by Glyn Iliffe
Heracles tore a chunk off with his teeth. It was hard, gritty and devoid of flavour. Cramming a slice of greasy meat in his mouth did little to improve the taste.
‘Have you seen anything of our hosts?’ he asked.
‘Just the women. Listen, two of the men are missing.’
Xuthus nodded towards a pair of empty mattresses at the edge of the area where the Pheraeans had slept.
‘Who are they?’
‘Pancratis and Golgos. Carnus says Golgos was with one of the serving girls in the shadows last night, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have gone with her to her bed. But Pancratis is married with a dozen children. He hasn’t got the energy or the yearning for that sort of thing any more.’
Heracles tried to think back to the night before, but could recall nothing about either man, other than rolling Pancratis onto a mattress and pulling a fur up to his shoulders. He signalled to one of the women.
‘Two of my men are missing. Are they with any of the girls?’
But the maid just looked at him blankly, not having understood a word he had spoken. He dismissed her and pushed himself up from his chair.
‘I’m going to find Diomedes or his herald. Take charge here, Xuthus, and don’t leave the great hall until I return. But if I’m not back by sundown, assume I’m dead and find a way to the harbour. You can steal one of the Bistone ships and sail it back to Pherae.’
He walked over to the huddled form of Iolaus and tapped the side of his foot against his buttocks.
‘Wake up. We need to go find Diomedes.’
After bullying his nephew out from under his cloak and handing him a slice of meat rolled up in a piece of bread, he retrieved his bow and club and set off towards the doors. Iolaus ran after him, complaining under his breath as he threw his sword over his back and pulled his cloak around his shoulders. As they reached the entrance to the hall, though, Heracles saw movement through the gaps between the charred wood. A moment later, the doors swung open and the herald almost walked into them.
‘You should not leave the hall,’ he said, guessing their intent. ‘It is safer for you inside.’
‘Safer?’ Heracles scoffed. ‘Then why were two of my men missing from their beds when we awoke this morning?’
The herald spoke quickly to one of the guards who was escorting him. The man protested briefly, but after a rebuke from the herald, spat on the floor and strode into a shadowy corner of the hall. He returned a moment later, dragging a girl by the arm and shoving her towards the herald. After a brief interrogation, the herald turned to Heracles.
‘She says your men are safe and happy in the arms of their lovers. She will send word for them to return soon. And now, if you are ready, I have been sent to bring you to the king. He has something he wishes to show you.’
Heracles watched the servant girl return to the corner of the hall and exit through a side door. He knew he was being lied to, but said no more about it. He followed the herald into the antechamber – where a dozen armed Bistones were guarding the doors to the great hall – and across the courtyard to the gates of the lower city.
‘What made Abderus drop his cup last night?’ he asked Iolaus, as they walked together through the dilapidated streets of Tirida. ‘He seemed surprised at something I’d said to Diomedes.’
‘That you’re a slave?’ Iolaus suggested. ‘Even Diomedes found that hard to believe.’
‘No, it was after that.’
‘Abderus is easily upset. After that boy threw a stone at him yesterday, his hands didn’t stop shaking until we reached the great hall. He was in an even worse state after you refused to give up your weapons and it looked like we might have to fight the Bistones.’
‘He’s only a boy.’
‘He’s the same age as me!’
‘Age can’t always be measured in years, Iolaus. You left boyhood behind when we faced the Hydra.’
Iolaus’s chin rose a little at the compliment.
‘But he’s desperate to become a warrior, like his father before him,’ he continued. ‘He hardly spoke about anything else during the voyage from Pherae. Said he wanted to show the other men that he was worth taking on as a squire, so that he could learn to handle weapons and fight. I told him being a squire was more about cleaning your master’s weapons and being shouted at than anything else, but he didn’t care.’
Heracles shook his head.
‘Sounds like the boy’s in a hurry to join his father in Hades.’
‘Do you remember Thromius?’ Iolaus asked. ‘Abderus said he was one of the fifty who Admetus sent to help you liberate Thebes.’
‘Remember him? I don’t remember half of these men who’ve followed me to Tirida. Xuthus, Carnus and a few of the others stood out because they were good with a spear and shield, but I don’t remember the rest – let alone a man that died ten years ago, who I probably didn’t even speak to. Don’t tell Abderus that.’
They passed through the gatehouse and onto the road that led from Tirida. In the pastureland on the other side of the river, Heracles could see a chariot pulled by a team of four pure white horses. The large figure behind the reins could only be Diomedes, who was shouting at the horses and whipping them hard as they sped across the plateau towards the bole of a dead tree. Its branches had been chopped off and its trunk whitewashed; a similar marker stood at the farther end of the plateau.
As he careered towards the tree – barely reducing his speed – Diomedes pulled back on the reins and threw himself against the inner handrail as the heavy chariot turned in a tight arc around the pole. Heracles was certain it would turn over and smash itself to pieces, crushing the reckless driver to a pulp as it did so. But Diomedes knew his horses well and held the turn, the wheels skidding a little on the dew-damp grass before bouncing forward again. More shouts and cracks of the whip sent the vehicle hurtling back the way it had come, with minimal loss of momentum and quickly building up a fresh head of speed.
Heracles blew out the breath he was holding and looked at Iolaus, who raised his eyebrows. The sound of the king’s exhilarated laughter rolled across the valley towards them. Then the herald continued on, leading them over the bridge and across the grass to the nearest marker. Diomedes had already performed another daring turn around the farther tree and was urging his team back to where they were waiting, only drawing back on the reins when he was less than a spear’s throw away. The mares came to a halt before them, snorting loudly and stamping the ground in their excitement.
‘Magnificent, are they not?’ he said, stepping down and walking round to stroke each of the stallions in turn. They bowed before him, nuzzling their noses against his forehead. ‘They’re brothers – too alike to be anything else. I found them in a city we raided in Paeonia. The moment I saw them in the royal stables, I claimed them for myself. While my men plundered the burning palace, I took them straight down to our ship.’
Heracles looked at the animals and saw that they were, indeed, magnificent. Perfect, even – tall and strong, with haughty looks and an aggressive temper. Yet they did not spew out poisonous breath, have impenetrable hides or sport flesh-tearing horns. Nothing, it seemed, that made the labour dangerous or unachievable. He reached out his hand and held it to the nostrils of the nearest horse, feeling its breath hot against his palm.
‘Amazing,’ he said, stroking the soft flesh. ‘I see why Eurystheus wants them.’
That, of course, was the difficulty. They were too splendid. Diomedes had merely brought him here to show off his prized possessions, to goad him and mock his aspirations to take them back to Tiryns. For no man would willingly relinquish such creatures, not even if Heracles had brought a shipload of gold, silver and copper to exchange for them. If he was to take the horses and complete the labour, ultimately he would have to fight Diomedes and every Bistone in Tirida for them, with just twenty Pheraeans at his side. It was impossible.
Unless, he thought, looking at Diomedes and his gangling herald… Unless he was to put arrows in ea
ch of them now and drive the horses down to the harbour. He and Iolaus could not hope to sail a ship on their own, but they could follow the shoreline to the next city and get passage on a merchant ship returning to Greece. Stallions like these would easily outstrip any pursuit. It was the simplest resolution, and he would be another labour closer to his freedom.
Yet he could not do it. Not at the cost of betraying the Pheraeans who had offered to help him in his need. It was true he had not asked for their help but now they were with him he would not simply abandon them to death at the hands of the Bistones, eager to avenge the death of their king.
‘You are welcome to take them,’ Diomedes said. ‘As a guest gift.’
‘What ?’ Iolaus exclaimed.
‘Take them?’ Heracles asked, restraining his incredulity. ‘These beasts are too good to simply give away.’
‘It is not every day I receive a son of Zeus into my home,’ Diomedes said. ‘All I ask in return is that you and your men stay as my guests for a week.’
‘That’s all?’ Heracles asked, noting the strange, eager light in the king’s eye. ‘Then I accept.’
But something told him the price would prove more than he bargained for.
* * *
After Diomedes had driven the chariot back to the city, the herald asked Heracles and Iolaus to return with him to the ruined hall. Heracles refused, saying he and his squire preferred to walk the route back to the harbour first. Irked, but powerless to stop them, their chaperone was forced to return to Tirida alone.
The moment he disappeared through the arched gateway, Heracles began pacing the length and width of the bridge. He leaned over an unbroken stretch of the parapet, his lips pursed thoughtfully as he studied the river below. Then he glanced towards the wood to the south, before looking back again at the walls of Tirida. It seemed to Iolaus that he was measuring the distances in his head.
‘Come on,’ his uncle said, and began striding down the road towards the wood.
Even under the shade of the trees, he was constantly looking from one side to another, noting details and nodding to himself.
‘What are you doing?’ Iolaus asked.
Heracles held up a hand, not wanting his train of thought to be disturbed. Then, as they reached the other side of the wood, he turned to his nephew.
‘Do you think you can ride Diomedes’s chariot? With those horses in the yoke?’
‘I can ride any chariot, with any team,’ Iolaus answered, surprised by the question.
‘Good.’
They left the trees and followed the road past the lake formed by the dam. The gentle roar of the waterfall was the only sound for a while, and the rays of the sun caught in the spray to form the glimmer of a rainbow. Then something on the bank of the river below caught Heracles’s eye. Leaving the road, he went to investigate. Running to keep up with his uncle’s determined gait, Iolaus saw the shapes of two boats pulled up onto the shingle bank. They looked old and disused, but when Heracles stepped into them and tested the wood with his feet, they proved not to be rotten.
A coil of leather rope had been left in each of the boats. Heracles picked them up and tested their strength with his hands. He glanced up at the walls of the dam on the other side of the river and smiled to himself.
‘Take these,’ he said, handing the ends of the two ropes to his squire.
Iolaus watched, slightly bemused as Heracles waded into the rushing water and crossed to the far bank, uncoiling the lengths of rope behind him as he went. He continued to the broad timbers that supported the wall of the dam, looped the ropes about two of them and tied them off.
‘The gods are with us,’ he said on his return, slapping Iolaus heavily on the shoulder and almost sending him tumbling into the river.
He took the ends of the ropes from his hands and tied them around the raised prows of the two boats, then let the cords sink down into the water, where they lay invisible on the riverbed.
Continuing their journey up the incline to the lower wood, they soon reached the harbour. The two galleys were anchored next to each other, with a plank running from the outer ship to the inner, and another plank crossing from that to the harbour wall. The fifty or more men who had been manning the vessels the previous day must have been preparing to go after Dresos’s merchant galley, for now there were no more than half a dozen men keeping watch over the two ships. As for the Bistone galleys, even Iolaus could see that they were well-maintained and in good sailing order. Seamanship was, at least, one skill Diomedes’s people could boast of, other than their abilities as warriors.
This was as much as Heracles needed to see. Turning about, he followed the road back into the woods. It was only after they had returned to the great hall that Iolaus learned of the disappearance of the two Pheraeans. His uncle had always been taciturn, but he wondered why he had not shared the news with him. The fact that the men had not returned since had stirred their comrades to anger, and it was only Heracles’s orders to wait for his return that had kept them from leaving the hall and searching for them. They suspected kidnap or murder, and demanded that Heracles speak with Diomedes to find out what had happened to their friends.
‘I didn’t ask you to follow me here,’ he snapped. ‘But now that you are here, you will follow my commands. I have come for the horses of King Diomedes, which he has promised me as a guest gift if we stay a few days more. Until then, you will do nothing to provoke our hosts – who, in case you’ve failed to notice, outnumber us by more than ten to one. We cannot afford to make enemies of them. Not yet.
‘As for Pancratis and Golgos, whether they’re dead or alive, we will find out what happened to them. And tonight, we will keep watch in pairs to make sure no one else disappears.’
The Pheraeans murmured unhappily among themselves, and eventually Xuthus was forced to stand and add his voice to Heracles’s.
‘What are you grumbling about? Heracles is right – he didn’t invite us to follow him. We came because he once earned our love and respect, and now we want to help his cause again. And what did we expect? To come among civilized people, who would treat us with honour and kindness? I, for one, came anticipating battle and hardship, and yes – the possibility of death. If that has been the fate of Pancratis and Golgos, then they knew the risks. As for battle, I’m certain it will come – I can feel it in my spirit. But when it does, thank the gods we have Heracles as our leader. The Bistones may have ferocity and numbers on their side, but we have skill and experience, and the greatest fighting man in all of Greece.’
His speech was greeted by shouts of agreement, and Iolaus felt a lift in the mood of the Pheraeans. The risks of their mission had been openly declared, as had its purpose – to help the man who had impressed them so much ten years before that they had decided to follow him again now. There was also the acknowledgement that – despite their seeming hospitality – the Bistones were not their friends. As Xuthus had said, battle was coming. And that, of course, had been the purpose of Heracles’s journey back to the harbour. His uncle had been familiarizing himself with the route of any retreat, looking for the best places to defend and the fastest routes of escape. Iolaus only wished he had paid more attention himself.
But it raised the question of why Diomedes wanted them to stay for longer. It was not out of a liking for his guests or any respect for xenia. Neither did he intend to give away his magnificent horses. They were simply the bait to keep Heracles and his men on the hook. But for what? He knew his uncle was not fooled. Yet he was prepared to accept the risk and await the opportunity to fulfil his mission. Until then, danger lurked behind every shadow, and death would be their neighbour each time they dared lay down to sleep.
Apart from a visit by a group of maids – bringing them wine and fruit and restocking the fire with wood – they were left to themselves for the rest of the day. Iolaus felt stifled by the inactivity and boredom, and the anticipation of the evening to come. Although the great hall lay open to the wooded ridge behind, it felt
like a prison. He even suspected there were Bistone archers among the trees, ready to shoot them down if they tried to escape. But Heracles would never contemplate such a thought. He was there to take the king’s horses, and he would not leave without them.
As darkness began to fall, they heard male voices and the squeal of animals nearby. Iolaus and Abderus clambered up the rubble that had fallen from the southern wall and peered over the top. Several men stood in the triangle of land between the rear of the palace and the edge of the trees. Some were piling wood onto the ashes of an old fire and relighting it, while others were pulling reluctant animals towards three stone altars, which had once been whitewashed but were now almost entirely brown with dried blood.
The ubiquitous herald was there, giving orders to the men. A black and white goat was forced to its knees before him. Drawing his bone-handled dagger from his belt, he snicked off a tuft of hair and tossed it into the nascent flames. Then he yanked the animal’s head back and ran the blade across its neck, releasing a torrent of dark blood onto the grass. The creature lurched forward and fell dead. Lifting it onto the nearest altar, the herald opened up the carcass and – after a few deft movements – turned to the now blazing fire with an armful of bones and fat. Raising his face to the starry heavens, he spoke a prayer to Ares before tossing the god’s portion into the flames, which rose up greedily in response. The rest of the carcass had already been taken away to be cut up for roasting.
Sensing Abderus’s nervousness, Iolaus suggested they rejoin the others. A little while later, the doors of the great hall swung open and Diomedes entered, accompanied by his herald and a handful of Bistones. A train of serving girls followed, bringing food and wine. The smell of the freshly roasted meat stirred the hunger in Iolaus’s stomach. Even the smell of the dry and flavourless bread brought the saliva into his mouth, and soon the Pheraeans and Bistones were feasting together.
