In the Shadow of Heroes

by Nicholas Bowling

  The descendant of Jason took several deep breaths, holding Cadmus in his gaze.

  ‘You said you heard the oracle. You said you knew where Medea was buried.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then tell us.’

  Cadmus didn’t know what to think. He didn’t much like the way these heroidai spoke about the priestess. She was strange, certainly, but that didn’t make her dangerous. If he told them what she had said in her prophecy, he felt like he would be betraying her. And from what he’d seen, it looked like she had suffered enough in her short life.

  But then again, it sounded like they would bend every effort to finding the fleece. It would surely be better for a hero cult to have the Golden Fleece than Nero. At least they seemed to respect the artefact itself, even if they were a little on the fanatical side.

  He suddenly realized Tog was looking at him. Anyone else would have found her expression completely blank, but he had spent enough time around her to read the subtleties in her various kinds of blankness. He knew what she wanted.

  ‘If I tell you,’ he said, ‘will you take us with you?’

  Thoas nodded. ‘Of course.’

  He looked at Tog again. Her silence screamed at him. He took a deep breath.

  ‘It’s in Britannia. On the island of Mona.’

  There were excited mutterings from the gathered heroidai. Thoas himself grinned so broadly Cadmus immediately wondered whether he had made a mistake.

  ‘Athena bless you,’ he said, standing. ‘You have done us a great service. You have done yourself a great service also.’

  ‘When do we leave?’ asked Tog.

  ‘As soon as we have permission.’

  ‘Permission?’ said Cadmus. ‘From whom?’

  ‘The ship.’

  XXI

  The heroidai had dug themselves well into the mountainside, in a labyrinth of caves and tunnels with the Argo at its centre. Lean-to shelters had been erected along the sides of the ship, and huge squares of canvas had been stretched between the edge of the boat and the mountainside to keep off the sun and the rain. There were tents on the deck, an altar erected on the prow, and rope ladders strung haphazardly around the clearing.

  The community was larger than Cadmus had first thought. There were families here, grandparents, children, mothers still clutching babies to their breasts. He wondered how they had remained undisturbed for so long, but then remembered the reception he had received when he had arrived – they probably had been discovered, many times, but whoever had found them hadn’t lived to tell the tale.

  It was evening by the time they left the ship. Thoas led them to one of the caves, and the other heroidai watched them go with narrow-eyed suspicion. Their leader ignored Cadmus’s constant stream of questions and left them in the darkness with two rough-spun blankets and a dish of old fruit. Tog fell straight to sleep, as usual, but Cadmus’s thoughts chased themselves around his head until he didn’t know where one ended and another began. It was only when Orthus slunk back to the camp and bedded down beside him that he at last closed his eyes and fell into an exhausted stupor.

  In the morning he was woken by a flood of daylight against the cave wall. Tog’s bedroll was empty, and there was no sign of the heroidai. Only Orthus kept him company, his muzzle resting on his paws, his brow twitching with whatever dog-dream he was having.

  Cadmus got up and wandered blearily out into the hollow in the mountainside. Between the canvas awnings the sun was blindingly white. He squinted at a tall figure striding towards him.

  ‘You’re late,’ the figure said. ‘Or were you hoping to get out of doing any work?’

  Cadmus squinted. ‘Tog?’ He rubbed his eyes for the third or fourth time. ‘You look different. You sound different too.’

  He couldn’t put his finger on it. If anything, she was even taller than usual, and her voice seemed louder and clearer.

  ‘I asked them for some clothes,’ she said. ‘And they gave me some. Look, it’s got a little pocket for the mouse.’

  She was wearing a sheep’s skin over her back, and a tunic stitched together from old, supple hides. She had a new pair of boots on her feet, tightly bound with leather straps. But there was something else too that changed her completely.

  ‘Your collar,’ he said. ‘It’s gone.’

  As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he saw that the skin around her neck was so pale it was almost green. Without the iron collar, and wearing her hunter’s garb, it was like Cadmus was seeing her for the first time; like she had only been disguised as a slave up to this point, and she had flung that disguise triumphantly aside to reveal her true identity.

  ‘They have a smith here,’ she said. ‘He said he’d remove it for me. Two taps with a hammer. All done.’

  ‘If I’d known it was that simple, I would have tried to do it earlier.’

  Tog pointed at his biceps. ‘With these little things?

  You probably would have missed and killed me.’

  Thoas suddenly appeared behind her, holding a mallet in one hand and an axe in the other. He had stitched most of the pieces of the fake fleece back together, and was wearing it over his shoulders.

  ‘Are we ready?’ he said.

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘Thestor, son of Idmon, has spoken with the sacred timber. The omens are good, but we have a few repairs to make before the Argo is seaworthy. Come, the work has already started.’

  Cadmus ran down the dusty slope after Thoas, with Tog a few paces behind him. The sun had only just flooded the valley; the earth was still cool and the pines cast thick bars of shadow over the path. Around them the heroidai were already making the first axe strokes into the trees’ trunks.

  ‘Um . . . Can I ask some questions?’ he said, drawing level with Thoas’s elbow.

  The man said nothing.

  ‘How are going to get that ship down to the water?’

  Again Thoas ignored Cadmus, moving between his people and giving them instructions.

  ‘Even if we make the Argo watertight,’ Cadmus pressed, ‘surely it won’t survive a journey to Britannia? In fact, travelling by boat is pretty much the slowest way to get there. Have you looked at the maps? We’ll need to go all the way along Mare Nostrum – which, incidentally, is infested with pirates – around Hispania, up the coast of Gaul. We’ll never catch Nero’s team. If you read the accounts of anyone who has been there, the quickest way is over land—’

  Thoas finally turned and spoke to him.

  ‘Not everything can be learnt from books and maps, boy.’

  ‘Yes, it can!’ Cadmus cried, feeling like the man was stabbing at the heart of his very being. ‘This is completely irrational! I may as well get an oxcart all the way there!’

  ‘You are welcome to,’ said Thoas. ‘The oracles state that the Argo will make a second journey, to reclaim the fleece from Medea’s remains. You can come with us, or you can stay here with our wives and children.’

  He smiled a smile that brought Cadmus’s blood to boiling point, and then handed the axe to Tog.

  The heroidai worked for a day and a night, felling trees, hewing and shaping timbers, patching the holes in the ship’s flanks. The structures that had grown up around the Argo were dismantled and the canvasses were stitched into an enormous sail. They fashioned new oars and a new mast and laid them in the aisle between the rowers’ benches.

  Cadmus tried to offer them advice on the best proportions for the cross-bracing; he made calculations about the length of the oars and the heights of the oar-locks; he explained to them about the dangers of shrinkage in various types of wood; he told them about the best way to weight the ship, based on Archimedes’s principles of buoyancy. It made him feel useful. Grounded. Sane.

  The heroidai ignored all of this, of course.

  By midday, Cadmus had taken the hint and retreated to the coolness of the caves. He could still work out the route. Tullus owned a map of the empire that he could recall in minute detail, and he had a fairl
y good knowledge of the climate and the winds around Italy and Greece. Unfortunately, the sons and daughters of the heroes had no need for writing implements. There were no tablets, no scrolls, no pens or ink. He could do a lot in his head, but nothing so complex as an entire journey to Britannia. Despite all his learning, Cadmus ended up feeling completely redundant – and all the while Tog was chopping down trees twice as fast as anyone else, and gaining wide-eyed admiration from all who saw her at work.

  At dawn on the second day Cadmus was still awake, trying to calculate the minimum wind speed required to get them to Britannia before Nero. He was writing his figures in the dust with a stick, Orthus looking on, as though checking his arithmetic. Thoas entered the cave and erased them with two of his giant footsteps.

  ‘It is ready,’ he announced.

  Cadmus sighed and got up from his haunches. He followed Thoas into the clearing.

  The sun had just risen, and it illuminated every flaw in the ship with excruciating clarity. The hull was a patchwork of old and new timber, shot through with wooden pegs and spattered with black tar. The prow was at very odd angle. It somehow looked even more of a wreck, and even less watertight, than it had done when they first arrived. Cadmus went and stood next to Tog and gave her a doubtful look. She just nodded. He didn’t know whether that meant she shared his lack of optimism or not.

  The largest stones and bushes were cleared away from the ship, and the treasures inside were removed and piled up in the mouth of one of the caves. All of the heroidai, men, women and children, assembled in a large circle around the landlocked vessel. Thoas stood before them in the remains of the fake fleece.

  ‘Today,’ he said, ‘the Argo will feel the salt of the ocean upon her sides for the first time since she returned from Colchis with her precious cargo. We honour our ancestors in seeking that divine relic again, to save it from the hands of the unworthy, and the unholy.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how we’re going to get to the sea,’ Cadmus interrupted.

  Thoas gave him a hard stare.

  ‘The ship is blessed by Athena,’ he said. ‘She will lend us her strength.’

  Cadmus turned back around to see the circle of men and women close slowly upon the ship until they were crowded around its hull. They held out their hands and took hold of timbers where they could. Some scurried underneath the keel where it protruded from the earth, squatted and pushed their backs against it. Only the very young and the very old hung back, and even some of them tried to volunteer.

  ‘They’re not going to carry it?’

  There was a combined groan, and the grind of stones underneath the ship. It rocked slightly to one side, and the prow wobbled violently. Then it rolled back again, there were more cries of exertion, and the whole thing settled back in the same hollow it had sat in for centuries.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ said Cadmus.

  Tog didn’t reply. She marched forward and got into position at the stern of the boat, gripping the hole left for the oars.

  Thoas, underneath the prow, gave the sign and again the members of the cult strained, their arms and thighs and backs shuddering, to lift the ship out of its grave. Again it leant to one side; again there were shouts of pain and frustration; again it rolled, like a lazy sow, back into the dust.

  When Cadmus looked along the lines of the heroidai and saw Tog, she was staring at him. He knew what that look meant.

  Feeling more than a little stupid, he went around to the far side of the ship, muttering to himself. Orthus accompanied him, weaving happily around his legs. He took up a position opposite Tog. When he passed her he saw she was sweating heavily, and she had been pushing so hard her feet were buried into the earth.

  Cadmus squeezed himself between a woman in a leopard skin and an old man who smelt of goat, and managed to fit his fingers under the spine of the boat’s hull. A splinter jabbed into his palm and he hissed between his teeth.

  Thoas called down the line again. The old man grunted and wheezed. The woman in the leopard skin spat with effort. Cadmus strained and strained under the shadow of the boat, arms burning, knees shaking. His pulse pressed against the inside of his ears, like his head was moments from exploding.

  There was a roar from the front, different in tone from the previous ones. It wasn’t the sound of exhaustion or frustration, but of surprise, and then, as the noise swelled, of triumph. Cadmus felt his legs straighten, heard oaths and prayers fluttering around him from the other members of the cult. He looked down and saw daylight shining on the ground where the keel had just been. Orthus ran happily from one side to the other, underneath the ship’s massive bulk. It swayed a little, but didn’t return to the earth. The Argo was moving.

  XXII

  The route down the mountain was even slower and more painful than Cadmus had expected it to be. They carried the ship with tiny shuffling steps, stopping every time someone tripped or fell or became ensnared in the bushes. Not far out of the clearing, the Argo became wedged in between two trees, and it groaned ominously while two scouts were sent to clear a path through the forest. Further down the mountain, the hull ran aground on a sharp spur of rock, where it teetered for a few moments until the heroidai at the back were able to heave it free. When it came loose, those at the front were nearly crushed beneath the boat’s keel, and several men had to be carried back to the settlement to tend to their injuries.

  On they went, into the valley and over the next ridge. Down in the foothills the fug of hot sulphur began to be rent by cold gusts of sea air, and Cadmus knew they were nearing the coast.

  Thoas had chosen a secluded cove for their departure, concealed from the residents of Corinth. Cadmus ran ahead with Orthus and watched the boat come crawling down the side of the mountain. The heroidai were concealed completely in its shadow, giving the impression that it was being drawn to the sea of its own accord. On either side, trailing back up to the forest, it left a bow-wave of swirling yellow dust.

  And finally there it was, in front of him, crunching over the pebbles of the shoreline. The heroidai heaved as one, and with an almighty splash the Argo’s keel forged into the waves, and the seawater wetted its ancient timbers.

  The men and women followed the boat into the water, where they washed off the dirt and sweat and blood. Some attached mooring ropes to rocks and trees.

  Cadmus went over to where Tog sat in the shallows, bathing her face and arms. They watched the waves breaking against the prow for a moment.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘It’s not sinking.’

  ‘That’s because it’s still touching the bottom,’ said Cadmus. ‘The tide is low. Wait till we’re out in the middle of the Gulf – then I’ll be more confident.’

  The afternoon stretched on, and the sea crept up the beach. The heroidai came and went, loading the ship with provisions. A pair of oxen were sacrificed to Apollo Embasios, on an altar built from sea-smoothed stones. Cadmus, as always, chose not to observe the rites but took the sacrificial meat when it was offered to him. Took more than he should have. Gorged himself, even. He wondered grimly if this meal might be his last.

  While he and Tog ate, the priest, Thestor, stared into the flames of the altar. He muttered and chanted. When the sun had gone beneath the earth, and the sky and the sea were black, he finally stood up and declared that the omens from Apollo were favourable, and the wind was at their backs.

  ‘We’re leaving now?’ Cadmus said to Tog, as the heroidai began to wade out to the ship. ‘In the middle of the night?’

  Tog shrugged and got to her feet. She lifted her mouse on to the top of her head. They followed the other heroidai through the breakers, Cadmus gasping as the cold water reached his waist. Tog climbed aboard the Argo first, while Orthus scrabbled inelegantly up the prow. Cadmus was last on deck. He stood in the breeze, dripping and shivering. The night had deepened. The stars glittered like the fires of an army camped out across the heavens.

  Some of the heroidai took to their benches, while others severed th
e mooring ropes. With a groan, the rowers leant on their oars, and the Argo lurched forward over the wine-dark sea.

  When they were out of the bay, and Corinth was the faintest smudge of orange on the horizon, the steady beat of the oars stopped. The sailors raised the mast and hauled on the rigging, and the sail filled with a noise like a thunderclap.

  Cadmus stared into the night, listening to the hiss of the sea around the ship’s keel. He wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake. Nothing seemed quite real, and it made him fearful and fearless at the same time. Behind him, Tog was babbling something to Orthus. When he turned around he saw her trying to introduce the dog and the mouse, but they didn’t seem to be getting on with each other. He smiled at her and turned back to the empty air. How was she always so calm?

  ‘How long will it take?’

  She was beside him all of a sudden.

  ‘Honestly?’ he said. ‘Even with favourable winds, a month and a half.’

  ‘Hmm. And how long will it take the others?’

  ‘It depends,’ he said. ‘If they really flog the horses they’ll be there in a month.’

  ‘But they might be slower than that?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘That’s not so bad. Some good luck for us, some bad luck for them – we can make up a few days. And when you get to Britannia you’ll have the advantage over them. It’s my land, my people. I can talk to people. I can help you get to Mona, or wherever you’re going.’

  Cadmus wanted to point out that this didn’t necessarily give them the upper hand. Many of the British chieftains were now on the Romans’ payroll, and Nero’s men would have no problems finding natives to help them. A bribe is bribe, in any language. But he didn’t mention that. Besides, there was something about the way she was talking that unsettled him.

  ‘Wherever I’m going?’ he said.

  Tog nodded.

  ‘I take it, then, you’re not coming with me?’

  She frowned a little. ‘No. I’m going home, remember?’