Bird of Chaos: Book One of the Harpy's Curse (2 page)

My mother cut him short. “You say you saw a serpent?”

The man inclined his head. It was a slow, calculated movement. “In my garden.”

“Show me.” Her hand was tight around mine.

We followed him along a path that led through the cool shade of the cypress trees. The man’s white hound ran ahead sniffing the ground. I could sense my mother’s impatience. She was like a child at the start of a race, crouched down on the block, trying desperately to avoid a false start. We reached a paved enclosure overhung with grape vines where a stream trickled into an elevated pond. The man disappeared into a whitewashed brick building. “I’ll make tea,” he called from inside.

“Thank you but I would really like to see the serpent,” my mother said.

The caretaker reappeared in the doorway carrying something in his hand. I had a vision. For a moment I saw him cackling, his teeth bloodied from where he has bitten off his own tongue. The Island of the Dead was burning. I blinked and the vision was gone.

“If you are in a hurry then I suppose you better follow me,” he said.

At the back of the house were the remnants of an oil press: a stained circular plinth and a rusted iron crank. Behind was a grassy terrace where goats grazed, their feet tethered, bells around their necks. Beyond were row upon row of olive trees. We climbed the terrace and walked through the olive grove to a sandy clearing. The caretaker placed a piece of meat on a large, smooth boulder then stood back. “Wait quietly. It will come,” he whispered.

The war-wits stood at a distance, their faces expressionless, and their hands hovering above their weapons. My mother took up a position on another boulder, beckoned to me and let me crawl into her lap. She wrapped me in her arms and rested her chin on my head. I could smell her excitement and the wild thyme growing in the olive grove. I heard bees somewhere further off.

A rustling in the bushes made us turn and straighten. I gripped the hem of my mother’s peplos and stuck it into my mouth. The war-wits drew their swords. A pointed head appeared from beneath the bushes, followed by two powerful limbs jutting out of an equally powerful squat body covered in thick armour. Spikes ran from the creature’s head to its tail. The serpent scuttled hesitantly towards the boulder and I squealed. The
thing
climbed the boulder, stood over the piece of meat and looked around. Its tongue probed the air before it snatched the morsel into its mouth and scurried back down the rock.

My mother picked me up under the arms and placed me on the pebbly ground. “That’s not a serpent.”

“But your Majesty—” the caretaker started.

“No, no,” my mother said, raising her hand. “I would know a serpent when I saw one. That…that is a lizard. A water dragon. Nothing more.” She struggled to hide her frustration. She thanked the caretaker in a stiff, formal tone. The war-wits sheathed their weapons and looked disparagingly at the old man who could only shrug. Yanking me towards the path, my mother did her best to hide her frustration. But despite her attempts, I could sense it seething beneath the surface. “Drayk was right,” she mumbled under her breath. “They
are
extinct.”

We never spoke of the serpent again. To do so would imply she was capable of folly and I learnt early on that it was far better to exist in denial, in an alternative reality, than it was to draw attention to her faults. Rather, we went about our business as if the incident had never occurred, as if she were perfect, choosing to immerse ourselves in the mundane, never speaking of the wonderful opportunity of eternity or the prospect of a collective conscience, never speaking of her disappointment.

You see, in the beginning my mother was not a cruel woman but simply a tightly coiled spring. They said it was the result of taking the throne so young. She was sixteen and still living on the island when Queen Ligeia died at forty, leaving Tibuta to her. Some said she was unprepared for her elevation. Others said it made her more determined. Others blamed Kratos.

The queen’s younger brother Kratos was thrown from a ship on his return from Caspius after Gregaria invaded our ally in 2978 AB. It was a war that brought an end to the Third Age and almost a thousand years of peace in Longfield. It was my mother’s eighth year on the throne, four years before I was born. She was young and inexperienced.

During his recovery Kratos spoke of how he had survived at sea though the waves had been like a heaving blanket with white pill, how he had fought off a bull shark and seen faces in the storm. He warned my mother that Typhon’s last tempest was coming and urged her to build an army. But she would not listen. She believed he was a vulture intent on tearing down her eyrie.

Rather than put him to death she sent him to a sanatorium on a minor island to have his “mental impurities” removed. He survived his treatment though the healers drilled into his skull and many of the queen’s subjects heralded his triumph as the work of the gods. Support for him grew.

Around the time of my birth the gerousia caught wind that people were migrating to the island they now called Kratos’s Haven to listen to my uncle preach. Fearing social breakdown, the elder women encouraged my mother to invite her brother back to the palace and into the council to negotiate peace, which she did despite her foreboding. For a time there was calm. My uncle appeared to be compliant. Not a breath of wind shook my mother’s nest and she was happy. And then everything changed.

My skin was like blotting paper. Sentences ran backwards across my under-thighs from sitting on the edge of my mother’s desk sucking the edge of my peplos while she wrote with quill and ink. I knew better than to interrupt her. She bit her bottom lip in concentration and occasionally looked up long enough to bless me with a smile. “Not long now, my darling.”

My mother taught me things like the proper way to write a letter. If she was writing to an equal like my uncle the king of Caspius she would use sepia, or cuttlefish ink, which was brown and far more expensive. If she was writing to an inferior like the district leaders Thera and Gelesia she would use the cheaper black ink made from soot and glue. It sent a subtle but clear message. The letter’s recipient was acutely aware of where they stood in the social hierarchy. “But if you need to ingratiate yourself with an inferior you might use sepia,” she explained. “Or if you are furious with an equal you might show this by using black ink. For an enemy, you might write in blood.”

We spent hours poring over maps and examining land and sea borders, listing monarchs and plotting their names and titles in order of rank on a chart pinned to the wall. But perhaps my favourite game of all was masks.

My mother gathered up her bundle of parchment, tapped it to make a neat pile and put it to the side before turning to me. “What would you like to learn today?”

I looked around the room. The step leading into the study was worn smooth into a gentle dip like an offering bowl. A high ceiling soared overhead. The marble floor shone from thousands of soft feet gently polishing it over the centuries. “Umm…Let’s play masks.”

She nodded. She was patient back then, happy to indulge my whims. As repetitive as they were. “It is important for a leader to have the utmost control of her features to convey a desired emotion, to protect herself from misinterpretation. Watch this.” My mother smiled the most perfect smile then ran her hand up her face to hide it. When she removed her hand her face showed an expression of feigned sadness so convincing I made words to comfort her. She laughed and ran her hand across her face again, this time to show mock disbelief. I giggled. “Now you try.”

This was her diplomacy. Her face was her mask.

“Even anger must be an act,” she said. “It is no good losing your temper. Rather, anger should be premeditated. Controlled.” She revealed a terrifying expression, her face twisted like an old oak tree. I pulled back in fear. She kept her rage so securely in place that it was only when my bottom lip began to tremble that she wiped it away and grinned.

Though my mother was a gifted performer she let her disguise slip when she heard of Kratos leaving Tibuta. We were in the Chamber of Petitions. Back then a round table dominated the room. My mother sat facing the double doors. The
gerousia
flocked around her, preened their feathers, clucked and bobbed their heads.

Of the gerousia only one woman ever spoke to me. She was aged and paper thin.
Her long white hair fell in limp tendrils around a sun-spotted face
and eyes were watery blue. She gathered her black peplos in her hands and knelt down, making her knees crack. “And you must be Verne.”

I curtsied, which seemed to delight her. “Do you know who I am, child?”

I shook my head, making my pigtails swoosh across my face.

“I am Maud Lias.”

I looked at her blankly.

“High priestess of Tibuta.”

There was still no recognition on my part but the woman simply laughed. “I am someone of moderate importance. It would be right to kiss my ring.” She held out her hand to me. Blushing, I placed my lips against the shining black sapphire.

“And should I write to you in black ink or sepia?” I asked.

The woman laughed. “Whichever you choose, my dear. It makes no difference to me.” After a moment she added, “I hope to be your tutor one day. All monarchs should be well versed in the words of Shea and Ayfra. Would you like that?”

Though the woman was clearly powerful there was something reassuring about her demeanour, a slight upturn to the corners of her mouth and the presence of wrinkles around her eyes that suggested she was more likely to smile than frown. I nodded.

“Good,” she said.

I sat in a chair that was too big for me on my mother’s right and listened while the conversation bounced around the gerousia like a hot piece of coal no one wanted to hold. They discussed many things, taxes in particular, though at such a young age “taxes” meant nothing to me.

And then my mother paused and looked up. “Where is my brother?” She directed her question at the high priestess.

“I believe he has left Tibuta,” she said in the tone of a true bureaucrat who avoids committing to anything.

“What for?”

“Your majesty I am sorry but I don’t know.”

“For how long?”

The holy woman shrugged. “He did not say.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long time, caught in a silent battle that made the rest of us squirm in our seats. Eventually, my mother shook her head and turned her attention to one of the other women. “Alice, about the latest reports coming from Kratos’s Haven…”

The conversation continued, back and forth until there was a knock on the door. All eyes rested on my mother. “Come in,” she said and we turned to face the intruder.

Piebald put his head around the door and smiled apologetically. “Excuse the interruption, your royal majesty. Ladies.”

He was younger then—he had hair on his head—but had already begun his metamorphosis from enthusiastic staffer to mean lackey. He crossed the room and bent between us to whisper, “I am terribly sorry, your majesty, your highness,” he glanced at me, “but there has been an incident with a group calling themselves the Shark’s Teeth.”

My mother’s eyes went immediately to the high priestess. “Oh yes?”

I saw it then. I saw the crack. My mother’s lips were pursed. Her nose flared ever so slightly. She gripped her quill so tight it snapped. Embarrassed, she wiped the spilled ink with her flowing peplos. She took a deep breath then waved the little man away. “Thank you, Piebald. We will discuss it later.” She was impassive once again.

That was the last time my mother invited me to council.

In those days my father Jammeson hummed as he walked. His strides were long and optimistic; his face was tilted to catch the sun. He lived in a constant state of disarray. His rooms were a mess of scrolls and maps meaning he could never find anything. His was the joy of a devoted newlywed, a man who found meaning in family.

Born on Lizard Island, he was my mother’s neighbour, the son of a goat farmer and a man of lowly blood. His convictions were weak: he neither believed nor disbelieved in the Tempest and was indifferent to world affairs, his only true care being my mother. Still, beneath his apathy he hid a secret desire to return to Lizard Island and the old ways. Living in the palace was, and would always be, a sacrifice.

In the evenings he would find me climbing the apricot tree in the orchard and would whistle to me like I was a kylon. I would come loping obediently across the manicured lawn to rest at his heels. “There’s Daddy’s little girl,” he would say and embrace me, his waist-length hair cascading around his face. He would tell me a joke, take my hand and say, “Let’s go and find the most beautiful woman in the world.”

We would sit on a low stone wall by the bonsai garden listening to the sound of running water, waiting for my mother outside the Chamber of Petitions at the top of the limestone pyramidal Throne Room in a marble courtyard. At the centre of the garden was a startling purple bougainvillea. I stared into a pool of water alive with the colour of koi—yellow, orange and white—swimming beneath the surface. While we waited Jammeson taught me to ignore the chatter of workmen in the distance, the shuffling of the war-wits’ feet—they stood in a line outside the Chamber of Petitions—and focus my attention on my Gods’ Eye, the spot at the centre of my forehead where, with my eyes shut, I could, in theory, make a connection with the gods. It was he who taught me to slow my breathing and find rayta, an inner calm so profound one could exist in two places at once. It was rayta, he said, that gave someone true freedom.