Trying War

by S. D. Gentill

  But Medea, then wife of Aegeus, King of Athens, plotted against him and persuaded Aegeus that Theseus was a traitor. Aegeus, who did not recognise his own son, was afraid and sent him against the great bull of Marathon.

  When Theseus returned after having slain the bull, Medea gave Aegeus a poison which Aegeus presented to the triumphant Theseus that selfsame day. But just as he was about to imbibe the draught, Theseus gave his father the sword. Aegeus recognised the weapon and dashed the poisoned cup from Theseus’ hands. And when Theseus was thus made known to his father, Aegeus expelled Medea.

  Apollodorus, The Library

  BOOK XXIX

  THIS TIME, WHEN THE ERINYES came out of the trees they were close enough and there was light enough that Hero was no longer protected by the weakness of her eyes. She screamed.

  Tisiphone came first, crawling, pressing her face against the earth as she followed an unseen trail of blood. Behind her came Megaera and Alecto, brandishing whips and reflecting Hades itself in their eyes. They barked and snarled like hunting hounds on the cusp of a kill.

  Orestes was the first to react. He shrieked as though they were ripping the very heart from his chest and fled into the forest. Electra ran after him.

  Cadmus snorted in disgust. “Greeks!” He unsheathed his sword as did Machaon.

  Lycon readied the spear which had supported him on the climb to the peak. They positioned themselves before Hero and Oenone and waited for the sisters to recognise Machaon.

  “Just so I know,” Lycon murmured, “we are going to kill the goddesses of retribution?”

  “We might have to try,” Cadmus responded. “We probably won’t succeed.”

  Lycon nodded grimly. “As long as we’re clear.”

  “Mac…” Cadmus glanced sideways at Machaon. “Are you all right?”

  Machaon nodded. “Yes. When they are standing here they’re not in my head.” He readied his sword. “This I can handle.”

  Hero broke away from Oenone’s embrace and walked forward.

  “Hero, get back!” Machaon shouted.

  Hero ignored him. Her voice trembled, but it rang clear as she addressed the loathsome sisters with the question that had been troubling her. “Who cursed my brother? Who called your fearsome vengeance upon him?”

  “Hero…” Machaon began. He did not want to hear the words… that his mother’s shade had condemned him. He knew she must hate him but he did not want to hear it.

  Alecto’s slack jaw creased into something that may have been a smile. She reached for Hero, gazing unblinkingly with eyes that wept blood. Hero blanched but she held her ground… it was Machaon who pulled her back from the goddess.

  Alecto answered nonetheless. “The priestess of Hecate summoned us… it was she who condemned Pentheselia’s son.”

  Lycon cursed. “Medea knew it!”

  For a moment, despite the manifestation of peril which now leered greedily at him, despite the fact that it promised an end just as grim, Machaon knew only relief.

  “And what will it take for you to release him?” Hero asked, peering determinedly out from her brother’s side. She would save him.

  “We will not release him.”

  “But he acted to protect me, not to wrong our mother!” Hero spoke urgently, wiping bitter tears from her face as she did so.

  “But he wronged her nevertheless and vengeance shall be hers, through us.”

  “Pentheselia does not ask that her son be punished!” The voice was powerful and commanding, the words spoken with a regal expectation of obedience. The god of war had come down to stand with the Herdsmen. “Begone!” he said. “Loathsome sisters of suffering, relentless creatures of death! Return to the lightless depths of Hades’ realm.”

  The unsleeping vipers which crowned the Erinyes hissed. Megaera reared angrily. “We were born of the blood of Uranus, wrongly spilled by his own son. We are older than the Pantheon. Our right is undeniable, even by the new gods of sea and sky. You will not deny us what is ours by law.”

  “I am war!” Ares roared.

  Tisiphone stretched her lips outward. “And there is no reason that war and vengeance should not be beloved of each other… so often are you declared in our name.”

  Quietly, Hero slipped her hand into Machaon’s. He noticed, and, though they were preparing to battle to the death, he let her be. Perhaps she needed to hold something in her fear, perhaps she had simply decided she would not let him go.

  “You too are called to pay for your crimes, god of war,” Alecto said slyly. In the presence of Ares, the sisters appeared to have lost any immediate interest in the Herdsmen. “Soon the Pantheon will come to this place to judge you, to condemn you.”

  Ares glared at them without reply.

  Alecto approached. “Let us wager, god of war. Tie the fate of Pentheselia’s son to yours. If you are acquitted we shall release him.”

  “And if they judge me guilty?”

  “We will take his brothers too.”

  “No!” Machaon objected immediately. “They are not cursed…”

  Lycon glanced at Cadmus and silently they agreed. Cadmus spoke for them both. “We will take your terms, vengeful one.”

  “No!” Machaon said again, looking at his brothers in horror and fury. “What are you doing? Can you not see them?”

  Cadmus laughed. “My standards were never high, Mac.”

  Ares smiled faintly. “Loyal to the point of stupidity… you would have made good soldiers.”

  “We are not soldiers, we are herders,” Machaon said desperately. He turned to the war-god. “Do not let them do this—do not take these terms.”

  Ares regarded him sadly. “I am war. Loyalty and sacrifice are mine as much as death and greed. I will not refuse what is freely offered.”

  “No!” Machaon said in real anguish. He would not risk his brothers whatever his fate. “Refuse the wager!”

  The Erinyes squealed and barked in delight, sniffing the air as if they were trying to inhale the discord.

  Machaon turned to Hero. “Talk to them.”

  Hero shook her head. “Lord Ares is right… they’re stupid.” She looked into Machaon’s eyes and he could tell by her face that the yellow had returned. But she did not pull away from him. “This is a chance to release you, Mac. The gods are wise… Ares is the son of Zeus the Thunderer and of Hera. He is beloved of Aphrodite and the brother of Hephaistos. They will judge him fairly.”

  Machaon stared at his sister. They were all aware that a dozen gods sat in the Pantheon. Would the four who loved Ares be able to sway the others? Would Poseidon’s demands that the war-god be punished, prevail? How could he entrust his brothers to the wisdom of the gods?

  “Hero,” Machaon said wearily, “if all three of us are driven into madness, what will become of you?”

  The thought had seized Hero’s heart, but she would not let her brothers see that. Machaon had to take the chance being offered. “I have always thought the three of you mad,” she said. “I am not afraid. Let him take the wager.”

  “What do you mean let him take the wager!” Ares interrupted angrily. “Have you forgotten who here is the god? I do not require your permission, and on another day I may destroy you all for your presumption. The wager is made… the fates of the son of Pentheselia and his brothers are tied to mine!”

  And so it was done.

  The loathsome sisters danced, cracking their whips and barking as they regarded the sons of Agelaus like prizes already won.

  Machaon looked on in wretched dismay. He felt Cadmus’ hand on his shoulder. “If Ares is convicted, then we will face the Erinyes together. The odds will be even… perhaps in our favour.”

  “They’re immortal, you idiot,” Lycon said from beside him. “We’re not.”

  Cadmus grinned. “Mac’s not. I could well be.”

  Despite himself, despite his horror at what his brothers had done, Machaon found himself smiling. “You’re right, Cad,” he said, shaking his head. “You may well
have been sired by a god.”

  “Is there a god of fools?” muttered Lycon, but he too smiled.

  THE SKY HAD SHAKEN off the crimson web of dawn, and was blue and clear when Ares began to berate it once again. It appeared the gods were beginning to gather, one by one. The arrival of each was declared by Ares’ fury. He was now as frustrated by the Pantheon’s refusal to rush to trial as he was by the fact that they intended to judge him in the first place.

  “Aren’t you going to chastise him for blasphemy?” Lycon asked Hero when Ares called Athene a vindictive shrew.

  Hero did not respond, struck silent by the god’s slanderous oratory against those who would decide his fate.

  Cadmus shrugged. “If he was diplomatic, I suppose he would not be war.”

  The gods did not gather quickly and Ares had ample time to address his ire at each in turn. But, apart from the wargod’s anger, and the fact that he was powerless and restrained, there was no other sign that the Pantheon was present in any way.

  The Erinyes had retreated into the trees with promises that they would return for the sons of Agelaus.

  “Let’s hope Orestes and Electra have gone back to the temple,” Cadmus said as they watched the goddesses disappear into the shadows of the forest.

  “I have no such hope,” Oenone spat bitterly as she tended Lycon’s wound. The nymph was appalled by the use of the hot blade to seal the gash. “The Greeks think they can fix anything with fire and leeches,” she muttered in disgust.

  “It stopped the bleeding, Oenone,” Cadmus said, glancing at Alcippe, who had left her father to his conversations with the Pantheon. The war-god’s daughter sat nervously beside Hero.

  “Have you seen them?” Hero asked timidly. “Have you met the Pantheon?”

  Alcippe shook her head. “Only my father.” She smiled. “He says they all came to dance about my bed the day I was born, that even Helios paused in the sky to look… but that is just my father telling stories to make me smile. I doubt they know who I am.”

  Hero warmed with memory. Agelaus had always paid her lavish compliments too, but he was a simple Herdsman and not the god of war. It touched her that man-slaying Ares should love his daughter so.

  Alcippe spoke to her of the lesser gods she had known, the children of gods, the daemons and the minor monsters who were not so reclusive as the Pantheon. She asked Hero about herself, and her brothers and Ida. The war-god’s daughter could barely remember the day the men of Athens had sailed for Troy. She told Hero of how quiet the city had seemed in the ten years that they had been gone, how different it had been since their return.

  The curse startled Hero not because it was a curse, but because it came from above them. For a moment she thought the Pantheon had begun to reply to the war-god’s rant. Then Cadmus dropped down from the branches of the oak.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I just remembered those ships we spotted last night—I thought I might be able to see them from a height.” Cadmus motioned to Machaon. His face was bleak.

  “Did you see them?” Lycon asked, pulling away from Oenone’s care.

  Cadmus nodded. “The hulls are red.”

  “Amazons?” Machaon began to climb to see for himself. He descended again in moments, his countenance both sombre and perplexed.

  “Well,” Lycon asked, “what are they doing?”

  “Nothing at the moment… but I think they’re preparing to attack the port.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “They must have their entire navy here… I doubt they’re fishing.”

  “Why would they attack Athens now?” Alcippe asked, standing.

  “They’re the Amazons,” Cadmus replied. To Machaon he said, “Do you think they’ve come for Hero?”

  “How would they know to look for her here?”

  “Medea!” Lycon said. “She used us to lead them here!”

  “Medea? ” said Alcippe, startled. “You came with Medea? ”

  “You know her?”

  “I know of her. Many years ago she was the queen of Athens.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “She and her son were exiled by Aegeus, her husband, when he discovered that he already had an heir in Theseus, the slayer of monsters.”

  “She was Theseus’ stepmother?” Cadmus asked sceptically, trying to reconcile beautiful Medea as the parent of the fat old man they had encountered on Skyros.

  “Medea is a goddess,” said Lycon. “She could be five hundred years old for all we know.”

  “What happened to her child?” Hero asked, afraid that they would be told that Medea slew him too.

  Alcippe shook her head. “I don’t know. He would be a man now, but he didn’t return to Athens.”

  “What are you doing?” Hero demanded, noticing now that her brothers were arming themselves.

  “We are Herdsmen, Hero,” Machaon said quietly, as he stopped to explain. “We are defenders, protectors of the unarmed… and we may have led the Amazons here. We must go and see who we can help.”

  “But the gods…”

  “Our fate is tied to Ares’… there is nothing more we can do here, but we will wish him luck before we go.”

  As much as she wanted to, Hero did not argue. Her brothers could not deny the heritage that Agelaus had given them, and the code of the Herdsmen of Ida did not bend because the timing was bad. She did not ask to go with them because she knew that, in this, she could not help. Hero blinked away frustrated tears.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  Machaon put an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “Stay here with Oenone and Alcippe. If the gods turn up—hide.”

  “You cannot hide from the gods,” Hero said weakly.

  “Of course you can… they’re not that attentive.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Alcippe volunteered suddenly. “I can wield a sword.”

  Cadmus smiled warmly at the daughter of war. “Indeed you can, but your father will wish you to stay with him… at least until this trial is over.”

  Alcippe glanced over at Ares who was still waging a onesided verbal siege on those who would judge him. Her eyes softened and she nodded. “Yes… I should be here.”

  “Ly…” Machaon scrutinised the youngest of his brothers with concern. Oenone had applied a paste of leaves to the wound and bound it, but still…

  “I’m fine,” Lycon said quickly. “I’m coming.”

  Machaon did not try to dissuade him. The sons of Agelaus knew each other well, and as much as Lycon had not spoken of it, Machaon knew that he wondered about his mother. He had seen Molpadia only from a distance. The chance that they would encounter her among the invasion force in Athens was slight, but it was Lycon’s chance to take.

  Machaon spoke to Oenone while his brothers said their farewells. “You remember where we left Pan’s ship, don’t you, Oenone?”

  The nymph nodded gravely.

  Machaon was relieved. If they died in Athens, Hero would not be lost and alone. Impulsively he embraced the nymph.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you, Oenone. If I see Paris first, I will tell him of all you have done.”

  Oenone stroked his cheek tenderly, remembering his brother again. “I would not want that you see him first, Machaon,” she said softly. “What are you planning? Three Herdsmen however brave cannot protect Athens alone.”

  “Not from the Amazons,” Machaon agreed. His jaw set hard. “We’ll defend the unarmed where we can—help them flee or hide… And we’ll find Medea.”

  “Medea? No, you can’t… she is—”

  “Lycon is right—everything that’s happened since we left Kolchis is by her hand. We can’t stop anything until we stop her.”

  “And what would you stop her from doing?” Oenone asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” Machaon murmured. He glanced back at Hero and lowered his voice further. “Oenone, if Ares is found guilty by the Pantheon, Cad, Ly and I will all be pursued by the Erinye
s.” The tiny speck of yellow glinted in the darkness of his eyes. It was both an agony and a comfort that his brothers would share his fate. “If that happens we will not return for Hero.”

  Oenone’s lips tightened. “You can’t just abandon her.”

  “We would never abandon her!” Machaon said sharply. “But neither would we want her to become Electra.” He looked at Oenone directly. “If that fate is ours, take Hero and tell the ship to sail for Scherie, the land of the Phaeacians where it was made.”

  “Scherie? But…”

  “The Princess Nausicaa promised to remember us.” His jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. “She may be wed by now, but she will be a good friend to Hero.”

  Oenone gazed at him curiously for a time. “Oh Machaon,” she said gently. “Did this Nausicaa steal your heart?”

  Machaon smiled wistfully. “Just take Hero to Scherie,” he said. “She will be safe there and, eventually, she will be happy.”

  Oenone nodded slowly.

  “I will do as you ask, brother of my Paris, but it will hurt your sister deeply to know you are all lost to her.”

  “It will hurt her more to watch us all being lost,” he replied.

  “Then you have my word.”

  Flee I shall, but first, I shall take my vengeance.

  Seneca, Medea

  BOOK XXX

  HERO WATCHED HER BROTHERS GO. They were outside the edges of her vision too soon. She knew. They had embraced her just a moment too long, they had not teased her for weeping and they were the sons of Agelaus. Hero knew that while Cadmus and Lycon had chosen to share Machaon’s fate, they would not allow her to do so.

  If the god of war was judged guilty of this murder, then she would never see her brothers again.

  Hero set her shoulders back. It was up to her now. She would have to ensure the Pantheon acquitted Ares, she would have to make the gods see.

  She began by building a pyre, using the branches that had broken, fallen during the earth shaking that almighty Zeus had sent at his son’s entreaty.

  “What are you doing?” Alcippe asked.

  “We must prepare for the gods.”