The Lion and the Lark - Patricia A McKillip, ebook
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
THE LION AND THE LARK
Patricia A. McKillip
Patricia A. McKillip, winner of the World Fantasy Award, is one of the
very finest writers working in the field today. She has published many
wonderful books, including The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Stepping from
the Shadows, Fool's Run, and The Cygnet and the Firebird. Her most
recent works are Something Rich and Strange and The Book of Atrix Wolfe,
both highly recommended. McKillip grew up in America, Germany, and
England, and now livcs in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
"The Lion and the Lark" is a literary fairy tale reminiscent of such old
folktales as "Beauty and the Beast," "The Falcon King," or "East of the
Sun, West of the Moon'' It is a thoughtful and poetic story that poses
the question How much can love stand? The story is reprinted from The
Armless Maiden.
There was once a merchant who lived in an ancient and magical city with
his three daughters. They were all very fond of each other, and as happy
as those with love and leisure and wealth can afford to be. The eldest,
named Pearl, pretended domesticity. She made bread and forgot to let it
rise before she baked it; she pricked her fingers sewing black satin
garters; she inflicted such oddities as eggplant soup and barley muffins
on her long-suffering family. She was very beautiful, though a trifle
awkward and absent-minded, and she had suitors who risked their teeth on
her hard, flat bread as boldly as knights of old slew dragons for the
heart's sake. The second daughter, named Diamond, wore delicate,
gold-rimmed spectacles, and was never without a book or a crossword
puzzle at hand. She discoursed learnedly on the origins of the phoenix
and the conjunctions of various astrological signs. She had an answer
for everything, and was considered by all her suitors to be wondrously wise.
The youngest daughter, called Lark, sang a great deal but never spoke
much. Because her voice was so like her mother's, her father doted on
her. She was by no means the fairest of the three daughters; she did not
shine with beauty or wit. She was pale and slight, with dark eyes,
straight, serious brows, and dark braided hair. She had a loving and
sensible heart, and she adored her family, though they worried her with
their extravagances and foolishness. She wore Pearl's crooked garters,
helped Diamond with her crossword puzzles, and heard odd questions arise
from deep in her mind when she sang. "What is life?" she would wonder.
"What is love? What is man?" This last gave her a good deal to ponder,
as she watched her father shower his daughters with chocolates and
taffeta gowns and gold bracelets. The young gentlemen who came calling
seemed especially puzzling. They sat in their velvet shirts and their
leather boots, nibbling bumt cakes and praising Diamond's mind, and all
the while their eyes said other things. Now, their eyes said: Now. Then:
Patience, patience. You are flowers, their mouths said, you are jewels,
you are golden dreams. Their eyes said: I eat flowers, I burn with
dreams, I have a tower without a door in my heart and I will keep you there....
Her sisters seemed fearless in the face of this power--whether from
 innocence or design, Lark was uncertain. Since she was wary of men, and
seldom spoke to them, she felt herself safe. She spoke mostly to her
father, who only had a foolish, doting look in his eyes, and who of all
men could make her smile.
One day their father left on a long journey to a distant city where he
had lucrative business dealings. Before he left, he promised to bring
his daughters whatever they asked for. Diamond, in a riddling mood, said
merrily, "Bring us our names!"
"Oh, yes," Pearl pleaded, kissing his balding pate. "I do love pearls."
She was wearing as marly as she had, on her wrists, in her hair, on her
shoes. "I always want more."
"But," their father said with an anxious glance at his youngest, who was
listening with her grave, slightly perplexed expression, "does Lark love larks?"
Her face changed instantly, growing so bright she looked ahnost
beautiful. "Oh, yes. Bring me my singing name, Father. I would rather
have that than all the lifeless, deathless jewels in the world."
Her sisters laughed; they petted her and kissed her, and told her that
she was still a child to hunger after worthless presents. Someday she
would learn to ask for gifts that would outlast love, for when love had
ceased, she would still possess what it had once been worth.
"But what is love?" she asked, confused. "Can it be bought like
yardage?" But they only laughed harder and gave her no answers.
She was still puzzling ten days later when their father returned. Pearl
was in the kitchen baking spinach tea cakes, and Diamond in the library,
dozing over the philosophical writings of Lord Thiggut Moselby. Lark
heard a knock at the door, and then the lovely, liquid singing of a
lark. Laughing, she ran down the hall before the servants could come,
and swung open the door to greet their father.
He stared at her. In his hands he held a little silver cage. Within the
cage, the lark sang constantly, desperately, each note more beautiful
than the last, as if, coaxing the rarest, finest song from itself, it
might buy its freedom. As Lark reached for it, she saw the dark blood
mount in her father's face, the veins throb in his temples. Before she
could touch the cage, he lifted it high over his head, dashed it with
all his might to the stone steps.
"No!" he shouted. The lark fluttered within the bent silver; his boot
lifted over cage and bird, crushed both into the stones. "No!"
"No!" Lark screamed. And then she put both fists to her mouth and said
nothing more, retreating as far as she could without moving from the
sudden, incomprehensible violence. Dimly, she heard her father sobbing.
 He was on his knees, his face buried in her skirt. She moved finally,
unclenched one hand, allowed it to touch his hair.
"What is it, Father?" she whispered. "Why have you killed the lark?"
He made a great, hollow sound, like the groan of a tree split to its
heart. "Because I have killed you."
In the kitchen, Pearl arranged burnt tea cakes on a pretty plate. The
maid who should have opened the door hummed as she dusted the parlor,
and thought of the carriage driver's son. Upstairs, Diamond woke herself
up midsnore, and stared dazedly at Lord Moselby's famous words and
wondered, for just an instant, why they sounded so empty. That has
nothing to do with life, she protested, and then went back to sleep.
Lark sat down on the steps beside the mess of feathers and silver and
blood, and listened to her father's broken words.
"On the way back . . . we drove through a wood . . . just today, it was
. . . I had not found you a lark. I heard one singing. I sent the post
boy looking one way, I searched another. I followed the lark's song, and
saw it finally, resting on the head of a great stone lion." His face
wrinkled and fought itself; words fell like stones, like the tread of a
stone beast. "A long line of lions stretched up the steps of a huge
castle. Vines covered it so thickly it seemed no light could pass
through the windows. It looked abandoned. I gave it no thought. The lark
had all my attention. I took off my hat and crept up to it. I had it, I
had it . . . singing in my hat and trying to fly.... And then the lion
turned its head to look at me."
Lark shuddered; she could not speak. She felt her father shudder.
"It said, 'You have stolen my lark.' Its tail began to twitch. It opened
its stone mouth wide to show me its teeth. 'I will kill you for that.'
And it gathered its body into a crouch. I babbled--I made promises--I am
not a young man to run from lions. My heart nearly burst with fear. I
wish it had . . . I promised-"
"What," she whispered, "did you promise?"
''Anything it wanted."
"And what did it want?"
"The first thing that met me when I arrived home from my journey." He
hid his face against her, shaking her with his sobs. "I thought it would
be the cat! It always suns itself at the gate! Or Columbine at worst--she
always wants an excuse to leave her work. Why did you answer the door? Why?"
Her eyes filled with sudden tears. "Because I heard the lark."
Her father lifted his head. "You shall not go," he said fiercely. "I'll
 bar the doors. The lion will never find you. If it does, I'll shoot it,
burn it-"
"How can you harm a stone lion? It could crash through the door and drag
me into the street whenever it chooses." She stopped abruptly, for an
odd, confused violence tangled her thoughts. She wanted to make sounds
she had never heard from herself before. You killed me for a bird! she
wanted to shout. A father is nothing but a foolish old man! Then she
thought more calmly, But I always knew that. She stood up, gently pried
his fingers from her skirt. "I'll go now. Perhaps I can make a bargain
with this lion. If it's a lark it wants, I'll sing to it. Perhaps I can
go and come home so quickly my sisters will not even know."
"They will never forgive me."
"Of course they will." She stepped over the crushed cage, started down
the path without looking back. "I have."
But the sun had begun to set before she found the castle deep in the
forest beyond the city. Even Pearl, gaily proffering tea cakes, must
notice an insufficiency of Lark, and down in the pantry, Columbine would
be whispering of the strange, bloody smear she had to clean off the
porch.... The stone lion, of pale marble, snarling a warning on its
pedestal, seemed to leap into her sight between the dark trees. To her
horror, she saw behind it a long line of stone lions, one at each broad
step leading up to the massive, barred doors of the castle.
"Oh," she breathed, cold with terror, and the first lion turned its
ponderous head. A final ray of sunlight gilded its eye. It stared at her
until the light faded. She heard it whisper,
"Who are you?"
"I am the lark," she said tremulously, "my father sent to replace the
one he stole. "
"Can you sing?"
She sang, blind and trembling, while the dark wood rustled around her,
grew close. A hand slid over her mouth, a voice spoke into her ear. "Not
very well, it seems."
She felt rough stubbled skin against her cheek, arms tense with muscle;
the voice husky and pleasant, murmured against her hair. She turned,
amazed, alarmed for different reasons. "Not when I am so frightened,"
she said to the shadowy face above hers. "I expected to be eaten."
She saw a sudden glint of teeth. "If you wish."
"I would rather not be."
 "Then I will leave that open to negotiation. You are very brave. And
very honest to come here. I expected your father to send along the
family cat or some little yapping powder puff of a dog. "
"Why did you terrify him so?"
"He took my lark. Being stone by day, I have so few pleasures."
"Are you bewitched?"
He nodded at the castle. Candles and torches appeared on steps now. A
row of men stood where the lions had been, waiting, while a line of
pages carrying light trooped down the steps to guide them. "That is my
castle. I have been under a spell so long I scarcely remember why. My
memory has been turning to stone for some time, now . . . I am only
human at night, and sunlight is dangerous to me." He touched her cheek
with his hand; unused to being touched, she started. Then, unused to
being touched, she took a step toward him. He was tall and lean, and if
the mingling of fire and moonlight did not lie, his face was neither
foolish nor cruel. He was unlike her sisters'suitors; there was a
certain sadness in his voice, a hesitancy and humor that made her want
to hear him speak. He did not touch her again when she drew closer, but
she heard the pleased smile in his voice. "Will you have supper with
me?" he asked. "And tell me the story of your life?"
"It has no story yet."
"You are here. There is a story in that." He took her hand, then, and
drew it under his arm. He led her past the pages and the armed men, up
the stairs to the open doors. His face, she found, was quite easy to
look at. He had tawny hair and eyes, and rough, strong, graceful
features that were young in expression and happier than their experience.
"Tell me your name," he asked, as she crossed his threshold.
"Lark," she answered, and he laughed.
His name, she discovered over asparagus soup, was Perrin. Over salmon
and partridge and salad, she discovered that he was gentle and courteous
to his servants, had an ear for his musicians' playing, and had lean,
strong hands that moved easily among the jeweled goblets and gold-rimmed
plates. Over port and nuts, she discovered that his hands, choosing
walnuts and enclosing them to crack them, made her mouth go dry and her
heart beat. When he opened her palm to put a nut into it, she felt
something melt through her from throat to thigh, and for the first time
in her life she wished she were beautiful. Over candlelight, as he led
her to her room, she saw herself in his eyes. In his bed, astonished,
she thought she discovered how simple life was.
And so they were married, under moonlight, by a priest who was bewitched
by day and pontifical by night. Lark slept until dusk and sang until
Â
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]