Then it began to rain. It was one of those sudden rains which rapidly become a tempest. Lightning made of the sky a great parchment of bold hieroglyphics.
“Boreas out of the north,” I cried. “No more dancing tonight.” I tried to shelter you from the big cold drops.
The bears scrambled for shelter among the trees. Fearless of Cyclopes, they feared the lightning above all natural dangers because it singed their fur.
“Myiskos, Hylas,” I called. “Back to the hive.”
“Honey Hair!”
I knew the voice before I saw the face.
Goliath stood in our path. The noise of the storm had hidden his approach. The rain and trees hid most of his body, but I saw that his red eye had fixed me in its baleful glare.
Remembering wings, I whispered around him, you in my arms, and fled toward the hive, only to see a sight more terrible than a Gorgon’s stare. The palace was under attack. The workers were making a gallant defense with their poison spears, but Cretan palaces have no walls, and the bears had scattered among the trees. I looked behind me for Myiskos and Hylas, who had waited to wrap their musical instruments in cloths against the storm.
Myiskos raised the stick with which he had beaten the drum. It was a pathetic weapon. Goliath snapped it between his fingers and clutched Myiskos around the waist Hylas ran at him with no weapon but his flute, which he tried to use as a dagger; Goliath, whose skin was as tough as that of a Hydra, seized him with his free hand, thrust him above his head with Myiskos, and flung them against each other and then to the ground.
What must I do? What could I do? I could not get to the palace. I could not save my drones. I could only save my son. The sea, I remembered. The sea… Jonathan can swim like a fish…
It was my last sight of the hive. I thought that the waves would shred our wings. I thought that weariness would turn us into lead and sink us among the crabs and the Hydras. But we did not fight the waves, you and I, we rolled with them; we used them to buoy us like two little boats. Thus we rode with the storm, long, long-how many turns of the hourglass? — scarcely using our arms and legs.
The storm subsided like a placated god. The Great Green Sea enfolded us in his silver fleece: whitecaps, spray, the aftermath of Poseidon’s wrath. Had he sent the storm to conceal the attack of his sons, the Cyclopes?
We could not see our island.
“It’s that way,” you gasped.
“I know,” I said, but the current swept us inexorably from our hive, our home.
There were halcyon times when we rested between the waves. We lived on seaweed and, being Sirens, drank the water in spite of its salt It was a dangerous journey, it was a desperate journey; but the current, at first inimicable, became our friend and carried us toward the mainland and the coast of Philistia…
We climbed from the sea and fell, exhausted, onto a bed of broken shells.
“Mama,” you asked. “Where are we?”
In the distance, a city coruscated with slender temples and laden wharves, goose-prowed ships and cockleshell fishing boats. Around us, white sand was punctuated with wizened bushes of sea-grapes and driftwood as black as timbers from a burned galley.
“Philistia, I think.”
“Will the Philistines shelter us?”
“I’m afraid they would take us captive and put us in cages to show in their temples.”
“You mean they would show us off? You, a queen? Silver-gilt said they were like the Cretans.”
“It’s true they came by way of Crete from their northern home. And they are kind. But all human peoples take slaves. Even we have our sea cows to give us milk.”
“Why don’t we swim home?” you asked.
“Because,” I said, “I have hurt my arm.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’ve slept all day,” you said. “Eat now, Mama.” “Yes, you must both eat.” The speaker was a young woman who had darkened her eyes with kohl, ruddied her cheeks with the powder of the insect called cochineal, and reddened her hair with the dye of the henna plant. Even her voluminous robe could not conceal her enticing figure. I mistook her for a Philistine courtesan until I saw the sea in her eyes and recognized a considerably altered Alecto.
“Silvergilt, you’ve hidden your wings and dyed your hair! I must call you Scarletgilt.”
“It’s just as well, Honey Hair. Wings mean death or slavery in this land. The Philistines will worship you but lock you in a temple. The Israelites will take you for a demon, since you are too beautiful and the wrong sex to be an angel, and probably stone you.”
The sight of her metamorphosed from a free-living Siren into a human-appearing prostitute saddened me almost out of the gladness of seeing her.
“What shall we do?” I sighed. “Bumblebee and I.” Even a queen, particularly when she has lost her palace and her kingdom, can ask advice.
“What I did. Hide the marks of our race. Become one with this land. Only three months ago I arrived on these shores. Look at my feet”
Her sandals of kidskin revealed toes without webs. “A simple operation with a knife removed them. As you know,” she added with a disconcerting smile, “solitary queens like me have always been expert with cutlery.”
“You live among the Philistines?”
“No. I’ve stayed here on the beach since my arrival. The first day I met a young warrior who had come to net murexes. The cost of purple dye is prohibitive, except to kings,‘ he said. ’Yet Philistine warriors like myself are expected to wear a purple tunic on feast days and a purple plume into battle. I shall make my own dye.‘ At first he mistook me for a daughter of the fish-god, Dagon, and offered, indeed threatened, to carry me to his priest in Gath. I persuaded him to change his mind. When military duties called him back to his garrison, he left me his tent and sent me robes and jewels by way of his friends, who invariably lingered for a night’s refreshment. After him, there have been not only warriors but fishermen, merchants from Phoenicia, and even Israelite shepherds who owe fealty to Philistia.” “All in three weeks?”
“A night with me is worth a year with the best wife in the country.”
“But don’t your lovers die in the act of love?”
“Drones disembowel themselves and of course they die.
But human males are constituted for many acts and, I must add, they seem to improve with practice. Think of it, my dear. Every evening a nuptial flight, and with a practiced male, not a callow drone. When there are no young men- and I do insist upon youth, even though I am, as you know, upwards of a hundred-I work my arts of sorcery for the old. I conjure the dead from Sheol, a region of brackish streams and tongueless ghosts, the place where the Israelites go when they die. The spirits are glad to answer my summons and leave such a dreary region, if only for a look or a few words exchanged with a mate or a friend. Thus, with my two occupations, I can live near the sea and still pass for a native. I was walking along the seashore miles to the south when I heard you call.“
“But I didn’t call.”
“Your spirit did. I knew you needed help. You and Bumblebee there.”
“But my toes,” I hurried to say, “and my wings-”
“I will give you toes like mine. As for your wings, you must simply keep them hidden. They are very small; Israelite robes are very loose and concealing. Even if you intend to become a courtesan like me, you will have no problem. As for myself, I give my lovers a potion of forgetfulness-sea nettles crushed with the inky juice of the squid. Thus they forget my wings but remember me. It’s all in knowing the right dosage. Too much and they’ll forget everything. You may do the same-after I clip between your toes.”
“And Bumblebee?”
“Easier still. At his age, he wont even feel the pain of my knife. And you can teach him never to show his back.”
“It means we can never go home. How can we cross the sea without webbed feet?”
“If you wait till your arm is healed, you can certainly never go home. And what is home anyway with the likes of Goliath skulking about the place?”