Authors: Gene Wolfe
I am very tired; if Elata wishes to lie with a man again, she will have to choose another one. Yet before I sleep, I must write about the woman (Hegesistratus calls her a goddess) with the piebald hounds. What she said and what Hegesistratus said may be important tomorrow.
The goddess was young, less voluptuous than Elata and more beautiful—I feel certain she has never know a man. There were others with her, beautiful women also. Them I could not see as well, because they shunned the brilliant moonlight in which the Huntress shone so boldly.
But first I should tell of her hounds; we saw them before the Huntress and her retinue. Having no sword, I had snatched up a stick. When I saw those hounds, I understood how foolish that had been—a reed would have been of equal service. Each was as big as a calf, and there were twenty at least. Leaning heavily upon my arm (and in truth I do not think she could have stood alone) Elata saved me. The fierce hounds fawned on her, snuffling her scent and licking her fingers with their great, rough tongues when she stroked their heads. I did not venture any familiarity with them, but they did not harm me.
Soon the Huntress appeared with her silver bow. She smiled at us, but her smile was without friendship; if her hounds had brought the stag to bay, her smile would have been the same, or so it seemed to me. Yet how delicate she was! How lovely!
"The man who forgets." Thus she named me; her voice was a girl's, but there was the shout of a hunting horn in it, high and clear. "You will not have forgotten me." Then she touched me with her bow. At once I remembered how I had met her at the crossroads, though at first, and at the last, she had been both older and smaller, flanked by huge black dogs of another breed. I recalled, too, that she was a queen, though she looked so young; and I bowed to her as I had before.
"I see that you've debauched my maid." Half-smiling, she pointed.
I replied, "If you say it, Dark Mother."
She shook her head. "Call me Huntress."
"Yes, Huntress, if that is what you wish."
"You would furnish my pets some sport, perhaps. Would you like a running start? I might permit you a stade or two." Her nymphs were clustering in the darkness behind her; I could hear the silver chimes of their laughter.
I said, "As you wish, Huntress. The end will be the same." Yet the fires on the beach were not much more than a stade away, and I wondered whether I might not snatch up a brand. With fire in my hands and the sleeping sailors roused, the hunt might take a different turn.
A new voice, a man's, called,
"Latro?"
"Over here," I said, hardly raising my voice.
"Is there someone with you?"
I nearly smiled at that. The Huntress answered, "Surely you know us, mantis."
Hegesistratus was nearer now, so that it seemed to me that he must certainly have seen the Huntress in the moonlight; but he said, "Is that a woman by the tree?" Though he had the help of his crutch, he could walk only with difficulty over the dark, uneven ground. I dropped my stick and extended my hand to him; he took it, and at once bowed his head before the Huntress. The Hellenes do not kneel as we do, nor prostrate themselves like the peoples of the East; yet it seems to me that there is more honor for the gods in the bent heads of men who will not kiss the dust for anyone.
"Whom do you serve, Hegesistratus?"
He murmured, "You, Cynthia, should you wish it."
"And you, Latro? Will you serve me again, if I ask it?"
My bowels had turned as milk does in a churn, and the arm with which I supported Elata shook; but I reminded myself that this uncanny woman had given one memory at least back to me—that of my earlier meeting with her. (I have forgotten it now, though I recall that I remembered it not long ago; and I recall still what I thought and said of it.) "You're a queen," I told her humbly. "Even if I wished to, how could I refuse?"
"Others have sometimes managed it. Now listen, both of you. No, by my virginity! Hear me, all three of you."
The girls in the shadows gasped.
"Latro named me a queen. Soon you'll meet another—you may rely upon me for that. She has a strong protector, and I intend to make use of him to flush a boar; all of you must aid, and not oppose, her. But when the moment comes, the slut must lose. It will be at my brother's house—you know it, mantis—and thus you should be on friendly soil. Press on, north and west, until you meet her. The queen will save you, if you don't turn south."
Hegesistratus bowed and I assured her we would do our best, although I did not understand anything she had told us. One of her huge hounds was snuffling Hegesistratus's feet. She glanced at it and said, "Yes, take that scent well."
She told Hegesistratus, "Latro has all the qualities of a hero save one—he forgets instructions. You must see to those. My queen must win in order that the prince may be destroyed—and thus this queen must not win."
He bowed lower still.
"You bring victory, Latro, so you must drive for my prince. If you succeed you'll be rewarded. What is it you wish?"
"My home," I told her, for my heart was still bursting from the sight of it.
"What? Barley fields, pigpens, and cowsheds? They aren't mine to give. I have it—do you remember what it was you asked of Kore?"
I shook my head.
"It was to be reunited with your friends. She granted your wish, sending you to some of them at least. They were dead or dying, as was only to be expected since Kore is the Queen of the Shades. I shall return you to your friends also—but to living ones, for I have no interest in the dead."
Hegesistratus whispered, "Yet you are she who brings sudden death to women."
I was so happy I scarcely heard him. Releasing Elata, I fell to my knees. "Huntress, you are too good!"
She smiled bitterly. "So many have said. You are content, then, with your reward?"
"More than content!"
"I'm delighted to hear it. You shall be punished as well, for what you've done tonight to my maid, losing for a while at least what you're pleased to call your manhood." She advanced toward Hegesistratus; though she was hardly taller than he, she appeared to tower above him. "As for you, you shall not choose your reward. Your filthy longings are known to me, so there is no need of it—that soiled child shall be yours for the present, though Latro has been there before you."
Hegesistratus was already supporting Elata as I had a few moments before; he murmured his thanks.
"But you may have her only until you come this way again," the Huntress warned him. "Whenever you do, she shall be free to reoccupy her home."
At her final word, all were gone—the Huntress herself, her pack, and the maidens of her train; only the mantis, Elata, and I remained in the darkness beneath the largest pine. For a long moment I thought I heard the wild baying of the hounds, far and faint; but even that faded.
Hegesistratus was too lame to walk well over the stones and the slippery carpet of fallen pine needles, and Elata was still too drunk. In the end I carried her down to the beach while he held on to my arm. As we went, I begged him to explain what had taken place—to tell me who the Huntress was and just what power she wielded. He promised he would; but he would not do so then, leading Elata far away from the fires instead. Near the water, where the sand was moist and packed by the waves, he could walk well enough.
Thus I wrote as I did, beginning with the time I noticed Elata watching us. When I had finished writing of the stag, Hegesistratus returned and spoke with me as he had promised. While we talked, Elata returned as well, and washed herself in the stream.
I asked Hegesistratus who the Huntress was, and added that he seemed to know her.
"Only by reputation," he told me. "I had never seen her before. You have, obviously."
I could no longer remember the time, but I felt that was correct and told him so.
"She is a goddess," he told me. "Could you think her an ordinary woman when you spoke to her?"
"I thought her a woman," I said, "because that was how she appeared to me—but certainly not an ordinary one. Is her name Cynthia?"
"That is one of them," Hegesistratus told me. "She has a great many. Do you know of the Destroyer?"
I shook my head and said that from the sound of his name I did not wish to.
"You are sadly mistaken, forgetting how many things should be destroyed—wolves and lions, for example. Why, he even kills mice."
At that, some memory called through the mist that seems to fill the back of my head, and I said that though there might be no harm and even some good in the destruction of mice, I was far from sure I would wish to see all the wolves and lions dead.
"You would if you kept sheep or goats," Hegesistratus told me practically, "or even cattle. Do you have many cattle? The goddess implied you did."
I said that I owned a yoke of oxen at least, if the vision Elata had shown me was true. After that I had to tell him all about it—how she had returned me to a place she had said (and I had truly felt) was my home, and all that we had seen and done there. When I asked how she had accomplished it, he admitted he did not know and wondered aloud if such things were still in her power. I asked whether she was a witch.
"No," he said, "that is a very different thing, believe me. She is a dryad, a kind of nymph."
I said, "I thought that only meant a bride, a marriageable young woman."
Hegesistratus nodded. "Since you are a foreigner, that is easy to understand. Of all the unseen beings, the nymphs are nearest us; they are not even immortals, although they are very long-lived. Our country people both fear and love them, and as a compliment to a girl, her swain may pretend to believe her a nymph in disguise. From such frivolity, 'nymph' has become a commonplace compliment."
I said, "I see. It would seem that another way in which they are much like us is that they, too, must obey the Huntress, whom you say is a goddess."
"She is," Hegesistratus affirmed. "She is the sister—in fact more than a sister, the twin—of the Destroyer, of whom we just were speaking. He is one of the best of the Twelve, a true friend to men, the patron of divination, of healing, and of all the other arts. His sister..."
Seeing his expression I said, "Is not quite so friendly, I take it."
Just then Io came to sit with us, rubbing her eyes but full of curiosity. "Who's that woman?" she asked Hegesistratus. "I woke up, and she was lying next to me. She says she belongs to you."
Hegesistratus told her that was true.
"Then you'd better find her some clothes, or there may be trouble when the sailors wake up."
I sent Io to bring Elata's gown, which had been left under the pine.
Half to himself, Hegesistratus said, "I wish there were a place on the ship where she would be out of sight. I hate the thought of them ogling her." I pointed out that he need only put her forward of the first bench, at which he chuckled. "You are right, of course, when the men are rowing; but most of the time they are not."
I said, "Even when they're not, only those nearest her will be able to see her clearly, because the ship's so long and slender. But is what the sailors are going to want from her so different from what you want?"
"My filthy desires, you mean. That was what the goddess called them."
I nodded.
"She also indicated that you had the nymph before me."
I forbore telling him that I had her twice, and apologized, mentioning that the Huntress had not yet given him Elata when we had lain together.
He sighed. "Nor would I have her now if you had not. As for those filthy desires of mine, only a woman would call them that, and not very many of them. I lost my wife, you see, some years ago; and it is not easy for a lame man far from home to find a new one. Or for any man alive to find as good a one, for that matter."
I asked, "Doesn't the Huntress have lovers of her own?"
Hegesistratus shook his head. "She has had a few—or at least men or gods who wanted to be. But they all came to bad ends, and quickly. There is a story... I don't know whether it's true."
I urged him to tell it anyway, for though I am so tired, I know how important it may be to learn as much as possible about the Huntress.
"All right. She is the daughter of the Thunderer—I don't think I've mentioned that—and according to this legend, at the age of three she came to him and asked for as many names as her brother, a bow and silver arrows, to be queen of the nymphs, and a great many other things; and when he promised to grant all her wishes, she asked that she might be full-grown at once, like her parthenogenetic sister the Lady of Thought, who was of age when she sprang from her father's head. That, too, was granted her, and it is sometimes said that because of it she has never grown up in truth."
I suggested that the same thing could be said of this Lady of Thought, and Hegesistratus agreed. "Neither one has ever had a real lover, as far as anybody knows. But the Lady of Thought, at least, does not insist upon virginity in others. It may be that she is not a whole woman, just as certain men are not whole men, because of the way she was born."
Io returned then to report that she had found Elata's gown and covered her with it. She said also that there was a large animal moving among the trees; it had frightened her so much she had snatched up the gown and run. Hegesistratus and I agreed it was probably a cow, but she seemed doubtful. He asked for her help in protecting Elata, to which she readily consented after receiving my permission. I suggested that the boy might help as well, but they both insist that there is no boy on our ship.
Now I see the first faint light of dawn.
SEVEN
Oeobazus Is Among the Apsinthians
HEGESISTRATUS SAID, "IT IS BOTH bad news for us, and good. But I confess that I would not change it if I could. The news might so easily be worse."
Our captain nodded, rubbing his bald head, as I believe he must often do when he wants to think.
Io, who had gone with Hegesistratus to watch Elata, asked them, "Who are the Apsinthians?"
But before I write the rest of the things that were said today in the cookshop, I should write here who these people are and so forth, though perhaps something about them is written elsewhere in this book already. (I have been looking, but have found only a little.)