The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [6]
“I don’t know how sapient you find most Homines, but I for one find the classification an optimistic misnomer.” I was on familiar ground now, that of the mind and opinions, a beloved ground I had not trod for many months. That some of the opinions were those of an obnoxious teenager made them none the less comfortable or easy to defend. To my pleasure, he responded.
“Homo in general, or simply vir?” he asked, with a solemnity that made me suspect that he was laughing at me. Well, at least I had taught him to be subtle with it.
“Oh, no. I am a feminist, but no man hater. A misanthrope in general, I suppose like yourself, sir. However, unlike you I find women to be the marginally more rational half of the race.”
He laughed again, a gentler version of the earlier outburst, and I realised that I had been trying to provoke it this time.
“Young lady,” he stressed the second word with gentle irony, “you have caused me amusement twice in one day, which is more than anyone else has done in some time. I have little humour to offer in return, but if you would care to accompany me home, I could at least give you a cup of tea.”
“I should be very pleased to do so, Mr. Holmes.”
“Ah, you have the advantage over me. You obviously know my name, yet there is no one present of whom I might beg an introduction to yourself.” The formality of his speech was faintly ludicrous considering that we were two shabby figures facing each other on an otherwise deserted hillside.
“My name is Mary Russell.” I held out my hand, which he took in his thin, dry one. We shook as if cementing a peace pact, which I suppose we were.
“Mary,” he said, tasting it. He pronounced it in the Irish manner, his mouth caressing the long first syllable. “A suitably orthodox name for such a passive individual as yourself.”
“I believe I was named after the Magdalene, rather than the Virgin.”
“Ah, that explains it then. Shall we go, Miss Russell? My house-keeper ought to have something to put in front of us.”
It was a lovely walk, that, nearly four miles over the downs. We thumbed over a variety of topics strung lightly on the common thread of apiculture. He gestured wildly atop a knoll when comparing the management of hives with Machiavellian theories of government, and cows ran snorting away. He paused in the middle of a stream to illustrate his theory juxtaposing the swarming of hives and the economic roots of war, using examples of the German invasion of France and the visceral patriotism of the English. Our boots squelched for the next mile. He reached the heights of his peroration at the top of a hill and launched himself down the other side at such a speed that he resembled some great flapping thing about to take off.
He stopped to look around for me, took in my stiffening gait and my inability to keep up with him, both literally and metaphorically, and shifted into a less manic mode. He did seem to have a good practical basis for his flights of fancy and, it turned out, had even written a book on the apiary arts entitled A Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. It had been well received, he said with pride (this from a man who, I remembered, had respectfully declined a knighthood from the late queen), particularly his experimental but highly successful placement within the hive of what he called the Royal Quarters, which had given the book its provocative subtitle: With Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen.
We walked, he talked, and under the sun and his soothing if occasionally incomprehensible monologue I began to feel something hard and tight within me relax slightly, and an urge I had thought killed began to make