by Wendy Orr
‘The firstborn daughter,’ says Luki.
‘Seems the gods thought you were perfect enough,’ says Kenzo.
‘You saved me twice over,’ says Sunya. ‘Once from the bull, and once from slavery when you called us for that catch.’
‘I didn’t plan the catch,’ Aissa says honestly. ‘But when I thought I would die, my heart trusted you, and called your names.’
Mama comes in the morning.
Aissa’s heart dances
with knowing that Mama’s true and real
and they’re together again.
A guard follows
because Aissa is free
but precious,
and Mama and Aissa
walk hand in hand
in fresh spring air
an hour down the road
to Mama’s new home,
her new family.
The whole world rejoices
with bright spring flowers,
the scent of thyme,
swallows darting,
and the firstborn lambs
suckling in the fields –
as if the goddess herself
is singing for Aissa,
reunited
with her own dear mama.
She thinks the pain
of No-Name’s life
will be washed away
as they patch lost years
with threads of love.
Aissa will care
for the baby sister
sleeping now on Mama’s back.
She’ll pick spring greens,
harvest autumn olives,
dig the soil
or tend the sheep;
do whatever
there is to be done –
asking only
to be a child again,
safe and loved.
So happy she can hardly hear
the words Mama says,
only the music
of her voice.
Over the years, when Mama’s thought of Aissa, she’s pictured her still as a four year old, her image frozen in time. It was easier than wondering if the child had died on that terrible night; if wolves had found her before searchers came. It was easier than imagining how her aunt might have cared for her – though she’d never imagined even that evil-tongued woman dumping her at the town gates.
And now, here she is. The baby with the bandaged hands, brought to the farm by a wise-woman in the middle of the night. ‘A gift from the goddess,’ Kelya had told them. ‘You will never tell a soul that she is not the child you bore.’
They hadn’t. Even in the family, they’d never discussed it. They turned their minds away from the story of the Lady’s firstborn daughter who died – Aissa was their own, the child of their hearts. In the years of grieving, Mama has almost forgotten that her little girl hadn’t come to her in the normal way.
She remembers it now. There’s a thrill of pride that this glowing bull dancer is her own dear Aissa, and a deeper, sadder knowledge. The gods’ destiny for this child is much greater than helping to run a small farm in a foreign country.
Mama shows Aissa their land,
their sheep
and what they’ve made.
Her life is here
and she doesn’t want to remember
her life on the island
before the raiders came.
They have a dog already
and she doesn’t want a goat
to run with the sheep.
And although she strokes
Aissa’s hair,
feeds her the best,
and calls her ‘Child,’
a sadness lingers
in her eyes.
Aissa feels the emptiness –
it seems that now
she’s found her voice
she can’t understand
Mama’s words;
she cannot believe
Mama is saying
that her heart will always
have room for Aissa –
but her home
does not.
The world rocks
as if the earthshaker god
has ripped out
the one solid
truth of her life.
‘But I’ve found you!’ she wails.
‘Stayed silent through the years
just as you told me –
how can you
turn me away now?’
Mama weeps too,
says that the childhood time
of their lives together
is a story of long ago,
wished for and cherished –
but like an outgrown tunic,
it won’t fit again.
In this land
the farm belongs to her man,
and though not a slave
Mama is not truly free.
She wants Aissa
to be happy
but her husband’s happiness
matters more –
and he can’t see
a place for Aissa here.
And Aissa’s heart breaks to know
that a bull dancer
can ask for anything
except what she
most wants.
A long hug at sunset –
Aissa still weeping
bittersweet tears
as she leaves Mama’s home
for the palace.
But people are waiting
outside, on the road;
the story’s been whispered
that a bull dancer’s there.
Thronging around her,
they wave and shout,
touch her shoulders,
and give her babies to kiss.
Their fickle love
is for the bull dancer
not the girl who used to be No-Name
and now doesn’t know
who she is –
but it fills some
of the emptiness inside her.
She wonders if
like Sunya and Kenzo
she should choose to stay
and dare the bulls
for gold.
Though it’s not the life she wants,
flying over a bull
is the greatest thrill
she’s ever lived –
she doesn’t know
what she’ll decide
when the Bull King asks.
The carved bull is still leaping through the wall above the palace gate, just as he was the day Aissa and her shipmates walked up this road. It’s hard to imagine that she was ever afraid of him. I’m a bull dancer now, she reminds herself. I don’t need to be afraid of anything.
It doesn’t help. She’d happily take back her fear if she could have her hope and dreams again too. Now she’s simply too empty to feel.
‘The Mother’s waiting to see you,’ says the guard at the gate.
Her stomach tightens – and the nasty voice in her head laughs. You wanted fear? it asks. The Mother knows that you called your friends. Remember what she said would happen if you used your gift in the ring?
I don’t care! Aissa snarls back. What have I got to live for?
But she’s shaking as she washes the dust from her hands and feet at the font beside the guardhouse, and winds her way through the pillared halls.
The Mother’s room is shadowy in the early evening. She’s sitting on a low padded chair, the white cat on her lap. The cat ignores Aissa as if it had never slept under her chin, but the Mother studies her quizzically, and laughs.
‘You thought you were being called here to be killed – after the gods smiled on you as they did yesterday? I know you used your gift to call your friends, but no more than you could have with a voice.’
Aissa’s knees go loose with relief. She sinks onto the stool the Mother points at.
‘Tell me your story,’ the Mother says, ‘now that the goddess has given you back your voice.’
Aissa tells it
as best she can:
the imperfect first-born
saved from death
to be given away,
rescued from raiders
by a goat,
only to be
abandoned again.
The spitting and the hate
of being No-Name,
the privy-cleaner;
the outcast living
under the Sanctuary rock;
and then
the goatherds
who’d given her help,
and the wise-women
who treated her as their own
till the earthshaker god killed Nasta
and Aissa
came in her place –
to leap bulls
and find Mama.
The Mother listens,
and hears the bitterness
of what Aissa
doesn’t say.
‘Finding your foster mama
gave you back your voice
but her home
is no place for you.
If you were any other
I would command,
but you are the Bull Dancer
and the choice is yours:
not only to stay with the bulls
for gold and glory,
or return to the island
where you were despised –
but to serve the goddess here
as the priestess
you were born to be.’
Aissa breathes in
the scent of lilies
in this pretty, painted room;
sees the fields and mountain
from the window
and knows she might
be happy here.
But telling her story
has told her too
how much she longs
for Kelya and Roula,
Lanni the goatherd
and her own wild land.
‘I’m going home –
and hope the wise-women
will let me serve them
as before.’
28
THE LADY OF THE BULLS
The ship leaping
under its red sail
is not at all like
a butterfly on the waves –
more like a dolphin,
like the ones playing
all around them.
The sailors say
dolphins are good luck,
they’ve never seen so many,
they say it’s Aissa’s singing –
even though
she sings so quietly,
still practising
what her voice can do.
Luki and Aissa see their island
rising from the sea,
bringing tears to Luki’s eyes
and Aissa’s too
though she didn’t know
she loved it:
from cliffs and cove
to snow-capped mountain,
and green hills between.
As if she can sing it
closer, faster
her voice flies free
and from the sky
three eagles come
to circle the ship,
swooping and diving
above the dolphins.
Luki wears his bull-dancing shorts,
for climbing
up and down from the ship;
Aissa too, on the days of voyage,
but now the island
is in sight
she puts on her skirt
flounced in bright colours,
her jacket of embroidered linen,
sandals of the softest leather –
and they both wear
their gifts of gold and jewels
bright on their chests,
their wrists and hair.
As a parting gift,
Aissa’s priestess friends
gave her pots
of kohl and rouge;
and the Mother gave her
a small bronze mirror
and a comb of bone.
So now she paints her eyes and mouth –
offering the paints to Luki
though he says no –
and replaits her hair,
blowing in the salt wind
as the young eagle dives low
and a feather drifts down
to hold firm in the plait.
Luki, impatient
to touch the island,
leaps from the deck
as the sailors splash in
to drag the ship to the shore.
He clutches a handful of sand,
bringing it to
his heart in praise.
The waiting people
already starting to wail their loss,
explode into joy
as they see that it’s Luki,
a year older,
taller
and dressed like a stranger –
but safely home.
They can barely believe
that the island is free;
that this year’s dancers,
running home from the Hall
for their last precious day,
won’t be leaving
to dance and die.
No one even thinks of Aissa,
No-Name,
the bad-luck child,
taking the place of chosen Nasta –
no hope of surviving
and nothing to mourn.
Though they are curious
to see the young woman
leap from the ship
to the sand
in her fine coloured skirt,
and a whisper races
from fishers to Hall
that the Lady of the bulls
has come with the ship
to honour victorious Luki.
Part of Aissa longs
to be adored like Luki
with people flocking to touch him,
weeping with joy –
but at least
no one spits.
She remembers when
that was her greatest wish:
now that it’s happened,
it’s not enough.
‘And Aissa,’ Luki shouts,
but the people have never
heard Aissa’s name
and don’t understand.
The crowd drifts them up
towards the Hall,
dancing, singing,
all around Luki,
keeping their distance
from the captain and crew
and the elegant priestess.
The Lady and the chief
stand in the courtyard to greet them
kissing Luki
on the top of his head
before saluting
the captain and Aissa;
the captain wonders
why she’s not welcomed like the boy,
but gives his greetings
from the Bull King,
saying the gods have honoured him
with the return of their dancers
and that from now on
the island will be free of raiders
and of tribute.
The Lady is confused:
the tall guard translates
‘dancers’
as if there were two.
But she’s more surprised
that the Lady of the bulls
leaves the captain to speak.
Calling servants
for food and drink
the Lady leads them to the Hall,
the people still crowding,
cheering and laughing,
only the potter wailing –
the island’s freedom
comes too late for her daughter.
The guards hustle her away
but Aissa crosses,
touches her shoulder:
‘Your daughter serves
the bull land’s
Lady,
alive and well.’
The potter drops to her knees
kissing the hem
of Aissa’s skirt,
never knowing
it’s the child she cursed.
And now
the cats come:
Milli-Cat and her grown-up kittens,
with tails like flags
weaving their way
through to Aissa –
the only ones to see
or welcome her home.
Gold-Cat leaps to her shoulder
and purrs into her ear
while the rest twine around her legs,
and the surprised Lady says,
‘Our beasts welcome you, too,’
showing her to a seat
between her own
and Fila’s.
Fila pale and ill,
a bruise swelling
across her cheek –
angry red marks
from the bite of a snake.
Then Aissa’s belly clenches,
because Half-Two
stands before her
offering a platter
of sweet cakes and fig,
eyes downcast,
not looking like
Half-Two at all.
Aissa takes a fig
just so she’ll leave
but the girl stands
as if she’s forgotten
what she’s doing
till Squint-Eye shouts,
‘Half-Dead! Get out
of the Lady’s way.’
Fila seeing
Aissa watching
says, ‘She’s called Half-Dead
because she and her sister
were one and the same
but her sister died
so now this one’s half dead.’
Anger like lightning
flashes through Aissa –
though she never knew
her heart had room for the twins.
If I were the Lady
no one would ever
be called No-Name
or Half-Dead.
Even a slave deserves a name!
But it will never matter
what she thinks.
Luki is talking to the guards and the chief;
he points at Aissa,
but the Lady doesn’t notice.
‘I have never,’ she says,
‘met a priestess from another land.
I would be honoured
if you would speak in private
with me and my wise-women
and my daughter,
since it seems
you can speak our tongue.’
Aissa, wondering
how to tell the Lady
that she’s not a foreign priestess
but the Lady’s own
discarded daughter,
follows to the private chambers
that she’s never seen,
beyond the private bathroom
where she shouldn’t have been.
The chamber
is just a room
not as grand or bright
as the one she’d shared
