by Susie Mander
“Verne.”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“I was competing in the tournament and I was disqualified. Then…then I…I don’t remember.” Panic scratched at the edge of my consciousness.
“What day is it?”
I thought about it for a long time but I could not answer.
Epoul blew out the candle. A tiny cloud of smoke hung in the air for a moment then disappeared. Like many doctors, she addressed the only able-bodied person in the room rather than her patient. “She has a head injury. She’s not to eat anything. Keep an eye on her. If she gets worse or if she starts vomiting or feeling dizzy fetch me immediately. She ought to get some rest. And give her this,” she said, rummaging in her case. She produced a phial of white willow bark. “It’s fresh but if you need more I will have to order it from one of the other islands, so use it sparingly. It should help with the headaches.” With that she got to her feet.
“Is it serious? Can I take her home?”
Epoul’s face was impassive. “I wouldn’t move her unless I had to. Wait until tonight at least. Once things have settled down,” she said, glancing up. A piece of the ceiling crumbled to the floor.
“Thank you,” Drayk said, ushering her out. He shut the iron grate behind her. In the relative quiet that ensued—there was still the pounding and yelling from above—I found myself close to tears. Drayk pulled up a chair and rubbed his face. He looked tired, drawn out. “Do you feel all right? Are you going to be sick?”
“I’m fine,” I said, not comfortable so close to him. Then, my voice catching, “I wanted to fight the rest of the tourney.” I had so desperately wanted to prove myself.
“You were going to win, too.” Drayk rested his hand on mine.
My skin prickled.
I grinned through my tears. “I know. Are they really rioting because of my disqualification?”
“That and years of oppression.”
Silence engulfed us, pulling us further and further into the eye of the storm. Eventually he cleared his throat. “I was really”—he hesitated—“I was really proud watching you fight today. You have become a gifted warrior and a…a fearless young woman. I…I wanted you to know that.”
Heat rose in my cheeks. “Thanks.”
“Verne, I…I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up and…You see, I was surprised to discover I was so worried, but in the end I knew whatever happened, I—” He stopped short. “I’m rambling.”
“You are.”
“What I’m trying to say is, I guess I always assumed I would be the first to go. Because of the stone. I don’t want you to die. And…” He shook his head dismissively. “Anyway it doesn’t matter because you woke up and everything is fine.”
“I did,” I said, smiling self-consciously. “And it is.”
“Yes, you did. And what a relief it was to see those beautiful tiger eyes.”
Heat flushed my cheeks and I turned my head away to hide it.
Chapter seven
I know stories from the mainland. I know the way they are supposed to progress, the way a wounded damsel in distress is supposed to be swept off her feet by a charming prince. I wanted the next few hours to play out like a Caspian fairy-tale. I wanted the cell to get so cold Drayk would lie down beside me to keep me warm. I wanted him to sweep me off my feet and carry me gallantly to my litter. Instead, I fell into a heavy sleep until he woke me long after dark and the stadium had been cleared. Surrounded by soldiers, he led me to my litter, pulling his cloak around me but otherwise leaving me alone. He let me walk on my own two feet and when we reached my apartments he gave me over to Harryet’s care and returned to the Barracks where he belonged. In the morning he checked on me briefly but otherwise I did not see him.
Hero, on the other hand, was beside himself. He came to see me every day until eventually his mother demanded he return home. He apologised again and again for his brother’s unscrupulous behaviour.
My mother increased security in the palace. Once I was up and about I noticed that wherever I went I came face to face with a Queen’s Guard. They were usually in pairs and though they rarely spoke to me, they didn’t need to. Their presence was enough. It was suffocating. Like dark shadows haunting the palace.
She never said it in so many words but I knew I wasn’t allowed to leave. She said the extra garrison was because of the riots but I knew it was because of my disqualification from the tournament. She feared I would discover the truth: while she was away from the stadium my gift had momentarily returned, just enough for Eloyse to sense it.
I had to speak to the high priestess.
Getting out was not easy. On my first attempt I enlisted the help of one of the few female prostitutes in the palace and paid her handsomely to distract Piebald. I bribed the guard at the rarely used Queen’s Gate. Harryet provided a diversion—she screamed that she’d seen a Shark’s Tooth climbing the Wall—to keep the soldiers away from the eastern side of the palace. I hid myself beneath a roughspun cloak and walked out. I got just beyond the Wall’s shadow and…Piebald was waiting for me. He was very pleased with himself indeed. He put me straight into a litter and carried me off to the Seawall.
The cold set in. The trees were bare and ice made the marble paths precarious. Callirhoe departed for a brief spell. My Name Day passed without incident—Harryet, Hero, Cook and Drayk were the only ones to remember—and cheimon came and went. Eiar was in swift pursuit and it too passed without an attempted escape. I could think of no way to leave, not over the Wall with a ladder, not under it through the sewers. I was at a loss, and spent most of my time either in my room or training in the arena with Drayk.
My opportunity finally came on the first day of theros. The protest started at the top of Justice Way, where the road paused on its journey west to east connecting Elea Bay with the palace. It was dusk and the bloody summer sun reflected off the marble and ran through the gutters. I heard later that the first sign of trouble was the gathering of three inconspicuous young men beneath the Justice Tree. They were joined by their friends to form a group of five. These five were joined by another and another until a mob was milling about in the dying light. On the count of three they donned their hoods in a ripple: and at that the whole street was awash with faceless rebels. The chanting began. The mob set out for the palace picking up supporters as it went, expanding and swelling like an infection. They carried chairs over their heads and as they went they tore down awnings from the stalls and ripped pieces of wood from the door frames.
Those who did not support the Shark’s Teeth scuttled away through the back streets to cower in their homes, to watch like spectators at a dog fight or to rush to the bell tower to sound the tocsin.
The infection flowed through the streets, destroying everything in its wake until it reached the palace gates.
I ran to my window. Taking my twin blades Eunike and Paideuo from the chest in my room and securing them to my back, I disguised myself in an old, tattered tunic, smeared my face with kohl and tussled my hair. Harryet tried to stop me but I pushed her off. “I’ll be fine,” I said and told her to stay inside. To say nothing.
I called to Bolt and together we snuck down to the stable and took an argutan each. The palace grounds were in disarray. No one even noticed us. Queen’s Gate was abandoned. Every soldier in the palace had flocked to the West Gate to meet the advancing mob. Attendants were too busy fetching water to douse the flames thrown by our enemy. Piebald had been sent to Bidwell Heights with a message for Thera to send military support. My mother was in counsel with Petra, strategos of the army, and my father was hiding in his study.
We led the beasts beneath the rusting latticed grill into a maze of alleyways. My war-wit glowed in the last light of the day. He was armed with throwing knives, which were strapped to his legs, as well as the standard xiphos hung from a baldric under the left arm. He smelled of a sweet dessert, of cinnamon and juniper. Not for the first time I found myself trying to imagine what he was thinking. Did
he find me cowardly? Was he bitter that my mother had removed his tongue and why, after such horrible treatment, was he so loyal? I concluded that it must be in the war-wit’s nature to follow orders. Like the slaves in the mines, the war-wit lacked that part of a man that meant he could turn on his mistress.
With bedlam at our backs Bolt and I rode along Canal Street where shadows ran along the walls. We avoided the streets that echoed with battle cries, pulled our argutan out of the way when a band of Shark’s Teeth ran past with torches and eventually reached the Holy Way. The water in the canal was still. Beyond the path the trees drooped. The bare earth opened its mouth to the heavens like eaglets demanding to be fed.
I looked around, anticipating an unseen foe. I was not alone in my discomfort; Bolt looked uneasy too. I argued with the voice inside me: You will regret this. She will find out and she will punish you.
Silence! I bellowed and to my utter surprise the source of the voice, that tiny version of myself, that puny bully, scuttled away and hid in the furthest reaches of my mind.
Halfway along the Holy Way we were joined by Callirhoe, a black exclamation mark in the blue sky calling to me: Ca-ca-caw! Ca-ca-caw!
The sky turned a dark greyish purple. The air was heavy. Everything—the palms, the wild grass, the statues that had been baking in the sun—was waiting for rain. I looked at Bolt’s black woolly argutan and felt terrible about what I was about to do. It was an obedient beast and battle-trained. It did not deserve to die.
The gate to the holy precinct was shut. Offerings were scattered beneath it. Four war-wits looked out towards the bridge, a spear in one hand and a xiphos in the other. Each had the trefoil knot over his heart. Their captain had a bull-ring in his nose and I longed to give it a tug. It was he who I addressed. “’Scuse me, sirs,” I said, my voice trembling. I was thankful for the cover of darkness that hid my burning cheeks. “This ’ere is Princess Verne’s war-wit. I am Bigbee, ’er errand boy and was ordered to deliver the beast to the stable for the high priestess, who ’as no food.” I pointed at Bolt’s black woolly argutan. “The war-wit is ’ere to make sure it don’t get stolen.” I eyed each of them as if they might have been thieves.
Bolt sat proud and erect, feigning disinterest in this exchange by keeping his eyes pointed directly ahead.
“I imagine you is all hungry so you would do well to let us through. We will take the argutan to the stable and be on our way. Unless, of course, you want to do it for us?”
The captain looked at me long and hard. I felt naked in front of him. The reins were slippery in my sweaty hands. Finally the man nodded. He unchained the gate and we passed into the Holy Precinct where the ground had gone to waste: the earth was fractured and bare; no leaves grew on the trees and the ponds had dried up. A noxious wind—an omen—rustled across the ground whispering to us, Take cover, the storm is coming.
I almost expected to feel a spear penetrate my spine but we passed behind the temple undisturbed. The silence was beyond unnerving. I could only imagine that everyone was indoors, preparing for an onslaught from the heavens, or rioting. We dismounted. “Take him to the stable. I will meet you back here,” I said and turned, ducking as I ran to the edge of the pyramid. I imagined the poor argutan bellowing as its throat was cut. I pushed the image from my mind, bent low and climbed the waist-high steps at the back of the temple. I circled round the top with the wind howling around my ears.
At the top of the pyramid I called, “Hello?” There was no answer so I called again. Cool air emanated from between the columns and I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, like a beast preparing for flight. I snuck into the sanctuary.
A group of priestesses and consorts—a sea of red dresses and bare skin—sat in the pit around Shea’s Fire, which flickered reassuringly in the chalice at the heart of the pool, making ghostly figures dance across the walls. They reminded me of geese, their conversation a loud gobbling and hissing.
“Can I help you?” said a woman who looked like a dancer. She had her arms around two consorts that giggled and fawned. Her face was severe, her brows dark and arched.
“I must speak to Maud. It is a matter of some urgency.”
“She is not to be disturbed. She is unwell. Anyway, how did you get in here?”
I ignored her and walked towards the gold statue at the far end of the room.
“Stop, boy!” the red priestess said. She disentangled herself from the consorts, lifted herself out of the pit and ran after me, seizing me by the arm.
“Do not touch me,” I said, turning the full force of my anger on her. “I have been sent by Princess Verne. Would the war-wits have let me in if it was not the case?” I locked eyes with her, daring her to make a scene. She processed a thousand different variables and decided to avoid the palace’s wrath.
“Let me accompany you,” she said, walking with her feet pointed outwards and her hips thrust forward like the ground was made of glass. I was an oaf in comparison.
Deep in the bowls of the temple the wind was a distant moan. We reached a wooden door. “Wait here,” she said, and entered, leaving me outside in the dark. The red priestess returned a moment later, opening the door a fraction. “The high priestess is with her attendants. She will see you, if you don’t mind a bit of blood.” She opened the door wide and I had no choice but to enter.
The high priestess was reclined on a low burgundy velvet kline with both arms outstretched. On her left was an elderly woman wearing an apron smeared in red and brown. She held a copper basin that caught Maud’s blood. Beside her on a nightstand were her tools: the fish tooth she used to penetrate Maud’s arm, needles and other bronze bits.
On Maud’s other side was a red priestess who also wore a bloodied apron. She steadied a sheep’s carcass strung up from the ceiling on a butcher’s hook. The sheep’s legs were bound and it strained, showing the whites of its eyes.
There was a hollow lead pipe sticking out of a wound in the sheep’s neck. The other end of the pipe was buried deep in the inside of Maud’s elbow in her right arm. Pools of crimson had formed on the slate floor around Maud’s kline.
“What a pleasant surprise. Come in and shut the door,” Maud said, then to the red priestess, “Ried, you may return to your follies.”
The dancer bowed and backed out of the room.
Maud had been old when I last saw her; now she was a corpse, her skin like shrivelled prunes and her mouth puckered. I had to bend down to kiss her ring. She smelt of rancid meat. “And I see the bird has arrived,” Maud said, nodding at the shut door.
“Callirhoe?” I said turning. I laughed. Unbeknown to me, the shearwater had followed me into the temple and was now pecking along the room’s perimeter. “Yes, she came to me when I was twelve.”
“And does she speak to you, child?”
“Speak to me? No.”
Maud smiled, making her eyes disappear in folds of skin. “One day she will, so you must listen. Does your mother know?”
“No.”
“And does she know you are here?”
I shook my head.
“Good.”
I frowned, puzzled.
“Will you bring me a blanket?” Maud croaked. Her eyes were closed. She breathed purposefully, trying to take her mind off the pain that must have bitten into the flesh of her arm and made its way up to her shoulders and into her spine.
In the sparse bedroom there was a timber cot pushed against the far wall with a sagging straw mattress. I took a moth-eaten argutan-hair blanket, stepped around the healers’ equipment and, careful not to bump the needle in Maud’s arm or step in the pools of blood, placed the blanket over the high priestess’s legs. I stood at the foot of the kline. I was upset by what I saw. I was certain the high priestess was on the brink of death. And yet no words came to me.
“Won’t you sit, child?”
I navigated the bloody mess and slouched on the edge of her bed.
Maud used much of her energy to lift her head to look at me.
“Now, what can I do for you, dear? Why did you not come sooner? It has been too long.”
“My mother forbade it,” I said.
“And yet here you are.”
I glanced behind her. The bird was making a nest in a discarded robe in the corner of the room. “I thought…I wanted to…You see,” I paused to focus my attention on the high priestess, “I have come because I do not have my gift and I want…I remember something you once told my mother about a…a prophecy and I was wondering…I really would like to be a Talent…and…When I was competing in the tournament I—Oh look, will you just please help me?”
“Sssp—” she sucked on her teeth “—how old are you?”
“Seventeen, by my father’s reckoning.”
“Not to worry, there must be a simple explanation.”
There was warmth there that I had not expected and a familiarity I could not account for. Later, I realised the familiarity was a figment of my imagination, something I concocted because I desired…what? A grandmotherly figure? A family member I could trust? At the time it was a joyous occasion to find a woman who wanted to speak to me, someone who could save me from damnation. I felt a great weight lifting from my shoulders. I clasped my hands. Thinking this might look like I was praying, I unclasped them.
“Have you discussed your gift with your mother?” Maud said.
I shook my head. “We don’t really…She is very busy.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “This is probably a good thing.” Then smiling as if there wasn’t a worry in the world, said, “A gift is a complicated thing. To understand it you must know the teachings of the holy books. You must realise the intricacies of the Golding line and your ties to the First Mother. Has the queen told you the story of Ayfra’s birth?”
“My father has.”
“It is my favourite.” She interlaced her swollen knuckles. “It was from this story that all others were born. It was the first, the most important. Without it you cannot understand the gift or appreciate its significance. Would you like to hear it? I doubt your father did it justice.”
