The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  Beyond the edge of the poplar grove, before me, the ritual continued. The men, holding their heads turned towards their shoulder and not to what they had in front of them, they devoted themselves to skinning and quartering the victim; the sounds of slaughtered meat caused me to scowl again. Blood flowed on the altar, made of naked and cold stone, in rivulets like small streams, dyed black by the night. The earth drank, she noticed. I wondered if it would feed the roots, and concluded yes. But the ceremony continued to disgust me.

  It all took place in the most perfect silence. The priests wore a dark hood that fell over their eyes; they didn’t light fires to burn the offerings to the god. The bull’s bones, wrapped in its black skin and soaked with blood, were only put to one side and left there. The men were a little scared, their silence was filled with tension, but they did not neglect to make the blood drip from every quarter of their victim, before cutting it and putting it away.

  For my part, I decided that I’d had enough of that sinister way of honoring the Lord of the Avernus, and I moved into the shadows of the poplar grove, in search of the flowers that pleased me, the humble Mirabilis with its sweet perfume. But I found only long spikes of asphodel, whose pale pink was colorless in the dark, and reluctantly I returned to watch the mortal’s ritual.

  Despite myself I was attracted to it, although the ceremony was not for my benefit: when a mortal honors one of us, he honors all of us, and as much as that way of honoring me aroused revulsion, even aversion, I knew that the hooded men were engaged in an act of devotion. Before they had finished tearing their victim into pieces, I broke away from that place, as I found it too difficult.

  Nor was I the only one. The nymphs of the mountain whispered excitedly in the undergrowth, and while the priests continued their work – it seemed that it was the blood being offered to the god – I saw the immortals were also near the altar. The mortals ignored their presence.

  One of the invisible spectators touched one of the streams of blood, and put his fingers to his lips, with an ecstatic expression. It was, I thought, a lesser god, with thick dark curls on his neck and the regular features of my half-brother Apollo, a solid and well-made body, covered with a short hunting tunic, and thick boots over tight calf muscles. I could have blushed, if I had not been horrified to see him greedily licking the bull’s blood. I blindly fumbled among the plants with my hand. My fingers found the sweet leaves of wild mint, and I brought that perfume to my lips, drawing a little relief.

  There was someone else, among the priests.

  In the midst of their dark head coverings, he towered over them by at least a whole head, and was not wearing a hood, but a helmet with tall plumes, so black that it contrasted even with the night. His mantle was closed in front of him, without leaving the slightest opening. He was a figure carved from the darkness of night, beneath which was revealed an even more intense darkness, absolute. He did not touch the sacrificial blood nor prowl around the alter; his stillness was complete.

  The mortals avoided bumping into him, it was impossible to me considering where he was standing, as if there was a column, or a crevasse, in short, something insurmountable, immovable. Even the lesser god, moved around him, without giving any sign of their being aware of him.

  Squeezing the mint stem between my fingers, with its insignificant flowers but evocative fragrance, I felt my heart beat quicken. While the priests cut the meat into smaller pieces and smashed the bones to bring out the marrow, I realized that I was standing on my feet. I wanted to see the dark figure better.

  Even beneath the new moon, in front of that bloodied altar, my nature was displayed: the red gold of my hair braided with flowers, my skin like a velvety peach, in a girl’s simple tunic, which fell over my still narrow hips, over my thin legs. My bare feet that no plant or rough soil would have dreamed of hurting, or dirtying. My wrists bound with garlands of forget-me-nots, tied with the first buds of the year. My breath was the gentle breeze in the trees, and even the mortals straightened their heads for a moment, interrupting their horrible task.

  “That scent of spring,” one of them said.

  “Quiet!” replied his neighbor, but softly, not reproachfully. “Don’t speak of it, before this alter.”

  They returned to lean over the slaughtered beast, but without the rigidity of a moment before, no longer keeping their heads turned away, as if they had lost their fear. I was glad for them; but I saw, with sudden fear, that the god dressed as a hunter had turned and looked at me. When our eyes met, he smiled.

  “Come closer, beauty. Take part in the banquet.”

  The very thought made me shudder. I shook my head and stepped back into the shadows of the poplar grove.

  “Don’t go,” cried the other, without worrying that the mortals might hear him, “the lord of this altar is not jealous, he’s not even here. Death has room for everyone always, and so it is for the ceremonies in his honor. You need have no fear!”

  The cloaked figure was motionless. In the darkness cast by his shadow the grass was dry and gray as ash. I knew, without having to see the face hidden by the helmet that he was looking at me.

  Mirabilis, I thought. They came for the Mirabilis. The rest, the one that feeds the flower, down in the darkness and the gloom, does not concern me. It mustn’t bother me.

  I had been a fool to give in to curiosity. My mother would scold me when she found out that I had been so far away, on the light wind of spring, together with the dandelions and the swallows returning home.

  I turned and walked away. “No, wait!” Long steps, heavy. The lesser god wore hard shoes of boiled leather, he was a hunter, and the euphoria of the sacrifice, the blood had stimulated his senses. He was in the shadows of the poplar grove even before I realized what was happening.

  “Take part in this festivity, beauty. Honor my father Apollo with me, and celebrate life, instead of death. Come to Aristaeus.”

  I was too young to understand the particulars of that invitation, but the danger was very clear. With a cry of fright, I ran away.

  Among the poplars, before getting into the thick of the forest, I saw the tall black figure beside the altar, and I thought that my anxiety had deceived me, because I had the impression he was turning, so as not to lose sight of me. But I did not pause to look. The footsteps behind me were fast and heavy.

  “Leave me alone!” I screamed, so loudly that the owl flew away, and the barn owl hurled out his piercing cry, but the priests did not even blink; I saw them a moment longer, then the trees hid them from view, and there was only the forest around and over me.

  “Go away, leave me alone!”

  I passed the crossroads of the mortals, with the hideous guardian statue: a bare-breasted female figure, with three faces, and snakes in her hands. She seemed to look at me, with lichens that disfigured her features like leprosy. She frightened me more – mortals were morbid, in the way they invented horrible gods – and ran into the woods in search of the source of salvation.

  I knew that I had to hurry. I knew that at any moment, although the roots moved so as not to make me stumble, the brambles bent so as not to hurt me, shrubs bent low to allow me to escape, I felt a blow, they had grasped the hem of my garment; and then the noise of the tear, the stumbling as I lost balance, the fall, the ruin... it was finished for me, and I was still a young girl, almost a woman but not yet, and I was not my sister Artemis, who beneath the skin of her thin limbs she hid leathern muscles, and I was not Athena, who would never have placed herself so stupidly in such a situation, I was a fool who had given in to curiosity to see what I was not meant to see, and now I would pay the price.

  “This way, little lady!”

  It was a female voice. It was a hundred times better than the male bestial panting behind me, so I threw myself against the slim figure in the trees, letting her take my arm to drag me into the depths. The lesser god behind me cursed and shouted, and then burst into a flood of curses that tore a shocked exclamation from me. The nymph laughed, a si
lvery laugh:

  “Worried about us, not about the Celestial Father and the chastity of his divine bride! Leuka beat down hard, but we need to reach our source, where we will be safe!”

  A second nymph, that smelled of wood and had poplar leaves on her tunic, jumped out of the darkness and led us in the race.

  “What a beautiful branch I gave him in the face! I hope it ruins that divine face, and that makes it a little more like he is in his soul!”

  “Save your breath for running,” said the first nymph, “I hear his steps and his stench, he did not give up!”

  For my part, I smelled the scent of mint. I had slipped the leaves I had gathered, into my hair as I always did, why didn’t they wither. Eventually they would die, but until then, I could keep them with me.

  I called out, as I allowed myself to be led,

  “Thanks for the help, I don’t know this region and I’m afraid...”

  “Yes, yes, we’ll talk about it when we’re safe. Three are better than one, for men of this type. Run!”

  We hurried, despite the slope, even though we were the same age, almost girls, three fawns were welcomed into the woods. We were in our element. But behind us there was a hunter, an adult.

  It all happened so quickly.

  There was the cry from Leuka, who was suddenly no longer beside me; a moment before I could see her dark curls swaying to the rhythm of the race, the next moment there was only the poplar grove at night. She shrieked in terror, begging for mercy, because my destiny had just become hers. Broken branches, struck the ground, and then, even more frightening, the noise of torn linen, more shouts, heavy breathing.

  I stopped in the middle of the path.

  The other nymph pulled at my hand. “Come, hurry! We must get help!”

  Performing a discourteous action for the first time in my life, I tugged myself free. Leuka’s cries became sobs, but I knew that, a moment later, another cry would pierce the night, and at that time it would be too late. There are cries that a girl can make only once.

  “Run, go!” I said to the nymph. “Go find someone, invoke the source that created you! I will try to gain time!”

  She glanced at me scared, but the situation became worse, and she knew also what would happen. I saw her nod, and a moment later she was gone.

  “Courage,” I said, turning towards the sounds of the struggle, “I’m fast. We managed to escape. Take courage.”

  As I recalled my words the darkness swept around me, absolute darkness, unnatural. It seemed to suck up the woods, the stars, even the ground. It was like moving in a black cloak. I had never seen a night like this.

  But I had no time to think about the strangeness. It was the shoots and leaves and stems of spring that guided me in that thick darkness, so I had to move forward with outstretched hands.

  I touched something. It was a heavy fabric, wet with sweat, and a body solid as a rock. I immediately pulled back my hands, as if I had inadvertently touched rubbish, but I had to be courageous, enough.

  “Leave her alone!” Let her go, unworthy villain!”

  I threw myself on that back, invisible in the dark. I had never resorted to violence before, I was unable, and beat at him blindly with pained fists, I think, they were like apples that fall on you when you’re asleep under a tree. The man was crouching - and I dared not imagine why he was squatting, with his tunic loose and the belt that fell away – he just grunted and shook off my senseless aggression.

  “You nymphs don’t do anything but tease and run away, well... it’s your game. Now we will play my game, though.”

  I felt Leuka struggling and panting, on the other side of that immovable body. I went back to throwing myself on the hunter’s back, but this time clawing and biting, like cats when they have kittens. Going against all my mother’s teachings, I deliberately hurt, I sank my teeth into the man’s shoulder, and he finally cried out in pain and shook me off.

  I fell into the darkness, but it did not hurt me. It seemed to me that someone held me up, to lay me on the grass with a care that surprised me. It did not seem to be a spirit, and it certainly was not one of the plants that were dear to me, but I did not have time to understand. The enemy was getting up again.

  “You bitch, you...ouch!”

  It was just a nymph of the poplar grove, Leuka. The branches and roots of the forest hit out hard. The hunter fell to his knees, his hands clutching his groin. That’ll teach you!

  It was a brief triumph, very short.

  The nymphs, goddesses and even more, they are fast, it is impossible to catch us no more take us by surprise; but we were three brats, fawns against a hunter. He was the strong one, that expert. Suddenly, I felt the feeling of being choked. Stunned, I tried to suck in air, but my throat was blocked, it became a huge congested bubble.

  Aristaeus, with grim determination, bent me to the ground, forcefully separating my knees with his own, so brutally that I felt my tunic tearing. He was so close that I saw him, in spite of the pall of darkness. His lips were pulled back against his teeth, his eyes were narrowed to slits, and I was there, in those slits.

  I was there, strangled. Leuka was now raging uselessly on his back. Run away, I wanted to say, run away because he has changed his plan, he will choke me and will take you, and then and then and then and then... the thought escaped me. My throat was huge, and throbbing. The eyes seemed so swollen fit to burst from their sockets, and the night spun around, on top of me: it would have swirled forever, because I was immortal, I would become like Prometheus, strangled forever, oh I wanted to be dead, wanted it to end, that...

  It ended.

  My throat seemed to burst, when the air came in all at once, a whole bunch of grapes that were forced to move into a space as wide as the eye of a needle. But the feeling of well being was immediate, wonderful: my head cleared, my lungs flooded with coolness, and my eyes resumed their normal size, behind the eyelids.

  I lay stretched out for several breaths, delighting in huge gulps of air from the woods, until Leuka crawled by me, crying and asking if I was alive. I found her hands, we pulled ourselves up on to our knees, I support her and she supported me.

  Forcing myself to speak, I croaked, “The source did it...?” She shook her head. I saw that her eyes were filled with terror. I followed her gaze, and the delicious air that filled me seemed to become ice.

  Aristaeus had been taken by the night.

  Offshoots of the dark surrounded his neck, twisted his hands behind his back. He kicked like a rabbit in a snare, but his feet found nothing but air. He was suspended a two good spans from the ground, and as I watched, one of his shoes loosened and disappeared into the grass. His eyes were open wide and spinning like those of the black bull, when he saw the blade fall in an arc.

  The darkness tightened on his throat. The crack was so sudden that it startled me, although I had expected it. The body fell and was lying sprawled on the grass, his legs tucked under him, arms outstretched, the head drooped at an unnatural angle. He still had his eyes wide open.

  “Oh, Celestial Father...”

  With a groan of fear, Leuka hid my face in her breast. I held her in my arms. I wanted to hide myself, among the soft hair of the nymph, but it was impossible to look away from the darkness that seemed to condense, collect in human form; a man with a cape, and a plume rose from his helmet. He stepped over Aristaeus’ corpse, with the lack of interest that might be reserved for a rotted tree trunk by the river, and joined us.

  With a gesture of absolute calm, so that his mantle did not even move, the darkness made two arms emerge to take off his helmet.

  He had black hair, so smooth and silky that even in the complete darkness it seemed to shine like the light from the stars. His complexion was white as marble, a virile sculpture that the artist had reproduced in detail, but neglected to give color: the facial features, chiseled and resolute, the shadows alternated, making it ghostly. The eyes were so deep-set that I could not name a color, but when they fell on me, I saw
a two sparks, in their depths.

  “You should not be here.” Were the first words I heard from Hades, the lord of the Avernus.

  Close to me, Leuka trembled even more. Looking into the face of the god of the dead is beyond the courage of mortals, the nymphs, and almost all immortals.

  I took a deep breath. I was confused, frightened. I knew what had just happened was horrible, was obscure, perhaps cursed, but that horror had saved Leuka and me.

  I took refuge in the banality of good manners,

  “Thank you for your help, uncle. We were in a very difficult situation.”

  “Why were you spying on the mysteries of death? You are not a nymph.”

  The nymphs are curious; they constantly get into trouble for this. It was as if he had told me not to act like a fool.

  In the darkness of the underworld, a few steps from the body of a man who had tried to rape me, in front of the god most hated by the mortals, I realized I was blushing.

  “I did not mean to spy, I was looking for the Mirabilis flowers in these hills.”

  “Nothing flourishes when I pass by.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  He looked at me impassively, without a word, and I felt that I blushed even more.

  “I wanted to say,” I muttered, shaking my companion, “I mean, uncle, I looked, but without the intention of spying, and I would not take anything that is yours, I swear, I just thought... I thought...”

  The silence of Hades overcame me; his eyes pierced me. I saw that the cloak was stopped on the shoulder by a gold-veined bone buckle, and his chest was covered with armor, black and glistening like ice. His wrists were protected by thick bracelets, which arrived to his elbow. Under the left he held his helmet, and his fingers stood out very white against the black metal. For some reason, this discovery made me blush further. If I continued like that, I thought, I would end up burning myself alone.

  “I never expected to be angry,” I gasped in one breath, “but since you are the god of the underworld, I thought that for once there was nothing wrong with that, if you’d seen... the roots of my flowers. I just wanted to understand, that’s all.”