<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?--><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" xml:lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"/> <link href="../Styles/custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> <title>Swallow’s Dance</title> <meta content="urn:uuid:7087aab2-516e-403f-b205-cde2c263dbf5" name="Adept.expected.resource"/> </head> <body> <p class="ct"><a id="page_143"/><a href="../Text/contents.xhtml#toc12" id="chap12"><img alt="image" src="../Images/chap10.jpg"/></a></p> <p class="tx1-1">The noise throws us from our beds.</p> <p class="tx">It’s too huge to be heard; it bombards us; punching our ears. It’s the sound of the end of the world.</p> <p class="tx">In the orange light bursting through the nighttime shutters, Mama and Nunu are screaming open-mouthed, hands over their ears. I can’t hear them. I’m screaming too, but I can’t hear that either.</p> <p class="tx">The air quivers; the earth trembles. My bones have turned to water.</p> <p class="tx">I can’t get off the ground.</p> <p class="tx"><i>Get out, get out, get out!</i></p> <p class="tx"><i>How? Where?</i></p> <p class="tx"><i>Just out! I’m never going to be trapped in a building again!</i></p> <p class="tx">Terror forces my legs to obey. I jump to my feet, pulling a tunic over my nightshift; Nunu is doing the same for Mama. I push the door open, fighting against the wind.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_144"/>A hundred suns are streaking across the darkness, as if the god of the sea has risen from the depths to juggle balls of fire. Ashes float in; the earthmother quakes, and still the noise goes on.</p> <p class="tx">Something knocks my knees and rushes past.</p> <p class="tx">‘Chance!’</p> <p class="tx">The puppy ignores my scream and keeps on running.</p> <p class="tx">The oracle was laughing at us. <i>The gods will meet</i>, the Lady said – but they’ve met in war.</p> <p class="tx">Nunu grabs our bag of jewellery and our cloaks, and we run to the courtyard.</p> <div class="bkt"> <p class="hang0">The sky lit by fire</p> <p class="hang">as warring gods hurl</p> <p class="hang">the stars from the sky,</p> <p class="hang">spears of lightning</p> <p class="hang">and the shredded sun</p> <p class="hang">torn from its rest.</p> <p class="hang0">The courtyard has no roof to crush us</p> <p class="hang">but is crowded with panic</p> <p class="hang">and the thronging chaos</p> <p class="hang">of people running</p> <p class="hang">with nowhere to go,</p> <p class="hang">stumbling over wine-sleeping bodies –</p> <p class="hang">the lucky ones missing</p> <p class="hang">the end of the world –</p> <p class="hang">all of us screaming</p> <p class="hang">without sound,</p> <p class="hang">our voices puny against the gods’.</p> <p class="hang0">The Lady and priest-women</p> <p class="hang">flee to the temple;</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_145"/>but I no longer believe</p> <p class="hang">that even the holiest</p> <p class="hang">sanctuary is safe.</p> <p class="hang0">And the courtyard crowd,</p> <p class="hang">herded by terror,</p> <p class="hang">sweeps us along,</p> <p class="hang">pushing, shoving –</p> <p class="hang">no care for class or clan –</p> <p class="hang">I grab Mama’s arm,</p> <p class="hang">Nunu firm on her other side –</p> <p class="hang">in all these fears</p> <p class="hang">the greatest is losing each other –</p> <p class="hang">and if anyone stumbles</p> <p class="hang">they’ll be trampled to death.</p> <p class="hang0">Like a river surging</p> <p class="hang">we follow in Sarpedon’s wake</p> <p class="hang">down the road to the harbour –</p> <p class="hang">Sarpedon planning, I think,</p> <p class="hang">to beseech the sea god</p> <p class="hang">to make peace with the sky –</p> <p class="hang">though not even the gods</p> <p class="hang">could hear against their own roar.</p> <p class="hang0">The crowd thinning, spreading</p> <p class="hang">as it reaches the streets;</p> <p class="hang">but like the flares through the darkness</p> <p class="hang">panic sharpens my mind:</p> <p class="hang">we are ill-omened strangers</p> <p class="hang">in a crowd that may search for</p> <p class="hang">another sacrifice tonight.</p> <p class="hang0">We drop to the rear,</p> <p class="hang">watching from the hill</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_146"/>as Sarpedon leads</p> <p class="hang">his priests to the quay.</p> <p class="hang0">And the sea,</p> <p class="hang">lit by howling balls of flame</p> <p class="hang">retreats before him.</p> <p class="hang0">The water is gone</p> <p class="hang">as if it had never been,</p> <p class="hang">floating ships sink dry on empty sand –</p> <p class="hang">a horror that can’t be true,</p> <p class="hang">like the noise too loud to hear.</p> <p class="hang">But Nunu’s face –</p> <p class="hang">a mask of fear –</p> <p class="hang">says she’s seen the same.</p> <p class="hang0">And we turn, pulling Mama with us</p> <p class="hang">the crowd is surging,</p> <p class="hang">some towards the sea</p> <p class="hang">and some away –</p> <p class="hang">but nowhere is safe</p> <p class="hang">a ball of flame torches a house</p> <p class="hang">and a distant hill burns –</p> <p class="hang">we race back to the palace,</p> <p class="hang">barely reaching the courtyard</p> <p class="hang">before the rushing, screaming, trampling crowd</p> <p class="hang">overwhelms us.</p> <p class="hang0">But the sky flares stronger;</p> <p class="hang">the sea god spews his wrath,</p> <p class="hang">a wave like a mountain</p> <p class="hang">looming over quays and shipsheds,</p> <p class="hang">swamping storehouses and sailors’ homes –</p> <p class="hang">and Sarpedon and his priests</p> <p class="hang">are gone.</p> <p class="hang0"><a id="page_147"/>In a demon-dream, conjured by gods</p> <p class="hang">the beached ships</p> <p class="hang">are on water again</p> <p class="hang">tossed upside down</p> <p class="hang">to float through streets</p> <p class="hang">with the roofs and doors</p> <p class="hang">of the houses they’ve smashed.</p> <p class="hang0">The murdering wave,</p> <p class="hang">this mountain of water,</p> <p class="hang">has reached the gates –</p> <p class="hang">and we have nowhere</p> <p class="hang">left to go.</p> <p class="hang0">Hollowed by fear,</p> <p class="hang">my mind floats free</p> <p class="hang">from my doomed, scared body –</p> <p class="hang">till rage bursts through it,</p> <p class="hang">red heat thumping me back into life;</p> <p class="hang">we’ve gone through too much</p> <p class="hang">to be washed away now.</p> <p class="hang0">And Chance is too young</p> <p class="hang">to survive without me –</p> <p class="hang">I hope he’s somewhere high and safe.</p> <p class="hang0">But now, like a sigh,</p> <p class="hang">the wave draws back,</p> <p class="hang">leaving the houses, the boats and the people</p> <p class="hang">thrown like scraps to dogs</p> <p class="hang">across the smashed town.</p> </div> <p class="tx1-1">We’re safe for the moment.</p> <p class="tx">Nowhere is safe.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_148"/>At least the earth isn’t shaking. We’ll go back to our room and pack to escape. It doesn’t matter where; anywhere is safer than here.</p> <p class="tx">Our door is still open – and the room is still empty. Chance hasn’t come back.</p> <p class="tx">But I barely have time to worry about my puppy, because Mama has collapsed onto her bed, and Nunu topples on top of her when she bends to check. She waves me away crossly when I try to pull her up; I hope that means she’s all right.</p> <p class="tx">I open the shutters for more light, but my hands are slippery with sweat and shaking so badly I can hardly manage the latch. My chest is tight, and it hurts to breathe. I don’t know if that’s because I’m panting so hard or because the air is hot, with a strange burning smell that reminds me of the earthmother’s belch.</p> <p class="tx">Nunu is saying something. The gods’ roaring is just loud like thunder now, not a force hammering against my skin, but I still can’t hear.</p> <p class="tx">All I want to do is lie down on my own bed and hope for my puppy to find me when I wake up. Instead I make bundles and fill our baskets the way I did when we fled our ruined home. Nunu tries to get up but can’t. I think that was what she was saying.</p> <p class="tx">Suddenly the booming changes, and though I can’t see it, I understand. The monstrous wave is coming again. Mama and Nunu can’t run, and there’s nowhere to go. Not even time to think before the crash as it hits the gates…and now water is coming in under the door.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_149"/>Then it slowly ebbs out, leaving fronds of seaweed on the wet floor and our bundles on the chest untouched. Mama goes to sleep, Nunu frozen in fear beside her. I’m shaking too hard to move.</p> <p class="tx">We have to get out of here! The next wave will get us!</p> <p class="tx">I see them coming, endless, towering, mountains of water till the whole world is covered and there is nothing left.</p> <p class="tx">There’s no point in running, but no choice – we have to try.</p> <p class="tx">The next wave comes faster. I’m still trying to sit Mama up when I hear it.</p> <p class="tx">No water comes in under the door. The courtyard, when I sidle out to check, is no damper than our floor. The one after that is lower still, so we stay.</p> <p class="tx1-1">It’s two days now, or maybe four. The gods have ended their war, but it’s an uneasy peace: ash still falls like rain, and the torn-apart sun never rises. Sometimes there’s a strange orange light and sometimes it’s the darkest of no-moon nights.</p> <p class="tx">We stay in our room, because I don’t know where else to go. I dream of searching for Chance, but the dark is too fearsome and I could not leave Mama and Nunu alone. Nunu and I never sleep at the same time; one of us is always awake, waiting for danger. There is food in the kitchens but no one serving; we scavenge and bring it back to our room, keeping out of people’s way. It’s not good to be a stranger in a time of fear – and Mama is not the only one wailing now. <a id="page_150"/>The palace, the town, the country are flooded with keening. Sarpedon and most of his priests were swallowed by the sea, along with half the town.</p> <p class="tx">It’s time outside time; I can hardly remember when the world was normal, when the sun god rose in the morning and slept at night. Now the Lady doesn’t even try to call the dawn.</p> <p class="tx1-1">I wake smelling something that isn’t ash from the sky or rot from the sea.</p> <p class="tx">In the kitchen courtyard, in a massive tripod over a flickering fire, a cook stirs a lentil soup thick as porridge. She fills a bowl for me with a nod.</p> <p class="tx">I count the meals in my head as I go down the torchlit corridor: nine. It’s probably only four days, maybe five, since the spring festival.</p> <p class="tx">Suddenly, I realise that the haze is not so dark. I can nearly see across the courtyard, as if it’s a smoky room at dusk.</p> <p class="tx">Can it be that the gods have heard our prayers, and the sun will return? And the world we know with it?</p> <p class="tx"><i>How could I even think that? The world will never be the same again.</i></p> <p class="tx">‘A ship! A ship coming in!’</p> <p class="tx">The cry comes up from the town and spreads around the palace. We can tell that it’s good news before we hear the words.</p> <p class="tx"><i>Dada!</i> If any captain could survive that wave, and go against the winds to return to this cursed land, it would be him.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_151"/>We go down to the harbour, Mama, Nunu and me, with hundreds of other people from the palace and the town. I’m torn between wanting to run all the way because I’m so sure it’s Dada, and feeling sick with fear at approaching the sea. But I don’t trust the land either: I wrap myself in my cloak and tuck the bag with our jewellery under my arm.</p> <p class="tx">It’s the first time we’ve left the palace since it happened. Now there’s light, I’m sure I’ll find Chance today too. Dada, Mama and me, Chance and his mother…we’ll all be reunited.</p> <p class="tx">But the light shows us more than we want to see. The devastation is worse than any demon-dream could conjure. We stumble into holes on the road where the sea god bit out rocks and spat them into the town. We climb over broken bits of houses and furniture.</p> <p class="tx">I’ve been thinking that the wave wasn’t as bad as our earthquake, because the palace is still standing, but the stink says it worse. The stink of rotting things from the sea that should never be on land. The stink of death. So many people keep washing up that they haven’t all been buried yet. Drowned goats and sheep are heaped onto fires to burn, but even the fires stink. I’m afraid to look at them, in case I see my puppy.</p> <p class="tx">We stand on the beach where the quay used to be, by the smashed ships and shipsheds, where the water is thick with floating pumice rocks, and watch the ship come in.</p> <p class="tx">It’s not Dada’s.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_152"/><i>I was so sure!</i> I don’t care if no one has ever sailed the wrong way around the trade route before, everything else in the world has changed, so why couldn’t this?</p> <p class="tx">Mama obviously thought so too. Her face puckers.</p> <p class="tx"><i>Please don’t wail, Mama! Not here, not now!</i></p> <p class="tx">Nunu hums to her, rocking her gently by the shoulders.</p> <p class="tx">Mama stares imperiously, shrugging off Nunu’s comforting hands. ‘Fish!’</p> <p class="tx">Today <i>Fish!</i> means ‘By the goddess, old woman, what are you doing?’</p> <p class="tx">Nunu catches my eye and grins. While she’s angry, Mama won’t be wailing.</p> <p class="tx">The ship drops anchor just off the wreckage-littered beach, and the sailors splash ashore. They’re speaking a strange language but the captain can speak ours, and an old sailor in the crowd can understand the men. The news filters quickly up from the ship to the watchers.</p> <p class="tx">The murdering wave was no more than a strange swell out at sea. The captain says that the gods waited to hurl it all at the land.</p> <p class="tx"><i>Can that be true? Could it be true for where Dada and Ibi were too?</i></p> <p class="tx">For an instant there’s hope in the world.</p> <div class="bkt"> <p class="hang0">But horror is stronger than hope –</p> <p class="hang">two days sail from here</p> <p class="hang">the ship passed the island</p> <p class="hang">where the gods fought over land and sea,</p> <p class="hang">and though gods cannot die</p> <p class="hang">that island has.</p> <p class="hang0"><a id="page_153"/>The sailors’ lungs, far out to sea</p> <p class="hang">burned in the smoking poison</p> <p class="hang">steaming out from the land.</p> <p class="hang">The falling ash, they say,</p> <p class="hang">was the island’s blood</p> <p class="hang">and the floating rocks its bones.</p> <p class="hang0">‘You weave like a rock floats,’</p> <p class="hang">Nunu used to say when I broke my yarn</p> <p class="hang">because everyone knows</p> <p class="hang">rocks don’t float –</p> <p class="hang">but now the world has turned</p> <p class="hang">and they do.</p> <p class="hang0">The grey mountain the sailors describe</p> <p class="hang">is not our island –</p> <p class="hang">it has no town of white houses</p> <p class="hang">climbing the hill from the sea,</p> <p class="hang">no green slopes</p> <p class="hang">or sheltered harbours –</p> <p class="hang">but I shiver to think</p> <p class="hang">that any land could die.</p> <p class="hang0">The crowd, too, murmurs and cries</p> <p class="hang">an uncertain anger at gods in turmoil</p> <p class="hang">and chieftains gone,</p> <p class="hang">at land destroyed and tales of worse –</p> <p class="hang">we are not safe here.</p> <p class="hang0">But before I can leave</p> <p class="hang">I’m drawn to the water’s edge,</p> <p class="hang">wading out to feel, around my ankles,</p> <p class="hang">the bobbing roughness of rounded rocks –</p> <p class="hang">because the lumps of grey, red and black,</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_154"/>though not of our goddess,</p> <p class="hang">are the colours of my land.</p> </div> <p class="tx1-1">Just as seeing the heaps of dead animals made it hard to believe that Chance has survived, the story of the smoking island darkens our hope for Dada and Ibi. We’re calling to the goddess from our room – Mama’s ‘no, no, no!’ is as good a prayer as any – when there’s a scrabbling at the door. I open it to a skinny, black, half-grown dog. He leaps at me; I throw my arms around him, and we both tumble to the floor.</p> <p class="tx">‘Chance! You’re alive!’</p> <p class="tx">Tears are streaming down my face, and if dogs could cry they’d be streaming down Chance’s too. He climbs onto my lap because he can never remember that he’s too big now, and whimpers to tell me how scared he’s been. He’s heavy and awkward, and holding him is the best thing I’ve ever felt. Nunu clucks at him, and even Mama smiles.</p> <p class="tx">‘You don’t need to be afraid now you’re with me,’ I comfort him, and though he whines again and hides his head under my arm, I feel braver too now that he’s back.</p> <p class="tx">Because the palace does not feel safe. It feels like a hive of bees when the queen has flown. Maybe the Lady has flown; even now there’s enough light to see, and we can guess that the dawn has arrived, she doesn’t come out to sing the sun – when the sun needs that song as never before. How can a land survive without its ritual?</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_155"/>She appears for the first time the next day. She looks pale and sick, dazed with grief. She does not look like a ruler.</p> <p class="tx">The man beside her does. It’s the trade priest, the only priest who survived, because he was the only one who didn’t go down to the harbour when the great wave came. Now he is Sarpedon, the chief. He feasts the sailors – there are still goats and sheep in the hills to be slaughtered and cooked, though the smell of the grilling meat mingling with the stink of dead animals on bonfires makes me gag.</p> <p class="tx">I eat anyway and gather bones for Chance. Nunu says the servant talk is that the stores of dried food are dwindling fast. The barley in the fields that was ready to harvest has been smothered and scorched. Spring is the season of fresh greens; people should be out picking in the hills, but this year there’s nothing to pick. The ash covered it all and the new plants aren’t strong enough to push their way through. The gentle spring rains, instead of washing it away, run the ash into pools, where it hardens like rock in the next day’s sun.</p> <p class="tx">Worse, any townfolk, fishers and sailors who survived when their homes and stores were swept away are coming to the palace for food. You don’t have to be an oracle to see that only trouble can come from less food and more people.</p> <p class="tx">All my life, I’ve thought that being Swallow Clan meant we were safe. Not from random cruelties of the gods like illness and accidents, but safe from hunger, from violence and fear.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_156"/>Now I’m not so sure. I’m not hungry, but I’m afraid it could happen. In fact, I’m afraid all the time. I’m afraid of the crowds of people who come to the palace to demand food, because if Nunu is right, there soon won’t be anything to give them. And we have only Sarpedon and a small handful of guards to hold them back.</p> <p class="tx">I’m even more afraid because this Sarpedon doesn’t like us. He lied about my brother and he’s afraid we know it. No – not afraid: angry. And now he’s in power.</p> <p class="tx">He’s not the only one who doesn’t like us. People point their fingers against evil at our door, and mutter about curses carried from over the sea.</p> <p class="tx"><i>She’s my mother!</i> I want to shout. <i>She was our Lady’s sister; she was wise and beautiful and when her spirit comes back she’ll be like that again!</i></p> <p class="tx">But her spirit isn’t back, only a tiny bit of it, and even though she only cries when she hears other people keening, they still don’t understand. They remember her wailing as if she was foretelling this disaster, and they hate her.</p> <p class="tx">Most of all, I’ve been afraid since I saw that slave girl led to the altar. Just like I didn’t know priest-folk could go hungry, I didn’t know that anyone needed to be afraid of being sacrificed like a goat.</p> <p class="tx">It seems there are more things to be afraid of than I’ve ever imagined.</p> <p class="tx">The thoughts swirl in my head, as if Pellie and I are arguing:</p> <p class="tx"><i>We need to run away, to find somewhere safe.</i></p> <p class="tx"><i>We’re guests here! Of course we’re safe.</i></p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_157"/><i>Sarpedon hates us.</i></p> <p class="tx"><i>But this is where Dada will return to.</i></p> <p class="tx"><i>He won’t find us if we’re dead like Glaucus. Or like the slave girl.</i></p> <p class="tx"><i>But where can we go?</i></p> <p class="tx">That’s the one there’s no answer to. No answer except to tell Nunu to venture back to the kitchen at different times of the day, to gather extra food, dried figs or fish, barley cakes – things that are light to carry and don’t need cooking. At the same time I organise our goods, packing the gold and bronze items into baskets with our clothing.</p> <p class="tx">I’m not quite sure why I’m doing this. It’s as if the Pellie part of my brain is planning, and not telling Leira what it’s for, because what it’s for is too scary to contemplate.</p> <p class="tx1-1">In the end there’s no choice. A roar of shouting, of doors being battered, wakes us in the night. There’s no time even to dress. We throw our cloaks on over our nightshifts and grab the packed baskets. I peer out of our room; Nunu tells Mama to keep quiet, and for once, she obeys. So does Chance, except for a low, rumbling growl. He hasn’t left my side since he returned.</p> <p class="tx">The back gate has been broken down. Men are pouring in, heading for the storerooms. We shelter behind our door till they pass, then run down the corridor and out the shattered gate. It’s too dark to see where we’re going: ‘Into the hills!’ I whisper, because the sea is no longer safe and neither is the town.</p> <p class="txc">*</p> <p class="tx1-1"><a id="page_158"/>We climb steadily upwards. By the time the murky dawn breaks we can look far down to the cemetery where Glaucus lies, and further down to black smoke coiling up from the palace.</p> <p class="tx">Mama is slowing already, and Nunu is panting, but I am thinking like an animal: I can’t let them stop till we find an outcrop of rock to shelter against, where no one can take us by surprise from behind.</p> <p class="tx">Nunu pulls a bladder of ale from her basket. I don’t ask how she got it – I’m just glad she did, because I’d thought of food but not drink. We each take a sip; Mama wants more and is cross when I stop her. ‘No, no, no!’ she snaps, trying to grab it back from me.</p> <p class="tx">‘Fig!’ says Nunu, handing her one. ‘Your favourite!’</p> <p class="tx">Mama chews, and forgets that she’s angry. But it takes another one before she forgets that she’s hungry.</p> <p class="tx">I don’t know how many figs or barley cakes we have, or how long the ale will last, but it doesn’t matter – I don’t know where we’re going or how long it will take to get there. The smoke from the palace is thickening and spreading; we won’t be going back to Tarmara.</p> <p class="tx"><i>If townfolk are attacking the palace, it’s not safe to be priest-folk.</i></p> <p class="tx">I hear this as if the goddess herself has spoken in my head, though she doesn’t tell me what to do about it. <i>Don’t be Swallow Clan</i>? It’s like saying, ‘Don’t be a girl. Be a dog instead.’</p> <p class="tx">I wish I could be a dog. We could follow Chance, scavenge for food, and bite anyone that attacks <a id="page_159"/>us. We wouldn’t have to decide if we should go on walking in our nightshifts or dress properly and tear our clothes. Our nightshifts are white linen, split at the sides like our dress shifts, but the front in one piece that covers our breasts. It’s easiest just to wear them.</p> <div class="bkt"> <p class="hang0">Trying to remember</p> <p class="hang">what Dada told me of this land,</p> <p class="hang">where the best pots come from,</p> <p class="hang">the bronze and gold</p> <p class="hang">and where the cities lie –</p> <p class="hang">Knossos the greatest.</p> <p class="hang">But Nunu heard the rumour:</p> <p class="hang">what the sea did to their harbour</p> <p class="hang">was worse than here</p> <p class="hang">and riots have smashed the palace.</p> <p class="hang0">‘Over the mountains to the east,’ said Dada,</p> <p class="hang">‘barely a full day’s sail by sea,</p> <p class="hang">is Gournia:</p> <p class="hang">a town of honest traders,</p> <p class="hang">though smaller than our own –</p> <p class="hang">I once sat out a five-day storm</p> <p class="hang">in their wide safe bay.’</p> <p class="hang0">Perhaps the angry sea</p> <p class="hang">has spared this town,</p> <p class="hang">and my heart says,</p> <p class="hang">‘If Gournia sheltered Dada</p> <p class="hang">it can save us too.’</p> <p class="hang">Dada will be remembered</p> <p class="hang">and the priest-folk will take us in,</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_160"/>for though we’ve left the pots behind</p> <p class="hang">we still have gold and bronze</p> <p class="hang">to trade.</p> <p class="hang0">Our ceremonial shifts and skirts,</p> <p class="hang">rolled inside our cloaks,</p> <p class="hang">are strapped across our backs</p> <p class="hang">to keep them clean and whole</p> <p class="hang">so when it’s safe</p> <p class="hang">we can look as priest-folk should.</p> <p class="hang0">I find a branch for Nunu to lean on,</p> <p class="hang">and we turn to the east,</p> <p class="hang">clambering up goat trails</p> <p class="hang">with the rising sun in our eyes.</p> <p class="hang0">This is not like gathering flowers</p> <p class="hang">on Crocus Mountain –</p> <p class="hang">the hills aren’t higher</p> <p class="hang">but go on without end;</p> <p class="hang">thorns tear our legs, our arms and shifts;</p> <p class="hang">the smoky sky is dark,</p> <p class="hang">lightning flashes without rain –</p> <p class="hang">and we won’t be returning</p> <p class="hang">to hot baths and feasting.</p> <p class="hang0">‘At least we’re not carrying Mama,’ says Nunu,</p> <p class="hang">which is true,</p> <p class="hang">though I still wish we had Dada or Ibi</p> <p class="hang">and knew how far we must go.</p> <p class="hang0">Then Mama starts her <i>no, no, no</i> song</p> <p class="hang">and I sing with her, but louder,</p> <p class="hang">‘Yes, yes-yes, yes!’</p> <p class="hang">till Nunu laughs, wheezing and coughing.</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_161"/>I think Mama will laugh too –</p> <p class="hang">but she shouts louder,</p> <p class="hang">slaps Nunu, and sits.</p> <p class="hang0">I tell her we don’t have much food</p> <p class="hang">and no shelter till we reach this town;</p> <p class="hang">we need to keep moving</p> <p class="hang">before the sun is too high to find the east –</p> <p class="hang">but if Mama is sitting we must all do the same</p> <p class="hang">and I can see</p> <p class="hang">that Nunu also needs to rest.</p> <p class="hang0">Another sip of ale, a barley cake and fig.</p> <p class="hang">I rub Mama’s feet,</p> <p class="hang">wipe blood off her scratched legs</p> <p class="hang">with the edge of my shift.</p> <p class="hang">Chance licks mine,</p> <p class="hang">the only drink he gets.</p> <p class="hang0">Smelling bruised thyme</p> <p class="hang">disturbed under ashes</p> <p class="hang">between the rocks where we rest,</p> <p class="hang">I wonder if the goddess will ever</p> <p class="hang">call her plants to return.</p> <p class="hang0">We sing to Mama, sing her up to her feet,</p> <p class="hang">over the crest of this ash-covered hill;</p> <p class="hang">a glimpse of the sea where we’ve come from –</p> <p class="hang">not as far as I hoped</p> <p class="hang">for all the climbing we’ve done –</p> <p class="hang">down the slope and up one more</p> <p class="hang">to find a safer place to rest</p> <p class="hang">while the sun is high,</p> <p class="hang">our faces shaded and backs guarded.</p> <p class="hang0"><a id="page_162"/>‘Watch while I sleep,’ I say to Nunu,</p> <p class="hang">but she is already snoring –</p> <p class="hang">and so is Chance.</p> <p class="hang">I’m an almost-woman, young and strong,</p> <p class="hang">I tell myself</p> <p class="hang">but after a moment</p> <p class="hang">I doze too.</p> </div> <p class="tx1-1">We walk on once the sun dips enough that we can be sure of the west. The light is still weak through the haze, and keeping it on our backs is not as easy as walking into it in the morning. The goat trail twists and crooks so we have to keep checking if the glow is still behind us.</p> <p class="tx">When did Nunu get so stiff she can hardly turn her head? She has to pivot her whole body, and now she’s so tired that she staggers when she does it. Once, she falls right over.</p> <p class="tx">‘Don’t look back!’ I snap. ‘I’ll take us the right way!’</p> <p class="tx">I need Nunu to be younger. I need Mama to be well.</p> <p class="tx">I need Dada to be here.</p> <p class="tx">I need Glaucus to be alive and the world to be right.</p> <p class="tx">In my head, Pellie laughs. <i>Are you baby, or almost-woman?</i> she asks, so clearly that I spin around to see her.</p> <p class="tx">She’s not there. How could she be? She’s safe at home with her mother the Lady and her sister Kora, far from murdering waves and crowds.</p> <p class="tx">I go on walking, and singing to Mama, and turning around to see where the sun is, until I don’t need to <a id="page_163"/>turn around anymore, because suddenly it’s dark. We are not going any further tonight. My stomach cramps in pain.</p> <p class="tx">‘Nunu,’ I whisper, ‘I think my bleeding is coming early!’</p> <p class="tx">‘You’re hungry,’ Nunu says grimly.</p> <p class="tx">I open my mouth to argue, because I’ve been hungry before – I’ve fasted from sunrise to sunset on feast days – but I’ve never felt like this.</p> <p class="tx">Then I remember the sweet barley porridge that Nunu would give me before sunrise on those days. I can almost feel its warmth filling my stomach, and almost cry because it’s not real.</p> <p class="tx">‘This is the sort of hunger that made my family sell me to your grandparents,’ says Nunu.</p> <p class="tx1-1">Terror descends with the dark. We’re starving in a world the gods have abandoned, without fire or shelter, and a half-grown puppy to protect us.</p> <p class="tx">But as we unwrap our bundles of clothes, I remember the bronze dagger. It’s the most valuable thing we have to trade. Hunting dogs are etched along the blade, and a lion’s head is carved into the golden hilt – but I don’t care about its beauty. It’s a weapon.</p> <p class="tx">Tying our flounced woollen skirts over our nightshifts, and our cloaks on top, we huddle together. It’s still cold on the rocks, but Chance is warm on my feet, and I clutch the dagger till the handle is hot in my hand and sends strength to my heart.</p> <p class="txc">*</p> <p class="tx1-1"><a id="page_164"/>‘Sing the dawn,’ says Nunu.</p> <p class="tx">So I do, because there’s nobody else to do it, and even though it doesn’t feel right, the sun comes up the way it should, and I think it’s a little brighter than yesterday.</p> <p class="tx">Does the Lady sing it in Tarmara today, after the invaders and the fire? What happened in the palace after we fled?</p> <p class="tx">Mama doesn’t waste time worrying about things like this. While I am peeing behind a bush, Chance is nosing around further up the hill, and Nunu is bundling our skirts and cloaks, Mama grabs the drink skin and gulps the rest of the ale.</p> <p class="tx">We finished the barley cakes last night. There are six figs left; Mama cries when I say we have to leave three of them so we can have something later.</p> <p class="tx">‘They’ll taste better when we’ve walked a little way,’ I tell her – but one fig or two, we’ll still be hungry, and most importantly, we’ll still be thirsty.</p> <p class="tx">These mountains had snow on their peaks before the ash covered everything. If we keep on walking, we’re bound to find a river – or even a little creek – just a trickle of snow melt will make us happy.</p> <div class="bkt"> <p class="hang0">We step into the creek before we know</p> <p class="hang">and the thick ash sludge</p> <p class="hang">is up to our knees,</p> <p class="hang">as if a hearth has been washed</p> <p class="hang">before the embers are cleared.</p> <p class="hang0"><a id="page_165"/>Sandals slide and slip from our feet –</p> <p class="hang">I reach and search</p> <p class="hang">till all my shift is as mud as the hem –</p> <p class="hang">I find three sandals</p> <p class="hang">but never the fourth</p> <p class="hang">and think Nunu is lucky</p> <p class="hang">to have never known shoes,</p> <p class="hang">though her old legs are trembling</p> <p class="hang">with pushing through muck.</p> <p class="hang0">Mama feels the wetness; scoops it up,</p> <p class="hang">choking as ash smears black</p> <p class="hang">across her lips.</p> <p class="hang">‘No!’ I snap,</p> <p class="hang">but the thirst wins,</p> <p class="hang">and Nunu and I try it too,</p> <p class="hang">spitting grit between our teeth,</p> <p class="hang">harsh moisture on our tongues.</p> <p class="hang">Only Chance doesn’t care.</p> <p class="hang0">Shivering out to the other side</p> <p class="hang">my wet shift clinging, foul with ash,</p> <p class="hang">Mama’s wet only to her knees,</p> <p class="hang">though she slaps at it, ‘No, no, no!’</p> <p class="hang">as if it could learn to behave.</p> <p class="hang0">Nunu pulls off her tunic –</p> <p class="hang">thorn-shredded up the side –</p> <p class="hang">rubs Mama’s legs with the drier part,</p> <p class="hang">dresses her in formal flounced skirt</p> <p class="hang">then helps me do the same.</p> <p class="hang">But no gossamer shift to tear on thorns –</p> <p class="hang">till our nightshifts dry</p> <p class="hang">we’ll go bare-topped as farmers.</p> <p class="hang0"><a id="page_166"/>Not far from the mire</p> <p class="hang">that was once a stream</p> <p class="hang">we find another path;</p> <p class="hang">skirts catching prickles and thorns;</p> <p class="hang">my right foot, bare on the stones –</p> <p class="hang">I’ve given Mama my sandal –</p> <p class="hang">bruised and bleeding</p> <p class="hang">like the wounded Kora.</p> <p class="hang">I think of how she bears her pain</p> <p class="hang">and maybe I can too.</p> <p class="hang0">I don’t care where the path goes</p> <p class="hang">but it may lead us to help</p> <p class="hang">because the cruel fact is</p> <p class="hang">we can’t do this alone.</p> <p class="hang">And at worst</p> <p class="hang">it’s still leading us east</p> <p class="hang">through the spiny forest.</p> <p class="hang0">At siesta time, when the sun is high</p> <p class="hang">we eat our last figs –</p> <p class="hang">our throats so parched we can hardly swallow –</p> <p class="hang">and rest in tree-shade,</p> <p class="hang">Mama and Nunu dozing,</p> <p class="hang">open-mouthed and twitching.</p> <p class="hang0">I clutch my dagger</p> <p class="hang">because demons were howling in the night</p> <p class="hang">and some of them</p> <p class="hang">might have been wolves.</p> <p class="hang">I only know wolves</p> <p class="hang">from stories and furs –</p> <p class="hang">but I know that Chance</p> <p class="hang">isn’t big enough to fight them.</p> <p class="hang0"><a id="page_167"/>We need to find people –</p> <p class="hang">if we’re not the last alive in this world –</p> <p class="hang">and shelter and food.</p> <p class="hang">I pack our empty baskets</p> <p class="hang">one into the other</p> <p class="hang">and find two strong branches –</p> <p class="hang">a crutch for each, Mama and Nunu,</p> <p class="hang">then wake them from their rest.</p> <p class="hang0">Mama is cross, throws her crutch away –</p> <p class="hang">though when I use it,</p> <p class="hang">easing the pain in my wounded foot,</p> <p class="hang">she takes it back.</p> <p class="hang0">Trudging, stumbling,</p> <p class="hang">we limp on through the day,</p> <p class="hang">eagles circling above –</p> <p class="hang">wishing my spirit could soar with them</p> <p class="hang">spying out what lies ahead</p> <p class="hang">and what we’ve left behind.</p> <p class="hang0">The sun is lowering –</p> <p class="hang">I don’t know how we can face</p> <p class="hang">another night of fear and hunger –</p> <p class="hang">when Chance growls</p> <p class="hang">and we hear the bleating of goats.</p> <p class="hang">I see a flock below us,</p> <p class="hang">and a lone boy building a fire</p> <p class="hang">by a shelter of rocks and branches.</p> <p class="hang0">His dog standing alert,</p> <p class="hang">hackles raised, growling to see us</p> <p class="hang">and starting to charge;</p> <p class="hang">the boy shouts him back,</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_168"/>his hand on its shoulder,</p> <p class="hang">like mine on Chance.</p> <p class="hang0">‘Greetings, strangers,’</p> <p class="hang">he calls, a quaver in his voice,</p> <p class="hang">‘are you tree-spirits,</p> <p class="hang">or women abandoned by the gods</p> <p class="hang">to wander lost in the hills?’</p> <p class="hang0">Abandoned by the gods</p> <p class="hang">is exactly how I feel</p> <p class="hang">though it seems a dangerous reply.</p> <p class="hang">I can’t think</p> <p class="hang">how to explain why we’re here –</p> <p class="hang">faces blackened with mud,</p> <p class="hang">bare as peasants though in elegant skirts,</p> <p class="hang">gold on throats and arms,</p> <p class="hang">not clad in goatskins</p> <p class="hang">as his mother and sisters must be.</p> <p class="hang">And though Nunu’s grey hair is plaited tight</p> <p class="hang">and my curls too short to tangle,</p> <p class="hang">my ponytail is a knot</p> <p class="hang">and Mama’s hair a nest of snakes.</p> <p class="hang0">But before anyone speaks,</p> <p class="hang">Nunu moans and drops to the ground.</p> <p class="hang0">‘Old mother!’ shouts the boy,</p> <p class="hang">rushing to her as Mama shouts ‘No!’</p> <p class="hang">and I kneel by her side.</p> <p class="hang0">Nunu’s eyes flutter and she tries to rise</p> <p class="hang">but the boy lifts her,</p> <p class="hang">carrying her to the fire</p> <p class="hang">and pulling a goat fleece from the shelter.</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_169"/>‘Lay this under your grandmother</p> <p class="hang">when I lift her.’</p> <p class="hang0">Mama weeps hot tears –</p> <p class="hang">the goatherd thinks it’s for Nunu’s frailty</p> <p class="hang">not for being mistaken</p> <p class="hang">as her daughter –</p> <p class="hang">this is not the moment to explain.</p> <p class="hang0">From a skin bag</p> <p class="hang">the boy squeezes milk into Nunu’s mouth,</p> <p class="hang">offers to Mama, then to me.</p> <p class="hang">The milk is sour, creamy and thick</p> <p class="hang">smooth on my throat,</p> <p class="hang">rich on my tongue</p> <p class="hang">like a gift from the gods.</p> <p class="hang0">‘You’ve come far?’ the boy asks,</p> <p class="hang">though he knows we have –</p> <p class="hang">it’s easy to see we don’t belong.</p> <p class="hang">‘You must eat and rest</p> <p class="hang">till the old one is well.’</p> <p class="hang0">He doesn’t ask more</p> <p class="hang">but tells what he’s seen</p> <p class="hang">since the gods burned the sky:</p> <p class="hang">people fleeing the angry sea,</p> <p class="hang">drowned houses and hunger.</p> <p class="hang">He’s brought his flock up high,</p> <p class="hang">searching – not finding –</p> <p class="hang">new grass and clean water</p> <p class="hang">but has heard news from the shore.</p> <p class="hang0">‘Some folk blame the priests.</p> <p class="hang">Priest-folk take our first fruits,</p> <p class="hang">tax flocks and harvest to please the gods.</p> <p class="hang"><a id="page_170"/>Now the gods have destroyed the world –</p> <p class="hang">the priests have failed;</p> <p class="hang">and we don’t know why</p> <p class="hang">we’ve obeyed them so long,</p> <p class="hang">storing food in their palace</p> <p class="hang">and going hungry ourselves.’</p> <p class="hang0">‘No, no, no,’ says Mama,</p> <p class="hang">which is as wise</p> <p class="hang">as anything I could say,</p> <p class="hang">and the boy, watching us, adds,</p> <p class="hang">‘But I say the priest-folk</p> <p class="hang">must live as they can,</p> <p class="hang">and even in lean times</p> <p class="hang">a goatherd needn’t go hungry.’</p> </div> <p class="tx1-1">Chance stays tucked behind my skirt, nervous of the goatherd’s dog, who growls every time Chance pokes his head out. The boy smiles. ‘Smart pup. My dog wants him to know who’s boss.’</p> <p class="tx">He whistles, and as he drags prickly branches into a rough fence around the shelter, his dog rounds up the herd. Chance watches and joins in, yipping and darting at reluctant strays till they are all in the corral: billy goats, nanny goats and a few early kids. The goatherd drags a last branch across the opening. The dog sniffs Chance, who rolls onto his back, offering his defenceless belly.</p> <p class="tx">‘They’ll be all right now,’ says the goatherd.</p> <p class="tx">Talking gently to the goats, he moves around them, stroking heads, feeling udders and bellies. When one kid has finished drinking from its mother, the boy <a id="page_171"/>pulls a wooden bowl from a thong around his neck, squats at the nanny’s side and milks it into the bowl. He pours the milk into a skin bag like the one we drank from, ‘for yoghurt,’ he explains, and goes on checking the goats.</p> <p class="tx">I don’t know how he can tell them apart. They all look the same to me, but he talks to them as if they can understand, moving slowly through the flock till he’s checked each one. He milks another nanny and adds the milk to the same bag.</p> <p class="tx">‘Most years she’d fill this bag herself,’ he says sadly, and more sadly still, comes to a small kid nuzzling hopefully at its thin mother. He calms the mother with words I can’t hear before carrying the kid away, stroking it and singing what sounds like a prayer.</p> <p class="tx">Squatting again, he holds the wooden bowl between his knees as if he’s milking, still stroking the kid. Then his hand flashes; I see the grey flint blade and the redness gushing from the little goat’s opened throat.</p> <p class="tx">The mother goat bleats once and he calls to her, soothing, even as he skins her kid and prepares it for the fire.</p> <p class="tx">‘This mother is old,’ he says, seeing me watching. ‘She couldn’t find enough grass under the ash to make milk. The kid would have died of hunger in the coming days. So it gives its life for its mother and for us: now she has a chance of staying alive another year. And we will eat well tonight.’</p> <p class="tx">The bones and smoke are offered to the gods as ceremoniously as any priest would do it. The bowl of <a id="page_172"/>blood is set on a rock by the fire, and the meat threaded onto green branches to cook.</p> <p class="tx">I’m learning a whole story here, in a way I’ve never seen it before: the hungry kid, the bleating mother, and me, the end of the story, with my mouth watering at the smell of roasting meat. It seems you can feel sorry and hungry and grateful all at the same time.</p> <p class="tx">And I am very grateful. Nunu has revived with the milk and the rest; we eat hot roasted flesh and sleep near the fire with our faces greasy and our bellies full. The goats and their herder will be moving higher into the mountains tomorrow; we can’t stay with them but we’ll leave stronger. And wiser.</p> <p class="tx1-1">‘What is your plan?’ the boy asks next morning, when we have shared the blood pudding that set in the night and washed it down with milk from the same bowl.</p> <p class="tx">I hesitate, but there seems no reason not to tell him where we’re headed. ‘We hope to find work at the palace in Gournia.’ I stumble over the ‘work’ – it’s help we need.</p> <p class="tx">‘It would be safer if you weren’t so obviously priest-folk. Better if you looked more like servants who fled when your homes and workshops were drowned.’</p> <p class="tx">‘But we weren’t wearing our shifts!’ I blush – it’s humiliating to have arrived with my shoulders bare, though my nightshift is covering them now. ‘And we’re so dirty – how did you know?’</p> <p class="tx">He laughs. ‘Your skin is soft under the dirt. Your mother wears sandals; your feet are bleeding as if <a id="page_173"/>they’ve never gone barefoot. And your jewellery is gold.’</p> <p class="tx">‘We could be goldsmiths.’</p> <p class="tx">‘Goldsmiths’ hands are hard and scarred, and they’re smart enough not to wear their art. People are scared and hungry; you don’t know what they’ll do.’ He shudders, and I wonder if finding fresh grass for his goats is the only reason he’s come so high up the hills. ‘At least hide your gold. You could perhaps be palace servants who fled when their masters were killed – but a servant wearing gold looks like a thief.’</p> <p class="tx">‘We’re not thieves!’</p> <p class="tx">‘I know.’ He smiles.</p> <p class="tx">Like a swallow changing flight, the hot rage at his accusation turns to scald me. <i>Now I need a goatherd to tell me how to behave?</i></p> <p class="tx">‘Thank you,’ I say, saluting with my hand on my heart as if he were an equal.</p> <p class="tx"><i>Maybe he is!</i></p> <p class="tx">A strange thought.</p> <p class="tx1-1">The goatherd doesn’t want to accept a host gift, but he’s helped us in more ways than the food, and I’m grateful. I give him the small gold earrings that have been mine since childhood. I’m still wearing the bigger hoops Mama gave me on crocus-gathering day – I can’t give away part of my sacred Learning.</p> <p class="tx">‘While we’re walking,’ I decide, ‘the jewellery is safer being worn than in a basket. We’ll take it off and hide it before we reach people.’</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_174"/>But I loop Mama’s dragonfly necklace around my waist, tucking it securely out of sight under my wrapped skirt, with the dagger belted tight at my hip. Nunu wears three of Mama’s bracelets – that will be quicker than taking them off Mama in an emergency.</p> <p class="tx">The goatherd half-fills our ale bag with milk and puts a piece of last night’s roasted meat in my basket, covering it with leaves to keep the flies away.</p> <p class="tx">‘Follow this path till the sun is high,’ he says. ‘Walk with care after siesta; where the path forks, one leg goes to the sea and the other to a small settlement. The settlement folk believe the gods died on that night – it is not a good place.’</p> <p class="tx">‘We’ll head towards the sea,’ I promise.</p> <p class="tx">We’re partway down the hill before it strikes me that even after all the discussion, he saluted us like priest-folk to say goodbye.</p> </body> </html>