Dragonfly Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn’t wish to dishonour your gods with a hasty choice of tribute,’ the Lady is saying.
    Another lie! The two new bull dancers have lived in the Hall for the past year, training and preparing. It would be easier to prepare if there were bulls on the island, but the rocky soil is too harsh for cattle, andthe calves so carefully, expensively brought in by boat have always sickened and died. It would also be easier if they knew exactly what they were training for, but no one on the island has seen the dances that the Bull King loves so much.
    In fact the only thing they know for sure is the promise: if a dancer survives the year, they will be free to return home, and their island will be free of tribute forever.
    And, of course, the other fact – that so far no one’s ever survived the year.
    Then, as if the Lady has put the thought straight into her mind, Aissa understands. Her mouth twitches into an almost-smile, and Milli-Cat purrs at her feet as if she’s understood too.
    Though the tribute is a heavy load for this poor, rocky island, they’d pay four times that to keep their children safe at home. They don’t have that choice. All they have is the small secret of knowing that the new bull dancers, gone now for one last day with their families, have been given the best chance possible.
    Aissa understands small silent victories. Things like knowing that a rat is nesting in the corner of the kitchen where Half-One and Half-Two sleep, even if it never bites those wasp-tongued twins . . . she knows how that is.
    But she’s never thought of how the bull dancers feel, or that they could be afraid. Even though they’re only a year older than she is, and have been living just a wall away from the servants’ kitchen, they’re as distantas the eagles soaring over the mountain crags. The differences are so complete she can’t even be jealous. Except for one thing: No one spits at the sight of them . If the gods gave her one wish, that would be it: to have a day when no one spat at her. One full day. She sees it like a smooth pebble to hold in her hand, a jewel that would make the rest of her life bearable.
    Suddenly, like a chasm opening beneath her feet, a thought cracks her world.
    The dancers will leave tomorrow morning. Eight days after that, next year’s dancers will be chosen. Every twelve year old on the island has a chance.
    Even me , she thinks. The voice in her head, that no one else has ever heard, is full of doubt and wonder, almost awe. Even me .
    Bull King’s men are tall
    strong
    big in every way.
    They eat like giants
    leaving little for servants;
    nothing for Aissa.
    Dreams of hunger
    crying to Mama
    for soft white cheese
    salty dried fish
    crunchy hot crickets.
    Waking to no Mama
    no soft white cheese
    no salty dried fish
    but her sleeping pallet
    black with crickets.
    Aissa is a quick cricket-catcher
    hungry enough to eat them raw.
    ‘No!’ says a voice,
    loud in her head.
    ‘They’ve come to the call!’
    A voice she doesn’t know.
    Words like the oracle.
    Oracles don’t speak through a No-Name child;
    gods don’t talk to bad-luck girls.
    But hungry Aissa
    leaves the crickets alone.
    Maybe that’s why
    the gods let her see
    what no one else does:
    Milli-Cat and the ship beast
    dancing in the dawn,
    rubbing heads and yowling.
    Aissa is glad
    that Milli-Cat has a friend
    and wonders
    what that would be like.
    Aissa doesn’t go to her spying place that morning. Already the world is busy and awake; she can see the captain and his men through the open door of the Hall. They’re yawning and stretching just like normal people. One of them passes on his way to the privy. Aissa shrinks against the wall, waiting forthe first-sight-of-the-day spit to keep her evil luck away from him.
    He doesn’t spit. His eyes glance over and ignore her, as if she was any other servant girl.
    The crack in Aissa’s world opens wider.
    She should be cleaning; she should have already swept out the Great Room where