The Queen in the Poplar Forest

by S. L. Nickerson

All the omens meant it was a good morning for a hunt. Legends of the Bronze-Backed Bear have said that one drop of his blood dripped, into eyes, would cure cataracts; his saliva, boiled over hot coals for two hours should whittle away kidney stones; and his fur spun into bandages could soothe even the harshest burns. I, Queen Irashar of Nimur, would have his pelt to drape over my throne. My collection was nearing completion.

I alone tracked him uphill between slender poplars, with two spears and one shield in hand. Prints such as these, prints that dug into the earth deep as my thumb and marked even boulders, could belong to no other than the Bronze-Back Bear. Trees thickened, and up the mountainside pistachio trees overran the poplars. Their twisted, white limbs and shiny leaves made a tight canopy. The prints were farther apart, for he must have been running here, up and into a cave above me. The mouth was half-hidden by licorice bushes in full purple-white blossom.

I tucked the straight spear into the shield on my left arm, held the twisting spear in my right and entered the cave’s mouth. At my birth, the gods allowed my father to choose one gift with which to bless me: at a short distance darkness was like daylight to me.

Small animal bones stuck up from the dirt floor, and the walls bore the scrapes of mighty claws. The footprints were so numerous that following any set became impossible. The cave tunnels branched off like rivulets between river and ocean. This passage narrowed, and my breathing quickened.

A beast snarled behind me. I turned around and saw nothing but the fork I had just crossed. I walked backwards, shifting my gaze between both tunnels. My back brushed the cave wall and I stepped sideways. Something warm pressed against my side; I could feel the beast’s moist breath upon my neck. I spun to face it, twisting spear up. Nothing.

I looked over my shoulder and caught a spark of bronze. I chased after it through the winding tunnels, never seeing more than that first gleam, but I could hear his paws pound the cave floor. He was always just beyond my sight. I heard him closer, near a bend, and with a sharp flick of my wrist I threw my twisting spear. It flew in an arc and I heard it pierce something on the other side, followed by a muffled scream. I walked around the bend to behold my prey.

My spear had not punctured a bear’s bronze pelt, but a man’s calf. He was a wild man with mahogany hair and beard tangles down to his thighs, and skin ruddy as baked river clay. He wore no clothes, leaving his entire hairy, and rather muscular, nudity open to my appraisal. If his face was not twisted in agony, I might have thought it handsome. He had dug his fingers into the dirt, clenched hard.

“You’re trespassing in my forest,” I said.

“Argg!” the beast-man said.

“Do you know what I am?”

“Urrraow!”

“I’ll presume that is a ‘no’.” I looked from the claw scratches on the cave wall to the writhing man and knelt beside him. “Where is the Bronze-Backed Bear?”

“Gaaah?”

Any noise we made should have warned off the bear by now. I needed the beast-man alive. There was only one way he was going to lead me to trapping the bear, and it was not in this state. I yanked my bloodied spear out of his calf, taking muscle with it, and tied a strip of my tunic around his wound like I had seen my physician do. He shoved my shoulder with the heel of his palm, harder than I expected, causing me to stumble back.

I gasped. No one had pushed me since I was five.

But he seemed to be ignoring me, so caught up in his pain.

I stole a breath. After I no longer needed him, he would die for this. I yanked him to his feet. He almost collapsed back to the ground, but I caught him under the arms and hauled him towards the cave entrance. His body was heavier than it appeared.

My court remained where I had left them, down the mountain by the brook. They always disturbed the game, and I could only tolerate them for so long on hunts. Nobles and priests, my husbands and wife, tedious children and cousins: I needed them to keep occupied with activities that do not include usurpation.

Any number of thoughts ran across their faces when I appeared back, pushing a wounded, unclothed beast-man with my hands caked in his blood, but they hid it well and clapped politely. With a nod my physician took him from me to dress the wound.

* * *

A shave and haircut had improved the beast-man. Now clothed and seated in a civilized setting, he might have been mistaken for a courtier, if he had not been shovelling bread into his mouth with both hands. Honey and berries were smeared over his face, and onions spilled out of the bread, over his fresh tunic. Clothes did not so much conceal his body as contain it. It was as if any movement his chest made was ready to tear it open.

“Do you do more than grunt?” I asked, standing over him.

I saw the gleam of cleverness in the beast-man’s eyes when he looked to me, no longer in pain. He stood to his full height, knocking his chair over, and his shoulders were at my eye-level. Behind me, I heard the creak of my guards’ armor as they waited on the other side of the door. The beast-man’s room was favored with broad windows, high enough to overlook the city’s northern wall.

“I can speak plainly,” he said, each word chosen carefully, shifting his weight to the unbandaged leg, “or I can converse in riddles and sing in verse, find the omens in the stars of the universe and read weather in the riverbanks. I am Leinu, and I know who you are, Irashar.”

“Then listen well, Leinu, because this I will only ask nicely once,” I said. “Will you take me to the Bronze-Backed Bear?”

“Does the anemone first open because it is spring, or do we say that spring comes because the anemone opens? How can the anemones know spring without speaking to one another and coming to accord? Things aren’t real to us unless they have names we can agree upon.”

“Flowers don’t consult one another.”

“But humans do, Irashar. How can I take you to something that means one thing from your lips, and a different thing in my ears? First you must tell me, what do you mean by this Bronze-Backed Bear?”

“A fearsome beast,” I said, “a horrid creature, whose only purpose is to consume the forest. An eater of horses, he can have twelve in a day. Even prides of lions cower before him. The gods abhorred this monstrosity and saw fit to curse his body with healing powers so as to bribe the Queens and Kings of Nimur into hunting him down, though none so far have done so and lived.”

“Then if that is your idea of the Bronze-Backed Bear, I cannot lead you to something that doesn’t exist.”

“See that wall?” I pointed out the window to the massive northern wall that bordered my city, chiselled lapis lazuli wrought with veins of gold. “That was left by the older gods, and now I am its keeper. Not even the poorest peasant in Nimur dares to wash out the gold or chip the lapis lazuli for fear of me.

“If you could look east, then you would see a wall where every brick is stamped with my name and its dimensions sum to spell the letters in it. My will binds this place together; even as the river floods the countryside between years, it remains whole because of me. I am Nimur.” I stepped closer to him, so that I could feel the heat in his tunic and smell the fruit on his face. “And you will take me to something that doesn’t exist.”

“What will you do otherwise, kill me?” Leinu’s berry-stained lips smiled.

“I will.”

He swept out a hand. “Then you’ll never have the bear’s pelt.”

I turned and stalked out of his room. A trail of courtiers followed me. The sun was just rising, and it was time to dress for the morning audience. I returned to my chambers and stood on the stool as slaves fussed around me, removing my simple tunic for jewels and labyrinthine robes.

“The Milk Drop Star rose well after dusk last night,” my astrologer explained to me, “and so you should wear a nacre torque, your majesty.”

“It is uncomfortable.”

“Nevertheless, you must. The Fourth Wanderer passed the Dog Constellation, hence the tassels on your robes and the baldric embroidered with palmettes…”

I raised a hand and she fell silent. “What does the name Leinu mean to you?” I asked, and then kept that hand out as a slave slipped rings onto it.

The astrologer stepped back for a moment. “The letters in ‘Leinu’ add up to seventy-two, your majesty. So does ‘protector’ and ‘rain,’ ‘river’ and ‘anemone’.” I strained to hear her above the sounds of my wife and one husband bickering over their spinning.

“Anemone?” I kept my mouth open as another slave worked rouge over my lips.

“Indeed.”

The slave had moved to rub kohl around my eyes, and so I closed them as my astrologer continued to explain why I was dressed the way I was today. Eventually, my scribe brought in contracts with the clay still wet. I read them and rolled my seal over the bottom for approval.

We made our procession to the throne room. Relief carvings of my ancestors’ victories filled the limestone walls and around every column, atop the ceilings and floors: an ancestor standing over the body of a beheaded giant; lines of peoples of many nations bringing gifts to the feet of a different ancestor as she reclined on her throne, drawn thrice as large as the rest; my grandmother holding the reins of a four-stallion chariot as she led an army to battle; my father welcoming a fleet of ships that bore him tribute from across the river.

Only over the lesser reliefs did I dare hang my own victories: the horns of the Sword-Sharp Heifer, the pelt of the Shadow-Breathing Panther, the head of the Poison Ibex, the beak from the Laughing Heron, the tails of the Thrice-Tailed Fox. There was a single space left, and that I reserved for the greatest prize yet: my limestone throne for the Bronze-Backed Bear’s hide.

As I slid onto the empty seat, I asked my astrologer, “Is it an auspicious day to visit my mother?” Since I had become queen, Mother was the only one in this city I could speak honestly with.

“Only after the Flickering Star has risen in the west,” the astrologer said, “and first you must walk within the garden.”

“Gardens bore me. They are too tame, not like the forest at all.” I drummed my fingers on the armrest. “I should like to see her sooner.”

“But your majesty, you cannot change the stars.”

* * *

My mother lived, at least part of the time, in the innermost sanctum of her ziggurat. The first thing I had done as queen was to build it higher so that hers stood above the temples of all the other gods.

I left my servants at the door and entered Mother’s personal chamber. She never ate in front of people unless it was with me alone. Twin braziers hung from the ceiling that smelled sweetly of burning styrax. Today, her statue, which was twice as tall as me, was in front of her altar. Upon it I rested my offering of silver grapes, her favorite, and dropped to my knees.

The statue’s carnelian eyes flared as if they held flames, and I knew Mother had arrived. She lifted one thick, jasper-studded basalt arm, and picked up the grapes. The room quivered as she tromped to her giant throne, the lime-etched gold plates of her tunic creaking with the motion of her thighs. She plunked down, leaning on one of the throne’s arms in a way that reminded me of how I sat, and dropped a silver grape into a mouth carved from red agate.

“I told you, darling, jade grapes,” Mother said.

“No, I remember this time,” I said, pointing a finger at her. “It was silver. I won’t be tricked again.”

She shrugged her basalt shoulders, and continued to pop off the grapes, one-by-one. “Your father still isn’t enjoying death very much. He keeps complaining about eating only clay. It’s like he expects me to do something about it.” She fixed her sparking carnelian eyes on me and I shivered. “What have you come for now, darling?”

“I need to vanquish the Bronze-Backed Bear,” I said, and told her of the hunt and Leinu.

“Are you still hunting?” she asked, leaning forwards on her throne. “The Lord of the Netherworld has enough dead to look after without you adding your accidents to the lot.”

“It’s been a year since I’ve speared any slaves!”

“Torture this Leinu. Worked for the rest of your adversaries. Why did you bother coming all the way down here? Thanks for the grapes.” She had eaten all the fruit-shaped globes, but lifted the silver branch up in salute.

“Because,” I said, speaking faster as she nibbled on the branch, “he’s already acquiesced to his death. If he wants something, I can’t give it to him.” I had to make Mother talk, and slow down her eating. “He spoke of the anemone; what does it mean that the numbers in his name add up to the same as this flower?”

“You are asking after the wrong riddle. Forget him. Bears are fonder of riddles than most creatures. I’ve a tip for you.” She slipped the last of the silver into her mouth and spoke as she chewed. “Certain gods have told me that the Golden Lion has moved to these parts of the world. She’s smaller than your bear.”

“I have marked the Bronze-Backed Bear, and I shall have no other.”

“You might control Nimur tight as a trireme, but the forest isn’t your city.” The fire died in her carnelian eyes, and her statue rested back on the throne.

* * *

It was my third husband’s turn to share my bed that night, a dark prince from lands to the far south that were rich in gold mines. The gold I appreciated, but not the fact that they had forgotten to mention his snores in the wedding contract. I had learned to keep a slave by the bedside on his nights, and every time he drifted off the slave would poke him awake again. Despite this I, too, had little sleep.

In my dreams, I could see the pelt over my throne, nothing in the room gleaming as brightly or gloriously as its bronze sheen. I sat, felt it caress my bare flesh, rested my cheek against it. I stroked the fur, first pulling the hair between my fingers, followed by my tongue. It tasted of roses and I inhaled pistachios. And then a spear tore through my leg and I was thrown back into my bedchamber, awakened with a start.

“Just a bear,” murmured husband-three, turning over and slinging his arm around me. “Why do you need it?” He opened his eyes, trying to peer at me through the darkness. I could see him clearly. “You have no cataracts, kidney stones, or burns.”

I took his chin in my hand. “I have no need of earthly things. Blood, saliva, and hair aren’t what I want.”

The instant I rolled out of my bed, three guards rushed to their feet to follow me. I waved them away, and left my chambers to see Leinu alone.

He was not asleep in the bed provided him, but had pulled the blankets off and slept in a nest in one corner, arms at his side and legs folded beneath his body. As I shut the door behind me, he awakened and leapt to his feet. His fine tunic was rumpled.

“What would you call the Bronze-Backed Bear?” I asked.

“The river, the wind, protector of the forest,” he said, pacing. He had kicked off his sandals, leaving his hairy feet bare.

“I am that. The forest is mine.”

“Possession isn’t protection.” There was only the slightest limp in his walk now. He healed quickly.

“Well then, could you show me to this protector of the forest?”

“Can I show the hills to the moon, or the desert to the sun? I would be presumptuous to show a queen the domain she claims.”

“But since the sun gazes upon so much, perhaps you could point her to a small detail that she has missed. Little wonder no one has tracked him before,” I said, “when his trail was so clear to me.”

“He would not be seen unless he wanted to be.”

The moonlight caught on the honey and fruit dried on his cheeks. I laughed, despite myself. He stopped pacing and faced me, features suddenly quizzical.

“The words you speak are fine,” I said, stifling myself, “but you haven’t figured out how to eat.” I knelt by his water bucket and wet the sleeve of my tunic so that I could dab the food off his cheeks. He flinched, and I laughed again. “You sound like a person, and look like a beast.” His mahogany hair was frayed from the cutting, and already tangled. There was an ivory comb on a table. I ran it through his hair.

He snarled, lashing out with one hand. I caught his wrist and held his arm down by his side. “Too bad half my court has seen you already. What a game it would be to educate you and pass you off as one of them.” I felt the muscles in his wrist beneath my hand, and squeezed harder. He whimpered whenever the comb struck a knot. I enjoyed having such an effect on a person of his physical prowess.

“Have all people become tools to you?” he asked. “Arms to hold your kills, hands to dress you, mouths to give you answers?”

I yanked the comb hard through his hair and threw it to the bed.

“Hardly an existence.” He rubbed his head. “When have you last spoken true words, Irashar?”

“I am the daughter of a god and a king. I don’t need truth.”

“As much as we close our eyes, lies may wither, but once spoken the truth remains.”

“Then speak this truth.”

He turned to face me. “You live in fear. You separate yourself from others. They are close to you so that you might watch them, but still at a distance, for they are too occupied with trivial tasks. You speak of your greatness, and make it so that everyone believes you. I watched the golden, northern wall all day. Two peasants approached it, and three guards chased them away. My ears and eyes don’t match.”

“The legitimacy of my rule is written in the stars themselves.”

“The stars are a long way from here.”

I turned, but stopped for a moment and closed my eyes, feeling his moist breath upon my neck.

“You cannot change the stars,” he said. “You can only decide how they change you.”

* * *

“Over-tunic of tree wool, dyed purple from flowers on the northern mountains. Three ruby rings, peridot collar with soapstone pendant,” the astrologer said. “Tiara, onyx set in silver, for the full moon of the fifth month.”

“I should like to wear the snake-shaped crown today,” I said, pushing back the slave who held the silver tiara.

“Your majesty really should re-consider—”

“I have given it much consideration. Snakes.” I snapped my fingers and a slave moved to retrieve it.

The astrologer snapped her own fingers. When the slave continued to carry the crown towards me, she slapped him. He ignored this and slid it onto my head.

“First Wanderer, risen at dusk,” I said. “Astrologer leaves Nimur.”

“You aren’t above the gods’ will!”

“But I am above yours.” When she opened her mouth, I ran a finger across my throat. She fell silent and stalked out of my chamber.

I held out a hand to the nearest slave. “Remove these rings, clumsy things.” The quiet in my chamber grew noticeable, as the courtiers had fallen silent. Even the bickering between my spouses had stopped for one gods’ blessed moment. I sighed and impatiently beckoned the scribe to my side. “Send to the academy for a new astrologer. Let them know I want one more knowledgeable of earthly temperaments than the last. Astrologers don’t just read the heavens.”

He bowed his head.

“In the meantime,” I said, addressing the chamber, “I shall interpret the stars. Am I not your queen?”

They murmured in response.

“Am I not your queen?” I roared, and they nodded vigorously.

That day I skipped audiences and took a stroll through the garden, on a route of my choosing for once, a husband on either arm and my wife and three of my children behind me. I crossed a ring of courtiers gathered around the fountain. With a snap of my fingers they cleared a path so that I could see what interested them.

Leinu had bent over the fountain, head submerged in the pool. He came up with his hair and beard dripping wet, and shook himself off. It sent water through the air. The courtiers laughed.

“Your majesty was most wise to bring the wild one here,” my wife said to me. “He’s more entertaining than last month’s imbecile.”

“He is Leinu,” I said with a grin. And seeing how I favored him by calling him by name, they all fell silent. “Leave us.”

Leinu and I reclined in the shade of a cypress tree by the fountain as the garden quickly emptied of the courtiers. I scooped my hand into the pool to splash him. He returned the motion and I whooped.

“Do you like my gardens?” I asked, wringing out my braid.

“Certainly the beds of poppies and medlar groves are delightful, as beautiful as your insipid ibises are, but I fail to understand them. Why is nature captured and refined for human tastes, when you might more easily walk in true nature the way the gods made it?” Hair stuck up out of his tunic’s collar around his neck, longer than I remembered it had been yesterday.

“That’s why I dislike them so. My father wouldn’t go to the forest. It was not until I was older that I first beheld it, the textures and smells more alive than inside Nimur’s walls. I had to learn of every bush, tree, and beast immediately. Why do you think I keep the forest clear of peasants, that only nobles with permission hunt in it with me?”

“But when you have your eyes upon the largest prize, you always hunt it alone.”

“Because the legendary beasts are mine. My scribes write my contracts, my ambassadors negotiate with foreigners, my viziers draw up the city plans. All I have done is roll my seal at the bottom. There must be something of my making.”

He glanced around at the courtiers’ shadows that hung from the palace windows above, taking a peek at us and then scuttling away when my gaze followed his, and he murmured so quietly that only I could hear, “You’ve taken the stars.”

“They still move the same as they always do.” I shrugged. “I’d rather they say differently what my actions must be.”

He chuckled. “And here I believed you would claim to move them yourself!”

“Of course I cannot move stars!”

“Yet you can claim the forest, hang up its carcasses for display and call it yours. What is so different between them?”

I looked at him then, very closely. Hair had fallen into his eye and he blinked several times. I pushed it back and ran the mahogany threads between my fingers, feeling bumps along its coarse texture. All my combing had been for nothing. It was just as knotted.

“You will make the forest a garden,” he said, and I traced my fingers down his cheek, over his lips.

“No more words,” I whispered, holding his chin, and pulled him up with me.

* * *

“Your majesty, Leinu has escaped.” The guard winced. He looked young and untried.

I gave him a smile instead, and this made him even more nervous. “Did you send a detail after him?” I asked. I stood on the balcony by my chambers, the early morning clear to all the stars. My new astrologer stood at my side, as I had been explaining the wanderers’ movements to her.

“We await your command,” he said.

“Which gate did he leave by?”

“West, towards the forest.”

“Do not pursue him.”

As the guard’s footsteps faded behind us, the new astrologer said, “From what I understand, you enjoyed this Leinu’s company over that of your court and even your own family. He was most dear to you.”

“That’s why I must let him go,” I whispered, drumming my fingers on the rail.

“Perhaps a distraction would do for the queen, to clear him from your mind.” The astrologer leaned beside me. “Before I had even slipped toe into Nimur, tales of your great prowess with the spear reached my ears. What could please you more than a hunt?”

All the omens meant it was a good morning for a hunt. A party gathered to me soon, and we rode between the poplars shrouded in darkness and pre-dawn fog. I crossed Leinu’s tracks once, bare man-feet pressed into earth and so heavy they marked stone. They lead deeper into the forest and towards the slope of pistachio trees, and I closed my eyes tight for a moment. My hunting party bumbled behind me noisily, followed by under-breath curses as they rode their mounts into trees. It must have been blindingly dark for them, but not one dared speak up about it. I alone saw the forest.

We slowed when I found a deer nibbling a patch of mulberries. Her feet were splayed at four angles, neck arched downwards and achingly vulnerable. She would make an easy kill.

“The first,” husband-two said, passing me a spear, “is always yours.”

I closed my fingers around the shaft, bronze cooler in my palm than the morning air, and held it above my head, drawing back to throw. The deer, noticing the hunting party, raised her head. Her two ears twitched. The berry juice covered her muzzle. My arm lowered. Spooked, the creature danced away.

“Not like you to hesitate,” he muttered.

I shoved the spear shaft back at him, and he fell silent.

I spotted a blackbird nestled in his nest on a lower branch, wings at his side, feet folded beneath. His eyes were still closed from sleep. I tapped my daughter on the shoulder. “See him?” I asked.

She squinted, passing me her bow and quiver. “Your shot’s the truest.”

But I shook them away. “Let us not disturb his rest.”

We rode our mounts downhill to cross a small stream. A lion was bathing in it, her crown just skimming over the top. She lifted herself ashore to shake her entire body dry, spraying the poplar trunks with water. I smiled, my court tittered, and I shushed them. So noticing us, the lion drew back on her haunches. She hissed. Spears of the day’s first light sent her fur scintillating like gold over her lithe muscles.

“‘Tis an uncommonly beautiful beast,” my cousin whispered. “You would be the envy of all rulers if you had her pelt to warm your bare throne.”

“No,” I said, grabbing my stallion’s reins to turn back. “The hunt is over.”

* * *

S. L. Nickerson plays with galaxies for a living, and real life unfolds for her like a science fiction story. When she needs an escape hatch she paints worlds with words. She slips back into times that never were to remember the wonder in all things of our universe. Her writing has appeared in Analog, Kalidatrope, Pulp Lit, The Colored Lens, Reflection’s Edge, and The Prairie Journal. She lives in Zürich where she is working on her Ph.D in astrophysics.