by Yaba Badoe
The kindly woman kissed the Queen’s cheek, smoothing her brow. The face, which till recently had been bright with memories, was now cold as marble. It was as if Romilly was dead to the world.
A moment later, when Betsy slipped out to attend to the children, Romilly opened the window and stepped out on to the turret roof. She didn’t feel the wind and rain whipping against her, or the trail of tears flowing down her cheeks. All she knew was that the islanders of Orkney and her daughters were ill-used by her husband. And yet she could not live without his love. With her golden hair twisted around her neck, Romilly lent over the turret and flung herself down.
Just as she was about to hit the jagged rocks below, a feather still in her hair remembered it had once flown and twitched. Immediately the Queen was transformed into a bird, a huge golden eagle with strong wide wings. Beating them frantically, she flew upwards and circled Trumland Castle before flying away, far away towards the warmer climate of the south.
***
Romilly flew for miles over the stormy seas of Orkney. She flew at great speed, gliding with air currents over large expanses of land. She crossed mountains and hills, farmland marked with stone walls and countryside covered with hedgerows. She flew without stopping, relishing the new-found freedom that carried her far from Rousay with every beat of her wings.
As she swept over water, Romilly realised that her eagle eyes were able to penetrate the dark waves of the Atlantic. Deep down she saw lobsters and crabs scrabbling on the sea floor. Over land she caught the slightest flicker of movement from miles away.
‘I like being a bird,’ she decided, forging ahead beyond the land of the Gauls. ‘Flying within the clouds is like dancing on vapour and gliding above them feels like kissing the sun.’
Romilly flew on and on until she reached a land of mountains surrounded by fertile valleys that sheltered villages. She wafted over groves of peaches, figs, olives and apricots and reached a town full of orange blossom – the city of Seville in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula.
Curious to take a closer look, Romilly circled the old Moorish palace – the Alcázar. As she did so, she heard a piercing whistle and drifted down. The palace falconer, Prince Kasim, was trying to entice her down. Romilly scrutinised him with her new eagle eyes, then peered at him with the wary intuition of a forsaken woman. When she sensed that the kindness evident in the Prince’s eyes reflected the true nature of his heart, Romilly came down to him and settled on his outstreßtched arm.
The Prince took the golden eagle to an aviary, home of the royal hunting birds. In it were twelve falcons and ten kites. Kasim had always yearned to train an eagle, the most noble of birds, to hunt for him. He was amazed that the bird had come to him, for it was fully-grown and seemed wild.
He placed the eagle in the aviary, only to be met by screams of alarm as with outstretched wings the other birds scrambled into a corner, leaving the golden eagle by itself.
Very soon Kasim loved the eagle more than all the other birds in his care. He admired the regal way it held its head, the glorious colouring of its feathers. The bird’s eyes seemed to pierce into his soul and it was able to understand him better than even the falcons he had handled longest. All he had to do was whistle once, and Lilah – that was the name the Prince had given the newcomer – flew to him. Two whistles and the eagle soared upwards, in search of prey.
Within a week of Lilah’s arrival, Kasim discovered that, unlike the other birds, this one was able to play with him. He stuck a grape between his teeth. Lilah plucked adroitly and gobbled it down. The Prince offered her more grapes and then peaches and figs. And as the bird ate, it squawked happily, nibbling at the Princes’s ears and ruffling his hair while he stroked her feathers as tenderly as he would a woman’s hair.
One day the Prince’s grandmother Sara, a gypsy of African descent, saw Kasim caressing the golden bird. The two of them were playing in the garden and as usual the Prince was feeding Lilah figs and peaches. She refused to eat the mice the other birds ate. As she watched them, Sara’s nutmeg skin grew as pale as a peeled almond. Her body began quivering as she felt herself drawn into a world where the future is clear as daylight.
‘Kasim,’ said Sara, half in a daze. ‘That bird of yours has magical powers and will help you find a wife. Be careful of her. She is not what she seems.’
Much though he loved his grandmother, Kasim laughed: ‘Of course she’s special, Nana. Lilah’s a beauty. But, I’ve got a matchmaker already! I don’t need another one with you around.’
‘You think I’m an old fool, Kasim, don’t you? Mark my words,’ Sara insisted, ‘this bird is going to tear open your heart and make you anew.’
The next evening, as the Prince was taking a stroll through the palace grounds in the moonlight, he came across a woman embroidering a wedding shawl. The woman’s skin was pale, her eyes piercing but gentle, and her hair fell down her back with the abundance of the Al-Andalus sun in summer. Kasim loved her the moment he saw her.
‘Shouldn’t you be sewing inside?’ he asked, anxious in case the stranger strained her eyes, or any harm came to her while sitting alone in the gardens.
‘I’m happy where I am,’ the woman replied.
‘May I keep you company?’
The woman nodded and returned to her sewing.
‘Who are you? I haven’t seen you here before,’ said Kasim.
The woman looked up, put a finger on her lips and remained silent. The Prince, content to be quiet, stayed by the woman’s side until just before dawn, when she got up and disappeared into the palace gardens.
Every night after that Kasim went for a walk in the gardens of the Alcázar. And every night he sat beside the woman beneath a bower of trailing jasmine. He watched her silently, breathing in her beauty with the scent of flowers as she toiled on the wedding shawl. Night after night he observed the mysterious stranger and courted her with gifts of candied ginger, sugared almonds and the finest silk thread to use in embroidering the shawl.
At last, unable to contain his curiosity a moment longer, Kasim asked, ‘Is that wedding shawl that you’re making for you?’
The woman shook her head sadly. ‘I shall never marry again,’ she confessed. And then taking pity on him and the unasked questions she saw in the Prince’s eyes, she went on to explain herself.
‘My name is Romilly,’ she said. ‘I come from the Orkney Islands of the Norselands. I used to be married to Cullen the Carouser, King of Orkney, but when I couldn’t give him the son he wanted, I ran away because he no longer loved me.’
‘Where do you live in Seville?’ Kasim asked. ‘Tell me, so I can come and visit you tomorrow morning.’
The woman smiled, then changed the subject by saying: ‘I’m embroidering this wedding shawl for the four daughters I left behind.’ She lifted up the shawl and the Prince saw that it was covered with birds. ‘This dove is my last born, Jewel. I see with my woman’s eye that she has already chosen a man and wants to marry him. The peacock here, with its green and turquoise feathers, is my daughter Jezebel. She has crossed the sea with her Prince, while Delilah, my second child, is this kingfisher. I see her living in the Orient in a palace of marble and mother-of-pearl. It is my third child I worry about, Kasim. Her name is Jael. Her independent spirit prevents her choosing a husband.’ Romilly sighed, then clasped the Prince’s hands, a plea for sympathy in her eyes: ‘I’m here to fetch her heart’s desire: a man her equal who will love her well. For only when I’ve embroidered this last bird and my daughters are settled, will I be free of my past.’
The Prince noticed that the last bird on the shawl was a raven with one of its wings stitched in purple silk. The rest was unfinished.
Before dawn, at her usual hour, Romilly left the Prince. This time, however, instead of returning to his rooms in the Alcázar, he followed her.
He crept behind her as she slipped between tropical palms. Stepping over rambling roses, Romilly wove in and out of the yucca plants that grew in the palace garden
s. The Prince watched her hide the wedding shawl under a bush. Then just as dawn was about to break, she opened the aviary door and stepped inside. To Kasim’s amazement, the moment the first rays of sunlight touched Romilly’s pale skin, she became Lilah – the golden eagle.
For three days and three nights Kasim stayed in his rooms, too frightened to come out. How could he have been so unlucky? How could he have fallen in love with a creature who was a woman at night and a bird by day? Kasim walked up and down the marble floor of his chamber, cursing his misfortune at finding the eagle.
‘Sara was right,’ he said out loud. ‘That old witch, my grandmother, was right after all. That bird is more extraordinary than I could ever have imagined. Why, of all the women in the world, have I fallen in love with a bird-woman?’ Eventually the Prince sat down exhausted. There was only one thing to do: he would go and see his grandmother and ask her advice.
When Kasim found her, the old woman was on the patio, arranging carnations in a turquoise vase.
‘Aha,’ she smiled, seeing the Prince’s ashen face. ‘So you’ve finally discovered the eagle’s secret. Like I told you, she has magical powers. Doesn’t she?’
Kasim nodded, letting out a heartbroken sob.
‘Don’t be sad my dear boy,’ said Sara. ‘You should be pleased for yourself. That bird is going to find you an excellent wife, a woman without equal, Kasim.’
‘Don’t you understand? I don’t want anybody else, Nana. I love her! I want to marry Romilly.’
‘That’s what you think at the moment but the truth is that she doesn’t want to marry you. You’re going to have to learn patience, my boy. Just wait till you see the woman the bird is going to choose for you. When you see her, you’ll discover what true love really is.’
That night Prince Kasim left his rooms to walk in the palace gardens once again. He found Romilly sitting beneath an orange tree, the wedding shawl spread over her lap. When she heard the familiar sound of the Prince’s step she looked up, her face paler than a winter moon.
‘So you know what I am,’ she said, ‘and why I have come to you. Don’t be frightened Kasim. I will protect you and your children’s children. Together we will travel in search of your bride. By the time we find her, I’ll have finished this wedding shawl and you will set me free.’
***
At the end of the week, the falconer Prince set off on his journey to find a wife with the magic eagle perched on his wrist. They travelled through the land of the Gauls and over the mountains and valleys of the Norselands, testing hundreds of Princesses to see if one of them was suitable. But whenever Kasim asked Lilah to sit on a Princess’s arm, the poor woman either ran away screaming or the eagle’s talons dug so deep that she howled in pain.
At last the travellers arrived on the island of Rousay. Romilly, a woman by night in the Prince’s tent, was putting the finishing touches to the wedding shawl.
‘I can see with my woman’s eye,’ she told Kasim, ‘that my daughter’s heart has softened and she’s ready to marry now. All that remains is for the right man to appear. There, the final stitch is in place.’
Lifting up the shawl, Romilly spread it over the cushions in the tent. The raven was finally complete, its fierce eyes glittering as its feathers shone in purple and black silk.
‘Give this to my daughter if she agrees to marry you,’ she said, handing the shawl to the Prince. Then, sensing an air of dejection hovering over Kasim, she tried to ease the pain of their parting with a final gift – an amulet that contained three of her golden feathers.
‘Remember me with this,’ Romilly said. ‘Tell your youngest son to pass it down from one generation to the next, always leaving it in the care of his youngest child. If any of your descendants need my protection, all they have to do is break the amulet and call me.’
Kasim accepted the gift and thanked the bird-woman warmly.
The next day, after explaining the purpose of his visit to the King of Orkney, who was delighted by the opportunity to marry off his stubborn daughter, the Prince was formally introduced to Jael.
She looked the Prince up and down, found him pleasant and so agreed to submit herself to the test. If you were to ask Jael why she did so, she would say that there was something about the eagle’s eyes which reminded her of the past. Of course, when the bird landed effortlessly on Jael’s arm without leaving the slightest blemish, there was great jubilation on the islands of Orkney.
Enchanted by the Princess, as she was with him, Kasim handed her the magnificent wedding shawl of birds.
‘How strange,’ Jael murmured. ‘Everything about you, Kasim, even this shawl, reminds me of my mother. She used to embroider birds like this. Perhaps she is still with us.’
Some say that Cullen the Carouser, the King of Orkney wept bitter tears when he saw the wedding shawl on his favourite daughter. It’s hard to tell because by then he was an old man, and the eyes of the old often weep. But when the shawl touched Jael’s shoulder, the golden eagle ascended into the heavens and, swooping and diving, flew beyond the clouds to kiss the sun.
5
The Fish-man of the Purple Lake
This is the story of the Fish-man who guards the Purple Lake at the bottom of the sea. They say the Fish-man was not always a monstrous creature with the legs and arms of a man and the head of a fish, but was once a beautiful boy called Musa from a region now known as Senegal. Musa came from the savannah lands of West Africa, where tall grasses blow in a landscape dotted with baobab trees.
Musa’s parents scraped a living by growing millet and rice on a patch of land. His mother and father worked hard to raise their seven children: they laboured on the fields of their rich neighbours, sold drinking water to passing travellers, and the children, doing their part, gathered firewood to sell at the market every day.
Harvest after harvest, the family lived happily without much fat on their bones – until one year the rains failed. Across the savannah, grass shrivelled yellow, scorched dry by the sun. A coat of red dust settled on everything. The drought became so severe that wild animals forgot their differences and gathered around waterholes to wet their lips. When the animals began to migrate in search of water, Musa’s father and mother began to plan how best to survive.
First, they sold their most prized possession: a goat whose milk the children drank once a week. Then, Musa’s mother exchanged the gold earrings she wore at harvest celebrations for a sack of grain. When the grain was finished, Musa’s father sold his favourite smock, embroidered in silver and gold thread, which he wore at weddings.
In the end there was nothing left to sell, and all the while little Musa, unaware that disaster crouched close by waiting to pounce on his family, played with his friends.
‘We have to take Musa to a home where he will be fed properly,’ said his father, watching the six-year-old kicking a ball made of leaves and animal hide. ‘Even though hunger hasn’t gnawed at his bones yet, our son will feel it soon if he remains with us.’
Musa’s mother remained silent, afraid that if she spoke too soon, her emotions would betray her. Then, taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Perhaps your uncle, the storyteller, will take him. I understand he is rich but kind. And since all his children are grown-up now, he may enjoy having a small boy at his side again.’
Her husband agreed.
Before Musa left home, his mother cradled him in her arms the way she used to when he was still a baby. The next morning when he awoke, she bathed her youngest son – rubbing oil on his skin till he gleamed, a black scorpion glinting in sunlight.
‘Goodbye my son,’ she said, after feeding Musa his favourite breakfast of millet porridge. ‘You’re going far away today, but I shall always remain close to you. Do you understand?’
Musa nodded. He couldn’t really make sense of what his mother was saying, but he could see from the glitter of tears in her eyes that she was sad.
‘I shall remain close to you, Musa,’ his mother repeated. ‘So close, in fact, that e
very now and again I shall visit you in your dreams.’
The woman watched Musa leave the compound, his head erect, walking beside his father. When she lost sight of him, the tears she had been holding back began to fall.
Father and son walked for miles across the savannah lands until the farmer took to carrying Musa on his shoulders. Occasionally they heard the cawing of geese flying north and saw antelopes leaping across the horizon. The child, thrilled to be away from home, looked gleefully at everything around him. He heard baboons screeching in alarm as savannah hawks slowly circled the sky.
Three days later, the travellers approached the village where Musa’s rich great-uncle, the storyteller, lived with his wives and children.
‘Before I take you into my uncle’s compound, there is something I want to give you,’ the farmer said to Musa. ‘Just like you and my father before me, I am the youngest son in my family. There is a tradition in our family,’ he said, removing a red amulet from his pocket, ‘that this should be given to the youngest boy in our line when he leaves home. It’s yours Musa. Look after it carefully because it has magic properties.’
The farmer tied the amulet firmly around his son’s neck and then told the story behind it. ‘It’s said that our ancestors were Moors, my son, a people who travelled south in search of farmland. Before we came here, we conquered a land across the sea. One of our line found his wife with the help of a woman who was a bird by day and took human form at night. The amulet around your neck contains her feathers. They will bring you good luck, Musa. Guard the amulet carefully and always remember who you are: a precious child of the soil, the son of an honourable but humble farmer.’
