by Glyn Iliffe
Heracles snatched the weapon from his hands, placed the point in the dirt and snapped the shaft with his foot.
‘Go tell the king I’ve returned and that I have his prize.’
The man hesitated, looking at the halves of his spear in the dust.
‘In the name of Ares, Ops, do as he says,’ called one of the other guards. ‘Or are you going to stand in the way of the man who killed that thing?’
Ops turned and ran. Heracles followed slowly in his wake, pulling the lion behind him, its lower jaw dragging over the cobbled road and its splayed claws leaving white lines on the stones. Beyond the walls, a cockerel announced the approach of dawn. And yet, despite the approach of day, Heracles felt his tiredness weighing heavily upon him. He remembered the thin grey light of dawn two days ago, when he had fetched the last of the human remains from the lion’s lair – a woeful task that had taken several journeys into that foul place, each one draining a little more of his stamina. And after he had made a pyre and burned them – while all the time Thaleia had been in a deep sleep – he went in a final time for the carcass of his enemy.
With his weariness, his wounds, the overpowering stench of the cave, and the weight of the beast, it was a feat that had almost defeated him. Yet, somehow, he had managed to drag it out of the tunnel, and then – with Thaleia on his shoulders – through the forest to the plains below. There he had barely registered Molorchus’s joyful reunion with his daughter, or the ecstatic thanks with which he greeted Heracles. All he had wanted was to sleep, but sleep refused to come. For every time he closed his eyes long enough for his mind to slip into a dream state, the horrors that awaited him there jolted him back to wakefulness.
He reached the gates that led to the palace. They were held open for him by the guardsman and two other soldiers, who stared in awed silence at the immense black body behind him. One of them led him through into the courtyard before the doors of the great hall, where Tydeus stood waiting for him. The captain of the guard stared in silence at the carcass, then raised his gaze to Heracles, a look of grudging admiration in his eyes. He noted the bandages around his left shoulder and upper right arm, and the missing part of his ear, which was black where the scab had formed over the wound. Then he took a deep breath and nodded towards the lion.
‘So you did it. The tales we were told don’t do the beast justice. It must have been a terrible fight.’
‘Is my cousin awake?’
‘He’s waiting for you. But first you must give me your bow and arrows. You’ll get them back afterwards.’
Heracles despised the humiliation of having to give up his weapons, and yet it was a price he would have to pay repeatedly over the months and years of his servitude. Slipping the bow and quiver from his shoulder, he turned from Tydeus and gave them to the soldier who had accompanied him from the gate.
‘You can leave that here, too,’ Tydeus said.
Heracles shook his head.
‘The monster comes with me. Eurystheus may be a king, but I want him to understand who’s the better man.’
Tydeus thought for a moment, then shrugged and pushed the doors open. The great hall was gloomy, lit only by the long hearth that the slaves had stoked back to life and stacked with fresh logs. By its flickering glow, Heracles could see Eurystheus, seated in his oversized throne, with the robed figures of Iphicles and Copreus either side of him on the dais. Charis, the priestess of Hera, sat on a stool close to the hearth. As before, several spearmen and archers stood in the shadows by the walls.
‘Do enter, Cousin,’ the king called out, his tone mocking and at the same time annoyed. ‘They tell me you’ve slain this monster that’s been terrorizing Nemea, though whether the exaggerations of a few nervous farmers are anything to—’
Heracles took the lion by its hind paws, and with a cry of anger hurled it across the floor of the hall. For a moment, the beast seemed to spring back into life, scattering several of the chairs where the nobles of Tiryns usually sat, before crashing into the hearth with a thud. Burning logs and glowing embers spilled over the black coat of the lion, where they hissed and sputtered and went out.
Eurystheus gave a shriek of terror and leaped up onto his chair, gathering his robes about him.
‘Kill it! Kill it!’ he screamed in a high-pitched voice, before the throne toppled backwards and took him with it.
At his shrill command, a hail of arrows and spears descended on the lion’s carcass, where they snapped or bounced off and fell into the flames. Of the slaves who stood in attendance by the tall pillars, all but one fled into the shadows, calling out in terror. The remaining slave – a young man – picked up a chair and ran at the lion, smashing it over its head before stumbling backwards against one of the pillars to await his fate.
But the great beast did not move. As the ring of soldiers closed warily on its lifeless corpse, their swords drawn and their shields raised, it remained where it lay, with its monstrous head resting on its forepaws and its remaining eye dull and lifeless. Tydeus ran from the doors, past Heracles to where Iphicles and Copreus were trying to pull Eurystheus out from behind the throne.
‘The monster is dead, my lord,’ Heracles heard his brother tell the king. ‘By the looks of it, it’s been dead for some time.’
‘But I saw it leaping towards me. Your brother brought it to the palace to kill me! Where’s Charis? She set this up so that Heracles could take my throne.’
‘My lord, I can assure you the lion is dead,’ Copreus said, his tone hard and unsympathetic. ‘The slave has completed the first labour. Now, face him like the king you are!’
‘I can’t. I…’
‘Your robes will cover the mess, my lord,’ Tydeus said in a low voice, reaching behind the throne and pulling the king to his feet.
Eurystheus peered at the lion and tried to duck back behind the throne, but Tydeus and Copreus held him up by his elbows. Iphicles lifted the throne back into place and Eurystheus stared out from behind it, barely able to take his eyes from the dead creature. Heracles thought of Thaleia – who had braved the fiend for two days and kept her mind – and looked with contempt at his cousin, masquerading as a king but unable to keep control of his bowels in the presence of the lion’s carcass.
He crossed the hall and pulled the monster away from the hearth. The spilled embers smoked on its hide, but had failed to singe the fur. Seizing its black mane in his fist, Heracles raised its head from its paws for all to see.
‘The task is complete,’ he announced. ‘The beast is dead – strangled by my own hands. You demanded it be killed, King Eurystheus. Now what would you have me do with its body?’
‘Do with it?’ Eurystheus asked, his quivering voice regaining some of its conceit. ‘I want nothing to do with it. You killed it, so do with it whatever you wish – just remove it from my presence and never bring it back.’
‘As you wish.’
Heracles took the lion’s hind legs and began to drag it towards the double doors.
‘Stop!’
The voice belonged to Copreus. Heracles paused and looked back over his shoulder.
‘The gods have decided the nature of your second labour,’ the herald announced.
‘Already?’
Heracles had been so sorely tested by the first labour that his weary mind had not given any thought to whatever might lay beyond it. Yet the gods – or the whims of Eurystheus and his counsellors – had no intention of letting him regain his strength. He turned towards Copreus and nodded.
‘What is it, then?’
Copreus looked at Charis, who stood to face Heracles. Her black cloak opened to reveal the white priestess’s robes beneath.
‘Hera knows that Lord Zeus has given you an abundance of strength and courage. But what of your skills as a hunter? Do you have the speed and stamina for the chase, or the cunning to catch your prey? On a hill outside the town of Ceryneia, far to the north, is a hind – an animal with fur as white as snow, horns of gold and brazen hooves. Your secon
d task is to hunt it down.’
‘If the king wants to feast on the flesh of a deer, why doesn’t he send his huntsmen to kill it? They would do the job quicker than I could.’
‘Who said anything about killing it?’ Iphicles said, eyeing his brother coldly. ‘You are to capture this hind and bring it back to Tiryns alive. And if you think the task is easy, compared to the slaying of the Nemean Lion, then your arrogance will be your downfall. It’s said this creature is quicker than the wind, that it can outrun an arrow and that it is so afraid of men that it runs at the merest scent of them. But that isn’t all.’
Despite his brother’s calm, expressionless features and the evenness in his voice, Heracles could sense his jubilation. He stepped down from the dais and walked along the opposite side of the hearth, his robes wafting behind him as he walked to Charis’s side.
‘The animal is sacred to Artemis, the most vengeful of all the Olympians. She loves it like a child, and if you kill it – if you even harm it – then you will become the prey and she the hunter. And from the goddess’s arrows, there can be no escape.’
‘Are you enjoying yourself, Brother?’ Heracles asked. ‘Does it give you pleasure to think of me becoming so frustrated by this swift-footed creature that I shoot it down and incur the wrath of the Huntress? Does that bring relief to your bitterness?’
‘Why do you blame your brother?’ Eurystheus said, emerging from behind his throne. ‘Did you not come to me, offering yourself as a slave and begging the opportunity to earn absolution from your guilt? Did Iphicles murder your children? No, he is but my mouthpiece, and even I am simply a messenger for the gods, here to help you gain your salvation. You should be on your knees before us, thanking us for helping you! But then I wouldn’t expect an arrogant oaf like you to appreciate the kindness of your betters. Indeed, you are like a hound that eats the scraps its master gives it, then snaps after his fingers in its brutish ingratitude. Now remember that you are my sworn bondsman and leave this place, taking that monstrosity with you. Go capture this Ceryneian Hind and bring it to me here, else take whatever remorse you may feel for the deaths of your sons and gnaw on it somewhere far away from Tiryns. Am I clear?’
Heracles’s anger burned within him. He had come with the intention of humiliating those who had sent him to kill the Nemean Lion in the expectation he would fail in the task; and now he was being dismissed like an ungrateful fool, by a man for whom the name fool was a compliment. But what could he do? He was a slave. Worse than that, he had murdered his own children. He deserved nothing better.
He bowed stiffly, then without looking at anyone took the hind legs of the lion and dragged it from the hall. Tydeus followed him to the doors, slamming them shut behind him. Heracles paused in the middle of the courtyard and looked round at the guards, whose eyes were fixed in wonder on the monstrous carcass.
‘Give me my weapons,’ he demanded.
The man who had challenged him at the entrance to the citadel stepped forward and handed him his bow and quiver. Heracles slung them over his shoulder and dropped to one knee beside the lion. Taking some rope from his satchel, he tied its legs together.
‘Is it true that you killed the beast with your bare hands?’
Heracles swung the lion onto his shoulders and slowly raised himself to his feet, the muscles in his limbs straining and the veins bulging with the effort. Ignoring the guard’s question, he walked slowly from the courtyard and stopped before the temple of Hera, staring up at the effigy of the goddess that stood before it.
‘You failed, my lady,’ he said.
This time , he found himself thinking, as he turned and made his way down to the next set of gates. He walked past the staring guards and between the crenellated walls on either side, down into the citadel. The first grey light of dawn had filtered into the sky, lending life to the large stone houses of the nobles and wealthy merchants. But the doors were shut and the streets almost empty, except for a few early slaves who hid in alleys and doorways as he passed by, gaping in fear and astonishment at the enormous creature on his back. A pair of noblemen walking side by side up the thoroughfare refused to show their surprise. Instead, they spat on the flagstones before his feet and one of them uttered the words child murderer , before hurrying past.
The taunt found its mark. His bearded chin slumped onto his chest and he trudged on towards the gateway to the lower city. A group of soldiers were waiting for him. The gates were closed and Heracles wondered whether Eurystheus had had a change of heart and sent orders to prevent him from leaving. But as he approached the men stepped aside and the heavy portals were pulled open.
Heracles stopped. Beyond the shadowy gateway the street was lined with people. Men, women and children – many of them from the slums beyond the outer walls of the city – stared at him in silence. Perhaps they had come to gawp at the carcass of the great Nemean Lion. Or perhaps they had gathered to heap more abuse on the wretch who had killed his own sons. He did not care any more. Soon he would be beyond the walls of Tiryns and heading north to complete the next labour. He adjusted the weight of his burden, then lowered his head and walked through the gates.
He felt the crowd’s eyes upon him as he passed between them, and sensed their disbelief at the size of the beast on his shoulders. He heard the gasp of a child, followed by the tears of another and the sound of its mother offering comfort. He raised his eyes a little, just enough to see the smaller children clutching at the legs and hands of their parents, their eyes filled with fear and bewilderment as they watched him pass.
Then he noticed something else. Their stares fell on the lion first, then on him – and as they did so, he saw their horror turn to awe. Then a woman broke free of the crowd and came hesitatingly towards him. She was plainly dressed and well fed with soot-blackened fingertips. A smith’s wife, he guessed, fresh from helping her husband stoke up his fire. Her plain face glanced fearfully up at the beast on his shoulders, then at him. There was a small cloth bundle in her hands, which she rushed forward and placed in his leather satchel.
‘It’s nothing much, my lord. Just some oatcakes.’
She looked like she wanted to say more, but simply lowered her eyes and retreated back into the crowd.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
As he moved on, an old man stepped forward and reached up to touch his arm. It was not even a gesture of encouragement, simply a touch. Then another woman rushed up with a pair of fish wrapped in a white cloth, which she slipped into his satchel before bowing briefly and running back.
‘Hail, son of Zeus,’ shouted a voice from the back of the crowd.
Others took up the cry.
‘Son of Zeus! Hail Heracles, the son of Zeus!’
‘Son of Zeus!’
A man hung a skin of water or wine around his neck. Someone else threw a loaf of bread, but he was unable to catch it and it fell in the road, to be snatched up by a slum urchin. The crowd had abandoned their fearful silence now, and as he approached the gates that led out of the walled city, they began to cheer him from all sides. And yet, through the cries of adulation, he sensed the eyes of King Eurystheus watching the spectacle from the walls of the citadel, resenting the sudden popularity of his rival. A popularity he himself had inspired by sending him on an impossible mission, only for him to return successful and earn the admiration of the people of Tiryns. A people whom the king knew despised and mocked him, and whom he could only command with a rod of bronze.
The gates opened and Heracles saw the crowds of the poor lining the road ahead, as it wound out towards the northern plain. They waved their arms in the air and cheered wildly, as if a liberator had come to set them free from their bonds. Yet their so-called saviour was leaving them to the jealousy and bitterness of Eurystheus. And he did not know whether he would ever be able to come back.
Chapter Twelve
The Ceryneian Hind
When Heracles finally found the hind, the sun was low in the west, casting long shadows over the woode
d slopes of the mountains. It had taken several days to reach Ceryneia, prolonged by a visit to Molorchus and Thaleia, and he was weary from his long journey. Then, as he trudged through the lonely valley of the River Celadon – hunting rabbits with his bow at the ready – he caught a glint of gold on the hills above him. Looking up, he saw the magnificent animal standing on a shelf of rock, her pelt flashing white in the late afternoon sun. With an arrow already notched and the string half drawn, he could have brought her down in a moment. But that was not his task, and only a fool would have dared the wrath of Artemis.
Having no real thought to how he would catch the hind, he shouldered his bow and pulled a coil of rope from his satchel. He measured out two arms’ lengths of it and tied a hasty knot to make a lasso. He wore the pelt of the Nemean Lion, which he had skinned using its own claws. The upper part of its head sat on his own like a cap, with the hideous snout and its double row of teeth shading his face; the remainder of its hide hung down over his shoulders and back like a cloak. It was as black as night, making him almost invisible as he lurked in the shadows beside the broad river. Only the flash of his bare arms as he prepared the rope revealed him to the hind’s sight.
She turned towards him, her golden antlers gleaming in the sunlight. He stood for a moment, marvelling at the purity and beauty of the animal. Then he ran up the slope towards her, his crude lasso in hand. At first, she refused to move, as if it was beneath her dignity to run from any man. Then she edged backwards along the shelf of rock, bent her hind legs beneath her and sprang forward.
She reached the crest with two long strides of her bronze hooves, leaping over Heracles’s head and landing on the rocky slope behind him. She bounded away across the hillside, outstripping the wind that blew through the dry grass. He ran to the top of the rock shelf and watched in awe, shielding his eyes from the sun as she crossed the valley and entered a dense wood that spanned both sides of the river. He lingered a moment longer, wondering how he would ever catch such an animal. Then he leaped from the sill of rock, hitting the slope below with a cloud of dust and scrambling back to his feet to take up the pursuit.