The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  “I didn’t know. When he knows, the world will have to change. Everyone will want us, but no one will be able to. I... I’ll go right away. You were involved too much.”

  Minthe and Leuka exchanged glances over my body bent over by the effort. Minthe then said, firmly:

  “You don’t move from here. A goddess should not suffer in this way, it is unacceptable. You have not had any ambrosia and light and love, and we don’t understand why you have not returned to your mother, but...”

  “I could not go to my mother,” I whispered, as I felt that the pain was becoming worse, “or turn to the nymphs of her retinue. I cannot put myself in the hands of anyone, I would never have done that. I should have known from the start, but I was foolish, and in love.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It will change the world. Change death. It will change life.”

  Then, more pain. Without ambrosia it is excruciating. Fortunately, I have a few memories.

  But it was worth it. As to this, as I watched the sunrise and was getting my breath back, completely exhausted, I never doubted, nor will I ever doubt.

  That it was worth it.

  While Leuka and Minthe oversaw the care that I should receive, I realized that I was finally quiet. My mind ran clear as the rosy fingers of dawn, like the blue brush strokes that emerged from the summit of a hill.

  With a sigh, not of sorrow but of expectation, I straightened up.

  “You need to rest,” Leuka said immediately, but I shook my head.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and it was the truth, “someone is coming who will not willingly wait while I give myself a good night’s sleep.”

  Leuka did not answer, and Minthe handed me a simple tunic, the color of a delicate crocus, with a woven hemp cord belt. No flowers, they said slowly leaving it loose on my still exhausted body, the flowering has passed. For me it was time to reap.

  “You stay here. I don’t want you to attract his anger. I will protect you.”

  “I have always done so.” Minthe said, but her eyes were full of anguish as I walked away from the spring. The nymphs will never forget a kindness, but to worry about the consequences is natural for them.

  They disappeared among the poplars, thinking that they should not have done so: by now my protection exceeded anyone else’s power.

  My body ached, my breasts throbbed, and I had the feeling of being an old rag ball, undone, about to fall apart. But I am a goddess. When I reached for his helmet on the grass – he had not abandoned me, he would never have done – I walked easily, back straight, my agile new body, was mine again. I felt a throb of pure vanity, flowering in my abdomen and felt it was flat, honed: the belly of girl. I moved the grass with the agility of a doe, delighted to find that it was part of me, this time completely, definitively.

  I reached the top of the hill and came to the stone altar, a perfect gray, smooth as silk in the sunlight. Again I smiled. I had smiled so many times before, but I realized, with the amazement of those who discover something that has always been there, and for the first time I smiled for myself, instead of for someone else.

  I placed the helmet on the altar, setting it down carefully.

  I combed the black bristles of the plume, removing the grime that had collected there, as I wandered lost and aimless. I ran my fingers over the engravings, lingered on the figure of Hades carrying out his work, thanks to that world I had become who I was. He had also made his contribution. Now it was up to me.

  When the helmet was traversed as by a discharge, and vanished in a burst of black smoke, I gazed out over the fields.

  In the sunlight, the petals opened, the meadows were lit with green, divided into regular squares, each a different shade, depending on the type of cultivation. The blue and purple flowers, brightened by the red and yellow and white wild plants, trembled only briefly before becoming lighter, conforming, stooping under the weight of laden ears. The wind made the sea of gold undulate that reached the horizon and beyond.

  There was feeling of a thunder storm on the opposite side, with a very slight grumble of thunder.

  From the summit of the mountain invaded by the sun I could see the tiny figures of mortals: they ran, leaving long trails in the grain, they stopped regrouped, returning to scatter in the fields, in an effort to understand. Famine had passed to the harvest, in the space of a single night. They were not happy, they were hallucinating. But I knew that they would soon be very happy.

  Everything was beautiful, I thought, it was all simple and fair, because as death follows life, Life must always follow death, and this was my Mystery: that which Hades could not

  awake or understand, what I did not stop admiring, in the expanse of ripe wheat.

  I did not move when the shadow behind me took on human form, and the darkness seemed to fill the hill. I blessed life through death, and this was part of my Mystery. Those farmers would not forget, ever. It was the dawn of the birth of a new cult.

  I leaned resting my elbows on the altar, as I did on the balcony with a view of the Elysian fields.

  “You’re shamefully slow. I always have to stop, so you can catch up with me.”

  The shadow lengthened on the altar, on me. It covered me.

  His voice, when he spoke, did not permit me to understand anything of what he was thinking, which was certainly his intention,

  “You were supposed to call your mother. She would have forgiven you.”

  “You’re my husband.”

  “I am the inexorable.” I decided to turn around, remaining leaning against the stone, and as

  I looked it was as if I saw him for the first time. Hades was taller, more than he was muscular, but he was a god, and he was nothing less than perfect. He was the god of the Underworld and the souls of the dead, his skin was white and his eyes black, the lines of his face were finer than those of Zeus, with chiseled cheekbones and a strong jaw; even more so because his beard had grown, and covered his jaw line like the grass that reaches the edge of the crevasse. His cloak was thrown over his shoulder, this time he didn’t keep it closed in front of him, and his gleaming armor, black ice, the breastplate of Tartarus. I saw that his hands held fast to his helmet. He followed my gaze, the corners of his mouth curled in a smile of pure malice, and the helmet disappeared.

  “It’s over, Persephone.”

  I was not looking for the helmet. It was his hands to abduct me, so perfect in their absolute pallor: to look at them they seemed to be as cold as marble, but I knew them well, I knew how warm they were. I had never needed to desire them,

  before, and I found the sweet torment of not knowing whether I had what I craved, and I straightened up, pulling away from the alter. Hades immediately put himself between the path and me.

  Looking at him, I told him:

  “If you want it to end reject me: what I have done is nothing, anything, compared to what I will do, even if you try to cut me in half.”

  His eyes were black fires, two narrow slits, under his raised eyebrows.

  “Are you challenging me again?”

  Deliberately, I looked away from him to let him wander about the fields. The sky was blue, thickened by distant clouds. The ears of wheat went up the side of the hill, vying with the mint for the newly fertile ground, black and wet with dew. The cicadas had started chirping, a little uncertain, as if not yet fully believing that it was their time.

  I bent down, broke a stem, stroked the wheat. I felt the compact smoothness of the seeds, which would become extremely rough, if I stroked my the fingers in the wrong direction. That simple symbolism made me smile again. I put the ear in my hair.

  Then, knowing that it was inevitable, for me, for him and for the whole of creation, I began to untie my robe.

  “Persephone?”

  The belt was simple to untie, it slipped away immediately. I let a shoulder appear from the neckline, I let the fabric crumple with a rustle around my ankles, and I went back to lean against the altar. So I decided to watch h
im. He looked at me.

  He did not need me to tell him of course, but I told him anyway,

  “Take what is yours or leave me free. Yes, I’m challenging you.”

  He moved with the speed of a snake, almost before I finished speaking. He pushed me onto the altar, so hard that

  the rough stone flayed my skin. It was not as smooth as it had seemed, I thought, then I felt Hades hands over my body, sinking his fingers angrily, leaving long white marks, which immediately reddened.

  I held his arms while the mantle fell upon us like a curtain of darkness, the shadow of the Avernus in the middle of fields full of life; he did not hold me to him, because of the armor, but there was no need. I felt an unbearable pleasure. My body had suffered unspeakable efforts in the past hours, and I never felt such pleasure, while Hades vented his anger imposing his love on me, I cried and lifted myself so that he could possess me better, but as he had taken me, he let me go.

  He grabbed me by the shoulders, lifted me almost off my feet, forced me to turn around. From behind, holding my knees on his altar, Hades closed my face in his hand, thumb on one side, fingers holding me with the other, and he held my face up to look at the expanse of fields.

  “And how can I take this, goddess? There is a balance in creation, Persephone, and if even I respect it, from the day that Zeus freed me from the bowels of Cronus giving rise to our era, don’t forget to do the same.”

  The hand that held my face was hurting me, but the other, eagerly ran over my body, it made me moisten my lips with pleasure.

  “If you cannot take what is yours, I’ll do it. You taught me to be a queen, I learned to be a goddess. Let me free to do my duty, and the equilibrium of creation will be saved.”

  He let go of my face, relieving me inexpressibly, and for a moment I was free. I heard him climb the rock behind me, I felt his hands on my back, an almost gentle caress, from the neck to the hips, before he held me in a grip that made me bite my lips. I propped up on my elbows, struggling to keep from falling, while Hades was mounting me and I looked at the golden expanse, and in the enjoyment that clouded my vision, I saw that the

  mortals had started piling up the first bundles. The harvest time had come. The ears had been gathered.

  I had never felt so powerful in my life.

  After, we lay on the altar for an indefinite time, enjoying the caress of the sun on bare skin. I closed my eyes on the warm stone, and I think that I would have slept, if death had not called me back to reality:

  “Zeus is coming, and Hermes says he has not been so angry since the time of Hera’s rebellion. The consequences will not wait, for his part as well as mine.”

  He was saying that we risked being alienated from Olympus. It seemed of little importance, but before I could answer, he continued,

  “Demeter has assumed responsibility for what happened. In the eyes of gods and mortals, you have never come back under the sky of Uranus: the curse comes from her.”

  I winced. “My mother...”

  “She wanted it so and there was no way to change her mind. She told Zeus that would be the case, because the grievance was too great, that there is no difference between humiliating you or humiliating her. She abandoned Olympus and vowed to refuse the honors due to her until your anger subsided.”

  Before I could say anything, he added,

  “The wrath of Mother Earth is such that not even the Heavenly Father can remedy it. Zeus is impotent, and that makes him furious.”

  Even our power has limits, Hades told me once, and I thought that he was probably first to understand that, and the first to accept it. For me the process was reversed: the acceptance of my limitations had come with the acceptance of my greatness.

  “I will not put myself in conflict with Olympus.”

  “Oh, no?”

  His tone was indifferent, but marked by sarcasm. I sighed.

  “I’ll talk with my mother. She will understand, I know she will understand. And even if she does not understand...”

  I shrugged. What had terrified me once seemed, now, so insignificant that I wondered why it had tormented me so much.

  “I must do my duty as her daughter; she will know how things are, and will take away the burden of anguish thinking of me as a prisoner and humiliated. I owe it to her, Hades.”

  “She already knows everything,” he said, “Much has happened during your rebellion. But Demeter has not changed her mind, as I have not changed mine: you can not bear an eternity in the Avernus. My thread, was divided into two. You have to accept it, and you will accept it.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said, amused, “my health. The health of the world, for which Zeus intends to blame me, true?”

  “I’ll think of Zeus.” Hades said grimly. This...”

  “You said you didn’t want to be in conflict with

  Olympus: therefore, don’t meddle in the affairs of the Olympians.”

  It was the final word of the sovereign of the Avernus. It was useless to argue, it would only make us quarrel again. The facts would speak for me.

  I turned to focus my gaze beyond the hills. The sky was clear, the sun high, but the lightning cut through the horizon farther away. I was back in the world, I was back under the dominion of the heavens, and my father knew that.

  I got down off the altar, with the nimbleness of a cat. I felt so good that Hades looked back at me, and I, hiding a smile, picked up the tunic to slip it on.

  “I’ll be yours when you want and how you want, but now there is something to clarify, my lord. About the division of the thread into two.”

  “What you are living now,” remarked Hades, who would not let go just because I wanted him to, “have regained color and life, you’re again the girl who gathered daffodils on the shores of the Perguso.”

  I had to laugh, I was happy. I ended up lacing the tunic, while, on the other side of the hills, lightning streaked the sky. The mortals stopped their work in the fields to retire: the rain would not stop them, but the risk of being incinerated by the anger of the Heavenly Father, yes, all right.

  “Am I mistaken or did you just pay me a compliment? And greater than you think, I’ll tell you immediately.”

  I took his hand and pulled him towards the path.

  “Come, sire: it is time that you got to know someone, who really understands the meaning of destiny woven by the Fates. It was not just from my yarn that it took its own color.”

  He let me lead him, I think out of curiosity: I escaped his control, he was the unknown again as a flower can be at its root, if no one turns the sod. He had done it, once. Now it was up to me.

  I noticed that the grass does not wither in his shadow, but even so, the nymphs fled terrified to the spring, as he appeared under the poplars. No one could be confused about the identity of Hades, though they had never met before; but we were in Elis, on his mountain, and they knew very well who he was. I pushed aside the leafy branches, so they would not be forced to be in contact with him, and he held me at his side, because I wanted that contact for me.

  I walked to the bed of moss and green branches, with my heart pounding and my breast beginning to ache. Strange that Hades had not noticed anything, he is so meticulous, so careful; but the body of a goddess is not easy to decipher, especially for a man overcome by anger.

  Not all the nymphs had shunned the shadow of death. Minthe and Leuka clenched their teeth and barred his way, very pale and frightened, but no less determined.

  “What is he doing here?”

  Minthe’s tone was accusing. Leuka reached for the poplar beside her: a slight pop was heard and a fresh branch fell into her palm. She grasped it like a weapon, leaves and all.

  “You will not take her away! I don’t care what happens to us, but you won’t cause further harm in our forest! Here we are protected by divine Demeter, this is not your territory!”

  I asked with sincere interest, mortals: how is it possible that the facts have been misrepresented to become a myth in which Minthe and Leuk
a became his lovers, my enemies? The look of Leuka wielding the stick was not so very different from that of Gaea, who created the sickle to castrate Uranus, and that Minthe would also have induced the Gorgon to decide to retrace her steps. They were afraid, but they also had courage, and if you ever showed that I had women friends, when faced with the god who would decide their fate in the afterlife. At that moment, with the dark shadow of Hades upon them, Minthe and Leuka could not know if I was still his queen, or if my lord had brought me there in revenge.

  At that moment, Minthe and Leuka were ready to fight against the god of the dead to save us, and if this is not courage, if not friendship, I don’t really know what else could pass as such. The myth has been unfair to my irreplaceable friends, who accompanied me into the bliss of the Elysian fields, when the time came.

  Before the situation deteriorated, I stepped forward.

  “It’s all right,” I said, going to meet the nymphs, “it’s all right, really. Leave us, please.”

  “No!”

  No need to turn around, I knew that Hades had raised an eyebrow, wondering why I would allow those two being to speak so proudly. I have not been able to find an answer, although I certainly didn’t try for more than a few moments.

  With firm gentleness, I lowered the poplar branch in Leuka’s hands.

  “It’s all right,” I repeated, “he will not hurt us. No one will ever hurt us.”

  Minthe started to protest, and I raised my hand before she started:

  “If I thought that there is even minimal risk, I would be the first to fight him. Don’t you think?”

  They were unconvinced, but what I said was true. Reluctantly they moved away, leaving the bed free. Minthe shot me one last anxious glance, but I answered with my most beautiful smile, and she had to follow Leuka, disappearing among the trees.

  With a delicacy that was a little the anxiety of inexperience, I moved tender twigs with green leaves, which covered her from the annoying sunlight. She was still asleep. She awoke when I lifted her.