by Laline Paull
The comb began to tremble and the Hive Mind spoke.
BY TRADITION, BY KIN, BY DIVINE RIGHT,
ONLY THE SAGE MAY RULE!
Faces shining, open wings radiant with light, the Sage priestesses looked out over the crowd. The Hive Mind repeated the words so that no bee held any other thought.
BY DIVINE RIGHT, ONLY THE SAGE MAY RULE!
“Merciful sisters!” The Thistle executioner’s loud cry broke the spell. The bees turned to see her on her knees in the Queen’s blood. “Kill me,” she begged. “I cannot live with my sin—I must die!” She held up her blood-wet hands.
“Behold,” called out Sister Sage. “Behold the suffering of our noble sister Thistle. Blessed be the sister who takes away our sin.” She signaled, and Sister Inspector stepped up behind the Thistle, then twisted her head round so that the crack echoed in the air of the Dance Hall.
“And so are we absolved.” Sister Sage raised her wings, and six Sage priestesses walked forward with the pollen-coated leaf and laid it down beside the dead Queen.
“A Queen cannot rise in three days!” cried out another voice. “How long have you planned this?” It was a Teasel, standing in the center of a group of her kin.
Every priestess turned her antennae on the group—but the Teasel kept theirs high in defiance. A bright channel of air crackled between them.
“Our sisters Teasel, of the Nursery.” Sister Sage nodded slowly. “It is right and proper you should ask, for matters of hive health and security have ever been our kin’s gravest concern. Long have we dreaded this dark day.” She raised her wings higher and addressed the farthest reaches of the Dance Hall. “The Teasel say we have prepared, and they are right. A queenless hive is a prize for the Myriad, and to raise a princess is the state secret and holy burden we have borne in silence, until now.” Sister Sage raised her wings proudly.
“Know you, all sisters gathered here, that we the Melissae, keepers of the Holy Law, protect you with our foresight, for to save our hive from queenless peril, we have made ready a princess for this moment.” Then the priestess bowed low to the group of Teasels. “We thank our sisters Teasel for acknowledging our great and sacred responsibility. We ask no more of them.”
Then the comb trembled and the Hive Mind spoke again.
In three days’ time a new Queen will rise.
ACCEPT, OBEY, AND SERVE.
With great ceremony, the six priestesses lifted the Queen’s head, then her body, onto the leaf bier. The Holy Chord rose from the wax comb up into the bees’ bodies, and the sisters wept again as the pallbearers carried their royal burden through. Some sisters rushed behind them out of the Dance Hall, while others staggered, and yet more stood paralyzed with the horror, their eyes fixed where the Queen had fallen. All the Thistle remained, beating their antennae on the comb in shame. The Teasel watched it all, then left together.
Flora stood gasping for breath, antennae pulsing from the horror she had witnessed and the Minerva spider’s words echoing in her mind.
Unimaginable horrors . . .
If she had died in the cage of glass, she would not have traced the sickness to the Queen, who would still be alive. But then—the sickness would have spread to every sister. The pain in Flora’s belly twisted harder, but even as she sank to her knees and wept, a part of her mind took her back to the Queen’s Library, where there was still one more panel to be told.
Thirty-Six
BY THE NEXT MORNING MANY BEES HAD NOT THE heart to rise from their berths, while others had lost their minds and ran in circles buzzing and babbling or beating their antennae against the comb until they broke. The fertility police took all of them away. The rest, almost eight thousand motherless daughters, wandered desolately through the hive, unable to settle to anything, for without the Queen’s Love no task had meaning.
Pollen dough dried on patisserie tables, chalices of nectar stood unfanned. Sisters in the Chapel of Wax could not pray, and in the Nursery the nannies could not comfort those ceaselessly crying infants who had survived the purge of foulbrood.
Most frightening of all was the plight of the foragers. Again and again they went to the landing board, but despite the good weather not one could start her engine, for that required joy and courage.
“Tomorrow,” they said to each other. “Tomorrow, in good heart,” for to fly in sadness was to make mistakes and die—and the hive could bear no more losses.
At midday the canteens were closed, and at each a Sage priestess stood with a police guard.
“Two days of fasting,” the holy sisters told the bees, “in purification before our princess comes.” And then they smiled and let their Sage kin-scent rise strong. “Accept, Obey, and Serve.”
“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” responded the bees, breathing in the scent’s new opiate element. The smell of the Sage was calming and dulled their fear, and as they walked away from the canteens, they told each other a fast was good and would cleanse them. It also weakened them, so to conserve their energy for flight, most foragers sought solace in sleep.
Flora was lying in her berth at the back of the sanitation workers’ section, when she heard a dim murmur of voices and smelled the kin of Teasel. A group of them had gathered, concealed behind the strong scent of the sanitation workers. Flora lay back again. She did not care what they were doing there, nor had she the slightest intention of reporting them to Sister Sage, as she had once promised to do should she see them in conclave. All she could think about was the Queen’s Library, and what came next after The Golden Leaf.
There was a sixth story. She had walked right up to it, and then . . . But the more Flora concentrated the more tired she felt, until all she could hear were the murmurs of the Teasel, whispering like wind in the trees.
Morning brought sharp cold air and a rime of frost on the landing board. The hungry house bees hurried into the lobbies to start fanning their wings for warmth, but their strength was low from fasting and the temperature did not change. Foragers ran to the landing board and shivered as they looked out at a thick white sky. Yesterday it had been warm and blue, and they had wasted it.
“But we have Clustered!” someone cried. “Winter is over!”
“Tell the sky,” said another. “Tell the new buds, who surely die.”
Flora looked out. Winter comes twice. Her hands went to her belly, and in immediate answer, the pulse of life beat hard against them. She gasped in joy. One. More. Egg.
“Excuse me, Sister.” A Daisy forager unlatched her wings and stepped out around Flora and onto the board. “Enough talk of death!” She forced a smile. “Tomorrow comes the new Queen—so today I will fetch nectar to welcome her.”
“And I,” many foragers shouted. They set their engines high and took off over the apple trees, but within a few seconds the cold seized their engines and they lost altitude. On the landing board the bees watched their little dark shapes whirl helplessly in the freezing wind. Flecks of snow blew into the hive, and the Thistle guards closed the landing board.
Energized by joy and fear, Flora ran back inside. Her grief and apathy had gone and she needed to move her body. If it was not possible to fly, then she would work with her kin-sisters, sheltered by their warmth and kindness—and their very strong scent.
“It will not last,” said the Sage priestesses in cheerful voices as they went about the hive swinging their censers filled with a strange fragrance. “By the time the new Queen arrives, the sun herself will come to greet her.”
“Tomorrow,” was all the bees dared whisper to each other, breathing in the new scent. As she scrubbed the midlevel lobby floor with her kin-sisters, this new smell made Flora feel sick. Glazed with a top note of honey and bound by the complex scent structure of the Melissae, it referenced every kin except flora, and its message was simple and clear: Strength in Sage. Some of the bees even murmured it without knowing, and as they passed, the priestesses smiled.
The scent forced its way into Flora’s spiracles, and then her bloodstrea
m. It made her head hurt and sent shooting pains through her belly. Nauseous, she excused herself and ran down to the bottom story, intending to flush her body with cold fresh air near the landing board.
She got as far as the lobby outside the Dance Hall before the egg within her began to pulse. Sage priestesses were within, and Flora hurried away. Footsteps and voices came from all sides and now she did not know where to go. This egg had grown so quickly and given no warning—and now with frightening force it pushed at her body, telling her it was coming. She could smell the cold rain falling outside on the landing board and she longed to breathe more fresh air, but she had not a second to lose, for her body was opening to lay.
She could not go up to the busy midlevel, nor into the Dance Hall, so in desperation Flora ran down the dark corridor that smelled of propolis disinfectant. It was marked out of bounds since the Cluster because it was where the dead mouse lay embalmed, but the swelling egg left no time for choice. Covered in the scent of propolis, Flora dropped to the raw wax floor as the egg pressed her body apart. It came so fast and the pain was so startling that she could not even cry out—and then it was done. Gasping, Flora turned around.
Like her two other eggs before, this third one had a pearly skin and in its depths held a tiny point of light. Unlike them, it did not lie on its side, but balanced on its narrower tip, as if supported by some invisible force. It was also very large. Flora moved her body to block it from the corridor entrance, then feathered its skin in wonder. She could feel its radiant life-force warming her as she touched it.
Madness and disaster.
Flora raised her claw over her egg, as if the Minerva spider scuttled in the darkness—but all was still. Above her loomed the vast propolis tomb of the mouse, and the only thing that moved was a cold curl of air, coming from behind it. Flora raised her antennae. The hive creaked in the wind, and the air moved with it.
She knew what had happened—in their Cluster-dulled state, the defending bees had completely sealed the mouse to the hive floor—but when it was done they forgot the gap it had gnawed in the hive wall. Flora listened for footsteps. If the fertility police were coming, she would fight them to the death to protect this egg.
There was no sound, and she put her claws down. She breathed deeply, realizing the thick propolis veils would cover the scent of an egg even better than that of her own kin-sisters.
Flora flushed fresh air through her spiracles to rid herself of the controlling scent of Sage. Her brain cleared. It was cold in here, and her egg needed protection. In one more day the new Queen would come and start laying. Surely in all the excitement there would be opportunity to smuggle one new egg into the Nursery. Until then, she must protect it.
Flora bent herself forward and stared at her dry abdominal bands, harder and older since she had last looked. There was no trace of those soft, sliding glands that would give her wax, and she knew that since the Queen’s death, her prayers were as dry as her belly. She concentrated—but there was not one single synapse of response. The strong smell of propolis made it hard to think what she should do.
Propolis.
Flora looked at the sarcophagus of the mouse, hurriedly built with great lumps and crags sticking out of it. It was not wax, but made from the blood of a thousand trees, it had its own ancient purity. A sister with the strength and endurance to work it could mold it as she chose.
It was night before Flora had finished her task. The hive was silent, and her jaws ached from chewing, but the amber walls of the crib glowed with the spark of life within. Flora’s tongue was numb from the long contact with propolis, and no pulse of Flow lit her cheeks. Her time in the Nursery was so long ago, she struggled to remember how many days before an egg hatched. Three sun bells chimed—
Three days—Flora was sure of it. And then the pearly skin would molt to reveal her baby, beautiful and hungry for Flow. She cleaned the crumbs of propolis off her fur in preparation for returning to her dormitory. The new Queen was coming tomorrow, and the anxious fast would be over. In the time of celebrations she would let herself feed and love her baby, then she would smuggle him into the Nursery—and this time, put him in the right section. She would make no more mistakes.
Not until she was lying safe and quiet in her dormitory berth, surrounded by the reassuring kin-scent of her sleeping sisters, did Flora become aware that her heartbeat had an echo, as if a tiny second heart pumped inside it. She hugged herself in silent joy, for even though she was one floor above, and on the other side of the hive, she knew that it was her connection to her living egg, growing stronger with every pulse of her blood.
Thirty-Seven
ON THE MORNING OF THE THIRD DAY, THE BEES SPRANG from their beds and rushed to make all ready for the coming of the new Queen. Foragers ran to the landing board to check the weather and kept their spirits high despite the Thistle still blocking their exit, for the rain fell thick and cold. No Sage priestess appeared to announce the period of fasting over, nor did the Hive Mind speak, but the hungry bees milled around outside the canteens waiting for some signal, some smell of the upcoming feast.
There was none. By afternoon, every sister’s belly was clutching at itself, and even the most devout had no more energy for pacing in prayer. They were ready to welcome the new princess, they were ready to eat, and they were ready to cheer to the skies for the return of order and security.
It was almost evening before the Sage appeared, and they did so en masse in every lobby and canteen. Barely three days since the Queen was killed, and now they all wore mantles, the style of dress last favored by Her Majesty and her ladies. The Sage were decorated—the time had come at last! Whirring in joyous excitement, the sisters rushed to be close to their priestesses—but at their somber expressions, they fell silent.
“Due to the inclement weather”—the Sage used their choral voice—“the arrival of the new Queen has been delayed. The period of fasting is over, but the Interregnum is extended.”
The bees burst out with questions but the Sage held up their mantles.
“There will be no questions. Accept, Obey, and Serve.”
There was the briefest pause before the bees responded.
“Accept, Obey, and Serve.” They watched the priestesses go, a cordon of police around them.
As soon as they were out of sight, a ravenous hunger seized the bees. They ran into the canteens and pulled whatever rations they could from the stores. With some difficulty, they forced themselves to pass and share. Nobody wanted to be the first to speak. Flora ate what she could, but she knew it was not enough. She felt her cheeks. If the princess was late, then her egg would hatch and need feeding before the Nursery was fully operational again. Her baby would need Flow—and if there were no nurses, it would die.
Starvation. Someone had said the word in the canteen, and the long-repressed fear burst in the air above all the bees. Before they knew it, every sister was asking about food or speculating on its lack or demanding to know from the foragers when the weather would lift and they could start working again, for the fasting had sharpened their appetite for Devotion—but the Queen did not come! She did not come, and they had been promised!
Their voices became a din, with some sisters shouting for silence, others for answers, and arguments broke out over a crust of pollen bread. Flora’s brain jammed with her panic for her child, and she felt a scream building in her own chest.
“Sisters! Hear yourselves!” It was the booming voice of a Thistle guard. She stood up and banged her own plate down amid the squabbling bees. “Take mine! Would you be like the wasps?” Every other Thistle in the room put her own plate down for others, and the noble gesture silenced the bees.
“We will wait,” said the first Thistle. “The Queen will come.”
“The Queen will come,” repeated the bees. The words gave them strength. “The Queen will come!”
THE NEXT MORNING, there was again no sign of the Sage, but the skies had cleared and the air was warm once more. Bees gath
ered to applaud and shout Queenspeed to the foragers as they ran for the board, for the sisters longed for order and security. If they could not have it in the form of Devotion to and from a new Queen, then the next best thing was to refill the Treasury, and make the canteen tables groan with food.
The drones had no such patience. The new Queen was late, the weather was still cold and damp, and they did not care if the sisters ate little—they still wanted more. Working themselves up to a high hormonal display of temper and resentment, they joined together and marched up to the Treasury to protest to the Sage priestesses gathered there. Frightened and fascinated, sisters rushed after them to witness it.
When the Sage priestesses simply listened, the drones grew angrier.
“You hear our complaints, and do nothing?”
Sister Sage inclined her head politely.
“We have more pressing matters.”
The drones looked at each other in astonishment.
“Than our comfort?”
“Brothers, if they think so little of us—”
“We shall find a better home!”
With that, and despite the wailing protests of the sisters, the drones stormed down to the landing board in a rage and took to the air.
Returning with a scant crop of viburnum nectar, Flora passed them in the air and felt their turbulence. Sisters wept on the landing board, crying for the males to come back, but Flora pushed past them to give her load to a waiting receiver. All she wanted to do was quickly pass on the directions in the Dance Hall, then find a way to get to her egg without being seen.
She ran into the atrium and stopped. Foragers stood waiting, but there was no atmosphere of joy or anticipation, and though many dutifully followed her steps, she knew it was without enthusiasm. Flora wanted to rouse them—but all her energy was focused on going to her child, and she left with a guilty heart.