The Rite of Spring: The Princess

The Rite of Spring: Fragment 20

The Princess
in which Aonan learns the full horror of her doom

I was held in that cell for three days. The people in the plain black clothes did not speak to me, but they fed me well on plain but wholesome food, and provided me with fresh clothing after their own fashion. Except in that I was unable to bathe, I cannot say that I was greatly discomforted by this captivity. I was neither misused nor insulted. But it was by no means an experience I would choose to repeat. The cell was dark, and somewhat damp, and rang almost continuously with the reverberations of rythmic music played loudly on the floor above.

Also, I was in an agony of impatience to be free, however, and to reach Gruath, who was, I knew, less than three hundred manheights away across the river. I could not relax, and paced up and down the cell. I thought most of my people beyond the rim, and how desperately they needed a man to lead them; but in truth, apart from my own serving women, I could frame no picture in my mind of any of them. I had never been allowed to spend time with anyone else in such a way that I would know them. I was going to Gruath, who would be my master in all things until my death, but when I tried to recall him the face that floated in my view was Linnain the Dragon Hunter.

I thought a lot about Linnain, too. I realised how foolish I had been to leave him, to reject his willingly given friendship. I knew that he had found me a trial, and indeed he had often been short and rough with me, and had not accorded to me the respect to which I had been accustomed. Yet the friendship which Linnain had offered me had been friendship for Aonan just, not for Aonan a'Aonach. That was a new experience, and not one, I realised, which I had fully appreciated. If Linnain was to by my master - or indeed, if it should transpire that Gruath should be as fine a man as Linnain, and how could he not, for Gruath was nobly bred, and trained as a warrior, unlike Linnain, who was just a savage - if Gruath should be no better a man than Linnain, I had little to fear of his mastery.

Nothing of moment transpired during this period of captivity, in fact, apart from a woman in grey who came to my cell and asked me many questions. By now, however, I was more cautious than I had previously been, and - apart from confirming my name, which she already knew - I said nothing.

At the end of the three days, four of the men in black returned to my cell. They opened the door, and summoned me to come forth. I asked them where they were taking me. Their reply rang for me as the voice of doom.

"You are to be taken to the houses of debauchery", they said. "It is the will of the God."

At that, I would not come out. They came in to get me, and I fought with them, but I was swiftly overpowered, and was bound hand and foot. Then I was carried along a corridor, up a flight of stairs, down a couple of steps, and deposited again in a boat. As the boat pulled out into the river, I could see the Doorstep, and even the figure of a warrior standing on the Doorstep. Perhaps it was Gruath. It seemed so near. I regretted then that I had fought. If I had gone willingly, perhaps I would not have been bound, and could have leapt into the river and swam across. Of course I had never learned to swim, but even if I failed... However, I was bound, and in any case the journey was not long.

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