Starlings

by Jo Walton

  QUEEN OF THE INCAS: It certainly exists.

  KING OF THE INCAS: Can we put them to death yet, Mother? They have come to the secret city uninvited. And they have a forbidden map!

  AIDEEN: If the cup exists, let me see it.

  QUEEN OF THE INCAS: The master of the walls keeps it.

  KING OF THE INCAS: Kill them, kill them already! Guards!

  MASTER: Should I show them the cup first, my king?

  KING OF THE INCAS: All right. I’d like to see it anyway.

  MASTER: Here it is.

  AIDEEN: Thank you. I doubted myself. What a lot of guards you have.

  MASTER: Yes, it’s useful when thieves come wanting our treasure.

  KEVIN: Six each, I make it!

  AIDEEN: Meet you back at the chariot!

  BRIAN: Father isn’t going to like this. And I do wish we’d kept those magic apples.

  Scene 2: America. The children of Tureen are sitting dispiritedly at the bank of the Mississippi. An American GRANDMOTHER is walking past.

  KEVIN: We’ve been here longer than anywhere else, but so far, all we’ve learned about the Americans is that they don’t even have a king. What kind of people don’t have a king? Or a queen. Why don’t they just elect one of the royal kin like we do when we don’t have a king? Why, there’s not a field in Ireland that doesn’t have its own king.

  AIDEEN: They don’t think much of my poetry either.

  BRIAN: That would be because it’s awful.

  AIDEEN: However it is, I’ve been going around dropping hints about feathers here and there and nobody bites.

  GRANDMOTHER: Young lady, you’ve been talking to the men.

  AIDEEN: Yes, Grandmother, because it’s the men who always have the power in the lands where I come from.

  KEVIN: Well—

  BRIAN: That’s not exactly true.

  GRANDMOTHER: Here among the people of the plains the men have one kind of power and the women have another. If you want to know about magic feathers, you shouldn’t be asking the men.

  AIDEEN: I do want to know about magic feathers. Go away, brothers.

  KEVIN: Go where?

  AIDEEN: Go back to the chariot.

  KEVIN: But I particularly wanted—

  AIDEEN: Kevin, go back to the chariot!

  BRIAN: Men in charge, I don’t think.

  AIDEEN: Now tell me about magic feathers, Grandmother.

  GRANDMOTHER: You already know about one kind.

  AIDEEN: I do? Oh, I do. Lark’s feathers bound to a stick for turning into a bird.

  GRANDMOTHER: I noticed the sticks you carry.

  AIDEEN: I’d happily trade you any magic stick you like for a magic thunder feather.

  GRANDMOTHER: What do you have?

  AIDEEN: I’m out of sticks for breathing underwater, but I have two for turning into dolphins or pigs, and three each of eagle and hound.

  GRANDMOTHER: A pig? Why would you want to turn into a pig?

  AIDEEN: You might want to turn somebody else into a pig. My brothers, for instance.

  GRANDMOTHER: I understand why you Europeans like horses, but your other animals are very strange.

  AIDEEN: We’re not Europeans, we’re Irish.

  GRANDMOTHER: It all looks the same from here. I’ll trade you a thunder feather for two hounds and an eagle.

  AIDEEN: Done!

  GRANDMOTHER: But you have to choose it for yourself, out of this bag full of feathers, and you have to do it without touching them.

  AIDEEN: What feather would call the thunder? The sky here is so high up and far away, the plains are so wide, the mountains so high. It’s not like Ireland, where the sky comes down to touch the ground, all grey and misty and damp. They call my home the emerald isle because it rains every day and makes the grass green. Here everything is dry and you can see thunder coming days away. This is thunder country, while my home is a land of soft rains. At home the bird that calls the thunder is the black crow, flying on the edge of the storm, waiting for the clouds to tear open and show what lies beyond, waiting for the leven to strike and the blood to flow. But here the skies are wider, the lightning strikes fiercer, the people have no kings, and the grandmothers do the magic. I don’t know what bird dropped that great redand-black feather. It might be some kind of eagle. But that’s the feather that speaks to me of your prairie storms, that’s the feather of the thunder bird. I’ll take that feather, Grandmother.

  GRANDMOTHER: Here. Your poetry isn’t as bad as everybody said.

  AIDEEN: Thank you.

  Scene 3: The children of Tureen are standing outside the walls of Kyoto.

  AIDEEN: Kevin, you take the feather. Brian, you take the cup.

  BRIAN: You’re not going to pretend to be a poet again here, are you?

  AIDEEN: It’s a good disguise, because poets have a reason to be wandering about the world looking for patrons.

  BRIAN: Well how about if I’m the poet for a change?

  AIDEEN: Can you make up poems?

  BRIAN: I’m as good as you are, anyway.

  KEVIN: You know, Japan is a really strange country, so far away and different. What if they don't have poets?

  AIDEEN: Everybody has poets, Kevin.

  BRIAN: What if they don’t speak Irish?

  AIDEEN: Don’t be silly.

  GATEKEEPER: Welcome to Kyoto, ancestral home of the emperor of Japan.

  KEVIN: Oh good, you speak Irish.

  GATEKEEPER: Everybody speaks Irish, young man, that goes without saying.

  AIDEEN: Brian!

  BRIAN: Oh—yes. I am Brian, the son of Tureen, a poet from Ireland, and this is my brother Kevin and my sister Aideen.

  GATEKEEPER: Please come in, and do enjoy your time in Kyoto.

  BRIAN: I wonder if you’d mind telling me what kind of poetry is in fashion here.

  GATEKEEPER: Oh, certainly. We’re very fond of haikus, which are short poems containing seventeen syllables. The first line has five, the second seven, and the third line five syllables.

  AIDEEN: Brian, stop counting on your fingers.

  GATEKEEPER: They are also supposed to contain a reference to the season.

  BRIAN: Thank you.

  GATEKEEPER: Come in, enjoy your stay.

  KEVIN: You don’t seem very worried about letting three heavily armed people walk into your city.

  GATEKEEPER: No, should I be? Are you planning to attack us?

  KEVIN: We’d hardly say if we were.

  AIDEEN: Of course we’re not. My brother was just remarking on how friendly you are, compared to some places we've been, where they ask us to leave our weapons outside.

  GATEKEEPER: You see, we don’t have to worry about that kind of thing, because we have mechs.

  KEVIN: Mechs?

  GATEKEEPER: Mechs. We’ve always had mechs in Japan. They keep us safe from attack, so we don’t have to worry about it.

  AIDEEN: Are they by any chance clockwork mechanisms thirty feet tall that allow ten men to ride on them, that terrify enemies with the sound of their voice, and that can crush an armed enemy beneath their feet?

  GATEKEEPER: I see their fame has spread even to the barbarian Irish.

  BRIAN: Haiku are easy

  With winter come many mechs,

  Miscalculation.

  GATEKEEPER: You’ll get the hang of it.

  AIDEEN: We had heard of your mechs, but nobody told us how many you had.

  GATEKEEPER: Oh, we have lots and lots.

  AIDEEN: I think my own king would really like one, back in Ireland.

  GATEKEEPER: He’d better learn how to make one then. Have a nice day.

  AIDEEN [walking away]: I don’t think they’ll trade us one, and I don’t know how we could steal one.

  KEVIN: Maybe we should go to Rome and get the gun and come back. A gun that kills a thousand people would make short work of this place.

  AIDEEN: Either it would kill the mechs or it wouldn’t. Either way, we wouldn’t have one to take home. We need to trick them. />
  KEVIN: Maybe we could take a hostage and make them give us one.

  AIDEEN: That might work.

  BRIAN: Summer has hot days

  Japan is far from Ireland

  Disinclination.

  KEVIN: Stop it!

  AIDEEN: Who would make a good hostage?

  KEVIN: That gatekeeper?

  AIDEEN: It would be good if we could get to the emperor.

  KEVIN: With Brian’s poetry?

  AIDEEN: It’s just counting syllables, how hard can it be?

  BRIAN: Cat on the doorstep

  I wonder where their king lives

  Constantinople?

  KEVIN: You didn’t mention the seasons.

  AIDEEN: I wonder where their king does live.

  KEVIN: Father will know.

  AIDEEN: I don’t want to go home and leave the things we’ve got already when they could turn out to be useful. Cat, where does your king live?

  CAT: Why should I tell you?

  KEVIN: Typical cat.

  AIDEEN: We could—

  KEVIN: What, bring it back to life? Call the thunder for it?

  CAT: Cats have nine lives, we don’t need more. And why would we want thunder?

  AIDEEN: Why would anyone? I was going to say we could give you a fish.

  CAT: Have you got a fish?

  AIDEEN: We could get one.

  CAT: Get one, then we’ll talk.

  KEVIN: Cats are just so smug.

  AIDEEN: Are these houses made of paper?

  KEVIN: No, surely not, paper would burn too easily.

  AIDEEN: It is paper. How unusual.

  BRIAN: I saw a cat but

  I haven't seen any mechs

  Winterization.

  KEVIN: I don’t think the last line has to be all one word.

  AIDEEN: He’s right.

  KEVIN: Winterization?

  AIDEEN: I haven’t seen any mechs either. I wonder where they are.

  KEVIN: They’d probably come running if we drew our swords.

  AIDEEN: I wonder.

  KEVIN: That looks like a palace over there.

  BRIAN: Spring—

  KEVIN: Shut up. I’ve had about enough of that. We’re going to die when we give the three shouts on the hill, and I can't be any more dead for fratricide.

  AIDEEN: We could bring you back to life with the cup and kill you again.

  KEVIN: We could do that with Brian. Then he wouldn’t be able to talk, which would be a gib improvement.

  BRIAN: Sorry, sorry! I was just trying to practice.

  [Enter the emperor of Japan and some members of his court.]

  AIDEEN: Excuse me, are you the emperor of Japan?

  EMPEROR: I am. Kindly remove your sword from my neck.

  AIDEEN: I shall do so as soon as you give me a mech, which I promise I shall take home to Ireland and never return to Japan.

  EMPEROR: Have you not heard of the power of my mighty mechs? They will slay you.

  AIDEEN: Not before I cut your throat. And you will observe that my brothers have also drawn their swords and are threatening the lives of two of your companions.

  EMPEROR: Give you a mech?

  AIDEEN: Yes, it should be quite simple.

  EMPEROR: Give a mech to a barbarian?

  AIDEEN: Also, I can summon lightning to burn down your paper town. I should have mentioned that before.

  EMPEROR: But mechs have always been exclusively Japanese!

  BRIAN: Hippopotamus,

  As the leaves fall to the ground

  Mechs now leave Japan.

  KEVIN: I’m not warning you again!

  EMPEROR: I don’t quite understand the bit about the hippopotamus.

  AIDEEN: Are you summoning a mech?

  EMPEROR: I’ve already summoned them. And they’re coming up behind you!

  AIDEEN: If you think I’m falling for that one—

  KEVIN: No, they’re there all right.

  BRIAN: I think that’s thirty warriors each, not counting the mechs. And the Warriors have two very sharp swords each.

  AIDEEN: Look, it’s very simple. I just want one mech. Give it to me, or I cut your throat.

  EMPEROR: Kill me, and die. My son will ascend the Chrysanthemum throne, and my honour will go with me to the grave unsmirched.

  KEVIN: This isn’t working.

  AIDEEN: All right, will you sell me a mech? It’s for the defence of my home against a terrible enemy. I can offer you a magic stick that can turn you into an eagle.

  EMPEROR: Never!

  BRIAN: Maybe we should leave and come back when we’ve got the gun.

  EMPEROR: There are no guns allowed in Japan, by law.

  KEVIN: How do you enforce that law?

  EMPEROR: Mechs.

  AIDEEN: So you’d really rather die than give us a mech?

  EMPEROR: Much rather.

  AIDEEN: All right then, thirty each it is, brothers.

  BRIAN: I don’t know what Father’s going to say about this.

  ACT IV

  Scene 1: At sea, in the chariot

  KEVIN: Brian, it’s just a little cut, that’s all. Don’t be such a baby.

  BRIAN: You’re never fair to me. We should have held onto those apples.

  AIDEEN: The Kingdom of the Cats is definitely not on this map.

  BRIAN: I don’t think going back into Kyoto with a fish would be a good idea at this point.

  KEVIN: We’d never find that cat in the ashes anyway.

  AIDEEN: I hope she got away.

  BRIAN: Probably. Cats are quick.

  AIDEEN: We don’t want to go halfway around the world only to come back, if the Kindsom of Cats happens to be near Japan.

  KEVIN: Why would it be?

  BRIAN: Why wouldn’t it be?

  AIDEEN: Let’s go to Egypt. They worship cats there. That should be a good place to start.

  KEVIN: Are you going to tell the king of the cats you’re a poet come visit his court?

  AIDEEN: No, I think that trick’s worn out. I think we’ll either have to fight for it or persuade them to sell it to us.

  KEVIN: Sell it? What do cats want? Fish?

  BRIAN: Catnip?

  AIDEEN: Respect?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.

  KEVIN: What? Where did you come from?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: What’s the one thing you think you know about the king of the cats?

  KEVIN: He has a black cloak of invisib—oh.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: I am the queen of the cats, and I’ve been watching you for some time. You’ll be glad to know the cat in Kyoto did escape the fire and general destruction.

  AIDEEN: I am glad. If you’ve been watching us, then you know what we want.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You want my cloak, and you’re prepared to go to any lengths at all to get it. You’d kill me, you’d kill every cat in the world if you had to.

  KEVIN: It’s true.

  BRIAN: But I don’t know what Father would say!

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You told the emperor that you needed the mech to defend your homeland, but the truth is that you need it to pay a fine for murder.

  AIDEEN: It’s true. Both are true. We need it to pay the fine, but Lugh needs it to defend Ireland against Cromwell.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Who’s Cromwell?

  BRIAN: He’s the king of the English.

  KEVIN: He’s not. He’s not their king. He killed their king, and he refuses to replace him. He’s the lord protector. And he’s terrible. He’s covered in terrible warts, and he’s always sure he’s right, and he praises God and passes the ammunition. The last time he came to Ireland he won such a great victory against us that we’ve only just recovered from it. He’s coming back because our new king is his grandson, and there’s a prophecy that his grandson will kill him.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Why is his grandson your king?

  AIDEEN: We elected him. He’s eligible, he’s one of the royal kin.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS:
I still don’t understand. Why does he want to kill his own grandfather?

  AIDEEN: Cromwell knew about the prophecy so he locked his daughter up in a tower and didn’t let her marry.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: That trick never works.

  AIDEEN: Kian, who was in England learning about guns, climbed in through a tower window, and the result was Lugh. Cromwell was off fighting battles, and when he came back Lugh had grown up in the tower—he climbed down and came to Ireland, just one step ahead of his grandfather’s army, the famous Ironsides. Then we made him king after he proved that he was better than everyone else at everything important. So you can see he hates his grandfather, and his grandfather’s men.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Do you think Lugh would let me have my cloak back after Cromwell was defeated?

  BRIAN: Oh yes, sure to.

  AIDEEN: I think you’d have to ask him. You’re welcome to come with us. We just have one more stop, if we can count on the cloak.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Where’s that?

  KEVIN: Rome.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Ah, Rome. Rome is a great cat city, I know it well. We stalk among the ruins of the empire. Kittens play among fallen pillars, and we drink water from ancient aqueducts.

  BRIAN: You’re coming with us?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: I wouldn’t miss it.

  Scene 2: Rome

  AIDEEN: They’ve closed the gates, they must be expecting a siege. Ho, Gatekeeper?

  POPE: Who’s there?

  AIDEEN: Is that you up on top of the wall, Holy Father?

  POPE: Yes it is. I’m the pope of Rome. Who are you?

  AIDEEN: It’s Aideen, and Kevin, and Brian, with the queen of the cats.

  POPE: The children of Tureen?

  AIDEEN: Yes, the children of Tureen, from Ireland.

  POPE: Go away.

  KEVIN: He doesn’t seem very pleased to see us.

  POPE: I heard what you did to Machu Picchu, and to Kyoto, and I don't want you doing it here?

  AIDEEN: Are you all alone up there?

  POPE: No! But even if I was all alone up here, if all my Swiss Guards and cardinals had run away at the rumour that you were coming, I’d still have my alchemic gun, that can kill a thousand armoured fighters with one shot. And there are only three of you.