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| The Rite of Spring: Fragment 23g | ||||
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The Student |
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| in which Taynuic drafts a contract, and who he meets thereafter; and how his appetite was sated | ||||
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| The Rite of Spring: Fragment 23g | ||||
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The Student |
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| in which Taynuic drafts a contract, and who he meets thereafter; and how his appetite was sated | ||||
I had slept the night under a tarpaulin covering a stack of wood at the back of one of the shipyards. I woke with mixed feelings. I was young, free, independent... I also had a sore hip, an empty belly, and nothing in my purse. Still, the yard was handy for the inland quay, and the merchants would be down on the quay hiring porters for the day. I went jauntily down to the quay, watching the dawn light draw glints out of the twisting thread of the Gate Fall, and staring again at the crouching, honey coloured towers of the Front Gate. So near! I thought of the map I had seen, of the far lands. I wondered how the man from Hak-thing felt about living so far from the God. What did his people do when they needed to put something to the God for judgment? Were there other places where one could put things before the God? Were there other Gods?
Whatever, I couldn't eat one for breakfast.
A glass later I was hungrier and less jaunty. The merchants were hiring bigger men than me. Eventually I turned away into River Street, wondering where else I could find work for the day. Someone called my name. I didn't even look up - I didn't think anyone who knew me could be there. But when the call came again, I did turn, and there was old Malledich, beckoning me over. I went up to him and made the gesture of respect. He introduced me formally to the man he was standing with, a dark complectioned burly man with a beard died bright red, whom he called Trekshtar. Trekshtar, he explained, was a foreign sea captain, a friend who often did business with the House of the Three Diamonds. He needed a scribe who would be reliable and discreet. Would I, perhaps, be free for that morning? Well, I was, and quickly made a bargain with the foreigner.
I explained that I had no tablets with me, and the foreigner gave me some coppers, saying to get both wax and clay, and to meet me in the refectory of the Great Hostel in Infirmary Street. When I got back there I found Trekshtar already sitting at a board, with two other people. I could see at once that one of the others was just a scribe, like myself. I made the gesture of respect to Trekshtar, and sat myself on his left, in the way of scribes. There was wine on the board, and sweet-meats, but not for us underlings.
"You are ready?"
said Trekshtar; I nodded.
"Very good. Beginning is now. The wax only until we know."
He turned to the woman across the table. She was old, with deep creases round her eyes and grizzled hair. Her skin had the dry look that a life in the wind gives it. As they talked, I learned that she was a horse dealer. She wanted some horses brought from a distant land, where Trekshtar might be going - he was guarded. She could pay in a rare metal called tin. Trekshtar was more cautious still. Tin was not found in the Place, he said. Where would she get it? She had it already, in warehouses on the Foreign Quay. Often, Tin was not very pure. No, this was pure tin, from (a place I did not know). It had a particular mark on each ingot. Trekshtar nodded grudgingly. I could see this mark was known to him. The woman leaned forward. She would give five of these ingots for every two horses brought back alive.
Horses did not travel well in ships. Often, they died no matter how well they were cared for. They took up a lot of space which could be used for more certain cargo. Trekshtar would need to be paid eleven ingots for every four living horses, and, additionally, two ingots for each horse which died. How was anyone to know how many had died? The woman would only pay if Trekshtar brought back the carcasses. In any case a dead horse was worthless. No more than one ingot for every two that died. Trekshtar moved as if to stand up. He would not carry dead horses on his ship. They would decompose and bring disease. Very well, but the woman must at least have the part of the hide with the breeders brand - and not more than one for each that died. I made notes on the wax, and occasionally explained an obscure word for Trekshtar. The woman would interject to put what she had said in clearer words, but he would wait patiently until she had finished, and then listen to my version.
Eventually they agreed that the woman would pay eight of the marked ingots for every three stallions brought back alive, provided it bore one of four brands which she drew herself on a wax of her scribe's, was entire, under three years old, and over seven spans in height. She would pay four of the ingots for every three brands from dead horses, provided that they were the same brands, packed in salt, and did not appear too old to have been cut from horses which died in transit. In any case she would not pay for more than six dead horses.
"Good", said Trekshtar.
"Set in clay. Drink!"
- but this last was not to me. I copied from my much scribbled wax onto the fresh clay, making sure all the points were covered. When I had done, I sat quiet until Trekshtar said
"read!".
As I read my clay, I saw the woman reading her scribe's.
"Is good", said Trekshtar, and pushed the clay across the board. The woman pushed hers back. At Trekshtar's command I read this also - the woman's scribe had done a very fair job. Again Trekshtar nodded grudgingly. He leaned forward and pressed his thumb, and then his seal ring, into the clay, and passed it across the table. The woman did the same. Again the clays were exchanged, and each was thumb-printed and sealed. After that we went out across Work Street to a kilners yard, where the clays were put in a saggar to be fired. Both Trekshtar and the woman watched carefully as the saggar was sealed with more clay, and both of them marked the join with their thumbs and signets. Then they parted very politely, and we walked back out onto Work Street.
"So!"
said Trekshtar.
"Is good, friend Malledich's young scribe. Here - but, no speaking. Good day."
He tossed me a coin which glinted in the sun. Gold. Not a gold, such a coin as we use; bigger, heavy in my hand, with strange markings. I made the gesture of respect with feeling, and skipped off to the Craft Market.
I went down Jeweller's Row, showing my coin to this goldsmith and that, asking what it was worth. One questioned me very suspiciously as to where I'd come by it, but when I explained about the foreign merchant and the contract, he smiled and offered me two of gold and two bronzes, which seemed a good price. We shook hands, and I turned to dash off to the Food Market.
Instead, I bumped into a girl.
Smell - clean hair; sandalwood oil, musk? Soft, firm. Almond kernel skin, hair of chestnuts, eyes are hazel. Confusion. Apologies. She too. Lips blaze at my eyes - I haul them down. Legs! Her tunic is so short! I laugh. My breath is gone. She is speaking - what has she said? I cannot hear the words for her smile. What? lost? Of course I can...
"Where is it you want to go?"
I sound so clumsy. Do I smell? Are my clothes all crumpled from sleeping in? What, River Street? It's so near...
"Could I not share food with you? listen, they are sounding the Glass of the Stomach..."
She is the Sun. I cannot look at her, she dazzles me. If my hand moves, just a little, it will touch her bare thigh. My hand is frozen, burning. She is speaking. How strange her accent is.
"Food! in this place? Take me to it. Here is gold, there is leather, there are wonderful dresses - so many things! I've been wandering around for - for ever so long. I've seen things I've never seen before. But oh! I'd trade them all for a cake of rice! Where do you city folk hide the food?"
Her voice is music and falling water.
"Come", I say
"I'll show you."
I tell her that I am Taynuic. She is Beinnain. I am floating. In the alleys of the market, the people are clotted, pushing. Oh! I've lost her... my stomach has imploded. A hand. Her hand. Her hand in my hand. My stomach is back but my lungs are gone. I'm dizzy. At last we're out into the Place of Justice. Her hand burns me. I drop it. I am talking, gabbling, pointing to the High Place, the Steps... my voice runs out. I am looking at her. She is my height. The tunic is saffron yellow. Her sandals are laced with yellow ribbons. How smooth her skin. How short the tunic. So near, so near... the darkness within the woman... is there darkness within her? My loincloth is too tight. My belly is molten. In desperation I look up at her face. She is looking at me. Her smile laughs, but it is warm.
"Come on", she says.
"I'm nearly as hungry as you are".
We go into the food market. I buy all sorts of delightful things. I pop things into her mouth. So many things she's never tasted! We fill my satchel, and buy a good flask of wine - stronger than I've had before. I will not notice it, I am already drunk. We wander back into the Street of Wisdom. She comes from the marshes in the Delta. Oh! my mother comes from there! Where from? I don't know, she died when I was born. We are at the Gate of Wisdom. I lead her to the steps. It will be quiet on the wall. She climbs ahead of me, and at last I realise what it is about her hair. It is plaited behind into a rope as thick as my arm, and falls to below the hem of the yellow tunic, swaying behind as her long thighs move up, one after the other, pulling my gaze up between them, to... It is true then. Women are differently made there. The smooth skin slides and stretches, the full buttocks bunch and flow. I can't see clearly. My eyes are dizzy.
"You look as if you've never seen a woman..."
"I haven't..."
"Oh, come on", she laughs. She points down into the City. "There are hundreds of us down there..."
I flush redder.
"No, no... I mean, not like this... I mean"
- I stammer again, and, completely confused, look down into the City. I want - I don't know what I want. My father has taught me no words. Darkness, darkness, lost in darkness, drowning. Sweet darkness, sweet drowning.
"Have you never touched a woman?"
I am dumb. I shake my head. She lifts my hand, and kisses it on the middle of the palm. It burns. She is looking at me, questioning, wondering.
"Have you ever..."
I croak
"...ever..." I cannot look at her "...ever..."
"Touched a man?"
She asks; her voice sounds throaty. I nod.
"Yes", she said.
"There's a boy I lie with at home, sometimes - well, a few times, anyway - and yesterday I was ploughed by the First of the Cock."
She is proud. Ploughed. Proud. Darkness, darkness, drowning. Plough pushing into the dark, damp, rich, fertile... My groin is hot and tight, sticky with fluid.
"I have come to the City"
- she says - "for the Rite of the Plough."
I look at her face, curve balancing curve, brow, cheek, lip, sweeping swirling curves drawing me in, in, in... hazel eyes. Great, lustrous, hazel eyes. I am dizzied, drowned, overwhelmed, sun struck. My hand is moving beyond my volition. It touches the sun stuff of her. It burns.
"M-m-may I..."
"Plough me?"
she is laughing. I nod. I cannot look at her.
"No." She lifts my hand gently away. I look at her, lost. She smiles.
"Not today, anyway..."
She starts to get up.
"It's time I was going back."
"May I see you again?"
"Well"
- she smiled again - "I might need a guide round the City tomorrow. Come on, I'll need you to show me the way."
She stands. I stand. The wall walk is narrow. The rooftops of the tenements reach up towards us. She stumbles - or is that pretend? She falls against me, all her length against me, burning. I have drunk too much. Can I hold her? Lips on mine. Darkness, darkness, ohhh, how sweet.
When I had left Beinnain outside the House of the Cock, I walked a long while, dazed, up the river bank, and out of the Up-River Gate, and on. The quick dusk fell about me, drawing vapour from the dark damp rich fertile earth. Lights from the barges twinkled in the gently rippled river. I turned back, and wandered into the city again in time to see the carts of the Nose clinking into the dark streets to collect the night-soil cans outside each tenement.
As I came back past the Houses of Pleasure, there were people still in the street and in the little eating houses and bars that cluster behind the Theatre, laughing, singing, enjoying the night. I hardly noticed them. They weren't Beinnain. But when I came to the Food Market, my belly crawled within me. I realised I had not eaten since... since... well, perhaps it was only the middle of the day, but so much had happened... well, not so much perhaps, but so significant. The stalls were all gone. The sweepers were cleaning up the trash left from the day's buying and selling. I saw a loaf of bread lying in the gutter, and swooped on it. As I straightened, a hand fell on my shoulder, and a voice said
"hungry, youngling?"
He listened to my excuses with good humour, and then smiled and said that if I was hungry, he could take me to a place where I could eat better than mouldy bread. And that is how I ended that momentous day sitting, for the first time in my life, in one of the Houses of Pleasure. I remember feeling a strange compound of terror and defiance. What if my father should ever hear of this!
It was night, of course, but the great chamber I was led into was only dimly lit, with a few great candles. Many boards were laid on the floor, with cushions spread around them. On these, people were already seated, many of them crippled, or lame, or ragged, or otherwise showing the symptoms of poverty. Among them the priests of the Stomach sat solid as ducks among starlings. But the extraordinary thing was the food. I cannot begin to describe all that was there.
In that evening I ate venison, goose, pheasant, sheep, sturgeon, trout, carp, herring, lobster, dishes of vegetables of all kinds, rice, dumplings, bread, noodles, all with fifty different sauces, spicy or savoury, sweet or salt or bitter, rich or astringent. I ate many dishes that were so unfamiliar I cannot name them. I ate apricots, peaches, pears, figs, grapes, tarts, sweat-meats, concoctions of cream and yoghurt, honey and nuts. I ate cheeses soft and hard, yellow and creamy and blue, fresh and salted and smoked. And there was nothing I ate which was not delicious, with the exception of dragon, which for all it is said to be the most expensive food of all, I found fibrous and metallic to taste. With all this food I drank clear clean water, some from a special spring which was so full of air that bubbles rose continuously in it, tickling my palette; I drank fresh pressed juice or orange and lime; and I drank a little wine, also of wonderful flavour.
The mingled smells of the place I will never forget - so good they enticed you to eat more even when your stomach felt as though it would burst. And all the while, as we ate, our barrel-shaped hosts bustled about, fetching more, and more, and yet more delicacies - not stinting to help themselves as they went. We ate, for the most part, in silence, simply appreciating the wonderful feast. At last I could eat no more. I sat back and watched the swaying rush of the bulky trencher bearing priests, and the multitude of guests, all different, some picking delicately at some dainty, others wolfing into great hunks of food. In my state of daze and repletion and simple weariness, it seemed to me that the priests danced among the crowd, weaving in and out, kneeling to offer yet more to a diner, stooping to take up an empty dish, swirling away into the darkness to return again with some further savoury burden.
Gradually the urgency of the movement died away. Diners stood up and left, or fell asleep where they sat. More and more of the priests dropped out of the dance, to sit in a vacant place and eat from the piles of good things which still steamed gently on the boards. I suppose I may have slept for a while, for the next thing I remember the candles were lower, and some were out altogether. The chamber was quiet. Beside me, an enormous, jolly looking priest was tucking into a tart I had tried earlier, which was composed of layers of the thinnest and flakiest dough you can imagine, interspersed with layers of cream whipped with honey and nuts. Seeing me awake, she offered me a large slice. I said I could not. The walls of my stomach could contain just so much food, and I was already stretching them to a limit that felt unsafe. She said, cheerfully but also very solemnly,
"give thanks to the God! It is good to enjoy the wonderful things he has provided for us."
All at once I remembered what I had set out to learn, when my Father had told me how I came to be born. Here I was in the House of the Stomach - one of the Houses of Pleasure - an opportunity I'd never expected to have. I said
"excuse me, Lady Priest, but might I trouble you with questions of doctrine?"
She laughed, crammed some more tart into her mouth, and nodded.
"Lady, why is it the God made us two sexes? why are there women?"
She hiccuped a bit over her mouthful, and then, swallowing it down, asked
"why should there not be women?"
I shook my head.
"If there are women, why must there also be men? Why must you call the God 'He', and I call her 'She'?"
The priest laughed again, burping politely into her hand.
"It is the faith of this House", she said,
"that everything that is, is put into the world to give pleasure and fullness of life to everything else that is put into this world. The God gives us life, and it is good. The God gives us food, and it is good. The God gives us companions, and that too is good. By enjoying the good things the God gives, we show our thanks; by denying them, our ingratitude. Therefore be happy, because then God also will be happy. As for men and women, the God made women for you to enjoy - but remember at the same time that the God made you for women to enjoy; so in your dealings with women, if you give pleasure, so you serve the God, and if you do not, so you turn your back on him. As you are pleased when your friend takes pleasure in the gifts you give, so the God is pleased when you take pleasure in the life he gave to you. So give thanks, and enjoy it."
"But lady", I said,
"if there is only one God, why are there so many cults? If the way that you worship is the proper way, why need there be any other?". The priest swallowed a mouthful of crushed melon in yoghurt, flavoured with ginger. She said
"the God made the light that flashes in the fountains and paints the trees in blossom with colour; therefore let us give praise to the Eye, that enjoys the light. The God made the sweet scents of blossom and fruit, and the good smells of baked meats; therefore let us give praise to the Nose, that enjoys the scent. The God made the birds that sing in the sky; therefore let us give praise to the Ear, that enjoys the song. The God made flavours sweet and delicate and pungent; then let us praise the Mouth, that enjoys the flavour. The God made the wide world with all its wonderful places; then let us praise the Foot, that enjoys the journey. The God made clay and metals and wood and fibre for us to work; then let us praise the Hand, that takes pleasure in crafting. The God has made us all, male and female; then let us praise the Cock and the Cunt, that take pleasure in each other. Enjoy the world, for there is no other; enjoy it, and give thanks."
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