by Wendy Orr
every spindle in town
before she let
Aissa own one.
The morning is hot and windy. Aissa is plucking juicy pigweed leaves, heading further and further towards the forest, nibbling as she gathers. She stoops again – and touches a brown and bloody bit of something that might once have been a deer.
Prickles run down her spine. She hears a rustling in the trees and pictures the wolf. Or the bear or boar – whatever it is, it has killing teeth and ripping claws, and it probably doesn’t care if its next meal is an ibex or a girl.
Aissa turns and runs. She doesn’t stop till she meets the path to the goat meadow, where she can see people, and the wall of the town.
Nothing’s following her. Maybe it was just wind rustling the leaves.
But the mountain suddenly seems dark and forbidding. At least when she lived with the servants she was only slapped and spat at. Nobody tried to eat her.
Outcast days are busy
with no cleaning or sweeping
but full of learning,
because now her ankle is healed
and her privy-stink
gone with the rain,
she can creep close
to watch and learn.
Spying a goatherd
dozing in the sun,
his staff in his hand
and beside it his sling –
a rope looped in the middle
to hold a rock –
so simple to make,
impossible for her.
Aissa’s hand twitches,
wanting that sling –
not far down the hill
to snatch it and run –
but already his dog,
head up and alert,
has caught her scent.
Softly and quietly,
Aissa slips away.
Gathering food
fills the rest of her days –
evading slaps and kicks
when she passes too close
to a market stall,
but not any lonelier
than when she was part of
the servant tribe.
But outcast nights
are long and empty
though full sometimes
of terror,
fear that’s worse
for not knowing why.
Her cave under the rock is safe
but in the night
Aissa doesn’t always
feel it,
because it’s dark
cold,
and lonely
with owls screeching
as if they’re crying
when Aissa can’t.
Dark long before nightfall
and no morning light
till the sun has risen
high over the mountain,
so that Aissa might sleep,
not knowing it’s day
and slither out
when the square is busy
with people to see her.
Her cave is cold,
even now in sun-warm spring
of longer days and gentler air,
the rock is chill,
and so is Aissa.
Most of all
her cave is empty,
full of nothing
just like Aissa.
Empty of light,
empty of warmth,
empty of food,
empty of hearth fire
and glowing embers;
empty of pots and platters,
goblets and baskets,
jugs of oil and wine,
empty of sound,
the murmur of voices,
the shushing of Squint-Eye,
sleepy groans and snores,
empty even of smell
of goatskin fleeces for lucky sleepers,
of tired bodies
and a fug of farts.
But in the mornings, in the dark before dawn,
before the Lady greets her snakes,
Aissa’s cave has Milli-Cat
rubbing her nose
against Aissa’s cheek,
butting her head
under Aissa’s chin,
curling heavy and purring on Aissa’s chest –
and Milli-Cat is more
than all the emptiness.
8
THE SEA
The servants miss Aissa, and not just because of her chores. Most of them are hoping Squint-Eye will let her back in. Life is easier when they’re all bullying the same person – now they’re scrabbling for power, terrified of being the next victim.
Aissa would go back if Squint-Eye called her. Even with Milli-Cat’s love, she doesn’t know how long she can survive.
But this morning she’s been exploring the rubbish heap, and has found the scoop of a broken bowl, and half a long bone needle that will work as a pin. She sidles past the sanctuary to slide her treasures under the gap, but has to duck out of sight while a woman places a bunch of fresh sea lettuce on the offering table.
In those few moments, Squint-Eye has come out to the stone bench outside the kitchen, a bowl of lentils on her knee. Her old fingers move quickly, flicking the rotten ones to the ground.
Aissa will have to walk past her to get out the garden gate.
She’s so busy she might not see me . . .
Squint-Eye’s good eye narrows spitefully. For a moment she forgets that she can’t beat someone who doesn’t exist. She reaches for her stick, but Aissa is already running.
‘The cursed child is cast out!’ Squint-Eye spits after her. ‘No-Name is nothing!’
A flood of servants comes running, screaming with joy at their game of hate.
‘No-Name!’ shriek Half-One and Half-Two.
‘Cursed child!’ calls Pigeon-Toe, too young to even know what it means.
‘Squint-Eye, if you can’t keep the servants under control I’ll beat them myself!’ shouts a guard.
Townfolk stop to stare; some are ready to join in, but there’s nothing to see. Squint-Eye lashes about with her stick, and the servants go grumbling back to work.
Aissa is already gone. Out in the lane she hesitates. She’s not ready to brave the mountain wolves again, but she’s discovered something surprising.
I won’t go back to being No-Name – no matter how hard it is!
Because she can’t unlearn her name again now that she knows it. Aissa, it sings inside her, ‘Aissa, Aissa’. She pictures the dragonfly as she touches her amulet for strength.
She turns away from the hills, towards the sea. Aissa has never been to the sea. Halfway down the road, where she stopped to watch the Bull King’s ship, is as close as she’s been – as close as she’s ever wanted to be. The sea is where raiders come from.
The only other thing she knows about the sea is that fish come from it – every day the fishers bring up the catch they owe the Hall, and a few more to trade in the market. They use boats and trident-spears, or nets or lines with hooks, and those are more things Aissa doesn’t have. But there are sea greens too, like the bunch left at the sanctuary offering table this morning.
Her stomach rumbles.
She turns onto a narrow trail she’s never followed before. She’s made up her mind: she’s going to touch the sea that took Mama away.
At least I won’t be thirsty! Plenty to drink down there.
The houses outside the wall nestle into hollows, clinging to the steep side of the hill. The trail winds past them, skirting the craggy boulders, through a field of yellow and white chamomile daisies. The wise-women often come here to pick them; Aissa looks around, but she’s alone. She keeps on going.
She is right at the edge of a cliff.
Her stomach rolls. The sea is far below, where waves crash onto a mass of black rocks.
A gull squawks a warning, and Aissa turns to see two figures coming down the trail. She recognises the way they move: Half-One and Half-Two!
They’re bigger than her, there are
two of them, and she’s on top of a cliff. There’s no choice.
Aissa slides over the edge. She’ll hold on somehow and hide till they give up.
Her feet touch a narrow ledge. When she inches to its end she can see another bump of rock below her clenched toes. Down from that there’s a second ledge – and right below that, steps have been carved into the cliff. It’s the start of a trail. Not a trail like the hill paths; more of a rough guide to where people might have climbed before.
She’d really like to know if those people survived.
Cautiously as a fledgling eaglet leaving the nest, Aissa slides backwards onto the first step. Five more and another five, and then she loses count. They’re about the same distance apart, and quite easy for a girl who’s used to crawling over rocks to get to her cave home every night. She doesn’t even have to look now, just finds a fingerhold in the cliff and steps down backwards to the next one.
Nearly there! she thinks. She’s forgotten about Half-One and Half-Two; forgotten about getting back up; her only goal now is to get to the bottom of the cliff.
She does it faster than she wants.
The next step’s gone, the cliff is gone, and her clutching fingers aren’t nearly enough to save her. She plummets like a stone.
And just has time to think, Half-One and Half-Two won’t even know they’ve killed me!
She dreams
of Squint-Eye beating
a flapping eaglet,
and the bird, too young to fly,
crying its fear
and pain.
Aissa knows
the beating is real
because she feels the thump
in every bone,
but only the Lady
could read the meaning
of a tumbling eaglet.
Struggling to wake,
though the sun
is high in the sky
and another beating
will follow for sure.
But her bed is soft
as a pile of fleece;
her eyes are heavy
as if they too
are weighted with wool.
So Aissa surrenders;
sleeps again
till a bolt of light
hits her face,
and opens her eyes to see the sun
sink red and splendid
into the sea.
Wide awake now,
though eyes still heavy
and body limp,
she remembers the fall.
No beating except
in Squint-Eye’s wish;
the tumbling bird herself
and the bruises real,
every one.
No fleeces here,
but a bed of seaweed,
piled high
against a half-moon cave
where the waves have washed
the cliff away.
It’s too dark to leave. She’ll have to spend the night here.
If only I had fire!
But a fire flint is another thing she doesn’t have, so she’ll stay awake in case wolves or sea monsters come. Her seaweed bed is comfortable, and it’s even more comforting to feel the supply of rocks beneath it. So comforting that, with a stone in each hand, she drops back into a deep sleep and doesn’t wake till dawn.
Her stomach is clenching with hunger, her throat cracked with thirst, and her face and lips burned red raw from the sun, but her mind is clear. She scrambles up, shaking off seaweed, because it’s over her as well as under, down her tunic and between her toes. It’s fluffy and dry, up to her knees when she stands, but heavy and wet at the end of her bed. Hollows in the rocks beyond glisten with water.
The sea has come up to her in the night. It could have floated her away like Mama, if the goddess hadn’t stopped it in time.
But the water in the rocks looks fresh and clear, and the sea has retreated enough that she can reach the nearest rock without getting wet. She bends and laps it up like Milli-Cat . . . and spits and gags. The clear water burns with salt.
Now she knows why people say, ‘Useless as a cup of sea on a summer’s day.’
The sea begins
on the other side of the rock.
Aissa knows now
that she can’t drink it
and knows that nothing good
ever came from the sea
but she is so close
she’ll touch its waves
and maybe that touch
will travel somehow
somewhere
to Mama.
Sliding down,
the rock so slippery and steep
that she splashes in fast,
under the water,
feet and knees and all of her;
cold water over her head,
salt up her nose
and in her mouth.
Kicking and scrabbling,
spluttering up to the air,
Aissa pulls herself
onto a rounder rock,
a kinder rock,
that lets her sit,
heart pounding,
nose dripping,
coughing salt.
Sliding back
further from the treacherous sea,
turning to safety
just as the sun
rises over the cliff.
Aissa alone to greet the dawn,
no Lady or snakes or singing
to thank for the rising,
so she stands with hand on heart
and thanks the goddess,
her inside voice singing high
because she is chilled and wet,
thirsty and hungry,
but very glad to be alive.
So the morning sun shows her
in a rock pool at her feet,
sea lettuce, soft and green,
fresher than the gatherers bring it
to the kitchen and the Hall.
A clutch of seaweed –
slippery and soft, straight to her mouth,
moist and cool down her parched sore throat –
because she’s paid for it,
nearly with her life,
and it is hers.
Hers to pick
and eat as she will,
leaf by leaf
or gulp by gulp.
Shells hide
under the fronds
and in between:
tiny snails and fat black mussels.
Aissa has tasted snails
snatched from the plate before her turn,
but never mussels
because roasted mussels
are Squint-Eye’s favourite.
Aissa can’t roast them,
but she can pluck one off its rock
smash it hard
and swallow the quivery inside lump,
spitting out the shards of shell.
Tastes a second and then a third,
but it’s been so long
since her stomach was full
it’s shrunk too small
to eat any more.
There’s no way back up the cliffs from here. I’ll stay here forever! Aissa thinks. All the mussels and sea lettuce I can eat; no more twins; no more spit.
The half-moon cave with its soft seaweed bed looks even friendlier in the sunlight. But she still hasn’t found water to drink, and she hasn’t got a roof or fire to protect her from wolves or bears that want to eat her.
Town is still the safest place. Outcast or not, she’ll have to go back.
The north end of the shore is a jagged point where water rushes between the cliff and a pillar of rock. The south point doesn’t look much better, but it’s closer. Aissa turns that way.
Sometimes she can squeeze between big boulders and sometimes she has to climb over them. She stops at rock pools to nibble more sea lettuce or dark purple dulse. It takes a long time to reach the southern end.
The point is a sheer cliff. Waves crash against it, spraying foam. There
is no beach at all.
I can’t get around that!
I have to.
Clinging like a dragonfly to a rock, she presses herself against the cliff.
Her legs don’t want to move, but the rest of her doesn’t want to stay stuck on the point forever. Eventually her legs do what they’re told. Slowly, so slowly that she could have run to the barley field and back in the same time, she inches across and steps down to a rocky beach.
Her hands and toes are scratched, and the stones are sharp under her thin sandals, but her mind is singing. I did it! Aissa is strong and still alive!
The beach ahead is narrow, and curves to a rounded point at the other end. It’s covered with rocks, and the rocks are covered with oysters.
Like the Lady eats!
Just as all the servants know that mussels are Squint-Eye’s favourite, everyone from the Hall on down knows that oysters are the Lady’s. Servants aren’t allowed to eat them, even if they’re left over – they’re for the rulers and Hall folk only.
Though Aissa once saw a hunter snatch two off a platter before it went into the Hall, tipping the oysters off their shells and straight down his throat. Nobody cares what they do in front of No-Name – who is she going to tell?
Mussels are always cooked, and eaten when their shells open, but the Lady likes oysters raw. Cook opens their shells with a short bronze knife.
‘That’s what I need!’ Aissa thinks.
And then she finds one.
It’s not really a knife, and it’s not bronze. It’s a leftover bit from a flint knife someone else made, so it has a sharp edge, just not as sharp as the blade it had been chipped away from. And it’s not very big, but neither is Aissa’s hand.
Thank you! Aissa thinks to whoever left it here, whether it was someone from long ago before copper or bronze came to the island, or somebody who can’t afford metal now.
If she holds the blade tight between her thumb and forefinger, and finds the slit where the two shells join, she can slide her knife in, wiggle it back and forth till the top shell is cut free, pry it off, and scoop the oyster out with her fingers.
The first one takes a long time, and she’s afraid she might break her knife. Maybe she should look for more mussels instead. Then she tastes it: that’s why it’s the Lady’s favourite!
The next one is quicker, and Cook herself couldn’t have done the seventh any faster. They’re all just as delicious as the first. Maybe some good things come from the sea after all.
She can’t take oysters with her; she doesn’t have a gathering basket to cover them with cool seaweed to keep them fresh, and the day is hot. Spoiled oysters are deadly oysters, that’s what Cook said when a gatherer handed over a big basket that had been too long in the sun. Aissa still remembers seeing the beating. The gatherer probably still feels it.
