Then there was a dull crash, followed by a scream. The man pulled his cloak about himself and hobbled to the portico. A deep-throated roar of anger was followed by further screams and the splintering of wood. Doors banged and several voices cried out in sudden alarm. Within a matter of moments, the house had been roused from its slumber and was alive with the sound of chaos. A cry of anguish was cut abruptly short. More screams followed. The man reached the portico just as the main door was thrown wide open and a male slave ran out. He was barefoot and wore only a tunic as he leaped down the steps and sprinted to the road, not daring to look back.
With the door open, the commotion from within the house became suddenly louder. The bellowing voice unleashed its fury once again, and was followed by terrified screams and the sound of running feet. Two maids appeared in the doorway. One was the girl who had been picking the animal dung earlier. She wore the same grubby dress, while her companion only had a cloak to cover her nakedness. Like the male slave, neither had sandals. Ignoring the hooded man, they glanced back over their shoulders with wide, terrified eyes, then screamed in unison and ran out into the night.
A loud crash was followed by another roar from deeper within the house – the voice human, but only barely so. The hooded man stepped up onto the raised portico, to be confronted by a figure in the doorway. It was the housekeeper. Her eyes were confused and fearful. She gave a shocked gasp at the sight of him, then clapped her hands to her cheeks.
‘Oh, help us! Help us! The gods have robbed him of his senses.’
‘Robbed who?’
‘My master, Heracles. I’m terrified he’ll harm the children. Oh, sir,’ she said, taking his hand in both of hers, ‘please save them. They’re upstairs in their bedroom. If you—’
She stopped and looked at his face, finally recognizing him.
‘It’s you. Why have you come back?’ It only took another moment for the expression on her astute features to change to one of suspicion. ‘What were those mushrooms you gave me? Why did you insist on giving me them, when you could have just taken the bread and gone? What did you do?’
She curled her hands into fists and beat them against his chest. Grabbing her wrists, he pulled her from the doorway and pushed her from the raised portico. She fell down the steps and landed in a heap on the ground. The sound of slamming doors and the thud of something heavy being thrown against a wall echoed from within the house. The hooded man turned and placed his foot on the threshold, while behind him the old housekeeper pushed herself up from the dust.
‘You did this,’ she said, her voice distorted with the pain of her fall. ‘If my master harms those boys or his wife – gods forbid it – I’ll see you pay for it. The king will hunt you down if his daughter or grandsons are harmed; he’ll bring you to justice for what you’ve done. It won’t be difficult to find a man with a bad leg and a missing finger.’
The man looked at her, saying nothing in reply; then he descended the steps towards her. Realizing his intent, the housekeeper gave a panicked cry and struggled to her feet. She lurched towards the road, calling for help. But there was no one left to hear her. The hooded man seized her shoulder and pulled her back. Crooking his arm around her neck, he squeezed tightly until her shouts became strangled croaks, and then died away to nothing. He lowered his mouth to her ear and her wide, pale eyes wheeled towards him.
‘You should have stayed quiet,’ he told her. ‘You might even have lived.’
He grunted and gave a sharp jerk of his arm. There was a snap of breaking bone and the housekeeper went limp. Slipping his hands beneath her armpits, he dragged her body to the shadows beneath the olive grove and threw it behind a shrub.
Another scream erupted from the house. The man jerked his head round, then ran as fast as his bad leg would allow towards the open door. He entered a large, square chamber, lit by a smouldering hearth. The flickering flames cast deep shadows around the walls, which were adorned with tapestries and hung with a variety of armour and weapons. A few chairs had been scattered across the room, which was otherwise empty.
A series of cries erupted from the other side of a small door in the opposite wall – the voices of a man and a woman, followed by the sound of snarling and then a shout that ended with a thud and a groan. The man rushed across the chamber and pulled open the door. He stepped out into a cloistered garden, overlooked on its four sides by the upper rooms of the house. The shadows here were deep, but enough starlight penetrated the darkness to reveal a pale path leading between flowering shrubs to a round lawn. A male slave lay among the bushes to his left, groaning feebly as he tried to raise himself onto all fours, before collapsing again onto his front.
The hooded man edged forward, eyeing the windows in the walls above and the cloisters on either side. Then he heard the voice of a woman from inside the house.
‘Heracles, my love,’ she sobbed. ‘This isn’t you. This isn’t you! Please, listen to me. I’m terrified of what you’ll do.’
He hurried to the door on the other side of the garden, which opened into an unlit passageway. The slave on the lawn behind him grabbed hold of a stone seat and pulled himself to his feet.
‘I tried to stop him,’ he groaned. ‘But he nearly killed me – picked me up like a toy and threw me against a wall. Would have finished me off, too, if she hadn’t distracted him. May the gods protect her.’
He cast a fearful glance towards the door, then staggered across the garden and into the hall. The hooded man ignored him and entered the corridor. There was a faint glow to his left, and the spit and crackle of fire was audible in the darkness. He moved slowly towards it.
‘Don’t you recognize me, my love?’ the woman pleaded. There was a high-pitched ring of terror in her voice. ‘It’s me, Megara, your wife!’
A sudden roar filled the corridor, making the hooded man stop in his tracks. The woman screamed, and the sound of other, fainter voices could also be heard crying out in terror. Hurrying round the corner, he saw a man standing several paces away at the foot of a flight of steps. He was tall and massively built, the bulge of his muscles gleaming in the light of the torch that he held. He was staring up at the top of the stairs, his expression fierce and his eyes dark and unreasoning – the eyes of an animal.
‘Please, Heracles, don’t harm our children,’ Megara implored him, speaking from the blackness at the top of the steps. ‘You love them with all your heart. Don’t you remember? No child ever had a father like you. Take me if you have to, but leave them—’
Heracles raised his fists towards the ceiling and released a ferocious, wordless cry of torment that seemed to shake the walls of the passage. Dropping his torch on the steps, he lowered his chin to his chest and curled his arms over his head, as if trying to shut out voices that only he could hear. The hooded man allowed himself a satisfied smile. Then Heracles began to pull at his own hair, growling and yelling, smashing his fists against the plastered walls as he fought whatever was inside him – and lost. He raised his face towards the top of the stairs. If anything had remained of the man Heracles, it had finally succumbed to the beast within. His eyes were narrowed and his teeth clenched, his huge hands repeatedly grasping at something unseen. Then he set his foot on the first step and began to ascend.
Megara screamed again. The echo of it filled the passageway, causing even the smile on the hooded man’s face to waver. He ran to the foot of the stairs and looked up. Heracles’s great bulk was faintly visible at the top, a deeper darkness among the shadows. He seemed to hesitate, not knowing which way to turn. Then his attention was caught by the sound of high voices crying out in fear and panic to his left – the voices of his sons. He turned towards them, only to be drawn back again by another voice.
‘This way! This way, my love,’ Megara called to him from the right-hand corridor. She sounded calmer now, more determined – certain that the only way to save her children was to draw Heracles away from them. ‘Come this way, damn you!’
He turned towards her,
emitting a low snarling sound as he followed her voice.
‘Therimachus!’ she called, her high voice loud with panic. ‘Therimachus, be brave. Take your brothers downstairs and run down to the city. Go find your grandfather.’
The hooded man picked up the torch and drew his sword with his other hand. As he climbed the steps, he heard the sound of a door slamming shut, followed by a furious roar and the rapid pounding of a fist against wood. The door gave way with a splintering crash and then a last, terrible scream reverberated through the dark corridors of the upper floor.
A moment later, another door clicked open and the sound of small bare feet on stone was accompanied by quiet crying. A boy appeared at the top of the stairs. He was young – only five or six, though tall for his age – and his handsome face was pale with terror. He held a younger child in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, and was followed by another, who was clinging desperately onto his brother’s tunic. Both the older boys were crying, but the sight of the hooded man on the stairs below startled them into silence.
‘Please help us,’ the older boy said, finding his voice. ‘Take my brothers with you. Take them somewhere safe. I have to go and help my mother.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ the hooded man growled, raising his knife. The blade shone a menacing red in the torchlight, and the children stepped back with a gasp. ‘Get back to your room, or I’ll kill you myself.’
The oldest boy hesitated, his expression perplexed. Then the sound of a low growl made him look along the corridor. Suddenly, he turned and ran, taking his brothers with him. A terrifying roar boomed out of the darkness and was followed by the sound of heavy footfalls. The hooded man barely had time to drop the torch on the steps and scramble down to the corridor below before Heracles came charging past the opening above. A door slammed shut and furniture could be heard being dragged across stone floors. A howl of rage was followed by the sound of the door being torn from its brackets.
‘Daddy! Daddy, please—’
The children’s screams rose above their father’s growls. The desperate cries continued for some time, rooting the hooded man to the bottom of the stairs where he stared up into the shadows with a look of horror on his features. Then, when the echo of last scream had died away to leave absolute silence, he retrieved the torch and found his way hurriedly back through the house to the portico.
A thin moon had risen outside, casting pale shadows across the surrounding countryside and settling with a ghostly luminescence on the city in the valley below. Tossing the torch aside, he retrieved the body of the old woman from the bushes where he had left it, then limped slowly down the road with it over his shoulder. Remembering a ravine he had passed on his way to the house, he threw the housekeeper’s corpse into its shadows and listened to the soft thumps recede. Then he made for the place where his companions were waiting.
They saw him approaching along the empty road and mounted their horses, riding out to meet him. Five were soldiers, their shields slung across their backs and their spears held erect at their sides. The sixth was a short man with a large stomach, dressed in a fine woollen tunic and a double cloak.
‘Is it done, Copreus?’ he asked, his large eyes eager with expectation.
‘Yes, my lord. It is done. The mushrooms turned his mind, and I listened to him kill his family. When his sanity returns, his grief will compel him to take his own life. If not, Creon will be sure to execute him for the deaths of his daughter and grandchildren.’
The man on the horse closed his eyes and looked to the heavens, an expression of gratitude and relief on his face. After a while, he lowered his gaze back to the hooded man.
‘Well, Copreus, it seems you’ve earned your place as my herald. You have avenged your father’s death, and I have finally secured my throne. Yet you seem concerned.’
‘Confused, my lord,’ Copreus said, taking the reins of his horse from one of the soldiers and mounting. ‘I did not question you when you said you wanted to send Heracles mad, so that he would kill his family and then himself. I even went back to my homeland to find the mushrooms that would rob him of his sanity. But I don’t understand why. Death cap mushrooms would have given him a painful and certain death and… and would have spared his family.’
The other man laughed.
‘Feeling some remorse, my friend?’ he asked. ‘Don’t. I had my orders.’
‘Orders? Who does King Eurystheus take orders from?’
‘Come with me,’ Eurystheus said, urging his mount away from the group of soldiers and signalling for Copreus to follow him. ‘Who do you think?’ he continued, keeping his voice low. ‘From the gods, of course. From Hera herself. She came to me while I was praying in her temple – not to Charis, you understand, but me. She is beautiful beyond your most vivid dreams, Copreus, and her power! If you could only understand the things she has promised me when Heracles is dead! It was she who told me to destroy Zeus’s bastard, but warned me not to leave anything that would indicate her involvement. The King of the Gods has forbidden her to harm his son directly, so murdering him – whether by an assassin’s knife or death cap mushrooms – would raise too many questions. That’s why he has to take his own life, or be executed for his crimes. Zeus will have his suspicions, of course, but without proof, he cannot put the blame on his wife. Neither can it be traced back to us. You and I, my herald, have committed the perfect murder.’
Chapter Eleven
CHARIS
Heracles’s eyes snapped open. He was lying in the cave, his body bathed in warm sunlight. Pushing himself up onto his elbows, he could see the morning sun climbing over the shoulder of rock that hid the entrance to Mount Atlas. The fire, left unattended for a whole night, had long since died out. Then he saw the apple beside him, its once golden skin now wrinkled and brown, and the white flesh where he had bitten into it an unappetising yellow. The other fruits were still in the reed net, gleaming boldly in the sunshine.
Then he remembered the vision and sat up, clutching his face in his hands. At last, he knew the full truth. Copreus had merely been an instrument in the destruction of his family. It was Eurystheus, acting willingly on the orders of Hera, who had plotted the details of his downfall. Whereas Copreus had only wanted to see Heracles dead, Eurystheus had insisted on driving him insane, so that he would kill his family and commit suicide in the aftermath. Eurystheus! His cowardly cousin, who had always seemed so pathetic and incapable of making a decision of his own. And it would have been the perfect murder he had planned for, were it not for Iolaus’s timely arrival at the house, diverting the point of the sword that a moment earlier Heracles had been aiming at his own heart.
But Eurystheus was the one person Heracles could not exact his revenge upon. The day he had given himself to be his cousin’s bondsman, he had also sworn by the name of Zeus never to harm him. However much he wanted to close his hands around his throat and look into his bulging eyes as he squeezed the life from him, he had forbidden himself that pleasure.
Yet never had he felt so desperately the need for vengeance. It overwhelmed his thoughts and tore at his nerves, so that he had to force himself not to throw his club at the cave wall, or use it to smash to a pulp the apples he had done so much to win. He wanted to unleash his anger on Eurystheus, but could not even give himself the satisfaction of planning his destruction. Instead, he was forced to dwell on what he had seen. Indeed, it was the awful vision that now provoked his rising fury. The apple had allowed him to see himself on the dreadful night of his madness, through the consciousness of Copreus. He had been barely recognizable, a monster summoned from the deepest folds of his soul. How could he ever forget the pleading in Megara’s voice? Her love for him had still been evident; her desperation to save her children even more so. But worst of all had been the sound of his children’s screams as he had taken their lives. The only mercy had been that he had not seen it through his own eyes.
The journey back to Tiryns on foot was a long one. The apples remained fresh and
firm, but he felt the passing of time more urgently, like an unbandaged cut that was slowly bleeding him to death. After reaching the Adriatic coast, he made the last leg of his journey by sea, working for his passage on a merchant galley that took him to the Argolid. Finally, half a year after he had left Tiryns, he saw the city’s walls and towers in the distance, gleaming in the autumn sunshine.
Again, there was no escort to greet him as he entered the outer slums. There was no need. A sense of fear hung over the decrepit hovels and the unhappy people that dwelled in them. At his approach, the streets emptied and doors were slammed shut. Even the beggars pulled their tattered hoods over their heads and slunk deeper into the shadows. Those who had once looked to him as their provider and protector were now more conscious of the eyes of the spearmen watching from the city walls.
He reached the gates, which opened to let him in. The guards regarded him suspiciously as he entered, their officers standing ready to bark orders at the first sign of trouble. But they allowed him to make his way up to the citadel unescorted, except for a single runner, who sprinted ahead of him.
The arched portals were already open, and he passed through into the shadows cast by the two-storey houses of the nobles and wealthy merchants. The street that led to the high walls of the palace was lined with spearmen and archers – two hundred of them, at least – with the mercenaries Tydeus had hired standing in a single disciplined rank beneath the battlements. They were armed with long spears, swords and heavy, double-bladed axes, and their battle-scarred breastplates and dinted helmets spoke of their many battles. And though there was respect in their eyes as they watched Heracles approach, there was no fear.
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