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Authors: Tim Robinson
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the edge of the snowfields, and heard wolves howling from the horizon to the stars. The next day they reached the first of many mountain villages, where the authority of the Governor’s seal procured them food, but nobody believed their story.
They journeyed on, and at last one evening, from the shelter of a flowering thorn, they could see the lights and hear the music of the Court encamped and feasting in the valley below. ‘Perhaps tomorrow you can stop being my brother,’ said Springrice. ‘Perhaps you will become my husband, and then you won’t love me any more because you will discover my defect.’
So laughed at the idea of her having a defect, but she wept and would not be comforted. ‘What is this terrible defect, my love?’ said So. ‘A mouse-bite? A moth-bite?’
‘I have never seen it properly,’ she whispered, crouched against him in the sweet evening breath of the flowers, ‘and of course nobody else has seen it since I was a baby. In the middle of my back there isamark; it has grown as I grew.’
‘Let me look,’ said So. Springrice was very pale. Turning away from him, and undoing the clasp at her throat, she let the robe slip from her shoulders. The dark hair, the smooth skin, so snared and held separate the elements of night and day mingled around them that So felt his heart stop beating. Then she turned her head, and the soft web of darkness swung off her shoulders, revealing a pale twisted mark under the surface of her flesh like the vein in a flawed jewel.
‘What is it like?’ whispered Springrice. So’s voice had been taken away from him by the glow of her body; it was a moment before he could reply.
‘Like smoke, drowning.’
‘And what does it mean?’ she said, still more quietly.
‘What does it mean?’ repeated So, blank before her troubled eyes. ‘Does it mean something?’ He caught her in his arms and kissed her. ‘It’s the footmark of the legendary bird that carried you off as a baby and has now brought you to me, who will keep you forever!’
But So found out what it meant, that night, as they lay together in the moonlight. Springrice slept curled up like a child, clutching in her hand the curious bit of bronze So had rescued from the blazing forest; now he saw how like it was to the sign on her back. With the tip of his finger So parted her hair where it flowed over her shoulders; the mark glowed in the shadow with a pulsing, cloudy light. He leaned across her and gently disengaged her fingers from the bronze key – he remembered the phrase from the bone – and held it where the moon turned its edge into a tiny frozen lightning flash. The two shapes were different in detail, but they were the same size, the length of So’s hand from top to bottom. He put them side by side; together they formed a column of script. It was as if a hand came out of the night to tear So’s hopes from his heart. Written in the darkness was the fact that Springrice was the daughter of an Emperor.
At dawn, So led his lost love down the mountainside to the royal camp. Springrice was troubled by his confused bearing, now that of a lover at parting, now that of a servant so humble as to be nearly invisible, but she could not persuade him to tell her what was wrong. As they entered the broad way between the gay pavilions of the Court, a gong began to throb so slowly that after every stroke they thought it had stopped. The sound seemed to spread ripplesof anxiety across the sleep of the camp; guards became alert at the doors of tents, servants appeared running with the furs and footgear of their masters. The sudden uproar flowed towards the grandest pavilion of all, over which hung the banner of the Emperor. Here So showed the Governor’s seal to the captain of the guard, who ushered them into an antechamber where several high officials were conferring in agitated whispers as robes were flung about their shoulders and their jewelled belts were fastened by crowding servants . One courtier
They journeyed on, and at last one evening, from the shelter of a flowering thorn, they could see the lights and hear the music of the Court encamped and feasting in the valley below. ‘Perhaps tomorrow you can stop being my brother,’ said Springrice. ‘Perhaps you will become my husband, and then you won’t love me any more because you will discover my defect.’
So laughed at the idea of her having a defect, but she wept and would not be comforted. ‘What is this terrible defect, my love?’ said So. ‘A mouse-bite? A moth-bite?’
‘I have never seen it properly,’ she whispered, crouched against him in the sweet evening breath of the flowers, ‘and of course nobody else has seen it since I was a baby. In the middle of my back there isamark; it has grown as I grew.’
‘Let me look,’ said So. Springrice was very pale. Turning away from him, and undoing the clasp at her throat, she let the robe slip from her shoulders. The dark hair, the smooth skin, so snared and held separate the elements of night and day mingled around them that So felt his heart stop beating. Then she turned her head, and the soft web of darkness swung off her shoulders, revealing a pale twisted mark under the surface of her flesh like the vein in a flawed jewel.
‘What is it like?’ whispered Springrice. So’s voice had been taken away from him by the glow of her body; it was a moment before he could reply.
‘Like smoke, drowning.’
‘And what does it mean?’ she said, still more quietly.
‘What does it mean?’ repeated So, blank before her troubled eyes. ‘Does it mean something?’ He caught her in his arms and kissed her. ‘It’s the footmark of the legendary bird that carried you off as a baby and has now brought you to me, who will keep you forever!’
But So found out what it meant, that night, as they lay together in the moonlight. Springrice slept curled up like a child, clutching in her hand the curious bit of bronze So had rescued from the blazing forest; now he saw how like it was to the sign on her back. With the tip of his finger So parted her hair where it flowed over her shoulders; the mark glowed in the shadow with a pulsing, cloudy light. He leaned across her and gently disengaged her fingers from the bronze key – he remembered the phrase from the bone – and held it where the moon turned its edge into a tiny frozen lightning flash. The two shapes were different in detail, but they were the same size, the length of So’s hand from top to bottom. He put them side by side; together they formed a column of script. It was as if a hand came out of the night to tear So’s hopes from his heart. Written in the darkness was the fact that Springrice was the daughter of an Emperor.
At dawn, So led his lost love down the mountainside to the royal camp. Springrice was troubled by his confused bearing, now that of a lover at parting, now that of a servant so humble as to be nearly invisible, but she could not persuade him to tell her what was wrong. As they entered the broad way between the gay pavilions of the Court, a gong began to throb so slowly that after every stroke they thought it had stopped. The sound seemed to spread ripplesof anxiety across the sleep of the camp; guards became alert at the doors of tents, servants appeared running with the furs and footgear of their masters. The sudden uproar flowed towards the grandest pavilion of all, over which hung the banner of the Emperor. Here So showed the Governor’s seal to the captain of the guard, who ushered them into an antechamber where several high officials were conferring in agitated whispers as robes were flung about their shoulders and their jewelled belts were fastened by crowding servants . One courtier
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