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| The Rite of Spring: Fragment 43 | ||||
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The First of the Cock |
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| which starts peacefully but ends in violence | ||||
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| The Rite of Spring: Fragment 43 | ||||
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The First of the Cock |
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| which starts peacefully but ends in violence | ||||
"Who's there?", and it was Kiara.
When she had come in, she said at once
"well, who is she?". I put a finger to my lips. I said, softly,
"didn't you send her?". A cold look came over her.
"Ratface. Ratface was here. She must be one of Ratface's tools". The girl stiffened under my hands -
"I'm my own pissing tool"
she said, full of hostility. I relaxed my hands, so that she could move, but kept the contact. She turned her head so that she could see Kiara; I eased her hair back out of her eyes, and moved a bit, so that she could be more comfortable.
"Tell me the story?"
I asked. She pushed me away, not unkindly, and sat up. I went and squatted against the wall.
"I am Linnain..."
she began. Kiara at once interrupted, still hostile.
"That just means 'hunter'",
she said. I flapped my hand at her for quiet. The girl said
"so? I am a pissing hunter. I hunt dragons. What do you do?". She looked hard and defensive. I said, as gently as I know how,
"Linnain, Kiara is a friend of mine and is a good person who means no harm. Please tell me the story".
She stood up, and went and leant against the wall facing me. There was a lot of anger in her movements; it felt like old anger, as though Kiara had merely sparked something deep in her.
"I am Aona's friend. I heard you'd got her, so I got her out. I stayed so's you wouldn't pissing notice. That's all, right?"
I said,
"Linnain, if you are so angry with us, we can't work out what to do". It was pretty weak, I know. But what could I say? All I wanted to say was thank you, thank you, thank you. She said
"I don't pissing well care what you do. I'm going to look for Aona". I said
"do you know where she's gone..? Oh no... Linnain, when did she go..."
Linnain just stood there, against the wall, a solid angry figure, and stared back at me.
"The Guard are pretty wild, Linnain..."
She shrugged.
"She's their Princess. And it's her life, she chose to go. And if they've pissing hurt her, I'll pissing slaughter every last pissing mother of them. Now I'm going."
She started to leave. I got up quickly.
"Linnain, I've got a boat... let me come with you."
She looked me up and down, slowly.
"Have you thought what they'll pissing do to you, if she tells them what you were going to do to her?"
- I just flapped my hands. What did it matter?
"She was given into my care. If she is harmed, that is my fault. Come on! When did you let her out?"
I said, leading the way out of the room. She said
"last night", and my heart sank within me. I led the way across between our House and the Cunt, and along the riverside steps towards our boathouse, calling out for the boatmen. I'd been aware of Kiara following us out of the Theatre. Suddenly I heard her shout
"Tan! Tan! Look out!"
- and at the same time there was a metallic skittering, and a knife slithered across the steps in front of me and fell into the oily brown water with a plop.
Behind me, a man in a loose barbarian coat woven with diamonds of red and yellow was struggling with Linnain. I could see another knife in his hand. As I started back towards her, she did something sharp with her left leg, and he reeled backwards up the steps away from her. Linnain shouted
"keep out of the pissing way, you stupid mother"
- I didn't know whether she meant me, or Kiara, or who... her eyes never left the knifeman. I stopped. I could see Kiara, beyond them, also indecisive, and other people, too, emerging from the House. We didn't know what to do. Weapons aren't something we're used to. Linnain didn't seem in any doubt. She was half crouched, hands held wide from her sides, waiting. I was terrified that the robe I had given her would trip her, or obstruct her. Kiara called
"Ratface! don't do it! I'll give you anything..."
The knifeman laughed, and lunged forward. I cannot describe what happened next, partly because it was so quick, and partly because the light was fading. But there was the briefest of contact between them. In what appeared to be simply an acceleration of the same movement with which he had lunged forward, the attacker went sailing out over the water, to fall with a tremendous splash about two manheights out from the steps. Linnain was staggering on the very edge of the water. Kiara and I reached her at the same time, pulling her back, holding her between us, shaking with reaction. Kiara was saying
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry", over and over, as if it had been her fault. I was stroking Linnain's hair just as mechanically. She said
"what a pair of pissing feeble mothers", broke free from us, and went down to where the boat was already waiting. There hadn't been a sound from the water where the knifeman had gone.
When we got to the boat, Linnain said to Kiara
"You! I'll need your skirt."
Kiara just unhooked it at her side, unwrapped it, and handed it across. Then she moved to get down into the boat. Linnain grabbed her.
"Don't be so pissing stupid, you can't come bare arsed, they'd tear you apart anyway". I supported her, and at last we got down into the boat and away. I asked what she had wanted the skirt for. She replied
"don't you be pissing stupid either. Any woman who goes across to those animals at night without a veil is in trouble". And with that, she wound the skirt - which, typically of Kiara, was pretty insubstantial - around her head, and tucked the waistband into the collar of the robe, carefully making sure the robe and the band, between them, covered her entirely. I said,
"what time did you get Aonan out?"; and Linnain said, simply,
"she isn't such a fool. She knows what her people are like."
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