‘Does a king fear his own slave? And can a slave demand anything from his master? No! So you must find the tree without our help. And if you never find it, then so much the better. Now, leave the cattle here and depart at once; you are not welcome in Tiryns.’
Heracles spat on the ground, then turned and walked towards the gates. At a word from Tydeus, the mercenaries in his path opened their ranks and let him through. Part of him wished they had refused him passage; he relished the chance to vent his anger over the newest labour. He had wasted too much time on the journey to Erytheia and back again; he desperately wanted his freedom and absolution for the murder of his sons. Equally, he wanted to see Megara and know whether any hope remained for their marriage. Another journey to the furthest borders of the world would only delay things further.
He trudged down to the slums of the outer city. News of his return had brought many from their hovels to welcome him. He spoke with a slave whom he trusted as honest and forthright, and was told of the rebellion that had flared up in his absence. It was small but fierce, and many had died in the fighting, with many more executed during the reprisals. The ringleaders had been Thyestes and Atreus, both of whom had escaped with their lives. But so harsh had been the retaliation of the city guards that, rather than extinguish the fires of revolt, they had merely spread the embers wider.
‘With the right leader,’ the slave said, laying his hand on Heracles’s shoulder, ‘the people will rise again. And not just a few dozen this time, but many hundreds.’
‘Dumb beasts to the slaughter,’ Heracles replied, knowing who the slave felt should lead the people.
Ignoring Eurystheus’s command to leave Tiryns immediately, he made his way to his hut. Newly built shacks had replaced those that Eurystheus had ordered destroyed to spite him, but his own hovel was exactly as he had left it. The thought that nobody had used its shelter during his absence seemed a waste, yet it was a sign of his neighbours’ respect for him that – despite their poverty – they refused to let anyone touch his property while he was gone.
Closing the door behind him, he removed his heavy lion skin and dropped it on the only chair. Sitting on the well-worn straw mattress, he untied the thongs of his sandals and kicked them off, then lay down. His heels, as usual, stuck far out beyond the mattress to rest in the dirt. But it did not matter; he needed sleep too much to care for minor discomforts. Closing his eyes, he laid his head back and let the weight of his aching body sink into the soft, prickly straw.
A knock on the door brought him quickly to his senses again.
‘Go away!’ he growled.
More knocks followed. He wanted to ignore them and drift off to sleep, but the thought that someone was waiting outside his door refused to let him. He forced himself back to his feet and pulled the door open angrily. To his surprise, a small girl stood looking up at him, her face pale with fear. At the sight of her, his irritation melted away and he forced his stern features into a smile.
‘What is it, child?’
She did not answer, but thrust a piece of broken pottery towards him. As soon as he had taken it from her fingers, she fled. Mystified, he looked at the plain shard. Then, turning it in his fingers, he saw painted letters on the other side.
Find Phorcys.
* * *
Heracles remained in Tiryns another month, recovering his strength and sleeping from dusk until dawn. Few soldiers ventured into the outer city while he was there, giving the people a respite from their harsh oppression. Children began to play in the streets again, and a fragile sense of freedom descended on the slums. He carried out light work on the local farms, being paid in food that he brought back to share among the neediest. He also returned to the citadel one afternoon, seeking out the priest in the Temple of Poseidon.
Thyestes and Atreus came to him on the fourth morning after his return, trying to persuade him to join them in a new uprising. He barely spoke to them, concentrating on the roof he was repairing for one of his neighbours. Eventually they gave up, with Thyestes accusing him of wasting his time on trifles, when the real problem was the iron rule of Eurystheus. If he had a heart to fix that, he said, then everything else would look after itself.
He was partly right, of course. The people of Tiryns would never find happiness with Eurystheus as their king. But what city in Greece was without poverty and injustice? Even the wisest ruler could not solve such problems, for they had afflicted mankind since the beginning of time. With or without Heracles’s help, a successful insurrection would still result in the loss of many innocent lives, all to replace one imperfect ruler with another. And who would claim Eurystheus’s empty throne? Heracles did not want it, and had sworn never to take it. The ambitious Thyestes, then? Or worse still, his brutish brother.
But he needed Eurystheus, if only until the completion of the final labour. To remove him from his throne before then would be to deny himself the chance to complete the labours demanded by the oracle, and leave him forever bearing the guilt for the murder of his sons. All his toils would have been for nothing. He would fail and be forgotten.
He woke before dawn on the day he had planned to depart, stirred by a sense that something was wrong. He instinctively reached for his club, lying beside his mattress, and propped himself up on one elbow. The door of his hut was closed and the darkness inside impenetrable. Yet he knew he was not alone.
‘If I’d wanted to, I could have taken that club and smashed your head to a pulp while you slept,’ said a voice.
‘Your feeble arms couldn’t even lift it,’ Heracles replied, recognizing the voice of his squire.
He rose to his feet and saw the faint silhouette of Iolaus standing in a corner of the room. They opened their arms and embraced.
‘Gods, but I’ve missed you,’ Heracles said.
‘I’ve missed you, too, uncle. We’ve a lot to talk about.’
‘What about Megara? Where is she?’
‘Back in your old house outside Thebes.’
‘Alone? After all that happened there?’
‘I’ve been helping her make it feel like a home again – repairing furniture, tending to the vineyards and orchards, fixing walls. And she has two slaves with her, a maid and her husband. She’s safe, Heracles. And she’s as happy as I’ve seen her since—’
He trailed off.
‘I’m pleased for her,’ Heracles said. ‘After what she’s been through, happiness isn’t easy to find. Have you had any breakfast?’
Iolaus shook his head, and Heracles walked to the small hearth. Kneeling by the ring of stones, he picked up a pair of flints and struck them together several times over a bed of kindling. When the flame caught, he placed it under a stack of wood he had prepared the evening before. Soon, the small fire was ablaze, filling the hut with enough light for him to see his nephew’s face. He looked different. His beard was fuller and he was a little taller, as well as being broader across the chest. But something else had changed. His eyes had surrendered some of their youth, and his gaze was more guarded. He had lost his innocence.
‘And what of your happiness, uncle?’ he asked.
‘I killed Copreus, though I don’t feel any better for it. And I completed the tenth labour.’
‘I know,’ Iolaus said. ‘Megara’s cousin in Tiryns sent word that you’d returned. That’s why I’m here: to help you with the next task.’
‘You don’t even know what it is.’
‘Can it be much worse than the others?’
‘I don’t know. Gathering fruit from a tree guarded by a serpent, in a land no mortal has ever visited? I don’t even know how to get there, though I have one clue to follow.’
‘And I have a chariot,’ Iolaus said. ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘Just breakfast,’ Heracles answered, hanging a pot of water over the fire.
* * *
They headed north, passing within sight of Thebes on the third day. Heracles looked at the city that he had fought to liberate, with its high walls a
nd watchtowers, and the thin spires of smoke that trailed up from it. But his attention was on the white house on the hills above, where another column of grey told him that life had returned to a place that had once been given over to ghosts. Had Megara really overcome the loss of their children, he wondered? Had she restored their home without him? And would there ever be a place for him there, with her? But as he looked, he knew in his heart the answer was no. Even if she wanted him, he could not go back to live among the ashes of the past. The realization had a sad finality to it, but he turned his eyes to the road and did not look back again.
They rode on to the coast of the Adriatic, following it north-west for many days until it swept around in a large loop and headed southwards again. Then, at last, Heracles found what he had been looking for: the mouth of a large river. The land was flat and marshy, and a small red sun was setting on the distant horizon, drawing ochre skies behind it.
‘Stop here,’ he told his nephew, as the road bent away from the river and turned inland.
Iolaus reined in the tired horses and reached for his water skin. As he drank, Heracles took the shard of pottery from his satchel and looked at the words in the failing light. Find Phorcys was all it said – not where to find him, or who he was, or what he might know of the garden of the Hesperides. Yet it was his only clue.
As the only Phorcys he had ever heard of was a sea god, he had sought help from an old priest at the Temple of Poseidon in Tiryns. The man had been a sailor in his younger days, but had none of the coarseness and simplicity of other seafarers. The wine Heracles brought him loosened his tongue, and he gladly shared everything he knew about Phorcys. A son of Pontus and Gaia, he was a sea elemental who could change his shape with the fluidity of water. He was also known for his great wisdom, and could answer any question put to him – if he could be caught. But first he had to be found, and the old priest said that Phorcys had several homes, but the nearest was in a cave at the mouth of the River Po.
Tethering the horses to a tree, Heracles and Iolaus walked through the tall grass towards the mud flats where the Po fed into the Adriatic. The white cottages of a fishing village were clustered around a small cove away to their left, while out at sea two merchant galleys were beating their way south. Gulls hovered on the air currents from the land, looking for fish in the grey waters below. But there were no cliffs or rocky outcrops where the mouth of a cave could be concealed.
Turning inland, they followed a track that ran alongside the river. Gradually, the breadth of the waters narrowed and the banks rose to twice the height of a man. Occasionally, Heracles would peer over the edge of the bank to look for hidden cave entrances, but in the failing light they found nothing. He was about to suggest they return to the chariot and make camp for the night when he heard the faint sound of music.
‘Those are reed pipes,’ Iolaus said. ‘A shepherd, maybe?’
Heracles looked upstream and spotted an orange glimmer on the surface of the water. Pointing it out to Iolaus, he moved quietly to the riverbank. It fell away sharply and ended in a mud shelf. Taking hold of a shrub at the edge of the bank, he lowered himself halfway down, then dropped the rest of the way. Iolaus followed, misjudging his jump and putting one foot in the river with a splash. The sound of it seemed loud against the gurgling of the current and the soft notes of the pipe. The music faltered briefly, then continued. After a moment, they carried on along the narrow shelf towards the source of the light.
Turning a kink in the riverbank, they saw a small cave ahead. A fire was crackling merrily at its entrance, throwing orange sparks up into the dusky evening air and casting flickering shadows over the cave walls behind it. The tune was clearer now, the notes high and light, and yet somehow sad. It was not a melody that Heracles recognized, and for a while he simply stood and listened. Then Iolaus placed a hand on his shoulder, nudging him forward.
They reached the edge of the cave and peered inside. The entrance was narrow, but the space beyond was wide and spacious. Shadows shifted about the walls, like drunken dancers trying to keep pace with the music, and at the far end sat a boy. He wore a goatskin jerkin over a thigh-length tunic, his legs crossed before him and his elbows balanced on his knees. He had a mop of scruffy black hair, a sun-darkened face, and his lips were pursed against the mouthpieces of twin pipes. A shepherd’s crook leaned against the wall behind him, and a line of small fish lay on a cloth at his side, their skins browned by the fire.
The boy removed the pipes from his lips and looked at his visitors, his expression relaxed and unafraid.
‘Come in, sirs. I’d welcome your company, and I’ve fish enough for all of us.’
Heracles stooped as he entered the cave. Iolaus followed, and they sat on either side of the boy.
‘My names is Dexios,’ he said in his light voice, picking up the cloth with the fish on it and holding it towards Heracles. ‘My father is Polybos, or was before the gods took him. I was only three. Here, take your share.’
Heracles helped himself to four of the twelve fish and Iolaus took the same number. The skin crunched beneath his teeth as he bit into it, and the taste of smoke, oil and herbs filled his mouth, followed quickly by the flavour of the grey flesh. Having eaten nothing but stale bread and dried pork for several days, he realized how ravenous he was for something different, and quickly finished off the other fish.
‘I don’t have any wine,’ the boy apologized, handing him a leather flask. ‘Just water. You look like you haven’t eaten in a while.’
‘I have a large appetite. Thank you for the food. My name is Heracles, son of Zeus. My companion is Iolaus, son of Iphicles.’
The boy raised his eyebrows.
‘What brings a son of Zeus to this part of the world? Are you lost? I know the area well and can point you on your way.’
‘We’re looking for the cave of Phorcys,’ Iolaus said. ‘We’d hoped this might be it.’
‘I’ve heard of Phorcys,’ Dexios said, taking a bite from one of the remaining fish. ‘Though we know him by different names: Nereus, Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea. But he doesn’t live here.’
‘Then where?’ Heracles asked. ‘It’s important we find him.’
‘If I knew I would tell you, sir. But I’m just a simple shepherd. Besides, no one has ever seen the Old Man. He’s nothing more than a legend, if you ask me – a tale for fishermen’s wives to scare their children with. They say he steals babies from their mother’s beds and carries them out to sea, where they become seals and serve him for the rest of their lives. I don’t believe that, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Heracles said, leaning back against the wall of the cave and sighing.
‘Then there must be other places nearby,’ Iolaus said. ‘We were told he could be found in a cave by the river.’
‘Oh yes, sir. If you continue upstream, there’s a much bigger cave than this. That’s where I’d live if I were a god. And now that I think about it, locals avoid it after nightfall. They say nymphs bathe in the river there, and where there are nymphs, there are gods.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Like I say, you shouldn’t go after dark. Stay here, if you wish.’
‘How far?’ Heracles insisted, rising to his feet and standing with bowed head beneath the roof of the cave.
The boy shrugged.
‘If you go now, you’ll be there before the moon rises.’
‘Thank you, Dexios. And thank you for the food. May the gods watch over you. Iolaus?’
His nephew remained seated, looking at the shepherd.
‘You said the locals avoid the cave after nightfall.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A strange way to speak of your neighbours. Are you not a local yourself?’
‘Oh yes. I’ve never travelled further than a day’s walk from this very spot.’
‘Come on, Iolaus,’ Heracles insisted, impatiently.
His nephew hesitated, then nodded and rose to his feet. But as they reached the mouth of the cave,
he turned to Dexios again.
‘If you’re a shepherd, where’s your flock?’
The boy opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing, staring at Iolaus blankly. It had not occurred to Heracles that a shepherd only ever made camp where he could keep a watch over his animals, and that he had neither seen nor heard any sheep or goats on the walk from the mouth of the river. He looked at the boy, whose face slowly widened into a smile.
‘Very astute, Iolaus,’ he said.
Slowly, his features began to blur and dissolve, melting like ice in springtime. His black hair and dark skin lost their hue, becoming translucent as his head and shoulders softened and changed to liquid before Heracles’s eyes. Even the boy’s jerkin and tunic lost their shape and colour, joining the rest of Dexios’s body as it turned to water and trickled across the rock floor of the cave, towards the entrance.
‘It’s him!’ Heracles said.
He remembered the priest telling him that if he wanted Phorcys to answer his questions, he must seize hold of him and not let go until he had subdued his will to his own. But how could he grab hold of water? The sea god had already disappeared and was pouring over the rock, through the fire and out towards the river.
Yet the water had not doused the flames, or even caused them to hiss as it passed through them. And then he understood. It was not water at all, but a hallucination. He leaped over the fire onto the shelf of rock beside the river, reaching out to grab at the final trickle of water before it escaped into the current.
To his astonishment, he felt substance between his fingers and tightened his fist around it. There was a cry and a splash, and a shape lifted up from the river. Something like a limb extended outwards, striking him across the face. He flinched from it, but felt only the slap of cold liquid against his cheek. Instinctively, he clutched at the watery spectre before him with his other hand, feeling it in his grip like a leathery sponge.
Hero of Olympus Page 15
