Starlings

by Jo Walton

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Four, but who’s counting?

  AIDEEN: Holy Father, if you give us the gun, we’ll go away and never bother you again. Furthermore, we’ll use it to fight against Cromwell, and he’s your enemy too.

  POPE: But what shall I do if the antipope comes?

  BRIAN: You’re armoured in the Holy Spirit.

  POPE: Oh all right then, come up and take it, just so long as you go away and leave me in peace.

  KEVIN: Did the Swiss Guards really run away just at the news that we were coming?

  BRIAN: We’re heroes. They knew they couldn’t stand against us.

  KEVIN: I’d have thought better of them.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: I can’t think why. From the evidence of their knives, they spend most of their time drinking wine, filing their nails, and picking their teeth.

  Scene 3: Lugh’s Hall. Present are LUGH and DANU,

  TUREEN, AIDEEN, BRIAN, KEVIN, and the QUEEN OF

  THE CATS.

  AIDEEN: We have the chariot, gun, the cup, the clockwork toy, and the feather. We brought you the apples already.

  LUGH: Good, good. So it’s just the three shouts on a hill left, is it?

  TUREEN: You forgot the black cloak.

  KEVIN: This is the queen of the cats. She’s come here with us. She has the cloak, but she wants to talk to you before giving it to us.

  LUGH: Go on then, what do you have to say for yourself?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: If I give the children of Tureen my cloak of darkness, and they give it to you, I’d like you to promise to give it back to me after Cromwell is defeated.

  LUGH: What? Why?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: It is my people’s protection, to be able to move unseen in the darkness, a shadow in shadow. I am willing to lend that to you, but not to give it up forever.

  LUGH: Then the fine is not paid, and even after his children have given their three shouts there will be a feud between me and Tureen for the death of my father.

  TUREEN: If it has to be, it has to be.

  DANU: Be reasonable, Lugh. They’ve brought you everything else. And you’d have the use of the cloak when you need it.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: This is not to do with Tureen and his children. This is between you and me, King Lugh, between you and the cats.

  DANU: Be kind, dearest.

  LUGH: I don’t see why I should be kind. What have the cats ever done for me, that I should consider them? The children of Tureen killed my father, and they promised to make restitution.Did I say the loan of a black cloak? No, I said a black cloak, and they all swore.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You would strip my people of their protection, I can strip you of yours.

  DANU: Have pity on the cats, Lugh, say you will give back the cloak.

  LUGH: I need the cloak, and I deserve the cloak, and they said they would give me the cloak, and I see no need to make any new bargains concerning the cloak.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: What year is this?

  DANU: Oh don’t tell them!

  AIDEEN: Tell us what?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Your lord leaves me no choice.

  BRIAN: It’s the first year of the reign of King Lugh.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: And what year is it in the rest of the world?

  KEVIN [bravely]: It’s the year a new emperor ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: The pope has an alchemical gun, the Japanese have mechs, the Incas are hiding in Machu Picchu, what time is this? What age?

  LUGH: It is the age of heroes.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: The age of heroes, the age of myth, the day everything happens all muddled together, the day mechs can walk and heroes can kill thirty men each and burn down a city, and Irish is spoken everywhere in the world.

  KEVIN: It’s a good time.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: A good time if you’re a hero, a time that never was.

  LUGH: Madam, stop now. I will give back your cloak as soon as I have defeated Cromwell.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: It’s too late. You can never defeat Cromwell. If you lived at all you lived and died before he was ever born.

  LUGH: He is my grandfather.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: How paradoxical!

  BRIAN: I don’t understand.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You are all legends, you’re half-remembered stories, mixed together, changed on the tongue. You can do nothing, affect nothing, change nothing. You come from different times and different myths, drawn together now by nothing more than the force of story.

  TUREEN: I can see through the walls.

  DANU: I could always see through the walls. Now I can see through the floor.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You’re nothing but a—

  AIDEEN: I could change you into a pig.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: And what will that achieve? You know now that you are no more than fragments. You can’t forget that. You’re not real, your battles are not real, the world you live in is made of fragments and tatters. None of it matters. I am a cat, and were I a pig it would be the same, I would be real under the sunlight and you would be only dreams, insignificant, turning to dust and smoke when examined closely.

  DANU: You make us shabby and unsubstantial, but we were glorious.

  LUGH: We were glorious, once.

  KEVIN: We have to give three shouts on a hill.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: And what will you shout? That you are myths, unravelling on the wind?

  AIDEEN: Three shouts, on a hill. That’s real. That’s necessary.

  LUGH: Three shouts on a hill. The force of story requires it. And you may keep your cloak, I don’t need even to borrow it.

  DANU: You are in this story too, Queen of the Cats. Cats may be real under the sunlight, but are they sarcastic? Can they even talk?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Call it a story. It’s barely more than a pantomime, patched together out of scraps, cultural appropriation on a grand scale, an old story of collecting plot-tokens suddenly set on a whole planet. If you’re not heroes, you’re nothing, and you’re not—

  BRIAN: We are heroes, and we have to give three shouts on a hill.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: And where is your hill?

  Act V

  Glastonbury Tor

  DANU : It’s Glastonbury Tor. Look, here we are, standing on its bare green top. Ireland lies off to the west, and all around us are the green hills and dales of England.

  AIDEEN: Buried under our feet lies King Arthur, the greatest legend of them all, sleeping until his country needs him.

  LUGH: I remember Arthur. He had a dog called horse.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: No cat though. We walk through your stories with our tails high.

  TUREEN: This is the hill. This is the time and the place.

  KEVIN: THE CHILDREN OF TUREEN HAVE COME TO GLASTONBURY.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: That’s your first shout. The cloud-capped towers . . .

  CROMWELL: Who dares disturb this mound where we have sworn perpetual silence?

  TUREEN: Tureen of Ireland, his children, King Lugh, and Queen Danu, with the queen of the cats. We got tired of waiting for you to come back to Ireland to fight us, and came here to fight you.

  CROMWELL: I beat you once, and I’ll beat you again. Ironsides, advance!

  LUGH: Tureen, take the cup. Prepare the mech, Brian. Get the gun ready, Kevin. Aideen, stand ready with the feather.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Cromwell was dead himself generations before they had mechs.

  CROMWELL: Consider in the bowels of Christ that ye may be mistaken, Cat.

  TUREEN: It will be a good fight.

  LUGH: We’ll stand side by side one last time.

  CROMWELL: Is that you, grandson? Back to plague me?

  LUGH: It’s prophesied that I’ll kill you.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Cromwell died in his bed on the night of a great storm. Isaac Newton, as a schoolboy, measured the force of that storm. Ow! Stop pelting me with apples!

  CROMWELL: Old in my bed? What kind of death is that for a hero? We will defend our islan
d—

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Whatever the cost may be?

  CROMWELL: FORWARD, IRONSIDES!

  KING ARTHUR: Who shouts on this mound and wakes me from my sleep? Does my country need me? Is the hour at hand?

  CROMWELL: No, everything’s under control, go back to sleep. I can defend England, I have no need of you.

  ARTHUR: That’s what I thought when I dug up the head of Bran. Are you the king of England?

  CROMWELL: England is mine.

  LUGH: But he is not the king, he refuses kingship. He melted down the crown and minted it for money.

  ARTHUR: Then you are no friend of mine. Who are these others?

  LUGH: I am Lugh of the Cunning Hand, king of Ireland.

  ARTHUR: I think I’ve heard of you.

  LUGH: This is my wife, Danu.

  ARTHUR [trying to remember]: The Children of Danu?

  LUGH [uneasily]: We have no children.

  TUREEN: I am Tureen, and this is my daughter, Aideen, and my sons, Kevin and Brian.

  ARTHUR: Oh, you have the Holy Grail! I’m so glad it’s been found. What year is this?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You’re not real either. You probably never existed.

  CROMWELL: Who gave so much power to a talking animal?

  KEVIN: Are we going to fight or not?

  ARTHUR: It seems to me that the question is, who is going to fight whom?

  TUREEN: It seems to me that the question is, why are we fighting?

  DANU: Or to put that another way, what are we fighting for?

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You’re fighting to exist.

  KEVIN: We’re fighting for heroes to exist.

  AIDEEN: And magic.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You’re fighting for the world of fantasy?

  ARTHUR: That seems like a good cause.

  CROMWELL: But what a world it is! Ungodly, lacking in religious feeling, decadent, implausible, full of kings and gimmicks—it’s hardly worth fighting for.

  KEVIN: Full of heroes and honour.

  AIDEEN: Full of dragons and poets.

  KEVIN: Full of magic and promise.

  BRIAN: Full of horses and stewpots.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: But what a patchwork world, full of half-understood feudalism, kings and conquests and magic items you quest for and don’t even use.

  CROMWELL: Talking animals . . . and kings are petty tyrants. Why do you imagine the world full of kings?

  ARTHUR: Kings don’t have to be tyrants.

  AIDEEN: There was no king of the Americans.

  DANU: It is what we know, written large, remembered, reflected on a bigger screen. It’s what we care to remember. The world of heroes is a world where honour matters. They could have stayed in those far countries. Nobody doubted that they would come back to give three shouts on a hill. It’s a world where good and evil are clear and defined.

  BRIAN: Except that we did murder Kian, though I hate to mention it.

  ARTHUR: Exactly what happened?

  BRIAN: We were walking along, and this old man came walking the other way. He demanded that we get out of the way, in the rudest possible way. He drew his sword. So Aideen turned him into a pig.

  AIDEEN: It would have worn off in an hour.

  BRIAN: But he didn’t wait, he came running up to us and knocked Kevin off his feet. Kevin drew his sword, and the pig ran at me and knocked me down in the mud. He was running at Aideen, and Kevin—

  KEVIN: I insisted that she turn him back into a man, so that we could kill him, because it was beneath our dignity to kill a pig. She turned him back, and he went straight for her, sword out—and we killed him.

  LUGH: I wouldn’t have believed you could make me laugh telling the story of the death of my father.

  TUREEN: When we talk about kings and queens, often it’s a way of talking about a family.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You’re none of you real.

  AIDEEN: Magic is real.

  BRIAN: Honour is real.

  ARTHUR: Somebody must rule.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: You can’t go on existing now you know you’re not real and your world isn’t real.

  KEVIN: I have an alchemical gun here, it was mentioned in Act I and it hasn’t been fired. I could use it to break the fourth wall.

  TUREEN: Where would we be then, Fourth Street?

  BRIAN: We don’t need to break it. We haven’t given our third shout.

  DANU: What should we shout?

  KEVIN: We exist?

  TUREEN: But once we shouted, we wouldn’t exist any more. It’s only the force of story that's keeping us here now we now what we are.

  AIDEEN: Fantasy matters?

  ARTHUR: It’s not a creed to shout from the rooftops. It either matters or it doesn't.

  QUEEN OF THE CATS: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are—

  CROMWELL: Talking animals are anathema.

  DANU: Come on everybody, let’s all give it together.

  ALL: THREE SHOUTS ON A HILL!

  POETRY

  Dragon’s Song

  A wilderness of wings, bright glints of fire,

  Dry wood burns fast, and long desire,

  Coiled into curlicues, coins, a cup,

  A thief in the night that drew me up.

  What would I sing when the harp goes round?

  An old wyrm’s tale of underground?

  Or a song of rising in spiralled flight,

  Wide wings that flash with reflected light?

  Or the human heroes who came so bold,

  To challenge us and to steal our gold,

  Who bade us fight them beneath the sun?

  You know the names of the few who won.

  I could sing of our wait till the final days

  Till the root take flame in triumphant blaze

  And the world-tree fall and the rainbow bend

  And gods kill giants, and all things end.

  My claws on the harp draw out each chord

  Darkness, waiting coiled, the hoard,

  A wilderness of wings, bright glints of fire

  Dry wood burns fast, and long desire.

  —October 9, 2014

  Not in This Town

  Did anyone wonder why he came this far,

  To this town with one exit, one stop light, one bar,

  Four neon churches, one high school, one park

  Full of unspoken things taking place in the dark?

  He drove in from the east in a big beat-up car.

  Long shaggy dark hair, smiling eyes, a guitar,

  Some hooch. All the girls of the town just went wild,

  Not knowing at first he was Semila’s child.

  “Oh no, not in this town, unmarried,” they said,

  Her dad cast her out, said for him she was dead,

  Her sister pretended she didn’t exist

  With her belly that proved she did more than get kissed.

  Must be twenty years now since she went to the bad,

  Since she cursed them and left, since she swore she was glad

  To get out of this town, narrow, biased, and dumb,

  Stalking off to the exit she stuck out her thumb.

  Not shamefaced, Semila, she stood there with pride

  With her belly thrust out, with a baby inside

  A truck slowed, two drivers, she hopped in-between

  And that was the last time Semila was seen.

  Her boy from the east went by “Leo.” His car

  Had rust-stains like ivy. He drove to the bar

  And ordered a pitcher, then sat in the sun

  Just strumming, as girls wandered up one by one.

  Now Theo, his cousin, was quiet, uptight,

  A young cop, with need to do everything right,

  Never drunk in his life, never stepped on a crack,

  A good boy he was, who cut nobody slack.

  Their mothers were sisters, Semila and Gail,

  One passionate proud, and one fluttering frail.

  Their boys were like betta-fish, spoiling to
fight

  When they clashed in the bar there on Leo’s first night.

  “Hey stranger, hey foreigner, get out of town,”

  Theo said. Leo raised up a brow, sitting down,

  While his cousin was standing in threatening pose

  And Leo smiled lazily: “Do you suppose,

  You might drink with me?” Leo asked, “Cousin of mine?

  Drinking and dancing is nearly divine,

  Let go, dance a little, and drink from my cup

  And I’ll leave you in peace here to let you grow up.”

  “I’m too young to drink beer. And I don’t know your face?”

  “I’m the son of Semila. You’d say her disgrace?”

  “Did you card him?” called Theo. “He’s not twenty-one!”

  And he took a step back, with his hand on his gun.

  Leo spread out his hands with placatory smile

  And walked out of the bar, and the girls all the while

  Were cooing and flirting and whispering “Oh!”

  While Theo gave warnings they watched Leo go.

  He camped in a barn on the edge of the park

  Distant hum of the highway, a dog’s lonely bark

  And the sound of his music that wove through the dusk

  Like sandalwood, ambergris, jasmine, and musk.

  Strong perfume hung over the town the next day

  A whiff of exotic that called folk to play,

  Alluring and tempting, the sound of his notes,

  Drifting in on the wind, like a warmth in their throats.

  Not a woman in town could resist him, most men

  Went out once or twice, drank with Leo, and then

  He’d let them alone, only Theo refrained,

  But the girls day and night danced his dance unrestrained.

  Singing and dancing and drinking all hours

  And chasing all over with kissing and flowers

  Free love and free music, and hooch up for sale,

  “No, not in this town!” Theo threw him in jail.

  Leo stood at the window and sang through the bars

  Wove the world in his song, from the hum of the cars

  And light-tripping feet, from his mother’s old shame

  When the town cast her out and attributed blame.

  Through the long afternoon, as the memory of scorn