Thomas Swann - The forest of forever

“Will she be all right?” Aeacus demanded.

“Oh, yes, though she may act a little strange when she wakes up.”

Thea’s strangeness took the form of hilarity. She woke up giggling and giggled for almost an hour. Then she demanded dinner, ate like a hawk instead of a sparrow, and fell into a natural sleep. It had not, after all, been a tragedy, merely a mishap with certain amusing aspects. At least, that was how Eunostos saw the incident, and I had to nudge him when he started to suggest that they give Thea some weed every day. Kora sat on the floor rocking Thea’s cradle and looked up at Aeacus with a smile as if to ask his forgiveness, but-at the same time-to say, It wasn’t so bad after all, was it?

Aeacus did not return her smile.

“Thank you for coming, Zoe,” he said, and then to Eunostos he said some words which were all the more terrible for being spoken with measured politeness and with an impassive face.

“Eunostos, you’re not to come back for awhile.”

Kora jumped to her feet. “But what has he done? He just wanted our children to see their toys. You ought to thank him!”

“For taking my daughter into the forest where she might have been killed?”

“But she’s not even hurt.”

“She might have been, though.”

For once, Kora stood up to him. “Our daughter is a Dryad. She lives in a forest. She needs to get to know her own country. Do you think she can spend five hundred years in this tree?”

“No,” he said. “I do not.”

His words were cruelly prophetic.

“Zoe!”

I muffled my ear with the corner of a wolfskin. It was early morning and I had scarcely fallen asleep after the departure of Moschus; wineskins littered the floor and wine cobwebbed my thoughts.

“Zoe, will you lower the ladder?”

I recognized Kora’s voice. Anyone except Kora or Eunostos I would have ignored. I dragged myself from my womb of coverlets and staggered to the door.

“Yes, dear?” I felt like a Cretan feigning a smile when he wanted to frown.

“May I come up?”

She was laden with both of her children, Thea in her arms, Icarus in the quiver strapped to her back. She wore a russet gown embroidered with green clover leaves, and her smile was as radiant and natural as mine was forced.

I lowered the ladder; what is more, I forced myself to descend, rung after painful rung, and lift Thea from her arms. I felt my years when that little bud of a girl seemed as heavy as Icarus. Inside the house I hastily returned Thea to her mother and sprawled full-length on the couch. For once, Kora would have to guide the conversation. I hardly had energy to listen-until I heard her announcement.

“I’m going to visit Eunostos,” she said as if such visits were a daily occurrence. “Since I can’t carry both children all the way, I wondered if I could leave Thea with you.”

“Do you think it’s wise to call on Eunostos? After what Aeacus said?”

“Aeacus doesn’t know. He’s hunting again. Besides, it’s mainly Thea he doesn’t want carried about the forest.”

“You know very well he doesn’t want you to see Eunostos.”

“I don’t care.” There was bronze in her voice. “Eunostos wants to see me, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he wants to see you.” How could I explain that seeing her and Icarus so rarely and under surreptitious circumstances might hurt him more than seeing them not at all? He was trying his youthful best to build a life without her and his Zeus-children. In the past few weeks he had turned out a three-legged stool to rest my ankles, an olive press for Chiron, a slingshot for Partridge to defend himself against the rough Panisci, and endless other artifacts which he gave to his friends or traded to his acquaintances. Partridge had come to stay with him in the stump; Bion was already staying with him. He was seldom alone, rarely unoccupied, and only cheerless when he thought himself unobserved.

“It’s just that-well, he’s taken to wenching again, and it’s good for him, and the sight of you might make him stop. You know what I say: ‘A celibate Minotaur is a sick Minotaur.’”

“I’m glad,” she said resolutely, though she looked more wistful than glad. “Is he-popular?”

“Sensational. As a stripling, he was always vigorous, but callow and inexperienced. Now my friends tell me he’s become the ideal lover. He’s added grace to vigor; he’s learned how to pleasure a woman with all those sentimental endearments which make us feel loved as well as desired, if only for the evening. They say he’s pleasured every Dryad between twelve and four hundred-except for a few stubbornly faithful wives in Centaur Town.”

“And you, Zoe?”

I gave her a look which would have wilted the wings of a Bee queen. “You know he’s always considered me his aunt.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s just that I know how-generous you are. Well, I’m sure my visit won’t change his habits. It’s Icarus I mainly want him to see. After all, he’s the child’s Zeus-father. And to tell the truth, I want Icarus to see him. You’d be amazed that such a little child could miss anyone so much.”

“I wouldn’t be amazed at all, when that someone is Eunostos. As a matter of fact, I’ve noticed that Icarus has looked a bit peaked for the last two months. Now he’s not even gurgling. He looks almost like”-I started to say Thea. “Almost subdued. Yes, I’ll keep Thea for you, but she’s starting to look uncomfortable, as many times as she’s been here.”

“Tell her a story about the Bears of Artemis. The nice ones, not Phlebas’s band. I won’t be long.”

“As long as you’re going, you might as well stay awhile. Otherwise, you’ll disappoint Eunostos.” But she had already gone.

She entered the gate, unlatched as usual, and paused before she lifted the door-hanging to his house. She wanted to see him entirely too much. Perhaps, she thought, if I turn very quietly and tiptoe out the gate-It was too late. Icarus emitted a happy chortle.

There was nothing to do but enter the room. Apparently Eunostos had been kneeling beside his fountain to feed his turtle, the one with which he had replaced his wedding present to Kora and Aeacus, but he was already on his hooves and starting for the door to meet her.

He had dropped a platter of baked flies in the water (he trapped them on parchment dipped in honey) and he looked at her and Icarus as if they had returned from an audience in the Underworld with the Griffin Judge.

“I couldn’t bring both children,” she explained. “Zoe is staying with Thea.”

He lifted Icarus from the quiver and hugged him so tightly that she thought: he is going to break a rib.

But Icarus returned the hug with equal enthusiasm and refused to leave Eunostos’s arms. For an instant she envied her child. There was such a wonderful reciprocity between him and Eunostos: a spontaneous and unstinting affection. And the thought, quickly erased from her mind, prodded her, goaded her: except for my dream, except for my dream… Now she did not even permit herself an embrace. It might be misunderstood; it might recall the rejected thought.

“It’s been two months,” she said. It was not a reproach-Aeacus after all was to blame-but a lament.

“And two days.”

“Eunostos, let’s sit in the garden. Did the rosebush grow after you fed it the potash?”

“It’s the biggest in the garden now.” He was patting Icarus and tousling his hair; at the same time he was staring at Kora with an ardor which he could no longer mask as brotherliness.

There were mossy chairs among the columbine, their legs entwined with creepers and looking as if they too might have grown in that garden of sweet familiarity. Side by side they sat in the sun-warm morning and the inarticulateness of their long separation was like a gate between them. Even Icarus seemed to feel their constraint and sighed in Eunostos’s arms.