by Glyn Iliffe
Heracles looked at the old woman, wondering at the mysterious power she had used to pin him helplessly against the altar. Then he looked at the deer by her side.
‘I have to take the hind back to Tiryns.’
‘Why?’
‘I told you – because the gods commanded me to serve Eurystheus, and he ordered me to capture the animal.’
‘And why are you commanded to serve Eurystheus?’
‘Because…because I did something unspeakable.’
‘Because you murdered your own children,’ the priestess said, her expression dark.
‘In a moment of madness, yes!’ he said. ‘Madness induced by the gods. And the gods have said I must complete ten labours for Eurystheus if I am to redeem myself.’
‘No man can earn his redemption, even a son of Zeus,’ the priestess responded. ‘Peace from sins can only be granted by the grace of the gods.’
‘All I know is that if I do not take the hind back to Tiryns then I will never be free from my guilt.’
‘Then you will never be free! Artemis is the protector of children: she will not tolerate your blackened hands touching the sacred hind.’
‘Then let her try and stop me!’
He launched himself towards the animal, determined to catch her before she could escape from him again. But as his hands reached for her antlers, there was a flash of blinding light and he was thrown back across the clearing. He crashed against the bole of a tree and felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. But the light still penetrated his eyelids, filling his vision and preventing him from blacking out. As his senses returned, he held his hand before his face and opened his eyes.
The fierce white light that had filled the grove was slowly fading. The green of the grass and the brown of the trees returned to the edges of his vision. He lowered his hand, and through narrowed eyelids saw two figures standing before him. One was the hind, tall and proud, her golden antlers brilliant. The other was a maiden. As the shimmering light became dull again, he saw that she was tall and beautiful. Her long black hair was tied up in a tail that flowed down her back. On her feet were silver sandals, and she wore a white dress fastened at the shoulder by a golden brooch. Her skin was pale and her features were soft and immature, like a child of thirteen or fourteen years, but her dark eyes possessed the authority of a queen. They regarded Heracles sternly now, reaching into the depths of his soul – or so it felt to him – and searching out all the secrets held there. Only then did he notice the golden bow clutched in her hand and the quiver of arrows hanging at her hip. There was no sign of the priestess.
‘Do you dare to challenge me, Heracles, son of Zeus?’
He stood up.
‘I was set a labour and I will complete it, even if all the gods stand in my way.’
‘I see you have the arrogance of our father,’ the goddess said, eyeing him with disdain. ‘A poor quality in a man. Humility is better, especially when faced by a goddess. I have slain better men than you for showing me half the effrontery!’
In one simple, quick movement, she plucked an arrow from her quiver, fitted it to her string and aimed it at his heart.
‘Shoot me down, then,’ he responded, fiercely. ‘Do Hera’s work for her and release me from this nightmarish existence. You will be doing me a kindness.’
Artemis lowered her bow a fraction and stared at him.
‘The last thing I would do is help Hera. Besides, Father would not be pleased if I struck you down – he has his own plans for you. Nor would I relieve you of your pain. If you have any redeeming quality, Heracles, it is your genuine remorse over the murder of your children. Long may it continue.’
‘Yes, my remorse is true, my lady. I feel the pain of it more than any god could ever understand. And that is why I will complete the tasks set for me and cleanse my conscience of it, as the oracle promised. And that means taking your sacred hind back to Tiryns.’
‘I will not permit hands guilty of child murder to touch her,’ she insisted, raising her bow again.
‘If you can’t kill me without angering Zeus, then you can’t stop me either!’
He fitted an arrow to his bow and drew the string back, aiming it at the animal’s back leg. If Artemis was forbidden from killing him, then what did it matter if he wounded her precious pet, so long as he took the hind back alive to Eurystheus? Then, to his horror, the goddess turned her own bow towards the deer, the point aimed directly at her heart.
‘If I cannot kill you,’ she said, ‘then I will at least stop you from fulfilling the labour. Where will your hopes of redemption be after I have slain the hind?’
She pulled the bowstring back to her cheek and relaxed her fingertip hold on it. Just then, a figure rushed from the trees and threw itself against the hind’s flank. The goddess raised her bow and the arrow flew between the animal’s golden antlers and embedded itself in the trunk of a tree. Heracles dropped his own weapon in the grass and ran to the little girl, enclosing her in his arms.
‘Myrine! What are you doing?’
She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulders.
‘I followed you to tell you that my mother loves you. I know she does. If you marry her and live with us then you won’t have to go back to Tiryns at all. Nothing else will matter then.’
Artemis looked at Myrine and the severity in her expression softened.
‘Do you know what this man has done, child?’ she asked.
Myrine pulled away from Heracles and looked at the goddess.
‘My lady, all I know is that he saved my life and the life of my mother. When we had no hope, he helped us. That’s why I want him to stay here with us. But I also know that this deer is important to him. If he cannot stay with us, then he has to take her back to his king so that he can be happy again. That’s why I couldn’t let you kill her. I’m sorry if I did wrong.’
Artemis slung her bow across her back and smiled.
‘You did nothing wrong, unless love and courage are things to be ashamed of. And if Heracles saved your life, then you have returned the favour, in a manner. For your sake, I will let the hind live. And if he has saved an innocent life, then I will no longer condemn him for the evils of his past.’ The goddess turned her eyes on Heracles. ‘Go back to Tiryns and take the hind with you, though I forbid you to touch her – she will follow you because I will command her to do so. And when your king has marvelled at my beloved friend, then you must promise to let her go.’
‘You have my word, my lady,’ he replied.
‘One more thing. Let it be clear, Heracles, that I detest what you have done. But I also recognize that what you did was by the will of Hera, who hates you. It is a terrible thing for a mortal man to face the enmity of a goddess! I, too, was born to a mortal mother whom Zeus lusted after, and if I had not been a goddess then Hera would have done away with me at the first opportunity. But she has treated me with contempt ever since, and we have little love for each other. I am not ignorant of her schemes, though. She wants you dead, even more so because Zeus – whom she also hates – places so much value on you.
‘A while back she visited the monster Echidna and took two of her hideous offspring away with her, intending that they should kill you. The first was the Nemean Lion, which against all expectations you were able to defeat. The second is even more fearsome than the first. Be warned, son of Zeus: Hera will contrive to send you into its lair. And even with your strength, you have no hope of coming out alive again.’
‘And if I do, then is this the monster the oracle spoke to me about? The one that holds the secret to why I killed my sons?’
‘The monster itself holds no secrets,’ Artemis replied. ‘It is just a monster; but it is the beast that you were told about. And if you survive the fight, then very soon everything you believe about yourself – about what you did – is going to change.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean just that, and I have already said too much. Do not ask for mo
re.’
He bowed low before her, indicating for Myrine to do the same. There was a sudden flash of intense white light, and then the light in the temple became flat and lacklustre again. When he looked up, the goddess was gone. He looked around the clearing, but there was no sign of her. But the hind remained, regarding Heracles with her dark, unintelligent eyes.
‘Come, Myrine,’ he said. ‘Fetch your goat and let’s go.’
Chapter Fourteen
The Witch's Cave
Megara wrapped her cloak tighter about herself. The air in the wood was cold and still and silent, except for the echoes of the occasional twig snapping beneath her sandals. There were no birds singing, no dusty beams of sunlight breaking through the canopy above. The wood felt lonely and, somehow, malevolent, as if it resented her presence. And she felt she was being watched as she followed the path that led deeper into its dark heart.
Part of her wished she had asked Iolaus to come with her. She would not have felt afraid with him at her side, and his conversation would have made the journey more tolerable, though he had lost his usual light-heartedness of late. He was beginning to feel the impact of Heracles’s absence, she guessed. She knew, because she felt it herself, despite what he had done. But she knew she could not have brought Iolaus with her. This was her own folly – an itch that had to be scratched – and she did not want anyone else around to witness her humiliation when she realized how foolish she had been.
Eventually, she reached the fork in the path that her housemaid had told her about. An old tree – hollow and blackened by lightning, though still bearing living branches – marked the divergence, and if she had not known to look for the tree, she would have missed it. The main path continued to the right, clear to see as it led upwards through the wood. The path she had to take passed between two beds of brambles that grew to waist height, then down into a deeper gloom. The thorns snagged at her cloak as she passed between them, and after freeing herself for the fourth or fifth time, she almost gave up and turned around. But something in her told her she had to go on. She had to know whether her imagination was deceiving her or not.
As if recognizing her determination to continue, the brambles thinned out and the path widened. She followed its downward slant as it wound between old trees with low branches that forced her to continue at a stoop. The air became cooler, the atmosphere more oppressive. Strangely, she felt afraid and ridiculous at the same time: afraid because her nursemaid had scared her with too many stories about haunted forests and witches when she was a child; and ridiculous because here she was, a daughter of the king, wandering alone through an old wood on the advice of one of her slaves.
‘Maybe there won’t be a cave,’ she said aloud, desperate to hear the sound of a voice, even if it was only her own. ‘Maybe Phaedra is playing me for a fool, taking her revenge for some past scolding I gave her.’
Then she smelled woodsmoke followed by the unmistakable aroma of food. Broth, she thought, suddenly realizing how hungry she was. Foolishly, she had not considered bringing food for the journey. She carried on down the path, until the trees began to thin and she heard a strange mewling sound. Mystified, she carried on and found herself at the edge of a small hollow. No trees grew in the dell, though two had collapsed into it, their trunks rotten and overgrown. Sitting on the trunks and all around the sides of the hollow were dozens of cats. A few glanced at her with an air of indifference, then continued whatever activity had been boring them before.
She looked about the dell and noticed an opening in the opposite slope. The mouth of the cave was overhung with foliage, and a wisp of smoke trailed up through the green fronds. Three or four more cats were sitting in the shadows of the entrance.
Megara hesitated a moment, then advanced cautiously down the side of the hollow, shooing aside the cats in her path. At the bottom, she stooped and peered into the cave. From what little she could make out, it had a low ceiling penetrated by the roots of the trees above. The cave went down a little, then bent to the left, where the flickering light of a hidden fire played on the walls. She could see the silhouetted outlines of several cats moving in the shadows, and hear the purring of more from deeper inside the cave.
‘Is anybody there?’ she asked, brushing aside the hanging foliage and entering the gloom.
There was no answer. She took a few steps into the tunnel, toeing aside two or three of the feline residents, and saw that the walls on both sides of her were lined with rough shelves. They were stacked with misshapen items that were indistinct in the murk, and she had the unsettling feeling they should remain that way. But her curiosity was piqued and she edged closer, only to see the twisted forms of dead snakes and dried frogs, a few decaying rats, and little clusters of spiders, beetles and flies. She backed away, wrinkling up her nose and shuddering. Elsewhere, the walls were hung with bunches of dried herbs that filled the cave with a mix of pungent odours, overpowering the smells of the other items that were collected there.
Megara glanced again to the far wall of the cave, which was bathed in the orange glow of the unseen hearth.
‘Is anybody there?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m here. I’m waiting for you.’
The voice was impatient, but not cruel. Megara stooped below the hanging roots in the ceiling and turned the corner. The tunnel ran on for a few more steps, then ended in a small chamber. A modest hearth burned at its centre, surrounded by a ring of stones and with a tripod standing over it. A cauldron stood on the tripod, from which rich-smelling fronds of steam were emanating. The walls of the chamber were festooned with sprigs of herbs, dead animals hanging from lengths of string, and many more shelves filled with an array of skulls, bones and small clay jars. On the other side of the fire was the figure of a woman, though whether she was crouching or sitting Megara could not tell. She wore a tattered and dirty black cloak with the hood pulled over her face, and was surrounded by at least a dozen more cats.
‘Come closer and sit down.’
Megara was uncertain. There was a sinister feel about the cave – not evil, perhaps, but mysterious and uncomfortable. She had not come this far, though, to back away now. This was the witch the housemaid had told her to visit, the woman who would answer her questions and still her fears – or make them real. The hag pointed to a short three-legged stool. Steeling herself, Megara placed it in front of the fire and sat down.
The woman looked at her from beneath her hood. Only the pale glint of her eyes was visible; everything else was distorted in the haze from the flames. Neither said anything for several moments, each sizing the other up.
‘Well, what do you want?’ the witch asked. ‘It is not often I’m visited by a lady – the high-born scorn me for their priests and priestesses. It’s the common folk who remember the older gods, not nobles like yourself. So what is it? Do you want to win the heart of a man? Hmm, perhaps not. Too old for that – your wealthy father will already have given you away in marriage. Or maybe you’ve found a lover you shouldn’t have, and you’re having a child you don’t want. I have remedies for that sort of problem, too – though I’ll want what’s left of it afterwards.’
She gave a laugh and glanced at the bones on her shelves. Megara shuddered and shook her head forcefully.
‘I would never kill an unborn child – and the last place I’d do it would be here.’
The witch’s laugh dried up and she sat back, eyeing Megara more warily now from beneath her hood.
‘Then you have a question for me.’
‘Yes.’
Megara reached beneath her cloak into the bag that hung at her side, pulling out a small cloth bundle. Standing, she reached around the fire and handed the bundle to the witch. She took it and placed it in her lap.
‘I want you to tell me what they are,’ Megara said.
The woman looked down at the cloth packet, then grasped the sides of her hood and pulled it back from her head. To Megara’s surprise she was not the old, grey-haired hag she had imagined, but a young
woman of around the same age as herself. Her black hair was cut short, making her look like a man at first glance, though her features were unmistakably feminine. Despite the dirt that had etched itself into the lines of her face, and the red rims around her bloodshot eyes, she might once have been regarded as beautiful.
She reached down and unknotted the packet. The corners fell open to reveal a handful of wizened grey lumps that brought a new and unpleasant smell to the mingled aromas of the cave. The witch frowned and prodded the mushrooms with her fingertip. Picking one up, she raised it to her nose and took a deep breath, closing her eyes as if to concentrate all her senses on the odour. Pulling away, she blinked as she exhaled and gave a small cough. Then she stuck out the tip of her tongue and dabbed it against the wrinkled exterior of the mushroom.
‘You’ve dried them.’
‘I had to. They were beginning to rot.’
‘Shame. They have an especially powerful magic when they’re fresh. Where did you find them?’
‘In the kitchen of my house,’ Megara said. ‘But I didn’t pick them myself, and they don’t grow in Thebes.’
‘Of course they don’t. They’re only found in one place in Greece, and even there they only grow above the foothills of the highest mountains. They are much sought after by the wise. Much sought after. What were they doing in your kitchen?’
There was a sneer in her tone, as if such precious objects had no business being in the house of an ignorant noble.
‘I don’t know yet, though I intend to find out. What is this powerful magic they hold?’
The witch gave a long, slow chuckle.
‘Is that what you’ve come to learn? It’s not the sort of magic to win lovers or banish a pregnancy. Oh no, not that sort of magic at all. These,’ she said, holding one of the mushrooms up reverently in her fingers, ‘can help the initiated see the world as it really is – the way the gods see it. Even old and dried like these, they can open windows in the mind for a while that give precious insights and new knowledge that few possess. What will you take for them?’
