Thomas Swann - The forest of forever

When the tea had come to a boil, he poured it into a large clay cup like a turtle shell, sweetened it with honey, tasted it to make sure that it was not too hot, and carried it to Aeacus, who had to hold the cup in both of his hands, they were trembling so much. He seemed to be having a chill.

“You’ll have to spend the night,” said Eunostos decisively. “I’ll leave Bion to look after you, and I’ll go and tell Kora where you are. If you want anything, just ask Bion. But speak slowly and use simple words, and make sure that you have his attention.”

“I have a feeling he doesn’t like me,” said Aeacus with a certain apprehension.

“That’s on my account,” said Eunostos. “Telchins are very loyal friends to the higher races of Beast. It’s only each other they eat.”

“But I’m not a Beast at all, much less higher!”

“No, but you’re close enough. He likes more sinewy meat. Besides, I’ve left him some hazelnuts in the workshop. Now we’ve got to get you into the next room and onto the couch.”

It was surprising how easy it was to lift a grown Man, if the Man was a Cretan and the lifter was a Minotaur. When Aeacus, cup still clutched between his hands, lay on the couch, Eunostos propped his head on a pillow so that he could finish drinking and threw a coverlet over him. He remembered how his mother had looked after him when he had caught hoof and mouth disease from the Centaur colts.

“Is there anything I can get you before I go? Something to eat? A scroll to read? I have Hoofbeats in Babylon, The Indiscretions of a Dryad, Centaur Songs- ”

“Anything you’ve written?”

“I’m not collected yet. I was planning a little scroll of poems for Kora, but they’re still on palm leaves.”

“Not a thing then. I’ll just lie here and enjoy your house. Did you call this drink tea? We don’t have it in Knossos. Beer and wine, but not tea.”

“The Centaurs learned how to make it from the Yellow Men.”

“It’s very good. I feel better already.”

“I had better go now.”

“I saw the turtle in your fountain. I had a turtle till I was fifteen. He lived in a pool with silver fish.”

“What happened to him?”

“He crawled away. An earthquake had made a small fissure in the wall of the courtyard. I never filled it in, hoping he would crawl back. But he didn’t.”

“Well, I expect he knew where he was going.”

“The adjacent courtyard opened onto the street. I always hoped he was rescued by a child. Wagons aren’t allowed in Knossos, so he couldn’t have been run over.”

“You must have missed him a great deal.”

“I did. Eunostos?”

“Yes?”

Aeacus held out his hand in the universal gesture of good fellowship.

“Damn,” muttered Eunostos, but he took the hand, which was cold, shaking, and very tenacious. Reluctantly he returned the pressure. The worst had happened. He had become friends with the Man who had taken his bride. I’ll end up giving them my turtle for a wedding present, he thought.

When I heard that Eunostos and Aeacus had become friends, I thought: Well, good for Eunostos. Now he can be reconciled with Kora too and be at peace with himself. Now he can see her without illusions and love her as she really is, with her mortal limitations. For if a person rejects us and we never see him again, we suppose him larger than life, we find the fault in ourselves, and we always think: “If only I had been worthier…” But the married Kora, engaged in her daily domesticities, was a beautiful, kindhearted, but unremarkable young Dryad of flesh and green blood.

Much to his credit, Eunostos did not act like a young calf mooning over his lost love. He was nearly sixteen now; he was definitely a bull and he acted with commendable maturity. Never a worshipful look, never a whispered compliment, but always the open, bluff affection of the brother Kora seemed to want.

Kora reciprocated with a quiet gratitude. She had won a brother as well as a husband. Accompanied by Aeacus, she visited Eunostos’s house and showed him how to deepen the color of his roses or train them to climb his trellis. She brought him roasted acorns and tidied his workshop and wove him a loincloth like the one Aeacus had worn when he came to the forest, green instead of purple, but just as princely, with a belt and a silver clasp in the shape of a turtle.

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.