The Beast Player

by Nahoko Uehashi

  She tilted her head and strained her eyes, trying to see inside when suddenly someone grabbed her shoulder. Startled, she was about to scream when a large hand covered her mouth, and she found herself tucked under an arm and carried away. Joeun did not set her down until he reached the house. “I told you not to go near that box!”

  Elin bowed her head. “…I’m sorry.”

  “Honeybees rarely sting people, but if they’re excited or think you’re an invader, they will defend their hive with their lives.”

  “…I’m sorry.”

  She looked so contrite that Joeun relaxed. “Honestly,” he said. “You scared the wits out of me!” Then he asked her gently, “Did it seem so strange that they should all go quietly into the box?”

  Elin nodded and said in a small voice, “Yes… They left a box just like it because they didn’t like being trapped inside. So why did they go into another one as if they were going home?”

  Joeun smiled. “That’s because it is home. For worker bees, wherever the queen bee decides to live is home.”

  “Oh!” Elin looked up. “Did you say that we were done because you saw the queen bee go inside?”

  “That’s right. If the queen bee is content with the box, the other bees will follow. A bee’s loyalty is even stronger than ours. They never rebel against their leader. Sometimes it’s almost spooky to watch… It’s as if they’re being pulled into the hive by a string, every single one of them.”

  Elin nodded. She remembered how they had all flown out together in a single swarm—and how they had all crawled back into the queen bee’s box, as if under a spell. “I wonder if the queen bee uses some kind of magic,” she said.

  Joeun laughed. “She just might. After all, many mothers seem to have supernatural powers.”

  “Mothers? Is the queen bee a mother?”

  “Yup. She’s the mother of every single bee in that hive.”

  “Really!?” Elin’s eyes widened. “All of them? You mean that queen bee gave birth to all the bees in that box?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true. There are tens of thousands of worker bees in there, but every one of them is her daughter. The worker bees are all female but they don’t lay eggs. They just work the whole time, collecting nectar. Only the queen lays eggs and she does so by the tens of thousands.”

  Elin stared at him with her mouth open. She felt goosebumps rising on her skin. How incredible! A single queen bee could lay thousands of eggs. The daughters born from those eggs became worker bees and spent their whole lives working. How different the relationship between a mother bee and her children compared to Elin’s relationship with her mother. As she imagined the queen bee laying eggs and her daughters emerging from them, she was suddenly puzzled.

  “That’s strange.”

  Joeun raised his eyebrows. “What is?”

  She looked at him. “If the worker bees are her children, they should be like her, so why aren’t they queen bees, too?”

  “Hmm.” He looked at her for a moment and then gently pushed her shoulder. “Let me show you something.” He led her to the same shed where he had stored the box and sprayer. Inside, he lifted up a slatted wooden platform and leant it against the wall. Beneath it was a trapdoor set into the floor, which he raised, revealing a hole. Lying on his belly, he reached in and pulled out a small black jar. After removing the tightly fitting lid, he beckoned to her.

  “Come and look.” Peering inside, Elin saw what looked like a thick, slightly yellowish paste. Joeun took a small spoon and scooped out a little. “Taste it.”

  Elin licked the spoon. At first, she thought it was sweet but the sourness that followed stung her tongue and throat. “Yuck!” She stuck out her tongue and screwed up her face. An overpowering odor clung to her mouth and nose.

  Joeun began to laugh. “Sorry. Was it that strong? Here. Chase it down with this.” He took a jar of honey off the shelf and let her lick some off the spoon. It took away the sourness but the smell, which slightly resembled goat’s milk, lingered in her mouth. “This is tabu chimu, or royal jelly. Bee larvae fed on this turn into queen bees.” He closed the lid tightly. “When they think it’s time for a new queen bee, the worker bees prepare special receptacles called queen cups. These are the cradles in which queen bee larvae are raised. The queen bee lays eggs in the cups and when they hatch, young worker bees come to give them royal jelly, which they secrete in their own bodies. That’s how new queen bees are raised.”

  He replaced the black jar of royal jelly in the hole and lowered the trapdoor. Then he grinned. “Let me tell you a secret. I can make queen bees.”

  Elin frowned, wondering what on earth he could mean. His grin deepened.

  “This is how it’s done. I take some beeswax and press it into a mold that resembles a queen cup. Then I put a frame between the part of the hive where the honey is stored and the part where the queen bee is, so that the queen can’t get into the upper part of the hive. The worker bees get quite upset by her absence. When I see that they are so anxious for a new queen bee that they can’t stand it anymore…” He stood up, went over to the shelf and came back with a slender wooden implement with a tiny scoop on the end. “I use this to extract a worker bee larva and transfer it to the queen cup that I made. As soon as I do that, the workers become very busy. When the egg hatches, they start feeding it royal jelly. A bee larva raised on royal jelly will grow into a splendid queen bee.”

  Elin frowned. “Really? You mean that the egg of a worker bee is identical to the egg of a queen bee?”

  “That’s right. The only thing that makes a difference is whether or not the bee is raised on royal jelly. Tabu chimu has a strange, magical power to transform an ordinary worker bee into a queen.”

  The odor that lingered on her tongue suddenly seemed very strong. Frightened, Elin stuck out her tongue and felt it. “Will my tongue be all right?” she asked. “Nothing strange will happen to it, will it?”

  Joeun burst out laughing. “No, no. Relax. Your tongue isn’t going to turn into a queen bee. In fact, this is what saved your life. When you were in bed with that high fever, I gave you royal jelly mixed with honey and juice to drink.” He waved the little spoon with which he had given her a taste. “You should be grateful. Tabu chimu is a powerful elixir that promotes longevity, and it’s really expensive. How much do you think that little spoonful you licked costs?”

  Elin drew in her breath and stared at him. He whispered dramatically, “… A whole gold piece.”

  “Really?!” She stared at him in astonishment. “A—a gold piece?” That amount of money would buy three chunks of top-grade beef the size of an adult fist. The amount of royal jelly she had eaten had only been as large as the tip of her baby finger. How expensive! That meant that Joeun had spent a fortune to make her better. She paled and felt her stomach grow cold. She could not possibly repay him.

  “Joeun…”

  “What is it? Don’t you feel well?”

  She shook her head. Her face tense, she said almost in a whisper, “Joeun… I don’t… have any money.”

  He looked at her in surprise. Then his face grew serious and he reached out his arms and grasped her by both shoulders. “I’m so sorry. That was stupid of me. I blabbered away without thinking.” He looked her straight in the eyes and spoke slowly and deliberately. “I have no intention of taking any money from you. I would never do something so cruel. I may not be rich, but I’m not poor either. I don’t have any family of my own to support. The amount of food you eat or the medicine you need is nothing. Don’t worry.”

  But his words could not reassure her. Elin’s mother had given Saju’s parents several big silver pieces in return for taking care of her. She knew that it wasn’t right to take advantage of someone who wasn’t family. But she had no home to return to. If he did not let her stay, she would have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep.

  She cast down her eyes, feeling alone and helpless, and her mouth twisted as she forced back the tear
s that rose in her eyes. Placing both hands before her on the floor, she bowed. “I… have no home… to go back to. I have no money either.” Her voice sounded very distant to her ears. “But I can cook. And I can sew. I can take care of the goat and the horse. I will work hard… So please let me stay here.”

  For a moment, Joeun was at a loss for words and could only stare at the little girl, who trembled as she pressed her hands against the floor. He was amazed that someone so young would think about the need to pay him to take care of her. He had never met a child like her before. There had been plenty of ten-year-olds where he used to live, but they were innocent and carefree, ignorant of the suffering in the world and obliviously dependent on the adults around them. Were all children of the artisan class like Elin? If so, they were far more mature than the youth of the nobility or of upper-class professionals. Yet, despite her maturity, she did not seem to intuit what an adult like Joeun really felt. He had already made up his mind to take her in, yet she couldn’t see that.

  Almost six years had passed since a painful incident had driven him from his family and forced him to live alone as a beekeeper. There had been times when he had found this existence lonely. He had never raised a girl before, but Elin seemed more capable for her age than any of the boys he’d taught, and she was very smart. He was pretty sure he could take care of her—that is, of course, if she really was all alone in the world.

  Something very unusual had happened to her. He was sure of that. If he adopted her, it could lead to trouble. Rather than getting carried away by his feelings, he should probably think this over more carefully. But he was already fond of Elin, even though they had only spent three days together. He did not want to let her go. If her parents did show up and take her away, he knew that he would miss her. Yet she seemed unaware of how he felt. She kept a firm distance, seeing him as a stranger and the care he gave her as a debt that must be repaid. Just patting her on the head reassuringly would not ease her mind.

  “Elin,” he began, and she raised her face, “Do you know how much people pay to stay somewhere overnight when they’re traveling?” Elin shook her head, her face tense. “The price is usually a single small piece of silver… Do you know how much a child hired as a servant to work in the hall of a noble or a merchant is paid?”

  Again Elin shook her head. “The going rate is about fifty copper pieces, or half a small piece of silver. So if you stay and do the housework for me, you can think of your pay as fifty copper pieces. Now, the cost for lodgings, that’s for adults. For children, it’s half the price. So if you do the housework, we’d be even, because the amount you would get paid is the same as the amount you would spend to stay overnight. What do you say? Is it a deal?”

  Elin’s face brightened instantly and she smiled at him.

  “All right then. That settles it. Once you’re completely better, I’ll expect you to work hard, okay?”

  Elin nodded emphatically.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Soaring Beast

  1 OF BEES AND HARPS

  Despite being the busiest season, spring made the heart of a beekeeper like Joeun dance. As flowers burst into bloom, honeybees flitted about gathering nectar to deposit in the hexagonal honeycomb cells. Once the liquid inside evaporated, they capped each cell with white beeswax. Bee colonies thrived and expanded at this time of year. Although this meant that beekeepers had to guard against swarming, more bees meant more honey, and more honey meant more income. But first the honey had to be extracted from the comb.

  Joeun and Elin rose early each morning. If the sky was clear, they eagerly set to work. First, Joeun would slide a honey knife from the bottom to the top of the comb, removing the wax seal so neatly that it made Elin itch to try. Then he would place the honey-filled comb, frame and all, into a large barrel-like contraption and crank the handle on top. As the barrel began to spin, golden honey flowed out from the bottom. Elin’s job was to strain the thick liquid through a clean cloth into clean jars and close the lids. If she worked hard, she was rewarded with a generous spoonful of honey.

  While freshly extracted honey was delicious, what really surprised Elin was the taste of pollen, which the honeybees also collected and stored in the comb. She had been intrigued by the bright pollen balls that clung to the bees’ legs when they returned to the hive, but she had never dreamed that the pollen was edible. She tried some at Joeun’s urging and was amazed to find it sweet and delicious. Watching her eyes widen, Joeun had smiled knowingly. “I bet only beekeepers know how good that tastes,” he had said. “It ferments and sours within just a day or two, you see.”

  They worked from dawn to dusk without a break and woke each day to find more work waiting. For Elin, it was all new and fascinating. Every night sleep overtook her as soon as she crawled under the covers and every morning there was more to do. As the days passed, the raw agony of loss slowly dulled. Still, on rainy or slow days, loneliness would suddenly overwhelm her and not even Joeun’s presence beside her could ease her heart. Nothing could fill the space left by her mother’s absence. When the tears welled up inside, she went to the stable and crouched down to weep beside Joeun’s gentle mare, Totchi, who stood placidly munching hay. Perhaps Joeun knew why she went away, but he said nothing and just let her be.

  As spring slowly moved toward summer, Joeun gradually came to the conclusion that Elin had been telling the truth about having no home and no family. She had obviously lost her parents in some very cruel way, but at least no one seemed to be pursuing her. Once every seven days he took the mare and traveled a toh (about an hour) to the crossroads on Kojon Way where a weekly market was held. There he would sell his honey and buy supplies. One day, he offered to take Elin with him, and she jumped at the chance. Clearly, she was not afraid of being seen.

  Quiet by nature, she stayed by his side even when they reached the town, gazing with shining eyes at the banners and the wares in the stalls. The merchants who knew Joeun were curious to see him with a girl who obviously had Ahlyo blood in her veins, but all he would tell them was that he had taken in the daughter of a friend. When he bought her a pretty dress with a flower-embroidered collar such as the local girls liked to wear, she thanked him with pleasure. But her face did not light up the way it had on the way to town when she had seen a leaf-shaped beehive hanging from the branch of a long-leafed hoaku tree. He concluded that she was more drawn to living creatures than to clothes or accessories.

  She could watch the entrance to a beehive for hours, forgetting time. Once, a new queen bee emerged from the hive, piping its beautiful high note, and he had seen Elin’s eyes fill with tears and her cheeks flush with emotion. She wandered about the fields, following the bees, and when she returned, she would relate with excitement that the hives of bees in the wild differed from one species to another, as did the flowers from which they collected nectar. But she did not come rushing back out of breath to report on every little discovery like other children would have done.

  At first Joeun thought it was because she was not used to him, but as time passed he realized that whenever she made a discovery, it was her habit to ponder it on her own. While emptying the ashes from the hearth or shoveling manure from the goat pen, her mind appeared to be full of questions and speculations, and she often muttered to herself. Joeun found that eavesdropping could be quite interesting. Once while watching the honey drip slowly from the extractor, she had murmured, “…It’s really not at all like nectar.” As he cranked the handle, Joeun’s ears had pricked up, but Elin did not even seem to know that she was talking out loud. With her eyes fixed on the flow of honey, she continued, “But the color of the honey when the saloh flowers were blooming was different from the color when the nosan were in blossom… so I suppose it must be flower nectar after all.”

  Joeun could not keep quiet any longer. “Why are you wondering about whether or not this is flower nectar?”

  Elin looked up with a startled expression and then flushed. After a moment’s silence she said, “Th
e other day I licked the nectar from the flowers that the bees like. It was sweet, but it didn’t taste at all like honey.”

  Joeun looked at her in surprise. Now he understood what was puzzling her. It was such an obvious question that he could have laughed out loud, but instead he was intrigued that at only ten she was wondering why honey did not taste the same as the flower nectar from which it was made. “I see. That’s true. So what is honey, then?” Realizing that he had fallen back into his old habit of teaching, he smiled wryly, but Elin did not appear to notice.

  Her expression intent, she said, “Honeybees fill their bellies with nectar and then spit it out when they reach home. So I thought the honey must be the nectar mixed with their saliva…” She paused and Joeun waited, wondering what else was puzzling her. She cocked her head and continued. “But they fly such a long way. I followed them. They went to a meadow so far away that by the time I reached it I was tired and out of breath. Bees are tiny, right? Much smaller than me. So that meadow must be even farther for them.” Joeun was so absorbed that his hand paused on the handle. “My mother told me that people and animals don’t eat just so that they can grow. They need food to give them the energy to move. That’s why they get really hungry if they move a lot or walk a long way. If that’s true, then how can these honeybees survive? They fly so far to eat nectar, but then they fly all the way back home and spit up what they’ve eaten.

  “And what about that honey? It would take a lot of spit to make it so thick and dark… but bees are so little they must have hardly any spit at all. If they cough up that much, wouldn’t they shrivel up and die? How can they fly about as if it didn’t bother them at all?”