by Glyn Iliffe
‘He’s lost everything – his family, his home, his reputation – but he still clings onto hope. As long as he has that, then surely he has a chance.’
Hera narrowed her eyes as the curious notion seeped into her thinking. Hope was a mortal quality, scorned and mocked by the all-knowing and all-powerful. Even Charis struggled to understand how Heracles could have found such a delicate thing amid the calamity that had overtaken him. It perplexed her that he could keep going, knowing what he had done and rejected for it by all who had once loved him – all except Iolaus. Determination had helped him with the first two labours, but determination had its limits. Perhaps the return of his nephew had restored hope to him – hope that, if one person could forgive his crime, then others might do the same. Maybe he could even learn to forgive himself.
She felt the goddess’s eyes upon her, her stare piercing.
‘The boy,’ she said, as if reading Charis’s thoughts. ‘As long as Iolaus is with him, he hasn’t lost everything. Not yet.’
She waved her hand and the torches went out, plunging the temple into darkness.
* * *
The breeze that swept down from the snow-capped mountains was bitingly cold, penetrating the gaps in Heracles’s clothing and leaving his skin numb and his muscles stiff. Beside him in the chariot, Iolaus’s face was pale, but for his pink ears and the red tip of his nose. He sniffed constantly, and occasionally – when the clatter of hooves and the rumble of wheels on the dirt track allowed for it – Heracles could hear his nephew’s teeth chattering. They had been travelling for over a week now, and the more the road climbed up into the foothills of the mountains, the bitterer the cold became. At midday, they had seen the first snow on the road and in the fields on either side, though it was nothing compared to the great meadows of white between the arms of the mountains ahead, or the vast forests of snow-decked pines covering the lower ridges, which glistened in the last of the afternoon sunlight.
‘That’s it,’ Heracles said, pointing to a large, thickly wooded hill ahead.
‘Thank the gods,’ Iolaus muttered. ‘If I don’t move my legs soon, they’ll turn to stone.’
‘It’s a steep trek up to Pholus’s cave – the climb’ll soon get your blood circulating again.’
‘Isn’t there a village nearby? Somewhere to leave the horses and eat a meal around a hot fire first?’
‘No village,’ Heracles said, with a laugh. ‘Not this close to Pholoë. No one would dare.’
‘And yet your friend lives all alone in the woods.’
‘Not alone. Pull off the track as it enters the trees and we’ll secure the horses.’
Only a light dusting of snow had found its way this far down the foothills, and there was enough grass poking through to keep the horses fed while they were gone. After stamping around and rubbing the warmth back into their arms, the two men tightened their cloaks about themselves and headed up into the woods.
At first, the going was easy. The layer of snow was thin, and apart from a few wind-blown drifts against trees and boulders, it was never deeper than their ankles. The slope was gentle and the trees were not as crowded as they had been in the foothills of Nemea or in the Lernean Swamp, making it easy to find a path upwards. The sun set behind the mountains as they climbed, but the tall pines did not keep out the last of the afternoon light or hide the pale sky above, where banks of white cloud had drifted over to threaten more snow.
It was many years since Heracles had visited Pholoë. Though the snow had made the landscape unrecognizable, he knew Pholus’s cave was near the summit and was confident of finding it. Yet as they climbed higher, so the ascent became steeper and more difficult. Their numbed feet slipped repeatedly in the thickening snow, and they scuffed their shins and knees on the roots and stones hidden beneath. Their bare legs were stiff with cold and their bodies trembled violently against the penetrating chill, until their muscles ached from it.
The approaching dusk deepened the shadows within the woods, making it difficult to judge how high they had come, or how much farther they had to climb. Heracles stopped and looked about himself. It had started to snow. The flakes were few in number, but they were already large. Soon the fall would become heavier and hide the tracks they had left behind them, making their route back to the horses more difficult. And if they could not find Pholus’s cave or return to the road, they would be forced to make a fire for warmth. But the flames were certain to bring the other inhabitants of the wood to them – a prospect he did not relish.
He had seen their prints in the snow, and once or twice thought he had heard harsh voices carried on the breeze. But if Iolaus noticed anything, he did not mention it. Heracles had kept deliberately quiet about the nature of his friend, not wanting to fill his nephew with concern. For Pholus himself was as gentle a creature as had ever walked the earth. His kinsmen, however, were a very different matter.
‘You’re lost, aren’t you?’ Iolaus said, breathing on the palms of his hands and rubbing them together. ‘Perhaps we should head back, before the snow covers our tracks. We can try again in the morning.’
No sooner had the white-vapoured words left his mouth than the silence of the woods was broken by a sound that was as beautiful as it was unexpected. Music. Heracles’s large, heavily-bearded face broke into a smile as the wind changed, bringing to their ears the notes of a distant lyre. The tune was light and unhurried, like the snow falling around them, and there was no doubt the fingers that played it belonged to a master of the art.
‘I’m not lost now,’ he said. ‘Come on – follow me.’
Ignoring the stiffness in his limbs, Heracles sprang up the slope towards the sound of the music. The snow was falling heavily now, blown into their faces by a change in the wind, but he no longer cared. The thought of seeing his friend – and the hope of a meal and some wine by a blazing fire, in the shelter and warmth of a cave – drove him forward. Soon he could hear singing, and smell the woodsmoke of a welcoming hearth. The voice was deep, but smooth and pleasant on the ear. And though the words were lost amid the howls of the wind, they did not belong to any raucous drinking song, shouted up into the rafters of a crowded inn; rather, they were in crafted verses, reminding Heracles of the poems he had heard sung in the great halls of kings, telling tales of gods and heroes of long ago.
The slope levelled out and the trees stopped. He was at the edge of a wide clearing with a rock wall rising up at the far end. Snow clung to its crags and collected in the hollows, making it look like a cliff of white ice, but for the large, hoof-shaped hole at its centre. As he looked at the cave, Iolaus stumbled blindly into his back.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said, moving next to him and wiping the snow from his face. ‘What is this place?’
‘Pholus lives in there.’
Heracles pointed to the cave. A flickering orange glow lined its inner walls, and the sound of the lyre and the voice that accompanied it emanated clearly from its depths. A moment of doubt entered Heracles’s mind. Would his old friend remember him after all these years? Would he welcome him openly, or had he become more like his savage kinsmen with the passing years? Casting his sudden misgivings aside, he crossed the clearing to the entrance of the cave. Iolaus followed, though at Heracles’s signal hung back a little.
‘Pholus!’ Heracles called, cupping his hand over his mouth so that the wind did not steal away his voice. ‘Pholus, my friend. Show yourself.’
The lyre fell silent and the words of the song trailed away. There was a pause, and then a tall, indistinct shadow fell across one wall of the cave.
‘Heracles? Is that you?’
Heracles smiled.
‘You remember my voice, even after all these years.’
‘I remember all voices, especially human ones – but we so rarely hear them on Pholoë.’
‘Is that any surprise? The only wonder is that you continue to live on this gods-forsaken hill. You should have made your home among men years ago. With a mind lik
e yours, you would have been welcomed in Thebes.’
‘Would I?’ the voice asked. ‘All the learning of my many years would be disregarded, for there are few among men who could tolerate having one of my kind among them.’
The shadow jerked forward and the cave echoed to the clop of hooves on stone. The silhouette of a man appeared, extraordinarily tall and with a lyre tucked under one arm. Then, as he moved towards the mouth of the cave, they saw he was not human at all. He had the upper torso of a man and wore a brown woollen tunic and cloak, but his body from the waist down was that of a horse, with white, grey-mottled fur. The centaur’s beard and short, springy hair were also white, as was his skin, though his nose, cheeks and ears were flushed red by the cold air. His eyes were jet black, yet his face was kind and gentle as he regarded his visitors.
‘Welcome back, Heracles,’ he said, stepping forward and embracing his old friend. ‘It has been a long time since I taught you to sing and play the lyre – not that I could call your education in those fine arts complete.’
‘I wasn’t your most attentive pupil,’ Heracles replied.
‘No, but you were my favourite. Your stepfather called you back home far too soon. But perhaps that’s why you’ve returned: to finish what you started. You may have preferred sports, the fighting arts and women when you were a young man, but you always had such potential, Heracles. You would have made a fine bard.’
‘My dear Pholus, you know that isn’t why I’ve come.’
The centaur nodded and placed his hand on Heracles’s shoulder.
‘Of course not. A shadow lies on your soul, I can see that. You’re carrying a heavy burden, and you need my help. Naturally, I will give it. But first, you must come in out of the snow and warm yourself by my fire. I have just sacrificed a deer, so it will be an honour and a joy if you will eat with me. Your friend, too.’
He looked at Iolaus and bowed his head, before offering him his hand. From the moment Pholus had showed himself, the young squire had stared at him in disbelief. Now, he gave an awkward bow and cautiously forced his hand forward. The centaur took him by the wrist.
‘This is my brother’s son, Iolaus; now my squire,’ Heracles said.
‘Welcome, Iolaus. How is Iphicles?’
‘You knew my father?’
‘I taught him, too. A clever man, but never one for music or songs. Far too easily bored by such trivialities.’
‘He’s an adviser to King Eurystheus now,’ Heracles said. ‘But if we’re to get better acquainted, let’s do it with full stomachs before a warm hearth.’
Pholus peered up at the snow-filled sky, then gave a furtive glance at the trees around the clearing and nodded.
‘Yes, we should go inside now.’
He ushered them in and walked beside them as they followed the tunnel into the heart of the cave. The spit and crackle of burning logs was magnified by the walls, but there was no aroma of roast venison mingled in with the smell of smoke. The passage bent around to the right and opened out into a spacious cavern. It was exactly as Heracles remembered it. A large fire burned in the middle, casting an orange glow over the uneven walls. The smoke was drawn up towards a corner of the ceiling, where a natural flue was just visible in the darkness. A ring of smooth stones edged the hearth, while the pelts of numerous animals covered the floor. Others skins adorned the walls, softening the echo and hiding some of the damp, angular outcrops of stone. Musical instruments hung from pegs, and there were crude shelves with tools, clay pots and other oddments on them. No weapons could be seen anywhere.
In a dark corner of the cave was a pile of furs. Pholus went over and began rooting among them, throwing some aside until – with a clatter of wood – he pulled out two roughly made chairs.
‘Here,’ he said, placing them down before the fire and draping fleeces over them. ‘Please, sit down. It isn’t often I have human guests – four years, to be accurate, and the last was a wounded traveller I found in the woods. If I’d known you were coming, I could have made things a little more homely. I even have a table somewhere. Strange, though, that I didn’t foresee your visit,’ he added, as if to himself.
‘How was he wounded?’ Iolaus asked as he removed his sword and sat down. ‘Your visitor, I mean.’
Pholus and Heracles exchanged glances.
‘These woods are a dangerous place, my friend – bears; the occasional lion; other creatures, worse than them. I assume your uncle has told you nothing about Pholoë.’
‘Only that he was visiting an old friend who could divine the past and help us in our quest.’
‘A quest? How exciting, though I’m not really suited to dangerous adventures.’
‘But centaurs are supposed to be fearless, savage creatures,’ Iolaus said. He immediately realized his discourtesy and stuttered out an apology. ‘What I meant to say was… I don’t mean you’re a savage. You seem very… civilized.’
‘Thank you, friend. But I am an exception,’ Pholus said. ‘My kinsmen are wild and fierce. Had you stumbled on one of their caves, you would have received a very different welcome indeed.’
‘All we require is your advice, Pholus,’ Heracles assured him. ‘You won’t even have to leave your cave.’
‘Then I look forward to helping you with your questions – and perhaps I have a few of my own. But first, let me roast you some meat.’
He returned to the corner from which he had produced the chairs, and after more clattering and tossing aside of furs, he emerged with a table and some iron rods. The table he set down between his guests, and two of the iron rods he fixed into holes on either side of the hearth. The third he took into another corner of the cave, returning with a leg of raw venison skewered onto it. This he balanced on the forked ends of the other rods to make a spit.
While he turned the meat, he asked Heracles about the things he had done in the years since they last met. Yet, by the keen nature of his questions, he seemed to already know the main events in his life – from his liberation of Thebes to the birth of his sons – and was simply seeking his friend’s own perspective on them. Pholus had always been knowledgeable about the world of men, gaining his information through divination. But if he knew what had happened to Heracles’s family, or of his consequent slavery to Eurystheus and the labours, he did not say.
When the venison was cooked, he fetched two large wooden bowls and carved several slices into each. He handed the bowls to Heracles and Iolaus and bid them eat, though there was no bread or anything else with which to supplement the meal. They thanked him nonetheless and bit into the succulent meat.
‘I’m forgetting my manners,’ Pholus exclaimed, slapping his forehead and rushing back into the corner of the cave.
After finding two cups among the clutter, he dipped them into a clay cistern filled with water and gave them to his guests. He moved off again and returned with a haunch of raw venison. Settling his horse’s body on the layer of furs, he raised it to his lips.
‘Forgive me, my friend,’ he said to Iolaus. ‘In most things, I have conquered the savage nature of my kind and chosen the ways of men. But I have not yet overcome the primitive demands of my stomach.’
With that, he bit into the leg and tore away a chunk of meat. Fresh blood ran into his white beard and down his neck, seeping into the plain wool. For a moment, Heracles realized he was watching a beast, no less brutish than a lion or a wolf. It amazed him that a short while before, that same mouth had been singing songs to the music of a lyre. He took another bite of the roast venison and washed it down with an unsatisfying mouthful of water.
‘Pholus, you’d be the first to agree that centaurs are ignorant and uncivilized. Yet every man knows even they drink wine; and you are the most cultured of their kind. Surely you have some in store that you can break open for your guests?’
Pholus glanced up from his meat, a fearful look in his black eyes.
‘Wine is sacred to our kind, but we only drink it on special feast days, when we gather together to thr
ow off the thin veneer of civility and return to our feral selves. Just the smell of wine is enough to send a centaur wild with lust and savagery; that’s why my tribe have entrusted me to keep the communal wine jar. I wouldn’t dare to open it.’
‘Who would know?’ Heracles said with a grin. ‘I can still feel the chill in my bones, despite the fire. And look at how Iolaus is shivering. A drop of wine would warm us both through.’
Pholus squirmed with indecision. He knew that in the customs of men withholding wine was an insult to his guests and an offence to the gods. But something more than the fear of the gods was upon him. He glanced uncertainly at a large clay amphora, half-buried in the ground by one of the walls.
‘My kinsmen are not far away,’ he said. ‘If I unseal the jar they will smell the wine.’
Heracles held up his hand in apology.
‘Forgive me, my friend. It’s just that wine invigorates the mind and frees the tongue – I’d hoped we might bring a few of the niceties of civilization to this dark corner of Greece. I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable.’
But Pholus looked more uncomfortable than ever.
‘Perhaps I’m being foolish,’ he said, uncertainly. ‘I haven’t had willing human company for so long, and sometimes one forgets the… the niceties, as you call them.’
Heracles ate the last strip of venison from his bowl and drained his water with a slight grimace. As he lowered his empty cup, the centaur took it from his fingers.
‘I’ll not drink,’ he said. ‘But I will risk a cup of wine for each of you. After all, I should not put aside the manners I’ve sacrificed so much to learn. Then we can talk. I’d like to help you with your quest, if I can. And perhaps you can stay a night or two and tell me the stories of your labours.’
‘Then you do know,’ Heracles said.
‘Yes, I know. The tragedy of your children’s deaths; your exile from Thebes and slavery to Eurystheus; the capture of the hind, and the slaying of the lion and the Hydra. You have shown amazing courage and resourcefulness, Heracles. Truly amazing. Perhaps never more so than in facing the hideousness of your crime and trying to absolve yourself of it. Other men of your fame and rank would have chosen an easier way out.’
