CONSTANTINA MAUD

The young woman had figured out that the state envoy was back from the north. A precious memory had called on her again, this time while she was standing by her parents’ graves; like a dream leading to the past… As soon as she was aware, though, of that friend of hers at the tomb site, she realized that the delegates must have returned earlier than expected. The welcoming trumpets didn’t take long either before they sounded from the palace. And so Drynoe took off for the city…

About two days ago, a Plesthean envoy had set out for the icy sea kingdom in the North, so highly sought after by the gaze of the sun. The reason for this was so that the Plestheans too would be present at the funeral of Galenos, the—until recently—undying ruler of that realm, as well as at the subsequent coronation of his successor. The leader is dead! Long live the leader! the young woman thought and despite her haste, she took a moment to smile wryly at her musings. And she wondered whether the stars watched over another world so pragmatic as that one…

The king’s return, however, meant something else as well: being the supreme head of the Dalion, the state officials’ corps, the polemarch would of course resume supervising those specializing within it. In the meantime, he had obviously—though by no means necessarily—accompanied his brother-in-law, the king, in the mourning land. And to be precise, he believed in fact that Anax Hython was the escort, not him. How could Narias not attend such cosmogonical events of the Hydrian history? For he and his sister were ‘practically Halians’. At least that’s what they trumpeted both through words and actions at any given chance. Because with half their origin—from a distant descendant of a granddaughter of the first Hydrian leader—more lost than found throughout the centuries, the two of them were anything but ‘practically Halians’… Those thoughts of hers ran so fast that Drynoe didn’t even have the time to wonder about them. They sprinted on, even reminding her once again about Narias’s almost diligent callousness towards many cadets, her and her friends included… That was a truth, which was preventing her from being satisfied with another one: that thanks to Narias, their traineeship acquired a further meaning—nobody else in the Dalion possessed the polemarch’s knowledge and skills. Maybe royal instructor Aristomachos had them too, but Narias’s teaching placed the latter to the top of every cadet’s esteem. As if this standard is enough to judge a man’s merit by, Drynoe thought once more…

And instead of all this, she too should, like most of the world and as part of it, be reflecting on what the death of ‘immortal Galenos’ meant. At least that’s what would be fitting for a true representative of the rank, for which she had been toiling all this time. “A dalis is no longer a human.” That’s what Narias taught…

With the north always on her left, Drynoe drew closer and closer to the palace. At the same time, a bruised cloud was coming from the west, as if it had, out of curiosity or love, set its sights on the envoy ships and the royal flagship. Following the stream of the wide, life-giving river, Drynoe turned eventually at a bend to enter the public road. Yet, out of the blue, her horse whinnied and reared on the spot; it had found an unexpected obstacle.

“Hey, hey! Easy! What’s with the tornado-like rush?”

Two young men were standing in front of her. The one who had just spoken was beaming at her, his smile covering at least two thirds of his face and despite the cold, his dark overcoat gaped unbuttoned. As he approached her, he was followed by the other too, a less burly young man, who was securing a knit scarf around his neck; some aunt of his had seen to it that it shared the amber-like colour of his eyes… Faking a glare at them, Drynoe got off her horse. When somebody is among friends, let alone bosom ones, one must stand at the same level with them. Besides, at least anybody with relevant experience cannot deny that heights often don’t lead to tops but to ‘catching colds’…

“Where are you off to?” the second man asked as well, his voice a bit unripe for his age.

“ ‘Was off to’… until you blocked my way.” Pretending to be annoyed, Drynoe had lowered her eyebrows and then took a deep breath in. “I was heading for the Dalion and planned to look for you afterwards, so that we drop by Agathon’s place. What were you doing?”

“We were looking for you! We ran a bit late—yes, alright, Pheidon, it’s my fault, for greeting people along the way… You’re stingy even when it comes to ‘hellos’! What was I saying? Ah, yes! What were we doing, you ask? Well, we were having a simple, everyday ‘Plesthean’ chat on the road… until you blocked our way.”

Adeimos, the first youth, finished his torrent-like speech with one more generous smile, puffing out his chest to show off.

“Our topic was anything but extreme: ‘Is a simple, everyday person the norm’? And this fellow here, just like he did now, he set out for the shore yet arrived at a mountain top.”

No matter how calmly Pheidon had spoken, one would say his words gave away years of indignation…

“Is that what you think?” Adeimos snapped back. “Am I that unjust towards my species, to think that a simple man is an exception?”

Meanwhile, faint raindrops had begun landing on their heads. Thus, Drynoe urged her friends to get going, before another argument flared up between them. They had barely made it to the top of the hill, though, when the drops turned into a full-fledged storm. As suddenly as they had been born out of the heart of a flawless day, that much unexpectedly were they now pouring down. They poured down on Plesthepolis with all their might and perished on the ground as always, along with their hope to wipe off or take every wrongdoing away with them.

“How cold!” cried Adeimos, speaking for all of them about the water showering them against their will, and shrunk his shoulders in as he rubbed his arms with his hands. “How would you put it, my beloved little cousin? ‘Like the tears of the Halians of the North for their lost ruler’! Could it be, since Galenos died, that the Land of Silence turned into a desert, too? Because all things absurd come in pairs.”

“Adeimos, enough with the nonsense-spouting.”

“Forgive me, oh spiritual one. I shall not indulge in ‘nonsense-spouting’ again before you!”

And while Adeimos was unable to hold back a chortle, Pheidon let out a deep, frustrated breath that turned into a puff upon touching the ice-cold air. Then, narrowing his eyes to see better through the dense rain, he seemed to discern a path that could lead them to the nearest sheltered place…

“Let’s head for Agathon’s place, through the woods! Weren’t we planning to end up there anyway? It’s closer than the city and this rain seems like no joke—”

“Through the woods? Alte’s forest?” Adeimos was apparently not trusting his own ears.

Already ahead and without glancing back at his cousin, Pheidon merely waved a hand in the air dismissively. It was too late in the day for superstitions…

“To the forest path,” he insisted. “It will somehow block this downpour!”

After some brief thinking, Drynoe realized that at that moment their punishment and Aristomachos’s subsequent embarrassment—which was either way a given…—were more probable if they showed up in front of their superiors all soaked to the bone. Thus, she quickly urged her horse to go on ahead of them, and kept following her friends on foot.

***

Rushing through the violent rain, the three young people soon reached the edges of the fabled, evergreen forest. And Adeimos’s earlier astonishment needed no explanation—they rarely crossed the road passing through that grove, doing so mainly whenever there was no other choice. That’s what everyone did, to be honest… The drops kept falling from the sky and into the few trails centuries of treading feet had engraved on the ground. And everywhere, unfailingly, they formed short-lived circles, paying tribute to this perfect shape of nature and the symbol of Hydranos; of one of the god-wrought Stones, which are both source and end of nature’s elements but also of the human virtues. Stone-foundations, which are not stones, ideas or essences that none of the mortal senses is made to grasp… As time passed, the thick rain hindered the duty of the eyes even more, despite the foliages of the forest hindering the duty of the rain equally well. With the falling drops’ pattering and nature’s puffs steaming all around, Alte, that poetic grove, transformed into a living, heavily breathing beast.

Wading through the mud, the friends followed whichever way Adeimos led, having found himself already ahead of the other two; out of terror, out of excitement? Perhaps out of terrible excitement… After quite some running, and while the thunderclap and the storm’s monotonous preaching made their ears buzz nonstop, Drynoe thought she made out a whisper. A soft, faraway lament, other than that of the rain… Turning her head around at once, she glanced all over in suspicion; yet, there was no trace of any life sign out of place. Having been already left behind, the young cadet picked up her pace then, convinced that the superstitious Plestheans had finally gotten to her. She even caught herself contemplating that the Plesthean streak of superstition was perhaps innate within her and it had simply decided to wake up right there and then…

The grove was clambering up the slope of the great mountain of Athyrmade and the three companions kept up with it too, slowly approaching its exit and their goal. At some point and while a couple of strides ahead of Drynoe, Pheidon turned around. In the heavy rain, strands of his ebony hair were glued across his beard and temples like rambling stems of ivy.

“Do you hear Alte’s song?” He was beaming at them.

They all knew the story. They had heard it more times than many from Aristomachos alone, sometimes in secret even, while he narrated it to the Anax’s daughter to no avail; the story of Alte, the Aesson of Silence who, as Agastos’s wife, had been Anassa of Plesthepolis. If an Aesson falls in love with a mortal and they are sacredly bound together, for the sake of that marriage the Aesson ceases being one… But Alte’s lament was for Agastos. Their secret wedding had been the final blow for his relationship with his mother… and for Alte too, through her remorse. She hid deep in the woods, where she had always lived along with the rest of its Aessons. Agastos searched for her for days and nights, he implored her in tears… Until he faded away from grief, and so did she… The grove climbing up the slope north of the palace has borne her name ever since. They say she haunts it… And hardly ever did anybody cross it.

At her friend’s prompting, Drynoe tried to listen carefully, to beat the frantic nature and its tireless scolding. Rarely did she manage to catch something clear there… At that moment, though, a tune seemed indeed to be straying from nature’s symphony. She tried even harder to focus on it, always keeping up, however, with her fast-paced friends. Little by little, that otherworldly song was overthrowing the resistance of the chattering storm, it was overriding the roar of the wind and the thunder, gently touching the tenderness of the soul. Beautiful song… as horrible is the mortal fate it recounts. Alte’s love, her guide to death… The Plesthean rulers’ line lives as if cursed. The thought streams down the sculptures of centuries past… Agastos’s statue sheds tears in secret, tears that shake the world, as if they gushed from his very soul. This is how formidably the past recounts to the newly-formed children of the moment… The Aesson was for the mortal and he for her. Love and death…

Drynoe wasn’t running anymore. The Aesson’s chant had given wings to her feet, to the feet of all of them, and virtuous as it was, it had driven away every fear, which rivaling forces try to plant in the human heart. She felt the heartbeats of all three of them keeping the pace, of the song, of their course… a course which, in her daze, struck her more as a ritual dance. Whenever Drynoe glanced around, small handfuls of flashes slashed the air swiftly here and there, illuminating the drenched tree leaves with their vivid colours. The chant kept regenerating deep down within the forest’s roots, while the young woman had begun realizing that new, more fragile whispers were now accompanying it. As if they were springing out of the trees’ bodies…

That course, which seemed to have taken them out of the ordinary world and carried them off to where dreams are alive and walk, would soon be over. The talking pines were getting scarcer and scarcer; yet, not their voices… And as Drynoe took her last steps in that forest, she saw new lights too, different and larger, wrapping themselves around the soaked tree trunks. She saw legs, arms, smiles and gentle eyes, even… However, no voice could come out of her throat, to speak to them…

The lights were multiplying. More and more of those resplendent human forms, whose beauty was unlike anything she had ever seen before, were emerging through the foliages, initiating a graceful dance sprinkled by the tireless rain. Her legs were not her own anymore and at that moment, they pinned her there to the spot. Her heart didn’t take long to rebel either, binding her with that divine spectacle… Despite the thick fog slowly enveloping her, Drynoe stayed there, getting drenched, and yet she didn’t even feel the water flowing purifyingly over her shoulders. She was unable to utter a single word, but her soul was brimming with songs. Shutting her eyes, she abandoned herself wholeheartedly to the genuine melodies. The girl didn’t mind getting soaked… or that the water bathed her with tears… with seas… She didn’t mind getting lost in them, like the unspoken wishes in the untamed ocean… Like the ships, which the towering waves swallow… And only one is left… one soul alone… that, this seafarer…

“Hey! Drynoe!”

She turned around and realized her sight was blurred. She couldn’t see who was calling her, she could not see a thing in that haze… Soon, though, the young woman managed to make out her friends, who were waving at her impatiently from the end of the forest. Sighing in freedom, she threw one last, uneasy glance back at the woods, which had momentarily hypnotized her with such bizarre images, flowing almost like a stream of thought of their own… But there was no light or sea there anymore—only rain. And rain was the only thing she heard. What had she seen…?

***