The Rite of Spring: The Priest of the Cunt

The Rite of Spring: Fragment 28

The Priest of the Cunt
which tells of how Kiara counselled an unwelcome client, and what she told him

I was counselling that morning, sitting in the dusty room on the street side of the house, waiting for the human flotsam to drift in through the door with this or that problem, some desperate, some pathetic, some risible. As each person drifts in, you look at them, and something in your mind immediately categorises them. You know you shouldn't do this; you know it will lessen your sympathy, lessen your ability to serve, but you do.

This one slouched in. He wore an old and dirty shepherds robe, that had long since had any colour bleached out of it. His shoulders drooped. His head sagged. His sandals trailed dust from the old stone floor, to hang in the golden sunlight streaming in through the doorway. He collapsed into a squatting position on the mat in front of me. He was pathetic. I tried to school my face into an expression of patient welcome; and then he pushed back his head, and my face tensed with fear.

It was Ratface.

"My dear Kiara, I give you greeting. May the Eye brightly illuminate your deeds this day. Look"

- he indicated the golden brilliance of the doorway -

"I see he is already trying. I wonder, do you perhaps have anything... interesting... to tell me today?"

I tried to look blank, tough. I said

"Don't put too much pressure on me, Skiary Ratface. I can always go back to my people and breed horses." Ratface's eyes closed. His head nodded gently.

"Breed horses... yes, Kiara, I'm sure you'll breed horses... most ably. After all, you won't breed anything else... will you?"

I felt defeated, the way Ratface always makes me feel. I said "all right, Ratface. What do you want to know?"

Ratface nodded gently, squatting as idle and slack as a blind beggar.

"My house is interested in a certain... bar-bar-ian... woman. A... dark... barbarian woman. Would your House know anything... about..."

- his sentence trailed away. Perhaps, if I waited long enough, he would finish it. I didn't. "My House knows nothing about such a woman."

Ratface's eyes where just a glitter between almost closed lids.

"Ah, dear Kiara... always so... pre-cise... in what you say... Your House knows nothing... What do you know, Kiara..? What do... you... know?"

I tried furiously to think what interest Ratface could have in the girl. It didn't seem to make much sense... and then it occurred to me that the Rhiconicfhear were sky worshippers, like the Eye. Could they be in league?

"Do you have a name for this woman?"

He nodded again, barely perceptibly.

"The woman my house is... inter-est-ed... in... is called Aonan a'Aonach. But... she may not give that name..."

So, I thought. I laughed.

"Why come to me to know the fate of Aonan a'Aonach?" Ratface's eyes opened for a moment. He knew he'd missed something. "But dear Kiara... you always tell me such... interesting... things". "Well", I said,

"all I'm going to tell you this morning is to go to the Mouth, and ask". His eyes remained open.

"Ahhh..."

- he was quite still.

"So?"

I nodded. "So." It was the first time in all the years since he found out that there was a barren woman serving in this House that I ever felt I'd got one past him. It was - not a good feeling precisely - but one that gave me courage.

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