by Glyn Iliffe
‘I warned you…’ he began, waving his cudgel beneath the man’s nose.
‘Stay out of it, you old dog,’ the man replied, shoving him aside and snatching the club from his hand.
He raised it above his head, ready to bring it down into Iolaus’s face. But Iolaus had regained his senses, and threw a desperate punch at his attacker, catching him in the throat. The man dropped the cudgel and clutched both hands to his neck, making loud gagging noises. He stumbled back into a table, doubled over it and vomited over the floor.
By now, Eudoros had regained his feet. His cheeks were flushed pink and his eyes were red around the rims, but they were ablaze with fury. Iolaus raised his fists and placed his feet firmly apart in readiness to meet the attack. Then he heard a cry of rage behind him. As he turned, the head and shoulder of the first huntsman took him in the chest and propelled him backwards, crashing through several overturned chairs and into a table. A jolt of pain shot up through his back. Somehow, he prised himself free of the man’s arms, which were wrapped tightly around his waist, and tried to roll over the table so that it was between him and his opponents. Then he felt a powerful hand clawing at his tunic and pulling him back.
He turned to see the fierce grimace on Eudoros’s face, a moment before he hammered his fist into the side of Iolaus’s skull. The sounds of the inn – the shouts and screams of its other occupants – became suddenly muffled, as if his head had been pushed under water. Momentary blackness followed as his senses imploded on him. He shook his head and blinked, and for a moment his vision cleared, only to reveal the first huntsman standing beside Eudoros, his face red with rage and his fist raised. Iolaus kicked out and felt the sole of his sandal jar against a leg, eliciting a cry of pain from his attacker. But the reprieve was only temporary. The man was back on him in a moment, pinning one of his arms against the table while Eudoros held the other, and struck blow after blow. The edges of Iolaus’s vision began to darken and he felt himself falling backwards, as if into a deep hole, as his consciousness slipped away.
He woke to the sensation of cold water on his face. Looking up, he saw the innkeeper’s daughter hovering over him, applying a damp cloth to his forehead. His brain was pounding against the inside of his skull with a mixture of pain and too much wine. Slowly, he became aware of the many aches and bruises covering his head and body. His mouth was sore and, though a quick feel of his teeth with his tongue told him he had not lost any, the lips felt raw and puffy. He tried to inhale through his nose, but his breathing was strained and he could smell blood. The flesh over his cheeks and forehead was tender, too, and throbbed with pain. After a moment, he realized his right eye was closing up rapidly.
‘Ouch!’ he groaned, as the girl touched his temple with the cloth.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve washed most of the blood off, but the swelling will get worse before it gets better.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, though it was difficult to speak. ‘Where are the huntsmen?’
He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked about himself. He was in a small back room.
‘My father’s sent them on their way.’
The door opened and the innkeeper entered. His cudgel was firmly gripped in his fist and his face was red.
‘How is he?’
‘Sore and painful,’ Iolaus answered.
‘Can you stand?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good, then you can leave my inn and make your way back to Thebes, or wherever it was you said you were from. Come on, up you get.’
‘But, Father—’
‘Shut up and go see to the few guests we have left.’
The girl left and the innkeeper offered his hand. Iolaus winced as he took it, and almost fainted again at the stabs of pain from all over his body as he stood. The innkeeper looked at him uncertainly, but Iolaus waved his hand dismissively.
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘Here, I’ll help you to the door.’
The man took him by the arm and walked him into the room where the remaining guests were sitting quietly at their tables, eyeing him as he passed. The scattered chairs had all been put back in their places, and the girl was wiping spilled wine from the floor. Iolaus shrugged off the innkeeper’s arm and went to the door.
‘How do I know those huntsmen aren’t outside waiting for me?’
‘They aren’t. I saw to that. And they’ve taken a different route to you – assuming you are going back to Thebes.’
Iolaus thought for a moment. What would he find if he went to Tiryns? Would Heracles give him the answers he was looking for? Was he right to have left Thebes in the first place? Or should he have stayed at Megara’s side, helping her through her terrible loss?
‘Yes, I’m returning to Thebes,’ he said. ‘I should never have left in the first place.’
And pulling his hood over his head, he stepped out into the cold night air.
* * *
Heracles woke with a start, opening his eyes to total blackness. The body of the lion lay beneath him, motionless, its vitality and the evil intelligence that had directed it gone. He tried to push himself away from it, but his strength failed him. The battle had weakened him so much that he must have passed out, and though he did not know how long he had slept, he still felt drained and unable to move.
Then something touched him. He gave a startled shout and turned, his fist clenched and ready to strike.
It was the girl.
‘Don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded, hiding behind the palms of her hands.
‘Thaleia, forgive me.’
‘Forgive you?’
‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ she said, lowering her hands and offering a weak smile. ‘Not any more. You’ve saved my life – I can go home again, back to my father.’
Her voice was tremulous, but despite all she had endured, she could still think of the world beyond this pit that had been her prison. Her courage amazed him, and through his tears, he reached out with trembling fingers and touched her cheek.
‘I’m glad for you, Thaleia.’
She took his hand and kissed it.
‘You fought so hard, harder than any man alive could ever have done. And you’re badly wounded. I tore the hem from my dress and used it to bandage your shoulders, while there was still some light from the torches above, but the wounds will need cleaning and sewing together.’
He raised his fingertips to his shoulders and felt the blood-soaked cloth that had been wound around them. She had done well – a ten-year-old girl, alone in the darkness with no one to help her. But now he was conscious again, and though he felt more exhausted than he had ever done before, he would finish the job he had come to do.
‘Thank you for tending to me,’ he said, his voice sounding rough and harsh in the darkness. ‘You’ve been brave – braver than any child should ever have to be. But you will need to keep drawing on your courage. It will be a long journey back to the surface in the dark.’
‘I said I’m not frightened. Not if you’re with me.’
‘Good,’ he replied.
He took hold of the rock wall behind him and pulled himself onto his haunches. He wavered for a moment – his head suddenly light and his senses disorientated – then gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand. He groped his hand across the wall, feeling his way along until his fingertips brushed against the end of the rope. He took hold of it and tugged hard, reassuring himself that it was still firm.
‘Can you climb onto my back?’
‘But your shoulders…’
‘Put your arms over my neck and chest. I’ll be all right.’
He felt her touch his back, working her way across until she found his hand.
‘Your bow,’ she said, placing the weapon in his palm.
‘Thank you.’
He hung it from his shoulder, then told her to hang on to his back. Soon her hands were locked together over his chest and he was climbing the
rope to the lip of the pit, grimacing at the pain of each movement. At the top, he set her down and felt inside the leather satchel that hung at his waist.
‘Here,’ he said, placing a piece of oatmeal cake in her cold fingers. ‘When was the last time you ate?’
‘Not since the lion took me, however long ago that was.’
‘Two days.’
‘Just two?’
There was shock and disbelief in her small, tired voice, revealing how long the dreadful ordeal in the dark must have seemed to her.
‘Eat it slowly or you’ll make yourself sick,’ he said. ‘Have you had any water?’
‘Only what I could lick off the walls.’
He frowned and shook his head, appalled at the thought of the child alone in the darkness for so long, without food or water. Then he remembered seeing a goatskin among the human debris at the centre of the cave. After telling her not to move, he felt his way across the floor with the base of his bow. Eventually he found what he was looking for – though the search in the dark was grim and slow – and after tasting that the wine inside was still drinkable, brought it back to the girl. She snatched it from his hands and drank greedily, until he took it back from her.
‘Have this too,’ he said, pulling his cloak from his satchel and placing it in her hands. ‘You feel so cold.’
He sensed her shudder just at the mention of the word. Then she threw her arms about him and hugged him tightly. He placed his large hands on her back and held her there, imagining in the darkness that her little form belonged to one of his boys. She was the height of Therimachus, and her hair was longer, but what did that matter? Tears began to roll down his cheeks and into his beard as he remembered the last time he had held his boys – though their bodies had been colder than Thaleia’s then. He thought for a moment of rubbing the tears away with the back of his hand, but instead he pulled the child closer, afraid to let her go.
The journey back to the gulley was long and difficult in the dark. Thankfully, he had had the foresight to take a helmet from one of the dead soldiers, and though it did not fit, it protected his head well enough from the rocky crags in the low ceiling. They had already passed the bodies of the farmers, and the air was becoming fresher, but for some reason he could not see any light to mark the end of the tunnel. Before much longer, with Thaleia still holding on grimly to his hand, he thought he saw a lessening in the blackness ahead of them. Then he heard the sound of the wind blowing through countless leaves, and realized that there would be no daylight to reveal the mouth of the cave. In his desperation to see the sun again, he had not considered that it might now be night outside.
He pressed on, until even the faint starlight that filled the gulley was bright enough to reveal the exit to the tunnel. He brushed aside the curtain of brambles and led Thaleia out. Together they stared up at the shifting canopy of leaves above and the tall, black boles of the trees around them. Then they looked at each other: he, tall, bearded and massively built, his limbs and torso covered in blood; and she, small and frail, like a ghost in the gloom. They put their arms around each other again, both glad to have someone with whom to share the elation of being alive.
He made a fire further up the gulley, away from the remains of the dead warrior. When the flames were bright and warm, he gathered up a stock of wood while Thaleia – the worst of her fears already forgotten – talked animatedly about seeing her father again, and how Heracles could live with them if he wished, and that there was always plenty of food on the farm, and how someone of his strength would make the work so much easier. Then he stood before her, an unlit torch in his hand, and the expression on his face made her words trail off into nothing.
‘I must leave you for a while.’
‘Leave me? Why? Where are you going?’
‘Back into the tunnel.’
Her eyes grew wide with fear.
‘But why? The monster’s dead. Shouldn’t we be going home?’
‘The monster is dead,’ he assured her. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of now. But there are bodies in its lair, the bodies of men and women who deserve a better resting place. I intend to bring them out and give them a decent burial, however many journeys that takes.’
‘Then let me come with you, my lord. I don’t want to stay here alone.’
‘And I don’t want you to go back in there, Thaleia. My work will be finished by dawn, and then I will have one more thing to do before I take you back to your father. Can you sleep?’
‘I can try,’ she said, lying down on the grass and pulling his cloak over herself.
* * *
There was no moon as Heracles trudged along the ridged and pitted road, dragging the wooden sled behind him. The sky was as black as jet and yet filled with countless stars, leaving barely a spot that did not harbour at least one faintly gleaming prick of light. He reached the crest of the hill that led down to Tiryns and saw the black outline of the citadel ahead of him, its wide-flung walls silhouetted against the clustered constellations. The light of a single fire flickered and winked at him from the mouth of one of the gates, but otherwise the city slumbered in ignorance, unaware of what the dawn would bring.
He stared at its dark and sprawling mass for a while, not relishing his return to slavery. Indeed, his days of freedom in Nemea had revived something in him. He had looked into the green eyes of death and survived; and in that realization of the fragility of his own mortality, he had rediscovered his taste for life.
Yet the answers he had sought continued to elude him. What the immortal head was that the Pythoness had spoken of he still did not know, for he had proved the Nemean Lion to be fully mortal. It frustrated him that he had not learned the reason why he had killed his children – awful though that would be – but he trusted in the oracle. The answer was somewhere, and he would find it.
He adjusted the leather harness Molorchus had made for him and carried on down the road. The straps over his shoulders still rubbed at the edges of his wounds, but the broad leather band around his waist took most of the weight of the sled, which was attached by a pair of strong ropes. And they had to be strong, for the weight of his burden was enormous.
He reached the collection of hovels that surrounded the outer walls of the city. A few dogs roamed the streets, but fled at his approach, scattering down the side alleys and yelping in fear at the terrifying scent that assailed their nostrils. A drunk lay sleeping in the filth at the side of the street, but Heracles saw nothing of any of the other occupants of the tumbledown shacks that closed in on either side of him. When he reached the city gates, they were closed and there was no sign of a guard.
Trudging up to the towering doors, he pounded his fist against the wood and demanded entrance.
‘The gates are shut,’ came a voice from above. ‘Come back in the morning.’
Heracles looked up at the figure leaning over the parapet.
‘Let me in, Pyrasos. I have an appointment with the king, and he won’t be happy to be kept waiting.’
‘Heracles? By all the gods, it is you! We didn’t expect to see your oversized hide around here again.’
‘Well, here I am. Are you going to let me in, or do I have to knock these doors down with my bare fists?’
‘What’s under that tarpaulin?’
‘A gift for King Eurystheus.’
‘Wait there.’
There was a low whistle, followed by the tramp of feet and the clank of the bar being removed. A moment later, one of the gates was pushed open and Pyrasos’s helmeted head appeared. His sword was drawn and there were two sleepy-looking spearmen at his shoulders.
‘You don’t come in until I’ve seen what you’ve got with you.’
Heracles raised a jaded eyebrow and sighed. He removed the harness and walked to the sled, untying one corner of the tarpaulin.
‘If you insist.’
He pulled the sheet back halfway. The soldiers stepped back in disbelief, one dropping his spear. Pyrasos’s eyes widened for a moment,
then he gathered up the edge of his cloak and held it against the lower half of his face.
‘That ’s what they sent you off to fight?’ he asked, his voice muffled. ‘By all the gods, I thought it was just a lion .’
Heracles dropped the tarpaulin back into place, then picked up his harness and slipped it back on. Pyrasos waved him through, his cloak still clutched to his mouth and nostrils. Inside the walls, the city was sleeping and, other than a few dogs, the streets were empty. Heracles dragged the sled to the north gate, where the gates were open and two guardsmen stood around a burning brazier. They held their palms to the flames as he approached, watching him with idle curiosity. Then, when he had come within a few paces, one of them took his spear from a nearby wall and stood across the path into the citadel. Heracles recognized one of the soldiers he had fought on his first arrival at the city.
‘So, you’ve come back, have you? This lion they’re all talking about too much for you, was it?’
Heracles did not answer. He shrugged off the harness and walked to the sled, slipping the knots at each corner and throwing off the tarpaulin.
‘Gods!’ the guard muttered. ‘That’s not a bloody lion, it’s a…it’s a… What in Hades is it?’
His companion stepped forward, his eyes narrowed and his jaw slack with disbelief. Then he caught the stench of the monster and waved his hand in front of his nose. A moment later, he had run to the door of the guardhouse and was shouting for the other members of the watch to come out.
Heracles did not wait for permission to enter the citadel. He took hold of the hind paws of the lion and, lifting them onto his shoulders, dragged the carcass from the sled towards the gates. Several other soldiers in different states of undress were tumbling out of the guardhouse door to see the great beast.
‘You can’t go in,’ the first guard said, remembering his duties and standing before the gates with his spear held level across his stomach.