Dragonfly Song (6 page)

The square is empty when Aissa slips out of the Hall, though there are sounds of voices from the servants' washhouse. Half-One and Half-Two must be in there. Any minute now they'll be rushing out, through the front gate and up the wide road to join the servants ahead of them. That's the way the procession has gone from the beginning of time.

But ever since the Bull King's man didn't spit at her, Aissa's known that things don't have to go the same way forever. Dumping her buckets behind the privy, she races through the kitchen gardens and out the small north gate.

There are a few houses along the narrow lane from the gate to the goat meadow. Aissa runs down it as quickly and silently as she can; there's always a chance that someone too frail to walk is watching at a window. She mustn't be seen.

Her heart's thumping by the time she ducks behind the mulberry tree at the edge of the field. On the other side, she can see the long line of people winding their way slowly up the mountain track.

Aissa turns away, towards the singing path.

It's not really called the singing path. It's not wide enough to have a name, except maybe the little-path-around-the-high-side-of-the-goat-meadow. But for Aissa it's the path Kelya used to take her on when she was searching for the wise-women's herbs. And everywhere she walked, Kelya sang. She sang the herbs, she sang the flowers, she sang the lizards and the eagles. She sang for the child that had no voice.

The child never answered, but she can still hear the notes in her mind.

These days Kelya's too blind to walk through the mountains, and the younger wise-women don't want the privy-cleaner touching their herbs. They go themselves, or send Half-One and Half-Two for the easy ones that anyone could spot: thyme growing through the rocks, or the new asparagus poking skinny spears towards the sun.

No one knows that the twins are so terrified of the mountain snakes that they send Aissa instead.

Aissa knows what snakes can do, and wolves and wild boars as well, but she'd rather spend the day with
them than Half-One and Half-Two. Her sharp eyes find the herbs quickly. Then she steals time, like a honey cake from the kitchen. Except that an hour of wandering free in the hills, running fleet as a deer, far from spit and curses, is better than any honey cake. She takes as long as she can before hiding the basket of herbs in the crook of the mulberry tree for the twins to claim.

And when she steps back inside the town walls, her head carefully bowed to hide the purple of any stolen mulberries, she feels a secret thrill like a bright ribbon through her darkness:
Half-One and Half-Two would be so angry if they knew how much I love this!

But now she's here without being sent, and that's the strongest magic of all. As her feet hit the path, her whole body remembers Kelya's songs; it hums and throbs, singing silently through her hands and feet and belly, as if there's music inside her struggling to escape.

She hurries faster up the hill to where the path forks. The left-hand trail will take her to the procession at exactly the right place and time, but her feet turn the other way, and suddenly she is looking down at the white cave and deep blue water of the Source.

Aissa is sure she's never been here before: it's too holy a place for servants and No-Names. But it calls to her, and something in her recognises it. She slides down the white pebbles to the edge of the steaming water.

There's a flash of deeper blue. A dragonfly skims over the rock, a breath past her face, and disappears across the pool.

My name!
Aissa thinks.
It's my name that was calling
me
. She cups her hand into the pool, splashes the sacred water onto her face, and turns back to the trail.

It leads her into the forest, dark and shadowy, whispering with mysterious noises. Aissa is too full of dragonfly-wonder to be afraid. She comes out again onto a rocky hillside, catching her arm on a wild rose bramble and sucking the blood off quickly, before it can stain her new tunic. She doesn't even notice the blood on her foot, where a stick has speared between her toes.

The hill rolls down to a smaller meadow where the billy goats are sometimes kept away from the herd. Aissa skids cautiously down the hill, skirting the edges of the field. She's so close now, she's not going to be stopped by a charging goat. But if any billies are lurking in the shadows, they don't care enough to charge. She reaches the end of the meadow.

The procession stretches in front of her on the broad mountain path. She doesn't recognise anyone; the people passing now are mostly herders and woodsmen. But further down, the tail end is in sight: the Hall servants are nearly here. If she's going to join in, she has to do it now.

As the sky purples into twilight, Aissa scrambles over the rock fence, crouches behind bushes – and slides into the middle of the procession. She smooths her tunic as if she'd just ducked behind a shrub to pee.

No one notices. Eyes flick over her and return to friends. She's just another young girl who's strayed up in the crowd from the servants, or back from the craftsfolk. For this one night, she's invisible – and free.

4

THE LIGHT OF THE FIREFLIES

The Lady glows like the moon itself. Torch flames dance off the gold of her headdress and necklace, from her gold-laced waist and arms, and the crowd is hushed by her majesty.

Now she passes the sacred light from her torch to the chief's, and then to Fila and the maid walking with the little boys. They step down from the dais and the crowd surges around them.

‘Lady!' people shout, thrusting their unlit torches towards their rulers. ‘Hey, Chief!' and even ‘Fila, over here!'

It's worth shouting and shoving. The earlier your torch is lit, the higher-born the person who passes the flame to you, the luckier your season will be. So the Lady and her circle light the torches of those around them, and then they light the torches of those around them ... Flame by flame, the lights spread all the way down to the servants, till the shimmering tablelands drown the stars above and fireflies below.

Finally every torch has been lit. The guards clear a path through the crowd, and the Lady begins to lead the long bright snake back down the mountain. Castes are confused in the flickering darkness; fishermen walk with wise-women; the stone carver's daughter shares a torch with the garden boy Digger. Aissa slips from one group to another, always a step away from the torchlight. It's easy enough to do – only the richest or largest families have more than a torch or two to share. Aissa's not the only child without her own, and not the only one separated from her family on the return.

For a little longer than is wise, she trails a farmer family, breathing in the pungent smell of their goatskin jerkins. The smell wakes memories that she can't quite reach, teasing her with a glimmer of happiness.
Maybe,
she thinks,
maybe they knew my family. Before I was a bad-luck girl
;
when I was Aissa
.

The oldest boy is watching her just as curiously. The torchlight falls on his face, and suddenly Aissa recognises him. He'd come to the town a moon ago to offer the year's firstborn kid to the sanctuary. Now he's trying to figure out where he's seen her before.

Aissa waves wildly, as if to a searching mother, and charges like an angry ram. People slap and shout but Aissa's fast: she ducks and weaves, and is quickly out of reach.

When she dares lift her eyes again, the first woman she sees is the Lady. She's far ahead, but for just that instant, the crowd thins, so that Aissa can clearly see the back of her head and shoulders, and the glinting of the gold ring in her hair.

If the farmers weren't so far behind they might have thought she was claiming the Lady as her mother.

Aissa breathes deep, and slips through the crowd more quietly. Head down, elbows tucked, her thin frame sidles between adults and around children, past craftsfolk and traders, till, as the procession nears the town, the privy-girl is right behind the Lady's people and guards.

I must be crazy!
she thinks.
But not crazy enough to go through the main gate.

No one notices when she steps aside to retie her sandal, and slips silently down the dark path to the garden. A moment later, she's in the servants' kitchen.

Suddenly she feels as drained as an empty waterbag. Too tired to worry whether anyone will notice her new, clean tunic in the morning, she finds her ragged cloak in her sleeping place against the wall. Luckily the twins are too afraid of her pollution to take something she's already worn. She curls up in the cloak on the furthest corner of the stone floor. Long before any of the other servants have stumbled in, Aissa is truly, deeply asleep.
She dreams of fireflies. Dreams that the stale air of the kitchen is full of tiny golden stars dancing above her, lighting her space while the rest of the room is left in gloom and shadows. The free-flying souls light up the lowliest, least sacred place on the island. Voices cry out, and Aissa wakes in a leap of terror.

The fireflies disappear as if her thoughts have extinguished them.

In the morning the fear is gone, but the golden glow is still dancing inside her: a sign that her life is going to change.

It's the day of the lottery.

Every twelve year old on the island will assemble in the square. They will draw the signs of their names on shards of pottery, carefully and clearly, and drop them into an urn – one for the boys and one for the girls.

Year after year, Aissa has watched the solemn guard tip and swirl the urn, mixing the shards so only the gods can know which one is on top. She's seen the pale, tense faces as the chosen shards are pulled out and the new bull dancers are named.

Now Aissa is twelve. And she has a name to call.