready for the real thing,’ she says. Aissa can be a runner, flapping a cape to line the bull up for the others.
She’s terrified that she will sing him away before he can hurt someone. Knowing that she’ll have to let him is the heaviest burden she’s ever borne. Nightmare bulls haunt her all night, goring and trampling.
So even as she’s waving her cape, driving the bull to the centre, she makes herself imagine all the terrible things that could happen. Which isn’t hard to do, because the bull is even bigger now that she’s in the ring with him.
He’s going to trample Mia! He’ll gore Luki. He’ll toss Sunya and break her bones . . . He’s going to turn around and charge me!
Dapple does try to do all those things. Mia leaps out of his way, and so does Luki. Sunya is tossed right across the ring, and two dancers leap to catch her. Aissa flaps her cape like the other runners, and drives the bull away.
She doesn’t sing. For the first time, she realises that she can control it. All she has to do is pay attention.
The only injury for the day is a girl who falls at the bull’s feet. Dapple tramples her hand as she lands – Aissa wouldn’t have had time to call if she’d wanted to.
Niko and Mia spend the evening going over all the other near misses. Idiocies and clumsinesses, Niko calls them. Aissa thinks he’s secretly quite pleased with their performance.
They spend the next two days training in the ring, ‘So there won’t be quite so many idiocies next time,’ says Niko. Then a rest day, then the bulls again – Brownie this time. That’s the pattern, but it still rains often, and they don’t work with the bulls when it’s raining.
‘You lot are clumsy enough without slipping in the wet,’ says Niko.
Mia tells the girls privately that they don’t train with the bulls when they’re menstruating. And when Niko tells Aissa that she’s ready to try leaping a real bull the next day, Aissa is bleeding.
She finishes her period just in time for the games. She still hasn’t leapt a bull.
25
THE GREAT SPRING DANCES
Spring is the most important season; spring determines if enough food will be grown for the rest of the year. And so the spring gods need the most gifts to nourish them: the most sacrifice; the most blood.
The most dances, Aissa thinks, but it’s not that simple. Mia and Niko don’t tell them the whole truth until the day before. Thinking about it for too long might just drive them crazy.
‘The first game,’ says Mia, ‘is with the herd bulls.’
‘Which one?’ asks Luki.
‘Can’t you hear?’ Niko snaps. ‘She said bulls – the five you’ve trained with.’
‘You’ll all go in together,’ says Mia, ‘and so will the bulls.’
‘Who will run them in?’
‘Anyone with the gold to pay for the honour.’
So they won’t know what they’re doing, thinks Aissa. The bulls will be crazy by the time they get to the ring.
‘You know these bulls; you know their habits,’ says Niko. ‘Dapple gores to the left. Brownie shakes his head before he tosses – hold tight or you’ll be gone. Moonsnip’s plain crazy. Mudface and Bigfoot are pretty straightforward.’
‘Will they fight each other?’
‘Not likely. They’ve run together since they were calves. But they’re bulls and it’s a crowded space – nothing’s guaranteed.’
‘Except death,’ someone mutters.
Three dancers have died in the last days of intensive training; nine more have been injured too badly to heal in time. Twelve are left to distract, leap and evade five confused, angry bulls.
‘Three survived last year,’ Niko says. ‘It can be done!’
Three is the best we can hope for?
Niko looks at their faces and gives up on his pep talk.
‘The first dance is about survival,’ he says more grimly. ‘Remember that the dead can wait.’
‘Look after the living,’ Mia corrects, but it’s too late. A shiver goes through the dancers. The dead. Will I be one of the dead lef
t to wait?
‘The second dance is about beauty. If the first dance offers blood, the second offers praise. Being alive at the end is not enough. Every leap needs to be the highest, strongest, most graceful that you can do. The gods demand perfection: only your best will win your freedom.’
‘And that of our homes,’ Luki mutters.
‘Pray to Earthshaker, god of the bulls,’ says Mia. ‘Pray to your own gods. And sleep well tonight so that your skills are sharp.’
They all pray, but sleep isn’t so easy.
Honey cakes for breakfast –
Aissa can’t believe
she could ever close her lips
to honey cakes
or figs and cheese,
but her belly is churning
too hard for hunger,
though Mia and Niko
are fussing like mamas
begging children to eat.
‘Just a bite,’ they say,
‘and a sip of milk.’
They check that wrists
are strapped tight and strong,
shortening the cords
of mama stones around necks
leaving no room for a horn to catch;
they see that plaits are neat,
eyes painted,
lips rouged
as neatly as a priestess,
because whether the dancers live
or die under the bull,
the goddess wants beauty –
or so say the Mother
and the king –
and Aissa hopes
if the gods see perfection
maybe they won’t need
so much blood.
Then Mia and Niko
kiss them each
on the top of their heads
and for the last time lead them
to the palace
and the bullring in the court,
because even if
they’re alive tonight
the dorms will no longer
be their homes,
and Mia and Niko
will start to prepare
for next year’s dancers
as the seasons cycle.
Still far from the gate
they hear the crowd
roaring like waves
pounding on cliffs,
the tiered seats packed,
people leaning from windows
or perched on roofs –
everyone in the land
who can possibly fit
and pay their way.
The dancers wait
behind the fence
for a troupe of jugglers in the ring
tossing bright balls high –
a cheer for the skill
of a perfect catch,
a hiss for a drop –
and oiled wrestlers
who throw and fall,
win and lose
with no threat of death,
and more men boxing,
the crowd ready now
for blood,
cheering when a hard fist
splits a face
and teeth are spat.
But the jugglers,
wrestlers and bleeding boxers
are as unimportant
as gnats
to the waiting dancers.
Some pray,
some are frozen,
some twitching,
but all are together:
twelve sisters and brothers,
Aissa finally
a part of a whole –
even though they won’t be
whole much longer.
She names them in her head
as if that prayer
could keep them safe:
Luki, Sunya and Kenzo,
Milos and –
‘It’s time,’ says Niko.
Running into the ring
standing together
to salute the balcony,
the rows of young priestesses –
who wave at Aissa –
then the crowd on every side,
and say the words
Aissa understands now
though she can’t speak them.
‘We offer ourselves
as gift or sacrifice
to please Earthshaker,
bull of the gods.’
And to the goddess,
bringer of life, thinks Aissa,
for the earthshaking bull
is no god of hers.
From the balcony box
the king trumpets
the strident roar
of the sacred conch
then pours wine
from the bull-head jug
to the great stone horns
below the box,
splashing red like blood
onto the sand.
‘Praise for Earthshaker,’ says the king.
‘Let his dance begin.’
In the sudden hush
the dancers look at each other,
make the good-luck sign,
as hooves thunder,
a man screams
and the bulls gallop in
leaving a runner tossed and gored
before the entrance gate,
bleeding out his life.
Aissa wonders
if he still thinks
it was worth the gold.
The gate is locked
the time for thought has passed –
the courtyard is
a chaos of bulls.
Dapple bellows,
collides with Moonsnip,
horns clatter,
and then they both
turn on Milos,
who doesn’t have a chance
to leap
or any chance
at all.
Someone tries
to pull the body aside
but Aissa doesn’t see who
because Brownie,
snorting rage as he runs,
is charging at her.
The bull comes fast,
time moves slow,
she grabs his horns,
gripping tighter than she knew she could
as he shakes his head
and her with it,
as if he can hardly feel
the girl doing a handstand
on his horns.
He tosses her
into a flip,
and for just that moment,
standing free on the back
of a charging bull,
before springing to land
safe and upright behind him,
she feels the god-power
burning through her.
The energy so strong
she could almost vault
back over the bull again –
but from the corner of her eye
she sees Sunya
flying off Dapple,
as if she hasn’t remembered
what Niko promised –
that Dapple always
gores to the left –
she lands off-balance
but Aissa reaches her
with a steadying arm
and they both move on.
Their other partners
do the same,
but not all
are so lucky.
Someone is dashed
against the great stone horns –
a second libation
of blood for the gods –
Aissa doesn’t see who
and can’t let herself wonder.
She never sees the crowd,
never hears its roar –
she has eyes and ears only
for the bulls
and dancers.
Her fear is gone,
her body alive as never before,
in this wild dance
of life and death.
‘Look after the living,’
Mia said,
and now Aissa understands –
/>
but the living are fewer.
Moonsnip waits
to trample dancers
as they leap
from another bull,
and Brownie is goring
the broken body
of someone who used to be
a friend.
As she sees,
Aissa’s fire leaves her.
She knows they will never
be free;
but will die in the ring
under these maddened bulls,
or at best be wounded
and saved as slaves –
and even in the midst
of this death and pain,
Aissa doesn’t want
to change it for slavery.
Now Mudface is coming,
but his gallop slows
to a lumbering trot,
head swinging
instead of charging –
and she leaps aside
instead of over.
Brownie finishes goring
and stands over his victim
as if he can’t see
the living dancers –
the bulls too
have had enough.
One by one,
they weary to a stop,
heads hanging low;
Dapple next,
Moonsnip last.
The conch horn sounds.
The rich young runners
jog in through the gate,
circling wide around the bulls,
flapping capes to drive them –
not so wild as they ran in –
out and back to the herd.
The healers’ men
come to carry the wounded
and the dead,
until only
Aissa and Sunya,
the tall boy Kenzo
and Luki are left.
Grief washes over them
and not just for the fallen,
but they take these moments
to breathe
and touch hands,
trying to rebuild
strength and courage
for this last dance
with the wild king of the bulls.
He gallops in,
piebald brown,
not so much bigger than the rest –
though it’s hard to tell
the exact size
of a bull
intent on charging.
But there’s something about
the way he swings his horns,
that says this one
is far more ferocious
than his herd-tamed kin.
‘I’ll go first,’ says Luki,
and draws the bull to charge him,
with Kenzo standing back