Bulls and birds // By Rubynye

"Bright Sun, we hail you, lamp of the morning..." The dark-haired boy, a short and slender youth, shifted from singing to humming as he swept the Practice Court. It was nearly too early for a dawn hymn, the light slanting low and pink, stars still showing in the western light-wells, and the only sounds in the Court were the boy's tenor hum, the scrape of his broom and the scuff of his bare feet. Bull-dancers aren't early risers, living life to the full and dancing death as they do, so the boy had the Court all to himself, from the wooden Practice Bull in the eastern half to the broad expanse of plastered tumbling floor to the west, from the stands where teachers and privileged observers sat to the dormitory wall.

Having finished his sweeping by the door beside the stands, the boy bowed to the rising Sun, then unfastened his cloak and laid it folded on the stands, uncovering sleek wiry muscles and a plain linen loincloth. Most bull-dancers would not be seen even by a mother or lover bare of jewelry, and wore patterned cloth even to practice; this boy was as bedecked as any when dancing the bull or at evening feasts, but he was not up this early in the morning to be seen by any eyes save perhaps those of the gods and the dead. He paused for a moment, fist pressed to brow in a gesture of respect, still as a bronze votive statuette; then he smoothly leaned into the first set of stretches.

*

The Master of Poseidon's Birds, as the bull-dancers of Zakros were known, was a tall and powerfully built man, seamed with scars from a hundred bulls; his kilt was a strangely somber plain gray, his belt adorned only with a silver buckle shaped as a bat, his blue glare cold as a roll in mountain snow. Tim raised his chin, clenching his jaw lest it tremble, and stood his ground before the man. "I am serious, sir."

"Are you." The Master of the bull-dancers folded his arms across his massive chest, his gaze as keen as freshly sharpened bronze as he looked Tim over. "Why would a nobly born boy without even a scar want to dance the bulls?" Tim's belly was a knot of chill, but he held those scornful eyes with his own and answered, "I have dreamt of it all my life, and now the Bull-court needs me."

That didn't help as much as Tim had hoped. The Master loomed nearer, his shadow falling over Tim, chill blue eyes gleaming scornfully out of the darkness. "Far too much of my time is wasted putting off children with heads stuffed full of fancies of the Bull-Court. Those dreams will soon fade as you grow into a man."

Tim's hands curled into fists, but though he longed to shout he kept his voice even, and, Mother's Mercy, it didn't crack. "Not mine. And, you need me. The Court has lost more dancers this past year than in the last five. Ever since..." Tim stopped just before he knew he'd choke off, as the angry glitter in the Master's eyes closed up his throat. He had not wanted to raise the specter of Jason, short-lived star of the Bull Court; ever since Jason had died, not in the Court but in a dingy alley-fight in the lower town, bull-leapers and even bulls had died and been crippled far more often than usual, as if the Mother and the Shaker, jealous of their lost Bird, had decided to take a heavy harvest out of the others.

He had not wanted to, but he had needed to; he forced himself to breathe against the aching tightness of his chest while the Master's eyes briefly softened with memory even as the muscle of his jaw drew taut. Then those eyes turned to him again, keen and unwelcoming still, but no longer disdainful. "The luck of the Bull Court turned sour when, when Jason died. You think yourself the one to turn it back again?"

"I do, sir. I know I can. I've dreamt of it all my life." The Master stared down at Tim for a final wracking moment; then he shook his head, once, and stopped, well, looming. Sunlight shone on Tim again, and the weight left his chest even before the Master turned, saying, "you're old for a beginner, you have much ground to make up. The Practice Court is through here, with the refectory above it." As the Master strode off, Tim half-ran to keep up, almost dizzy with triumph and with relief that the Master had never asked the details of his dreams.

*

Arms shaking, sweat beading on his brow, the boy counted breaths as he held himself up on his hands. Such a long handstand was not at all necessary for handsprings, whether off the floor or off a bull's back, but his favorite mentor was famous for standing and walking on his hands, so the boy held himself up, trembling but straight, and softly counted.

Eventually, though, the boy groaned and arched onto his feet, pulling himself upright with a small frown. He spared himself the barest moment to rub his arms and brush sweaty hair from his eyes before springing into a series of flips. His arms seemed steady as rock as he caught and threw himself, over and over; the tumbling-floor could comfortably hold a hundred practicing bull-dancers, and the boy covered it in acrobatics, all the way from one side to the other and back in neat, plumb-straight rows. On the third row he switched from flips to wheels, sailing along as smoothly as if he rode within a hoop; on the fifth he went to half-twists, curling through light and shade.

When he fetched up before the Practice Bull the boy flipped into a run, dove into a handspring, and leapt straight up between its horns. He didn't have the height a good throw from a pair of bull-grapplers could have given him, but he soared clear, twisting in midair to land on his feet facing the same direction as the bull. He sprang off again, a lithe arc of whipcord muscle, and landed behind the bull with a solid thud and only a minute wobble.

Nevertheless, the boy frowned, shaking his head. "What would Dick say?" he muttered to himself.

*

"Hail and well met, little brother!" Tim had been staring at Dick's riotously patterned kilt and reminding himself to breathe, but when Dick spoke to him he couldn't help but look up into cheerful blue eyes and a shockingly bright grin. Dick ruffled his hair, and Tim's eyes sank shut as he pushed into the touch despite himself; at least he managed to keep his answering smile from being too wide, somehow succeeded in not swooning or babbling or bursting aflame. Dick, star dancer of the Bull-Court in the prime of his youth, without compare even now; whereas Jason had flung himself through the air with solid power, Dick flew as if winged. When Tim was young, very young, he had seen his first bull-dance, had seen Dick flip and soar and smile, had met him afterwards and had his hair ruffled for good luck, just so. That was ten years ago, and across all those years Dick had danced through Tim's dreams, never more often than after Tim had heard of Jason's death.

"So you're joining the bull-dancers?" Dick asked, the hair-ruffling trailing off to a stroke that curved round the back of Tim's head before he pulled away "A nobleman's son and all? What do your mother and father say?"

Mother and father. The thought quenched Tim's happiness. "My mother is dead, and my father has a new wife, so I may do with myself as I see fit." Tim could hear the bitterness edging his words, so he shut his mouth on further speech; gritting his teeth to harden himself against pity, he looked up again and was stunned with relief. Dick said nothing, but just clasped Tim's shoulder with a gentle calloused hand; his eyes were blue and wide and warm as a summer sky, and his warm calloused hand felt like an embrace, and Tim could have lived his whole life in that moment.

Then Dick smiled, and patted Tim's shoulder firmly, and turned away a little. "Well, since you've chosen this, welcome to the Bull Court, Tim. You already dance well, considering how late you've come to us. I have charge of the newest dancers; does joining my team suit you?"

"Me?" It was almost more than Tim could bear, to not wrap his arms round Dick's waist, to not do a handspring of joy or weep for it. "It does," he managed in something like a calm voice. "Very well indeed."

*

Soft footfalls behind him made the boy whirl, then ease with a smile. "Were you watching me?"

"Not long, Poseidon's Bird." The Steward of the Temple held out a two-handled cup, brimful with clear water. "Just to see how skilled you've become; that leap had both grace and power."

The boy bowed his head in thanks, accepting the cup without spilling a drop. "I staggered on the landing," he replied, but without the earlier frown, and drank. The Steward merely raised one eyebrow, and when the boy looked up from the cup he waved back towards the cloak on the stands. "There are bread and cheese and olives as well."

"Oh, I'm not---" Protests quelled by the further arch of that eyebrow, the boy shook his head in surrender. "I don't have time to eat," he objected, but nevertheless he walked over to the food, taking another sip of water on the way. "You didn't mention the pomegranate! Thank you---"

But the Steward was already gone. The boy smiled wider, prying the fruit open with his thumb.

*

"He was not always so grim, if you'll believe it." Dick's voice was soft, and when Tim looked up he saw that Dick was watching the Master of the leapers making his way across the Practice Court like a dark walking pillar amidst the bright bouncing leapers, stopping here to correct one bull-dancer's form, there to scold two for flipping playfully over each other rather than doing exercises. A few moments before, the dancer being corrected had been Tim, his legs straightened by large hard hands, the Master's silence so heavy even Dick didn't speak beneath its weight.

"He even used to laugh." Dick turned back to Tim, smiling with his mouth if not his eyes. "Jason used to be able to make him smile often. Long ago, so did I." The smile on Dick's mouth was twisting, and Tim almost reached to lay his hand on Dick's arm, on the curve of muscle between the arm-ring inlaid with red stones and the silver snake with turquoise eyes. He almost did.

Instead he pointed and asked, "Who is that man?"

Dick looked, and his brow cleared, and Tim could breathe again. "He's just a bull-groom, I think a new one. I don't know him."

"His tunic was woven in the Prince of Games' household." So what is he doing here? Tim wondered, but did not ask aloud; Dick was already staring at him with astonishment, and replied, "You can see that?"

"Most households' master weavers have their own styles," Tim said, shrugging. "My father's does. The Prince of Games' is fairly distinctive, with its strange half-tangling."

"So it is." Dick was still looking at Tim, though, pride shining from his face like sunlight; then he gave one little head-shake. "The Prince of Games.... you'd do well to stay clear of him. All the bull-dancers might. His household runs the wagering, and he usually bets on our deaths. There was no love lost between him and our Master of Birds even before it was rumored that the toughs Jason died fighting were in the Prince's pay. It was only a rumor, nothing came of it, but..."

"I see." Tim noted Dick's words, and the bull-groom, in thought; then a flash of red in the stands caught his gaze, and he pointed again, smiling and waving this time. The priestess who sat watching them, young and red-haired between two sturdy menservants, was especially beloved of the bull-dancers and dedicated to them. She'd begun as a leaper, till a rampaging bull had broken her back, and she had dreamt her first prophetic dream that very night; when Tim was brought to her to be consecrated she'd smiled and said, "what kept you so long?" Now she waved back, laughing when Tim and Dick both respectfully pressed fists to brow and bowed to her.

"Keep practicing your handstand," Dick said to Tim, "and later we'll work on vaulting." He winked and left for the stands, and Tim dutifully flipped onto his hands and strove to keep his balance once more.

*

The boy had claimed to not be hungry, but he ate everything the Steward had brought him, licking his fingers neatly and efficiently. After he ate and drained the cup he scattered the crumbs for the house-doves; then he walked up and down, through the brightening beams of the light-wells and the shadowed areas between, trailing his hand along the head-height frieze of spirals running along the wall. He paused by the great sacral horns in the middle of the east wall, their base inscribed with the names of fallen bull-dancers from time out of mind, and ran his fingers once lightly over several of the newest names, including Jason's.

Some laughter and grumbles and shouts seeped through the wall, the music of waking bull-boys and bull-girls. The stream of noise burst into spate as the dancers chased each other up the stairwell to the refectory, and the boy paused by the door, listening. When the roar died down again he shook his head with a little smile, then stretched his arms wide, turned a cautious wheel, and returned to practicing flips.

*

Tim restlessly climbed the masonry of the west facade; it was the glimmering hour before dawn, the moon giving plenty of light to see by as he hauled himself up scratchy limestone to the roof. The latest dance had been disastrous. Two leapers were dead, and the bull too, an almost placid old brindle named Hoop-ear; the day after next was to be Tim team's fledgling dance. The Master glowered silently, shadowed even in daylight, Dick was tense and terse and worried, the bull-dancers twittered and rustled all night. Tim felt ill, too knotted-up to practice, to eat, to rest.

On the roof, the night breeze slid coolingly over Tim's skin, through his hair, over his aching brow. Carved sets of sacral horns projected from the angles and corners; Tim settled sideways into the curve of one pair, the finished stone cat's-tongue rough against his back. He straddled the horn before him, dangling one foot over the drop. It was three storeys to the ground, but Tim had grown more than comfortable with being in midair, these last several months of training to the bull-dance.

Cradled in the sacral horns, held between sleeping earth and starry sky, Tim tipped his head back against cool stone and thought. He'd been meant to change the Bull Court's luck; what had he done wrong, or not done? The lost dancers rose in his memory, one a young man who had planned to leave soon, one a curl-wreathed girl barely older than a child. And Hoop-ear, old and fat and almost too lazy to be danced anymore; what had made him go mad, gore dancers, collapse and die?

Tim's thoughts shaped themselves to Jason as Dick had spoken of him, black hair and blue eyes, grin easy and encouraging. You are our luck, he seemed to say, or it needs no luck. "What?" Tim whispered. "What is it? What would you have me do? Why did you die away from the Bull Court of your dedication?"

Tim had asked these questions before, and Jason's shade had only faded again; now he smiled, and Tim suddenly remembered the Prince of Games, and the bull-groom wearing cloth from his household, the wagers and the rumors. There was still a bull-dance that day, and Tim wondered who was tending Mountain-top, the bull who would be danced.

Gripping the sacral horn and swinging his leg in and over, Tim let himself down till his toes caught crevices between stones. He climbed down into shadow and edged round into the bulls' night stables, where he could hear a man moving about, crackling straw underfoot as he softly spoke to the bulls and poured water into their troughs. The bulls mostly slept, though one snorted and another butted his stable door so it creaked.

Walking slowly to keep the straw from rustling, breathing softly though his heart raced and his ribs ached, Tim pressed himself flat to the wall and peered around. The groom from the Prince of Games' household was indeed the one watering the bulls, and when he reached Mountain-top's stall he slipped a flask from his belt and poured something thick and sharp-scented into the trough.

Tim held his breath entirely till the man walked off to refill his buckets; then he sidled back around the wall, out into the dawn air again, and ran for the Bull Court to find Dick.

*

A girl laughed, and the boy twisted his last flip to land facing her. "We knew you'd be here when you missed breakfast," she said, tossing her blonde hair and smiling broadly. Beside her a taller girl, dressed as plainly as the boy and dark hair wound in a knot, smiled closed-lipped like a sibyl. The boy blushed as the blonde girl did a dancing-step towards him that made her bare breasts and buttocks jiggle prettily; bull-dancer fashion, she wore a red on red spiral-patterned breechcloth and a matching ribbon to hold her hair back, and her bracelets and anklets were ropes of red and green stones. "You're dressed so plainly," she complained, reaching for his hair.

"I'm practicing," he replied, smiling at her though he ducked and bobbed away from her hand. "Finery is for the dance."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, and punched his shoulder, which he did not evade. "You and Cassandra are hopeless," she replied, and the dark-haired girl behind her shrugged silently. The boy grinned briefly, returning the shoulder-punch just hard enough to not be gentle. "We can't all be as flashy as you, Stephanie."

*

If there were a floor beneath his feet, Tim didn't feel it. His first dance before the people and the gods, with a living bull, with his well-drilled teammates, with Dick cheering them from the Queen Priestess' box, and it had all gone perfectly. Tim had run and tumbled, tossed and caught, he had called out the patterns and everyone had heeded him, and they'd whirled and dodged and Black-ear couldn't catch them; he'd flown up and over in his turn, feeling the air singing across his skin, hand-springing off the broad hairy back, landing lightly on the flagstones. They'd all made their jumps, and no one had died or been hurt or even stumbled, and Black-ear had been grappled and haltered and led away snorting and hale.

Tim could have done it all over again, his blood surging within him. Steph led half the team in spins and flips of celebration, and he could easily have joined them. Instead he stood, looking as calm as he knew how, as the Queen Priestess descended to bless them, graceful in her heavy flounced skirts; they all quieted beneath her hand, and when she came to Tim she she gently took his chin between long fingers and tilted his face to see it better, her almond eyes narrowing with her smile. Behind her came Dick, squeezing their shoulders and praising them all. He left Tim for last, holding his shoulder with one hand and walking with him out of the Bull Court as the others ran ahead. Tim wondered if Dick could feel the pulse thrumming within him, and though Dick looked ahead Tim could feel his smile like a fire's warmth beside him.

When the others had drawn far enough away, Dick said in a low voice, "we caught him this morning, about to dose Black-ear's water. It was the poison one gives fighting dogs to make them fight harder."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Tim was glad, of course he was glad, but he might have liked to have gone with them. Dick smiled, knowing and proud, and shook his head. "You had enough to think of, with your first dance."

Tim opened his mouth, but the words went clear out of his head when Dick drew him into a passageway, still giving him that proud smile. "You've done well, little brother. We would never have caught him without you," he told Tim, both hands on his shoulders. "You said you would renew our luck, and you have. All that, and you danced splendidly. I have never seen such beautiful dancing."

"I have," Tim blurted before he could stop himself, and then he had to answer the question in Dick's eyes. "When I first saw you dance the bulls. You were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You still are."

"Oh," Dick said, and his hand was on Tim's cheek; if a person could fall upwards, Tim fell up into Dick's blue-dark eyes, and it had never felt so good to be unable to breathe.

A soft rough sound, and the Master of the leapers stepped out of the darkness of the passageway; Tim's heart leaped to his throat, but the slight quirk at the side of the Master's mouth was what passed with him for a smile. "So this is your bull-boy who discovered the saboteur?" he asked, and Dick's answering smile shone even in the dimness.

"Of course, the Prince of Games said he did not know the man, so we cannot prove this was his doing. This time." The Master looked grim at those words, but almost- smiled again as he continued, "At least we are rid of him, and we have a fine dancer as well, a true Bird of Poseidon." Giving Tim's shoulder one heavy, approving pat, he turned and vanished back into the passageway.

Dick lifted his hand as if to pat Tim's shoulder as well, but paused. Tim stared up at him, unsure if Dick would ruffle his hair or what else he might do, uncertain of what he wished for as his heart pounded fit to crack his ribs. Dick breathed, almost sighing, and wrapped his arm round Tim's shoulders, squeezing till Tim's jangled feelings melted into contentment, and when they began walking again he didn't let go.

*

"One, two, one, two, one, catch, throw!" The boy counted as he ran towards the Practice Bull, and the girls grasped his waist and threw him just as he jumped; as they ran behind the bull he flew up in a twisting arc, springing off the bull's rump. Landing so lightly dust barely puffed round his ankles, he tapped their outstretched hands, and they both smiled at him.

Their gazes shifted over his shoulder, and the boy turned to find Dick behind him, arms folded and smile wide. "Well done, Tim," he said with a nod, and though the other dancers poured into the Practice Court and the girls stood near, it seemed they smiled for each other.

After a moment, Dick smiled at the girls as well. "And an excellent throw and catch, too. Let's find your teammates; we have work to do today." The dancers nodded, boy and girls together, and followed Dick into the crowd. All around them, tumbling and dancing, laughing and singing, flipping and tossing each other into the air, Poseidon's Birds fluttered in the sunlight.

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