“Linden!” His shout echoed around the holy chamber. “Come here, you fine little runt, and taste your namesake—lime blossom is good eating!”
“Only the best for me.” A small drone straightened his neck ruff and crossed to where Sir Quercus stood gorging. When he bent to taste it, the other pushed his face in it, then grabbed him by the fur and pulled him out, laughing at his jest.
“A king’s share, to console you for your certain failure.”
Sir Linden wiped his face of honey and forced a grim smile. “You are too sure, my brother. For I hear of queens who will favor wit over strength.” He pulled his ruff straight. “Such a one will be mine.”
“Ha!” Sir Quercus patted him so hard he staggered. “My wit is all pent in my prick, so I shall triumph with her as well.”
“Unless a crow choose you first and snap you in its great blue beak!”
The sisters gasped at the mention of the bird.
“More likely take you,” said Sir Quercus, “who can barely keep up with a butterfly. Though you’d not make much of a feast.”
Sir Linden continued his grooming. “Unlike you, so large and magnificent.”
“You speak truly.” Sir Quercus turned to the sisters. “Fortune favors me, does she not, ladies?” And he swelled his sturdy thorax, raised his fur in three tall crests on his head, and pumped his male aroma so it rose up around him in a cloud. Some sisters swooned, and some, like Sister Prunus, spontaneously applauded.
“Who will groom me?”
Several sisters rushed forward and other drones unlatched their wings in invitation, and they too were attended. Flora began edging to the doors.
“You there—wait.” Sister Prunus came toward her. “We have not called for Sanitation—what in the air is a dirty flora doing here? Did housekeeping leave the scent-gate down again?”
Flora was about to answer, then held her tongue. She nodded and grunted.
“Oh, these shortages are becoming abominable. The wrong kin everywhere—and yours so stupid and slow you cannot follow the simplest track—” Sister Prunus looked at Flora suspiciously. “Unless you were stealing!”
Flora urgently shook her head and put her antennae low. Her kin behaved cravenly, she had seen and hated it so many times—but now she did the same, backing away as if in terror. She bumped into someone behind her, and Sister Prunus smacked her on the head between the antennae.
“Your Maleness, allow me to apologize.” Sister Prunus smiled sweetly. “Please forgive the soiling contact. I will call a higher kin to groom you.”
“From Sanitation, is she?” It was Sir Linden, the only drone unattended. “Are they all so hairy? Do not trouble yourself, Sister Primrose. Today I have a mind for something different. This one may groom me.”
“Your Maleness—a flora?”
“Do not question His Maleness’s particular preference.” He looked at Flora, and she saw how honey was still caught in his fur. “Bring me some spurge nectar.”
“Spurge? Your Maleness jests!” Sister Prunus laughed hysterically. “He knows that we would never serve it, corrupt as it is from the Myriad’s feet.” She folded her hands. “You will not find it in this hive.”
“Oh. A pity, for I heard it was good, with a cricket’s kick.”
“Your Maleness, nobody here would say that, for no forager—”
“It was no forager, Sister Plantain—”
“Prunus, Your Maleness.”
“As you wish, Madam. But it was a fine, dark fellow at Congregation who stank of it, and he said it made his dronewood hard as the twig we stood on.”
“Stop, please! Your Maleness speaks too boldly—”
“At least I think that’s what he said, in his thick and foreign tongue.”
“Foreign?” Sister Prunus recovered herself. “From what direction? I only ask because the Sage like to be informed of all immigrants in our neighborhood.” She lowered her voice. “In case of disease, you see. Also, they take our nectar.”
“Calm yourself, Sister. This Congregation was farther than you could fly.”
“I am just a house bee, I did not presume. But— Your Maleness is not thinking of inviting any guests? Our pantries are emptier than we would like—”
“Do you not think I have enough competition as it is?” Sir Linden looked gloomily at the other drones being groomed. “In any case, the dark fellow was last seen leading the field in pursuit of a very fine princess, and is probably now king in some sumptuous palace. Run and tell your dreary priestesses that.”
“Fresh news, I shall!” Sister Prunus bobbed a curtsy, rejuvenated with excitement. “News is always of value to Sister Sage—thank you, Your most generous Maleness.” She ran off.
Flora started after her, anxious to be gone.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Sir Linden pointed to his crotch. “You have to groom me. I can’t be the only one without someone.”
At his strong smell, another pheromone lock burst open inside Flora’s antennae. Her mind flooded with disordered images—
Larva-babies in their cradles—a shriveled wing pulled taut—
She felt him trying to push her down.
“Are you deaf? Groom me when I tell you—it’s the law.”
A baby on a hook—
Flora shoved him away and ran out into the prayer-filled corridor. He followed.
“I am a prince of the realm! You will obey me!”
Trapped between the small drone and a phalanx of identical Sage priestesses marching toward the Fanning Hall in a cloud of incense, Flora hunched herself down like the lowliest sanitation worker.
“How dare you—” Sir Linden lunged for her and slipped in the path of the Sage priestesses. Unable to pass a male without obeisances, they were forced to stop while he got to his feet, cursing wildly.
Flora did not look back but ran as fast as she could. She almost missed the small, dark doorway, but as she dashed in to hide, the ground fell away under her feet and she tumbled, for it was not a room, but a staircase.
The steps were deep and steep and she kept her wings tight against her body as she struggled to right herself. Falling against an old wax wall, she clung and listened for pursuit from above.
There was neither scent nor sound, only the pumping of her own blood and the thirsty pull of air into her breathing spiracles. Flora forced her panic down. Her newly functioning antennae told her she was on the lowest level of the hive, and the final flight of steps leveled out into a small corridor that led to a door. She crept forward to scan what was beyond.
Through the old wax she first detected the distinctive odor of her own kin, and then the long, inert forms of bees. It was a worker dormitory, and a cleaning detail. Deeply relieved, Flora opened the door—and stepped into the morgue.
Several of her kin-sisters stared back in equal surprise, then emitted a strange sound that might have been laughter. One signaled her to close the door, then they continued taking bodies down from the racks. For the first time, Flora became conscious of a definite intelligence behind their strange faces. With a jolt of excitement, she understood that these floras were from the top echelon of Sanitation, responsible for taking the cadavers to the landing board to fly them out of the hive.
Flora bit hold of the biggest, heaviest corpse she could see, a bald old sister from Patisserie with pollen hidden in her pockets. Then she followed her kin-sisters out of the morgue toward the sun-warmed wood of the landing board and the vault of sky beyond.