Dragonfly Song (12 page)
Authors: Wendy Orr
Ever since he came to the Hall, Luki has been curious about the girl called No-Name. She's short for her age, as thin and wary as a stray dog and fast as a hunted hare. Her hair is black, like most people's, but curlier than most, a tangled frizz instead of plaits. She's never with the other servants â in fact, he's never seen her do any chores.
He's almost sure she's the girl he walked with on Firefly Night, except that girl looked free and happy. This girl is freer than he is, but she's the only person in the Hall who's more unhappy.
Maybe that's why he wants to laugh when he sees her spit onto Nasta's head. It's certainly why he doesn't give her away.
Because Luki knows that his fate is tied to Nasta's. Luki's worked with animals all his life, and he knows that surviving the bull dances will need teamwork. All Nasta cares about is beating everyone else â including him.
So that night at the solstice feast, he takes an extra honey cake from the platter. The party is nearly over before he spots the no-name girl skulking around the edges. Luki sidles into the shadows, and leaves the cake behind.
A honey cake
all for Aissa
as if she's won
the race after all.
As sweet in her mouth,
moist in her throat,
warm in her belly
as she's dreamed.
And as she licks
the last sweet crumbs
from every finger,
Aissa wonders how Luki
could leave it there
on a clean rock ledge
and walk away.
If she didn't know
that no one would ever
do something kind for her,
she'd almost think
it was a gift.
Foraging further from town means worrying about wolves again. Aissa goes back to work on her rock-sling, but making rope isn't as easy as the goatherd girl made it look. All she's got from the bark she collected is fingers full of splinters.
The morning after the solstice festival she goes to the cedar trees and strips another bundle. Sitting on a rock till the day warms, sheltering in the forest shade when the sun is so hot that only the cicadas can sing, it takes nearly till sunset to tease out the bark and roll the prickly threads into strands. She tries to splice them in the dark of her cave that night, and ends up with a tangled mess.
Milli-Cat kneads and shreds it even more, making a nest â much cosier than the hard rock floor.
Did you think it was my offering to you?
Aissa wonders, as the cat headbutts her in thanks.
Maybe it was.
No one has ever thanked her before.
But she wants to make a rock-hurling sling, not a cat nest. She works at it every day, her fingers toughening as they get faster, until finally she has a rope. She splices the middle into a flat pouch to hold a stone, and knots one end into a handle.
Aissa's seen herder children practising in the fields. The loop of rope whirls over their heads; the end flies free and the rock shoots out with it. She places a stone carefully into the pouch.
She whirls . . . the rope snaps; the rock lands on her toe.
Thank the goddess I chose a small rock!
But even as she rubs the sore toe, she's studying the broken rope.
I see what I did wrong!
Three days later, Milli-Cat's bark nest is big enough for a whole family of cats, and Aissa has a strong rope sling.
It's too big for her pouch, and servants don't have slings. She doesn't know what happens to outcast servants who break the Hall folk's rules, but it won't be good.
So she wears it wrapped three times around her waist, under her tunic. Now, when she goes out to the hills, she doesn't mind being out of sight of other gatherers. As soon as she's on her own, she unwraps the sling from under her tunic, grabs a rock, and starts practising. Sometimes she even hits the tree she's aiming at.
This hot summer night
Milli-Cat is restless,
meowing complaints
Aissa can't understand,
rumpling and rustling
her nest of bark
as if it's nearly
but not quite
right,
till she flops on her side
with a yowl of pain.
Aissa's heart clenches
in its own pain and fear.
There is something wrong
with her only friend
and she can do
nothing to help.
She has nothing even
to offer the goddess
in a plea for mercy
for this small being,
alone like Aissa,
the only one of her kind.
All she has
are the chips of stone
swept to the side
of her hard floor bed,
three empty snails,
a shining mussel shell
and a raven's feather.
She makes a circle,
a pattern to please the goddess
and with her sharp flint knife
slices her thumb,
hard and fast.
Her gift of blood
splashes the design,
red drops on the rock.
Then Milli-Cat yowls
a different call,
pain and surprise mixed into one,
and Aissa turns
to see the cat
licking a tiny wet bundle
of new life.
Licking hard,
as if she will shape
this squirming form
into a kitten.
And soon, it is.
Hand on heart,
Aissa thanks the goddess,
promising a gift
better than shells and feather,
because Milli-Cat can't do it herself â
she is busy again
birthing a second kitten.
Small as dormice
with blind, shut eyes,
but Milli-Cat knows them
as her own;
curls around them
till they nose to her side
for their first drink.
Too dark to see now
and though Aissa tries
to keep awake,
her eyes close
and she sleeps to the sound
of Milli-Cat's strong mother tongue
licking her babies into life.
Wakes for a yowling â
once, twice,
three, four more times â
each one a heart pang
for her small friend's pain
but the yowl always followed
by that busy licking
that says all is well
in this dark cave this night.
Till the dim light of morning
shows Milli-Cat curled
around six nuzzling kittens.
Two white like Milli,
two black
like the bull ship cat,
one patched both black and white
and the biggest
a strange soft gold.
Milli-Cat lifts her head
for Aissa's hand,
the touch that says,
âHow clever you are,
and how beautiful
are your children!'
in the dark of the cave
where no one sees
the mute girl touching
the Lady's deaf pet.
And Aissa's heart swells again
with a different pain,
the strong, sharp ache
of love.
Aissa's home under the sanctuary rock is cold, hard and cramped. She's grateful for its shelter but never slides into it without a slight shiver of dread, of wondering whether tonight it will fall and crush her. Now, on these long summer days, she can hardly wait for the secrecy of darkness so she can return to Milli-Cat's kittens.
Her only worry is that she has promised the goddess a gift, and she doesn't yet know what it could be. She doesn't have the first fruits of harvest, or the firstborn kid from a flock, or any of the usual offerings. She just hopes that she'll know when she finds it, and that the goddess will be patient till then.
Milli-Cat's babies
have blind, shut eyes,
are squirmy and helpless,
but Milli-Cat cares for them
as if they were jewels,
licking and cleaning,
nuzzling them to her side
so they all get her milk,
though the smallest, white like Milli â
is always the last to drink.
Milli-Cat goes out to hunt
early in the night
when Aissa is settling into sleep
and watching the kittens.
Not touching
in case Milli doesn't want it,
but watching,
learning them
and watching Milli-Cat love them
she learns to love too.
The runty white one
is not Milli's favourite
she saves her nuzzling for the strong
who drink hard
and grow fast.
But Aissa wonders
if the unloved kitten
would be just as strong
if it were loved.
She wants to see it grow
and is afraid
when a new guest comes.
Every home
needs a house snake to bless it,
the goddess's pet,
accepting bowls of milk
and family prayers.
Aissa's home is not a house,
just a rock she slithers under
as if she were a snake herself
so she is glad for the blessing
but afraid
because she has no milk to offer.
The snake is thin,
twice as long as the Lady's vipers
but not so deadly.
Aissa brings him
crickets and lizards,
hoping he doesn't
want something bigger.
She wishes that Milli-Cat
would offer a mouse
but the cat doesn't know
they must pay
for the snake's blessing.
The kittens grow, day by day
so every night,
Aissa sees them stronger,
eyes opening,
trying to walk
till her heart beats
with strong proud joy.
Late on a hot, full-moon night
townfolk and Hall are in the square
singing sad farewell to dying flowers
and welcoming
the fruits to come.
Aissa watching from the shadows;
there is food to steal
as the night grows dark
so it's late when she slithers
under her rock
up and across
and down to her cave
like every other night.
But this night
Milli-Cat is gone.
No purring headbutt greets her
though she can hear
the soft breathing of kitten sleep
and can feel in the darkness
furry bodies snuggled
in their nest of bark â
but only five,
no matter how she counts them.
The runty kitten
that Aissa loves
is gone.
Her heart tightens with pain,
as if a hugging boa
is squeezing her chest;
she searches the cave
hoping the runt has tumbled
on staggery legs
away from the others
because every day
the kittens walk a bit more.
Patting dark corners,
searching warm fur,
until she touches
in the furthest gap
where the rock slopes to the ground,
the solid smooth flesh,
cool in the night,
of a sleeping
well-fed snake.
Lifting its head
in a shaft of moonlight
the snake's eyes
look into Aissa's,
straight from the goddess
down to her soul
.
The moonlight moves;
the spell is broken.
There's only the pain
that the kitten is gone
and rage
because it never had a chance
at life
simply because
it wasn't loved.
Wanting to choke the snake
make it cough up its kitten dinner â
the snake may be the goddess's pet
but Milli-Cat's runt was hers
and she screams inside,
I hate you, hate you, hate you!
till rage is swallowed by fear
because Milli-Cat is missing too
and what if
she's not out hunting
but inside the snake with her baby?
Heart twisting,
stomach churning,
tears dripping â
not for her,
not like the day she wailed on the mountain
but for the runty kitten
and her Milli-Cat friend
and the other babies
who will die
without their mother's care
because Aissa can love them
but they need milk.
âThere's milk in the kitchens,'
says the voice in her head.
âThe Lady can order it â
the kittens are hers.'
Heart clenching tighter â
maybe some of
the tears were for her â
Aissa makes the picture in her mind:
taking kittens
from cave to Hall
while the Lady is at table
because if soft-hearted Fila
sees the kittens
they will be cared for.
And that's more important
than Aissa being alone
again.
The picture doesn't stop her sobs
but it unwinds her heart
soothing her to sleep,
until she feels
a warm nose against her face,
a head rubbing under her chin â
Milli-Cat home from the hunt,
not eaten up by the snake
just leaving the kittens alone
because Aissa was late.
Milli-Cat doesn't care
that the runt is gone
but cares that Aissa is crying;
she grabs her strong favourite
by his orange scruff,
carries him swinging
from her mouth
and drops him onto
Aissa's neck.
In the morning
Aissa remembers the goddess
staring through the snake's slit eyes,
thinks that Milli made her offering
and now the runt's been taken
the others will be safe.
But just in case,
she leaves her gifts
of lizards and frogs
at the front of the rock
near the sanctuary door,
far from the kittens.
And when the market traders
see the snake there
they leave offerings too.