Chapter 20 #2
The queen was bleeding again and, on such nights, she saw fit to leave the palace.
Her husband was not a bad-tempered man, but the building of his palace and its fortress had ground to a halt and, once met with the news that she still did not carry his son, he would become insufferably self-pitying.
Her placid face had its limit. She would leave him to his mother to soothe.
When he would whine that perhaps he had been foolish, in marrying one so close to his age, the dowager would assure him that a wise and dignified queen was better than any nymphae he might have found.
When the king would turn to his mother and whisper, in hushed concern, that twenty-two was old, very old, for a woman to start bearing children, she would remind her son that his wife’s godhood was plain for all to see and that, by the standards of a naiad, she was a nymphae still.
The queen was grateful for her mother-in-law’s patience.
If she was to be as her own mother, it was unlikely that she would be so indulgent.
She left the palace compound and descended its hills, following the path lit by the moonlight, to the forest. She had grown to love this forest, in the months that she had lived here, and had taken to walking it when she bled.
She had never seen such a forest before, they were not so dense and green in her homeland.
Within it she would find wild saffron to make tea that soothed the cramping and the sickness, she would find sweet-smelling flowers that brushed up against memories, she would find the strength to keep on.
The thicket above her head dappled the light as she entered, keeping to the path.
She could hear the trilling of the night birds.
Here they spoke in a language she almost understood.
Some of them would soon pass over her old home and offer to take messages to her grandmother.
There, in their bright focus, she found the beginnings of healing.
The king had plans to cut this forest down, in order to expand his fortress.
When she would emerge from behind the walls of her secrets and hear him discussing such plans, she almost set to scheming and dissuasion.
But then the ennui would seize her again and she would return to working her body without working her mind.
She took a moment on this walk, as she did every walk when she bled, to find a shallow, natural pool to bathe in.
She stripped and stood in it and felt a returning to herself.
It was not like river bathing at home, not even close, but seeing a few droplets of her blood in the water cluster then fan, billowing like her chiton on her wedding day, heartened her, somehow.
She felt cleansed, as though, with each bleed, each time she made this journey, some of the worst of what tore at her flowed out of her body in crimson rivulets, only to be replaced by whatever powered this pool.
She tipped her face to the moon, just beginning to wane, and imagined an easing, like the second day of bleeding, where the cramps had lessened.
They had not gone, they never really went, not until it was over, but she could withstand them.
She was grateful for that at least, and pitied the stars with a ferocity that closed her eyes, as she imagined the perpetual agony of burning.
Her body embraced and ate itself, like the ouroboros in the stories north of her homeland. All was a cycle.
She did not know she had company until a voice said, ‘You are the queen.’
She snatched for her dress and stumbled, fearing hands and breath and teeth furred with detritus.
She pulled it on before facing the newcomer, who was not immediately easy to see in the gloom.
The grey-green of her skin seemed part of the forest and she stood tall, much taller than the queen herself, built like a spruce, though her limbs had a litheness, despite their heft.
Matted brown hair knotted about her shoulders, hanging over her breasts.
She was entirely naked, but the queen felt no discomfort.
She had one eye. A Cyclops.
They stared at each other. After a moment, the queen realized that the Cyclops was waiting for a response. ‘Oh. Yes. I am.’
The Cyclops lowered her head. ‘I heard that you walked this way some nights. I wish to speak with you.’
‘Speak? With me?’
‘Yes.’
The queen was bemused. ‘I did not know that Cyclopes were creatures of civility. I was taught that you dine first and discuss later.’
‘And yet, you do not run from me.’
‘I am sure you could outrun me.’
‘Still,’ the Cyclops sat abruptly, splashing her large feet into the pool, ‘most mortals try.’
The queen backed away to the opposite edge and sat slowly. ‘I have seen worse monsters.’
The Cyclops looked intrigued. ‘Oh?’
‘Men. And gods.’
‘Ah.’
‘And horses,’ the queen added and was gratified by the Cyclops, who gave a little shudder.
‘Frightful creatures.’
‘So.’ The queen placed her hands neatly in her lap, feeling strangely at ease. After all of it, after everything, to sit in the light of the moon and talk to one that others might run from was a sort of comfort. ‘What did you wish to speak to me about?’
‘We – my sisters and I—’
‘Sisters? There are more of you? In here?’
‘Yes. We have learned that you plan on cutting the forest down.’
The queen was not expecting this. ‘Oh. Well. My husband plans for it, not I.’
‘Why?’
‘He wishes to grow our home.’
‘But our home is here. And has been since Gaia walked these lands.’
The queen did not know what to say. ‘What do you eat?’ she asked instead.
‘Bark. Grass. Star shine. The smell of the rain.’ She paused and then, ‘I am also partial to spiders.’
‘But not people?’
The Cyclops wrinkled her nose. ‘Not we. Some of the others, our males mostly, they do. But you do not nourish us. You would be a … mean choice.’
The Cyclops shifted one foot and then the other. She seemed impatient and the queen was amused.
‘We would build in the other direction, towards the cliff path. But we are blocked by a formation of rocks that not even a horde of our strongest mules can move.’
The Cyclops regarded her. Her one eye was unavoidable. It was large and even in the light of the moon, which turned all things to a livid wash, it glowed the green of bright sun through leaves.
‘If we move the rocks, you will leave the forest to stand as it does?’
The queen thought. It would mean awakening the sleeping self that could barely rise to look upon the life before her, so different from her expectations.
‘You and your sisters. Are you good to each other?’
The Cyclops blinked her one eye deliberately. The queen suspected that the creature found her equally as strange. ‘Yes. Of course. We are sisters. Lovers. Daughters. Mothers. We are everything to each other.’
The queen nodded, as if satisfied. ‘For this, I need two things from you.’
‘Yes?’
‘First, once you have moved the rocks, you must construct a fort. A grand fort with high stone walls and tunnels.’
‘The people of your kingdom will see us and chase us.’
‘You see well in the dark?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we will do it by the new moon.’
The Cyclops nodded. ‘And the second thing?’
‘Find me as much saffron as you can.’
She angled her head. ‘Why?’
The queen sighed and stood. ‘Men do not like obstacles. They cut them down. I must present a bigger one. One that he cannot simply cut down.’
The Cyclops did not look as though she understood, but she did not push it. These were people matters. She stood too.
‘The new moon, then.’ She held out her hand and added, ‘I am Autochthe, by the way. You did not ask.’
The queen hesitated and then smiled, shaking it.
When King Perseus discovered the next morning that his wife, knowing of his concerns regarding the expansion of the palace, had enlisted the help of a new host of workers, he was immensely gratified.
It was no matter that they were sworn to work only in the secret dark of blackest night.
Who was he, new to this land, to question their cultural customs?
She had assured him of their strength and had promised that they would even use the stones blocking the cliff path as part of the construction.
He had kissed her in gratitude. When she had added, almost as an afterthought, that expanding towards the forest might bode ill, he had barely heard her.
‘What was that, my queen?’
‘The forest, my lord. It is home to an unusual quantity of wild saffron. Cutting it down may further turn the gods against my fertility.’
Well, that would not do. He would have the greatest palace and the highest walls. He must have sons to fill it.