The Triple Goddess (147 page)

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Chapter Twenty-Three

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When Clarissa landed with a thump, the last to return to the hive, she saw that, in addition to her parents and family, and those of other novice bees, there were a number of male drone hive officials waiting for her with stern looks on their faces. Clarissa’s parents were doing their best to assure them that their daughter was late because, in a fit of youthful enthusiasm and the desire to outperform her colleagues, she had flown far into Terra Incognita in search of new sources of honey. It was not unusual for young bees to overextend themselves at the outset of their careers, in hope of winning early fame.

But as Clarissa’s family clustered round her they could tell that, although she did not appear to be injured, something was wrong. They peered into her face, and felt her antennae to see if she was running a temperature; and asked her over and over if she was ill, or had got lost or trapped, or into a fight; even if she’d been taken captive by bees from another hive. None of the other worker bees had reported seeing her, and the dispatchers had several times discussed sending out a search party with a doctor.

As glad as they were that she was safe, her parents were disappointed that several virgin fields had been found that day by others in Clarissa’s class, containing cornucopias, bumper crops, of the finest-nectared flowers. These had been claimed for the hive, and if things kept up at this rate, it was already being mooted that this year’s harvest might turn out to be the best on record. Clarissa, however, had contributed nothing: she had not a speck of pollen on her, only some thistle seeds that had stuck to her body.

She had not only lost her chance to distinguish herself on her first day, she’d shown grave disrespect for the hive, and brought ignominy on herself and her family.

Of course, Clarissa couldn’t lie to the officials, but neither could she explain why she’d been overcome with dizziness. So all she did was apologize over and over in a small voice, saying that she had no excuse to offer. It was a very serious matter, for the punishment for laziness or non-performance was death by stinging. There were no second chances. The bees were incensed, and her parents were helpless as a crowd of bees surged through the barriers around the arrival area, intent upon lynching their daughter. They were convinced that she was not one of their own, but a cuckoo bee who’d been planted on them by a rival hive.

Just then there came a roll of drums and the clamour of trumpets. Instantly the officials stood to attention, everyone froze, and a respectful silence fell throughout the crowd, for this could only mean one thing: that the Queen Bee’s Household Guard was approaching.

The Queen must have heard about Clarissa’s dereliction of duty, was the consensus, and had sent her drone guards to arrest her.

The crowd parted, and a column of guards accompanied by heralds and drummers came up to Clarissa, and halted and stamped their feet; which, since between them they had a lot of feet, made a deafening sound. They were wearing tabards of gold and black, with the royal coat of arms emblazoned front and back, and casque helmets, and they were carrying short swords at their sides.

At a stentorian command from the captain, the guards came to attention, saluted, and a herald blew a trumpet. No announcement was made, but two drones fell out and escorted Clarissa between the lines of the column. Because the drones were very tall, the young bee was not visible to the crowd as the soldiers led her off to the beat of the drums; and because she was too weak to walk and could barely stand, the guards on either side of her had to support her.

Deep down into the hive they went, to places where neither Clarissa nor any other of the worker bees ever thought to be admitted.

To her great surprise, instead of being cast into a dank prison cell with a handful of dirty straw on the floor, Clarissa was taken to the huge and ornately gilded entrance to the royal apartments. There, another detail of Household Guards saluted, and demanded to know in the Queen’s name who went there, and what the day’s password was.

After the exchange of formalities, the great doors swung open, and the column passed through with Clarissa borne helplessly along in the middle. The guards came to a halt at a much smaller door, where their charge was taken into the custody of a couple of elderly drones. By now she was capable of standing unaided, and they took her inside.

The room was a cell like any other in the hive, though larger; it was clean, and unfurnished except for a cot and a small table. Several candles were lit: there being no windows in the hive, and being provided with plenty of it, the bees cut off pieces of wax to illuminate their quarters with, using slivers of grass stem as wicks.

The attendant drones withdrew, and Clarissa heard the key being turned in the lock, twice. She sat on the cot, unable to believe how drastic the change in her fortunes had been since that morning, when it seemed that she was about to inhabit her dreams of peaceful gardens and Arcadian fields overflowing with nectar, and enjoy the prospect of fame. That such a disaster had befallen her was almost too much to bear.

When she had recovered a little, Clarissa saw that the drones had left on the table a plate of...why, it could only be royal jelly! Clarissa dimly remembered having eaten a little royal jelly as a baby, which her parents said had been left at the front door; to see its milky-white consistency again at such a time, and recall the smell and taste so vividly, was the oddest thing. She was amazed that the drones had provided her with anything more than a dried-up piece of honeycomb, if that.

But she was too exhausted to try the jelly; and, lying down, she cried until she fell asleep in a pool of tears.

Early next morning Clarissa was awoken from a nightmare—in which she had been lying in a thistly field, unable to move, and was carried off by a column of ants to feed their tribe—by a clatter of feet at the door. Evidently, she thought, it was the guards, rather than ants, who had returned to carry her off for public execution, as a warning to the rest of the bees as to the consequences of committing so heinous a crime. The drones would probably strip off her wings and sting her to death with ceremonial barbs, and Clarissa trembled at the thought of how long she would suffer before the poison took effect.

She tried to compose in her head a plea, for one more chance to show how genuine she was about wanting to excel in her duty to the hive. But as desperate as Clarissa was, the idea of being outside again in those vast spaces brought back the buzzing in her head, as if it were a worse fate than the one that awaited her now.

The guards marched Clarissa down a wide corridor with wax torches flaring in sconces along the high walls. At the end, two sentries with the royal insignia on their chests were standing stiffly to attention before a double door. When they drew up, the sentries saluted and turned to knock on the door; and it was opened by the same two elderly drones as Clarissa had seen the night before.

Without a word they drew her inside. It was a much larger room than the one she had spent the night in; and, as she looked around the gloomy interior, the young bee was astonished to see an enormous four-poster bed surrounded by draperies of dark purple velvet. Even more extraordinary, was a dining-table covered with gold platters, on which were generous portions of royal jelly, creamy and rich; and pieces of honeycomb oozing fragrant honey. The honey was made, Clarissa could tell from her education, from flowers so rare that to have found any one of them on her outing yesterday would have made her a celebrity.

The drones conferred with each other in whispers, and picked up some official papers from a desk, on which Clarissa saw the Great Seal of the Hive. When they turned and stared at her long and hard, she felt so nervous that she was sure she was about to pass out. Then the drones nodded at each other, and went over to the bed, pulled aside the curtains that were drawn around it, and walked backwards to stand with their hands folded and heads bowed near the door.

Clarissa started as she recognized: the Queen Bee!

But although there was no doubt that it was the Queen lying there, the resemblance to the noble and beautiful figure in the print of the Annigoni portrait that had pride of place in Clarissa’s home was slight. Now the Queen was very old, and so fat that it must have been almost impossible for her to move; she had obviously not been outside in a very long time, and maybe hadn’t left her chamber or even the great bed for years.

Clarissa quailed; she could hardly breathe, and her heart was fit to burst at the realization that she was in the Royal Presence.

When the Queen raised a thick bejewelled finger from the lace coverlet and pointed—even so slight a movement appeared to cost her effort—the drones-in-waiting, for such they must have been, bowed and went to the table, where one of them put several of the plates onto a golden tray. He brought the tray back to the bed and, bowing again, proffered it to his sovereign, while the other drone helped her struggle into a sitting position against the damask pillows.

Ignoring the tray, the monarch scrutinized Clarissa from the tired old eyes in her puffy face. Prompted by a discreet cough from one of the drones, the young bee remembered that it was protocol to curtsey when in the presence of Her Majesty. This she did, not very well, and a long moment later the mountainous but still regal figure made an unintelligible noise, and twitched a heavily braceleted wrist.

The drones must have understood what the Queen meant, because the one with the tray stepped back from the bed and over to Clarissa. As he held the tray out to her, he was joined by the other who picked up a gold spoon, presented it to her handle first, and motioned that she should use it to sample one of the dishes.

Clarissa looked doubtfully at the golden platters. But the aroma of the royal jelly was most alluring, and she recalled that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before. When the drone-in-waiting with the tray frowned and pushed a plate forward, she took the spoon and scooped a little jelly into her mouth.

With a surge her appetite returned. The jelly was filled with an extraordinary array of flavours, which burst upon her palate and replaced her dread with rapture. Prompted again, Clarissa ate a little more; and when the plate wasn’t withdrawn, took larger mouthfuls while the drones themselves devoured her with their eyes. As soon as she’d finished the first plate, they indicated that she should begin on the next, and when the plates were empty they brought her more from the table. She forgot to wonder at her punishment, of being condemned to consume royal jelly in the presence of Her Royal Highness.

As she greedily ladled royal jelly into her mouth and her abdomen expanded, Clarissa observed that the Queen was monitoring her esurience from the four-poster bed with a grimace and twisted lips. Every time that Clarissa stopped eating, the drones-in-waiting, who were no longer paying attention to their sovereign, scowled at her until she continued. They did not bring her a chair, only more plates, and Clarissa, her gaze locked with the Queen’s, kept spooning. As soon as she’d scraped one dish clean there was another in her hands.

When eventually the table had no more royal jelly on it, the Queen Bee heaved a sigh, the velvet curtains were redrawn about her, and Clarissa, who still didn’t feel full, was taken back to her own room and put to bed.

The days went by but she knew nothing of them, and the passage of time was replaced by the lighting of an endless succession of candles. Instead of a cot in her room, Clarissa had been provided with a chaise longue in the Queen’s chamber, with cushions for pillows, on which she was fed royal jelly while the old lady watched.

There was no conversation between them, and nothing was permitted to interrupt the steady mechanical movement of Clarissa’s jaw, and the constant replenishment of the plates on the table by the ever watchful drones-in-waiting; until the time came for them both to sleep, and the curtains were drawn around the catafalque of the Queen’s bed.

Clarissa’s thoughts slowed and her memories faded, including recollection of her family. She no longer remembered the day of her single solo flight into the fields. Disconnected from the outer world, the only sensation she had was of the ingestion of endless quantities of royal jelly. The only image in her head was that of flying across the countryside, alone but not alone because she was at the head of a great procession of her kin: hundreds and thousands of bees, who would unquestioningly follow her wherever she went, and for as long as she desired to lead them on, to whatever destination.

From her position at the head of the swarm, her perceptions sharpened by prescience, Clarissa could see a land of many gardens and fields containing the finest nectar and pollen; a promised land where a new hive would be built and dedicated to the future.

On and on the seamless days wore, and still the Queen Bee lay on the massive plinth of the bed; not a morsel of food passed her lips, and she never spoke. And while the Queen’s bulk steadily shrank and her features shrivelled, Clarissa’s girth expanded, so that the room, which at first had seemed so spacious to her, now felt claustrophobic, to the point that she wanted to burst out of it like a seed from a summer pod.

One morning the drones-in-waiting came in as usual, and began to serve Clarissa her breakfast...though really, her days were one unending meal, and even at night she had platters of royal jelly within reach of the chaise longue to dip into, should hunger wake her up; which it often did.

When a drone went to the crabbed Queen in the four-poster bed, and whispered something in her ear, she showed no sign of having heard what was said, or indeed that she was alive.