Swallow’s Dance

Though the sea has lost the terrors

of empty vastness,

a day and a night

seem to last a full moon.

The rocking ship

makes Nunu throw up

so I have to care for my maid

as well as my mother

while I would rather stand on deck

to watch for birds

and land.

The Great Island is well named –

we see it early, from far away.

Too wide across, says Dada,

to see the ends;

not as beautiful as my home,

but with flatlands between hills

and white-headed mountains,

not as strange

as some of Dada’s stories.

I can’t yet see the harbour

but Dada calls me

to leave Mama and Nunu

and stand with him at the steering oar;

so as the sail drops

and the men pick up their oars

I see the channels,

the quays and shipsheds

of Tarmara Town.

Lightning excitement

flashes through me

because though the ships and harbour

are almost familiar

they are new and strange –

and I am standing by my father

seeing it all.

Beyond the quays

the town spreads,

smaller than ours, but with a great palace

as if, says Dada,

all the Swallow Clan houses

were joined with the temple

in one great, many-roomed building –

though they have no Swallow Clan here

so the rulers are priest-folk.

Here Sarpedon their chief

stores goods coming in for taxes,

sorts and trades them

and rules the land all around,

while their Lady

serves their goddess.

And my brother Glaucus –

so much older than me

he was almost a man before I was born –

lives with this chief and Lady

and I can’t imagine

how sad he will be

about our Mama’s lost spirit –

or how surprised to see me.

Even the wharf men are shocked

at a ship so early –

though they know Dada’s sail,

and that we come in peace –

so they rush to the quays

to haul us in.

In ceremonial clothes and paint,

I cover restless Mama in her nightshift;

a coverlet embroidered

with the swallows of our land

and the ducks and dragonflies of our clan.

Once again, Dada straps her

securely to her bed,

guides it swinging to the wharf,

while Nunu mutters a prayer

giving thanks for dry land.

But when I alight in turn

the rock quay sways as if it were a boat

and Dada whispers,

‘You’ll get your landlegs soon –

walk tall, representing our home.’

He asks for a runner to send for my brother

but there is something strange

in the wharfman’s accent –

I can hardly understand his reply:

‘You must see Sarpedon, the chief.’

Dada says they speak our language,

but it’s not quite right.

‘I’m honoured,’ says Dada,

and to me: ‘Glaucus will be away,

gathering goods for trade.

He wouldn’t expect us so soon.’

For though Dada always meets the chief,

Glaucus usually runs

to the quay to greet him.

There’s no music or flowers

to greet a captain from far away

and our procession is small:

the four sailors at the corners

of Mama’s upside-down bed,

four more behind, each with a gift –

an amphora of dark red wine,

a pendant of two golden bees

holding their precious comb,

a tunic of the deepest purple

and a fine, swallow-painted pot –

but Dada marches in front

with me by his side,

trying to walk tall,

as if this long street from quay to palace

is as familiar as my own.

The palace goes on forever:

columns, walkways and stairs;

sacred horns on the wide flat roofs –

a whole town

joined into one.

A guard greets my father,

sends a runner to the chief;

calls a servant to pour water

to wash our hands

and dry them with linen –

just as we’d do

for a guest in our home.

The chief and Lady greet us in their chamber,

and when my father salutes

Sarpedon rises from his throne:

‘I am sorry for your troubles.’

‘Have you heard so much already?’ asks my father.

‘The island will be well again

and win the favour of the gods,

but it suffers now

and our healers are overwhelmed;

from the bonds of our friendship

I ask to entrust my wife

to your wise-women

and for my daughter to join my son.’

The Lady is already bending over my mother,

calling a servant for wise-women,

but Sarpedon’s face pales to say ‘no’

even as his words say, ‘My friend.’

‘You haven’t heard:

our great mother shook too,

a column toppled in the courtyard

where young men played a board game.

Three were killed,

and one was your son.

We buried him with honour

with our own dead.’

‘No, no, no!’ my mother screams,

and I wonder at the gods’ cruelty

that lets her understand her son’s death

when it seems she’s heard nothing

for this last bitter season.

The warrior in my father

checks private grief in this hall of state

though his face is as grey

as our pebbled beach at dawn.

‘With your leave we will go now

to the city of the dead

and not speak of trade till morning.’

‘Leave your wife in my care,’ the Lady says kindly,

but Dada says no,

Mama has heard enough –

she must say her own farewell.

I want to scream No! like Mama

but stay still like Dada,

tears washing away my careful paint

as the world spins around me –

we left a place of death

to be greeted by death here.

And through the pain runs the thought,

What happens to us now?

Do I stay here, a not-yet-woman,

with my spirit-gone mother

and ancient maid?

But how could we live on Dada’s ship

all this long trading season?

Dada takes ash from the hearth,

streaks his face and Mama’s;

Ibi and I do the same,

and Nunu and the sailors,

then we follow a priest

to the hill of the dead

where my brother Glaucus –

dead all this time that we’ve thought of him,

planned for him, counted on him –

lies buried.

As the sun climbs

I bathe and dress,

paint face and lips –

wondering how long my pot

of saffron will last –

the embroidered shift first worn

for the crocus Learning,

half a year or a lifetime ago,

and my skirt, in the colours of home,

its red and black layers

tied tight at my waist.

Nunu does the same for Mama

and this time my mother looks

like a woman with an empty face,

not a corpse on a bier –

and I think that empty

is better than dead.

Nunu, too, is washed and clean

as even the lowest slaves in the palace

must be ready

to welcome the season of growing,

of fertile fields and food for all –

the fresh new year.

We are ready long before time

but I cannot wait

any longer.

In the courtyard,

in the halls and open rooms,

the workshops where no work is done

today,

a hiss of whispers

slides around corners

and between the pillars –

rules are different here

if their gods forbid speech on this great day.

Now my ears are tuning,

I hear the words,

catch even the servant talk –

so harsh and rough it’s hardly speech at all –

and all are of fear,

omens of darkness

and wondering what

the oracle might foretell.

Then someone murmurs –

a clear priest-folk voice –

‘There’s the wailing woman

who cursed the sea as her husband sailed.’

And my spine tingles

like hackles on a dog.

But whispers are lost as the sun rises high

and the courtyard fills:

priest-folk, craft-folk and town,

flowing into halls and onto roofs

to watch Sarpedon and the Lady

accept from their thrones

tribute from each group:

flowers and honey

grain and dried fish

oil and wine –

a taste of each poured into altar-stone hollows

to feed the gods

and remind our great mother

of what she must produce

if her people are to live and serve.

Now the beasts: two new lambs

and a full-grown goat, rangy and strong.

He fights and bucks,

thrashing even as his dark blood flows

knocking the bowl from the Lady’s hands

splashing blood on the Lady and chief.

The gasping crowd moans and mutters

at this most evil of omens –

a sacrifice refusing to be given –

then stills again with shock.

The trade priest leads in a woman –

small and thin as slaves often are,

so young that if she were priest-folk

she might still be Learning –

her hands tied with plaited rope.

She sways beside him as if

she’s drunk too much wine

or the wise-women’s tea.

‘Great Mother,’ sings the Lady

‘you have sent omens of your rage

so we offer a gift as never before

to please your heart.’

The woman does not

struggle like the goat

or bleat like the lambs

but lies still where she’s laid

across the bloodied stone

and the crowd is hushed

as her life blood drips away

though I sway and feel I could fall.