The Rite of Spring: The Princess

The Rite of Spring: Fragment 18

The Princess
in which Aonan almost* arrives at her destination*

I spent two days and nights in that first prison. They passed slowly. From the window, I watched the sun rise over more of the ubiquitous orchards to its blazing zenith, and then pass away into the west. In the mornings I would see, far in the distance, the great stump of the high place, lonely in all that wide flatness. Although I had never seen it before, there could be no mistaking it, the single, isolated, wall-sided, flat topped mountain, vast and solid, alone in the wide flat lands of the plain. There, I thought, at the foot of that, there is Gruath. I could walk there in two days if I were not held here. By now (I thought towards the end of my time there), by now I could be with him. Tonight I could be making my vows. Tonight, I could leave my maidenhood behind me forever. Tomorrow, we could set out for the steppe, for war, for victory. But I was held, and it was not so.

At last, the door opened and I was called out. Oh, I don't mean that they had not opened it before; I had been very fairly fed, and they had exchanged my slop bucket twice daily. But this was different. I could go outside. There were more of the men in black. One whom I had seen before said to the others

"here she is. You'll be giving me a receipt for her". One of the others took me by the arm. I struggled violently, but in moments close fitting metal bracelets had been clipped about my wrists. These were attatched to a chain, which in turn was attached to a hook in the wall above my reach. The chain was long, and my arms were not pulled up by it, but I was nonetheless frightened. The new man wrote a short note on a piece of parchment, which the first accepted. Then the new men unhooked the chain, and without so much as looking at me, led me out into the courtyard. Three black horses stood there. Three of the men mounted; my chain was clipped to one of the saddles; and they rode out of the yard.

I was constrained to follow. At first I fought. I called out, and cursed, but the men paid no attention. They simply rode down the lane. They did not ride so fast but that I could walk comfortably with them; and, after I had discovered that if I refused to walk, they would simply drag me along on my belly, this is what I did. I was both frightened and confused. Certainly, something very dreadful was in prospect. I could not understand, however, why it was taking so long to manifest itself. I was unveiled, and in the power of men not even of my tribe, still less of my family. Yet, except to restrain me, no hand had been laid on me. None of the men had attempted to remove my clothing, or become familiar with my person, as I had been led to expect of such people; indeed, they scarcely even noticed me. They talked among themselves, and led on at this undemanding pace.

The country through which we passed was most interesting, so that under other circumstances the journey could be a pleasure. It was very flat and level, and seemed to me to have an enormous population; we were never out of site of some building or other, and could always see some person labouring in the fields or orchards, or travelling upon the lanes, or squatting quietly by a wall. There was no wild land, no land on which the herbs grew freely. All was divided up into square plots, segmented by ditches through which water flowed, moving from section to section under the impulse of slow-turning windpumps. Many of the plots were planted with herbaceous crops, which were springing fresh green shoots above the dark soil. People described as 'peasants' worked assiduously between the rows, agitating the soil with implements on long poles. I understand that the object of this was to discourage the growth of herbs of unwanted varieties. Other plots held orchards, as I have described before, but it was obvious even to my untrained eye that many different fruits were being grown. Still others held bushes, strung on fences of pole and withy. I do not know what this crop might be. A very few of the plots held grazing animals.

The ingeneous devices of this people were a source of interest along the way. As an example, above the arable fields I observed what I first took to be kites, hovering quite still high in the air. Then I percieved slender lines, attached to posts in the fields, stretching up to these, and I surmised that the kites must be tamed, and trained to hover thus, perhaps for the purpose of deterring vermin. I wondered how one would train a kite to accept such an existence. Then I noticed one which had fallen, and saw that the hovering silhouettes were not kites at all, but constuctions of flimsy cloth stretched upon a frame of thin canes, and painted to resemble a bird. However, I could not discern the mechanism by which these counterfeits were suspended, although I studied them with some attention.

One very peculiar experience greatly enlivened me in the middle part of the day. Faintly at first, I heard ahead of us rythmic percussive sounds, and as these became louder, I was able to percieve that musical notes were intermingled with them to produce a form of music which was simple of melody, but very ornate of rythm. The volume of this music continued to swell until a most remarkable party came into sight around the bend ahead. Each was dressed in a grey, sacklike garment lacking either arms or armholes. Beneath this were tight fitting leggings of various gaudy hues. But it was the footwear that was most remarkable; some wore shoes with loose wooden clappers attatched to the sole, so as to clack loudly at each step. Other shoes incorporated brass bells, tuned to varying notes. But most surprising of all was their mode of locomotion. Having seen the shoes, and heard the music, one would of course have expected this strange band to dance; but they did not merely dance. They capered wildly, some making prodigious leaps into the air, or, despite their restrictive garb, summersaulting down the road. They swept past us without, it appeared, so much as noticing our presence, and clattered away behind us.

This passage cheered even my dour guardians, who unbent so far as to inform me, upon enquiry, that the company had been priests of the cult of the Foot, a cult upon which I gathered they rather looked down.

No other incident, however, releaved the wearyness of travel. As we went on, the countryside around us remained much the same, so that for all its novelty I came to find it monotonous. Also, although the pace of the horses was not punishingly fast, yet it was steady and constant, affording me no opportunity for rest. As the heat of the day developed, I began to sweat profusely, and I became increasingly tired and frightened.

At last we arrived in another small settlement, not unlike the one from which we had started or a dozen others we had passed through during the day; a matter of a handful of large, square, mud brick dwellings, painted a pale ochre colour, with narrow windows to keep out the glare. We went up to one of these, and I was delivered over to more men in black, who dragged me to a room almost identical to that from which I had been taken that morning. My bracelets were not removed, and, indeed, my chain was fastened to a ring in the wall. Thus constrained, I ate the food they had left me, and laid myself down upon the palette, where I confess I wept bitterly for a considerable time, before sleeping, as I was, in my filthy clothes.

The next morning I was again removed from my cell and hooked to a saddle. Another person was brought out, chained in a similar manner to myself, and hooked to another. This person appeared the veriest rogue. As our escort mounted up, and towed us out into the lane, he endeavoured to make conversation with me. His conversation was quite unsuitable, and confirmed me in my very low opinion of him. I sought to repress his pretensions; this failing, relapsed into silence. I have no doubt that the country was quite as pleasant as it had been the day before, but my mood of despondency was growing, and I was wholly unable to appreciate it. The day remains in my memory as the most disagreeable through which I have lived. My legs felt rubbery. My wrists were chafed and sore. My shoulders felt pulled, and my neck stiff. I was greatly conscious that my odour was vile.

All through the day the great bulk of the High Place had loomed before us, growing steadily but imperceptibly nearer. At last the scene ahead changed: something light, higher than the trees, could be seen athwart our path, running along the foot of the High Place. Also, I began to perceive a spindly thing of straight lines, either carved into or built against the face of the mountain. Both these phenomena seemed so large that it did not occur to me that they might be structures, and man made. It was not until we were quite close to the city wall that its artificial nature was revealed to me, and still I could not believe it. It is hard for me to admit this, but it seemed to me then as if no achievement of my people could match this gargantuan structure. It stood, I suppose, some five manheights tall, solidly constructed of a warm, honey coloured stone, built smooth and unadorned, with each great block perfectly shaped to fit into its neighbours. Where the road passed through it, two towers were raised to a height which cannot have been less than ten manheights. Between these ran a vaulted passage some three manheights broad and four tall; gates of sufficient magnitude to fill this opening were folded back against the sides of the passage.

Black clad men, similar to my captors, stood on either side of the gate, talking to passers by. As we passed through my escorts greeted them. Then we were for a few moments in the echoing passage, and after that, in the City.

We passed into a street lined on both sides with buildings larger than I had seen before. These were constructed variously of stone and mud brick, with wooden balconies and walkways set against the walls, and outthrust spars from which hung drying laundry. I was most impressed, thinking these were the grandest buildings I had ever seen or indeed, could imagine. So enthralled was I by the sights that the steadily advancing horses kept almost dragging me from my feet, and I wanted to call out 'stop! Stop! let me look'. It was only later that I discovered that this quarter, known as the Back of the Eye, is considered the most noisome slum in the City. We had entered, I should explain through the Gate of Justice.

When we reached the point where the Street of Justice crosses Moon Street, and I saw the immensity of the blank back wall of the House of the Eye, I felt overwhelmed. Nothing so large, I thought, could possibly be man made. This must be a work of Gods or giants, a great mass of perfectly cut masonry as taller than the city wall, with a central tower that was - twelve manheights? Fourteen? I was unused to judging structures of such scale. But again the chain at my wrists jerked me forward, and my eyes were caught by all the bright colour, bustle and noise of the craft market on my right. Every item I had ever dreamed of - and many for which I could conceive neither name nor use - were there for sale, not in ones and twos, but in heaps, mounds, pails. People of every colour, wearing garments of every fashion, moved among the stalls, talking, trying, bartering, buying.

Soon again, we had passed the House of the Eye and come out into a great open space - the Place of Judgement. The market, which is of vast extent, was still beside us to our right, but to our left the open square stretched out to the food markets on the further side, and ahead, to the line of the Great Houses against the river. Once again I was awed. That the House of the Eye existed, as a single isolated statement of the great wealth and power of this place, my mind had been forced to accept; but from where I was then I could count six of the riverbank houses. It was not merely the size of them which affected me; it was the fact that, lined up alike as they are, there can be no doubt that they form part of a single design of unimaginable scale. I could not identify either end of the line, and had then no idea how many of these vast buildings might exist.

And then my eye was drawn beyond them, to the thousand steps, and upwards, upwards - even from there I had to crane my neck, even then in the middle of the afternoon the whole city was in its shadow - to the immense height of the Front Gate. I followed the horses in a daze; my mind could not adjust to the magnificence of the sights that surrounded me, nor to the crowds - I had not known the world held so many people - nor to the noise, nor to the smells, variously sublime and revolting. Urchins ran beside me, mocking; I did not notice them. Not because I was proud, or on my dignity. Simply because the immensity of it all was too much to take in; I had no sense left over for such little things.

At last we swung to the right into River Street, and the horses stopped before the House of the Hand. The riders dismounted. More men came out of the house to help them, and I was led firmly in through the first of the four great streetside portals, down a flight of steps, and thrust into a barred and windowless cell. There was a palette in the cell, and a slop-pail; nothing else. I fell my length onto the palette, and thus to sleep, at once. While I was asleep, someone must have come into my cell, for I awoke to find the bracelets removed, and a change of plain black clothes laid out for me. I was given no facilities to wash, during all the time I was there, and was much conscious of my own filth; but the fresh clothing was a kindness, for which I was grateful. My own was taken from me next day, and I never saw it again. In some sense it was small loss, for it had suffered greatly during the brief period I had allowed myself to be dragged by the horse; but nonetheless I missed it, for it was all that I had left of my home - that, and my firm intention to be free, to cross the river, to accomplish my mission.

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