CHAPTER VI
I had partially recovered from my loss of blood to the Strige and not yet begun to feel the effects of separation from my tree. Thus, I was still alert if not exactly vigorous. But Kora, poor thing, was fading like a plucked chrysanthemum. Marmoreal whiteness had become unhealthy pallor, and the solar twinklings had departed from her hair. Her movements were slow, lethargic, labored. She needed immediate sustenance.
The waxen walls thudded dully but failed to crack when I smote them with my fist. The wooden door, bolted from the outside, creaked but did not yield beneath the weight of my shoulder. Our hastily constructed room was a constricting prison. Well, then, they must come to us. I stamped on the earthen floor and let out the roar of a wounded she-bear. Almost at once the flutter of wings announced the approach of visitors. Saffron, flanked by two gray workers, glared at me from the doorway. With my somewhat whimsical fancy, I pictured her as honey poured between slices of wheaten bread and imagined the three of them being devoured by a Cyclops.
“Are you trying to bring down the walls with your bellowing, you old cow?”
“I’m a Dryad, not a female Minotaur. There’s no such thing. My friend is hungry and so am I.” The workers were armed with bamboo spears, like giant stingers, narrowed to lethal points.
“Honey and pollen tea? Sorry, my dear, the offer is withdrawn. Or perhaps the partridge you brought me? It would hardly be gracious for a guest to eat her own gift. Besides, I’ve eaten it myself, and it was quite palatable. That’s more than I can say for the acorns. I almost broke a tooth on the first one I bit.”
“If there are any left,” Kora began.
I hastened to interrupt her. If Saffron suspected that we craved acorns, she would feed them to the squirrels. “I expect they were a little stale. Honey then? Pollen bread?” I pleaded.
“Food is in short supply while my workers are building the hive. Why should I waste it on temporary guests?”
“If we die too soon, you won’t be able to show us to Eunostos and have your way with him.”
“My beauty and my wiles should suffice.”
“Not if he thinks you’ve killed us.”
“I’ll simply tell him you’re my captives. I don’t have to say whether you’re dead or alive.”
“He’s been on his own for a year and he isn’t easily fooled. You’d better keep us handy in case you need some proof.”
She managed to scowl without wrinkling her flawless forehead. Her mouth curved down like an overturned bowl.
“Oh, very well, I guess I can spare you something.” The bowl righted itself. “I’ll send you a special dinner before I call on your friend.”
Special dinner. Perhaps she intended to poison us.
“Never mind,” I said to Kora when Saffron had left the room. “Eunostos will come looking for us. Did you know he’s been scouring the forest ever since you disappeared? He got himself beaten up on your account.”
“Is he badly hurt?” she cried.
“No, just a bit sore. He’s recuperating in my tree.”
“I’m not worthy of him. He thinks of me as a heroine out of his favorite epic, Hoofbeats in Babylon. People interpret my silence however they like. To Eunostos, it means mystery and wisdom.”
“You may not be worthy of him, Kora.” I was her best friend but also her frankest critic. “But you’re worthier than most. He’ll find us, you know, and when he does, see that you show your appreciation.”
“Will he, Zoe?” Her voice lacked conviction. “I would give my Centaur pendant-if I still had it-to see him now.”
“You never encouraged him much when you had the chance.”
“Not in the way you mean. He seemed like a younger brother. Always stumbling over his hooves.” I did not tell her that in some ways both of them were still children and that she, from her seemingly sublime eminence of eighteen years, was likely to stumble over her dreams. That is, if she lived to continue dreaming them.
Speech was beginning to tire her but silence was frightening to both of us. If any sounds came to our ears, it was the faint whirring of wings or the mellifluous piping of Saffron as she directed the workers. Finally the piping stopped. She’s gone to my tree, I thought.
Then the workers brought us the promised dinner.
Saffron had sent us the uneaten acorns.
Eunostos opened his eyes and stared at the thatched roof above his head. He saw the walls which I had hung with tapestries commemorating my lovers, the square windows which filtered the light through a lattice of foliage. He smelled the bark and leaves of my tree. Zoe’s house, he thought. But how did I come here? At last he remembered.
“Zoe.”
“No. Saffron.”
He recognized the queen who had spied on him in his garden. “How did you find this house?” he asked angrily.
“Zoe herself gave me directions. And she left the door unlatched. Of course I don’t need ladders, though there was one handy if I did.”
He was not in the least impressed with her fabled beauty. Yes, she was prettily formed, like a cowslip or a buttercup. Yes, her skin was as smooth and golden as honey, and her wings were a tremulous translucence as she stood above his couch and smiled down at him with what seemed to be admiration and expectation. But she doesn’t have Kora’s height, he told himself, nor Zoe’s opulence, and there are too many bracelets on her arms, and her wings look as if the faintest breeze would shred them. Actually, he was not prepared to see anything good in a woman who might be responsible for Kora’s disappearance.
“Don’t look so angry!” she teased. “You look as if you would like to butt me. Did I wake you up, dear boy?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Never mind. You’ll sleep like a drone after we’ve had our little visit.”
She sat down beside him on the couch, touching his leg with her thigh. The thigh felt silken beneath its thin silk tunic. He tried to contract himself away from her touch, but he was already pressing into the reeds of the walls. Perhaps resignation was indicated under the circumstances.
“You have a lot of hair on your chest to be so young,” she remarked. “It’s rather becoming, you know. Our drones never grow hair except on their heads. The only thing you can say for them is that they never get bald.”
“We’re born hairy. It keeps us warm in the winter. We don’t get bald either. What do you want?”
“To visit, as I said. To talk. To become acquainted with the last Minotaur. But I shouldn’t imagine you’ll always be the last. You’ll have sons and grandsons, and one day there will be a whole new tribe of Minotaurs. That is, if you choose the proper mate. One whose fertility matches your virility.”
“Zoe isn’t here now.”
“You’re not listening. I didn’t come to see Zoe, I came to see you.”
“I’m trying to listen. But you’re sitting on my hoof. And how did you know I was here?”
“From Zoe. And Kora.”
“Then you must be holding them prisoners!” Angrily he swung his arm and knocked her onto the floor.
She resumed her place on the couch as if she had fallen by accident. Her rueful laugh was like bells with copper tongues, sweet but metallic. Kora had laughed like wind chimes. “I see that no amenities are necessary between us, my dear. Yes, I am holding your two friends in my hive-unwilling guests, you could say-and it lies in your power to rescue them.”
He glared at her. “What do I have to do?”
“Eunostos, I must tell you a sad truth. My daughters are diligent workers, but unintelligent and unresourceful. It has taken them seven days to build the hive, which is not yet finished. I myself have given them a long, proud lineage. I can trace my ancestry back to the days when the Yellow Men were living in crude stone huts and Cretans were cowering in caves. But the males of my tribe-well, to call them Beasts is a monumental exaggeration. The very best of them-Sunlord, for example-is a poor specimen of bestiality. At the next nuptial flight, I’m not even sure
