by Glyn Iliffe
He glanced over at two tall pines that stood out a little from the woods, and prayed to the gods that Iolaus was ready. If not – or if he failed to hold his nerve until the right moment – then Heracles’s stand in the middle of the marshes would not last for long. A second rank of birds now raised their wings. He swept his cloak around himself again and he let his club fall into the grass, before tearing the ratchet from his belt. As he prepared to swing it, he wondered dismayingly whether he and Iolaus had guessed correctly and the child’s toy would succeed in scaring the birds away; or whether they would simply ignore it and swoop down on him in unconquerable numbers.
He gripped the handle and began to swing. A wooden rasping filled the air, deafeningly loud even to Heracles’s ears. But to the birds it was intolerable. With barely a screech, they turned and fled, the clatter of their metallic wings threatening to drown out the din of the ratchet. Turning himself in a full circle as he swung the device over his head, he saw the other flocks on every pool and channel of water rise up in terror, filling the drab skies with their glittering bodies.
By the grace of the gods, the first part of the plan had worked. But the birds would not flee in panic forever, and ultimately they would return to the marshes they had made their lair. For the next part of the plan, he had to reach the tall pines. Still swinging the ratchet over his head, he snatched up his club in his other hand and plunged into the pool that he had crossed in such secrecy, running as quickly as the viscous mud beneath would allow.
Ahead of him, a great flock of the birds seemed to stop in mid-air. Several fell to the ground, while many more remained where they were, flapping their wings and jabbing their beaks as if fighting an invisible enemy. As Heracles reached the opposite bank, still swinging the ratchet, a second great flock followed in the wake of the first, colliding with the unseen barrier between the two pines – some tumbling to the ground stunned, others struggling high above the ground. A handful flew over the tops of the pines untouched, and fled screeching into the west.
‘Now!’ Heracles shouted, plunging in ankle-deep steps across the next stretch of water. ‘Iolaus, now !’
There was a loud twang, and suddenly the hundreds of thrashing birds tumbled down to the ground. They landed on top of each other with loud screeches. Amazingly, none were able to free themselves from Hephaistos’s net, which Heracles and his nephew had strung out between the two tall pines during the night. It was secured by a rope tied to the base of another tree, and it was this rope that Iolaus had severed, bringing down the net and all the evil creatures captured within it.
Many hundreds had been captured in its fine golden cords – perhaps a fifth or even a quarter of the whole flock. The rest were flying haphazardly over the marshes and the surrounding woods, panicked and confused by the loud grating of the ratchet, often colliding with each other or crashing into trees. But Heracles was not concerned with them. If they returned, he would repeat the feat tomorrow night, and the night after, until the last of them had been killed or chose never to come back. For now, though, he had to haul the great net under the shelter of the trees.
He crossed the last stretch of water and clambered through the bulrushes, onto the wide sward of boggy grass. Iolaus came running out to greet him.
‘It worked!’ he shouted. ‘It really worked!’
‘It’s not over yet,’ Heracles replied, tossing him the ratchet. ‘Keep that infernal thing going, or they’ll be on us in a moment.’
Iolaus nodded and began swinging the ratchet around his head. Heracles ran past him to the gap between the two pines. The grass was heaped with hundreds of the birds. Most lay still, but those that were still able to fight against the thin but powerful threads of the net were soon forced to stop as it tightened itself about them. Lifting one corner of the mesh, he looped it over his shoulder and dragged the mass of birds towards the edge of the wood. He threw a glance over his shoulder, half expecting several to slip through where the edges of the net met. But something in its divine design caused it to seal up like a bag, so that not a single creature was able to slip the trap and fly away.
The sky was pale now and the last of the stars had dimmed from sight. Heracles lugged his catch a short way into the wood and turned to look out at the marshes. Iolaus stood silhouetted against the dawn light, still swinging the ratchet over his head, even though not a single living bird remained in sight. Returning to the net, Heracles stared down at the hundreds of bronze birds. The slender cords of gold that held them were visible only in the patterns they made in the plumage of the captured creatures. Some were dead, but not as many as he had thought. The remainder – immobilized by Hephaistos’s craft – could do nothing but stare at Heracles with hateful gazes, the occasional blinking of their blood-red eyes the only movement.
He returned their looks without pity, then raised his club and brought it down with a thud on the skull of the nearest.
Chapter Ten
AITHRE
Megara sat on the low bed and stared at the room, her chin in her hands. The blood stains had long since been washed from the walls and floor, and the furniture had been righted and put back in the places they had occupied before the storm of Heracles’s madness had disturbed them. She had even washed the furs and linen and remade her sons’ beds. Were it not for the broken leg of one chair and the missing door, the room would have looked the same as it had a year ago, when her family had been whole and happy.
But the silence spoiled her attempts to recreate what had been. She could remember the clatter from the kitchens below, the voice of her husband in the vineyards outside, and the shouts and laughter of the boys echoing from different parts of the house; yet the empty stillness that reigned there now only served as a stark reminder of what she had lost. She lowered herself onto the small mattress that had belonged to Creontiades and let her tears drip onto the unused furs.
She awoke from a dreamless sleep to find the room filled with shadows. What remained of the daylight was grey and cold, and it took her a moment to recognize her surroundings. When she did, her sense of overwhelming loss returned, leaving her feeling broken and vulnerable again. Emerging from the blissful ignorance of sleep always left her like that. It was the price she had to pay for momentarily forgetting her grief.
She sat up. The floor was cold on the soles of her feet. Probing with her toes, she found her sandals and slipped them on. The curtains stirred restlessly on the evening breeze. As she peered out at the fading blue sky beyond the window, she realized she had not been in the house after dark since it had been abandoned. And she had no desire to be. Hurriedly, she tied her sandals and stood up.
Then she heard a noise.
It came from downstairs. A distinct bump, as of a door being shut. She covered her mouth with her hand and felt the gooseflesh rise on her bare arms. She had found evidence before of people entering the house, and though none seemed to stay long – the beds had never been slept in – she knew they had searched the upper floor by the fact that some of the curtains had been torn down and stolen, and some of the furniture broken up for firewood.
She fumbled for the dagger hidden under the folds of her robe. Iolaus had insisted she keep a weapon to hand whenever she left the city; before that, she had always had the protection of her husband. And as she looked down at the pale blade held in her trembling hand, she suddenly wished Heracles was there with her now.
She recalled their meeting in Tiryns, when she had waited for him in the hovel that was his new home. She had trembled then, too. Partly it was fear of the man who had tried to kill her; partly it was anger at the destruction he had wrought in her life; and partly it was anticipation. For, after everything that had happened, she still loved him. She would never have permitted herself such a confession before learning his madness had been drug-induced; and even then it was with the greatest reluctance. But as the shadows deepened around her and she sensed her vulnerability to whoever was in the house, she wished he was there to make her feel safe ag
ain.
The scuff of a sandal on the stairs set her nerves on edge. Another step followed, then another. She looked out of the window at the drop below, remembering how she had often fretted at the thought of her own children clambering on the sill and falling. If she jumped, she could break a leg or an ankle and leave herself at the intruder’s mercy. Her eyes scanned the room for hiding places that she already knew did not exist. Then, with her heart pounding inside her chest, she gripped her knife and moved towards the sound of the approaching footsteps.
The short passage from the bedroom turned left into a longer passage, which led past the top of the stairs towards the room she had once shared with Heracles. As she waited at the corner, her chest tight with fear and the dagger raised over her head, the sandals reached the top step and turned towards her. Then she heard something strange; something that loosened her grip on the knife and eased the tension in her muscles. Whoever was around the corner was crying.
Taking the hilt in both hands, she stepped out into the passageway. The figure that until then she had only been able to imagine now stood before her, half-wrapped in shadow. It gave a scream – a girl’s scream – and stumbled back.
‘Who are you?’ Megara demanded. ‘What are you doing in my house?’
But the shock of her sudden appearance had been too much for the intruder. She fell to the floor and lay still.
Megara forgot her own fear and knelt beside her. There was very little light now in the passageway, but as she peered closely at the tear-dampened face she realized she knew her. For a moment she fumbled over the name, then she had it. Aithre, one of the slaves who had served the household before its dissolution. After Megara had returned to live in her father’s palace, the slaves had either been sold to new masters or absorbed into the royal staff. Aithre – an absent-minded girl with few skills to offer and a proclivity for idleness – had been sold.
Tucking her knife into her belt, Megara lifted Aithre’s arm over her shoulder and lifted her to her feet. She was surprisingly light, and within a matter of moments, she had taken her to the boys’ room and laid her down on Therimachus’s bed. The girl had a simple, pretty face, lightly tanned and surrounded by a mass of black hair. By the failing light that filtered through the shifting curtains, Megara could see that her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and that the tears had left tracks through the dirt on her cheeks.
‘Aithre,’ she whispered, taking her cold hand in hers and giving it a gentle squeeze. ‘Aithre, wake up.’
The girl’s eyelids fluttered open.
‘It’s alright, you’re safe,’ Megara assured her, seeing the sudden panic in her eyes.
‘Mistress? Is it really you? But… But what are you doing here?’
‘The house still belongs to me, even if I don’t live here any more. The question is, what are you doing here?’
Fresh tears sprang into the girl’s eyes and she shook her head.
‘Forgive me, Mistress, please. I didn’t know where else to go. But I couldn’t stay there. Not any longer, I couldn’t.’
‘Where? You mean your master’s home?’ Aithre nodded and sat up, rubbing away fresh tears. ‘Have you run away? Oh, you foolish child. Tell me you haven’t.’
The girl looked down at her knees, her lips drawn tight. Then she covered her face with her hands and began to sob heavily, her shoulders shaking as she let out a pitiful whine. Touched by the girl’s sadness – something that in her own state she could easily relate to – Megara sat beside her and laid her arm over her shoulders. She must have been desperate to run away, she thought. In her father’s city, the punishment was death. She tried to think who Aithre had been sold to – a carpenter or barrel-maker, she seemed to recall. No, a wagonwright. A quiet, burly man with a gaze that smouldered with latent anger – and something more sinister, especially when his eye fell on a woman.
‘I’ll take you back. I’ll tell him I saw you in the marketplace and kept you talking––’
‘No! He’ll beat me––’
‘Most masters beat their slaves from time to time. Just because Heracles didn’t––’
‘And then he’ll take advantage of me. I’m not so simple that I don’t know that goes on between a slave and her master, too. But he’s… he’s so brutal with it. He doesn’t treat me like a woman. He treats me like an animal. You don’t understand, my lady. You don’t know what it’s like – how could you? And if I try to resist, he beats me harder. He beats me so hard I… I get terrified he’s going to kill me.’
Megara took her gently by the chin and turned her face towards the window.
‘No, not the face,’ Aithre said. ‘Never anywhere visible to others. Look.’
She stood, and with her back to Megara, pulled her dress up to her ribs. Even in the dusky light, the welts and bruises were clear to see. They covered her thighs and buttocks, and her back was marked with long lines, left by the liberal and heavy application of a rod. Megara noticed something else, too.
‘You’re pregnant. Is it his?’
Aithre dropped her dress and returned to the bed. She looked her former mistress in the eye, her gaze no longer sheepish, but firm and unyielding.
‘There’s never been any other. He told me I had to… to get rid of the child. There’s a witch lives out in the woods––’
‘No! I won’t let a child be murdered – even an unborn one – not if it’s in my power to stop it. And it is. I’m the daughter of the king, after all.’
‘Even your father can’t change the law. If you make me go back, he’ll demand the death penalty. It’s his right, and his jealous wife will never know about the baby.’
‘Nonsense, child,’ Megara said. ‘My father will buy you from him and take you into service at the palace. I’ll make sure this wagonwright is offered a fee he can’t turn down, and if he does then Father will back it up with a threat or two. Aithre, an end to your troubles is in sight.’
The girl wiped the tears from her eyes and broke into a smile. It took a little longer to persuade her to leave the house and return to Thebes with her old mistress, but Megara was insistent and they left the porch before darkness had fallen. As they walked, they talked about what would happen with the baby, and the fact that there was another of Heracles’s former slaves at the palace who had always been fond of Aithre. Soon, the girl had convinced herself the man would marry her and become – to all appearances – the father of her child. Her chatty confidence subsided as they approached the city gates, but as soon as they had passed through without any sign of the wagonwright, her high spirits returned.
‘Can I stay the night in the palace?’ she asked.
‘Of course. I’ll speak to King Creon the moment we return. As the penalty only applies if a slave does not return before sunrise of the next day, I’ll ask him to send a messenger to your master tonight. But you shouldn’t expect everything to be easy, Aithre. For one thing, my father’s housekeeper will make you work hard for your living.’
‘I won’t disappoint you, Mistress, you’ll see. I know I wasn’t a hard worker before, but I’ve changed so much since then. My master and his wife never gave me a moment’s rest, and if they even thought I was slacking he used to take his stick to me.’ Her expression dimmed with the pain of her memories, then became resolute. ‘You’ll find I’m a good worker now, as the gods are my witness, I am. I can use a distaff and spindle––’
‘The palace has enough maids.’
‘And I’m a good cook. I can do anything in a kitchen now. I started learning things when I belonged to your husband, and since––’
‘When you belonged to my husband?’ Megara interrupted. ‘You were a cleaning maid, Aithre. You weren’t even allowed to serve food, let alone touch it.’
‘Oh, but I was, Mistress. The old housekeeper took a liking to me. Used to let me help in the kitchen when they were busy. I cried when I heard she was dead.’
Megara stopped and turned to her companion.
‘She let you he
lp her? With what? What duties did she give you?’
Aithre looked suddenly guilty.
‘It was nothing much, my lady. Only lighting fires and boiling water, sometimes chopping vegetables – just simple things.’
Megara’s eyes widened. After visiting the witch and learning that Heracles’s madness had been induced by the mushrooms he had eaten, she had spent days finding every slave who used to work in the kitchen – those that had been transferred to the palace household, and those that had been sold on to new masters. She had questioned each one about their memories of that night, until one of the cooks recalled the housekeeper giving her some mushrooms she had bought from a passing beggar and telling her to make them into a soup. The cook had not seen the man, nor had any of the other kitchen slaves. Only the housekeeper knew what he looked like, and she had been found dead the next morning. Never once, though, had it occurred to Megara that others might have helped in the kitchen.
‘Aithre, I need to ask you a couple of questions, and you must answer me as honestly as you can.’
The girl looked afraid, but gave a silent nod.
‘Were you in the kitchen the night of Heracles’s madness? Answer me!’
‘No, my lady. I was out back, cleaning up the goats’ mess after the herdsmen had put them in their folds for the night.’
‘You weren’t asked to chop any mushrooms? You didn’t see the housekeeper speaking to a stranger in the kitchen?’
