by Glyn Iliffe
His quarry was no more than a flash of white among the shadows of the wood, and her great speed was increasing the distance between them all the time. But the hunt had begun at last and Heracles felt the thrill of it driving him forward. Just a little earlier he had been thinking ahead to his evening meal and wondering where he would make his bed for the night; now all thoughts of food and sleep were banished from his mind as he sprinted towards the eaves of the wood. As he smashed into the undergrowth at the edge of the wood, the deer was already lost to sight. But its bronze hooves left such clear imprints in the soft earth that he barely needed to ease his pace to keep on her trail.
The tracks took him back downhill to the river. The hind had followed the winding bank to a point where the waters ran shallow. Without pausing, he waded into the stream, which quickly reached his groin. The rocks underfoot were smoothed by the current and slimy, causing him to slip several times before he gained the opposite bank. There he found the hoof prints again and followed them up into the woods.
The sun had sunk behind the tops of the mountains and the light was fading quickly. There was no sign of the hind through the trees ahead, and her tracks were becoming more difficult to follow in the dusky light. Heracles’s pace slowed to a jog. He knew he was not quick enough to catch the animal – he could not even keep her within sight – and without resorting to his bow and arrows, he remained uncertain about how he would stop her fleeing every time she caught sight of him. All he knew was that he had to stay on her trail. If he could do that, an opportunity to capture the hind would eventually present itself. If he failed, though, the labour would be uncompleted. All hope of absolution would wither and he would be left with the guilt of his crime. The horror of it would become inescapable until, slowly, he sank into madness. The son of Zeus would wander from city to city, a pariah mocked and loathed by all who came across him.
And so he ran on, desperate for a glimpse of the deer and yet seeing nothing, his hope sustained only by the deep hoof prints still visible before him. He followed them long into the evening, his progress reduced now to walking pace as he sought the increasingly elusive tracks in the gloom. He told himself that the hind, too, would have slowed to a walk, aware that her pursuer had fallen far behind. Indeed, the chase had ended. Now it had become a hunt: his intelligence set against her speed; his absolute need to complete the labour set against her instinct for survival.
Eventually, he lost the tracks altogether. Returning to the last place he had seen them, he laid his lion’s pelt on the grass and began gathering wood and kindling for a fire. The deer had to sleep, too, he thought as he lay down beside the crackling flames. In the morning, he would pick up the trail again and pursue it until he found her. Then he would use the cover of the wood to get close and throw his rope around her antlers.
Images of the animal followed him into his dreams. He saw her standing up to her hocks in the River Celadon. Yellow sunlight was streaming down in columns of differing brightness from the thin canopy above. Her head was lowered as she drank from the gently flowing waters, her golden horns gleaming brilliantly, her white hide without blemish. Even as he slept, Heracles was conscious of the beauty and majesty of the creature, and he understood why it would be a crime to harm such innocence. Then she raised her head and twitched her ears. Heracles, too, sensed a shadowy presence marring the purity of that scene. He looked around, from tree to tree and rock to rock, but could not see what evil had disturbed the hind.
Then he saw that she was looking directly at him. He glanced down at himself and saw the large black paws of the lion’s skin. They were planted in the grass, claws drawn and digging into the soil, ready to spring forward. He wanted to cry out, telling the hind to run. But all that came out was a roar, a sound so evil that it caused the sunlight to dim and fail. He looked at the hind again, willing her to move, to at least try to save herself. Then he ran towards her. At the last moment she turned to run, but it was too late. He sprang, burying his claws into the white fur and tearing deep, bloody welts through the flesh.
The hind collapsed beneath the weight of the attack, crashing down into the river and sending up a spray of pink liquid. Heracles sensed himself clawing at the stricken animal, felt her struggling beneath him and heard her crying out. But the screams were not those of a deer, for he heard voices calling out in fear and desperation. Father, no! Father, please!
He woke with a start and sat up. The fire had almost died out, and by the glow of its embers he could see a tall white figure standing among the black trees. How long the hind had been watching him he could not guess, but as he threw aside his blanket and reached for the coil of rope in his satchel, she leaped over the fire and sprang away into the trees behind him. He followed her barefoot to the edge of the glow from his campfire and watched her pale form fade into the darkness like a phantom.
Dawn was still some way off, but he did not sleep any more that night. Neither did he continue the pursuit, not daring to lose the hind’s trail in the darkness, or confuse it with the trail he had been following the evening before. And so he threw more logs onto the fire and waited for the first light of day, folding his arms about his knees and staring into the flames. He wondered why the animal had come back. Had she stumbled on him by accident? Any ordinary creature would have been warned off by the smouldering fire, but the hind was not ordinary. Perhaps she had returned to mix up her tracks and confound his pursuit. Or maybe she had meant to disturb his sleep and tire him out. It was also possible, he thought, that she wanted him to continue the chase.
He found her tracks easily enough when morning arrived, though the trail was already cold. He followed it at a steady jog, up into the foothills of the mountains, from one ridge to another, and finally down again to the Celadon. Here the trail followed the course of the river, back towards the open plains of the valley. Not once did he spy the animal, though the deep tracks remained clear and easy to follow. Then, as evening fell again, he emerged from the eaves of the wood to see her on the same shelf of rock where he had first spotted her. She stood as proud as a stag surveying its kingdom, and for a while she did not move, either ignorant of his presence or determined not to acknowledge him.
He retreated into the shadow of the trees and loosened his belt, retying it around his cloak. Taking the rope from his satchel, he tested the looping knot he had fastened that morning to ensure it would allow the lasso to be pulled tight. Silently, he prayed to Zeus to keep him hidden from the hind’s sight, then slipped down into the water. Relying on the blackness of the lion’s pelt to camouflage him, he left the cover of the trees and hugged the steep sides of the riverbank. The sun was slowly retreating behind the crests of the mountains, leaving the lower half of the valley in darkness and the upper half in light. The shade was deepest along the meandering line of the river, where the gnarled trees and thickly spreading shrubs shielded Heracles’s approach from the eyes of the hind as she bathed in the last rays of the sun.
The shadow of the mountains had almost reached the rocky ledge by the time he came parallel with it. Drawing himself slowly and quietly onto the bank, he looked up at the hind. She remained motionless, her fur a pale pink now in the light from the sunset. Certain she had not seen him, he crept to a knot of trees at the foot of the hill. From here, the angle of the slope hid him from the hind’s view. The shadow was now at the lip of the shelf where she stood. Knowing she would not linger once the sun had gone down, he readied his lasso and moved stealthily up the hillside. Placing each hand and foot carefully so as not to send a loose stone bouncing back down the slope, he made his way steadily upwards until the lip of rock loomed above his head. He could hear the animal breathing and smell her scent on the warm air. Then, as he prepared to dash up the last of the slope, she snorted loudly and scraped her hooves on the stone.
Heracles ran from beneath the rock shelf, but was too late. The hind leaped over his head and landed lightly on the grass a stone’s throw away. She sprang away, this time heading further
up the valley, away from the trees. He sprinted after her, desperate not to lose her again. But as she reached the bank of the river where the water was wide and shallow, he knew he would not be able to catch her.
In desperation, he slipped the bow from his shoulder and fitted an arrow. The hind’s escape had been slowed by the fast-flowing waters, making her an easy target. He drew the fletch back to his cheek, adjusted his aim to account for the breeze, and relaxed his fingers on the string. But as he focused on the hind, he remembered his brother’s warning. 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.
With a shout of anger, he twitched the bow upwards and released the string. The arrow arced into the sky, overshooting the river and landing in the grass on the far bank. The hind stopped midstream and turned her head. Her eyes were black and unintelligent, but they seemed to understand the conflict inside him. She was the embodiment of purity, everything that he was not. To have slain her would have been as appalling a crime as the murder of his children. And he could not bear to have more innocent blood on his conscience.
But that was the twisted genius of the task Charis had set for him, guided by the malicious will of Hera. The hind was not a monster he could conquer by his strength and courage – the gifts his Olympian father had granted him in excess. Instead, she was a swift-footed beast that could easily outrun him, and whose flight – as he had just realized – he could not halt with his arrows. Only one hope had been left to him: to stalk the hind and trap her. And yet she seemed able to sense his approach. He had made no sound climbing the slope, he was certain of that, and his scent would have been carried away from her by the direction of the wind. But something had warned her of his presence.
The hind turned her gaze away from him and continued onto the opposite bank. As soon as she climbed up onto the solid earth, she sprang away again, clambering nimbly up the opposite slope. And slender though his chances were of catching her, Heracles cast aside his despair and sprinted after her. By the time he had crossed the Celadon, she was already on the crest of the ridge ahead of him, silhouetted black against the auburn sun. She looked back briefly, as if encouraging the pursuit, then bounded down the opposite slope and out of sight.
Determined not to lose sight of her again, Heracles ran after her. At the top of the hill, he caught sight of her again, her white form cutting a swathe through the long grass on the flanks of the next ridge. He ran on, and as he ran he wondered again how she had detected his presence beneath the shelf of rock. The scent of the lion’s pelt had been powerful when it was alive, but had quickly faded after he had removed and cleaned it. Then had she sensed the monster’s evil? In life, the lion’s malevolent nature had been palpable, even to him; how much more would it be to a sacred creature like the hind? Yet the lion was dead and its spirit had died with it.
Then, as he saw the hind stretching out the distance between them, he understood. It was not the lion’s evil that she had sensed. It was his. Was she not a favourite of Artemis, protector of animals and the vulnerable? The protector of children . The hind could sense what he had done to his own sons. She could taste the abhorrence of his offence, and her virtuous nature could not tolerate having him close. As long as the guilt of his crime remained upon him, she would not abide him coming near to her. Yet he could not be redeemed until he had caught her.
He slowed to a halt. If only a virtuous heart could capture the hind, then the task was indeed impossible. He dropped to his knees in the long grass and hung his head. For a while, the frail hopes he had been clinging to left him and his mind was possessed by dark thoughts. He felt again the desolation of that morning, after he had woken from his madness to discover he had killed his boys. He had tried to kill himself then – and would have, if Iolaus had not interfered. But Iolaus could not save him from himself forever, and he would have tried again and succeeded had he not been told to consult the oracle. The hope that there might be an answer to his misery – an escape from his suffering – had given him the will to go on. And the promise of the Pythoness that there was a path to absolution had lent him the strength to continue. But now the path had ended. Hera had won.
He placed his hand on the hunting knife in his belt, drawing it slowly from its scabbard. The blade ran crimson with the dying colours of the sunset. If there was no way to complete the labour he had been set, then he would not spend the rest of his days under a shadow. Better to end them now than to wander from city to city, hated and rejected by all who knew of him and what he had done. He gripped the hilt hard and raised it level with his chest. Then he brought it down with a thump into the hard earth.
‘And I’ll be damned if I’m going to quit at the second labour!’ he shouted, his voice rolling back from the surrounding hillsides. ‘Mock me if you like – I don’t care. I don’t give up!’
He looked at the next ridge, where the hind had returned to look down at him.
‘What are you staring at!’ he roared.
Then he threw his lion-skin on the grass and lay down, succumbing quickly to his tiredness. Strangely, his dreams were not haunted by the hind, or memories of his dead sons. Instead, he dreamed of Megara. She stood on the ridge above where he lay, dressed in a long white dress and wearing a golden tiara in her hair. She held something in her hand, something small wrapped in cloth, but when he asked what it was she just smiled and ran away. He tried to follow, only to find she was already at the next ridge. Soon she was at the ridge beyond that, before fading from sight altogether.
He did not see the hind the next day, or the day after, though he was still able to follow her tracks in the earth. They led westward, through the mountain passes and down into the plains. Where the creature was leading him – for leading him she was – he did not know. Nor did he care. To press the pursuit was useless. All he could do was follow and wait, praying to Zeus that an opportunity would come. And when it did, he had to be ready to take it.
On the third day it rained. It was a cold rain, blowing against his back from the east, though his lion’s pelt kept him dry and warm. He had left the high mountains behind. The hind’s course avoided the roads and villages of men and followed the hidden valleys in the hills. Here, the incessant rain began to wash down the slopes, taking the top layer of soil and the tracks of the hind with it. By the time evening came – with the sun slipping away unseen behind the ceiling of cloud – he had lost the trail entirely.
He made camp in a nearby wood. After failing to light a fire, he ate a frugal meal from a few berries he had gathered and the last oatcake from his satchel. Then he lay down and let his mind drift naturally to Megara. Until his dream the other night, he had barely dared to think about her because their parting had been so terrible. Of all the many women he had slept with, she had been the only one to capture his heart. He had loved her with a lasting passion, and she had loved him back with equal delight. Her ardour for him had only ebbed with the arrival of Therimachus and the natural dividing of her affections. With the child’s death, it had died altogether. Yet in his dream she had smiled, and the simple kindness in that expression reminded him of the woman he had known. The memories of her that he had turned away from began to return, filling him with joy and sadness in equal measure. When sleep finally took him, it was with tears in his eyes.
He awoke to the smell of deer. Opening his eyes, he glimpsed blue skies through the canopy above, then sat up and looked about himself. The foliage glistened with yesterday’s rain, and for a few moments the only sound was the occasional dripping of water onto the leaf-covered floor of the wood. Then he heard the snap of a twig.
He turned onto all fours and reached for the rope at his side. Keeping himself low, he eased his head over the low shrub that he had sheltered behind the night before. Then he saw her. Just a movement of leaves at first, followed shortly after by an
antlered head and brown body. His heart sank at the realization it was not the hind, but revived quickly again at the prospect of roast venison.
Dropping the lasso, he groped instead for his bow. As quietly as he could, he fitted an arrow and took aim, hoping the growling of his stomach would not give him away. The deer turned its head towards him, but it was too late. The bowstring twanged and the animal folded forward onto its knees. It kicked briefly with its back legs – a defiant last attempt to stand – then fell on its side.
Heracles gathered up his things and ran over to the dead beast. He had not eaten meat since his visit to Molorchus, and the thought of the deer’s flesh made his mouth water. Plucking out his arrow, he heaved the warm carcass onto his back and made his way back to the edge of the wood. With the sun already up, he would soon find some dry kindling and logs to make a fire with, after which he would sit under the eaves and enjoy his meal. Then he would continue westward – the direction the hind had pursued for the past two days – in the hope of picking up a fresh trail.
He left the shade of the wood and looked down into the plain below. It was still in shadow, though he could see the silver trail of the Celadon passing through it. There were several farmsteads, marked by thin pillars of smoke, and he thought he could spy a wagon making its slow course along the road that ran parallel with the river. He was just thinking that he had not seen another person in almost a week, when suddenly he was alerted by the sound of bells from the ridge behind him. The clanging, discordant noise was accompanied by a voice, happily singing some childish rhyme that he did not recognize. Slipping back under the eaves, he waited for its owner to appear.
After a few moments, a pair of goats came over the ridge and shambled along a thin, well-trodden path that ran beside the wood. Others followed in ones and twos, and then came a herd of a dozen or more, bleating loudly as they jostled against each other. Heracles twitched his nose at the musty smell of their fleeces, carried to him on the breeze. At the back of the herd was a small girl with brown skin and black hair that flowed down to her ribs. She continued to sing as she tapped the backs of her flock with her crook, her gentle voice beautiful in contrast to their din.