Trying War

by S. D. Gentill

  “This is a peculiar thing,” Lycon murmured as they moved forward with no idea of what was before them. There had been mists on Ida from time to time, but not like this.

  Hero’s eyes were large, bright with both excitement and fear. Her voice trembled. “This is a curtain of the gods. I don’t care what Demus and Nikias believe—the gods are here, perhaps in disguise as lions or bulls or deer… Artemis has often taken the form of a deer…”

  In the distance they heard a familiar howl.

  “That’s Lupa,” Machaon said, turning towards the sound. “Perhaps she has found the gods.”

  “If Artemis is a deer, Lupa may have just eaten her,” Cadmus said dryly.

  Hero inhaled loudly.

  Lycon nodded. “That could be hard to explain.”

  Hero turned on Cadmus furiously, though she knew that was the reaction he sought. “How could you even think such a thing?”

  Machaon laughed. “Ignore them, Hero. I’m sure Lupa hasn’t eaten Artemis.” He returned Lupa’s call with his own howl and they made their way towards her. In time the she-wolf joined them, and Cadmus claimed gleefully that she looked fat, as though she may just have devoured a goddess. In this manner they climbed the rock, exploring and following all signs of life in their search for gods in any form.

  The bulk of the day passed and they approached the summit of the rise. They had stopped to rest by an ancient fig tree, when they heard a distant voice.

  Machaon raised his hand for silence, and they listened. The voice was too faint to make out the words but it was male and it was strident.

  They spread into the trees, Hero’s hand in Lycon’s, and made their way cautiously towards the sound.

  The summit was bare and barren, a weathered surface of marble and granite, appearing in the midst of the forest as though that part of the mountain had been scorched. The Herdsmen were able to watch from the protection of the trees.

  “It’s just a man,” Lycon whispered to Hero, knowing she could not see that far.

  A man did indeed stand in the centre of the clearing. He was tall and strongly built, perhaps a soldier, though he carried no weapons. His hair was dark as was his beard, though it was cropped close to the planes of his face in the fashion of Greek warriors. The soldier was enraged and when he raised his hands to the sky, Lycon could see that they were stained red with new blood.

  “It seems we’ve found another madman,” Cadmus sighed.

  Machaon nodded. “He appears confused. Perhaps we should take him back to the temple.”

  “Look at his hands,” Lycon warned. “He might be dangerous.”

  “All the more reason to return him to Demus and Nikias,” Machaon replied grimly.

  The sons of Agelaus stepped quietly into the desolate space.

  The warrior was shouting at the sky. There was something about his face that seemed familiar to Machaon—a vague, lost recognition. “I must go find her, I tell you! Who are you to keep me confined like some spoil of battle?” He raised his bloody hands aloft and screamed. “He deserved the punishment I decreed!”

  So passionate was he in his argument with the sky that the Herdsmen were quite close before he noticed their presence.

  “Who in the name of Olympus are you?” bellowed the madman.

  “We are the sons of Agelaus,” replied Machaon. “Perhaps we can help you?”

  The man stared at them as if Machaon had just said something ludicrous.

  “We know a place where the Erinyes cannot torment you,” Lycon said. “Where there are others like you. We can take you there.”

  Hero took Oenone’s hand and walked out behind her brothers. She was not afraid. From the trees she could not see well enough to make out the blood.

  “I do not fear the Erinyes!” The soldier was contemptuous. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”

  Machaon reacted calmly. After all, they were all armed and this unfortunate fool was not. “We only wish to help you. We can take you to a refuge.”

  “Help me?” The soldier laughed. There was something unnerving about his mirth. He looked at the sky again and shouted. “I cannot leave this place! I am a prisoner!” He stopped, his head leaning to one side as if he were listening, though there was no sound. “I must find her, I tell you!” he began again, spreading his arms wide, his face still turned to the clouds. “Do with me what you will, but let me find her first!”

  Machaon stepped closer, carefully. “Who is it you seek?” he asked. Was this man hunting some poor woman? Was he afflicted like Marcos? It was the instinct of the Herdsmen to defend, to protect.

  The man looked at them curiously. His eyes moved over each of the sons of Agelaus as if he was seeing some creature he had never known before. He gripped his hair with his bloody hands and said finally, “Alcippe, I must find Alcippe.”

  “Why?” Cadmus asked suspiciously. “Why must you find her?”

  The soldier’s eyes became moist. “Because she is alone and frightened.” He screamed at the sky again. “Because that filthy spawn of a monster violated her. Because she is my daughter and I failed to protect her… and now I cannot leave this place to comfort her!”

  The Herdsmen looked at him, startled, unsure. Had they misjudged the cause of the man’s madness? The soldier now wept openly, falling to his knees as his powerful body was racked with remorse and sorrow.

  Hero spoke first, kneeling beside the grieving stranger before her brothers could stop her.

  “Do you know where your daughter may have gone?” she asked. “If she is here, we will find her for you.”

  The soldier raised his face from his hands and studied Hero. “She fled from the mountain into the heart of Athens. I would find her but they keep me here.”

  Hero did not challenge his delusion. There was clearly no chain nor prison to hold the soldier, but for some reason he was convinced he could not leave the barren peak.

  “We will seek her in Athens then. We will ensure she is safe.”

  “Will you bring her back here, to me?”

  “If that is what she wishes,” Machaon said firmly. “We will not bring her against her will.”

  The soldier nodded, satisfied with this. “Yes, yes.” He looked hard at the Herdsmen again. “You may frighten her… when you find her, allow your sister to coax her out. Be gentle and remember she has been hurt.”

  Machaon nodded. The soldier’s pleas rang true. If the girl had indeed been violated she would not welcome three strange men.

  “Machaon,” Oenone spoke now. “We must find the gods. The Erinyes were outside the temple. They will pick up your trail, wolf or not. We cannot…”

  For a time Machaon was silent. He was aware that the Erinyes were close again, that he would not remain hidden for long. He’d need to find the gods soon, though he suspected that the encounter would not go well.

  “Perhaps we should find the gods first…” Lycon suggested uneasily.

  “No!” the soldier protested.

  Machaon shook his head. “I will stay here and search for the Pantheon,” he said. “The rest of you find Alcippe.”

  “You cannot face the gods alone!” Hero exclaimed, horrified by the thought. “You will offend them, I know you will… and they will kill you!”

  Cadmus scowled. “That’s exactly what you’re worried about, isn’t it, Mac? You are trying to protect us from the Pantheon.”

  Machaon ignored his brother’s question. “Take Hero and Oenone and find the girl,” he said in a tone he did not often use.

  For a moment Cadmus was defiant. Lycon was unsure.

  “The girl needs help, Cad,” Machaon said softly, but no less firmly.

  Oenone placed her hand on Machaon’s arm. “I will stay with Machaon,” she said. “His crime was mine.”

  Lupa lay down at Machaon’s feet.

  He looked down at her and smiled. “See, I will have more than enough company… and I may not even find the gods… I want you to go, Cad.”

  Cadmus turned away a
ngrily, but he nodded. Hero looked on in dismay. “I too will stay…” she started.

  “The girl will be frightened by men,” Machaon said pointedly. “Cad and Ly will need you, Hero.”

  “But the gods…”

  He smiled faintly. “I will try not to insult them.”

  The soldier regarded Machaon curiously. “What do you want from the gods?” he asked, his black eyes boring into the young Herdsman’s.

  “Nothing that I can’t ask for on my own,” was all Machaon would say. “You should go find the girl now,” he said to his siblings. “Oenone and I will head north from here. If you need me, howl.” He gripped Cadmus’ shoulder, knowing he was reluctant and angry. “I will be careful.”

  “Will you not go with my brother?” Hero asked the soldier. Murderers wandered the hill and though the man was broad and strong, he was unarmed.

  “I cannot leave this place!” the man bellowed, but at the sky not Hero. “I am in chains!”

  Hero was startled but she persisted. The man was clearly not restrained. Perhaps she could talk him from his sickness of mind. “My brother’s quest is perilous, but you will be alone if you stay.”

  The soldier laughed. “I am not alone,” he said bitterly. “The Pantheon watches over me.”

  It might have been this casual piety which moved Hero, but she could not leave the soldier defenceless and imprisoned by his own mind. She removed the dagger from her belt, the last gift of Agelaus which she had treasured since his death.

  “Hero,” Lycon warned but it was too late.

  She gave the blade to the soldier. “Till we return,” she said quietly. “There are dangerous men in these woods, you must be wary.”

  The sons of Agelaus moved towards her, reaching for their swords in case Hero had just armed a killer.

  The man looked more surprised than anything else. He put the dagger into his belt. “I do not need it child, but I shall keep it till you return.”

  Machaon grabbed Hero’s hand and pulled her out of reach.

  “We will seek your daughter,” Cadmus said relieved the man had not tried to do his sister harm. He turned to go, then stopped short, caught by a sudden thought. “This man who violated your daughter. Who is he?” He glanced at Hero and Oenone. “Is he still here somewhere?”

  “Halirrhothios. His name was Halirrhothios.” The soldier held up his blood-stained hands. “I have seen to him.”

  Trapped, I called Artemis for help! Fear seized me with a cold sweat which became rivulets from my shaking body. Tears became torrents and a stream fell from my hair. Into panic I dissolved and sooner than I can now tell the tale, I had become water.

  Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5

  BOOK XXIV

  THE YOUNGER SONS OF AGELAUS did not linger in their descent from the Attic mountain. Hero, born fleet of foot, ran between her brothers, using the rhythm of their footfall to pace her own. Cadmus and Lycon had left Machaon almost casually, with little outward sign that the farewell might be their last. Only Hero had wept, though her brothers had felt the parting as deeply as she.

  Machaon had taken the more dangerous path alone before. He was the first of them and it was his instinct to protect his family when he could.

  Cadmus quickened his pace. If they hurried they might return before Machaon found the Pantheon—the gods were rumoured to be elusive when actually sought. Indeed, it seemed to Cadmus that the gods only left Olympus to interfere in the affairs of mortals when all was well.

  They stopped briefly to take shelter when the earth shook, sending loose rock and stones plummeting down the slope. Whilst they cast anxious glances back up the hill, they were not unduly concerned. Ida, too, had been subject to these occasional shakings of the earth. They used the pause to catch their breath, and consult. The city of Athens spread out before them.

  Lycon shook his head. “Can we be sure this Alcippe even exists?” he murmured. “We have abandoned Mac on the word of a madman. Gods—we didn’t even ask his name.”

  “His grief was genuine,” Hero insisted.

  Cadmus was silent. He too believed the man’s grief sincere but was its cause a delusion?

  Lycon bit his lip thoughtfully. “How do you suppose he knew Hero was our sister? It’s not exactly obvious.”

  Cadmus frowned. Lycon was right. Whilst the sons of Agelaus did by some accident of fate share a distinct physical similarity, Hero was fair and small. The madman had referred to Hero as their sister from the first. He shrugged. “Perhaps it is custom here.”

  “How in Hades are we going to find his daughter?” Lycon said, staring out at the crowded streets. “We don’t even know what she looks like.”

  Cadmus followed his gaze, recognising how ill-conceived their quest was.

  “She has been hurt,” Hero said quietly. “She may not know that her father has killed the man who… she’ll be frightened.”

  “Where would you go, Hero… if you could see where you were going?”

  “The temple,” she replied. “I’d seek refuge and protection in the temple.”

  “Which temple?”

  Hero’s brow furrowed in thought. “That of Artemis,” she said in the end. The virgin goddess would protect and avenge a violated girl, and men were not permitted in her temple.

  Cadmus nodded. It made sense.

  And so they descended into Athens and made their way to the plateau on which the temples stood.

  Hero held tightly to Cadmus’ hand. She had not seen so many people in one place since he had taken her to Abydos before the fall of Troy. The noise, smells and blurs of colour all clamoured for attention in the cacophony of the crowded streets. The movement of people was strong and fluid, like a current, and soon they found themselves in the grand market of Athens. At its centre was a massive statue of Theseus slaying the Minotaur.

  Lycon grunted.

  Despite the crowds, it was not difficult to find the temple of Artemis in Athens. Although Athene was patron of the city, its citizens were a piously practical people and had spread their devotional risk by dedicating shrines to all of the gods on the Cercropia, a massive flat-topped rock on which stood what would once have been the palace of Theseus. The temple of Artemis the Huntress was easy to distinguish, surrounded by a tall dense hedge of the cypresses which were sacred to her. Deer wandered the lawns outside the temple walls, grazing unmolested on the sweet grass.

  The Herdsmen stopped at the base of the shrine’s polished marble steps. It was now late in the day and Helios was robed in violet as he journeyed down to his glorious home in the west.

  “You will need to hurry, Hero,” Lycon warned. “Soon it will darken and you will see little. We cannot go with you.”

  Cadmus agreed. “Do not waste time praying.”

  “I cannot enter the temple of Artemis without paying proper homage,” Hero bit back.

  “Well, just do it quickly,” Cadmus said, knowing better than to argue with her. “We will wait right here.”

  THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS was crowded. Hero gazed about her in dismay. There were hundreds of women within, all paying homage to the goddess of the hunt. She gazed up at the limestone statue which stood in the centre of the temple’s dome. Artemis, like Ares, was beloved of the Amazons. The effigy was cold, its features sternly carved and Hero was reminded that the goddess could well be displeased with her.

  She raised her palms and joined the crowd in praise and prayer, and she asked the goddess to lead her to the girl Alcippe.

  Pushing through the devoted throng, Hero searched with a growing realisation that the task was impossible. The light was fading now and her world was shrinking as she saw less and less. The shadows became long and frightening, and her sense of where she was became confused, as she turned and wove through the worshippers. She began to panic and it was in this distress that she finally stumbled out to the temple’s courtyard.

  It too was surrounded with closely planted cypress trees which screened it from the world outside. At its centre was a spr
ing. Hero knew of the spring… its legend had carried across the Aegean to Troy. It was told that it was once the nymph Arethusa, whom Artemis had transformed to save her from the unwelcome lust of a river god.

  Here by the spring, it was quieter than the temple proper. Women bathed in the sacred waters, but only a few. Hero, who had always prayed under the sky, was more at home in the open courtyard, and so she lingered. She approached the pool into which the spring fed, looking for the colours of the sunset in the water. The weakness of her eyes meant she had only ever seen the sky as it was reflected, for the heavens themselves were too distant for her to make out.

  It was then her sharp ears noticed the quiet, anguished sobbing. She followed the sound to a single bather who, immersed in the pool, scrubbed at her body as she wept. Hero stood at the pool’s edge to make her out. Darkly beautiful, the girl trembled as she rubbed her body with a stone, as if the skin itself were stained.

  And Hero knew. This was the soldier’s daughter.

  “Alcippe?” she said gently. “Are you Alcippe?”

  The girl turned and backed further into the pool.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “I am Hero. Your father sent me.”

  “Are you a goddess?”

  “No, I am just Hero. Your father wants you back. He sent me to ask.”

  “Why did he not come himself? I have been here for nearly a cycle of the moon… and each day I prayed he would come.”

  “He thinks he is imprisoned on the hill. He believes he cannot leave.”

  Alcippe looked bewildered, and then frightened anew. “How could he be imprisoned?”

  “He believes it.”

  “I can’t go back… Halirrhothios…” She began to cry again.

  “Your father has avenged you, Alcippe. Halirrhothios cannot hurt you again… and my brothers and I will protect you.”

  “Your brothers?” Again Alcippe backed further into the pool.

  “They are noble men. You will be safe in their company. Your father sent us to return you to his protection.” Hero held out her hand to the girl. “I saw your father—he grieves bitterly at the thought of what happened to you.”