by Glyn Iliffe
The fall has killed it , he thought. The lion had hit the floor first, taking the full impact of the fall. Then it moved. A sudden expansion of its chest was followed by a low growl. It turned its head to face him, the glint of its remaining eye the only light in that utter blackness. Heracles snatched Molorchus’s dagger from his belt and plunged it into the lion’s soft underbelly. But the blade failed to puncture the skin and broke. An instant later, the lion’s forepaw smashed into the side of his head, throwing him across the floor of the pit to crash into the rock wall.
Had its claws not been sheathed, the blow would have torn through his neck and severed his head. Instead, he was able to fight back the pain and pick himself up. It was then he noticed Thaleia’s frightened eyes gleaming at him from beneath an overhang of rock behind the monster. Suddenly he remembered the promises he had shouted to her in the cavern, telling her that she was safe now. Then he recalled the screams he had first heard emanating from the mouth of the tunnel, and thought of the awful torture the lion had inflicted on the innocent child. He would not allow that to happen again. With a bellow of rage, he launched himself at the beast.
It regained its feet with a twist of its body, and drawing its claws threw itself to meet him. But Heracles was quicker. He punched his left shoulder into the lion’s chest, ignoring the pain from his wound as he wrapped his arms about its body and drove it backwards. Now was the time for the strength his father had gifted him with to show itself. He felt the monster’s claws tearing at the air behind him, but his hold on it was so close they were unable to find flesh. Then they smashed into the wall of the pit. He felt the lion’s ribs snap as the air was driven from its lungs. Taking advantage of its momentary weakness, he seized it by its shoulders and – feeling a sudden, furious rush of strength – hurled it against the far wall of the pit, away from the terrified child.
The lion crashed into the rock with a grunt and fell to the floor. It attempted to push itself back to its feet, but Heracles leaped onto it and hooked an arm around its neck. He pulled back as hard as he could, crying out with the exertion. The monster roared defiance and threw itself upwards, trying to shake off his hold. Its strength was incredible, but Heracles hung on, gripping its flanks with his knees and forcing it back down to the floor. Despite the burning anguish of his wounds and the aching tiredness in his muscles, he battled against the pain, knowing that if he did not defeat the monster now then he would not find the strength again. The lion knew it too. It filled the pit with its roars and bucked against him with all its might, desperate to throw him off and yet betrayed by its damaged forepaw.
Eventually, after what seemed an interminable time in that all-consuming blackness, he sensed his foe’s strength waning. Its roars reduced to mere grunts, and the kicking of its hind legs was now nothing more than the flailing of an animal close to death. For a moment Heracles pitied it, admiring the strength and courage of his opponent and almost regretting that it had to die. Then he looked at the girl lying beneath the overhang of rock opposite him. Her face was barely visible, a ghostly blur in the blackness, but he could sense the fear in her that was bordering on insanity. He thought of the nightmare she had endured. He remembered the dismembered corpses on the cave floor above that had once been men and women. He thought of the deserted farmhouses on the plains of Nemea. And he knew that each atrocity had been planned with cruel deliberation, by a creature of unspeakable evil.
His burning fury sent a final surge of strength into his arms. He pulled back harder on the lion’s neck until, with a last rattle of its breath, he felt its body stiffen and then go limp.
Chapter Eleven
The Return to Tiryns
Iolaus sat staring down into his cup. He could see his reflection looking back from the dark wine, his features distorted at the edges and yet deceptively calm in the centre. He took a moment to study the long, straight nose, the even mouth with its full lips half hidden by his thin beard, and the thoughtful curve of his eyebrows that made him look so serious. And his eyes. Unhappy. Confused. Angry.
He nudged the base of the cup, watching his face disappear among the ripples, then lifted it to his lips and drained the contents. He raised his eyes and glanced around at the dimly lit inn. A warm hearth in the centre of the room, sending up bright, short-lived embers into the smoke that trailed towards the hole in the roof. Half a dozen tables. Two men sitting opposite each other on one, talking in low but animated voices, their foreheads almost touching. A third man on one of the other tables, twisting the base of his cup this way and that as he glared at the hearth. A young man and his wife sitting together, her with her head on his shoulder and a hand on her distended belly, hoping, perhaps, that the child would be a boy. And the owner of the inn – if it could be graced with such a name, being little more than a house with its largest room given over to travellers between Thebes and Tiryns – sitting in a far corner and watching his daughter as she waited on the inn’s customers.
He saw Iolaus drain his cup before she did, and gave a fierce nod towards the young man. The girl crossed the room towards him. Iolaus nearly placed his hand over the mouth of the cup. His brain was addled from too much wine, and he felt his already morose mood sliding into deeper depression. But perhaps that was what he needed – to expose himself to the full weight of the thoughts and feelings he had been denying. He pushed the cup forward to the corner of the table.
The maid lowered the mouth of the wineskin to the lip of the cup, glancing at him as she did so. She had the complexion of a girl who spent long hours in the sun. Among his own class, dark skin was unfashionable – noble women did not spend their time out in the fields, doing the sort of tasks that were the lot of commoners and slaves. He remembered a young cousin crying because she had played too long in the sun and been burnt, fearing that she would be thought of as a slave. But the innkeeper’s daughter was a beauty nonetheless, with her dark eyes and long black hair that curled like the petals of a hyacinth. If only her father were not sitting in the corner, he thought, watching her every move like some old lion.
She must have been thinking the same thing, for her eyes lingered a little too long and the wine overran. Snatching back the neck of the skin with a little gasp, she whipped out the cloth that had been tucked into a fold of her dress and mopped up the mess. She threw a glance over her shoulder, but the old lion had seen everything and Iolaus guessed that would mean a beating for her later. He slid the brimful cup of wine towards him, and bent down to sip at it.
At that moment, the door banged open, letting in a blast of cold air that jerked the flames in the hearth from their slumber. Three men followed, wrapped in thick woollen cloaks with their hoods pulled over their heads. The innkeeper jumped to his feet and went to greet them, ushering them to the table next to Iolaus. His daughter scurried off to fetch wine cups and baskets of bread, cheese and fruit. For a while, the quiet inn was consumed with the noise of their entry: cloaks removed, feet stamped back to warmth, curt nods to the other customers, and a few loudly spoken words with the innkeeper about the harsh wind outside and the availability of food, drink and a space to sleep.
Iolaus looked the newcomers over from the corner of his eye. Each carried a sword, but none were nobles or merchants. That was clear enough from their rough speech and the quality of their coarse woollen cloaks. Huntsmen, perhaps, judging by the bows that they stacked against the wall; or maybe poachers. He looked at the simple weapons and thought immediately of Heracles, and how his uncle could bring down a bird in flight with barely a moment’s aim.
He took a draught of his wine and brought the cup heavily down on the table, attracting a glance from one of the men beside him. Iolaus ignored him and stared down into what remained of the dark liquid. Closing his eyes, his mind conjured up the image of Heracles as he had found him that morning on the porch of his house. Iolaus had been woken by one of his slaves, with a garbled tale of his uncle in a frenzied rage, smashing furniture and chasing his own servants from his house. At fi
rst he had dismissed it as a joke, or another test set by Heracles to try his young squire’s qualities. But the slave had been insistent. Leaving his house – the house his father, Iphicles, had left to him after quitting King Creon’s service and departing for Tiryns – Iolaus had taken his chariot and driven up to his uncle’s home.
He had always known it as a happy place, filled with the laughter of the three boys and graced by the presence of Megara, whose beauty had no equal in the whole of Thebes. Though she was Iolaus’s stepmother’s sister, she was only a few years older than him, having married Heracles when she was young. But the greatest appeal of the house had always been Heracles himself. He seemed to fill every corner of it, even when he was away. It was as if the whole place had moulded itself to his character, so that a visitor would walk into one of the many rooms and feel that Heracles was there with them. His laughter rang from the walls, and his vast shadow filled every chair. How could it be any other way? For he had the same effect on the minds of all who knew him. His enemies feared even the mention of his name, while his friends loved him with an unquenchable loyalty.
Unquenchable, Iolaus thought? He remembered the ride from the city gates to his uncle’s farm. The unmistakable figure of Heracles on the porch, and the gleam of drawn bronze in his hand – the point of his sword pressed against his heart. He remembered his momentary disbelief, and then the rush of fear that had made him call out as he had leaped from his chariot. Heracles had looked up in surprise, as if torn from some unspeakable nightmare, and in that instant Iolaus knew from his eyes that his uncle had changed forever. Something terrible had happened, and whether he impaled himself on his own blade or not, the man he had once known was already dead. Somehow, he had reached him in time to deflect the point of the sword, still finding flesh, but not his heart.
Often since he had wished he had been too late. It would have shortened the pain for all of them. Now Heracles had to live with what he had done, if he could. And both he and Megara had to find a way to deal with their love for him. Death made grief easier, but as long as Heracles still lived, it was so much harder to let their feelings die. He could not even begin to imagine how difficult it was for Megara, having to mourn her children and at the same time try to understand why Heracles had killed them. He could barely sift his own thoughts and feelings on the matter. All he knew was that he hated his uncle for what he had done, and yet his love remained greater than his hate. Why else would he have resolved to travel to Tiryns, where rumour said Heracles had gone into hiding? Because he wanted to confront him and demand the answer to why he had betrayed those that loved him.
For it was a betrayal. He had murdered the children who had adored him so much, and broken the heart of the woman who had loved him with her every breath and thought. And for Iolaus, who had looked on Heracles as his archetype for everything that was noble and good, it was a betrayal of character. How could the man who had displayed every excellent quality of his semi-divine blood change so suddenly? How could he betray the faith and love that Iolaus had put in him?
And yet – despite everything – his loyalty to his uncle was unquenchable. The man still dominated his thoughts and emotions. Unlike Iphicles – his own father, for whom he lacked the passion to truly hate – he felt Heracles’s absence deeply in mind and soul. He wanted their friendship back the way it had been before, even though he knew that was impossible. And he was angry because the awfulness of what Heracles had done had made it so impossible.
So he had resolved to take the only course left open to him. He needed answers to why Heracles had done what he had done. Was it drunkenness? A madness sent by the gods, as some said, trying to excuse him? Or was there some deeper darkness within him? Had he fooled everyone into believing he was good, when at heart he was driven by evil passions? Indeed, who was Heracles? And the only way to get answers was to find him and confront him.
‘I tell you it was him,’ said one of the men at the next table. ‘Heracles! I saw him with my own eyes.’
Iolaus glanced at the speaker – a tall, black-haired man with broad streaks of grey in his beard. The huntsman drained his cup and lifted it for the innkeeper’s daughter to see. She hurried over from a corner of the room to refill it.
‘What’s he doing in Tiryns?’ asked one of the others.
‘He’s a slave.’
‘A what?’ exclaimed the third, echoing Iolaus’s own surprise and disbelief. ‘Him, a slave? Not likely.’
‘Imagine telling him what to do,’ said the second man.
‘Well, that’s what he is. The king had him building a tower when I was there. Lifting these great blocks of stone like they were loaves of bread, he was. One of the guards told me he just strolled up one day and gave himself to King Eurystheus as his slave, to do with as he pleases. Said the gods told him to.’
‘I know what I’d have done with the child-murdering bastard,’ muttered the second.
Iolaus gripped the stem of his cup and stared hard at the flames dancing in the hearth.
‘The man’s an offence to the gods, no doubt about it,’ the third agreed. ‘I’ve known people executed for lesser crimes than his. But Creon didn’t have the nerve to do it, did he? They were his grandchildren that he killed, but he was scared witless of what the great brute might do to him.’
‘It ain’t easy to kill a beast like Heracles,’ agreed the first man. ‘Creon wouldn’t have just exiled him if it was.’
The third man spat on the floor and hooked a thumb towards the stack of bows.
‘I’ll bet he ain’t so big one of my arrows wouldn’t put him down.’
‘You think you could kill Heracles?’ Iolaus said, not taking his eyes from the fire.
‘Who’s talking to you, boy?’ said the first, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Iolaus.
Iolaus turned to meet his stare. He knew he had had too much wine, or he might have kept his anger to himself. But he had made a habit of drinking too much wine lately, and he did not care any more who felt the sting of his anger.
‘You boast about shooting him down as if he were some helpless deer in the woods,’ he said to the third man. ‘But he’s a better man than you are – better than any of you. He’d put arrows through all three of you before you could even draw your bows.’
The huntsman made to rise from his seat, but the first man put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Let it go, Eudoros. He’s only a boy. The spoiled brat of some noble lord, no doubt, but not worth ruining a good night’s drinking over.’
Eudoros shook off his companion’s hand and sat back down.
‘We know he’s good at killing, lad,’ he growled, staring at Iolaus. ‘For sure, he’s a real warrior. Look at how he slaughtered his three sons. Takes a real man to strangle children.’
Iolaus banged his fist on the table and rose to his feet, the alcohol-fuelled anger pumping through his veins. For too long he had stood by and allowed gossiping fools to label Heracles a child murderer, forgetting the hero who had saved Thebes and killed a hundred warriors in the process. And for too long he had agreed with them, convincing himself that his uncle could not have been the man he had believed he was – that there was a callous monster lurking behind his façade of strength and courage. But it was not true. It could not be – he knew that now. And he would no longer tolerate others maligning his friend’s name.
‘I know this much,’ he said. ‘Heracles loved his sons more than his own life. He would never have killed them if the gods hadn’t robbed him of his senses.’
Eudoros pushed his seat back and stood, an angry sneer twisting his features.
‘And if you believe that , then you’re an idiot! When the gods take a man’s mind, he stays that way. But by all accounts Heracles was fine the next day – not a trace of madness in him. That can only mean one thing: he knew what he was doing, and he murdered his own flesh and blood out of a black heart.’
Iolaus pushed his table aside and advanced at the huntsman, scything his fist at
his face. Eudoros leaned back from the clumsily aimed punch, seizing hold of Iolaus’s tunic as he overbalanced and pulling his attacker down on top of himself. They crashed onto the straw-covered floor, knocking cups from the table and scattering chairs as they struggled against each other. Eudoros clutched at Iolaus’s chest and tried to throw him off. Iolaus fought to stay upright, pushing his knee down into his opponent’s crotch and crushing his genitals. Eudoros roared in pain.
The next moment, two large hands slipped under Iolaus’s armpits and hauled him upwards. Iolaus felt the man’s beard against his neck and his hot breath blowing on his ear as he pinned him against his chest. The second huntsman appeared before him and drove his fist hard into Iolaus’s stomach. The breath was forced from his lungs and he doubled over, almost pulling the first huntsman with him.
‘Not in here you don’t,’ shouted the innkeeper, appearing with a short cudgel in his hand. ‘Sort your argument out in the street, not in my house!’
Iolaus pulled himself back up, gasping for air. In that brief instant, he saw the pregnant woman being dragged away into a corner of the room by her husband, while the other customers of the inn had risen from their chairs and were watching the fight at a safe distance. Then the huntsman thrust his fist into Iolaus’s face, whipping his head back hard into the nose of the man behind him, who gave a harsh cry of pain. His vision began to swim and he felt suddenly light-headed, but he was also aware of the powerful arms releasing their hold of him and the weight of his captor’s body falling away. Iolaus fell back with it, jarring the bottom of his spine against the edge of a chair. He reached behind him, grabbing hold of a table to pull himself upright.
Before he could find his feet, the second huntsman took hold of his shoulder. Groggily, Iolaus looked up to see him draw back his fist, ready to drive it for a second time into his face. At the same moment, the innkeeper placed the flat of his hand on the man’s chest and pushed him backwards.