The Lily and the Bull

Chapter 1-2

‘Aa-aa-yi-yii-ee!’ he wailed again, and leapt high and graceful as a swallow into the dusty pen, his feet scarcely touching ground before he was up again and flying with a leaping somersault over the back of the Black Thunderer.

Confused, the beast turned, but could not find the fleetly moving figure. He snorted and tossed his head.

Grey Wind stood still, breathing heavily, froth dripping from his jaw. Suddenly he turned and lumbered off, trying to find his way out. In the confusion he missed the gate and stumbled into the wall where the children were sitting. As he felt the stone wall smashing into his nose, he roared and snorted, his muscles rippling in preparation for the attack of this new enemy. The children, feeling his hot breath on their legs, and seeing his red eyes so close, squealed and fell backwards off the wall, a wriggling mass of arms and legs in the muck of the neighbouring empty bull pen.

Thyloss continued his dangerous dance while Grey Wind was distracted by some of the men. Swiftly and gracefully he leapt from side to side, turning the black bull one way and then the other. The animal lunged at his tormentor through the swirling dust, only to find the youth already behind him, mocking him with strange sounds.

The bull workers were no longer in panic. Thyloss knew what he was doing and they respected him. They watched his every move while they held the large nets, waiting for the signal to throw them. They knew that when the time came they must make no mistakes.

‘Now!’ shouted Thyloss.

‘Now!’ echoed old Ayan, his rheumy eyes shining with excitement.

The bull workers rushed forward and flung the swirling nets over the two distraught beasts.

Tired and confused, the two animals did not know which way to turn, the nets entangling them as they were prodded and pushed from every side. At last the pain of their wounds began to tell and their resistance became less and less.

Grey Wind was led away, and the Black Thunderer was released at last to be left the sole occupant of his enclosure.

Then there were words of recrimination among the bull workers, each blaming the other for the incident. Above this noise rose the laughing voices of the children, who were extricating themselves from the muck and excitedly exchanging their impressions of the adventure.

Old Ayan and Thyloss brought back some kind of order.

Special herbs were called for and were boiled in great cauldrons. The liquid was then cooled slightly and poured over the wounds of the black bull. He did not like the sensation at first, but after a while he must have found it soothing, because he stood still, his eyes half closed.

‘It will clean the wounds and help the healing,’ Ayan said.

‘Will he be ready for the prince’s funeral?’ Thyloss asked anxiously. He was wondering what the Queen would say if the Black Thunderer was not fit for the Challenge. It was the custom throughout the country for funerals, specially of important people, to be the occasion for a display of acrobatic skill against the bulls, the climax being the final challenge of one particular acrobat chosen by the family of the deceased to represent Life, and one particular bull chosen to represent Death, the two performing a deadly dance for the soul of the one whose champion the acrobat had become. It was only if the bull killed the acrobat that the mourning began in earnest. If the acrobat performed the challenge and survived, the funeral became a rejoicing. Life had won. The dead person would be soon reborn on this earth.

‘The bull is healthy,’ Ayan said. ‘the herbs are strong. I see no reason why he should not be ready.’

‘He will still be marked,’ Thyloss said.

‘Yes, he will still be marked,’ Ayan agreed.

They were both silent.

He had been such a perfect bull, the most beautiful they had had in Ma-ii for a long time. Now one of his eyes was cut and the flesh around it was swelling rapidly. If his wounds did not heal well and exceptionally quickly, neither would like to take the responsibility of presenting him to the Queen.

Thyloss thanked Ayan for his help and gave stern orders to the rest of the bull workers, but blamed no one.

Wearily, as afternoon turned to evening, he walked back to his home. He would not be sorry when his father returned from the hunt.

* * * *

On the path that led down from the mountains he met a bedraggled Ierii, her skirt torn and dirty, but her face shining with excitement.

‘Thyloss, I must speak with you!’ she cried.

‘O no!’ he groaned inwardly. He was exhausted. He was fond of Ierii and had been her closest friend for as long as either of them could remember, but he did not want to speak with anyone now. He had forgotten her father’s earlier concern for her, he had forgotten the mist on the mountains, the possibility that she might have been in danger there. He could think of nothing but a pitcher of water over his head and a long cool drink.

Her dark eyes were looking into his eagerly and intensely. She was going to try to explain one of her strange thoughts to him. He was sure of it. He sighed. Usually he found Ierii’s ‘strange thoughts’ fascinating, and many a time walking quietly along the beach with her, the water of the great ocean washing over their feet and the sky luminous with stars above them, he had felt that he was in the presence of someone very ancient and very wise, instead of a girl younger than himself with thin legs and a haunted, pale face. It was true the thin legs and the pale face were not much in evidence these days and lately he had found his attention distracted from what she had been saying by the full curve of her breast and the shine on her thick dark hair that reminded him of the blue-black sheen on the wing of a bird. But even her beauty, which still shone through now in spite of the dust and the disarray, could not distract him from his determination to cool down and rest.

‘Ierii, not now,’ he said wearily. ‘I have no time now.’ He had scarcely paused to listen to her, and plodded on past her as though she were some casual acquaintance whose expectation could be no more than a nod or a wave.

She stood still, gazing after him, the light fading from her eyes. She was hurt and shocked as though, bringing a gift, she had had it flung back in her face.

She bit her lip as she watched him moving gradually further and further from her. She could see that he had probably been working hard on the practice field for he was wearing only the short leather kilt that the acrobats wore for their work. His bronzed back was straight and strong, but his steps were dragging.

‘He is very tired,’ she told herself, trying not to dwell on the hurt, trying to find an excuse for his coldness towards her. But he had been tired before and yet he had always found time for her.

She turned for home, the joy of her recent experience marred by sadness.

* * * *

Ierii’s father, Dorran, like Thyloss’s father Miron, was also a man of considerable importance in the community. He was Chief Gardener for the palace and lived in a beautiful house near its great southern entrance. From the wide northern windows of the upper storey of his home he could see the palace splendidly rising level upon level, the vines and creepers for which he was responsible spilling gracefully from window and balcony.

Gardens were not common in Ma-ii. The countryside was close enough for everyone to enjoy. The houses were built near each other: the streets were narrow and laid out so that the winds that blew so incessantly over the Island would not have free passage, and the shade of the buildings would give respite from the blazing summer sun.

The gardens people had were mostly indoors, in courtyards, on balconies, where they could keep them watered easily and out of reach of the fierce sun.

The palace of Ma-ii was famous for its courtyard and balcony gardens. Ierii’s father was justly proud of his work. Ierii had grown up in a house that sometimes seemed like a forest, it was so full of cool green, for her father often grew the plants for the palace in his own home and only moved them to the great building when they were at their prime. Many of the noble families of the district consulted him, and many were the plants he had reared lovingly from seed that he later recognized in houses grander than his own.

The colonnaded paved court where Ierii and her father sat on summer evenings after the day’s work was done was vivid with flowers. Creepers with rich and exotic blooms curled around the wooden columns. In every available space earthenware tubs and stone troughs stood, filled with a richly various foliage.

Dorran had even transplanted certain herbs that grew so freely in the mountains to their own little space beside the kitchen, so that Ierii would always have them available for cooking or healing.

Since Ierii was ten she had looked after her father. Her parents had been childless for many years and she had been born when they were already old and had given up hope of ever having a child. Her mother had prayed to the Goddess for a daughter, and had been told by the Seer who prophesied, that her prayer would be granted, but that she would enjoy the child for no more than ten years before they would be parted.

‘Ten years with the daughter I love will be more to me than all the time the world has known,’ Dorran’s wife had said.

She bore a child, a daughter she called Ierii, which means ‘answer to a prayer’, but after the birth she never knew good health again.

On her mother’s death, Ierii was left the responsibility of her father and her father’s house.

Ierii’s room looked to the mountains and her windows were framed with flowers, her wall rich with painted lilies.

Once one of her father’s visitors had brought papyrus from Egypt for her, and she spent many happy days learning to draw the flowers that grew round her, transferring her designs painstakingly from the small pieces of papyrus to the large empty surfaces of the walls in the house. Her father encouraged her and often asked her to paint an unusual flower for him that he knew he would soon have to relinquish to the Queen.

Unlike most of the other houses in the town, theirs had a small piece of land behind it. There was a well, and at the edge of the garden on the south side there was a small, wild, rocky knoll where Ierii spent a great deal of her time, contemplating the beauty around her and thinking deeply about all that she saw.

Sometimes she felt that she was the most fortunate person in the world to have this private place, this small and secret mountain.

The official religion for some time had placed more and more emphasis on the Cult of the Bull, a representation of the powerful destructive force in nature worshipped in caves and underground chambers, and less and less on the Goddess, the subtle creative force that drove the tender shoot from seed to mighty tree, her representative, the Lady of the Lilies, worshipped in sacred groves and on the tops of mountains.

Somehow the understanding of Wholeness and Oneness had been lost, and the religious rituals which should have increased the feeling that the two great energies of the universe, the destructive and the creative, were dependent on each other, failed to do so. The followers of the Cult of the Bull feared and constantly placated a god they believed to be a Destroyer, while the Cult of the Lady cherished life in all its forms and on all its levels, but failed to satisfy the people who could see, but not understand, the harsh and violent side of the universe, the cleansing, winnowing action of nature.