The Rite of Spring: Fragment 35g
The Student
in which Taynuic enjoys Beinnain in a most appropriate place, and meets Bre Skiary in a most inappropriate one

At last she moved, lifting her head just enough to put her mouth on mine.

"Ohhhh", she said, and then, when she had finished kissing me, "Ohh, woww". I grinned.

"Oh, you're so good, you're so good... you sun coloured, honey coloured woman, you're so good. I love... I love to look at you... I love the weight of you. I love the taste of you..."

I rolled her off, and myself onto her, so that I could look down into her face.

"Oh, Beinnain, I love the colour of you."

She laughed happily.

"You're a pretty nice colour yourself", she said, stroking my back, and smiling up into my face.

"I'd never seen anyone so dark before I met you."

She must have seen the conceit in my face, because she laughed, running a hand through my hair.

"Oh! but I have since. There's a woman here who's almost black..."

a frown passed across her face like the shadow of a cloud.

"There's something odd about her. she's sort of a prisoner - I don't really understand..."

She wriggled out from under me, and got up. I followed; she led me across to the parapet. She leaned on the old stones and looked down over the river, and the heavy barges passing below.

She told me about how this woman had burst into the dormitary when Beinnain had been being ploughed by the High Priest, and how she'd spoken to the priest, and how she'd been led away. I suppose I didn't really listen; I felt a bit funny at the thought of someone else lying with Beinnain. What was it like when the High Priest did it? Was it better than with me? What did he do? Calm down, she said, calm down.

"It isn't the same, Tay, it's... I'm just another one to him. He didn't go off the moment I touch him like you did the first time, and he's big so I felt sort of stretched and tingly afterwards... but..." She had her hands on my shoulders, looking straight into my eyes, trying to make me know what she was expressing.

"It's so controlled. There he was, thumping away, and it felt good, but I could feel that he was thinking about something else... look..."

She shook her head for emphasis -

"when he sowed his seed in me, it was because he was in control. When you sow your seed, it's because you're not. And...when you're in me, you're in me, but when he was in me, he was just in the next cunt in the queue. He was gentle, and skilled, and polite and... but... But when the Rite's done, I won't be thinking about when I get to lie with him next, because I won't. Do you see?"

I evaded her eyes; I didn't find it easy. When I dropped my eyes, they fell to her breasts. I wanted to look away altogether, to turn away. But she was holding me, so I didn't.

"And... do you think of... of..." I was confused again, and lost. She laughed, and turned away, running her hand idly along the frieze that is carved around the inside of the parapet, fingering first one image, then another (it shows a series of couples in unlikely or acrobatic or apparently impossible positions, that frieze - we'd been using it for inspiration all afternoon).

"Of you?"

she said. I nodded. Her back was to me; she couldn't see. I couldn't speak. She laughed again.

"Come on,"

she said. "Let's try this one".

So we tried it, and afterwards we lay in a heap on the rug, giggly and a bit sore, and I felt much better; and also thirsty, because the afternoon had been long and warm, and we'd been fairly active. So I slung my tunic over my shoulder, and Beinnain picked hers up and swung the rug round her as a cape, and we started down the stairs. I had discovered that one of the nicest things about visiting the House of the Cock was that no-one minded what you wore, or even whether you wore anything.

On the first landing down from the roof of the tower we passed a doorway. Beinnain pointed it out, saying that was where the dark-skinned girl was. I was suddenly interested to see someone darker than I am, but we both felt it would be rude so we didn't look in. Another flight down, and we came out into the roof cloister. There is a fountain that plays in the cloister; I don't know where the water for it comes from, but it is cool and clear. The Cock after all are not just studs; they're also the masters of irrigation. We drank, and splashed water at each other, and laughed. An answering laugh came out of a shadowed corner, thin and dry. Beinnain started up, and skipped across to the corner, calling

"hello Ron!"

I followed more slowly. When I came out of the glare of the sun I saw a man who seemed older than time sitting upright on a bench. His hair was thin and white, and his face seamed and wrinkled like old leather. His eyes were grey and cloudy. He wore the clothes of a priest of the House. On him, the gaudy groin piece did not seem boastful but curiously dignified.

"Is that Beinnain?"

he asked. His voice was dry as his laugh, but quite clear. She said it was, and introduced me, calling me her great friend. I was pleased by that. Her voice was warm and joyful; I could see she thought well of the old man.

"Kneel down, lad,"

he said,

"let me feel your face. My eyes are not good now." His fingers on my face were dry as spiderlegs.

"So,"

he said, "is he helping you practice for the Rite?"

We both laughed.

"Sir,"

I said,

"have you been a priest here long?" A stupid question. But he didn't laugh. He said

"all my life". I asked what it was like, to be a Priest of the Cock. Then he did laugh.

"Ah, yes... every young man thinks it is the dream life; any woman you want just for asking. Are you thinking of joining us, lad?"

I flushed.

"No sir," I said, "but I would like to know. I am trying to learn about theology..."

His blind eyes sought for me in a way that seemed curiously acute, penetrating.

"What is your cult, lad?"

I found that hard to answer. "My father is of the Eye"

I said.

"But you are not?" "Sir," I said, "I don't know. That is what I am trying to learn..."

"So what have you learned, so far?"

"Sir,"

I said again "I do not know. I have heard the Eye say hard things which are either the truth, or else if they are not the truth are wicked lies, saying the God is thus, and that all other beliefs are false. I have heard the Cunt say that some of the doctrines of the Eye are not the truth. I have heard the Foot say only that they are seeking. I have heard the Mouth say that they know the true word of the God, every word the God has spoken for many hundreds of years. I have heard the Ear say that anyone who listens may hear the word of the God, even if they don't serve the Mouth. I have heard the Hand say the God is served by making, and the Stomach that She is served by consuming. And everyone has said the God dwells up there, behind the Front Gate. And everyone has said that the God is everywhere, is immanent. Sir, what does the Cock say?"

The old man coughed, thin and dry.

"To understand what we say, lad, you must understand how we came to be; and that is a long tale. Have you time to hear it?"

I looked at Beinnain, who nodded; and then I said to the old man

"sir, if you have the patience to tell, I have the patience to listen."

"So... where to start. Do you know the number of the present incarnation?"

"It is said that the incarnation is the one hundred and thirtieth", I said.

"That is so", he nodded. "That is said to be so. And what does that tell you?"

I was puzzled.

"Why, that there have been one hundred and twenty seven before this one, sir", I said; but Beinnain said

"that there was a first".

"Very good, daughter, very good. So. There was a first. What was before the first incarnation, then? Have you given thought to that?"

"Sir", I asked, "was there a world before the first incarnation?"

He looked up at me with a sudden bright gleam in his eye.

"There was! there was, son, and it was already an old world; or at least, that is what is remembered in this House. Have you heard of the Cult Wars?" Neither of us had.

"So. Before the days of the Incarnations, there were many peoples in the Place, and each had a different cult; and each under its warlord warred against the others, trying to force everyone to worship as they worshipped. This continued for many many lives of men.

"But then one warlord, who had his fortress across the River where the Doorstep is now, had a different idea. He said to the people he conquered, you may worship however you like, so long as you acknowledge that the God you worship is the same as the God everyone else worships, and that I am the incarnation of that God. This was a successful policy, because the people conquered by this warlord could unite with his people, rather than having to be suppressed by them. And that is how the Place was unified, and the Cult Wars ended; and incidentally, how the first incarnation came about.

I was shocked by this blasphemy.

"Are you saying that the incarnation is not the God, but an imposter?"

"Gently, son, gently. I'm not saying that at all. Just that the God moves in strange ways. Also, to claim to be the God is dangerous, for the God might take it seriously. No; all I am saying is that in the City at His Gates there were many Cults, but all of them worshipped the God as represented by the incarnation, and the incarnation was male. Now, over time the incarnation became more and more powerful, and his armies conquered more and more, until he held the whole of the Place. After that, there was no real need for armies, because the Rim is like a huge defensive wall.

"Now the history of this House is this. In the oldest records, we call ourselves not the cult of the Cock, but the cult of the Spear. We were not a cult of farmers, but first of hunters, and later of warriors; because in those days before the Cult Wars, the farming people mostly followed cults of the Mother. But quite early in the Cult Wars, the cults of the Mother were defeated and driven underground, because they were not warrior cults. So when it happened that the Incarnation had nearly completed his conquest of the Place, the warriors cults fell from favour; the Incarnation saw them as potential centres of revolt.

"The cult of the Dragon was suppressed in that period; its survivors later joined with the cult of the Sun to form the new cult of the Eye. The Council of this House guessed that they might well be next. They could see that the day of the warrior was past, at least in the Place. They felt it important that the cult should be seen to have turned completely away form war. Some felt that we should revert to being a hunting cult, as we had been before, but the time of hunting was passed too, for the forests which had not been destroyed during the long wars had been claimed by the Incarnation as his private reserves. But we saw that there was no cult that the people of the countryside could then openly worship, for the one thing the early Incarnations would not accept was a female deity. So this House laid down the Spear and took up the Plough.

"Now look; in doing that, this House made an historic choice. It made that choice for a number of reasons, some moral, and some pragmatic. But in choosing to turn away from the Spear we turned away from political ambition, from the chance of coming to control the Incarnation, as the Eye later did. We chose to become an unimportant House, influential only in the countryside, not in the City and the markets, where wealth and power are. We chose to worship God where God is most obvious, most simple, in the miracle of generation. And so, later, as the Houses reshaped themselves gradually to come to represent the Body of God, we became the Cock.

"So, to answer your question, the Cock does not say much. The Cock is not wise. The Cock is hungry, greedy for the dark, for the fertile places. Greedy for life to follow. But there are things that the Cock knows, nevertheless. The Cock knows that without both the male and the female, there is no life. Without both the light and the dark, there is no life. Without both the wet and the dry, there is no life. Every opposite there is, is there that life can follow. And life is the God; the God makes all. So that where opposites come together, light to dark, dry to wet, cock to cunt, that is where we are closest to the God. That is what the Cock knows, lad. I hope it helps you. Come, it gets cool, and it will be the time for the night meal. I must go down".

So we helped the old man down the stairs to the ground floor, and there I said goodbye to Beinnain, kissed goodbye to Beinnain, promising to see her first thing in the morning, because it was the day, the Day of the Rite, and she was nervous and wanted support. And then, remembering to pull my tunic on, I went out into the street. And it was there, under the tree in the Place of the Theatre, that I met Bre Skiary.

Bre Skiary is sort of a friend of my father's; I don't really know very much about him. He used to come late at night, when I was a very small boy. He frightened me when I was small. I suppose he still frightened me then, when I thought I was grown. I had long since guessed that Bre Skiary was one of the Hidden Eyes, the Assassins of the Eye. When I was small, my father - or Ballasalltshain's father - would tell us exciting stories about the exploits of the Hidden Eyes, spying out evil doers or those who offended against the doctrine, and silently dealing with them in such a way as to serve as a warning for others. It was the Hidden Eyes who had killed the Demon Kiar; I don't know how many times I've been told that story. The story of the coming of the Yachorach was one my father came back to again and again, how the Great House had been cast down and humbled by the forces of darkness, made to seem no greater than the other cults. For my father, the killing of Kiar was the one bright spark in that story. For my father, the Hidden Eyes were heroes, people to reverence. But Skiary always made me uneasy. You never saw him arrive; suddenly he would be sitting in a corner, or lounging against a wall, as if he had been there all the time.

"Ah..."

he said. He always spoke as if dragging out the next word was too much effort; and as if everything in the world was amusing, in a faintly disgusting way.

"Aaahhh, Taynuik. How... sur-pris-ing to see you... here... I hope you have had an... amus-ing time in the... House of De-bauch-ery... hhmmm?"

I said nothing. I was frightened.

"Come on, boy... tell your old friend Ski-ary... how does de-file-ment taste to a... well... brought up boy... hhhmmm?"

"Sir,"

I said, "I am seeking to broaden my knowledge of the cults, in order that I may understand the doctrine better."

"To... un-der-stand the doctrine... What a... worrthy... aim for a... well... brrrought up boy... How prrroud your... father... will be... Not... of course... as proud as he would be if he heard... that you had sserved... the Great House..?"

The half closed eyes looked at me very intently.

"Sir, it is always my aim to serve the God, in so far as I am able."

Skiary nodded. He took me by the shoulder, and led me quite gently into one of the dark twisty alleys that lead out of the Place. In a quiet corner he stopped.

"To serve... such a... noble... task... Perhaps you would help... me... to ssserrrve..?"

There is something hypnotic about him. I wanted to run away. I only shrugged.

"In the house... there is a black girl... hhmmm?"

I gulped and nodded.

"I did not see her, but I saw the room where she is held."

Skiary released my shoulder, and lounged back against the wall.

"Sssso... good... The girl is Aonan a'Aonach; she is the Prrrincessss of the Rrrichonicsfhearrrchaorrrusduadh... aahhh, but I sssee you have not... heard... of the Noble Clan. The Clan... values... it's Princess... and as they also... serve... the All Ssseeing God... we are... in a way... comrades... hmmm..?"

I nodded. I could not see where all this was leading. Did he want me to help the dark-skinned woman to escape? "Sssooo... we wish to deliver a... token... to the Prrincessss... so that she will know... she has not been for-got-en..."

A token! Surely there could be no harm in taking a token...

"And you want me to deliver it?"

Skiary's eyes closed entirely.

"Aahhh... Taynuik... how good of you to... offer. Now... of course... if anyone wanted to know what you had been doing... in the House of De-bauch-ery... you would have a... Rrreason... wouldn't you..? But... you must do it sssoon... There is a Rrrite that they will... hold... tomorrow af-ter-noon... She mussst have it be-fore then..."

ÿ

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