The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  Her black hair, curly and wild, but she was all pink, her cheeks like ripe pomegranates, and I got lost in the pure gold of her irises: the glittering treasure of the subsoil, the undulating sea that covered the hills. Honey, amber, ambrosia. She was so beautiful that my throat clenched, and it took me a while before I could speak. Holding a cloud in my arms, I thought, could not be that different. It felt like a dream.

  It was not a problem. For as still and silent as he was, Hades may not have been there anymore. I did not see him, I could only see my little girl looking at me. The nymphs had wrapped her in crisp linen, the same delicate crocus color that they had given to me. A little hand came out from that soft cover: a fist, so tiny that I could enclose it with one finger, it was so perfect that I couldn’t believe it.

  My daughter there, was real, she was something that even I could hardly grasp.

  In the end, I spoke to her:

  “You are a whole new thread. You’re the most beautiful thread that exists in the world, my little one.”

  I touched her head with my lips, delicate as porcelain, before deciding to look at Hades. The god of the Underworld seemed transformed into a statue of himself.

  “My little Kore.”

  He would have.

  The Twelfth Labor

  As soon as he realized I was going to put her in his arms, Hades made a hasty step backward.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, trying to keep serious, “do you think I have given birth to a demon that will devour you alive?”

  He ran his tongue over his lips, over and over again.

  “The armor.” He said finally, in a voice that seemed not even his. His eyes swept from Kore to me, looking for a confirmation too obvious to be able to accept it at the time.

  “There are no dangers, around here. You can take it off.” I suggested, gently.

  “It’s not possible.”

  “But yes, just the breast plate, it will take a moment...”

  “It isn’t possible that I have given you a child. Not I.” I flew over the insult, which, I was sure, was not

  even thought of. He was not thinking, period.

  “I believed it, that’s why I understood too late what was happening to me. As you said yourself, there is a equilibrium in creation, but let me correct you: to respect it is impossible, for mere mortals as for the

  gods. We are...” I looked for the words, while my little girl moved her head,

  bewildered as the rest of the world, at her own birth. Who knows what they feel, the world and her, to open their eyes to life. It had to be so staggering that it could not be pleasant. The world and Kore needed time.

  I held her to my breast, which was becoming warmer, more and more bloated.

  “... we are alive, Hades. Even the dead are alive, in this sense, and you know better than anyone else, or you would not be so tied to your realm of shadows. As you once told me, you’ve always existed for that place, and vice versa. But that place is alive, and so are you, and so am I.”

  My little one moved her head: now that she was awake, and she understood that she had been born, was alive, she wanted to continue to live. I closed my eyes for a moment, at the pressure that seemed to make my chest burst, and begged her to forgive me, because she had to wait.

  “The living are not balanced. The only perfect equilibrium is that of non-existence. Our meeting had shaken the established order, it had questioned it, but as order was born out of Chaos, and from death comes life, the fact of having stolen the spring meant that the same spring would be renewed. That it would give birth.”

  I went back to get closer to him to hand him the little girl.

  “You, the lord of the dead and god of the underworld, have brought new life into this world. A daughter of spring, conceived in paradise: this is what you gave to the Earth, from which you are lord like your siblings. You have created Kore1.”

  Hades shook his head, not to deny, but to clear his head. I doubted that it would need so little to succeed. I continued:

  “I was sick because of this, even if a goddess should not feel bad when life is blossoming in her body: but in the Avernus, where my power could not be expressed, spring was crystallized in her, it became her. I’m fine, Hades. I am queen of the flowers and roots, and I’m well.”

  1 Kore means maiden. It was the childhood name of the goddess Persephone.

  Going against instinct and against my wish, I pulled Kore from my breast, displeasing both of us. I saw her looking for me with their lips, and I hoped that her father would understand quickly, because I had a lot to do, I was tired, and I could not wait for the convenience of the gods, to take care of her and me.

  “You have given new life to the world, and this is possible only in death. Now, do you want to disown the only child you’ll ever generate?”

  Hades blinked, the embers in the back of his eyes seemed to reignite; only a little, but better than nothing.

  “The only one, you say?”

  “I’m sorry,” I replied, “you will need to shake creation again if you want to have a male heir, and in that case you would have me for an enemy. You may not create life, spring yes, and she is spring, now. Not I.”

  Hades did not answer: for him the facts answered, as he raised his hands to loosen the buckles that bound the breastplate to the back armor.

  The black ice armor froze blades of grass where it was placed, and the ground was dressed in a delicate lace of frost, then dried forever. Minthe and Leuka would not have been happy at all, I thought. Hades broke free of his wrist bands and opened the padded tunic, for good measure; that thought for my daughter moved me, because he did not want to chill her on the garments that had been in contact with the ice of Tartarus.

  But when he held out his hands to take her, I saw his body, and I cried out.

  “What happened to you?”

  Since he opened the tunic, the white body of Hades stood out, red and swollen, a sign that went up to the shoulder, and disappeared. It was something that I had never seen before, but that Athena and Artemis had described to me often. They were amused and it had horrified me, until I had covered my

  ears shouting for them to stop: it was the tear that had been produced after an arrow had been pulled out and sewn up.

  “What happened to you?”

  “The offspring of Zeus.” He replied succinctly. He took Kore, and I felt some anxiety at seeing her so

  small, in such large arms. My daughter was in the hands of death, a perspective that would have made any mother hysterical, mortal or immortal. But for her there were no safer hands. It was the realization that Hades, in handling children, was even more ignorant than I was, which worried me.

  I resisted the urge to slump on the coach – the puerperium us goddesses also like quiet – while Kore waved her hands, until she caught one of her father’s fingers. Satisfied with what she had done, she made little sounds to celebrate the event.

  Hades smiled. A real smile, no shades or shadows, a smile that smoothed his forehead and made his eyes light up. He was still a young man, and smiled watching our little girl. For a moment the dark god of the Avernus seemed as jovial as Dionysus.

  “I have a strong and healthy child.”

  “What happened to you?” He returned the little one to me, to the relief of all three.

  “I have just recognized my only descendant,

  an event that makes this the most important day of my life. You could also say something more meaningful.”

  I winced to hear the crash of thunder. It was closer than I expected. I had less time than I would have liked.

  “Hades, what happened to you?” Who could have harmed the king of the Underworld?”

  I gasped after stating my question, and I had to let myself sink to the ground. My appearance was improved, there was no doubt, but so tired, I was really very tired.

  It doesn’t matter, no matter. I have stood up to other things. But I could not stop myself from enclosing Kore in my arms as I he
ard another rumble of thunder, even stronger than the first. I untied the robe, wishing to have my mother close by.

  The thought of having to choose between her and my husband was horrible. I did not want to do it.

  Kore when she found my breast, a gasp escaped me, and Hades, perhaps because he felt uncomfortable, decided to answer:

  “Zeus is very good at sowing offspring, as you know. And usually his favorites are the worst, I guess you also know this.”

  “Athena is his favorite, and there is no better goddess than her.” I said at once, in defense of my sister. The pain of Kore’s enthusiasm – I could only hope it would improve over time – gave a sharp inflection to my voice.

  His became ironic, “Of course I was referring to male children, my queen. You’ve undoubtedly heard of Heracles, who had a mortal woman and who was held in such account as to have sparked the anger of Hera.”

  We were dealing with a fairly famous name enough for me to move my attention from Kore to him. I moved to make room for him on the couch, inviting him to sit down.

  “I know he’s the strongest man in the world, who has completed extraordinary feats, but he is guilty of appalling crimes. He killed his own wife and children, is that true?”

  In the dimming of the light as a result of the incipient thunder storm, Hades’ face had lost the warmth it had when he had turned towards his daughter:

  “To purify themselves from that act, which he attributed to the curse of Hera, the oracle of Delphi had to put itself at the service of King Eurystheus, king of Argos, Mycenae and Tiryns. He started executing the order to liberate the land from some of the monsters that haunted it, but ended up getting caught up in his actions.”

  He shook his head.

  “The son of Zeus, doesn’t control his strength very well, he left behind broken heads at every step of his labors. I don’t know how he can consider his actions to be a purification, but his soul is already destined for Tartarus.”

  A little goddess has an immoderate appetite, compared with a mortal newborn. I passed Kore from the emptied breast to the another, without her giving the slightest sign of being sated.

  “While I was in the area looking for you, he reached Tenaro, where there is a cave that provides access to the Underworld. His descent brought about such a commotion that I will never again permit a mortal to penetrate my kingdom.”

  I could easily imagine that. The terrified shadows, the Asphodels were stepped on, the still waters of the Acheron were agitated and desecrated. The favorite son of Zeus! The injustice was mounting within me, because the lightning above us meant that I was indulged far less than Heracles.

  “He freed Theseus from the torment.”

  “What?”

  He grinned at my bewilderment:

  “Oh, he will come back into my hands, and it will be forever. I thought he had come down to save his old fellow adventurers, so as to reclaim the peace of Underworld, I left Theseus: he had come only to follow his friend, and he did not commit hubris against you. Pirithous is still where he belongs, and will stay there.”

  I shivered, imagining only too well that, after death, Hades had new and refined tortures planned. They were all in the thin blade of his curved lips.

  “I thought of ridding myself in this way, but Heracles thought it fit to attack my herdsman, Menete. He would have killed him if his wife had not begged him to spare his life. Do you think he mistook him for you, do you believe that?”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. The nymphs of paradise are wonderful.”

  “They must have been blind and foolish, to mistake a nymph for a goddess don’t you think.”

  He said it with such flatness that I excluded that he had realized he had just flattered me. My beauty, in his eyes, was a fact. It was up to the myth to save my vanity a little, I thought.

  “She did not correct the misunderstanding: she was afraid that if Hercules had not respected her as a half-sister, he would have killed them both. Because she was right, I’ve forgiven her, but at that point I had to go to intervene in person. I met Hercules, and to see the favorite son of Zeus, who was as angry as a wild boar at all he saw, was not possessed by Hera, but Ares, I realized I had solved at least one of my problems...”

  Without talking anymore, he took my hand. He gave me time to hold Kore to the other breast, and I put my had on his chest, over the wound.

  How many times had I touched it, and how much I had feared that I could not ever do so again, but the warmth of his body was as though coming through an incandescent fissure: the infection, which still did not heal. I tried to remove my hand, but Hades pressed it down strongly, although it certainly hurt him.

  “Why do you torment yourself in this way? Why haven’t you asked Panacea to cure you?”

  “Be quiet and watch.”

  While Kore, sated and satisfied, fell asleep on my breasts, and the lightning tore the sky over the poplars, I was silent and watched.

  The man is huge, the body covered with an untreated pelt, the muscles seemed to burst under the burnished and hairy skin. The face, with those marked lines and thick beard, is such that it could be mistaken for Zeus himself. His eyes are bloodshot.

  The herdsman Menete, faithful servant who tried to stop his advance, gasps behind Hades, after his wife dragged him to safety.

  The voice of the Lord of the Underworld resonated in every part of the Avernus, without disturbing the peace:

  “Now you must stop. I will agree to free the least wicked of your friends and to say that you brought the soul of Alcestis to the surface. In the name of the blood bond that unites us, I forgive you’re attacking my herdsman without reason. Return to the surface, Heracles.”

  His voice sounded like the growl of a lion about to roar. He made the stalactites tremble and bent the asphodel:

  “I have brought Alcestis back to the world of the living!”

  “You only restrained him from throwing himself into the abyss, after she had received the false news of her husband’s death. A noble gesture on your part, but that has nothing to do with my kingdom. Go back where you came from.”

  In response, the hero raised his bow and inserted an arrow.

  “I will not leave without having finished my work!” The angry voice of the giant, contrasted with the calm of the god of

  the dead: “You will go, or you’ll stay in the Avernus forever. The choice is yours. The words had not yet faded in the gloom of the cavern

  underground, when the arrow flew towards Hades.

  “Ah!”

  I took my hand away, as if it had been burned. The sudden pain in my shoulder almost made me miss Kore, and I returned to holding her tightly, so that the little one began kicking and crying, upset.

  “Cursed, cursed mortal! Oh, he will return to the Avernus, and he will pay for hurting you!”

  The shadows of the clouds playing on his face, gave him an amused expression, Hades again pressed my hand on the gash. I tried to remove it, but he didn’t let me.

  “It was an interesting experience, dear. I had never experienced the pain of mortal, before.”

  “But...”

  In the hard suffering that climbs along the shoulder, u[ the side of the neck, and down his back, Hades smiled. He had shed the blood of a god that fool, and did not even understand what that meant. So much the better! He had other thoughts at that time, and could not waste an already cursed mortal. The souls were his, all of them. He could do whatever he wanted. He could also decide not to do anything.

  I see that Heracles is inserting a new arrow and raising his good hand.

  “No,” he says, “tell me about your undertakings, rather.”

  The hero’s chest swelled, he becomes even larger. Zeus was madly in love with this son, he had endowed him with divine power, to perform divine tasks. But his soul belonged to Hades.

  “I’m here to capture Cerberus!”

  The words echo on and off in the silence, delivered to the eternity of myth.

&
nbsp; The Lord of the Underworld, suffering a lot with the pain in his shoulder, had to make an effort not to laugh in the hero’s face.

  He had only succeeded in tightening his hand on the shaft of the arrow and had pulled hard: the suffering was blinding, and the ichor splashed turning the asphodel into a sea as soon as it touched the rocks, but stumbled, not taking his gaze from the mortal. He did not need to.

  He, Hades, could make a similar gesture and bear the pain, because for him it has no consequences. Heracles, confronted him victorious, he will die soon. But this simple fact seemed to have escaped him, like Zeus.

  He let the arrow fall to the ground, where it incinerated into black powder, and ignored the ichor that drenched his cloak. The weakness that he felt did not increase by much, because he could not bleed to death. The pain faded into a dull throb. Pain is useful to mortals, as a warning, while for the gods it is only a nuisance, which must be got rid of as soon as possible.

  He could snatch the soul from the body with a look, but he decided to do otherwise:

  “So that you stop wreaking havoc in my kingdom. I propose two conditions: the first is that you will send him back to the Avernus, when you no longer need him.”

  Heracles agrees with a nod. There is no doubt that many sculptors have given him that magnanimous expression.

  “The second is that you, if you really are the strongest man in the world, can subdue him with your bare hands, without arms or whip. I have to be sure that you are able to master him, or I cannot grant you what you ask.”

  He said this only because he didn’t want Heracles to have any suspicions, but soon understood that he had over valued him. The son of Zeus demonstrated his divine ancestry throwing aside bow, arrows and swords. Refusing a challenge was alien to his nature.

  The injured lord of the dead followed, as they descended through the cave. Hades step is silent, the hero made the ground tremble.

  The darkness of Erebus was soon lit by the black ice of Tartarus.

  “Here he is,” says Hades, stepping aside, “catch him and take him away, if you can.”