Starflower

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  But now I stood near enough to hear his deep-throated breathing, to smell the mustiness of his wolfskin robes. This nightmare was real. I felt his eyes upon me, though I ducked my head and hunched over, trying to hide the wailing baby.

  “Have you an heir?” Wolf Tongue asked.

  My father stood for a silent heartbeat. Then he shook his head. “I have a second daughter.”

  Just as Mother said. The Beast had not heard the Panther Master’s prayers.

  One of Wolf Tongue’s hands let go of my shoulder. I heard the scrape of a knife being drawn.

  My body reacted without thought. I brought my heel down sharply on the priest’s bare foot, then drove an elbow into his stomach. He grunted, astonished if not hurt, and I took that moment to wrench myself free. I stood then in the empty place between my father and Wolf Tongue, a cornered deer with hounds and hunters all around. My senses whirled with the need to flee, and the baby screamed. But my limbs were frozen.

  Wolf Tongue clutched a flint knife in his hand. He did not look at me. His eyes bore into my father instead.

  “You know the law, Panther Master.”

  The Eldest opened his mouth, then closed it.

  “Two daughters are a disgrace,” said the priest. “You, the Eldest of the Land, are shamed this night. Your shame can only be cleansed with blood.”

  A shudder ran through my father’s body and escaped in a long sigh. “The babe’s mother is dead,” he said. “Is that not blood enough?”

  The look on his face was unfathomable to me. The twisted pain and sorrow mirrored my own. Once again I wondered: Did the Panther Master love my mother?

  Did he love me?

  But there was death in the High Priest’s eyes. “You know the law,” he said. “If a man fathers two daughters and no sons, one daughter must be given to the Beast. You are Eldest of your people. You must set the example for all. You must choose, Panther Master, and choose quickly.”

  I was caught in a snare. When I moved to run, Wolf Tongue stepped in my way. His movements were like those of a wild animal, too fast and too fluid to be followed. I saw how his muscles tensed like those of a panther prepared to leap, and he raised his knife. There would be no escaping this man.

  The baby’s cries were becoming more desperate. My head spun with the sound, and all my instincts cried out to protect. There, before the Eldest and the priest, trapped in that small slice of eternity where only death waited, I looked down into my sister’s face.

  She was so tiny, and by no means beautiful. She was red, dirty from birth. But she was alive. Her feet were small and perfect, her hands more perfect still. For a split second, black eyes, bright and hungry, gazed up at me. In their blackness shone a light like the stars, like the moon, like the silver song I had heard such a short time ago on this same hillside.

  “The time is now,” Wolf Tongue snarled, and he crouched before me, his hands reaching for my sister.

  I spat in his eye.

  For a moment he did not move. He crouched, spit on his cheek, one eye closed. The other focused on me with such intensity I did not think I had more than a few breaths left to live.

  It did not matter. I turned to my father and gave him the baby. I did not look at his face, nor did I wait to hear anything he might say. He could not have stopped me one way or the other. He was broken. Everything about this man, this strong Eldest of elders, bespoke his defeat. No, he could not help either my sister or me. So I did not wait for him.

  I turned back to Wolf Tongue, who still crouched in place. His knife hand hung limply between his knees. The other slowly wiped spit from his face.

  I knelt before him, my hands folded over my heart, and bowed my head.

  “No!” My father’s voice was sharp behind me. “No, this is not my choice, Wolf Tongue! You . . . you must give me time!”

  But there was no time. Wolf Tongue must have my blood. I had insulted him. I belonged to the Beast now.

  Wolf Tongue gave no sign that he heard the Eldest speak. I felt him staring at me, felt the heat of his yellow eyes. He must have seen how my body quivered with terror as I knelt in his shadow. But I would not back down.

  His knife hand never moved. The other, however, reached out and touched my cheek. In a low voice, he whispered to me:

  “No one dares stand up to me. No one, little beauty.”

  His touch was loathsome. I struggled to breathe, to make my lungs expand. But I met his gaze eye for eye.

  Wolf Tongue ran his tongue over his teeth, which gleamed white even on that clouded night. Then he stood, towering over me.

  “Hear my words, Eldest,” he said, without breaking my gaze. “For a time, you will keep both daughters, and no shame will rest upon your head. But when the Beast requires blood, then you will give him his due.”

  The next instant, he was gone, vanishing silently as a dream. I, my mind so full of fear that I could make no sense of what had just happened, remained where I knelt. I felt the Eldest’s arm around my shoulders, lifting me to my feet. I heard my sister’s whimpers.

  “Come inside,” the Panther Master said, “my brave Starflower.”

  The midwife waited for us, sitting beside the still body of my mother. She held in her pudgy hands a stone cup of the foul brew. Her gap-toothed grin made me sick as I entered our house, propelled from behind by my father. I held my sister tight.

  The midwife’s hands moved quickly. “Come here, child,” she signed. “Bring the babe to me. I will feed her this; then you must go to the village and find her a wet nurse since the mother is dead.”

  I was numb. I considered running. But I knew without even a glance at the Eldest that this would be useless. Heart heavy, I knelt before the midwife and watched the woman dip a finger into the cup, then lift the brown liquid to the baby’s desperate, sucking mouth.

  My sister gave a cry at the bitter taste. Then the cry shriveled away and vanished as the cursed medicine took effect.

  It is the will of the Beast that lowly women should not voice the wicked thoughts of their hearts. They must go forever silent in the world of men, speaking only the language of their hands and faces. Now nothing but the greatest pain would give my sister a voice. Otherwise, she would remain as mute as I am.

  2

  I BECAME A WALKING CURSE.

  Everywhere I went, little Fairbird strapped to my back, people turned their faces from me. Women were cursed from birth as it is, but a woman-child who was supposed to be dead was that much more unlucky. Mothers kept their children from me and made certain that my shadow never crossed theirs. Girls with whom I had played silent games now ran at the sight of me.

  I did not care. They were cruel old cats, every one of them! Yet even as I scorned them and their scorn of me, I understood. We are each of us allotted so much time for our lives. Whether the Beast commands this time or not, I cannot say; such things are beyond my knowledge. I do know what the priests taught: When a life is demanded, a life must be given. That is why they sacrifice before the wars, so that the sacrificed lives might substitute for those warriors who otherwise owed their blood in battle.

  Fairbird had not died at her time. And no one had paid her blood price.

  While the contempt of the women and the rejection of my playmates were painful, the fury of the menfolk aimed at my father was worse. As though it were somehow the Panther Master’s fault that a daughter was born and not a son. Had my mother lived, I know the blame would have fallen upon her head, and the Panther Master would have needed all his cunning to save her from the elders’ bloodthirsty hands. As it was, they focused their anger on him.

  The Crescent People withdrew their sworn allegiance. The North Walkers retreated to their territories and made war against any tribe that dared approach them. Many others rejected the Eldest’s leadership. The peace that had maintained a tentative hold on the Land since the early years of my father’s rule were replaced with bloodshed. And it was my fault.

  But the High Priest had spoken. Fairbird w
as safe from the Beast. At least until he saw fit to claim his due.

  My life remained separate from the wars. When the campaign seasons came, my father went to battle with his loyal men, and I did not see him for months at a time. I kept to myself, walking in my mother’s footsteps. I cooked. I planted. I weeded and harvested. I repaired the house when the summer storms tore bits off the roof and knocked in one wall. And I cared for Fairbird. I became a woman well before my time.

  So the years passed.

  Fairbird grew from babe to lovely child. I don’t know if others would think her as beautiful as I did. In my eyes, she was perfection. I could see so much of my mother in her, especially when her tiny hands formed the words I taught her. I brought Fairbird up in the way I believed my mother would have raised her.

  And always, I searched for her true name. Mother was not alive to know it as she had known mine. I must discover it for myself. No child should live a life unnamed. Though my father called her Fairbird, I knew there must be something deeper still. A name he had not given but that was as much a part of her being as her own black eyes.

  Let me speak now of spring, one year gone. The gnarled fig trees disguised their disfigured limbs in clouds of pink, and ancient mangoes put forth clusters of delicate flowers that filled the air with a mild, sweet scent. Starflower vines, thick and lustrous, encroached upon the orchards and were pruned back, their severed branches used to adorn our doorways and rooftops for good luck. And my father set out with his men to war upon the Crescent People.

  My life would always be one of solitude, I knew, save for Fairbird. And in solitude there was shame. It was best, of course, for a girl to be given to a man. Unwed women were often cast out of the village, for women are unlucky at best, and if they do not have a man to serve, they are useless. Not that the wives enjoyed a happy lot. It was rare for a wife to love her man as my mother had loved the Panther Master. Still, at least they had a place in the village.

  Since the night my sister was born and I took upon myself the curse of unshed blood, I knew I would never wed. I was the Eldest’s daughter, and I would keep his house and tend his crops until such a time as he might choose a new bride. Then he might cast me out, me and Fairbird too.

  So far I had been fortunate. Though victorious in his campaigns, the Panther Master never brought home a new bride. I had long since ceased fearing my replacement. I had a place in the community, unwanted though I might be. I did not need a man. Isolated as I was up the hill from the village, I rarely came in contact with the village lads my age. I knew they hated me, as did all of Redclay Village, but their hatred manifested itself in treating me as though I did not exist.

  One day, all of that changed.

  I always took Fairbird with me when I fetched water. When she was little, I could strap her to my back and carry her as well as the heavy skins. At four years old, she was too big for me. Curious as a pouncing puppy, she would scamper off after the smallest butterfly—impossible to keep a hold on! So I would tie a string to my waist and another to hers, and lead her thus down the hill to the stream.

  The stream flowed just past the outskirts of the village to the gorge, where it dropped into the river far below. I dared not take my water from any streambed near Redclay, however. I did not wish Fairbird to see how the other women feared her. Therefore, twice a day we would make the long walk down to where the stream ran to the gorge. There was a bank where I could fill the skins and also look down to the rushing water below us.

  It was a grand sight, that river running beneath our feet, cutting the ground so deeply. It must have been about its task of carving the land for hundreds and hundreds of years, since before the Beast became our god. I loved to watch that white water, charging and roaring and powerful. I would hold Fairbird and stand on the edge of the gorge, looking down that long way. The river wound through the rock, then vanished into the wild forest that grew below.

  One midsummer evening, when the sky was beginning to cool from the harsh heat, I took Fairbird to our customary watering place. She was tired and petulant that day, flinging herself to the ground and signing “No!” more often than I liked. I often wondered if I had given our mother nearly as much trouble! I was tired and harried by the time we reached the stream at the gorge edge . . . which is why, I believe, I did not see the boys.

  They must have known I came this way. I had never thought to vary my route or habits, never felt the need for secrecy. I was the Eldest’s daughter. I was ignored and shunned, but I never feared for my safety.

  The moment I saw them, five great lads—only just too young to make the rites of passage into manhood and join the warriors—my stomach sank with foreboding. They sprawled on the banks, hot and irritable, some of them dripping from a recent watery brawl. Their dogs lounged nearby, scuffed from fighting one another but docile for the moment. Their ears pricked when they saw me, and their barks alerted their masters.

  I drew up short at once, standing there as still as a hunted doe, my waterskins clutched under each arm, my sister tied to my waist.

  Five pairs of eyes turned to me.

  Just at that moment, Fairbird decided to make one of her dramatic falls, flinging herself to the ground. She tugged me off balance, and I nearly fell myself, dropping one of the skins.

  The biggest of the five boys laughed. “Look what we have here,” he said. “The blight!”

  “A pretty blight,” said another with a look that made me shudder. “Prettiest blight I’ve ever seen.”

  A third slapped this lad on the shoulder saying, “Don’t kiss her, Killdeer! You’ll break out in boils, so they say!”

  “And is that the little sacrifice?” a fourth boy asked, pointing to my sister. There was cruelty in his face.

  I dropped the other waterskin and hastened to pick up Fairbird. She was too far gone in her sulk to realize the danger before us. She wrapped her arms around my neck and wept silent tears into my shoulder for some grievance I still don’t know. My attention was fixed on the second boy, who had gotten to his feet. He wasn’t the biggest of the bunch, but I knew him by reputation: Killdeer, the son of one of my father’s warriors. He was a sullen-faced youth who hated his father with such a grim passion that many wondered how long it would be until one of them killed the other. But I scarcely cared about that. What mattered to me was what he had done to his dog.

  All the village boys are given dogs the year before their manhood rites. These dogs will later follow them into battle and are as much a part of a warrior as his right arm. My father, as Eldest, had several great lurchers that accompanied him everywhere. I loved these dogs. In the winter months, it was my duty to care for them. They were such powerful animals, with fiercely loyal hearts. And they loved me. I was, in their eyes, as much their better as the Eldest himself, and they obeyed me, and I learned their ways and handling.

  I would have loved to have my own dog. A wild fancy for a woman.

  Yet Killdeer, by virtue of his sex, was given a bright and bouncing young pup. I remember watching it from a distance, thinking how smart and lively it was, so eager to please. Within a month, it was not the same animal. In so little time, Killdeer turned that eager pup into a snarling, wolfish, hateful creature, cringing from its own master, ready to tear out the world’s throat. It would be a terror in battle, Killdeer boasted. But it would never serve him as it might have. He had beaten the love out of it.

  So it was with anger rather than fear that I watched Killdeer approach me. “What do you say, pretty blight?” he said to me, a wicked smile on his mouth. “Want to kiss me and give me boils?”

  I bared my teeth at him. He drew back a moment. It must be unsettling, I thought, to have a curse threaten to bite. Then his smile grew. “Or maybe I’ll take the little blood sacrifice. You’ll give a kiss to get her back, won’t you?”

  He lunged for me, taking hold of my sister. I turned away and drove an elbow into his side. He grunted, then by sheer force of size, wrenched Fairbird from my arms. Still attac
hed to her by the cord, I staggered and fell. Fairbird’s face twisted in a silent scream at the pain of the cord digging into her skin.

  The sight filled me with such rage, I hardly knew myself. I was on my feet in an instant, flying at Killdeer. I had not the strength to punch that sullen face of his as it deserved, so I grabbed his hair instead, giving it such a vicious tug that he howled and dropped Fairbird. My sister, panicked, flung her arms around my knees, her body shaking. Overbalanced, I let go of Killdeer’s hair and landed in the dirt, still tangled up in Fairbird and that fool cord.

  A growl filled my ears.

  I turned and found myself facing Killdeer’s lurcher. The young dog’s lips were drawn back, revealing its teeth. Saliva dripped from the end of its muzzle, and its eyes spoke its longing for blood.

  I did not move. I knew from experience with my father’s dogs that the only way to take mastery is to show no fear. Before this creature, ready at a moment’s notice to tear off my face, it was nearly impossible not to cower. I know that is what Killdeer and his cohorts expected, and I heard them laughing in anticipation.

  But I was not afraid, not after that first split instant of surprise. Instead, I was filled with a deep, heartrending pity.

  This loveless creature had no true name. Unloved, it stood before me, broken even in its strength. Nameless, it would be no more than a brute all its days.

  I did not fear that dog. Rather, I searched, gazing into its eyes to plumb the depths beneath.

  Then I saw. I knew. A name that I could never speak. But I knew it now, and knew what this dog was meant to be had it known a tender master. And so I looked upon its snarling, frothing face and I loved it.

  I do not know how long we were like stone in place. I remained crouched, one hand on the ground to support me, the other clutching Fairbird. The dog stood frozen in that snarl. Then suddenly the lurcher’s ears went back and the teeth vanished. It lowered its muzzle and whined gently. Placing its forepaws out before it, it lowered its body to the ground, the picture of submission.