The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  I felt so out of place on Olympus. What I loved was not there.

  My father never gave a precise answer, in my dreams. It seemed, indeed, to be of very little interest to him. When I woke up, the night was a heavy cloak, and I felt I was on fire because of the warmth. The nights I dreamed were always longer.

  “Lady? My lady!”

  Cyane had followed me, as was her duty. I straightened up, moved away from the black bark, and stepped out from the shadows. I blinked, because the direct light bothered me.

  “Let’s take a walk,” I said, “I want to stretch my legs.”

  Later we gathered late primroses and crocuses, while the nymphs played in the shallow water and swans followed us from the shore in the hope of getting some good crusts of bread; but I had already finished, and so I devoted myself to the plants, trying to fill my mind with sun and the fragrance of grass, to drive away the darkness.

  I never could. Not for long.

  The white narcissus sprouted right where the forest began, in the tall grass.

  Twice the size of the others, it stood out with its golden corolla of petals that looked like clouds, lonely and beautiful. By contrast they made the grass around seem darker and back, in the shadows of the first trees, it seemed even black.

  When she saw it, Cyane clapped her hands excitedly. “There, that’s perfect for your belt!” “That’s true.” I replied, and went to gather them. Hades was there.

  Where the Roots Are

  We stared in silence for a time that seemed endless. Separated only by white narcissus and the line between the shade of the trees and the sun on the grass, I saw all of him, everything.

  I saw he was tall and how the cloak fell without folds, from the shoulders to the ground. I saw the way the flaps of the helmet pressed on his skin, adhering perfectly. I saw he had straight eyebrows, an attentive expression, but not tense, and a tuft of black hair that had fallen back over the bridge of his nose did not seem to bother him. I saw that his lips were thin, pale skin of a different, but no less, than the rest of his complexion. I saw a shadow of a beard, funny to think that even a god, if he doesn’t have time to shave, finds himself with a rough face.

  I saw the black chariot, and the horses yoked ready, under the trees.

  He looked at me, and I could not stop looking at him. I could not move. I could not even breathe.

  With that calm gesture that I saw him make even the other time, he raised his hands and took off his helmet, which vanished in his white fingers like smoke. At my immobility of a rabbit faced with the wolf was Cyane’s horrified cry; finally she saw him.

  And then, and then the narcissus were behind him, and the shadow was behind him, and even the cape was behind him, waving behind him, because in coming forward he had thrown it back, with the same movement with which he opened his arms to hold me.

  Instinctively, before this aggression, I backed away; who would have been able to remain impassive in my place? Death came to get me.

  I was free for just a moment longer, then I felt the arms of the inexorable god clasp around me; lift me as if I weighed no more than a twig. I kicked and squirmed, in reaction.

  “Let me go, let me go!”

  “My lady!” Scared to death, Cyane clung to me, and for a moment I was ta contest between the nymph who was looking for a way to hold me, and the god that no one had ever escaped. Of course, I would not escape him. Hades stepped back; turning partially, and with a shoulder threw off Cyane. I heard the sound of the tunic ripping; the daffodil petals flew around me.

  “My flowers!” I exclaimed, feeling immensely stupid the next moment. Cyane was still holding the braided belt; I had not let it go, it had been thrown away from me, and with such force that it fell several paces away, on the marshy shore. She could not remain standing and disappeared into the spray, with a cry. When I saw her floundering, I struggled more.

  “Cyane Cyane! Help, help her!”

  I kicked with my bare feet, but it was like hitting ice, the greaves protected Hades’ legs. I used my elbows, with my bare arms, but the armor on his chest was cold, and I returned to shouting, because the cold burned.

  “Stop this noise,” said the god. His voice was calm. His arms, which were holding me up, did not tremble. He gripped more tightly, improving his hold. I realized I was pulling his cloak, to place it between my body and the chill of his armor.

  “Cyane! Cyane!”

  “I didn’t hit her hard enough to kill her.”

  “How can you know!”

  “Of course I can.” I shouted again, frightened, when with no effort at all he put me over his shoulder, like an unruly lamb. I hit him with punches and kicks, but Hades merely held my legs, completely ignoring the beatings on his back. With that armor, he certainly could not feel anything.

  I had all my hair in my face; the flowers fell from the branches like when the wind blows. I pushed them away to look for Cyane. With great relief I saw that she was getting up, wet through, her garments clinging to her body. She still held the torn belt tightly in her hands, with the daffodils that fell on the black water. The lake nymphs huddled around her, terrified.

  We exchanged a last desperate glance, she left limping among the marsh grasses, I was trying to escape from the grip of death, and then Hades climbed on the chariot. I shouted again, terrified, when he let me fall, but he held me so that I did not fall heavily. He placed me on the polished floor with a care that surprised me.

  “Do not try to jump off,” he warned, turning round to straighten up, “I wouldn’t want to loose you without a guide in the underworld, believe me.”

  Instead, I sought to hold on to the chariot and run away. But it was already too late. He snapped the reins, and the horses, with no need for lashes or cries, whinnied in unison and raced forward.

  “Now, Abaste,” Hades said, with a measured voice, and the lead horse, black as a nightmare, beat its hooves on the ground, strong enough to cleave it. I saw him leap down, followed by the others, another scream escaped me, and then another, when the chariot tilted so far that I feared I’d be thrown out. That there was a risk, or he feared me hitting him on the head, Hades held the reins with one hand, and the other held me vise-like on my shoulder, as we descended underground.

  I smelled something burning, where the horse’s hooves had struck, and for a moment I was among the roots, white and ghostly as the hands of skeletons. I saw the clumps of earth, huge and black as I had never believed them to be. Without realizing it, I clung to Hades’ hand. I felt frightened, but what was happening to me frightened me a lot more.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  He did not withdraw his hand, indeed, he held mine. But, I thought, certainly he did so only to hold onto me better.

  “To the Avernus, naturally.”

  Above us the roots ran, so close that I could touch them, something that I had no intention of doing, and I did not dare to lean out to look below. Even to see ahead, with the galloping horses, was far beyond the limits of my courage.

  The Avernus, I thought. All mortals ended there, and I had never thought it would one day be possible for me to finish there as well. The gods could die, said the lord of the realm, if he was to kill them.

  I should not complain, I thought. It had gone much worse for Aristaeus. With me, at least, Hades had some concern, maybe because I was his niece, or perhaps because I had not committed any crime, and therefore it was not necessary to hurt me. All mortals faced that experience, yet they lived with great serenity.

  On the other hand, I thought, all mortals fought to the last breath to avoid that experience.

  He was moving me so fast that I could not help myself. I was on the edge of the chariot, holding tight with my hands, bare feet balanced, agile as the squirrels I had played with as a child. I had stopped when I realized that I had only scared them and that was enough, because I was always able to catch them. I clung to the roots, letting myself go with the momentum of the chariot beneath me.

 
I felt my robe being pulled, Hades had grabbed at it. I kicked. I could not make him let go, but the noise of linen tearing told me I was freed anyway. The wagon

  passed beyond, in the noise of squealing wheels, while the god was pulling the reins to stop.

  I knew I didn’t have much time. I climbed onto the roots, they were huge and strange, like the branches of the trees, just turned downward, and I dug my fingers into the turf to dig my way to the world of the living. We were not far from the surface. The land was my mother. I could do it.

  I don’t want to lose you in the underworld without a guide.

  The roots were white and slimy. They slipped through my hands, they put themselves across my legs, they hooked together what was left of my dress. I tore off a huge, heavy clod, and dropped it in the dark abyss below me.

  “Mother, mother, help me! Don’t leave me alone in this nightmare!”

  For a moment I thought that my prayer had taken effect, because a light began to shine, next to me, but before I could even feel relieved, I saw it was strange, blue, a fatuous globe, which had Aristaeus’ features. His lips were drawn back on his teeth, his eyes narrowed in an expression of hatred.

  “I am here because of you,” he hissed, and I lost my grip and fell into darkness.

  While I fell, and fell to infinity, with my stomach rising to my throat and my heart reduced to an icy shard, Aristaeus was again next to me, he opened his mouth, and fell upon me. I raised an arm to protect my face, and I felt sharp pin sharp teeth sinking into flesh, I felt a tongue licking my ichor. I heard him suck.

  And then, with a backlash so strong that I felt it in all my vertebrae, my fall was over and I was in Hades’ arms.

  “Silly,” he said, “you’re already beyond your mother’s domain. There is no other power, below, other than my own.”

  He grabbed my shoulders and turned me around; I tripped and I would have fallen to my knees, if he had not supported me. I felt the wood of the chariot under my bare feet, and I could not stop myself from feeling an unspeakable relief.

  In the eerie light of the will-o-the wisps, I saw that he looked really angry. His black hair was disheveled, his teeth clenched, eyes blazing. I was afraid, but since I rebelled against my fate, I might as well resolve the end:

  “You think I should resign myself passively, just because you’re the god of the Avernus? Not even the mortals...”

  I stopped, because I noticed that Hades’ wrath was not directed at me.

  After making sure that I would not fall, he let go of my shoulder, grabbed my wrist and made me stretch my arm, he looked at the wispy light of Aristaeus. His eyebrows, so straight, were so furrowed they cast dark shadows below, and in that darkness shone a two that the blue light was unable to broach.

  His voice, when he spoke, sounded like a volcano reawakening:

  “Three times a thousand years await you in the gray water, you will wander forgotten by all, free of body and soul, for what you have done!”

  He dug his fingers into the white wisp, into Aristaeus’ forehead. I saw the absolute terror in the eyes of the dead god. Then he vanished, taking away his demonic light, and I was left to look stupidly at my bitten arm. Dark rivulets flowed from the cuts, which seemed colorless black in that darkness, beneath the world I knew.

  Returning to a state of complete calm, without intermediary, Hades repeated,

  “Don’t try to jump off the chariot.”

  He let go of my wrist, took his hand from under his cloak, and handed me a folded piece of cloth, to press on the wound. I did as much as I trembled, it was the first time I had been wounded, and seeing the blue blood, ichor of the gods, upset me.

  “I want to go home,” I whined like a child. “This place is horrible. Please, let me go home, uncle.”

  He took up the reins with an abrupt gesture, as if my imploring had irritated him.

  “Don’t call me uncle.”

  I felt my eyes fill with tears, faced with the inevitability of my destiny. I could only slump down into the bottom of the chariot, to curl up on myself while I held onto the little that remained of my clothing.

  All my dreams and my fantasies, now, seemed a madness, worse, nonsense. My father was right. I was a fool; I did not deserve anything more than what had happened to me, because I was not satisfied with the flowers, because I had not been able to appreciate Olympus.

  It was the roots that had made me turn my gaze. I thought I could love the roots.

  I thought again.

  I hid my face in my hands, while my robe was falling around in tatters around my waist. Hot tears forced through my lashes. I cried because I was scared and because I was a fool, I was a fool, and I didn’t stop a moment to think about the darkness above me, the one who drove the cart bade me no attention. I was a burden for the god of the dead probably, by now, a problem.

  But I was also mother’s daughter; as disheveled as it was, flowers were still intertwined in my hair, my blood was that of the gods, and Hades could not ignore that. He could deny me as a niece, but I was still myself. I could not just stay crouched, whimpering while I was being dragged to death.

  I gathered all the courage I had, that is not much, and turned to him:

  “I have to report to judgment?”

  He allowed himself to glance at me from above. One of his eyebrows had arched imperceptibly.

  “Judgment?”

  “I... I know I can’t run away,” I pronounced with difficulty, the admission cost me a lot, “but I had to at least make an attempt.”

  He blinked, then, in the darkness, his pallor played with the shadows in that ambiguous way, as if he was about to smile.

  “Yes, I imagined so.”

  “So...no hard feelings?” Perhaps the underground darkness had also altered his voice, because he seemed amused, “No hard feelings. Now get up, and stop crying, because you’re safe.” I thought about what ‘being safe’ was, for the god of the dead, a

  least distorted concept; certainly, he lacked any capacity for self-criticism, about his ways. But he did not seem angry, so I did as he said. Better face ones destiny with head held high than curled up at the bottom of the chariot, that was for sure.

  I soon found out that if I wanted to recover my dignity, it would be worth staying on the ground crying, because the garment, now, was as if it were not there. I tried to cheer myself up and tie the torn laces, but my arms tightened around my body to cover those miserable tatters that had remained after so many misadventures. On the surface it was small. At the entrance to the realm of the dead, I was practically naked.

  While I was fighting with the lacing, I realized that I had exposed breasts, my pink nipples hardened in the cold air underground. I did not realize, until that moment, that my body had grown and become defined. It had very little importance among the nymphs. Except I was no longer among the nymphs. I looked at him, hoping that no one had noticed. But he looked right at me.

  Our eyes met. I saw the flames flare up in the coals of his eyes.

  Soon after, I was held close to him, and his lips were on mine. They were warm. The body of Hades, lord of the Avernus, was hot. He burned. His armor was cold, and made me shudder. The arms that surrounded me were muscled, hard as granite. I dug my fingers in, clinging to him, not knowing what to do, hardly understanding what was happening. I had never been in a similar situation, and was totally astonished.

  His kiss was greedy, demanding. Behind my back, his fists were clenched on the reins, and I was held by the edge of chariot. I was a prisoner in such a confined space that it seemed that I was not even air, while I felt him force the seal of my lips, to get me to half open my mouth... I turned my head aside, but I still had to learn what was happening more than trying to stop him.

  That it needed more than that to stop myself. When I felt his breath on my neck, and then on my back, between the jolting of the chariot, which continued its descent into the underworld, it was my own physical reaction to express a groan. It was as if Hades, k
issing, placed incandescent embers all over my body that it took my strength away. If that was how it was to die, I understood why mortals feared him so much.

  “No, please...”

  I tried to free myself; I put my hands on his chest to push him away. The fear of what I felt was compounded by the fear of what I was afraid of, because my innocence could not reach the point of knowing what happens when a god demands the body of a goddess. The gods are ruthless. They do not stop, they are not moved; don’t tolerate anything beyond what they’ve decided they want. It had happened to my mother, in the plowed fields and the full ears of wheat, bent under the weight of their fertility; he was successful despite her being the sister of Zeus and she had begged him, he had been successful and I had life.

  Now it was happening to me, and to discover that I could not prevent, did not want to prevent it, terrified me.

  “Please... please...”

  Hades’ armor was so cold that it made my hands burn. My strength was not even enough to turn him away. He took both my wrists in his fist, enclosing them in a painless grip, but I could not free myself. I was helpless.

  Then, without a word, he let me go.

  He took up the reins, he looped them a couple of times around his palms so they would not slip, he left me to myself, and returned to dedicate himself to the horses.

  All he said was, “If you touch my armor, you will freeze until you wither.”

  Unsettled and confused, I pulled the remnants of my garment around me. Now that he was no longer on me, to burn me with his warmth, I realized that I was numb to the bone. I wondered how he could keep wearing such freezing armor.

  “I’m cold...”

  Hades unhooked the clasp of his cloak, he held it with one hand while slipping it off his shoulders, and handed it to me, without trying to get closer. I took it with a thousand hesitations, being careful not to touch his fingers, and draped it around me. It had a good smell, sweet and melancholy, so strangely familiar, not in a specific sense, but general, that I was surprised.

  He noticed, he always knew what was passing through my mind, and said, by way of explanation,