Thomas Swann - How are the Mighty fallen

Well, no matter. She was used to pleasing men, from virgins to masochists. Fathers had brought her their sons and asked her to teach them the art of love, and old graybeards had visited her for reassurance that they could still serve Ashtoreth as well as Yahweh. It was a point of pride that she could satisfy any man of any race, even if he was impotent or a lover of other men. After all, she was a Siren, and Sirens-their persons as well as their possessions and their arts-were the ultimate aphrodisiacs.

To Blue Eyes she said, “There’s an inn down the road. It'll do for the night, if you don’t mind fleas and thieves. That is, unless you want to come with us and watch.”

Blue Eyes laughed and a red tendril of hair escaped from his hood. “I’m a doer, not a watcher.” Then to his friend, “I’ll see you in the morning. If the evening doesn’t go well, come any time you like.”

The two engaged in whispered conversation.

“But what do I do? I mean, to get started. She’ll expect compliments and gewgaws and who knows what amorous tricks.”

“Ask her price. Give her the shekels in advance and make clear they’re all you have, so you won’t be robbed in your ‘Then-?”

“Compliment her. Treat her like a bride. Don’t make her feel you’re buying her but wooing her ”

“I get tonguetied when I have to compliment a strange.

“You can be as eloquent as Samuel when you want to Now get on with it before you change your mind.”

“Alecto’s hut had earned her the local name ‘the Witch of Endor.’”

She looked intently into Green Eyes’ face and took his hand. “You will do nicely, my dear,” she said and led him, shivering, into what, on the outside, was indistinguishable from the other rounded huts of wattle and brick, which resembled a crooked row of horseshoe crabs. The inside of Alecto’s hut, however, had earned her the local name “the Witch of Endor.”

The boy gasped. “It’s like a seacave.” A fisherman’s net hung like a tapestry on the far wall, and she had strung it with murexes, conch shells, and starfish. The masthead of a Philistine galley, a great wooden goose, presided over the room like a guardian god, but the true god was the Goddess, whose image in terra-cotta, life-sized, stood beside the goose as if to say: “I am the one who really sails the ships-or sinks them.” She was exquisitely carved and expertly painted with red ocher and powdered lapis lazuli, and Alecto was very proud that a priest who was also a sculptor, Philistine needless to say, since there were no Israelite sculptors, had called her image “lovelier than any in Gaza or Gath, and almost as lovely as you.” She had not charged him a shekel for the night.

The other walls hung with the shields which Philistine sailors fastened to the hulls of their ships, the shields which, staring like dragon eyes, had struck demonic terror into the hearts of the Egyptians when the Philistine war galleys had first invaded their waters. The couch rested on a framework of oars carved with tiny figures of sailors and fishermen. The pillows danced with embroidered tarpons. The drinking cups leaped with flying fish. A fresh salty scent pervaded the room, and Alecto noticed with pleasure that a look of wonderment had come into the boy’s eyes, as if he were remembering sea-girt islands and malachite seas.

The better to admire the room, he thrust the robe away from his face and revealed a luxuriance of hair so yellow that it seemed to have been woven on looms within the sun. How could she fail to recognize the prince of Israel? His beauty and bravery were as famous as his friendship with David, who, she realized, had been his blue-eyed friend.

She could not restrain the cry, “Bumblebee!”

He looked at her in astonishment. “You know me?”

“Yes, my dear. I knew you as a little child. And I know why you must come to me, a whore, though the women of Israel clamor for your attention. Has your mother told you about our race, the Sirens?“

“A little.”

“Then she has told you that there is only one mature female, the queen, and many drones-the workers don’t count — in each of our hives, and the males must console each other, except in the nuptial flight.”

“The Tragic Exaltation, Mama called it But it holds no attraction for me. And that’s why I still cleave to men instead of women.”

“And the present man being David, I may not be able to help you. He looks like a harvest god. That glory of flaming hair! It positively aureoles him.”

He smiled with pleasure at her praise of his friend, and she warmed with the sweetness of him.

“I’m glad I found you. Mama would have sought you a long time ago except for my father-that is, stepfather. She was afraid she would endanger you-reveal you as a sorceress, a Cretan, a Siren. He never lets her talk about her old life. She didn’t even tell me about my past until a few weeks ago, when I met David and-”

“Loved him? And thought you had committed a terrible sin, the Sin of Sodom?”

“Yes. Before I had even touched him, I felt like a leper. But now we are lovers.”

“Then why do you need me?‘

“David is going to marry my sister.” He might have said: “David is going to die.”

“And you are hurt and angry and want to show him you can possess a woman too?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve come for practice. One day I will probably have to marry too-to produce an heir, don't you see. And I have to know what to do. My bride will undoubtedly be a virgin, and if I’m as ignorant as she is, well probably spend our wedding night playing draughts. I’ve never been with a woman. I think you are very beautiful, but even so I don’t want to-I don’t know how to-”

“Lie with me, Jonathan? The first thing is to feel that you don’t have to. If we spend the whole night in conversation, why, nothing is lost, and no one will ever know that you were not the most exhilarating lover of my life. First, though,

I shall, cook you a supper. Love languishes on an empty stomach.“

In spite of her disavowal of domesticity, she prepared a succulent dinner of quail cooked in figs, wheaten bread in which raisins swam like minnows, and a pudding whose ingredients she carefully withheld from him because they included a generous amount of powdered mandrake roots, the strongest aphrodisiac in Israel. “Now for some beer,” she said. “I expect you don’t often get that, do you?”

“Usually I drink milk or wine.” Beer, an import from Philistia, was looked upon with suspicion by the elders of Israel. “However-”

“There now, you’ve had enough.”

Jonathan, finishing the beer in his cup with one big gulp, blurted. “About this lovemaking. Won’t you, uh, disembowel me? After all, I’m a drone.”

Alecto said with professional pride. “You forget that I am a courtesan as well as a Siren. The usual queen-your mother, for example, if she still ruled a hive-disembowels her lovers by the frenzy of her passion. After all, she must wait a year for that one little moment of satisfaction and make do with an inexperienced drone who probably has a friend. Furthermore, she feels that she is honoring him by sending him directly to the Celestial Vineyard.”

“It’s an honor I can do without.”

“Exactly. You don’t want to go without David. Besides, in Israel, who knows if you would wind up in the Vineyard or in Sheol? My point is that I will pleasure you so soothingly that you needn’t fear the loss of any vital organs, genitals, abdomen, what have you. I am a Siren. I am also a courtesan who has raised lust to art, and love to genius. Forgive my boasting. I only want you to trust me.”

“May I have another cup of beer?”

“Certainly not.”

“But I’m feeling so relaxed. So warm and light. As if I could float through the ceiling.”