WRATH OF THE GODS

by Glyn Iliffe

  Chapter Fourteen

  ADMETUS

  Charis was dreaming. The night sky was filled with trails of sparks, and the stucco walls of the buildings around her glowed orange. She could smell burning and hear the crash of collapsing buildings amid the shouts and screams. Ahead of her was a two-storey building, as yet untouched by the inferno that had engulfed the rest of the city. As she crossed the courtyard, doors banged open and several soldiers ran out from the main entrance. They carried half-moon shields and tall spears, and their expressions were desperate and fearful. None looked at Charis as they ran past her to join the battle that was raging in the city streets.

  Loud neighing caught her attention. She looked to her left and saw a low building with large gates. She entered the darkened stable. A slave stood at the entrance to one of the stalls, stroking the nose of a magnificent black horse and speaking calming words to it. Three other equally beautiful animals stood at the gates of the neighbouring stalls, tossing their heads and whinnying in terror. Their eyes gleamed in the darkness and their teeth showed white. At the sight of her, their fear seemed to increase.

  The groom turned to look at her. His eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by a wave of Charis’s hand. His eyes closed and he fell unconscious into the straw that covered the stable floor.

  ‘Silence, my beauties.’

  Charis recognized Hera’s voice at once and knew the goddess was giving her a vision of the next labour. Yet she also sensed she was not in the present, but looking at something that had already happened. Hera approached the nearest mare, which pushed itself up from the floor with its front hooves in small, panicked jumps, finally raising itself fully on its hind legs and kicking out as she reached the stable door. Its sisters whinnied loudly as they also succumbed to a state of frenzy.

  ‘Silence, I said!’

  The first horse dropped back on all fours. Hera opened the door and entered the stall, reaching out to the animal. Despite the alarm Charis could see in its eyes, it trotted forward and lowered its head. The goddess laid her hand on its nose and it sank to its knees before her. It was breathing heavily and every movement seemed forced, but it was unable to resist her power.

  ‘You are a beautiful creature, Podargus, the pride of your master’s stables. You and your sisters have only ever eaten the finest oats and grazed the best pasture, but now I will give you a new appetite and a new master. He will understand what you have become and give you only the richest of foods to feast upon. You will become stronger and more powerful than others of your kind. You will no longer be the playthings of men, but their worst nightmare. They will fear you and worship you, and bring you sacrifices that even the gods do not receive. And one day, I will send you a sacrifice of my own, and when you have gorged yourselves upon it, then you will have earned the powers I am giving you. Rise now and embrace your new nature.’

  Hera removed her hand and stepped out of the stall, leaving the door open. The other horses were quiet now, almost invisible in the shadows as she lifted the bolts on each of their doors. Only the dull gleam of their red eyes was visible in the darkness.

  She stepped over the sleeping groom and left the stable. Charis could sense the smile on the goddess’s lips as she crossed the courtyard and looked at the flames rising up from the city before her. The ring of weapons and the shouts of men sounded in the streets beyond the outer wall of the palace. The air filled with the screams of women and the cries of children, but among them Charis heard another shriek, longer and more tortured. It came from the stable behind her, and she knew it belonged to the groom.

  A man ran into the courtyard from the outer gate. He wore a leather breastplate, and blood was pouring from a cut on his forehead. A broken shield hung from his arm and he clutched a sword in his right hand, though he seemed too exhausted to wield it. Another man followed. He was tall – made more so by the long horns that jutted up from his helmet – and massively built, his bulging muscles gleaming in the light of the burning city. He carried a double-headed axe in his huge hands.

  The first man turned to face him, resigned to the fact that he could flee no further. He balanced the sword skilfully in his hand and readied himself to lunge at his pursuer. But the horned colossus did not hesitate. His axe swung in a gleaming arc, slicing through the forearm of the smaller man and sending his sword flying across the courtyard – his hand still clinging tightly to it. Another blow of the axe sheered through the man’s shoulder and chest, almost cleaving him in two.

  The winner of the one-sided fight seemed not to notice Hera as he tugged his weapon from the body of his dead victim. Instead, he raised his head at the sound of whinnying. Tucking his axe into his belt, he strode towards the nearby stables. Charis sensed Hera’s pleasure as she watched him go. Then the goddess turned and walked towards the gates. The fires and the sounds of battle and pillage faded, and Charis awoke to find herself back on her mattress in the shadowy temple in Tiryns.

  * * *

  Minos was true to his word. After Heracles had carried the Great Bull out of the gorge on his shoulders, he found a large, well-made cart in an abandoned farmhouse and used it to take the subdued monster back towards the king’s palace. Fortunately, Pasiphaë had ridden off as soon as she was able to drag herself away from the bull, for Minos and his retinue, escorted by a large company of cavalry, met them on the road. At first, Heracles had suspected trouble. But his half-brother simply rode up to the cart and looked at the animal, fast bound by the net and with coils of thick rope wound around its muzzle, and gave a satisfied nod.

  ‘Orchomenus,’ he said to Heracles. ‘Your mushroom is only found on the foothills of a single mountain in Orchomenus. Good luck in finding the man who sold it to your housekeeper.’

  Without a word of farewell, he ordered his herald to find oxen for the cart and a galley to transport Heracles and his prize back to the mainland, then dug his heels back and rode off. The rest of the party followed in his wake, leaving Heracles and Iolaus coughing on the dust of their hooves.

  After pulling the cart a little farther, they came across an old farmer with a team of four oxen who had been sent to meet them. He yoked his animals to the wagon and drove it north towards the coast, while Heracles and his squire walked behind. The journey was made in silence, with Heracles pondering Minos’s revelation. Orchomenus had been Erginus’s kingdom, before Heracles had killed him in the battle for Thebes. His suspicion that his brother, Iphicles, might have sold his housekeeper the mushrooms faded. It seemed obvious to him now that his madness had been incurred as revenge for Erginus’s death. But it brought him no closer to understanding who had caused him to kill his children.

  A galley was already waiting for them when they reached the small harbour. A few days later, Heracles was on the familiar road back to Tiryns, though he sent Iolaus ahead to speak to Charis. The priestess met him at a crossroads before he reached the outskirts of the town. She was cloaked in black, as usual, with a flash of white robes beneath. At the sight of his approach, sitting on a wagon pulled by a pair of oxen, she left the shade of the small copse where she had been waiting and stepped into the road. As he slowed the wagon to a halt, she tipped back her hood to reveal her pale face and fair hair.

  ‘Iolaus convinced you to meet me, then,’ he said, jumping down.

  She walked past him to the back of the wagon, her eyes widening at the sight of the enormous bull. Its black eyes watched her as she reached out a tentative hand and touched one of its horns, letting her fingers slip down it to its broad white forehead, crossed by the golden threads of the net. The beast did not stir.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘I’d imagined a monster, but––’

  ‘It is a monster. If you were to take away the net and the rope around its muzzle, it would burn you to a cinder. I was barely able to defeat it.’

  ‘And wouldn’t have, if you had not received help from Queen Pasiphaë.’

  ‘Is there anything you don’t know?�
� he asked.

  ‘I only know what Hera shows me.’

  ‘Yet I did not ask for Pasiphaë’s help. It was given against my will, and if you intend to rob me––’

  ‘I do not,’ she said. ‘Zeus was furious that you were denied your victory against the Hydra, and took his anger out on Hera. She won’t dare take any more from you without good cause.’

  ‘And the Augeian stables?’

  ‘That was Eurystheus’s decision. But I will say nothing of Pasiphaë’s involvement when you come before him.’

  She met Heracles’s gaze, and he could see that the animosity she had shown towards him when he had first come to Tiryns was gone. Instead, she seemed to look at him with sympathy, though he did not understand why her feelings towards him should have changed. But if he was right, then it might make his task simpler.

  ‘And now, perhaps, you will tell me why you wanted to meet me here,’ she continued. ‘Clearly, you have something to say that you do not wish the king to know.’

  Heracles stood beside her and laid his palm gently on the bull’s flank. It flinched at his touch and snorted – scaring Charis enough for her to step away from the wagon – but the net only tightened in response to the movement, forcing the animal to lie still again.

  ‘You’re right, Charis, it is a beautiful beast. Too beautiful to sacrifice.’

  ‘The more beautiful the animal, the greater the honour,’ she replied.

  ‘Indeed, but who will receive the honour? Hera? Or me? The people will know I was the one who captured the beast. Sacrifice it to your mistress and it will only be to my glory. Will that please her?’

  Charis’s features darkened.

  ‘No, she will resent it bitterly. But what do you care? The labour is complete, and the next is already waiting for you.’

  Now it was Heracles’s turn to frown.

  ‘Already? Then you know what it is.’

  ‘As I said, I know what my Mistress shows me. It is a strange task, and I cannot see the difficulty in it, but it is not for me to tell you. You must receive it from the king’s lips, not mine. But you haven’t answered my question. Why do you care what happens to the bull?’

  Heracles explained Pasiphaë’s love of the beast, and his promise to release it. Charis nodded.

  ‘Then I will help you, if only out of regret for the part I was ordered to play in losing you the third labour. I will return to Tiryns ahead of you and persuade Eurystheus not to sacrifice the bull, though you will have to take it far from the city before you release it.

  ‘One more thing,’ she added. ‘Eurystheus bitterly resents what you’ve been doing in the slums. He doesn’t want the people there to have hope. He fears what it might make them do. So while you were away, he ordered Tydeus and his soldiers into the outer city. I wanted to warn you, so that you have time to take control of your anger before you stand before him again.’

  ‘I don’t understand. What does it matter to you if I lose my temper with Eurystheus?’

  ‘Because the oath you took won’t always be enough to control the rage that burns inside you. And if you kill Eurystheus, then you’ll never complete the labours or be free of what you did. I think you deserve to have that chance.’

  ‘Why do you care?’ he asked, looking at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Surely a priestess of Hera would rather see me dead.’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ she replied, before pulling up her hood and walking back towards the city.

  The support of someone he had believed to be an enemy surprised him. But he was thankful for it. If he had not been ready for the destruction he found, he may have forgotten his promise not to harm Eurystheus and stormed the Acropolis single-handed, killing all in his path. Instead, he absorbed the sight of the piles of rubble and broken beams on the narrow street, where only his hut remained standing, and added it to the register of evils that, one day, he intended to set right. Even the channel he had made to bring fresh water to the slums now only carried a brown trickle, which had filtered through the heap of human excrement and animal dung that the city guards had piled over it further upstream.

  That none had been killed during the destruction wrought by Tydeus and his men was the only consolation. But it just left more people homeless. Some had been taken in by other families, spreading the misery of overcrowding, and others had tried to construct basic shelters from the remains of their old homes. Several of the elderly and some widows, though, lacked the strength to do more than cover themselves with blankets and sleep in the open. Perhaps what affected him most as he walked slowly among the ruins of his neighbours’ houses was the fact that no one had taken refuge in his empty hut while he had been gone. Was it out of respect for him, he wondered? The thought made him angry. He did not want such respect, if it meant the poor and weak depriving themselves for his sake. And, of course, it was his attempts at kindness that had brought them this latest suffering. It angered him even more that he saw no blame in the eyes of the distraught people whose homes he had caused to be destroyed.

  Feeling his fury mounting, he left the Great Bull on the wagon and began pulling out the wood and stone from the wreckage of a house. What would have taken ten men a day to clear, he had cleared before the sun was approaching midday. Others helped. Young men with bitter expressions, women whose faces and bodies were already stretched thin by malnutrition, even children, scavenging for pots and bowls and items of clothing among the rubble, to be restored to the family who had owned them before. But as he began re-laying the stones, intent on rebuilding at least one home before night fell, a hand was placed on his arm.

  ‘We’ll rebuild it. If the king finds out you did it, he’ll only order it torn down again.’

  He turned to see a man he did not know, but had seen on many occasions. The first time Heracles had entered Tiryns, the man had tried to fight two soldiers who had pushed a woman into the street. Heracles had intervened and the man had disappeared into the crowd, his face a mask of anger. The simmering flames of that same anger were still burning in his eyes.

  ‘He won’t find out,’ Heracles said, putting another stone in place.

  The man grabbed his arm.

  ‘If you want to help, then help us to fight.’

  ‘Fight?’ Heracles scoffed. ‘What will you fight with? Fists? Angry words? Too many will die, and you know it.’

  ‘It’d be better than this !’ the man spat, pointing to the destroyed hovels all around them. ‘Listen, we’ve seen what you do for the poor and the weak. We know you care for them. But everything you’ve done will be undone; nothing will change. If you want to make a difference, then you have to start at the top – with Eurystheus. If you lead us, we can throw him from power and make this a city worth living in.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Thyestes.’

  ‘Then you listen to me, Thyestes. In a rebellion, nobody wins. Too many people die on both sides, and for what? To replace one tyrant with another.’

  ‘Heracles.’

  A lone soldier stood in the street. He carried a spear and shield and his face was half-hidden beneath the shadow of his oversized helmet, but Heracles recognized the young escort assigned to him when he had first arrived in Tiryns. Surrounded by an irate crowd, he looked afraid.

  ‘The king sent me to find you,’ he said, his voice high and trembling. ‘He commands you to bring him the bull.’

  Heracles looked at the stones he had stacked up from the ruins of the hovel, then at Thyestes.

  ‘Help these people to rebuild their lives. Don’t destroy them.’

  He returned to the wagon and followed his lone escort up to the acropolis, battling with his anger on the way until he had subdued it enough to face his loathsome cousin.

  Perhaps the sight of the Great Bull filled him with fear, but Eurystheus took the priestess’s advice and ordered that it be released some distance from his own lands. He also gave Heracles the next task: to travel to Thrace, on the northern coast of the Aegean Sea, and b
ring back the favourite mares of a king named Diomedes. That something about the labour would make it almost impossible to achieve was certain, though if the king understood what the danger was, then he kept it to himself. Only Iphicles seemed to know anything about King Diomedes and his horses, for as his brother turned to leave, he called down to Heracles and told him to keep his son safe.

  Iolaus was waiting for him by the gates of the lower city. Their journey was prolonged by the need to release the bull somewhere far from Tiryns. Heracles had no desire to see it unleashed on more poor farmers either, so that it could destroy their crops – if not their lives – and leave them destitute. He considered leaving it on one of the many islands that they might pass on a sea voyage to Thrace, but then a better solution struck him. Orchomenus. The mushrooms that had driven him to kill his children came from there, brought by an unknown enemy intent on avenging the death of King Erginus. Let them have the bull.

  Iolaus was less keen on his uncle’s idea, but agreed there was nowhere better to unburden themselves of the animal. After several days, they reached Boeotia and the southern borders of the lands ruled by Orchomenus. Binding the monster’s fore and hind legs together, Heracles lifted it from the wagon and removed the golden net.

  ‘Maybe it will lie there until it starves,’ Iolaus said as the oxen plodded northwards.

  Neither of them believed it, though. Its great strength alone would be enough to work the knots around its hooves loose, and then it would find a tree or stone wall to rub away at the rope around its muzzle. But that was no longer their concern. They drove on through the country that had once held Thebes in slavery, where for two days and two nights they saw nothing but rain. Grey clouds hung low over the mountains, and Heracles frequently wondered which one the mushrooms had been harvested from.