At that time, Aeacus never showed the least jealousy. Perhaps, knowing himself adored by Kora, he felt no need to be jealous. Besides, he liked Eunostos. It was soon a familiar sight to see the two of them exploring the forest, with Eunostos acting as guide and pointing out landmarks. Here was the hive of the Bee Queen Amber (“Watch out for her. They say she’s meaner than Saffron, the one who kidnapped Kora”). Here were the log lairs of the Bear Girls-you could tell by the briar patch which they had trained to circle them like a wall and keep out predatory bears.
They hunted together too with bow and arrow or blowgun-woodpeckers, sparrows, and rabbits for the table-but Eunostos explained that they must never kill the larger animals like deer and bears.
“They’re too much like us,” he said. “We only kill the small ones because we have to eat. Or wolves, because they like to eat us.”
Aeacus in turn taught Eunostos the uses of a dagger: how to dart and duck and thrust, how to wound, and, if necessary, to kill.
“You can even take on a man with a sword and twice your size. Small as I am, if I were to use a sword against an Achaean, I would stand as much chance as a sparrow against a hawk. The sword would weigh me down and he would slice off my head with his first good blow. But with a dagger, I’m more than a match for him. When he swings, I’m already somewhere else, usually stabbing him between the ribs.”
Eunostos was too courteous to explain that he was not likely to meet anyone twice his size, that he preferred a sword to a dagger, and that what he would really like was a double-edged battle ax, which his ancestors had used against the Centaurs before the two races became friends.
Lithe-limbed little Cretan and robust, red-maned Minotaur: unlikely friends in a friendly forest.
Needless to say, Eunostos did not neglect his other friends in favor of Aeacus. He called almost daily at my tree.
“Have you gotten over her?” I asked him one day. We were on our way to Centaur Town, I to visit with Moschus (yes, we were keeping company again), he to trade a small wooden chest he had made for seeds and farm implements, since he was enlarging his garden.
He thought before he answered. “No, I just love her differently.”
“What is she like to you now, Eunostos?”
“Like a hand loom. She’s part of her house, part of her tree, quiet but industrious.”
“No longer mysterious? No longer a goddess?”
“Not any more. But I don’t mind. Now I don’t have to be shy with her.”
“And Aeacus. How does he see her?”
“I expect he still sees her as a goddess. You see, she’s so quiet with him that he can think her into anything he likes.” He might have been talking about himself before he lost Kora.
“And he’s still a god to her?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And to you?”
“A good friend. I like to go hunting with him. He only kills when he needs something to eat, and then nothing big like a deer or a bear. And he tells me about the palace at Knossos, and his brother, the king, who sits on a throne flanked by two stone griffins.”
“Eunostos, today you sound as old and wise as Chiron. No more poems. No more reposing among the flowers.” But I suspected and hoped that the old Eunostos, the young Eunostos, still lingered beneath his new serious mien.
“I had to grow up fast,” he admitted.
“But not too fast to have a little fun, I hope. You have a long time in which to be old. I’ll bet you haven’t been wenching since-”
“Not since I fell in love with Kora,” he admitted. “But don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten how. It’s like learning to count on an abacus. You never forget.”
He held out his hand and a butterfly, the large yellow kind with black markings on his wings, settled as if he had found a flower.
“Here,” he said. “Here’s a sunbeam for you. But don’t brush the dust off his wings.” He gave a tilt with his hand and the butterfly flew to me.
“You ought to save him for Kora.”
His green eyes grew wide with mischief. “She doesn’t need a thing.”
“No?”
“She’s going to have a baby!”
“A baby? But Eunostos, how wonderful!” Kora had already told me, but I let Eunostos think that he was breaking the news.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell. It sort of slipped out.”
“I’m glad it did. You know, I’ve had a bit of practice at midwifery. I delivered several of my own children without any help from anyone. I wouldn’t trust Myrrha, bless her heart, to deliver a blue monkey. She would talk it back into its mother’s womb. Is Aeacus pleased?”
Eunostos looked puzzled. “I really don’t know. He loves children, but he hasn’t had much to say about this one. In fact he’s taken to going off in the forest by himself. I saw him one day at the edge of the clearing where he had his battle with the Achaeans. Just standing there and looking into space.”
“I imagine he’s thinking about the complications.”
“But I thought Dryads had easy childbirths. My mother said I came in the time it takes a deer to wade across a small stream. The next day she was up and baking a woodpecker pie.”
“I was thinking of political considerations. You know, Aeacus’s brother hasn’t any wife or children. That means that this baby of Kora’s will be first in line for the throne of Knossos.”
“Knossos will have to find another king,” said Eunostos indignantly. “This baby’s going to stay with Kora, and you know Kora can’t leave the forest. She would die away from her tree.”
“That’s what I mean. Complications.”
If Kora foresaw difficulties, she never admitted to them, though she spoke often of the child. On one particular day in early fall, when the vineyards were swollen with grapes and the Centaurs were setting their wicker vats on stools to prepare for the vintage, she sat at her loom and Eunostos held her yarn. Aeacus had gone to visit Chiron, with whom he had struck up a friendship, and left Eunostos to keep his wife company. But she was not spinning, she was talking. She always found more to say to Eunostos than to Aeacus. Since her marriage, she had grown surprisingly fond of small talk, all the little happenings in the forest which Eunostos and I saw or heard about from our friends. How the Bee Queen Amber had been sharply chastised by Chiron when she was apprehended in stolen sandals. How two more Bears of Artemis had joined Phlebas’s herd and stealthily gathered weed in the forest by the light of the moon. Kora reserved her divinity for Aeacus. With Eunostos and me, she could show herself to be, as he had described her, familiar and pleasantly mundane like a hand loom. It was no wonder that she had trouble talking to Aeacus. After marriage, it is hard to be and at the same time talk with a dream.
She and Eunostos were discussing her child. “If it’s a girl, I’m going to name her Thea for my great-grandmother. If it’s a boy, his father will call him Icarus. It’s a good family name among the Cretans.” She had trained her hair to dip in curls over her forehead, the Cretan style, and covered her pointed ears.
“Why not have twins? Then you can use both names.”
Kora laughed heartily. She often laughed with Eunostos. “One at a time, please. Can you see four of us in this tiny room? With just me here, Aeacus has to get off by himself sometimes.”
“You could marry your mother to one of her suitors and get an extra room. By the way, I miss your ears.”
“Aeacus says I’m more mysterious when I hide them. It leaves something to guess at. As for marrying mother, I’m afraid there’s not much hope unless I can find a deaf Centaur.”
“If you have two babies,” said Eunostos, and Dryads often bore twins, “you could always give one to me.”
“A bachelor with a baby? Eunostos, you wouldn’t know what to feed him.”
“I’d leave him with you till he was weaned. Then I’d feed him-well, the same as I eat. Fried sparrows. Woodpecker eggs. Weasel stew.”