Dragonfly Song

by Wendy Orr

  letting the other end

  slip through her fingers

  cracking like a whip

  as it hurls the stone

  hard, fast and free.

  Time slow as a dream;

  the wolf in his leap

  hangs in the air

  and then

  his head meets the rock,

  and they crash

  together to the ground

  and the wolf is just

  as dead as the stone.

  The mother goat and kid

  are running, bleating,

  finding each other,

  racing further in their panic,

  while a goatherd runs closer,

  her sling in one hand,

  staff in the other.

  It’s the girl who taught

  her brother to splice cord

  and taught Aissa too.

  She stares at Aissa,

  and at the wolf on the ground.

  Aissa’s heart’s still thumping

  and her knees are weak.

  She doesn’t know how

  she can run away.

  ‘You killed it!’ says the girl,

  with hand on heart

  and tears in her eyes.

  ‘Thank you!

  Our flock thanks you,

  our family thanks you.

  Thank you, thank you!’

  The goatherd girl isn’t much older than Aissa, but she’s a lot bigger. In fact Aissa isn’t any taller than the nine-year-old brother. Maybe that’s why the girl thinks she needs looking after. She looks anxious when Aissa doesn’t speak.

  ‘Sit down, child. I am Lanni, daughter of Panna the goatherd. Please, let us thank you.’

  Kindness is such a shock that Aissa’s knees give way. She drops to the ground.

  The goatherd blows two loud, sharp notes on her bone flute.

  ‘Sammo, go see if they’re coming,’ she orders her brother. ‘Stay up on that rock so I can see you.’

  ‘The wolf set all the goats running,’ she explains. ‘My other brother and the dog are rounding up the strays – we need to get these two back to the flock.’

  She takes a deep breath and shouts. ‘Parsley! Parsley!’ She turns and mutters to Aissa, ‘Don’t blame me, Sammo named her.’

  She picks up her flute again, but this time the notes are long and sweet, curling gently into the sky. Aissa feels a coil of fear begin to unwind, and the goat and her kid slow their frantic running. Lanni plays on until they turn back towards her.

  ‘I can see Onyx!’ Sammo calls. ‘He’s got three does and kids.’

  ‘Three! What’s he doing coming back without the others?’

  ‘Wait, I can see more!’

  ‘Go down to the flock,’ Lanni orders. ‘Keep your sling ready. That wolf will have had a mate.’

  She shakes the spit out of her flute and blows again. The doe and kid are almost calm as they approach. Lanni waits till the mother goat has come right up to her before she moves. Gently, she scratches between its ears.

  ‘Will you come with us?’ she asks Aissa. ‘When you’re ready, we can take you back to your people.’

  She’ll turn me over to Squint-Eye, Aissa thinks in panic, and Squint-Eye will beat me because ... well, just because she’ll always beat me if she can.

  Lanni thinks Aissa’s silence is from shock.

  As well as the bone flute, the goatherd has a wooden bowl on another leather thong around her waist. She grips it between her knees as she squats beside the goat, crooning softly, and gently squeezes the udder until the bowl is full.

  ‘Drink,’ she says, holding it to Aissa’s lips.

  Aissa drinks. It is the taste of childhood, of safety, love and warmth. She drinks till her belly is full and her eyes are overflowing.

  Lanni plays her flute again, almost the same music that called Parsley and her kid, but deeper, wider. The other goats start to join them. Sammo dances excitedly, shouting the story to his older brother. The dog trots behind the goats, keeping them in a tight group; the boy looks as if he’s used up all his energy in the chase.

  ‘When we got there, she’d killed the wolf!’ Sammo explains.

  ‘But that’s No-Name,’ Onyx sneers. ‘The cursed servant!’

  ‘She’s the girl who saved Parsley’s kid,’ his sister snaps. ‘And you’ll thank her for it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the boy mutters.

  ‘The wolf’s huge,’ Sammo adds.

  Suddenly Onyx is interested. ‘I’ll take its pelt!’

  The skin! Aissa thinks. A wolf fur would be so warm in winter – why didn’t I take it right away?

  Though she could never be sorry for drinking that milk.

  ‘It’s not yours,’ Lanni tells her brother. ‘It’s the girl’s.’

  ‘Servants can’t wear wolf skin. That’s for hunters, and . . .’

  ‘. . . and herders that earn them,’ his sister finishes. ‘So remind me about when you killed a wolf – I seem to have forgotten.’

  ‘Onyx has never killed a wolf!’ squeals Sammo.

  ‘Exactly. The girl’s earned the pelt, and that’s the end of the story. Do you have a knife, girl?’

  Aissa shows her the little flint.

  ‘It’s not very big,’ Lanni says doubtfully. ‘Have you ever skinned anything with it?’

  Aissa shakes her head.

  ‘Onyx and Sammo, keep the goats away from those woods. I’m going to give the girl a hand.’

  With her own sharp stone knife, Lanni cuts the pelt at the neck and starts down the shoulder. There’s a lot of blood, and the stink makes Aissa want to vomit.

  ‘You haven’t done this before, have you?’ says Lanni. ‘It’ll be worth it when you’ve got a fur cloak in the winter.’

  She hands Aissa the knife and shows her how to peel the skin free of the body.

  ‘I wish you could talk! I guess you wish it too. Anyway, you can hear, so listen: wash the blood off as soon you can, then soak it in sea water – and you need to scrape every bit of fat and meat off the skin, or it’ll rot and smell. Your little knife will be fine for that. It’ll take you a few days.’

  They work together in silence.

  ‘Are you safe where you are?’ Lanni asks suddenly.

  Aissa can’t answer. She doesn’t know.

  ‘If it’s true you belong to the Hall, we can’t take you in. Except if you’re a servant I don’t know why you’re up here on your own without so much as a gathering basket, or how you learned to use a sling.’

  You taught me! Aissa wishes she could say.

  ‘Our home is a day’s walk from here, but our summer cave is nearby.’ She points higher up the mountain. ‘If you ever need us, remember that we are in your debt.’

  The goatherd girl guesses

  that Aissa hasn’t killed before,

  except crickets to eat,

  mussels and oysters,

  or ants as she walks,

  but not an animal

  with a beating heart,

  breathing and living

  as she does.

  ‘You must wash,’ says Lanni,

  ‘not just the fur.

  Wash the blood from your body

  and the death from your spirit.

  Thank the wolf for dying;

  thank the goddess

  that it was him and not you.’

  These are simple rules

  but in a life

  of cleaning privies,

  hauling water

  and grinding grain,

  there were many things

  Aissa couldn’t spy.

  She doesn’t know

  what her life is now

  only that she needs to learn

  all she can to survive.

  Thanking the goatherd –

  so strange to see

  it signed back to her –

  ‘Be well,’ says Lanni,

  watching in worry

  Aissa heading down the mountain
<
br />   towards the town.

  But first to a creek

  where she does what the goatherd said:

  dips the fur in cool running water,

  swirls and wrings and dips again.

  And when no trace of pink flows on

  dips herself

  clean from toes to hair.

  Her body is clean

  but her spirit not cleansed,

  so early next morning, before first light

  she leaves her cave,

  waiting at the garden gate

  for the Lady to raise the sun,

  and while the world breakfasts

  Aissa runs up the lane

  all the way

  to the Source.

  Sliding down the white pebbles

  to the steaming water’s edge,

  dipping a toe to test the heat

  and with her tunic folded

  on a rock beside,

  she slides in where Kelya dipped her

  on a long-ago morning –

  the newborn daughter

  the Lady couldn’t keep.

  Aissa, not knowing,

  feels warm and safe

  as if held

  by loving hands –

  though she knows

  that if eyes spy her here

  hands will not be loving –

  the sacred Source

  is not for servants or outcasts.

  And she sees

  tucked between rocks,

  in crevices and cracks,

  wooden carvings, or sometimes stone,

  of a foot

  or hand,

  a leg or even

  a tiny baby,

  the prayers of people

  asking for healing.

  Aissa does not need healing

  for a foot or leg,

  one arm or finger

  but for her whole self.

  That afternoon she finds

  an olive branch,

  small and twisted,

  and begins to carve

  the dragonfly of her name.

  13

  THE BULL DANCER AND THE BOAR

  Aissa takes the wolf pelt to the sea, and washes and scrapes it more times than she can count. In some places she rubs so hard she makes holes, but the fur is thick, and Gold-Cat has stopped attacking it now that it doesn’t stink. He likes sleeping on it with Aissa. Aissa does too. She likes having something soft to lie on, and that she’s done it herself.

  There are other things in her cave home that she’s done herself. Some she’s made and some she’s found: the shells, stones and feathers that she arranges into patterns, her flint knife, the bone pin, and the dragonfly that she’s carving.

  The cave is cool even now in the middle of summer. When the noon sun empties the square, and the town and Hall doze in their afternoon siestas, Aissa can slide back into her home to escape the heat. She races over the baking top of the rock, hands and feet burning, but underneath is dark and shady. The cooling northerly breezes whisper in through cracks and gaps. She doesn’t want to think what that will mean for winter.

  Purple figs are ripening in the Hall garden and on wild trees around the island. Birds love them as much as people do – little Pigeon-Toe gets beaten nearly every day for falling asleep under the tree when he’s supposed to be scaring birds. Townfolk and servants come back from the hills with baskets of the ripe fruit. Some are eaten but most are strung on cords to dry in the sun.

  Aissa finds a tree far out from the town. The figs are fat and dark, splitting with juice; the sticky sap clings to her fingers as she eats them hot from the sun. One after another . . . she eats so many that she spends the rest of the day squatting behind a rock with painful diarrhoea.

  After that, she eats only a few at a time, and crams the rest in her pouch to take home and dry on the top of the sanctuary boulder. Birds swoop to steal them.

  ‘Look how the goddess is favouring us, calling the birds from the tree to her roof,’ she hears Yogo say.

  ‘Pigeon-Toe’s finally learned from his beatings,’ says Squint-Eye.

  Watching out for figs

  and other fig-pickers,

  Aissa still has time

  to spy on bull dancers.

  She knows

  what she doesn’t want to –

  that Nasta is quick,

  light on her feet,

  her handsprings sure and free

  a joy to watch

  if only she wasn’t Nasta.

  Luki is strong

  can pull himself to a branch,

  can spring from hands to feet

  and back again,

  cartwheel along a wall –

  but not lightly or surely.

  Aissa imagines the feeling

  of whirling hands and feet

  and would hold her breath

  in fear of his falling –

  if she cared.

  She sees too

  that sometimes,

  when the world sleeps

  in hot siesta lull,

  she is not the only one

  to steal through the back gate

  out to the hills.

  Bull dancers don’t belong to the Hall

  the way servants do,

  but they belong to the gods –

  their lives are not

  theirs to waste.

  So even though

  they don’t have servant rules

  or beatings for straying,

  everyone knows

  they must never go out

  without a guard.

  But Luki is leaving

  sly as a thief

  slipping into the garden

  keeping in shade

  looking left, looking right,

  and sidling out to the lane –

  not seeing Aissa

  waiting behind the fig tree

  while Pigeon-Toe sleeps

  for her moment to snatch

  a ripe, bursting fig

  ready to be eaten.

  Aissa doesn’t let it

  wait any longer

  but she barely tastes

  that sweet red juice

  because her hunger now

  is to know where Luki goes.

  Racing through

  the bare barley field

  he turns to the mountain,

  his route home:

  his feet know their way

  up the slopes and through the trees.

  Aissa rushes not to lose him

  but Luki,

  sure he’s alone,

  sings as he goes,

  laying a trail with his voice.

  The song stops

  and Aissa creeps

  quietly, closer:

  Luki is watchful

  but not for her.

  The ground is rough,

  plants grubbed up;

  the stink of pig

  rises high.

  Across the hill

  a swineherd sleeps in front of his hut,

  his dog beside him.

  Luki reaches a clearing

  where a big boar dozes

  under an oak;

  and forgetting that his life is sacred,

  tempts the boar

  away from the trees.

  The day is hot

  the boar is sleepy,

  wanting to nap

  like everyone else.

  But Luki dances

  until the beast charges.

  Aissa’s mind screams,

  but Luki stands

  until the boar is nearly there,

  then leaps

  as if he’ll somersault

  down the boar’s back –

  but instead crashes

  hard to the ground

  and lies still.

  The boar turns in shock –

  the swineherd has never

  begged him to charge

  or jumped over his back –

  and starts to rush


  the boy on the ground.

  There’s no time for Aissa

  to get out her sling

  or find a rock

  or do anything except scream

  a silent No!

  till the boar stops

  and wanders back

  for his afternoon nap.

  But Luki doesn’t move.

  Aissa doesn’t know what to do

  or how to help.

  Doesn’t know if Luki

  is alive or dead;

  doesn’t want to curse him

  with her touch.

  The fear in her belly

  says that her curse

  has already followed him here.

  Even if he’s only stunned

  when the boar wakes again

  to see a body in its field

  it will nose,

  and trample,

  and eat

  until Luki is gone.

  But if she goes closer

  to see if he breathes

  and he wakes in fright

  with a spit for No-Name

  it will seem

  too much to bear.

  Fear tells her to run;

  if anyone sees her

  or Luki wakes and tells,

  she will die too,

  thrown off the cliffs

  for cursing the dancer.

  She stays frozen

  and in that long moment

  sees

  an adder

  sliding towards the boy on the ground –

  fast in the midday heat,

  messenger of the gods,

  such a small snake

  for such a deadly bite –

  up to Luki’s face.

  Aissa sure she can see

  the tongue flickering

  tasting his scent,

  nothing she can do,

  no way to run

  fast enough to save him,

  but she calls to the snake

  with her mind,

  ‘Turn away, turn back!’

  And from somewhere near

  comes the Lady’s song,

  the song that sings the sun to rise

  and sings the snakes

  up from their baskets;

  the snake lifts its head

  and turns.

  Luki sits,

  wobbly, blinky-eyed.

  Aissa stands,

  shaky too.

  The voice disappears

  and so does the snake.

  ‘Thank you, Mother!’ says Luki,

  hand on heart.

  ‘Praise the snake singer!’

  Then stares around, lost,

  because there is no Lady,

  or even Fila,

  but only Aissa.

  Aissa searches too

  because how could the Lady sing

  if she isn’t here?

  ‘It was you!’ says Luki,

  with wonder,

  almost with fear.

  Aissa waves away

  his blasphemous words