288. The Tenth Moonly Letter

288. The Tenth Moonly Letter that Heather will write to her brother Arley during the Glorious Moon of Gold, and in which it is told how Beau finds an occupation that will distract him from worrying about nonsense and the Sirens of Anthemoessa give him and Demetrius Estraricus Richearth a helping hand.   

Dear Arley,

I hope this letter finds you well.

We were at one of those lunches that people organize after a Name Day Party. You know, people who haven’t seen people in a while and meet at the party decide they want to see more of each other and they organize events so they can do that.

“Have I done the right thing?” Beaurenard asked me. As usual, he was fussing about the possible consequences of what he had just done. “Do you think Darcy gave the Jocosers  the right orders? Suppose one of the Kittykids is drowning ina river and only a member of the Jocose Gang is at hand to help but doesn’t realice what is happening because we made him promise never to notice that the Atshebies exist?”

“That’s enough, Beau!” I said to him. The truth is I am a little fed up with the habbit he has of blaming himself for all the possible bad stuff that could happen because of something he has done with the best of intentions.

“You see, maybe we should have asked the Jocosers to make safer promises. Sometimes I think nobody can know for sure what is best.”

“You are a complicator, boy. You and your mentor are a couple of clowns. Funnier than any member of the Jocose Gang could ever hope to be, and more ridiculous too,” Madam Grandmother the Lady Celestial said to Beau. “Are you aware of the monumental fuss you have raised to achieve your silly purpose? Well, now, just forget it! Don’t gripe! Entertain yourself doing something else. Let it be something useful.”

 “There was no other way I could do what I have done, Lady Celestial. No other solution ocurred to me.”

“You have sought, in a risky and absurd way, the aid of a dark and unpredictable individual, one who is undoubtedly unsafe to deal with when you could have come to me instead. That simple.”

“But you are always at odds with AEternus, Lady Celestial. And I didn’t want to be the  cause of more trouble between you.”

“Better say you didn’t want to displease that fool who has you hoodwinked. How can you be so clever and so stupid at the same time?”

“I have no idea,” said Beaurenard. “Is Darcy really that dangerous?”

“You think it is safe to deal with someone who can have  anything he asks for? You find it prudent to pact with someone like that?”

“Well, no. I was aware Darcy could have asked me to give him the horse for free and sent me packing. But he didn’t. Which is why I think Darcy is potentially dangerous but doesn’t act as wickedly as he could. He uses his gift cautiously and sparingly. Or do you not think so, Madam?”

“If you have been able to manipulate him, being as you are nothing but a ballsy boy, he is probably not very prudent himself. You go on toying with strange spirits and you are likely to end up learning what can happen to those that do. And once you were at this, why did you not ask the dark man to ask the members of the Jocose Gang to stop pestering others forever?”

“I considered doing that, but supposed AEternus himself would have cut their wings if he wanted this. I also thought it would be too much to ask of Darcy in exchange for a toy horse.”

“AEternus could have solved this problem snapping his fingers once. But AEternus preferred to tucker you and his daughter’s shady coachman out. You know why AEternus didn’t do this himself? Because he is an indecent loafer who would rather spit out the word liberty than move a finger.  He may have told you he wouldn’t intervene because the Atshebies already had plenty of advantages and were spoiled kids. But to need a needle is not the same thing as to need a bucket. You never know what will come in handy to help yourself or others. Look! There you have the sister of the dark man. It looks as if she doesn’t dare to ask her brother to get for her what she desires the most,” said Madam Lady Celestial, pointing at Brana. “Maybe she has more than she needs too.”

Branna,  as everyone knows, only lacks children. And since for some mysterious reason none have  appeared  before her, she was trying to put pressure on Atty and Cathsheba.

“Give me at least one! You have got six!” she begged and begged the couple.

“Poor girl,” sighed Beau. “She’ll end up deranged.”

And then his eyes lit up.

And before I could say a word, Grandma Madam Lady Celestial spoke.

“Don’t you stick your nose into this business now,” said Madam Grandma the Lady Celestial. “Look how her husband’s attempt to buy her one ended.”

“Demetrius didn’t try to buy anyone. He only tried to adopt the wrong person.”

“What has become of that monster? He was older than Father Time, wasn’t he?”

“Old was the Seedspitter, yes. Now he is in charge of the mill that was once the rag hag’s. He is rather good at this.”

“What I don’t understand is why Uncle Richie doesn’t simply order a child from Lucina or someone like her,” I said.

“Those people abhor Demetrius,” said Beau. “He is probably first on their blacklist. He has had trouble with them before, trying to obtain children for inadequate mortal women he fell in love with in Las Vegas and places like that. For instance, the mortal woman who ended up in jail for attempting to murder him becasue he was her newlywed husband and she wanted to inherit his money. Yes, the woman Demetrius insisted on paying a pension to when they were divorced and she was in jail. He was sorry for her because he said he understood why she had tried to kill him. Arley told me about her, Heather. Surely you know about her too. Well, she is one of many. And the matrons  who gave him children for these women had to take them back. Demetrius would have kept them and raised them in his kind though irresponsible way, but the matrons said no. And to make matters worse, the Syndicate of Divine and Fay Matrons is upset with AEternus because he told them off for having allowed Jocosa to order the six Atshebies for her daughter.”

“Branna wouldn’t be a bad mother,” I said.

“Yes. But so sorry. They aren’t giving Demetrius any more chances with children. And he wouldn’t be such a bad father, I know that for sure.He’s a kind man, though very eccentric, but the matrons are fed up with him. While Brana is his wife, well, so sorry, no children for her either.”

“Beaurenard Flynn, it seems to me you know too much about this subject,” said the Lady Celestial. “Be careful or you might end up figuring in that black list too.”

“I know how to look after myself, Madam Lady Celestial.”

To no avail were Madam Grandma the Lady Celestial’s warnings. Beau was dead set on interfering in the lives of Uncle Richie and Branna. Since at that moment he had nothing to do but regret the possible errors he had committed in the past, well he became obsessed with finding a child for the fertility god and the lady astronomer.

“It has to be Uncle Richearth’s child,” I warned him. “Consider that you could end up sharing a child with Branna.”

“Or with your Uncle Rich. Not to worry. That is very clear to me. Demetrius is precisely what makes this problem a problem. If he didn't necessarily have to be the father, Branna could have kids.”

“Look, I’m not being jealous. Madam Grandma the Lady Celestial shares  my Uncle Gentlerain with Grandpa AEternus  and since then they don’t speak to each other.”

“That is something that was bound to happen anyway. Your poor uncle isn’t the reason for their tiff, he is the excuse.”

“Which of my grandmothers do you think should really be Uncle Gen’s mother? Celestial sustains that she saw the twins before AEternus did, but said nothing because AEternus and Divina were closer to the children, though with their backs to them and she wanted to get to them before her sister and her brother-in-law became aware of their existence.”

“I can’t know, but I do know that there are people among our people who have seven mothers and nine grannies and cases like that and no one fusses. Your grandparents quarrel because that is what they want to do.”

Most determined, Beau went to see Uncle Richie and since Richearth is always ready to sally forth on any kind of mad adventure, they decided to go on a baby hunt. There had to be a kid out there who would want to be Branna’s. The first thing they did was go visit Uncle Evenfall at the Ruins Nearly West, because he lived close to a settlement of Prickly Kids and knew them well, and might recommend one to fill this vacant position. But Catgliostro, the feline prophet,  quickly dissuaded them from approaching any of these little fiends.

“Prickly Kids are simply wicked. And there is no reforming them. They aren’t really children, they are young devils. They neither want nor understand that they ought to have parents. They will break your wife´s heart, Richearth, and ditch her the minute they have something more interesting to do than let themselves be spoilt rotten. And they always have something more interesting to do, and it is always something bad,” counselled Catgliostro.

Beautiful Marina, headmistress of the Sweet Voice of the Siren School of Voice Culture and Vibrant Song, was at Uncle Even’s ghost home. It seems she is his fairy goddaughter and both are to play together at the First Concert of Sacred and Profane Music of the Ancient World that Calendula was organizing as part of the festivities related to the inauguration of her Museum of Magic Treasures. Evenfall was to play the lyre and Marina the double flute. They were together to practice. They sounded very good, but made you a feel a little drowsy. But then, one always feels a little somnolent when  nearly west.

“I know of someone who had a problem like yours, Richie. But I can’t for the love of me remember who it was," said Marina.

"Can I hang around you till it comes back to your mind?" asked Uncle Richie. And Beau rolled his eyes. 

 "You are so funny!" laughed Marina, and then she gave Richearth some advice."Why don’t you drop by Capri and visit the Sirens of Anthemoessa? This has got something to do with them, if I remember rightly the little I remember,” suggested Marina.

“They give out babies? Like the storks?”

“No. These sirens are birdlike, but they only give out misfortune and wild flowers  and, yes, wondrous aromatic herbs, if you survive and make it alive to their island. You see they used to work for Demeter and learned  a lot about plants from her. But they might also know a secret about having children. I sort of remember they told me something in that line once. Of course, practically everyone knows these girls harass sailors, driving them mad with their songs and making them abandon their ships and leap into the water and get smacked against the rocks so their bodies can later be interred to serve as fertilizer for the crops grown on that island. It is rumored that these Sirens first drink the blood of the corpses before burying them. But I have never heard it said that they have drained anyone living. And I can tell you how to get to them safely, so you won’t get killed before you reach the shore, though you probably wouldn’t be killed, just badly  battered, because you are spirits and not mortals.”

Thus encouraged by enchanting Marina,  Beau and Uncle Richie showed no fear of mind-blowing chanting femmes fatales who suck the blood of the dead the tide brings to their island before burying them. Beau and Richie sailed off to Capri and it took Beau some doing to tear Richie away from the martinis and the mortal ladies in tangas that there were at the beach as well as all of the people who wanted to board his gold and ivory and mahogany yatch for their own selfish reasons. 

But Beau managed to drag Richearth to Cape Pelore where they floated about until they saw at a prudent distance a pink and yellow island that later turned out to be covered with broom and heather and lemon trees plus an occasional oak. On one side of this island there surged large blue rocks, the camouflaging colour of the sea and the sky,  with eight not too profound cavities, like the nests of peregrine falcons, which are nothing but small depressions in the earth, and Beau knew these were the thrones of the sirens and that he and Richearth had reached Anthemoessa.

Being well informed, they were lucky. There wasn’t a single siren singing when they reached port at four in the morning, for from four to five the sirens are all fast asleep. Though they take turns to sing practically all day and night,  this early hour of dawn is sacred to the sirens, and the only moment when all are gone from the rocks at the same time.  As I said, the rest of the time they take turns, and that is why it is difficult to know if there are three or five or eight of them in existence. The truth, Beau and Richie learned, is that there are eight, one less than the Muses. For these ladies are the Muses of the Underworld, and though they make use of the mortal remains of the drowned, they are careful to conscientiously carry the souls of those who die at sea down to the Underworld and even pay for their passage in Charon’s barge. It is their way of paying for the fertilizer.

Well, there was a small blue lizard on one of the rocks, and it slid in through a crack, and through that crack Beau and our uncle slid too. A blue lagoon was in there, with stones rising from it, bluer than lapis lazuli, these ones. And there were the sirens, with their teased hair decorated with tiny shells and pearls and wee bits of coral, all wrapped up in their feathers, roosting in nests of basil, oregano, parsley, thyme and marjoram, snoring musically in their sleep, softly and hypnotically, and breathing in the extremely intense perfume their Mediterranean herbal mattresses emitted.  

“Either we wake them or we nod off ourselves,” said Beau. “It’s intoxicating here.”

“Wake them with a kiss?” asked Uncle Richi.

“NO! You want to get slapped or what? Don’t you know these ladies murder people? We’ll say good morning very politely and that had better do.”

“I’ll sing good morning. I bet I sing as well as they do,” said our uncle. And he began to sweetly sing, “Good morning to you! Good morning to you! Good morning, dear ladies, good morning to you!”

The Sirens’ eyes popped wide open. But before they could react, Richearth broke into Las Mañanitas, singing these Mexican lovely good morning greetings more tenderly than any singer ever had.

"These are the morning greetings that King David used to sing, to the pretty girls he slept with! It is for you that I sing! Wake up, my darlings, wake up, see how the dawn is here! The little birds are chirping, the moon away is hieing!" 

Since Uncle Richearth sings so imposingly well, the sirens were fascinated by his masterful voice and showed no animosity towards him or Beau for having invaded their bedroom instead of having crashed smack against the rocks thus providing them with fertilizer. But even so, they sent these two gentlemen straight to hell.

Bright Voice said, “You’ve been misinformed.”

Bewitching Words said, “Not entirely. We can be of a little help.”

Song said, “We don’t know what you need to know, but we know  who might know.”

Able Persuasion said, “Listen to us, and we´ll tell you who to ask.”

Maiden Voice said, “If you are not too timid.”

Allure said, “They are not. They came in here uninvited.”

Charming Melody said, “Our king below was childless. And was destined to remain so.”

Beckoning Call said, “Perhaps his child knows how she came to be his.”

And Beau and Uncle Richearth understood they were being dared to ask Melinoe, crown princess of Hades, how her dusky father and her milky mother had acquired her.

I made a Cornish saffron cake with currants for Little Mauel's tenth moonly birthday. He loved it as much as the rest. 

And now, a recipe for saffron cordial. It's very easy to make, but should be made at least five hours ahead. You will need: four teaspoons of granulated raw cane sugar, about thirty to forty strands of saffron, eight and a half cups of water, two thirds cup honey, a teaspoon of ground ginger, lemons, two for the drink and maybe another for decortaing when served. 

Crush the sugar and the saffron to a very fine powder with a small pestle and mortar and set this aside.

Cut two lemons in fine slices. 

Mix the water, the ginger and the lemon slices and bring this mixture to a boil. After it boils for two minutes, remove it from the heat. Stir in the mixture of saffron and sugar. Let this stand for ten minutes and then slowly stir in the honey. Cover and chill and then refrigerate for five hours. Remove the lemon slices before they make the drink bitter. That you should do after refrigerating for about two or three hours, don't wait more. Serve in pretty cups and decorate with fresh lemon slices. Make sure none of the lemon seeds have made their way into the drink! 

One of the reasons I made saffron cordial to go with the cake is that this drink is supposed to protect one from bad influences. Nobody needs any of that. May all go very well with you, my brother. 

Love from Heather. Lots of it.