Bird of Chaos: Book One of the Harpy's Curse Read online

  So I did. Hero said he wanted nothing to do with an eccentric blind homeless boy who was up to no good. He said he’d had enough of running around with the Shark’s Teeth out there. “We only just escaped last time,” he said and he was right. So I went alone.

  Though winter had been harsh there had been no rain or ice since the year Callirhoe arrived and the air was dry. The sun was reluctant to poke its head from behind the grey clouds and the city was heavy. It was also relatively empty on account of the recent disturbances. Every second street was teeming with soldiers.

  I met the boy in the alley and he took my arm. A rickety timber stairway leading up to a second floor; a face in a basement window at ground level; and a cantilevered building on the verge of toppling: Elef saw none of this. His bony hand dug into my arm. He felt the earth with his toes.

  I knew I was safe. Elef could hear people long before I could see them. He would stop, raise his nose to the air like he could smell them then say, “We can’t go that way. City guard.”

  Reaching Mines Passage, a wide road which delineated the end of Minesend and the start of Lete, he stopped and said, “Do you feel anything?”

  I furrowed my brow in confusion. “No.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  With my eyes closed I tried to feel something. I felt no hands groping in my pockets, no tug at my purse strings. That was something.

  “You have to concentrate. Tibuta has a glow. You must listen for it. You will feel it beneath your feet.”

  I tried as hard as I could but the lights flickering behind my lids tempted me to look. I shook my head. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Come back tomorrow,” he said.

  So I did.

  Over the next few weeks Elef introduced me to parts of the city I never knew existed. He taught me the smell of a sewer you could enter at the top of Justice Way and follow down to the water’s edge. He taught me the sound of the fishermen coming in through the watergate, the feel of them docking in Elea Bay and the flavour of them painting the streets with fish guts. He taught me the smell of smoke from a thousand chimneys, the caress of fresh air against my cheek. Sure, at times we had to duck into a laneway or scuttle up a drainpipe to avoid the rebels but that didn’t bother me. They were on the periphery. My vision was dominated by Elef. He taught me to open my ears and nose. He taught me to really feel Tibuta, to love his city.

  But what a short-lived friendship it was. About a month later I returned to the streets with a loaf of hot bread and a pair of soft leather boots but Elef was nowhere to be found. I checked the abandoned candleshop where he sometimes slept. I climbed the building opposite and looked under the awning where he leant beside the chimney if the weather was really cold. I looked for him in the marketplace and down by Elea Bay. I called his name in the drainpipe. I asked for him in the town square and the library where a lot of the homeless children went to beg. No one had seen him.

  The next day I found Charis, a boy with fleabites all over his legs, who had run away from the mines. He was stealing squash from an overturned cart on Justice Way. “He’s gone,” he said.

  “Gone where?”

  He shrugged.

  “But how can someone just disappear like that?”

  “It happens all the time. He probably crawled into a warm space under someone’s house, fell asleep and never woke up. Or the Queen’s Guard got him.”

  “Could he have joined the Shark’s Teeth?”

  “Unlikely. What would they do with a blind boy? He’s probably dead.” Charis said.

  How could a life be so insignificant? How could a person’s whereabouts be met with a shrug? It made me so sad. I nursed my grief in my room, sliding down the wall to the floor. Violent sobs shook through my body and even Harryet could not comfort me. Poor Elef had died. Not for helping me. Not for acting against my mother. Not for his gift. But because the world is cruel. It made me worse than sad. It made me hate Tibuta. But only for a while: it was impossible to hate Tibuta for long. Every twisting alley and every stagnant pool reminded me of Elef. Though I never saw him again he gave me a reason to love even the darkest parts of our city.

  The second boy, well…I am embarrassed to mention him. He was the son of a distant cousin from one of the remoter islands furthest from Tibuta proper. Ruben was his name and he had an appreciation for fine clothes and even finer cuts of meat. Hog, swan—you name it, he had tried it. I noticed him during the sacrificial bonfire in celebration of Ayfra’s birth. The fire was massive and sat on the flats in the Lower Ward. Smoke and the stench of burning meat filled the air. Sparks rose into the sky and disappeared among the stars. The heat that radiated from the fire was almost too hot to endure.

  Ruben had his arms crossed over his thick velvet cape, one shiny boot resting on the other, his gaze disappearing past the flames. His midnight hair was tussled, his square jaw covered in a hint of a beard. He held himself with the air of a Caspian prince who truly believed he might conquer us and sit on the Tibutan throne one day. I cringe to think of it now.

  I swallowed, approaching tentatively the way one might approach a sleeping lion and offered him a drink of tank, a sweet spirit made from fermented roses. He looked at my silver flask, looked at me and shrugged. “Why not?”

  By midnight we were drunk. My confidence got the better of me and I took his hand and led him away from the fire, past the buildings that glowed orange in its light, through a maze of colonnades and arches to a quiet courtyard. I pushed him against the wall beneath an apple tree and I kissed him. Oh the gods it was awful. The taste was…He had just eaten garlic sausage. I could feel meat residue on his teeth. His tongue thrashed around inside me like a trapped snake.

  “Enough!” I said, scrambling to get away. My voice shattered whatever illusion I’d had that this boy might fill Drayk’s place.

  I left him without looking back.

  I am ashamed to even mention the third boy and so I will do it quickly. His name was Friance. I have mentioned him before. He was an attendant who worked in the gardens and he was not particularly attractive or intelligent. He had a lopsided mouth, a mop of unruly hair and uneven teeth. He was capable of offending almost anyone.

  I will not go into detail but I will tell you this: Friance could not control himself — I mean “control” in the least sinister but most awkward way. And this in a society that values men for their self-control above all other qualities. It was humiliating.

  At this point, many women of Tibuta would have become predatory or lazy, depending on their personality, giving up on boys their own age and moving onto older men or consorts. They would have started collecting conquests the way one might collect precious stones showing off their most prized pieces at balls and stately functions.

  I did none of these things. Instead, I assumed that my lack of success with men was a reflection of a greater flaw, perhaps one tied to my giftlessness, and so I gave up the hunt. In doing so, even though I still hungered for Drayk as I ever had, I found unexpected peace, and was able to return to my old hard-working self at training.

  Chapter six

  Despite all my volatility, Drayk remained as predictable as sunrise. He was meticulous with his routine—coming and going from the storeroom, training new recruits, leading the garrison—and never once stopped to ask what was wrong. He never once looked up and really saw me. Though I am sure he sensed a shift in my mood—and he must have seen the garish lipstick—he said nothing. For this I was both glad and disappointed. I was glad because it meant I could put on my training uniform, return to the arena with head held high and pretend that nothing had ever happened. Perhaps that is true bravery? Showing your face when you would rather run and hide. I was disappointed because it meant that despite my misguided efforts I was still invisible.

  I was almost seventeen when this changed.

  It was the Festival of Berenice, a week-long event where competitors come to Tibuta proper from every island to honour the goddess of victory. My mother had c
onsidered cancelling it since violence was rife but had decided it might direct the commoners’ energy into something more productive. She was wrong, of course.

  Events are held in all battle disciplines—manna, sword and shield, spear and shield, double-sword fighting, archery—and competition is open to everyone, both members of the royal court and freemen. Of course “everyone” does not include slaves, helots—those soldiers who are neither slave nor citizen—or xenoliths. There are two categories of events: gifted and ungifted. A Talent can compete in an ungifted event but they are forbidden from using their gift. This is monitored by a judge who can sense powers in others.

  The judge for this year’s tournament was an illegitimate. Her name was Eloyse Nathos and she was of the Golding bloodline but had grown up on the street, hunting in the sewers and surviving off handouts. It is said her grandfather was a Talent but no one knew for sure: her mother died before she could ask about the tie between her family and ours. In a way Eloyse was lucky to be alive. An illegitimate with a less subtle and more threatening gift would probably be put to death. This rule made no sense to me. For one thing I thought it was barbaric to slaughter our own citizens. For another, I saw it as a wasted opportunity. Illegitimates could augment our army. They should fight beside us, not run away from us. That was another thing I intended to change the moment I took the throne.

  It was phthinoporon, the season of the falling leaves, when the temperature was supposed to be neither too hot nor too cold to fight. However, the weather had been doing strange things and it felt more like spring. The squabbling of newly hatched chicks provided a gentle counterpoint to the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. The trees looked naked and forlorn but a whole variety of bugs were swarming en masse, two seasons too early.

  The night before, Tibuta had been enthralled in Berenice’s procession and sacrificial bonfire surprisingly without incident. This morning, most of the city was feeling the aftereffect of too much celebrating, but like most of the competitors I was reasonably fresh, having snuck off to bed at a reasonable hour. With Harryet’s help I donned my competitor’s uniform—mine was black and gold to show I was of the Golding line—and raced to the kitchen to wolf down a warrior’s breakfast: two fried eggs, smoked haddock, fresh bread with cheese and an apple. “Good luck!” Cook waved as I ran out the door, grabbing the packed lunch he had prepared for me earlier and a skin of water.

  Drayk was waiting for me at the start of the Walk beside my palanquin with an entire unit of soldiers to guard us as we moved through the city. He had already packed my gear. I ignored the fluttering of my heart and looked him square in the face. “So what’s our strategy?” Without meeting my eye he offered his hand and helped me into the confined compartment. I tried to hide the fact that his touch made me stiffen.

  “To win,” he said and settled in opposite me. Our knees were almost touching.

  “That’s it? I’m sure my mother only encouraged me train with you because she expects me to fail because of my size. Have you no words of advice to prevent that from happening?”

  Drayk’s slate-coloured eyes were unsteady. “Anyone can overcome her stature. Manna uses an opponent’s weight and energy against them. Translate these fundamentals to every discipline and you will be fine.”

  I scoffed. “That won’t be much good if I come up against Odell.” My cousin’s gift was ice. “Perhaps it’s lucky I don’t have a gift after all.”

  “Perhaps.”

  I could tell Drayk was distracted. He would never usually be so blunt. He parted the curtains and looked wistfully past the soldiers through the streets of Elea Bay, which were crowded with recovering revellers, street hawkers, beggars, competitors and spectators pushing to get through to Penteli Stadium. The noise was atrocious: the crunching of the hoplites’ boots, people yelling their wares, others demanding people step aside. A cart had broken down and the poor donkey was mewling while his owner bellowed at people to keep moving.

  “Are you all right?” I said.

  Drayk looked at me properly for the first time that morning. His eyes were the beautiful colour of a storm. “A close friend of mine returned to Caspius this morning.”

  I had a feeling he might mean the woman in red. “I’m so sorry,” I said with as much sincerity as I could muster. “Surely he—or she—will come back soon?” I held my breath.

  “She. And I doubt it. Annalise came to Tibuta after an argument with her family about a set of silver spoons—stupid, I know. Now her father is unwell and she wants to work things out with them. If all goes well I doubt she’ll be back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, exhaling, not knowing what else to say but wanting to sing with joy.

  “It’s probably for the best. Things had run their course between us. It is easier this way.” He settled into a contemplative silence. I did my best to hide my glee.

  Penteli Stadium lies on the outskirts of Elea Bay, nestled between it and Lete. It is an impressive long rectangular building constructed entirely of glowing Tibutan Gold Marble, with two public entrances, one on each of the longer sides, an entrance for royalty at the shorter end, and a smaller competitors’ entrance opposite. The competitors’ entrance is known as Icelos’s Door because dead combatants are occasionally carried through it.

  The surrounding streets were heaving with people. The smells were mixed: charcoal corn, roast chestnuts and lemonade, argutan manure and sweat. Drayk had my armour slung over his back in a leather bag. He carried my spear under one arm. The soldiers used their shields to push through the crowd. I carried my blades wrapped in their leather baldric. Over my shoulder was my lunch pack.

  We ducked into the cool shadows of the small competitors’ entrance, down a flight of stairs and into an even colder stone passageway beneath the stadium leaving most of the soldiers to secure the area. Four war-wits followed us, including Bolt, through the throng of competitors. Drayk steered me clear of a boy about twice my height with a fuzz of orange hair and a woman who looked like a troll, and into a private cell at the end of a long, dark corridor. He shut an iron gate behind us and my guards took up their positions outside. “Ignore the other competitors. Focus on your breathing,” Drayk said.

  I was to compete in three events: spear and shield, double-sword fighting and then manna all in the ungifted category. The qualifying rounds would begin very soon. And I was nervous. Sure, I had won all the smaller tournies in the palace, but I had known all of my opponents: I had watched them train and scrutinised their strengths and weaknesses. My mother had treated each of these victories as a trifle, saying things such as, “You were lucky. The other girl stumbled,” or “Don’t get a big head, everyone knows Hero can’t fight to save himself.” She was probably right. Still her disparaging comments were enough to dampen my enthusiasm so eventually I had stopped telling her of my victories and she had stopped asking. My father had never once come to watch me compete.

  This was different. Here I wouldn’t know who I was fighting until I entered the stadium. And everyone would be watching.

  From my small cell beneath the stadium’s floor I heard the tiered seats fill with eager spectators. Drayk leant against the stone wall opposite, his arms crossed. “You better warm up,” he said and I began to do a series of exercises: push-ups, sit-ups and star jumps. Time dragged on excruciatingly slowly.

  Finally I heard the sound of the minstrel’s voice amplified by the acoustics of the theatre-style seating. He brought silence to the crowd. A moment later there was cheering. Then the clamour and rumbling of some forty thousand people stamping their feet in anticipation. Sand crumbled from the ceiling. My stomach was heavy.

  “Verne?” said a small voice from outside the competitors’ cell. It was Hero, his pupils dilated in the partial light.

  “Cuz. Come in,” I said motioning for him to enter.

  “I wanted to wish you good luck,” he said from the door.

  “Thanks.”

  “So, good luck then.” He looked about uneasily.<
br />
  “What is it?”

  “Have you seen Odell?”

  I admitted I hadn’t. “Why?”

  “He was in the foulest mood this morning. Apparently Berenice has taken another. I pity whoever has to fight him.”

  I swallowed hard. “Thanks for the warning.”

  I thanked him again and he slunk out of the cell and back into the corridor, moving quickly, hoping to avoid his brother.

  A small boy popped his head around the door. “Highness, you’re up in five minutes.”

  I swallowed. “Already?”

  “Are you ready?” Drayk said.

  My mouth had gone dry and all I could do was nod.

  Drayk untied the string on the leather satchel and removed my armour. I put on my gloves. “Arms up,” he said and lifted the bone cuirass over my head. With surprisingly gentle hands he tied the breastplate to the backplate. I feared he could hear my heart thundering in my chest. With his help I pulled the skirt of bronze-and-bone plates over my leggings. I glanced up and our eyes met. We both blushed and looked away. I could hardly breathe. “Legs,” he said and I offered him one leg at a time so he could do the buckles up on my greaves. He secured my shoulderplates and collar; he was so close I could smell him. He lifted my whalebone helmet into place and knocked on it twice for good luck. Then he guided my arm into the leather straps of my shield and passed me my spear.

  “How do I look?”

  He chuckled. “Like a real Tibutan.”

  I was grinning but he couldn’t tell from behind the helmet. With it on, it was next to impossible to see anything in my periphery past the horns protecting my cheeks so Drayk placed his big hands on my shoulders and steered me towards the door. He led me through the bowels of the stadium towards a light at the end of a tunnel. A few feet from the entrance he stopped and bent down slightly so I could see his face. “Don’t use all your moves at once. Go slow. Draw your enemy out and discern his weaknesses. And give the people a bit of a show. There is nothing worse than a fight that’s over in three seconds. You want to go into the next round as favourite.” His smile was reassuring. “And remember, Verne. Move like water.”