Dragonfly Song (20 page)

19

THE BULL KING'S SHIP

It's not like the parades of other years. Aissa and Luki follow the chief and the captain, with Luki's family, Lyra, Lena and Roula close beside them; tribute bearers grunt under the weight of bundled cloth, goats carry panniers of dried fish, jugs of wine or barrels of oil, and the Bull King's men follow them all, eyes wary and spears ready. Kelya stays with the Lady to help prepare for the oracle and discover how to appease the gods.

All the people who should be lining the road to see the dancers on their way are at the cove, searching for any sign of the lost girl and her mother. Sounds of wailing rise from the beach; the goats are skittish and bleating. Fear crackles in the air – the ground feels firm enough now, but no one knows when the Earthshaker will roar again.

They round the curve in the road; the chief walks resolutely on, because he's already seen what isn't there. Aissa hasn't. She gasps.

‘No!' Lena exclaims.

‘It's really gone!' says Luki.

It's one thing to hear that the cliff has disappeared, and another thing to see it. From the end of the chamomile field there is nothing, just the raw edge of a new cliff, and below it, a mound of rocks and cliff-face reaching to the sea – a greater burial mound than even Nasta's mother would have wished.

The bare, gnarled roots of the shrine tree are sticking out of the top of the mound. Searchers are scrambling up to it.

Nasta and her mother are buried somewhere under that mess of rocks and tree. Aissa shudders.
What if it is my curse after all?

There's a scream from the searchers. The cry is echoed down the beach: ‘A miracle!'

And Aissa, still feeling sick at Nasta's horrible death, is shocked to feel herself think,
I'm the bull dancer now, and I'm going to go!

‘The goddess!' the searchers shout. ‘The Mother of the fishers is safe!'

The stone statue is cradled in the roots of the tree.

The Bull King's ship is pulled up onto the beach. It's as long as the Hall and as wide as the Great Room. It stares at them like a ferocious beast: curved black horns jut from its bow, fierce eyes are painted below, and its long ram looks like a snout.

Two crewmen swing Luki and Aissa up over the side. The tide is coming in and the crew's working fast
to load everything before the sea floats the ship off the beach. There's not even time for a last hug goodbye; Luki's mother is still clutching his bundle of new clothes and food for the voyage. Tears run down her cheeks as she tosses it up for Luki to catch.

A man shouts in the Bull King's strange language, as harsh and meaningless as a raven's squawk.

Luki and Aissa look at each other anxiously.

Now Luki can't speak either!
Aissa thinks.
And neither of us can hear
.

The crewman shouts louder, gesturing
get down!
as if he's ordering a dog.

This time they understand. They squat at the very front of the ship, behind the horns, legs tucked to their chins and as out of the way as they can possibly be.

‘I forgot they don't talk like normal people,' Luki whispers to Aissa.

He feels nervous even whispering. They both go back to studying the ship that will carry them to their new lives.

It's like a giant version of the fishers' little boats, except for the decks at the bow and stern, each a few paces wide and two paces long. In between, the ship is open, with rows of benches stretching from side to side. A narrow plank bridge runs down the middle from the front deck to the back. The thick pole of the mast is lying on the bridge.

Aissa counts the benches: twenty-seven, with oars tethered at both sides. She guesses one man for each oar, side by side on the bench – fifty-four men, plus the
captain and his warriors. More than the chief and the guards could ever hope to fight. The bull dancers are truly the island's only hope of freedom.

The long line of people and goats carrying the rest of the tribute is moving quickly past the bow; the crew grunt with strain as they haul up heavy jars and baskets, stowing them quickly under the front deck. The last to come are the goat kids. Their feet are tied with rope and they bleat loudly.

Aissa wishes she could hold one – it would be easier to be brave if she was comforting someone else. She's afraid that she might start bawling just like them. ‘Still as stone,' Mama said, but here Aissa is with the raiders, and she's asked for it all by herself without ever making a sound.

Luki's shoulder presses against hers. His family is right below the ship; his little brother is punching the wood and being driven away by the crew. Lyra and Lena stand with the family; Roula has disappeared.
Already?
Aissa thinks, hurt.

‘What luck!' a woman sings loudly. ‘What joy to honour the goddess!'

She sings it to Luki's parents until they join in, pulling Luki's sister and brothers closer around them. Finally even the little brother is singing his own version, ‘Lucky Luki, lucky Luki is my brother, lucky Luki is going away and it's not fair, not fair, not fair.'

The final ‘not fair!' is just a wail. His father picks him up, pressing the little boy's face against his chest. The chief says something that Luki and Aissa can't hear.

‘What JOY!' Luki's father shouts, because he'd do anything to keep the gods happy and his son safe. ‘What luck!'

Finally, even louder than Luki's father, above the noise of singing and bleating, the captain bellows a command. The last bundles of dried fish are shoved under the deck, the captain grabs one of the horns at the bow and swings himself on board. He runs down the plank bridge to the ship's stern and lowers the two great steering paddles into the water. More men jump on board and into their rowing places.

A boar-shouldered man pulls a huge pole out from under the benches, pushing the ship out just like the fishers do with their little boats. The crew on the beach wade in deeper, swinging themselves up on deck as the ship floats free. Luki's family follows, the little brother on the father's shoulders, still touching the ship.

‘Aissa!' Roula shouts, splashing frantically through the waves with a large bundle over her head. She's nearly at the ship when she stumbles.

Luki's mother reaches out to steady her.

‘Catch!' Roula shouts, and throws the bundle up to the bow.

Aissa leans. The captain roars, but Aissa has her bundle of clean tunic and honey cakes, wrapped in love and wolfskin. Tears blur her vision.

The rowers on the left pull hard on their oars till the ship turns around and its fierce eyes are staring out to sea.

The captain bellows again. The mast is hauled upright, the ropes set in place and the square red sail pulled up to fill with wind. The ship lifts and slides over the waves. The people on the beach become a blur and gradually disappear.

They haven't really gone
, Aissa tells herself.

‘It's horrible what happened to Nasta,' Luki whispers.

‘But I'm glad you're here.'

They clutch hands tightly as they sail into the unknown.

The wind dies near evening. The sail is dropped and the oars come out. The men sing in time with their rowing, a steady rhythm and a crescendo of triumph when a new island appears.

So soon!
Aissa thinks.
I'm not ready!

But she'll be glad to get off the ship. Her stomach is rolling and churning. It's worse than hunger, and she doesn't want to eat. Sometimes Luki looks as if he's actually going to throw up, and that makes her feel as if she might too.

‘I thought the Bull King's land would be huge,' he says. ‘This doesn't look much bigger than home.'

It's not as mountainous as their island; even from here they can see a wide cove and sandy beach. Soon they can see a town nestled on the slopes. They've never seen so many houses.

‘Can you see any bulls?' Luki asks.

Aissa pictures a bull as bigger than a goat, fiercer than a boar, with huge wild eyes like the ones on the ship.

They see the animal at the same moment. They both catch their breath and stare: maybe bulls aren't as big or bad as people say.

A woman is leading it; it's not much taller than a big goat, with long, flopping ears. No horns. It raises its head to look at the ship, and a noise like a sorethroated demon rings out. The crew laugh and one makes a joke. ‘Donkey,' Aissa and Luki hear.

We were afraid of a joke!
Aissa thinks.

Luki grins at her, shame-faced.

The ship touches the sand; the captain strides up the bridge to the bow, ordering Aissa and Luki off the deck. They crouch on the ship's floor with the goat kids while the rowers jump down and haul the ship onto the beach. Crowds of people are running, wailing and shouting, from the beach to the town. The captain and half the crew march up the road with their spears; the rest stay with the ship as if they're guarding it.

Luki and Aissa poke their heads up to peer over the side.

This is like the first time the ship came to the island!
Aissa thinks.

‘This isn't the Bull King's land!' says Luki. ‘They're getting more tribute!'

They're right. In the evening, the crew sacrifice four of the goat kids and roast the meat on skewers over a fire. Aissa, Luki and the remaining kids are lifted down. The goats are hobbled so they can graze but not run
away. The leader shows Aissa and Luki a rope and points to the last two kids, who are still lying on their sides with their four legs tied together.

‘I think he's saying that's what'll happen to us if we try to run away,' says Luki. ‘How are we supposed to answer?'

Aissa puts her hand on her heart in the thank-you sign. Luki copies. It's apparently good enough as a promise, and they're free to squat by the fire and eat what they're offered. But afterwards, when the crew roll themselves in their cloaks to sleep on the soft sand, Luki and Aissa are shoved back onto the ship for the night.

The captain and the rest of the crew return in the morning with an even longer line of tribute, and four more dancers. Their new life settles into a pattern: the sea by day and land at night. The moon goes from full to sickle. Usually they sail, but if there's no wind the men row. On hot, still days the crew puts a shade cloth over the front deck; other days the waves are so high that they splash up from the snout into the ship. Once it's so rough that all the tribute and some of the rowers vomit over the sides. They wait on a beach for two days for the storm to clear.

One night they camp on an island with no town nearby, just a spring to refill their water jugs, and another they have to anchor at sea. Those are the only mornings that no tribute is added. All the other nights, the captain and half the crew march up to a town or Hall to demand their payment, and two or four or even twelve youths are hoisted on board to join Aissa and Luki.

By the last day thirty-two thirteen year olds are crammed onto the front deck. There's no room to move; the deck stinks of the goat kids or piglets crammed beneath it each morning to feed the crew.

The children all speak different languages. A few can understand each other and a few can understand the crew.

Luki and Aissa don't know many words, but they've learned the commands. They teach the new dancers how to promise not to run away, to scramble under the deck when the captain approaches, and the signs for water and food.

One girl can't stop crying and one boy can't stop vomiting. Most of the rest throw up occasionally and cry at night. There's no privy and no privacy on the ship, but Aissa shows the other girls how to squat on the edge and hope that a shark won't bite their bare bottoms.

They learn that the world is bigger than they'd imagined, and that people are all the same under their different words and clothes. For this little while, it doesn't even matter that Aissa can't speak.

Then late one afternoon, the land that rises up out of the sea goes on so far they can't see where it ends. The sailors' songs have a different rhythm, triumphant and final. There are fishing fleets and ships as big as theirs, more than they can count, sailing in or hauled up on the beach. There are buildings right down to the water's edge.