The forest of forever

CHAPTER V

I knew that there were six hives of Thriae in the forest, each in its own style, each with its own queen, workers, and drones. The Bears of Artemis, who miss little in spite of their shyness, directed me to the hive of Saffron, the queen with the tiger-striped tunic. A drone was leaning against a tree and grinning up at me in a bold and suggestive fashion. He looked as if he possessed the imagination but not the energy to be a rogue. He would rather violate twenty women in his mind than pursue one in the flesh.

“Dear girl, he said. “I see you’ve come bearing gifts. Acorns is it, and what’s this, a baked partridge? How quaint. Are they for me? My name is Sunlord.” There was almost a feminine coquetry in his tone.

Clad in a loincloth brief enough to embarrass even a Cretan, he was smooth and brown and soft, with gauzy wings banded in black and gold. His slanted eyes were as gold as the bands on his wings, and I recalled that the Thriae had originally come from the land of the slant-eyed Yellow Men. They had been expelled by the natives for thievery and kidnapping, but not, it would seem, until there had been some mingling of races. There was no question that he was handsome, but so are banded serpents and the tigers which the roving Centaurs have fought in the jungles of the remote East.

“They’re for your queen,” I said with some asperity. “I’ve come to welcome her to the Country of the Beasts. Will you show me to her?”

Languidly he lifted a hand bejeweled with opals and malachites and pointed over his shoulder. I noticed that he wore anklets of golden bells, which tinkled when he uncrossed his ankles.

“Straight ahead. You can’t miss her. She’s the one with the bosom.”

Apparently enervated by our conversation, he settled back against the tree and pretended to close his eyes. Still, I saw that he was carefully watching me.

A pretty fellow, I thought, but in spite of his naughty looks as sexless as a tadpole. Kora would come to no harm from the likes of him; and the other drones who lounged among the trees or nestled in the grass looked no less depraved but no more energetic. A Babylonian king who wished to people his court with eunuchs would find them ready-made in these soft males. I understood why the queen in her nuptial flight must be accompanied by a number of drones; in all of that number, she was lucky to find a single male to pleasure, much less fecundate, her.

And then I saw the hive. Built in the shape of a hexagon, it was too large for a house, too small for a palace, and seemingly too vulnerable for a fort. Its framework was of slender tree trunks. The workers had obviously uprooted the trees with utter ruthlessness and I was only relieved to find that they had utilized willows instead of oaks. Now they were facing the trunks with clay, and, where the clay had dried, glazing it with a material which resembled wax. Some of the workers were wheeling out of the sky with deep-bottomed bowls of clay from the banks of the Beaver Lake. Others were producing the wax. The production was not a pleasant process. Three workers were wading, waist deep, in a vat like an oversized wine press and, with the help of ladles, mixing a base of resin with an excretion from their own bodies, an odorless, colorless liquid which poured from their undersized breasts, or nipples I should say, since their breasts were no more than an intimation. (To a worshipper of the Great Mother like myself, it seemed unspeakable that a bosom should be perverted to such a use. Poor things, I suppose it was the only kind of maternity they knew, giving birth to building materials.) Once the resin and waxy excretion were properly mixed, other workers arrived to trowel it onto the hardening clay of the walls, where in turn it hardened into a glistening, yellowish glaze no less decorative than the thin sheets of alabaster with which the Cretans face their palaces. When the edifice was finished, it would dazzle the eye like a huge, many-faceted topaz.

Having first observed the workmanship, I now more closely observed the workers and confirmed my first impression that they were the least feminine females I had ever met. They were gray, hairy, and thick-bodied, with stubby wings which looked insufficient to lift them from the ground. The wings beat incessantly and thunderously, and the workers managed to fly out of sheer mindless exertion. All of them wore a single expression, or lack of expression, bordering on petulance (and none of them wore any clothes). Their queen was flitting among them and giving stern and precise orders in a voice of incongruous sweetness. “Apply wax here.” “Let the clay dry there.” “Who fetched this rotten timber? I told you precisely which trunks to cut.” She was as beautiful as a phoenix even when she frowned, and she did nothing but frown until she saw me.

Then she smiled and never once, during all the time that I talked to her, did she relax that fixed and perfect smile. Identified by her tunic of tiger-striped silk, she was small and delicate, with feet about the size of my big toe. Her wings were as tenuous and brilliant as a dew-touched spider web in a burst of sunlight. Her eyes, like those of the drones, were slanted so that they seemed somehow not to share in the smile even when her lips curved upwards and her small white teeth glittered with pearled perfection. But an alien goddess and not our own Great Mother had fashioned her. She lacked amplitude, and I do not mean of proportion. I mean of spirit. What was littleness in her body was pettiness in her soul.

“My dear neighbor,” she said, casually stroking what appeared to be a foxtail draped around her neck. “Your coming is as the new moon out of the frosty treetops. I wish that I had tiger lilies to strew at your feet. I wish that I had myrrh to bathe your ankles…”

I am a blunt woman myself and her niceties began to cloy. I shoved forward my basket. “I’m Zoe, the Dryad, and I’ve brought you some acorns and a partridge.”

“Acorns and a partridge,” she echoed, with seeming delight (and perhaps a tinge of mockery for the graceless rustic who brought such inelegant gifts?). “A rarity of rarities.” The foxtail twitched; it was obviously alive and did not belong to a fox.

I fought down the urge to throw the partridge in her face and break her porcelain composure. I must not jeopardize my mission with any outbursts of temper; I must imitate Kora.

“I have come to welcome you to the Country of the Beasts.”

“Your presence in itself is a welcome. Your gifts are beyond measure.” What would she have said if I had brought her diamonds or sapphires? “As you see, my humble dwelling is far from finished. Still, there is a room where we may visit and exchange those confidences which unite the ladies of all lands. Perhaps you will teach me the customs of your land so that I may comport myself with fitting decorum. In my own country, I was a queen. Here, I am a guest, and perhaps I may unintentionally give offense.”

The so-called humble dwelling was a labyrinth which would have put the famous architect Daedalus to shame. The wax-glazed walls glittered like many mirrors, and at every turn we confronted our own images: Saffron’s perpetual smile, my own stout, reddish features which looked unbelievably coarse beside such exquisiteness and which, try as I might, wore a look of stoic determination instead of pleased expectation. Corridors led into corridors, rooms into rooms. Candelabra, burning with myriad lily-shaped candles, hung from the ceilings and bathed us in a shifting gauze of light. In one room, honey bees were depositing nectar in silver bowls; in another, a worker with a ladle was mixing pollen and wine and stirring the mixture as vigorously as a female Centaur might sweep a floor. Finally we found ourselves in Saffron’s audience room, hexagonal like the hive and apparently situated at its exact center.

Leopard skins covered the floor to a thickness of several inches, and the black and golden spots, reflected endlessly in the polished walls, gave me the feeling of a jungle infested with beautiful, merciless animals. A wicker chair, supported by silken threads and backless to accommodate the wings of the queen, swayed from the ceiling. In the center of the room there was a stone pedestal curiously lacking a statue. Perhaps it was intended to hold an image, as yet uncarved or uncast, of a winged deity.

She shrugged a tiny helpless shrug. “Because of the storm, we arrived with few belongings. You must forgive my poor room. Not even a statue for my pedestal.” (Never mind, I thought. Given a little time and you’ll have stolen all you need.) She motioned me to the skins and nodded deprecatingly at the chair. “You will not find it comfortable.” (She meant that my weight would snap the supporting threads.) With a brief flutter she settled into a chair, dangling her ankles, and peered down at me with a curious mixture of deference and-derision? Defiance? I could not read such inscrutability. I took my revenge by imagining her a cockatoo on a perch in the palace of an Egyptian pharaoh, and the ludicrous image salved my pride.

“And the Minotaur youth. Your noble-maned young friend? I saw him with you the day of our arrival. Where is he now?”

“His name is Eunostos and he got in a fight when he-”

“Yes?”

I might as well tell her the truth and watch her reaction. “When he quarreled over a Dryad with a band of Panisci. He thought they had kidnapped her.”

“And had they?” She never flickered an amber eyelash.

“Yes. But they sold her, it seems. Nobody knows who bought her.”

“A pity. But this Eunostos. I should imagine he gave a good account of himself.”

“He always does,” I said proudly. “This time he took on six at once and left all of them with a cracked horn or a broken hoof. He’s recovering in my tree.”

“I trust his injuries will heal? Nothing vital is permanently impaired?”

“Nothing at all.”

“A beastly young bull,” she said with admiration, using the term “beastly” as we do here in the country, just as a Man might say “manly.” Saffron herself was a Beast according to our definition, much as I hated to claim her.

Then I saw the pendant; Kora’s pendant, the silver effigy of her Centaur father. Or rather I caught a tiny glimpse of silver horns glinting in an open casket of jewels: anklets of amber from the rivers of the far north, ivory necklaces from the land of the Nubians, malachite pins from the local workshop of the Telchins and no doubt stolen from them. It may have been foolish or forgetful of her to entertain me in the very room which contained incriminating evidence. Perhaps my visit had taken her by surprise. On the other hand, the queens of the Thriae are supremely confident that their smooth tongues can extricate them from any predicament. Precautions seem to them beneath their pride.

I tried to look inscrutable and, so far as I could tell from her frozen smile, she had not observed my discovery.

“Well,” I said, “I have kept you from your workers long enough.” I could not resist adding, “They seem to need some direction.”

She laughed. “Indeed. They have two virtues, strong wings and mindless obedience.”

“And the drones?”

“One virtue at best. But we must make do with the resources at hand, mustn’t we?” Her interest in Eunostos was becoming clear. If the resources at hand were typified by Sunlord, why not be resourceful and search at a distance?

“I trust you will be happy here in the Country of the Beasts,” I said with as much grace as I could summon, though my voice resounded through the rooms and corridors like the afterecho of an earthquake. “Next time you must come to see me.” (Yes, and I will feed you hensbane.) “Follow the path between the cypresses, turn at the rock which looks like a Cretan galley, cross the meadow of yellow gagea, and there is my tree. You’ll know it by its outside ladder and its abundant foliage.”

“First you must accept a small token of my gratitude for your visit.”

I waved a protesting hand-a few more amenities would suffocate me-but Saffron clapped her feet, her anklets jangled, and a worker appeared in the door.

“Bring my guest some refreshment.”

In the time it takes to raise and lower a door hanging the worker reappeared with a goblet of amber wine.

“It’s made from honey and fermented pollen,” Saffron said.

“I never drink before lunch,” I said firmly. Amenities or not, I had no intention of letting her poison me.

She looked surprised; her smile faltered but did not quite forsake her. “Then you must accept a small gift or I shall be deeply wounded.” She reached to the back of her neck and drew down what, on closer examination, I saw to be a bird or animal. Owl? Rabbit? No, kind of a diminutive combination, bunnylike, feathery winged, which she cuddled in her hands.

“He’s called a Strige. He’s no trouble at all. Feed him sunflower seeds and he’s quite content. Most of the time he sleeps, and what he likes most is to drape himself around your neck. He’ll keep you as snug as a fox’s tall and you won’t have to bother with carrying him.”

She draped him around the back of my neck. His warmth and softness were indescribable. I could feel and hear his soft purring and I must admit that I was enchanted with him. I will take him to Eunostos, I thought. He loves small animals and it will help to cheer him until we can rescue Kora. Besides, if I refuse to accept she may suspect that I have seen the pendant.

“But Saffron, all I brought you was acorns and a partridge, and you’ve given me your own pet!”

“The measure of a gift lies in the heart, and you have kindled a warm hearthfire in me with your friendship.”

She waved to me as I left the encampment, and soon she was busily whisking among the workers and piping orders in her melodious but incontestable voice. The drones grinned their wicked, languorous grins and Sunlord said:

“I see you impressed our queen to the extent of her favorite Strige. Good for you, my girl.”

I could not resist a parting sally. “Did you ever do a day’s work, my boy?”

Unaccountably my voice lacked its usual resonance. No doubt I had lost my boom in the company of soft-spoken Saffron. Sunlord craned his neck to catch at my words and I had to repeat the insult. He took it with wry good grace.

“If I had, you wouldn’t see me now, would you?”

As I strode into the forest, my first feeling was triumph. I had accomplished my purpose. I had proved Saffron’s guilt. Now I would wake Eunostos and tell him what I had learned. If I found him sufficiently rested, we would call on the Centaurs and plan Kora’s rescue. Why then did I feel a curious malaise? Why had my parting sally at Sunlord emerged as a whisper instead of a thunderous insult?

“Ho there, Moschus,” I called to test my voice, though unhappily Moschus was not in sight. Even if he had been behind the next tree, he would not have heard my thin whisper. Now I was feeling downright somnolent. I’ll stop a moment, I thought, and catch my breath. My adventure-the danger, the confrontation with a deceitful woman-has exhausted me. I leaned against the friendly bulk of a cypress trunk. I slid onto the ground and fought to open my eyes. Had Saffron drugged me? I had been so careful not to drink her wine!

The little creature around my neck had grown as heavy as a bronze collar. I tried to raise my arm to remove him. The arm fell to my side.

“Sleep well, my dear.” My last image was Saffron standing over me, flanked by workers. Their thick hands were reaching toward me like knotty clubs.

“No,” I gasped.

“Yes,” she smiled. And I lost consciousness.

I came to my senses in a room whose walls were glazed with wax and whose sole furnishings consisted of two leopard-skin rugs, one of them under my prone, aching body, one of them under Kora.

“Kora!”

At least my voice had returned.

She stirred fitfully but she did not open her eyes. She was deathly pale; her green-gold hair lay in wild confusion about her face; her lips had turned blue. I knew the signs. She was not drugged, she was suffering the prolonged separation from her tree. The vital forces were slowly draining out of her.

Saffron, flanked by two workers, stood in the door. “How long does your friend have?” she asked.

“Without her tree, you mean? Five or six days. Seven at most. She’ll weaken each day.”

“And so will you, I presume. We’ve had her for three days and she’s already peaked. I imagine you’ll hold up better-because of your, how shall I say, bovinity.”

“If you mean I’m fat, why don’t you say so?” I snapped. “My lovers call me voluptuous, but you wouldn’t know about that with your skinny little frame.” I tried to struggle to my feet but sank back onto the skin. “Why don’t you let Kora go? You have her pendant.”

“Aren’t you interested in how I captured you?”

“You must have drugged me. I don’t know how, since I didn’t drink your wine.”

“No, and I had to lend you one of my friends.”

I was slow to grasp her meaning. “The Strige?”

“Exactly. He relieved you of some excess blood. You see, his tongue is like a delicate needle. He inserted it into your neck without your feeling a thing and drew forth just enough blood to make you faint. Fortunately for you, we removed him before he had drunk his fill.”

“Why doesn’t he drink your blood?”

“It’s yellow. He only likes green or red. You see, he’s very particular, the dear little fellow.”

I was quick with questions. “And Kora. Why did you buy her from the Panisci?”

“They captured her for me in the first place. For a price, of course.”

“But why?”

“Bait.”

“For Eunostos!” I shuddered. “You had her captured to bait him into your hive.”

“Exactly. I entered into negotiations with a Paniscus chief-Phlebas, is he called? But he refused to deliver Eunostos without maiming him. Said it was quite impossible. He suggested that Kora would be easier handling and accomplish the same purpose.”

“But what do you want with a harmless Minotaur calf?” As if I needed to ask!

“A young bull, I would say. Have you noticed his horns? The best drone is barely adequate as a lover. Consider the one you met, Sunlord. Would he satisfy you?”

“I would rather remain a virgin than give him a try.”

“Exactly. However, if a Dryad can mate with a Minotaur, why not a Thria? A full-grown Minotaur, to be sure, would be a trifle large for me. At the very least, he would muss my wings. But Eunostos is only six feet. It will be interesting to see what offspring he sires. Something more animated than a worker and more manly than a drone, I trust. Perhaps a winged bull like those you see in Hittite monuments.”

“But isn’t it true that the drone who mates with a queen is”-and my voice fell to a quaver-“doomed?”

“Our mating is somewhat turbulent. The drone is generally-and forgive my coarseness, but then I can’t shock you, can I? — gutted.”