Dragonfly Song (25 page)
Authors: Wendy Orr
âSo 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 â maybe she had. Mia had seemed so sad to see her leave.
âYou've got a lot of training to catch up on,' says Niko. âLook how soft you are!'
âBut your hair's nice,' says pretty Sunya. âCan you show us how you did it?'
âAissa'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.
âDoesn't matter how beautiful your handstand is, if you can't hold it on a bull's horns,' says Niko â it's his favourite saying, Aissa thinks; he seems to say it every time she does something well. âAnd 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 â 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.
âYou sang the bull!' Luki exclaims. âThat'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 â but they'd all seen the bull turn away from killing her.
Their faces glow with sudden hope. âYou can do that! You can save us when we're in the ring!'
Aissa's never felt so cruel. She slowly shakes her head.
âDo you really think the gods would allow that?' Mia demands.
âDon't see why not,' someone mutters.
The mood's turning against Aissa â 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.
âFair enough.'
No, it's not!
Aissa thinks.
Not the whole thing
. She trills her fingers out from her mouth.
âIf you sing,' says Luki.
Aissa draws a circle encompassing all of them, and repeats the throat-cutting sign.
âWe'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.
âDon't be ridiculous,' says Mia.
âJust don't sing,' says Niko. âYou don't talk â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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. âBetter 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 â 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, âSo there won't be quite so many idiocies next time,' says Niko. Then a rest day, then the bulls again â Brownie this time. That's the pattern, but it still rains often, and they don't work with the bulls when it's raining.
âYou 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.
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.
âThe first game,' says Mia, âis with the herd bulls.'
âWhich one?' asks Luki.
âCan't you hear?' Niko snaps. âShe said bulls â the five you've trained with.'
âYou'll all go in together,' says Mia, âand so will the bulls.'
âWho will run them in?'
âAnyone 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.
âYou know these bulls; you know their habits,' says Niko. âDapple gores to the left. Brownie shakes his head before he tosses â hold tight or you'll be gone. Moonsnip's plain crazy. Mudface and Bigfoot are pretty straightforward.'
âWill they fight each other?'
âNot likely. They've run together since they were calves. But they're bulls and it's a crowded space â nothing's guaranteed.'
âExcept 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.
âThree survived last year,' Niko says. âIt can be done!'
Three is the best we can hope for?
Niko looks at their faces and gives up on his pep talk.
âThe first dance is about survival,' he says more grimly. âRemember that the dead can wait.'
âLook 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 left to wait?
âThe 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.'
âAnd that of our homes,' Luki mutters.
âPray to Earthshaker, god of the bulls,' says Mia. âPray 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 â
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.
âJust a bite,' they say,
âand 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 â
or so say the Mother
and the king â
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 â
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 â
a cheer for the skill
of a perfect catch,
a hiss for a drop â
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 â
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 â
âIt's time,' says Niko.
Running into the ring
standing together
to salute the balcony,
the rows of young priestesses â
who wave at Aissa â
then the crowd on every side,
and say the words
Aissa understands now
though she can't speak them.
âWe 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.
âPraise for Earthshaker,' says the king.
âLet 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 â
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 â
but from the corner of her eye
she sees Sunya
flying off Dapple,
as if she hasn't remembered
what Niko promised â
that Dapple always
gores to the left â
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 â
a second libation
of blood for the gods â
Aissa doesn't see who
and can't let herself wonder.
She never sees the crowd,
never hears its roar â
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.
âLook after the living,'
Mia said,
and now Aissa understands â
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 â
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 â
and she leaps aside
instead of over.
Brownie finishes goring
and stands over his victim
as if he can't see
the living dancers â
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 â
not so wild as they ran in â
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 â
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.
âI'll go first,' says Luki,
and draws the bull to charge him,
with Kenzo standing back
and a girl to each side.
Luki grabs the horns,
but the bull tosses left like Brownie,
and instead of a flip
Luki one-hand cartwheels
down the bull's neck to his tail.
This time Aissa hears the crowd
loving Luki
and his skill.
The bull charges Kenzo
and the dance rushes on;
they leap
one by one â
and though the bull is still fresh
the dancers aren't;
when he charges Sunya,
her flip is neat
but she lands
flat on her back.
As if he knows
his end is near,
the bull wants more,
charging Kenzo again,
who cartwheels along his back
as Luki did at the start.
Now Aissa is in front â
but just as she's ready
to reach for the horns,
the bull sees
Sunya lying still
and veers towards her.
âSunya!' Aissa screams with her mind,
and Sunya jumps up
so fast that she startles the bull
and he turns back to Aissa â
who's not ready,
not balanced
as she grabs his horns;
she sees Luki and Kenzo
and Sunya, more slowly,
run ready to catch her â
knowing the bull
will throw to the left.
But as Aissa braces
to spring with the toss
the bull shakes his head
and Aissa feels
what her friends can't see â
that this time the bull
is throwing right.
Her body's still poised
to be thrown to the left
as her hands
slip from the horns;
if she could shout
her friends could run
in time to catch
but Aissa's voice
is not ready to save her.
Her heart sings goodbye
to Luki and
her brother and sister of the dance
and she catapults
like the rock from her sling
that killed the wolf;
she tries to tuck
into a roll
but her arms and legs
are wrong,
the ground is nearing,
and the layer of sand
will be nothing on stone.
Aissa closes her eyes
against coming pain
and lands
safe in the arms
of Kenzo and Sunya
and Luki
â
while the bull,
chest heaving, mouth frothing,
stops and stares.
âWe heard you,' says Sunya,
âlike a voice in our hearts.'
âNow leap!' says Luki,
and as if they've planned it,
he lifts Aissa to his shoulders,
gripping her ankles
so she stands as she did
in the acrobat dance
three seasons ago.
Luki tosses her up â
Aissa flies free,
somersaults in the air â
and lands on the bull,
hands high.
And as she leaps off
the sweat-soaked
quivering bull
folds his knees
and sinks to the ground.
The screaming crowd,
standing, cheering,
throwing gold and flowers
just as they did
for the real bull dancers â
but Aissa and her friends
are too tired to care
too tired to know
that they
are the real dancers now.
They want nothing more
than to hide and rest.
âStay!' orders the Mother,
as she crosses the courtyard
behind the bull-headed king with his axe
carrying her sharp bronze knife
and golden bowl
to fill with blood.
