Minikin-flanked
And deft to root and dig,
By what mischance do you expand
To pig?”
We continued our trek, glimpsing a Bear Girl as she peeped shyly at us from the bushes, watching a blue monkey turn somersaults over our heads. In the Country of the Beasts, there was life at every turn of a path. We, the Beasts—that is, those beings like Centaurs, Minotaurs, and Dryads who combine the attributes of Men with those of the lower animals—hunted birds and rabbits for food (never for sport), but we did not hunt each other; thus, at least at that time, there was little reason for caution or concealment. I do not mean to say that there were not any dangers; there are vipers and vampire bats and occasional wolves—and the Panisci or Goat Boys were notorious thieves. But, generally speaking, the Bear Girls hid and peeped and vanished only because they were shy.
Our country, our forest, was not like other forests. Oak and cypress and elm, tamarisk and cedar, copses and meadows and wooded knolls: these you could find in many places on Crete. But you see we dwelt with our forest, we never tried to master her, wound her, crush her to our purposes. We never cut down the trees to make our houses; we simply borrowed a few limbs from overluxuriant elms, or reeds from the river bank, and built among the trees. We trod the narrowest of paths and never made roads because we did not like to crush the vegetation under our feet. The forest was our home, but we were its guests and not its masters. It was still our happy time.
“The Minotaur has combed his mane,
The girl has left her roof—”
He paused. “What rhymes with ‘mane’?”
“Bane,” I said without thinking.
“But that’s such a gloomy word, and this is a happy poem. The girl is going to requite him, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Eunostos. I guess I was thinking about Moschus’s portents.” Also, though I did not tell him, I was suffering a presentiment of danger without in the least guessing its nature. It is both the blessing and the curse of Dryads that they can sometimes foresee the future, but cloudily, as if they were peering from the surface at the bottom of a muddy stream and trying to distinguish the form of rock and snail and fish.
The first portent came in the shape of a sudden storm. There was a clap of thunder; the recently cloudless sky hurled down a wrath of rain. Even under the oak trees we were drenched; the water collected above our heads till it weighed down the branches and then it poured onto us in torrents. Eunostos’s hair was matted to his head, exposing his horns in all of their red-tinted ivory. My water-lily-leaf gown enveloped me like a clammy snakeskin and the leaves threatened to separate and reveal my ample splendors.
“Well, it’s not quite a disaster,” I said. “We can dry off at Kora’s house. I guess Moschus’s portent had to do with the weather.”
But the storm had brought more than rain. A great black cloud lingered above our heads even when the rest of the sky had cleared. Suddenly we saw that it was composed of individual segments, entities, beings. It was not a cloud but a flock of what seemed to be enormous birds.
“By the breast of the Mother Goddess,” Eunostos swore. Since the death of his parents, he had picked up such oaths from running with loose company. Since I ran with the same company, I was not affronted. “We’re being invaded by vultures.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think they’re vultures. They’re not black, not all of them anyway. See, there’s a blue one, and red, and green. They seem to be wearing garments and I think they’re—yes, I know they are.”
“What?” he asked, deferring to the accumulated experience of my three hundred and sixty years.
“Thriae.”
“Bee-Folk?” he cried. “From the mainland?”
“Yes,” I said. “The bright ones are the queens and drones. The dark ones are the workers. The storm must have blown them off their course. Or maybe they’re searching for a new home.”
“They aren’t very nice, are they?” His tail twitched as if assailed by flies.
“I’ve never met any myself, but the Centaurs say that they’re given to thievery and other petty practices. Whether they’re capable of worse, I don’t really know.”
The Thriae circled above us, chattering in high melodious voices (the queens and drones) or guttural monotones (the workers) and no doubt deciding where they should land. It was not long before they had divided into six swarms, each with its own queen, and one of the swarms appeared to be heading straight for us. I hurried Eunostos among the trees, but I turned and looked over my shoulder and directly into the face of a queen, hovering like a monstrous dragonfly a few cubits above my head. She was not looking at me, however; she was looking at Eunostos as if—well, as if he were the chosen drone in her nuptial flight.
“Come on, Eunostos,” I said quickly, to keep him from looking over his shoulder and into the naked face of lust. “Whatever they’re up to, it’s nothing good. Let’s warn Myrrha and Kora.”
The house of Myrrha, as befitting that of a Dryad whose deceased husband and most of whose lovers had been Centaurs, was an oak tree whose trunk opened into a circular reed cottage on the ground. The reeds were painted a vivid green to match the leaves of the tree. There were two windows, framed by red clay, and a very tall doorway whose door was the skin of two wolves so skillfully stitched together that they might have belonged to one tremendous animal. There were no defenses except removable parchment in the windows, a precaution against the blasts of winter winds or the foragings of vampire bats. When you entered the cottage, you could climb the circular stairs inside the trunk to the upper room, also constructed of reeds, and lodged among the branches like a bird’s nest, though much more tidy and trim.
Myrrha was downstairs seated at her loom and weaving a tapestry embroidered with a flattering likeness of her late husband (presumably Kora’s father). As conceived by his widow, he embodied the noblest attributes of his race: strength, wisdom, and lustiness. Myrrha herself was fragile without being peaked: a thin, gracefully aging woman whose green hair had turned to silver and whose ears were as delicate as murex shells. Surprisingly, in view of her appearance, she had enjoyed more lovers than anyone else in the country except me. Perhaps her success lay in the fact that she said yes when she looked as if she would say no.
“Myrrha, I’ve brought a guest,” I boomed.
“Zoe and Eunostos,” she trilled. “Kora, come down at once, we have visitors.” She motioned me to a bench against the wall, where I sank in a heap of cushions and rested my aching feet (I am not plump, you understand; the weight of my bosom places an undue strain on my ankles).
“Here,” I said. “I brought you some acorns.”
She accepted the gift as if they were emeralds from the land of the Yellow Men. “My dear, what a feast! My tree isn’t bearing well this year. We’ll roast them tonight. But you’re wet to the bone. And you too, Eunostos. Slip into one of my robes, Zoe, while I rub Eunostos down with a cloth.” Eunostos, of course, was naked, like all young Beasts and many old ones.
“Thriae,” Eunostos announced, beginning to glow beneath a brisk massage. “Right here in the forest. Zoe and I saw them arrive with the storm.”
Myrrha dropped the cloth. “Bee-Folk! You don’t say.” She began to ruminate about the perfidy of the race, the mischief we must expect. Myrrha was notorious for her ruminations. It was said of her that if you wanted to make an announcement to every Beast in the forest, you should whisper it to Myrrha and swear her to secrecy.
At this point, Kora descended the stairs. She walked so quietly that it was the bark-and-leaf scent rather than the sound which announced her coming. She was tall and slender without being thin, rather like a white lotus, it seemed to me, and her beauty was of the sort which soothes rather than excites. To look at her was like dipping hot, tired ankles into a cool stream.
Eunostos