by Glyn Iliffe
‘No, I swear it. As Hestia is my witness.’
Her expression was pleading, but sincere, as if all her newfound dreams of escaping the wagonwright’s rod and working at the palace depended upon it. And Megara believed her. Her own sudden and unexpected hopes had been frustrated as quickly as they had been born, leaving her feeling empty. Fresh despair seemed to press down on her shoulders, and she wondered whether her legs could bear the weight of it.
‘Never mind, then,’ she said.
She continued up the dirt road towards the walls of the citadel. It was dark now and the streets were empty of all but a few cloaked figures, hurrying home from whatever business had kept them out after sunset. The orange glow of firelight shimmered from several of the windows she passed, and she could smell stew and spiced wine. After a few moments, she realized Aithre was no longer beside her. Turning, she saw the girl standing a few paces back.
‘Come on, child.’
‘There is something.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When I was picking up the dung a man came up from the road.’
‘A man?’ Megara asked, quietly. ‘What sort of a man?’
Aithre gazed at her, a distant look in her eyes.
‘I don’t know. He wore a hood.’
Megara stepped closer and took the slave girl’s hands in hers.
‘What did he want?’
‘He asked to speak with the housekeeper. I told him she was in the kitchen, but he refused to follow me in. I said she was busy, but he insisted she come out to him.’
‘What did you do?’ Megara asked, the hairs rising on the back of her neck.
‘I went in and fetched her. She told me off for coming into a kitchen with goat dung on my hands. She didn’t want to speak to anyone, either – had too much to worry about without strange visitors and all. The sacrifice had just come in and been cut up for roasting, and there were lots of––’
‘Did she follow you?’
Aithre nodded her head.
‘In the end, she did. I pointed her to the man and she told me to go back to my dung picking. As I walked off, I looked back and saw them talking. Don’t ask me what they said to each other, Mistress, because I don’t know. All I know was she went back into the kitchen, brought out some bread and handed it to the man. Then he gave her something wrapped in cloth and walked away. Strange thing was, when she went in and closed the door he just tossed the bread away.’
‘By all the gods,’ Megara whispered, looking away in thought. A moment later, she squeezed the girl’s hands tighter and stared her in the eye. ‘This man, Aithre. Would you recognize him again? Can you remember what he looked like?’
‘Oh yes, Mistress,’ she nodded. ‘I’d know him again anywhere.’
* * *
Heracles leaned against the bow rail, the spring sun beating down on his neck and shoulders as he watched the island of Crete coming slowly closer. Squinting against the glare of the waves, he noted the clusters of white houses on the hillsides, marking the numerous ports and fishing villages along the extensive coastline. The glittering seas in between were dotted with numerous ships, bringing their goods to harbour or taking valuable cargoes to the cities of Greece and beyond. Trade was the key to Crete’s wealth, and made its king powerful beyond measure.
Two of the ships Heracles could see were bigger than any of the merchantmen. These were Cretan war galleys, rowed by shackled slaves and manned by scores of armed men, whose bronze helmets and spear points gleamed brightly in the sun. The vessels were just a small part of King Minos’s fleet, paid for by the gleanings from the ceaseless flow of trading ships they protected. But they did more than simply keep the island’s commerce safe. They also projected its ruler’s power and ensured the second great source of his income: tribute. Most of the smaller islands and coastal cities paid Minos for access to the trade his empire controlled, as well as protection from pirates and invaders – and from Crete itself.
The wind changed, eliciting a string of barked orders from the helmsman. The crew was quick to respond, angling the yard so that the canvass sail billowed out with a snap and sent the galley continuing efficiently on its course. The hull was heavy with a mixed cargo of silver, wood and cowhides, which kept it low in the water. It had picked up the hides yesterday at Tiryns, where Heracles and Iolaus had bought passage to Crete.
Heracles looked across at his nephew, asleep on a pile of sacks beside one of the rowing benches. The voyage was providing Iolaus with his first experience of the ocean. He had spent most of the first day at the bow rail, retching up whatever his stomach could muster while the crew looked on impassively. He had found respite in the evening, after they had anchored in a small cove on the island of Melos and made a campfire on the shore. While Heracles had kept his own company, strolling along the sand, Iolaus had spent his time talking with the crew until nightfall. They had woken before dawn and departed for Crete. The seas had proved choppier than the calm waters of the previous day, compelling Iolaus to deliver his breakfast over the side and cling desperately on to the bow rail again until the afternoon, when his exhaustion finally gave way to sleep.
The helmsman steered the galley towards a large harbour, protected by two spurs of rock cast out from the mountain behind. White-tipped waves crashed on the jagged boulders outside, but inside the waters were a calm, vivid blue. Though it was still some way off, Heracles could see several galleys at anchor, their naked masts like stalks of corn. Many whitewashed houses were perched on the steep slopes behind, where flocks of goats were blithely wandering over the stones and plucking at whatever clumps of grass they could find.
Soon, they would make landfall and set off to confront the next labour. The battle against the Stymphalian Birds had taken three more nights to complete, with Heracles venturing into the midst of the sleeping flocks and scaring them into Hephaistos’s net, before clubbing them to death. Only on the fourth day, when he went to observe the few hundred that remained, did he find the marshes empty. They had had enough and fled; and though he waited another week to see if they returned – or had found a new home nearby – they did not come back. The labour had been completed.
But when Heracles reached Tiryns – forbidding Iolaus to enter the city, for fear Eurystheus might claim his nephew had assisted in the task – it was to find that the king had already learned of his success, and that a new labour was already awaiting him. Hera had entered Charis’s dreams two nights before, in the form of a snow-white bull that was terrorising the villages of a vast island. There could only be one explanation: the Cretan Bull. Rumour of the creature had been circulating around the mainland for months, and few kings had felt any sympathy for Minos’s predicament. Most gloated over it, calling it the judgement of the gods for his tight grip on trade crossing the Mediterranean. But the gods, it seemed, were in a merciful mood. Charis’s dream could only mean that Heracles was to pit himself against the creature and try to stop its reign of terror. Again, Eurystheus demanded that the monster be brought back alive. Not that the king had any desire to face such a beast again – his experience with the Erymanthean Boar had cured him of such fancies. He simply wanted to deny his cousin the use of his poisoned arrows and make the task as difficult as possible.
And what of the monster? Though Heracles had heard stories of the Cretan Bull, they differed wildly and could not be relied on. But while he had been pacing the beach at Melos, pondering what new horror Hera had sent to destroy him, his squire had been pressing the crew for information. They were Cretans to a man, so knew more about the Bull than anyone on the mainland; and of them all, the grey-bearded helmsman knew the most. He informed Iolaus – who told his master the next morning – that Crete had a rich and tormented association with bulls, which had started with Minos’s mother, Europa.
She was renowned for her beauty, and though many tried to claim her for their own, she was jealously watched over by her five brothers. But no amount of protection can keep away a god, and onc
e Zeus set his eyes upon the girl her fate was sealed. Disguising himself as a pure white bull, he joined the herd of cattle that Europa and her maids looked after for her father, King Agenor of Phoenicia. At first, she was afraid; but the bull was so beautiful to look at and so gentle of nature that, as the days passed, she came to trust him. She played with him at first, but eventually – fatefully – climbed on his back and rode him along the seashore at Tyre. Then, when her companions and the rest of the herd were behind her, the bull dashed into the waves and swam out to sea, taking Europa with him.
They came ashore on Crete, where Zeus seduced her. Nine months later, she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. When Asterius, the king of Crete, saw Europa, he fell in love and married her, adopting her three boys as his heirs. The marriage produced no children of its own, and when Asterius died, there was a dispute between the brothers about who should assume the throne. Minos was the first to lay claim to it, stating that – as a sign of their approval – the gods would bring forth from the waves a white bull at his request.
Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon agreed, not knowing that Minos had already dedicated an altar to Poseidon and promised to sacrifice the bull to him. But when the sea god sent the animal out from the waters, it was such a magnificent creature – both beautiful and terrible to look at – that Minos could not bring himself to kill it. Instead, he sent it to breed with his own cattle and replaced it with another, inferior animal.
If Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon conceded their brother’s claim and acknowledged him as king, Poseidon was not so easily fooled. For vengeance, he caused Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, to fall in love with the beast. Seeing it in a field beside the palace, she was so infatuated with the bull that she left the king’s bed that very night while her husband was sleeping and gave herself to the creature. Unable to control her lust for it, she visited it in its field every night, until one evening – suspecting his wife had taken another lover – Minos decided to follow her. Though he was horrified at what he spied from the edge of the field, he loved Pasiphaë so much that he spared her the punishment her adultery deserved. Had he been wise, he should have fulfilled his promise to Poseidon and sacrificed the animal that very night. But in his own way he was also enamoured with the bull, and could not bring himself to do it. A mistake for which he would pay dearly.
After sending the beast to another part of the island, he took Pasiphaë back to his bed. But it was too late. She was already carrying the bull’s child. When it was born, it was said to be too hideous to look at. Only Pasiphaë could bear to be in its presence, and though Minos wanted to kill it, she pleaded with him so much that in the end he consulted the oracle, who told him to imprison the monster in a labyrinth below the palace, made especially for the purpose by Daedalus, the famed Athenian craftsman. And there, according to the old helmsman, it remained to this day.
As for the bull, when Minos refused to sacrifice it a second time, Poseidon filled the creature with a raging fury, increasing its strength many times over and giving it fiery breath, capable of burning down stone buildings and melting bronze. It broke free of the stone walls that confined it and found its way to the country around the River Tethris, where it killed livestock and drove the people from their homes, before eventually making its lair in a deep gorge.
This, then, was the creature that Heracles had been ordered to capture. Another beast sent by the gods to destroy the homes and livelihoods of the innocent, while their rulers stood by in impotent indifference. He pondered how he might approach the fire-breathing monster and live. His lion-skin cloak could turn the blade or point of any weapon, but it could not resist fire. As so often before, he would have to wait on whatever opportunities presented themselves – and trust to Zeus that such chances would come.
But before he could tackle the bull, he first had to face Minos. It struck him that they shared the same father, and he wondered whether Zeus had ever appeared to the Cretan king. The thought stirred his jealousy. Would Zeus reveal himself to one son and not another? And what of Hera? Did she hate Minos like she hated Heracles? Then he remembered the bull and knew that Minos, too, had had his share of troubles from the Olympians. Perhaps it was the fate of the children of the gods to suffer for their parentage.
As the galley approached the harbour, his thoughts fell to another aspect of his imminent encounter with the king of Crete. He had not forgotten the words Pholus, the centaur, had spoken to him on the night he had died – that Minos was a master of herb lore, and would know where the mushrooms had come from that had sent Heracles mad. It was the only clue he had to the identity of the one who had caused the deaths of his children. Yet the moment Charis had told him his next labour was on Crete, he knew Zeus was sending him to the one man who would tell him what he needed to know.
The helmsman called for the sail to be raised and the benches to be manned. The deck thudded under the pounding of bare feet as men rushed to their stations. Hands hauled on the ropes and the canvas sheet was pulled up, while the rest of the crew took their places on the benches. Heracles walked over to Iolaus and gave him a kick.
‘Time to earn your passage, lad.’
Reluctantly, Iolaus left the comfort of the sacks and sat on a bench beside his uncle. Together, they picked up the oar from the deck and fitted it into its oiled leather loop, before sliding the blade out into the water. Soon, the whole crew was rowing in time with the calls of the helmsman as the galley eased between the horns of the harbour and into the still, clear waters beyond. Glancing over the side, Heracles could see dark patches of vegetation on the sand below, with schools of fish gliding between the trailing fronds. The sight of them reminded him of his hunger, and he quickly became aware of the aroma of fresh bread and roasted fish drifting across from the town.
After the helmsman ordered the oars to be withdrawn and tossed the anchor stones overboard, wagons were summoned from the village and Heracles began loading them up with the ship’s cargo. The crew looked on in awe as he made easy work of the heavy timbers and ingots of silver, lifting them out of the hold and carrying them down to the waiting carts as if they hardly weighed anything at all. When the work was done, they satisfied their hunger together in the village and parted ways, Heracles and Iolaus setting off along a dusty track that they were told would take them to the king’s palace at Cnossus.
The sun was setting behind them as they followed the road south-east, between gentle hills filled with vineyards, farmhouses and herds of livestock. The men they saw were bare-chested and wore short skirts that reached halfway down their thighs. They looked up from beneath their wide-brimmed hats as the foreigners passed by, but made no acknowledgement of them. The few women wore long skirts and corsets that left their breasts exposed, but at the sight of the strangers, they would turn away or go indoors, only for the window hangings to twitch aside as they watched the two men out of sight.
After a while, they crested a ridge and looked down into a wide valley. The nearer slopes were lost in shadow, which looked all the darker because the ones opposite were bathed in the last, golden sunshine of the day. More vineyards marked the contours of the hills, and were broken up by groves of olive or cypress trees.
The palace of Cnossus lay at the bottom of the valley. It formed a large square, from which numerous block-like, flat-roofed buildings rose up at different points, some three or even four storeys high. There were no outer walls or towers protecting Minos’s home – a sign, perhaps, of the Cretans’ confidence in their navy to defend them from invasion. Hundreds of small windows and dozens of long, red-pillared galleries looked out over the surrounding countryside. At the centre was a wide, rectangular space, enclosed on all sides by towering buildings and more galleries. The courtyard was filled with hundreds of people, seated at long tables that formed three sides of a square. Scores of slaves flitted around the tables, bringing wine and freshly carved meat from three large fires on the southern side of the courtyard, the smoke of which trailed gently up into the windless air.
In the space between the tables, lines of young men and women were performing a lively dance. The sound of their shouts and laughter was carried up on the notes of several stringed instruments.
‘They must have known we were coming,’ Iolaus commented with a wry smile.
They followed the road down between several rows of vines and through an orchard to a gate in the northern wall. A handful of guards were sitting on stools beneath an awning, drinking wine and talking animatedly. They wore no armour of any kind, only short skirts like the ones Heracles had seen on the farmers and shepherds they had passed earlier. As they approached, one of the guards shouted a warning to his companions. They hurried to their feet and picked up their spears and shields from against the wall.
Chapter Eleven
KING MINOS
‘What do you want?’ the first guard asked brusquely in heavily accented Greek, lowering the tip of his spear towards them.
‘I am Heracles and this is my companion, Iolaus. I have come to capture the Cretan Bull.’
The guard glanced back over his shoulder at his comrades.
‘Did you hear that? He’s come to capture the Great Bull. Going to tie a rope around its neck and lead it back to the palace like a lamb.’
The others leaned on their spears and laughed cautiously as they eyed the huge figure before them. Only one did not share their amusement.
‘The same Heracles who killed the Nemean Lion?’ he asked.
‘The same,’ Heracles replied. ‘The lion-skin I wear was cut from the animal’s carcass.’
The grins fell from the guards’ faces and they spoke to each other in hurried whispers. After a moment, one of them laid his spear against the wall and disappeared through the gate, into the palace. The first soldier invited Heracles and Iolaus to sit and brought them cups of wine. Heracles drank his in a single draught and handed it back for a second. By the time Iolaus had finished his first, the messenger returned.
