The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  The vibration began to subside. All around the Dance Hall bees smiled for joy, antennae high and quivering in clouds of the Queen’s Love. Longing for the reassurance of some humble labor, Flora looked for other sanitation workers—but before she could find one, a great, rowdy cheering broke out, the crowd rippled apart, and a nectar-scented forager ran in.

  Finding space by Flora, she began to dance. Slow and clear she stamped out a simple phrase, over and over until the bees understood it and the rhythm caught. Then she clicked her wing-latches open, pulsed her thoracic engine, and shimmered and stopped her wings to the same rhythm. Other bees applauded and began to follow as she ran back and forth, into one section of the crowd and then another, trailing the lure of raw nectar behind her. She stopped at another forager and fed her a drop from her own mouth. The sparkle of fresh nectar lit the air and the bees cheered again, and more ran to learn the dance.

  Flora ran too, thrilled by the mixed scents of nectar and cold, fresh air clinging to the forager’s wings. Her mind grew sharp with excitement as her feet picked up the choreography—and suddenly she understood the language of the dance.

  Go south! sang the bee’s steps. For this long!

  There were fields—she described the pattern of the crops, the heavy, waving heads of grain, the great west current of air that always blew them—more fields, the stream, count two fences—

  Then east! And the forager ran again, swirling and buzzing her abdomen to urge more sisters to follow. Many bees shouted in excitement and ran to leap into the air themselves, but Flora followed close behind this wonderful bee, copying her steps.

  And turn and go on . . .

  “Turn and go on,” sang Flora behind her.

  And then here, the flowers, the nectar, the sweetness!

  “The flowers, the nectar, the sweetness!” shouted the bees, dancing their map to the treasure.

  The bright-winged forager came to a halt. So joyful and precise was her dancing that Flora had thought her young, but now she saw the ragged wing-tips, thinning fur, and scrapes on her armor. It was Lily 500, who had pushed her off the landing board. With a pulse of her antennae, Flora remembered the first panel of the Queen’s Library.

  “Praise end your days, Sister,” she said, in the Old Tongue.

  Lily 500 looked at her intently. She straightened her wings but did not latch them.

  “What do you want?” Her face was crosshatched with tiny scratches and both antennae were cracked at the base, as if they had borne great stress. “Speak,” she said, “or my flowers will close their mouths while I wait for yours to open. I must return; they wait for me. Some will not open for the touch of any other. Pride is a sin, but that is the truth.” She looked at Flora. “You suck in my scent as if I were the Queen.”

  “Forgive me, Sister—I mean Madam—the wild air smells so good—”

  “Today. Yesterday it was befouled, and the day before that and the one before that, which is why everyone has empty bellies. But better go hungry than eat tainted bread.” She sniffed Flora. “Where have you been, to eat so richly? Your kin are not kitchen bees.”

  “I was taken to the Queen, as reward for facing the wasp.”

  “Ah, yes. I heard Lady Vespa was well cooked. Yet you survived.”

  “By the courage of our sisters Thistle, who perished.”

  “The destiny of their kin.” Lily 500 stepped around Flora. “You will excuse me; I have lost the knack of polite conversation.”

  “Wait, please!” Flora ran after her. “Madam Forager, do you have any work for me? I will serve in any way—”

  “If you followed the dance, then you know where to go.” The forager walked more briskly. Shocked, Flora hurried alongside her.

  “But my kin may never forage, it is written!”

  “I read flowers, not scriptures. But I know our hive is in grievous need of food and that you have wings and courage and a brain. Do not annoy me by asking permission.” Lily 500 pushed her way out into the lobby.

  Flora stood for a moment, unsure of her invitation. The forager glanced back at her—and she ran to follow.

  LILY 500 WAS FAST and deft through the crowd. In her struggle to keep up, Flora crashed into another bee. Pollen cakes slid across the floor and a young Willow scrambled to retrieve them.

  “Oh, they will punish me, I have broken so many—please, Sister, I beg you, do not tell them or they will say I am too weak to work and send me for the Kindness—”

  “Tell who?” Flora quickly helped her gather them up, keeping one eye on Lily 500, who stood waiting on the far side of the lobby.

  “The police! They came on a health inspection to Pollen and Patisserie, and asked who was tired—and all those who raised their hands were taken for the Kindness!” The little Willow wept again and grabbed Flora’s hand. “I have committed the sin of Waste—please, Sister, it is not much farther—will you help me?”

  Across the lobby, Flora saw Lily’s bright wings disappearing down the passageway to the landing board. It was too late. She nodded.

  The grateful Willow admired Flora’s propolis-striped legs as they walked together, carrying the heavy tray.

  “I am sure they will appreciate it,” she said. “They like us to be adorned.”

  “Who will?” But Flora needed no answer, for she could now hear the roistering male voices and smell the high scent of the Drones’ Hall.

  THERE WERE TWO SUCH MASCULINE SALONS in the hive, both situated for Their Maleness’s convenience. One was on the top level near the Treasury and Fanning Hall, the other on this lowest level, near the landing board. They were places of rest, refreshment, and rowdy behavior, constantly staffed by a willing rota of young sisters and supervised by the most diplomatic of older ones.

  As Flora and the Willow approached the double doors they could hear the clamor within for food and nectar, which became a roar of approval as they entered with their tray of treats. Before they could set their burden down they were surrounded by great brawny hands grabbing the cakes and pollen loaves, and all they could do was withstand the pungent rush until only crumbs were left.

  “They went to a far distant Congregation today,” whispered supervising Sister Cowslip. “And one was chosen. Now all the rest gorge to restore their spirits.”

  “Nectar!” shouted a drone from his banquette. “Bread! Hot and sweet like the bud of the next princess!”

  “Oh, Your Malenesses, please!” Sister Cowslip fluttered four hands. “What will these simple house bees make of such language?” She turned to Flora and the Willow. “Quickly, some unguents for Their Malenesses. We must relax them, or they will eat us out of our hive.”

  Flora and the Willow went into the food service area, littered with the remnants of pastries and dregs of nectar. The Willow gobbled leftovers but Flora stood very still. A tremor ran through her belly, and she bit back a gasp.

  “They say the foragers grow lazy,” the Willow said thickly, “that’s why we’re always hungry.”

  “Indeed they do not.” In her indignation Flora forgot her pain. “I saw many dance directions today, and if you saw the rips and tears on their bodies yet still they fly, you would not speak so.”

  The Willow shrugged. “It is just what people are saying.” She went out with her bowl of massage ointment. As soon as she had gone Flora curled her body over and breathed deeply until the strange sensation passed. Then she peered out into the hall. To her dismay she saw the dandified little figure of Sir Linden standing talking to Sister Cowslip. Too late, she ducked back.

  “You there!” Sister Cowslip called her. “Who do you attend? His glorious Maleness here requires grooming.” Praying her striped legs and pomaded fur concealed the truth, Flora took a bowl and went out.

  Sister Cowslip sniffed her immediately. “You have a most peculiar odor, almost like a cleaner—”

  “Sir Linden!” Flora dropped a narrow curtsy. “Forgive my past mistakes; I beg to now attend you!”

  Drones nearby burst out la
ughing.

  “Ugly but keen, Linden. Better than nothing.”

  He sniffed at Flora. “Oh, it’s you! The disobedient one!”

  Sister Cowslip looked from one to the other. “I’m sorry to hear that—I am sure we can find one better, Your Maleness—”

  “No, no, this exact one will do. Begone.” He waved Sister Cowslip away, then spread his legs and puffed his chest at Flora. “My masculinity no longer scares you?”

  “I must bear it, Sir.” Flora kept her antennae downcast.

  “Indeed! Well then, up with you and do my bidding—or it’s the Kindness!” Sir Linden beckoned for her to follow, strutted through the other drones, and then threw himself down on a banquette. “I am ready. Begin.”

  Flora looked at the other sisters and their drones. Reluctantly, she began anointing Sir Linden’s legs. The hooks on the third pair were so small as to almost be like a sister’s.

  “You may say pleasant things to me.” Sir Linden shifted more comfortably.

  Unable to think of anything, Flora began humming a melody the ladies had sung in the Queen’s Chambers.

  Sir Linden looked up. “That is a bawdy tune; you should not even know it. Continue, but no words or Sister Cowpat will evict you. Then I shall have no one, not even a fright like you.” He stared morosely around the chamber. “Quercus was chosen today. I suppose you heard.”

  “Glory to our hive.”

  “Oh, spare me—he was just a great flying wad of sperm. The thought of that boorish idiot in a golden palace, drowning in honey and mounting his royal beauty at will—” Sir Linden shuddered in irritation. “And as for that fat oaf”—he gestured at Sir Poplar—“it’s a miracle he’s still alive, for he is so loud every bird in the sky must hear him taking off, and so slow a flower might bloom and die before he rises.”

  “Then it is a race?”

  “A race and a chase.”

  At his words a nearby drone leaned forward.

  “Until every princess is mated,” he cried.

  “And every brother king of his own palace!” called another.

  Many drones stamped and cheered, and Sister Cowslip glowed in delight and sent her girls scurrying around to replenish empty goblets and plates.

  “You see?” Sir Linden threw himself down again. “That’s the essence of it. Congregation is all about shouting, shoving, and bragging—then barging ahead.”

  “Is it . . . a ceremony?”

  “Stupid girl—a place. A subtle place in the highest reaches of the air, at a sweet convergence of the winds. A place where all the noble males of different hives come to gather, and princesses visit to make their choice.” He pulled his ruff straight. “Of course, the more fellows, the better the atmosphere—but the more competition.”

  “There is not a princess for each?”

  Sir Linden laughed and turned again to the drone hall. “Brothers!” he called out. “My loyal retainer knows nothing of our great work—shall we speak to them of love?”

  “Yes! Love!” cried out all the sisters in the Drones’ Hall, even Sister Cowslip. “Tell us of love, please!” They clustered around their drones, and all faces turned to Sir Linden. He cleared his throat, puffed his ruff, and began.

  “Hear you that our noble brother Quercus is taken up to glory, by a princess fairer than any sister of hive or heaven, with limbs of gold and fur of brightest light. Recall how she roared upon us at Congregation, faster than a swooping jay, and swept us with her ray of lust, so that the leaves themselves shone gold!”

  At this all the drones roared and cheered and some grabbed their crotches, shouting crude praise for the erotic perfection of this foreign princess. The sisters nudged and whispered to each other, envious and enraptured.

  “Congregation, you simple sisters of the hive,” Sir Linden continued for the general benefit, and for the pleasure of being the center of attention for once, “means the place of air, near trees of such particular majesty they are gods in their own right, and only drones may dare ascend their heights, defying the birds to breathe our lust on all the winds.” He looked around to gather all attention. “It is the place where princesses come to find the sacrament of love, delivered by Our Malenesses.” At this all the sisters applauded and cheered, and their excitement drew forth more scent from the drones.

  “Fine talk, Linden,” called one.

  “Now my sword longs for action!” shouted another.

  Urging each other on, the drones began revving their thoraxes. Streaming pheromones, they jumped up one by one, and there before the eyes of every sister, they grew strong and noble, their faces rugged and handsome. Even Sir Linden no longer looked petulant and slightly feminine, but elegant and finely formed, his face intelligent with mischief.

  The drones stamped and shook their armor straight and Sir Linden motioned Flora to stand behind him. No longer spoiled and indolent but gleaming with grooming and bursting with testosterone, the drones formed their martial phalanx. Their scent rose and the sound of their armor reverberated as they began to stamp in unison.

  “Congregation, Copulation, Coronation!” they chanted again and again, and the sisters cheered them on. Flora stood too, but Sir Linden pushed her back down.

  “Oh, no—you will not leave this hall until they bring word of my triumph with a discerning princess. Believe me, hairy girl, it shall take place.” He looked at her. “Until then, you will stay here, by my explicit instruction.”

  Furious at herself for choosing to help the Willow above following Lily 500, Flora forced herself to nod.

  “Excellent.” Sir Linden banged his armor plates together like his brothers and marched out with the phalanx, plume held high.

  FLORA LONGED FOR Sir Linden’s success, for it would free her from servitude in the Drones’ Hall, but by the afternoon every single one of the males was back, cursing and swearing that the rains had returned. Flora silently cursed as well, for confinement with the high hormonal smell of the drones made both her head and belly ache.

  Sanitation workers had more freedom than drone maids—and Sister Cowslip would be only too glad to evict her when she knew the truth of her base kin. Flora waited until Sir Linden lay sated and snoring, and then went to confess her trespass.

  Sister Cowslip did not react, even when Flora repeated herself, but stood motionless at her reception station near the doors. Flora sniffed her. She was a bee of late spring, and her time had come.

  Flora let her natural kin-scent rise up from her body, then pulled in her antennae like the humblest of her kin. Making sure Sister Cowslip’s wing-latches were secure, she lifted her in her mouth and slipped out into the corridor.

  Swirls of warm, fresh air came in from the landing board, and by the chains of sisters passing aromatic bales of pollen back into the hive, Flora knew the rain had stopped. She edged forward in the slow lane, her heart thrumming with excitement as she heard the sound of forager engines taking off and landing, so close outside. She felt her wings long and strong down her back, and the elastic tension of their membranes. Lily 500 had said there was hunger, and that Flora was strong and able. If the hive was hungry and she found food, how could that be wrong?

  “Sanitation to exit.”

  At the gruff call of the Thistle guards, Flora and a few others of her kin stepped out onto the board.

  Sister after sister hummed her engines and fired herself into the dazzling blue sky. Flora unlatched her wings, adrenaline pumping through her body. She started her engine.

  “Stop at once!” voices shouted, and several Thistle guards ran out onto the board. “All flight is canceled by order of the Sage, effective immediately!”

  Foragers waiting to leave shouted their disappointment, but more guards ran out and pushed all the bees back from the edge. Others began laying homecoming flares, and another pulled Sister Cowslip from Flora’s grasp and threw her over the edge.

  “We should not do that!” Flora’s engine thrummed inside her chest, the filigree of blood vessels in her win
gs were tight with power, and her feet were light on the wood. To be so long in darkness and servitude, and then at the very lip of freedom to be turned away—

  “They come—stand back!” The guards pushed all the bees back as returning foragers approached in the flight corridor to the hive. Some of them swerved wildly and Flora held her antennae aloft, but there was no trace of wasp attack, only the soil and the plants and the incoming sisters.

  The first bee crashed onto the board at her feet. She was a forager from the kin of Poppy, but her scent was overlaid with something alien and ugly, and a gray film covered her whole body. She crawled toward Flora.

  “Help me, Sister. I beg you.”

  Some instinct made Flora jump back from the forager’s desperate lunge, and all the bees stared in bewildered horror as the Poppy stopped and was violently sick. Other bees came crashing down onto the board around her, their eyes wild and their bodies speckled with the gray film.

  Thirteen

  HER BODY TENSE FROM THWARTED FLIGHT, FLORA WENT back into the hive. Pausing in the crowded corridor to relatch her wings, she heard weak, raised voices of the Poppy and other sisters coming from an antechamber near the morgue. Before she could hear what they said, the Thistle guards hurried everyone back inside, pushing them toward the Dance Hall.

  Jittery bursts of buzzing came from the large assembly of bees. The pulses in the comb had called them there but it was not time for Devotion, nor, despite the definite trace of fear drifting in from the landing board, was there any smell of wasp. There was, however, an unpleasant odor somewhere close, and Flora instinctively drew away. The whole crowd rippled and flexed as one, and when the movement stopped, certain bees stood isolated in pools of space. Each was a forager, standing with her head down and her sides heaving for breath, and each showed the same gray film on her body as had the Poppy who crashed to the landing board.