The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  I was wearing his cloak, I was in a courtyard full of flowers sacred to paradise in the shadow of a huge palace, but I was still myself. I was all I had, and Hades had taken me without even a word of apology or conviction.

  I looked down at the magnolia flower. I never threw away flowers, and that one I still held in my hand. It was beautiful, but it had been imposed on me, like everything else. That paradise, that palace, that cloak that covered my nakedness, not to speak of him and of his attentions, everything had been imposed on me; an imposition so absolute that my consent was becoming invisible.

  I inclined my hand and dropped the flower.

  “I will not go into your palace.” Under the arcades there were movements; the footsteps of Hades’ servants

  who ran to their returning master. I stepped back.

  “You can not force me.”

  Hades looked at me as if wondering what strange species of wild animal I could be.

  “Come at your own free will,” he replied only, “or I’ll take you inside over my shoulder.”

  I felt tears pricking my eyes, tears of rage and humiliation.

  “If I went in, it would not be at my own free will, but this doesn’t matter, right?”

  I knew that high pride was useless, as well as it was too late, but I was in front of the black gate of Hades’ palace, I was faced with the unknown, and I was afraid. I was afraid of what I would find, I was afraid of what was waiting for me.

  I could not even admit that to myself, more than anything, I was afraid of being a disappointment.

  Hades came to me, he put his arm around my body, leaned over to put his other hand under my knees. He straightened up, lifting me effortlessly. He continued on his way as if nothing had happened, while I writhed and begged, trying not to scream. I had very little dignity left, and when I saw the court that welcomed us in a semicircle, in the alabaster and obsidian entrance hall, he had to hold me still. I kept back my tears, out of spite.

  “I hate you!”

  Hades put me down, without answering. The floor was cold under my bare feet. I was forced to raise my head and look around.

  It was a strange court. There were servants and maids, as in all the courts, but in the foreground I saw people who would have been bizarre even on Olympus.

  There was a middle-aged woman, dressed in black and disheveled, and beside her two young men, one had black wings that sprouted on his head, the other great white wings behind his back and a blindfold covering his eyes, this did not seem to bother him at all. They were naked, but so beautiful and perfect that it was not important.

  In sharp contrast, the three women seemed to be frightening; not because their features were ugly, even if they were certainly not young, but because their eyes were pits of darkness, an abyss where not even a glimmer of light shone. They had a reel in hand, spindle and scissors. While I watched, the oldest raised her blades and, naturally, cut the thread that her neighbor held. I shivered, as a reaction.

  There were children evidently of divine origin, they appeared unhealthy and naughty, they were leaning against the railings of the staircase, of horrifying creatures, with a woman’s face, bird’s wings and the claws of a monster, and others, with their head bristling with live serpents, and with vertical pupils, like reptiles. There were flickering blue flames that danced between the pillars, with human features and white eyes, glazed like those of the dead. There were strange creatures who walked dragging their feet, hands dangling, eyes wide open, with a perpetual expression of mild surprise. There were heads without bodies and bodies without heads, comfortable and fully autonomous.

  Everyone, without exception, looked at me.

  I tried to back away, and I think I would have run away, over the floor made from alabaster panels and polished obsidian that gleamed, so as to make one dizzy if you looked at it for too long, but Hades held me tight and would not let me go. In fact, he pushed me forward, as I was cloaked and disheveled with reddened eyes.

  “Pay homage to your queen.”

  I winced. That was a revelation to me; that he wanted my body was clear, but the gods do not create too many problems in these cases. My father had married his own sister Hera, but it certainly had not prevented him from taking possession of any girl or goddess that he found to his liking. My mother had never wanted to marry – and as a child I had vaguely suspected that my life would be something like this – like my favorite aunt Hestia, who had rejected both Poseidon and Apollo, she lived in the heat of the fireplace and did not rise to Olympus. Not belonging to that place, and she seemed to be very happy. Marriage, among the gods, can be forgotten, like the multiple adulteries witnessed of both my father and of Aphrodite.

  And now, this.

  I sought Hades’ eyes, but he had turned his attention towards his court. Now I know that he was checking to see who hesitated to kneel, because he always checked everything and nothing escaped him, but then I felt so alone and afraid, and at the mercy of a power that I could not counter, I hardly realized that the entire court of the Netherworld was kneeling before me.

  “Ah ... I ...”

  I wavered. If I thanked him, I accepted my fate. If I had rebelled, Hades would continue with his plans, and for me it would have been even worse. I was at an impasse. I realized, horrified, that within a few moments I would burst into tears. Oh, I could not, it could not, it was impossible to resist. It all seemed to be a dream, and I didn’t even know if it was or was not a nightmare.

  “I ... I ...”

  I was shaking. Under the cloak of the god of the Avernus, I perspired cold sweat, and I felt very pale, weakened. The cold of the floor paralyzed me. Having lived on the surface, in the sun and the natural colors of the blue sky, green grass, it seemed another life.

  “I want to go back home.” I have learned my lesson, I will never again try to find the roots, I swear.

  I will not look on his face ever again, not even think about him ever more, but please, please, let me go home ...

  It was as if Hades had heard me, and it was certainly not me to deny that it could be possible. While the Furies moved their wings, nervously because they were submissive and no one was telling them to get up, his voice saved the day and me.

  “The queen has traveled extensively and is exhausted. Go back to your work, and the maids in her service come forward.”

  I closed my eyes, refusing to see what hellish demons would have grabbed me and locked me up somewhere, I did not want to give them my attention, waiting for Hades to decide he had waited long enough. But I opened them immediately, when the scent of wild mint reached me, sweet and unexpected.

  “My lady?”

  Her brown curls, dark eyes, angelic face, were unmistakable. I was so surprised to find some color and energy.

  “Come, my lady. You are pale.”

  As in a dream, I let Mint take me, and Leuka, beside her. They kept both eyes downcast but, as soon as we were away from Hades, they seemed to recover a little of their liveliness.

  “This way,” said Leuka, guiding me down the hall, “everything is ready, you don’t have to worry about anything. Oh, how happy I am to see that you’re safe and sound!”

  “Well...” Mint’s lips tightened as she looked at the cloak that I held tightly around me, but beneath which, evidently I was wearing practically nothing. “Was it so bad, ma’am?”

  I looked anxiously behind me, but I saw that Hades was not following us not, except with his eyes. As soon as we turned, he disappeared, and I almost fainted with relief.

  “But you, what are you doing here?”

  They were both dressed luxuriously, with garments of silk over satin tunics, but the colors of the fabrics were dark, severe. On their feet, thick closed shoes, to protect them from the cold. As nymphs they would never have dressed in this way; not on the surface, at least.

  “We were expecting you,” said Mint softly, holding my arm to support me, “for a long time we have been expecting you. We have kept the royal rooms in o
rder, and everything prepared for your arrival.”

  “Who brought you here. He did.” Leuka, stated, darkly. She climbed a staircase, I followed her. The flickering fires giggled from behind the shadows of the colonnade. “One night on the mountain in Ilia, he came to the spring of memory, and I thought he wanted to use me violently, but... he said we’d be in your service.”

  I felt a thump in my chest; he’d been preparing for a long time, he had not followed a sudden impulse. That kidnapping was my marriage. Pulling me from my land, from my mother, Hades had felt it to be his right, and for all I knew, it could be that it really was so.

  My father was right about me, I was foolish, foolish enough to disgust myself. My consent! How could I think that anything mattered?

  Who cares about the approval of a flower, when you decide to pick it?

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered, “I knew nothing about it. They had agreed ... about everything without telling me.”

  And without telling my mother. She would not have taken it well, I thought. Not at all.

  “I see, my lady. Don’t apologize: your fate will be worse...”

  “Leuka!” Mint seemed angry. “You’re no help at all!”

  I intervened before they began to quarrel, you always have to act as a peacemaker with the nymphs.

  “Forget it, I’m not so naive as not to know what to expect. He ... he hurt you too?”

  They shook their heads, making me feel more relieved than I felt, if I was only worried about them.

  “We hardly see him,” Mint said, “I thought he didn’t even remember our names. We try to be noticed as little as possible, we let him find everything in its place, and we avoid him. We spend all the time we can on the Elysian fields.”

  “They are very beautiful.” I said, but the nymphs smiled sadly.

  “What is paradise, if you are forced to live there?” Leuka asked, and opened a large inlaid door, at the top of the stairs. “It was my poplar grove, paradise. But not here.”

  With her words of regret, I entered the royal chamber of the Avernus.

  It was large, with an obsidian ceiling supported by pillars of marble, the floor was of alabaster and obsidian, black and white squares. I looked around a little anxiously, but evidently the mocking spirits of the Underworld respected the royal apartments, and there was no one but us. The curtains were a deep red, of blood, but they were pulled and I saw the magnificent view of the fields of paradise, beyond the balcony. In the middle of the room stood a marble bath, sunken, already filled with steaming water, standing next to it were ampoules of perfume and everything needed for a bath.

  I was very careful to turn my back to the dark drapes that hid the bed from view, on the opposite side.

  “There is no fireplace,” I said, “no carpet.”

  “Here it’s always cold.” Leuka sighed, and took the cloak from my shoulders. “This court is cold, and inhospitable, and...”

  In a sharp tone, Mint told her to stop. “The water is hot, my lady. At least that.”

  In the icy air they removed the flowers from her hair, put them aside, with care filled with regret. I wondered if Hades, in taking them, had made them make the same trip I had made, and concluded no; the treatment he’d given me was very different, because he wanted to show me his kingdom, or at least part of it. The maids who had been taken for me, in all probability, had fainted in terror and had awakened there, nothing else.

  In their dedicated care, I seemed to recover some happiness. The nymphs love to take care of the goddesses. For them, it was like finding themselves again.

  “You have really changed, ma’am,” said Leuka, brushing my hair, “I hardly recognized you. It’s been a long time!”

  “Not so long.”

  “A whole generation for the mortals is not long for you?” I was bewildered. “I could have sworn it was a year, or a little more...” Mint laughed softly, meanwhile draping

  fine fabrics for when I got out of the bath.

  “From child, you have become a woman, and it’s not something that

  happens in a moment, especially for a goddess. Eternity causes your perception of time to change, did you know that?”

  I could only smile. They were so many, things I didn’t know.

  They were very kind to me. They dried and perfumed me, combed my hair and replaced the flowers, one by one, wrapped me in soft cloth and led me to the wardrobe, so I could choose. They also offered me something to eat, but I was not hungry, and autumn fruits, together with smoked meats, hard and salty, have always aroused my disgust. I foresaw days of hunger.

  The clothes were gifts, all with a tight belt, soft ruffles, with enhanced cleavage. They were tunics for women, not tunics for a young girl. They made me tremble.

  “This is your room, right?”

  Mint and Leuka exchanged a look, then, apologetically, Mint said:

  “We wanted to set up the apartments of the queen for you, but the king... has given strict orders. We could not oppose him.”

  He expected that I would stay every night with him, without exception. That reality was beginning to seem overwhelming.

  Minthe hastened to add:

  “He won’t come, don’t worry. He ordered me to put his area at your disposal so that you can rest at ease, for tonight.”

  “And tomorrow night?” They did not answer.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, “I would like to be alone. Not

  that I wanted to be rude, but I really needed to put my thoughts in order.”

  “We could keep you company, so as not to leave you alone with your thoughts...”

  “Thank you. I would prefer a little solitude and tranquility. In the last few hours I’ve not had either.”

  They bowed and left, but not before I had seen a deep sorrow in their eyes. Hades was so overpowering that it was impossible not to see me as his victim. In fact, I was not. The thought amused me, saddened me, scared me and angered me, all at once.

  I heard the sound of the key turning, but I did not resent them. Certainly they had received orders about that too. I touched the lock with a finger, watching the opaque halo that the heat of my body left on the metal; just for a moment, before the frost returned to give it an icy shine. The silence, in the king’s hall, was full of echoes. I dared barely move.

  In the end, I chose one of the simplest tunics, thick dark green silk, with the skirt in light petals and a belt of glazed plates, in the shape of flowers. I squeezed the clasp on my shoulder as much as possible to reduce the neckline, and there remained the outline of a female form; I refused to think that I was making myself beautiful for him, but I changed the clasp because it did not go well with the color of the dress. I had to wear the soft slippers, because the floor was cold. I felt the lack of a hearth.

  It seemed obvious that Hades had caused me to be taken there, to his quarters, because I had become used to my fate, and I realized that the thing that irritated me so much was to give in to the natural impulse to look around. Any thing on which I had placed my hand would become familiar, and it was exactly what he wanted. It’s too easy, like this, I thought.

  They can’t do this to me. They can’t ignore my free will as well, as if I never had one. I’m a goddess as much as they are.

  I found myself giggling uncontrollably, so I had to take my face in my hands. Sure they could. They had done so. My mother, Mother Earth, had protected me, she had cradled me in the belief that nothing would ever happen to me, that flowers would always bloom, poppies would have welcomed the uniform browning of the ears, the earth would have fed her children. I had forgotten that flowers wither, the ears bend under the sickle, and the ground freezes in winter. Everything came to the Avernus, eventually. The nervous laughter became a desolate cry.

  There was a low sofa, a Kline for meals, and I let myself fall onto it, sobbing.

  I was not sad, not exactly, but I was tired, I was confused, and I felt alone. Hades expected that I would live amongst those scary creatures? That I wo
uld adapt to the bright colors of the eternal aurora, or the eternal sunset, never to see the sun, the blue sky, no longer to bless the branches withered by winter, because they would find the strength to give life to buds?

  And from where did the branches draw their strength? Where, if not from their roots? I cried even more. I wanted my mother, I wanted something

  that was familiar to me. I took the flowers out of my hair, one by one, I arranged them on the pillows next to me. as they were they were beautiful, perfect. The sap of the Underworld had made them eternally lush. They did not need roots, any more. They were in the realm of the roots, the very source of their existence. I wondered if they were as disoriented as I was, or if they were happy to have achieved immortality.

  Still crying, feeling more cowardly and childish than I had ever felt – and is not that I had never felt cowardly or childish, before then – I lay down on the pillows next to my flowers.

  I thought of my sisters. Artemis would devastate that room, she would have killed anyone she had found in front of her, and Athena would never have arrived in that room. As soon as she was aware of having attracted the attention of the inexorable, my wise sister would immediately have taken precautions, she would have spoken with those who could have helped her. I had been silent.

  That night I had gone to Elis. I had put in motion forces that knew nothing about, I did not understand, and eventually I had paid the price.

  I wiped my eyes with the veil. I hated to sit still whining. I hated the feeling of helplessness. And yet, I thought, I should not take it so much. All marriages were concluded as follows: an agreement between those who had the authority in their hands, while those who did not had to adapt. I closed my lips. No, it was not a thought that would help to calm me.

  “Queen,” I muttered, and lifted my feet to lie down on the Kline, “well, I’d be a queen.”

  It seemed impossible. It had to be someone else, not me. I closed my eyes, not to sleep but to close out the reality that crushed me. I wanted to be Artemis, I wanted to fight, but I was no warrior. I wanted to be Athena, who would have stood up to Hades and would be able to get back to the surface world, the sun, to life. But I was just me.