Spurred on, she made a beeline for it, buzzing as fast as she could. Just at that moment, a gust of wind pushed her forward, giving her an idea. The gap quickly closed. She grabbed the free end of the tether and buzzed up to the twin harnesses. In the chaos of trying to control the kite, neither the king nor the prince had seen her. Their eyes widened in surprise.
“Samantha, go!” the prince shouted above the wind. “It’s too dangerous!”
Samantha ignored his protests and tied the end of the tether around her waist. She heard the prince shouting not to be so foolish, that if they crashed, she would be dragged down with them. Once again, Samantha ignored him. She was feeling suddenly courageous. If it were her fate to die with the prince, then so be it. She didn’t want to imagine her life without him, anyway.
“I know how to get you down,” she shouted back. “You mustn’t fight the wind. If you do, you’ll lose. You have to flow with it. I’ll help you turn the kite around.”
The prince understood at once, and nodded.
She buzzed away until the rope was taut. With all her might she pulled the kite in a wide arc toward the lake and Beebylon. Then began the slow tug back. She learned how to anticipate the airwaves, using the wind instead of fighting against it, waiting for a gust to push them the way she wanted to go, not resisting when it changed bearing. It was hard labour, two flaps forward, one flap back, but they were going in the right direction.
The prince also began to master the wind and the craft, learning to work in harmony with her. When the tether slackened, Samantha felt him glide the kite to tauten it again; and when the reverse happened, when she felt the tether tightening and her forward momentum beginning to slow to a halt, the prince somehow manoeuvred the kite to ease the strain. This way, tightening and slackening, to-ing and fro-ing, they eventually zigzagged back to the waterfall.
“Well done, Samantha!” the prince yelled in sight of the lake. “We’re almost there!”
The river rushed over the top of the cliff. Though her view of the crowd was obscured, Samantha felt a surge of relief. When they saw that she had saved the king and prince, she was sure to be forgiven. As she began her descent, Samantha felt a wave of air push her forward and the tether slackening around her waist. She looked over and saw the prince. He had brought the kite down close beside her. Like him, the king was smiling.
“Look, Samantha!” the prince shouted, and pointed to the flapping wing-sheet. “Kite gliding!”
Samantha laughed, and the prince told her to untie the rope from her waist. He was going to try and land the kite by himself. It was the safest thing to do.
Samantha complied, and once freed from the tether buzzed to base of the cliff. The waiting crowd parted as she landed. She’d done it. She had saved the king and he could fly again, like he had as a young prince. The law forbidding flight would be revoked, and Beebylon’s future was assured. She hadn’t felt this good since she was a wee grub tasting honey for the first time.
“Grab her!” the ringleader shouted. “Don’t let her get away this time!”
The crowd surged in from all sides. Before she could buzz away again, Samantha felt several large claws grabbing her arms and legs and wings. She looked up to the sky, wondering what on earth had happened to the king and the prince. The kite was nowhere to be seen. “But… but…” she said.
“Be quiet!” a royal guard said, looming over her. It suddenly seemed darker. “You can answer to the queen.”
He then nodded to her captors. Four guards marched Samantha through the pressing bodies to the royal box. The crowd booed and hissed and threw sand at her when she passed. Some bees snatched at her wings and antennae, calling her names. Such was her daze, she barely noticed.
“Hang the murderer!” an old drone yelled. “Hang her high!”
The guards marched her up the royal steps to the throne. Mad Jack was there, she saw, two burly guards at his side. His whole body was trembling. She tried to smile reassuringly, but it had as little power and warmth as the cloud-covered sun. The captain told her to kneel before Her Majesty, and prodded her between her wings with his stinger.
Samantha got on her knees, head bowed in shame. The queen said nothing for a while, as if torn between executing her on the spot or waiting until a trial was convened. The crowd booed and jeered from beneath the royal box. Sand rained down upon her and an empty lavender sac flopped onto the platform like a deflated cocoon. The captain turned to the crowd and ordered them to quit it. The throwing ceased, but there was still an angry hum.
Samantha looked up at Queen Beelinda, who was still motionless. The black and gold flags had fallen limp behind her. Then the queen drew a deep breath and gestured for the crowd to be silent.
“It seems we have misjudged you, Samantha Honeycomb,” she said. “We trusted you with the life of our king and prince. You have betrayed that trust, and there is only one punishment for such treason.”
“Hang her!” screamed the ringleader, worming to the front of the crowd. “Hang her high!”
The crowd roared with approval and a black wave of depression washed over Samantha’s soul. The prince must have crashed the kite. It was the only reason why he wasn’t here to stop this.
The queen held up her claw for silence. “And so Samantha, I do hereby order the royal guards to take you from this place…”
A frightful holler from above suddenly cut her short. “Stop! Stop at once!”
Every bee in the crowd looked up to see who had interrupted the queen. To Samantha’s surprise, the king was dangling beneath Lizzie the butterfly, held tightly in her arms. Next to them was the prince. He was buzzing! A touch awkwardly, Samantha admitted, but flying nonetheless.
“Stop!” the king shouted. “Stop everything!”
The bees were stunned into silence. Even the rush of the waterfall seemed quieter than normal.
Then, after a second or two, someone deep in the crowd spoke up. “The king’s alive!” Her voice was soft and disbelieving, but it carried easily to Samantha through the silence. “The king’s alive!” she said again, this time louder. Then she shouted. “The king’s alive!”
As if stung into action, a deafening cheer roared from the crowd. The bees jumped for joy, hugging and patting each other on the back, even strangers. “Hail to the king! The king’s alive!” they shouted.
The crowd then parted as Lizzie gently landed near the royal box and released the king. The prince soon followed, landing a little clumsily. Some eager subjects helped him to his feet while the king hurried as fast as he could up the steps to the queen. The prince followed, and went straight to Samantha, who was still in a state of shock.
“It was too dangerous to land down here with the crowd and the rocks,” the prince said, taking her claws and lifting her to her feet. “So I landed next to the river above the cliff. Lizzie came and told us what was happening.”
Samantha looked at Lizzie, who fluttered her beautiful wings and nodded. Mad Jack just stared, for the moment too dazed for words.
“It’s wonderful,” the prince continued. “The king can fly. The law is immediately revoked. Beebylon is saved.”
The king then went to the edge of the royal box and addressed the crowd. “This is a glorious day in the history of Beebylon,” he said. “I pronounce this day a holiday, henceforth known as Flying Day!”
The announcement was greeted with a loud, joyous cheer. Prince Robbee stepped forward and whispered something in the king and queen’s ear. They both nodded. Samantha watched in surprise as the prince bent down in front of her and took her claw. The crowd quickly hushed. Mad Jack kept staring as he had.
“Miss Samantha Honeycomb,” the prince said, the crowd hanging on his every word, “I would be greatly honoured if you should accept my claw in marriage.”
Samantha gasped. Suddenly, as she stared at him, it all became clear to her: Everything that had happened in her life had happened for a reason.
She had said this often enough, but this time
she felt it, a deep certainty that surged through her body like the blood in her veins. Everything – the crimson rose, Hive Prison, her exile, Gerald The Great, the ants, the flying machine – absolutely everything, had been in preparation for this moment, her Bee Dream. Like the connection between honeywood and honeyroot, she now understood that mysterious link between herself and the Great Mother.
To bee or not to bee, she heard the old actress in her head. That had always been the question. Now she had found the answer.
She glanced at the waterfall and the crowd at the base of the cliff. Every bee was humming with expectation. Lizzie continued to flutter divinely overhead. Mad jack was still speechless. Just then, the sun burst through a patch of cloud, catching her eye. It cast a bright halo around the prince, and for the moment he looked as beautiful as a golden sunflower.
“Aye, my prince, my hero,” she said, gazing at him. “It is my honour to accept.”
The crowd went wild, roaring with joy. Bees hugged and slapped each other between the wings. Some even buzzed into the air, falling back to the ground in surprise at what they’d done. The prince then stood and went to address the crowd, still holding Samantha’s claw. The crowd roared as they approached. He gestured for silence and they hushed, though a low hum of expectation still rippled to Samantha’s ears.
“I hereby present to you the future princess of Beebylon,” he said, showing off his bride-to-bee. “Miss Samantha B. Honeycomb.”
The crowd roared as one, “Hail to the princess! Hail Samantha!”
The prince then flapped his wings and buzzed into the air, taking Samantha with him. She heard Mad Jack’s voice above the cheering: “Reet Bee-teet, Samantha! You never stopped believing!”
And while the crowd danced and waved and yelled with glee, she and the prince flew toward the waterfall and the cliff, toward Beebylon and her Bee Dream.
EPILOGUE
THE MARRIAGE OF Princess Samantha and Prince Robbee was to be a celebration like no other, a truly joyous occasion. Samantha’s parents were the first to be invited. Then Gerald The Great (his was sent on the wind, to wherever he was). Invitations were also sent to every other royal house in the four known queendoms, including Queen Beetrix Bee IV, who, Samantha discovered later, had asked her advisors upon delivery of the Royal Scroll just who in Hive-Heaven this upstart princess thought she was?
“I’ve not heard of her,” she had said to the High Priestess. “Surely it belittles me to even consider attending this wedding.”
The High Priestess thought otherwise. “It would do you no harm to visit the new princess,” she said, “for one day she shall be queen and it is said that she has discovered the secret to Infinite Richness. Would it not be wise to make friends instead of enemies?”
So Queen Beetrix had travelled with her court and the High Priestess to the colony in the Crazy Lands to fulfil her duty, where Samantha received her guests in the throne room. It was obvious that Queen Beetrix at first had no idea who she was. But when their eyes met, Samantha could tell that Queen Beetrix suddenly remembered the young bee she had imprisoned, then expelled from the hive.
Samantha held up her claws and clapped twice. At once a dozen servants rolled in six large barrels, standing them in front of the throne. “I have fulfilled your quest,” she said to the queen, “and I present you with these barrels. Each is filled with honeystone gems. You are no longer subservient to the greed of the High Priestess.”
The queen bowed her head in gratitude, and Samantha saw her smile ever so slightly. Behind the queen, the High Priestess gasped and clenched her claws in anger.
“Do you now see the Wonder of Existence,” said Samantha, “that there is a Higher Reason than our own? That the Great Mother is always helping us to become the best that we can bee?”
And as she left the throne room to join her new husband at the banquet, Samantha made a quick prayer to the Great Mother. “Oh Great and Merciful One,” she whispered. “Help me to keep marvelling at thee.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One evening toward the end of 2001, while the world was still recovering from the shock of mid-September, I put down the book I had finished reading and said to myself, “Gee, I could write that.”
I was living in London at the time. Had given up my day job as a paediatrician to pursue my dream and write fulltime, and consequently had slipped almost overnight from a life of champagne and prawns to baked beans on toast and water (without ice, too, I might add). A simple story like Jonathan Livingston Seagull had a certain allure, you could say, to a struggling writer. It was simple. It was short. But more importantly, it had sold.
“You need a title,” I muttered to myself (I don’t start a book until I have a title, even if it isn’t the one I go with at the end – quirky, maybe, but to me it’s like having a child and then waiting until she’s fifteen before you give her a name). I glanced back at the cover of the book next to me. The response was immediate: Samantha Honeycomb Bee.
Great. Not only did I have the title, I also had the main character. Simple.
Only it wasn’t. That’s all I had. I had no plot, and I had no other characters. My mind was blank, and there it stayed, stuck on the first page (page zero, actually, when you think about it), until, at least, a couple of months later when I was coerced (bribed, actually, with the promise of drinks and dinner at the local Indian) by my wife’s cousin into attending an evening service at the only Dutch Reformed Church within nine hours flight. Of course, I went. What unpublished writer wouldn’t sell his soul for a curry and a beer? Anyway, I tried to console myself, I won’t have to listen to a word. It’ll be in Afrikaans. It’s all double Dutch to me.
The minister that evening, alas, decided to give the sermon in English. God knows why. I rolled my eyes and shoved the book I had brought along for company back in the backpack, resigned to an hour of boredom. My wife’s cousin was smiling. Just you wait till we get out of here, I thought, I’m going to order starters as well as main. And dessert.
Anyway, within seconds the minister began talking of people he knew who were struggling with their day-to-day lives. He had a friend who was so busy she felt all she was doing was running around and around in circles. My tired eyes blinked open. I suddenly had my second character, Busy Lizzie.
That’s good, I mused. That’s actually very good.
The minister then spoke of a friend who had no idea of what he wanted to do in life, that he was just drifting from day to day, not doing much, just a bit of this, a bit of that. My eyes grew wider. My third character (Derek was later deleted, but at the time I didn’t know that). “A dragonfly. That’s brilliant.”
When the minister finally ended his sermon, I suddenly found myself cradling Samantha’s extended family like a father who didn’t know his wife was giving birth to sextuplets. Needless to say, the beer and curry tasted supremely good that night.
My only problem now, was the plot. I’m not one of those writers (as you probably gathered) who meticulously sculpts his work. I’m not a planner, by nature, more of a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Outlines scare me. So do recipes and DIY manuals. They seem to be written with only the end result in mind, not the process itself, the “getting there”, the journey, where most of the joy is to be found.
Still, that said, I guess it’s a bit of a balance. A writer, whether he’s a scrupulous outliner or laidback journeyman, still needs to know where he’s going. If you don’t know to which flower you wish to fly, then no wind is helpful, Gerald The Great said.
Along comes Providence (as She does, when you least expect Her). Providence provides. That’s Her nature. Though Tales of the Dervishes, by Idries Shah, was not what I’d been expecting as the answer to my dilemma. I really should have known better. Everything happens for a reason, Samantha would’ve said. I now believe it with my whole heart.
Like an orphan, the book was waiting for me. In fact, it had chosen me. The Soho market on Rupert Street has a second hand book stall every Sunday, which is
an absolute bonus for a writer living on Rupert Street. I’d often seen the book on the stand, and like many ignorant folk had ignored it out of intellectual snobbery. “You can ‘av that for ‘alf price, mate,” the dealer said, picking it up. “A pound fifty.”
A goddamn bargain. I kind of knew it at the time, and I certainly know it now; the book of traditional Sufi parables is one of my most precious (few?) possessions. Back then, the parables of Fatima the Spinner and the Tent and The Wayward Princess caught my immediate attention. Fatima the spinner, marooned and enslaved on the way to her destiny with the Emperor, and the wayward princess, exiled by her father, the king, for refusing to admit his supreme authority over her life, were the ultimate inspiration for Samantha’s incredible journey.
And it has been an incredible journey. I just hope you’ve had as much joy from reading the story as I did from writing it.
Scott Zarcinas
January 2006
Other eBooks
THE GOLDEN CHALICE
Scott Zarcinas
Fleeing the dreaded plague that has struck his village, the orphaned Giacomo heads to the mountains and its mysterious Golden City in search of the Elixir of Life, the only thing that can save the village and the woman he loves. His quest brings him face to face with the Six Thieves, cunning enemies who will stop at nothing to see him fail, and even with the Angel of Death herself. In the tradition of The Pilgrim Chronicles set by Samantha Honeycomb, The Golden Chalice is a compelling adventure story of self-discovery.
THANKSGIVING DAY
Scott Zarcinas
In the years approaching the New Millennium, Michael Joseph and his wife, Angie, seek the services of fertility doctor to help conceive the child they have always yearned. One climactic Thanksgiving Day their newborn child, Ananda, is kidnapped, heralding the anxious search for her safe return. Michael is propelled on a frantic quest to save his baby’s life and along the way encounters a mysterious woman in black who reveals the eerie truth about his daughter. Michael must decide between what he believes to be the truth and what he refuses to admit about himself. His decision leads to the climactic battle for control of his daughter’s soul and the destiny of mankind and the whole world.
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