SON OF ZEUS

by Glyn Iliffe

  Heracles looked down at the large sack on the floor of the chariot. He had not known what to expect after defeating the monster. He had put his faith in the promise of the Pythoness, that killing the beast would somehow reveal why he had murdered his own children. Perhaps the fight would have brought out a hidden facet of his character, some deeply buried, uncontrollable rage that explained his violent actions that night in Thebes. Or maybe it would have unlocked a suppressed memory, exposing why a loving father could choke his own sons to death. But he had seen nothing, felt nothing, remembered nothing. He had even searched the Hydra’s lair, looking for some clue to what had happened that night. But all he had found were the bones of the monster’s victims.

  Undeterred, Heracles had journeyed to Mount Parnassus, set on confronting the Pythoness. At the entrance to the oracle, he had thrown the sack across his back and demanded angrily that the priests take him to their mistress. They had protested at first, but faced with his anger decided to make the other pilgrims wait while he and Iolaus were led into the presence of the priestess. The sight of her serpent-like pupils and forked tongue had shocked the young squire, and even Heracles was reminded uncomfortably of the heads of the Hydra. But his hesitation was momentary.

  ‘You told me I would find answers after I had slain the spawn of Echidna.’

  ‘The Pythoness did not say—’

  ‘Silence, Elatos,’ she had commanded her priest. ‘The son of Zeus wants answers, not excuses. Is that not so, Heracles?’

  He had replied with a nod.

  ‘Have you slain the Hydra? Do you have the immortal head?’

  He kicked the sack on the floor beside him. It gave a jerk, but no sound came from it.

  ‘Then that part of the prophecy has been fulfilled. Now you must return to the city of King Eurystheus. Tiryns holds the answer you seek.’

  And so his audience had ended. The priestess had pulled the hood over her head and refused to acknowledge any further questions. Leaving the cave as confused as when they had entered, they drove to Tiryns, with Heracles turning the Pythoness’s words over and over in his mind. Did Eurystheus have the answer he sought? Would Hera – delighting in his misery – reveal something to Charis? Who in Tiryns could tell him why he had killed his children?

  An old woman appeared on the flat roof of one of the houses that lined the street. She held a garland of flowers in her hand, which she threw onto the road before the passing chariot.

  ‘Hail, son of Zeus, saviour of Tiryns,’ she cried.

  ‘Mad old bitch!’ cursed an officer with a sword. He pushed two spearmen towards the door of her house. ‘Get up there and sort her out.’

  The soldiers ran to the house and kicked the door from its hinges, before storming inside. As the chariot rode over the garland, Heracles looked up and met the woman’s gaze. Whatever she was, he thought, she was not mad. Part of him wanted to jump down and run into the house after the spearmen; but he also knew this was not the time to pick a fight with Eurystheus’s soldiers. Though that time would come. The last he saw of her was as she was being dragged away from the rooftop.

  Iolaus drove the chariot on between the lines of guards until they reached the gates of the citadel. Here, an escort of spearmen formed up beside them and a soldier stepped forward to take hold of the two horses. Heracles recognized the youth who had been assigned to watch over him during the days before his first labour. The young soldier glanced up at him, and Heracles met his gaze with a nod. The lad averted his eyes to the ranks of the escort, afraid the gesture of recognition had been noticed. Then he stared back at Heracles.

  ‘Did you kill the monster?’ he asked, quietly but with undisguised curiosity.

  It must have been the question on the lips of every citizen of Tiryns, and doubtless he wanted to be the first to share the answer with the rest of the city. But he was to pay the price for his inquisitiveness.

  ‘Officer of the guard!’

  Tydeus came striding up the road behind them, resplendent in full armour and with a red plume flowing back from the top of his helmet. The escort snapped to attention and the soldier at the end of the row – a sudden look of consternation troubling his features – took a step forward.

  ‘Did I or did I not give orders that no one – no one – was to speak to the king’s slave?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Then why is that guardsman talking to him?’

  ‘I…’ the officer began, glaring at the youth. ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Take him to the guardhouse. And I’ll speak to you later.’

  ‘Sir!’

  The officer signalled to the two men beside him. They trotted over to the pair of horses, one taking hold of the traces and the other seizing the young guardsman by the arm. Heracles watched as he was led away, knowing there was nothing he could do or say in his defence. Tydeus pointed to the gates and two more soldiers ran over to push them open. Then he stepped up to the wheel of the chariot and gave Heracles a scornful look.

  ‘So, you escaped with your life, then,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Or did you take one look at the Hydra and run away?’

  Heracles took the reins from Iolaus’s hands and snapped them across the horses’ backs. The soldier released his hold on the traces and leaped aside as they sprang towards the gates, forcing the guards back against the walls and trotting through into the avenue of rich houses and temples that led up to the palace. There were more spearmen lining the streets within, and at the command of Tydeus they ran forward to stop the chariot. Heracles gave a shout and drove through them, sending them leaping in every direction while Iolaus laughed with delight. But the show of insolence was for nothing. The battlements that protected the palace were empty and Heracles knew there was little point in driving round to the side gates, which would be barred against him. He pulled on the reins and skidded the chariot to a halt before the shadow of the high walls.

  Behind them, Tydeus had reformed the scattered guards into a double line and was ordering them to advance. Heracles vaulted the chariot rail and walked determinedly towards them. The front rank of soldiers locked their oxhide shields together and lowered their spears to form a bristling hedge of bronze. Glad of the chance to vent his anger, Heracles’s lips curled back in a sneer.

  ‘Take him alive,’ Tydeus shouted.

  But his men were under no illusions that they might be able to overpower the colossus before them, or somehow hold him against his will. A guard at the edge of the line raised his spear over his shoulder and threw it. Heracles ducked aside, raising his forearm like a shield to deflect the weapon over his shoulder. He broke into a run, noting at a glance the expressions on the faces of the men before him. A few were gripped with fear and would have fled, had it not been for the second line of soldiers behind them. Others showed more courage, clutching their spears with both hands and gritting their teeth as they prepared to meet the assault.

  Heracles felt no fear or hesitation, only a growing fury. Turning aside at the last moment and pulling his cloak across his body, he crashed through the line of spears – the impenetrable lion-skin resisting the sharpened points and driving them aside – and shouldered his way irresistibly through the wall of shields. Three or four men fell beneath the force of his attack, crying out as the breath was knocked from their bodies or as they tumbled over each other. The others tried to turn their unwieldy weapons on Heracles, but their efforts were futile. A swing of his fist sent a soldier flying backwards, to land in a heap on the cobbled street several paces away. Another was grabbed by an arm and a leg and thrown into a group of men who had broken away from the opposite end of the line and were coming to the aid of their comrades. They fell like corn before a sickle.

  Two guards lunged at Heracles. Taking hold of the shafts of their spears in his great fists, his snapped them in half and tossed the pieces away contemptuously. Before his attackers could flee, he reached up and seized their helmets, pushing their heads together with a metallic clang. They fell to the g
round, unconscious. Then he heard a familiar shout and span round to see Iolaus, his sword gripped in both hands, charging at what remained of the Tirynian shield wall. Heracles’s eyes widened with sudden fear, as three spearmen advanced to meet his squire’s attack. By excellent judgement – or pure good fortune – Iolaus swung his sword down and knocked two of the bronze points aside, before slipping past the third and barging into the middle soldier’s shield, knocking him to the ground. One of the others threw down his weapon and ran, but the other raised his shield and jabbed at Iolaus with his spear point.

  ‘I don’t care what the king will say,’ said a voice behind Heracles. ‘I’m going to kill you this time.’

  He turned to see Tydeus, with sword drawn and a shield on his other arm. The captain of the guard leaped at him, driving the boss of his shield into Heracles’s face and sending him reeling backwards. He caught his heel on the leg of an unconscious soldier and fell with a curse upon the cobbled road. Squinting against the pain of the blow, he looked up to see the figure of Tydeus, his face contorted with rage and his sword raised high over his head to deliver the killing blow.

  Heracles’s outstretched hand touched something curved and metallic. Seizing hold of the discarded helmet, he raised it just in time to meet the fall of Tydeus’s blade.

  ‘Stop! Stop this at once!’

  The voice came from the battlements above. Tydeus gritted his teeth with frustration and indecision, then with a shout of rage, lifted his sword for a second blow.

  ‘Kill him, Tydeus, and your own head will follow!’

  The captain hurled his sword down onto the cobbles and walked away. Heracles turned and looked up at the walls of the citadel. The sunset sky had faded to azure, and the first few stars were visible above the ramparts, where several slaves were fitting torches into iron brackets. Eurystheus stood at a gap in the crenellated wall. Copreus was beside him, gripping the stonework with his maimed hand. But it was not the king or his herald who had shouted for Tydeus to stay his hand. It was Iphicles, whose normally staid features were etched with anger.

  ‘My brother poses no threat to the king up here,’ he said, speaking to Tydeus. ‘Withdraw your men.’

  Tydeus spat on the cobbles, then retrieved his sword and waved his men back. Several had to be carried, and though the remainder formed a new line only a few paces away, they left a litter of broken spears and abandoned shields behind them. At the sound of Iphicles’s voice, Iolaus had broken off his fight with the soldier and returned to the chariot. He stared up at his father, who avoided his gaze.

  Eurystheus looked disdainfully down at Heracles, who had picked himself up from the cobbles and joined his nephew in the chariot.

  ‘Who’s the boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Iolaus, my lord,’ Iphicles answered. ‘A Theban prince, grandson to King Creon. And my son.’

  ‘So this is your son?’ Eurystheus said, eyeing the young man more closely. ‘You must join our evening feast, Iolaus, son of Iphicles – after my slaves have washed away the dust from your travels and dressed you in a new—’

  ‘Thank you, my lord, but I would rather stay with my master.’

  ‘Your master?’

  ‘Iolaus is my squire,’ Heracles said. ‘He accompanied me into the Lernean Swamp.’

  ‘You went with him?’ Iphicles exclaimed, gripping the walls as he stared down at his son.

  ‘Yes, and why shouldn’t I?’ Iolaus said. ‘A squire’s place is at his master’s side.’

  ‘And a son’s place—’

  ‘Is at his father’s side?’ Iolaus spat. ‘Heracles has been more of a father to me than you ever were!’

  Iphicles looked down at his son, and for once his intellect could not find words for a reply. He sighed and switched his gaze to his brother.

  ‘These tasks are meant for you and you alone. How dare you ask Iolaus to follow you on such a reckless adventure?’

  ‘I did not ask him. He followed me. Your son’s a man now, Iphicles, and a man can make his own choices – including about whose company he prefers.’

  ‘Then he assisted you in the labour?’ asked another voice.

  Charis, who had remained out of sight, stepped up to the battlements. She looked down at the two men with a curious look on her face.

  ‘I did nothing,’ Iolaus responded. ‘The labour was given to Heracles, not me.’

  ‘Indeed it was, but you loaned him your sword and suggested he use fire on the monster’s wounds, did you not?’ Charis demanded.

  ‘That was all. I didn’t take any part in the fight, unless you count firing a few arrows that had no effect whatsoever.’

  Iolaus glanced uncertainly at Heracles, who rolled his eyes and sighed. The figures on the battlements pulled away, and for a while their hushed conversation drifted down in snatches to the men waiting below. Finally, Eurystheus reappeared, flanked by his advisers.

  ‘Did you succeed in killing the Hydra?’ he asked.

  Heracles stepped down from the back of the chariot and picked up the sack, pulling it off to reveal the Hydra’s immortal head. Its red eyes glowed in the twilight as they rolled this way and that. There was a leather cord about its jaws, which Heracles unknotted as he tossed the head onto the cobblestones. The ranks of guardsmen cried out in horror as it snapped its jaws at them, some retreating behind their shields with their spears lowered defensively, while others flung down their weapons and ran off towards the gates. Tydeus sneered at their cowardice and approached to within an arm’s length of the monstrosity, as much to demonstrate his own lack of fear as to study the hideousness of the severed head.

  ‘Careful,’ Heracles warned him. ‘Its breath is toxic. A single lungful is enough to kill a man.’

  The head opened its jaws and Tydeus jumped backwards, trying to put enough distance between himself and the remains of the Hydra while keeping something of his dignity. Heracles omitted to add that as the creature no longer had lungs to breathe, it could not spew out its poison.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Eurystheus announced from the battlements, ‘As you were assisted by your squire, the labour can no longer be counted among the ten.’

  ‘What !’ Heracles’s shout rang back from the walls and echoed among the side streets and houses of the citadel. ‘I completed the task you set me. I killed the Hydra, a monster so terrible your own soldiers flee before a single one of its heads. How dare you tell me the labour does not count?’

  ‘The task was given to you, Heracles,’ Charis said. ‘To be completed alone, not with the help of Iolaus. Do you think Hera will allow herself to be cheated?’

  Running to one of the guardsmen, Heracles wrenched the spear from the man’s hand. Before Tydeus or the other soldiers could stop him, he pulled it back over his shoulder and took aim at the king.

  ‘No!’ Iolaus called.

  Heracles remembered the horrors he had faced to defeat the Hydra, brought clearly back to him by the sight of its immortal head on the flagstones. That a coward like Eurystheus could dare to discount his victory filled him with rage, and yet he knew that to hurl the spear into his cousin’s chest would end his hopes of ever being free from his guilt.

  The moment’s hesitation was enough for several pairs of hands to grab Heracles from behind and tear the spear from his grip. A backward sweep of his arm sent the soldiers tumbling back across the cobblestones, but Eurystheus had already given a squeal and fallen back from the battlements. Heracles shot a warning look at Tydeus, who stood with his sword drawn, then crossed to the chariot and mounted.

  ‘Get us out of here,’ he growled.

  Iolaus pulled on the reins and the horses dragged the chariot round in a half circle, before clattering down the slope towards the gates. The guards moved aside to let them through and they continued into the lower city, passing the lines of soldiers until they reached the lower gate and the slums beyond. Heracles directed Iolaus between the spearmen – forcing them to leap aside – and into one of the side streets. There were no soldiers
here, and after a while the doorways, windows and roofs were filled with onlookers. They were the lowest of all the citizens of Tiryns. Many were filthy, malnourished and poorly dressed, and yet there was no resentment in their faces as they watched the two noblemen pass by. Several called out Heracles’s name.

  But while Iolaus noted their adoration of his uncle, Heracles’s own thoughts were focused on his hatred for Eurystheus and Iphicles. Knowing his only hope of release from his crimes lay in completing ten labours for his cousin, they had set him tasks they knew to be impossible. And yet when he accomplished them, they dared to steal his triumph from him. That he had killed the Hydra for nothing made him seethe with rage, to the point that he regretted not hurling the spear at Iphicles. If he could not kill Eurystheus, he could at least have killed his hated brother.

  The streets soon became too narrow for the chariot to pass through. Dismounting by a forge, Heracles gave the reins to the blacksmith and told him to look after the horses for him. Then, with Iolaus at his heels, he pushed through the crowds of grinning well-wishers to the street where his hut lay. It offered none of the comforts he had enjoyed in his old home overlooking Thebes, but he no longer cared. Not only had his third labour counted for nothing, but he had not even not found out why he had killed his children. All he wanted to do was throw himself down on his thin straw mattress and sleep. Otherwise he might be tempted to find some wine and get himself drunk. And in his current mood, that would only lead to trouble.

  The crowds had thinned by the time he reached the hut. He saw one of his neighbours in her doorway, a look of concern on her face. Not wanting to get involved in the worries of others, he kicked the door of his hut open and stepped inside.

  ‘I’m going to sleep,’ he told Iolaus. ‘There’s fruit and dried meat in my satchel if you’re…’

  Sensing a presence, he gripped the club hanging from his belt and unslipped the knot. He heard Iolaus’s sword scrape free of its scabbard behind him.

  ‘Who’s there?’