He walked towards it and, gripping the rim, threw it on its side. The clay broke as it hit the flagstones, sending pieces skidding in various directions. And in the middle of the mess was Eurystheus, his crown lying among the fragments of pottery around him.
The king struggled to his knees and stared at Heracles through tear-filled eyes.
‘Forgive me, cousin. I never meant to send you on those labours. I was only following the instructions of the gods. If it hadn’t have been for Hera, I would never have subjected you to such danger and humiliation. I would have welcomed you like a brother and gladly shared my wealth with you. In fact, you can have my kingdom. It’s yours. All I ask is that you let me go – don’t give me to them.’
‘You mean the people? I wouldn’t do that, cousin.’
‘Thank you, Heracles. Thank you.’
‘I’m not interested in your throne, either. All I want is for you to acknowledge that the final labour is complete. Look behind you and you’ll see I’ve fulfilled your command.’
The king’s eyes widened and, slowly, he looked over his shoulder. Cerberus emerged from behind the pillars, snarling loudly and drooling long globs of saliva over the flagstones. With a terrified scream, Eurystheus scrambled forwards on his hands and knees.
‘Protect me, cousin. In the names of all the gods, protect me.’
He tried to throw his arms around Heracles’s knees, but Heracles placed his foot on his chest and kicked him onto his back.
‘Have the labours been completed according to your orders?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, yes, just send it away. Send it back to the Underworld.’
Heracles sighed, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
‘One more thing, cousin: you say you were only following the orders of the gods.’
‘You know I was—’
‘Just as you were when you ordered the deaths of my family, by my hand.’
Eurystheus swallowed, his eyes wide. Then he shook his head.
‘That’s ridiculous. How could I—’
‘You sent Copreus to my house! You ordered that I should be sent mad and kill my children!’
He took a step towards Eurystheus, his eyes blazing with fury. The king threw his hands over his head and curled up into a ball.
‘Yes, yes! I did it,’ he yelped ‘But only because Hera commanded me to. I swear it—’
‘No, Eurystheus. The gods have one limitation: they cannot command the will of men; they must give something in return. You did it because she offered you wealth and power. That was all. And now you will have both your wishes. I will not throw you to the people, as you deserve; and I will send Cerberus back to the Underworld.’ He looked at the hound, still snarling as it approached Eurystheus. ‘Go, Cerberus. Return to your master’s kingdom. And take him this man as a gift of gratitude from me.’
He pointed to Eurystheus, who gave a final scream as the hellhound snatched him up in one of its mouths and bounded out to the empty terrace. Heracles did not see the monster leap from the battlements or race through the streets of the town, but he heard the shouts of dismay and screams of terror that followed its progress.
Then he saw the golden crown, gleaming as it reflected the flames of the hearth. He picked it up and walked out to the battlements. A large crowd was gathered in the street below. Several bodies lay scattered about, but the fighting was over. The jubilation of the victors had been cut short by the appearance of Cerberus, yet it was clear that the rebellion had succeeded. Eurystheus was gone forever and his army defeated. For a short while at least, the people were in charge of their own destiny.
‘Hail, son of Zeus!’
The lone cry was joined by others, until within moments it had been taken up by every man and woman in the citadel.
‘Heracles for king!’ shouted another voice.
Thyestes stepped forward, raising his blood-soaked sword in salute to the man he wanted to be the new ruler of Tiryns. Others echoed his demand, but Heracles held up his hand for silence.
‘Throne rooms and crowns are not for me,’ he said. ‘My destiny lies elsewhere. You must choose yourself another king.’
He looked down at the crown, still clutched in his bloodstained fingers. He turned it this way and that, watching the light slide over the gold. Then he tossed it into the air. It fell, twisting and gleaming, finally landing on the outstretched sword of Thyestes.
* * *
Heracles stood on the threshold of his house. The sun was bright and hot on his back, though the roof of the portico shielded his head and shoulders. The bloodstains on the floor had long since been scrubbed clean, and the doors had been recently painted in a fresh white. He pressed his fingertips against them and they opened silently.
The hall was steeped in shadow, but for the glowing embers of the hearth and a shaft of sparkling gold from the vent in the ceiling. He breathed in the aroma of wood smoke and last night’s roast meat; and in the midst of it, the scent of perfume. He entered and walked towards the fire, the sound of his footsteps dampened by the thick tapestries on the walls. The high-backed chair where he used to sit – lord and ruler of his household – had been removed. Only Megara’s smaller chair remained, draped in fur.
The door at the back was slightly ajar. A voice was singing at the rear of the house. He knew it was not Megara’s, whose tones were high, clear and melodious, not dull and flat like the one he could hear. He pulled the door fully open and stepped into the garden. Here, the grass was green and lush and the shrubs had been carefully trimmed, though the last of the year’s flowers had died away. He looked up at the windows that overlooked the courtyard, hoping to see his wife looking down at him. But they were empty.
The door in the opposite wall opened and a girl stepped out, a bundle of logs held tightly under her arm. She broke into the first few words of the song she had been singing, then stopped abruptly, staring wide-eyed at the enormous figure of Heracles. The ferocious head of the Nemean Lion stared at her from above his brows, and its black skin hung down from his shoulders. She released the logs with a scream and fled back through the door.
Running after her, he saw her disappear into the kitchen and slam the door. Let her run, he thought. This was his house, after all.
He took the passageway to the left, following it round to the foot of the stairs that led to the upper floor. Taking them two at a time, he looked left – the way to his sons’ bedroom – and right, to the room he had shared for a few blissful years with his wife. The thought of facing her after all that had come between them daunted him. And so he turned left, to the place that had witnessed the destruction of all he loved most.
As he turned the corner, he half expected to see the door still lying in the corridor, just as he remembered it from his nightmares. Instead, it had been fitted back onto its hinges and repainted, and now stood ajar, offering a glimpse of white, wind-blown curtains and stuccoed walls in the room beyond. He hesitated, uneasy, realizing with sudden clarity that his ordeal had not ended in the terrifying pits of the Underworld, or even on the battlements of Tiryns, where he had watched Thyestes take Eurystheus’s crown to the cheers of the crowd around him. No, it was always meant to end here, where it had all started.
Lowering his head, he approached the door and eased it open. After the dimness of the corridor, the sunlight pouring in through the window was dazzling. Yet, as his eyes adjusted, he saw that there were three beds around him, each one neatly made with blankets and furs. It was not as he remembered it when the boys had lived there – with the beds slept in and fought on, with wooden swords and dirty footprints on the floor, and assortments of rocks and animal bones they had found in the hillsides lined up on the shelves. But at least it was not in the bloody and broken state he had last seen it, on the night he had murdered them.
He felt then the weariness of his past labours pressing on his shoulders, as if something had been protecting him from the worst of the burden, but had now, unexpectedly, been rem
oved. He sat on Therimachus’s bed and sank his face into his hands. Lifting his tired head again, he looked around at the room. How many times a day did Megara come here to comfort herself with the fading memories of her children? Had the frequency of her visits decreased since she had found fresh consolation in the arms of Iolaus?
But he had not come here to wonder how Megara had coped. He had come to face the spectre of his own grief, and to measure its hold over him. Had the labours healed his guilt, as the oracle had promised? No, they had not. But they had led him to the cure.
He studied the familiar room with its unfamiliar tidiness, trying to remember how his boys would play noisily and rowdily from the moment they awoke, or how they would lie still under their covers at the end of a tiring day and listen to him tell tales of gods and monsters. But the images would not come, nor the pummelling emotions he had expected.
Instead, all he could remember was that misty plain in the Underworld, where the souls of his children had embraced him, not with anger and condemnation, but with words of love. Was it by the grace of Persephone that they were allowed to remember him, or was it that some memories could never be shrouded, even by the forgetfulness of Hades? And despite everything he had done to them, it was their love of him that they remembered.
Sensing a presence in the doorway, he looked up to see Megara standing there. Her beauty was undimmed, and he knew that part of him still loved her. He could see in her eyes that she loved him too. But this was not a new start to their marriage. It was an end. He had come to say goodbye – to his home, his children, and to her.
She knew it, too, and held herself tensely. Then her shoulders slumped a little and her taut expression was broken by a smile. She entered the room and sat on the bed beside him, taking his huge hand in hers.
‘Is it over? Are the labours complete?’ she asked, passing her thumb over the fresh scars on his knuckles.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you found the peace you’ve been looking for?’
He nodded and smiled.
‘Yes, at last. It’s over.’
‘I’m pleased,’ she said, raising his hand to her lips. He felt the warm splash of her tears on his skin. ‘And I’m sorry—’
‘No. No more apologies.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘What we have done, we have done. The gods have had their way with us – Hera, Zeus, Aphrodite… but we’re still here, Megara. We’re alive, and we have to make the most of the days that remain to us.’
She nodded.
‘Yes, we do.’
She slipped her arms around him, comforting herself with his presence, just as she used to when they were first married. Perhaps she was reminding herself of what she had lost, a final farewell before their paths parted forever. Maybe it was remorse. He hoped not.
Slowly, he removed her arms from around him and stood.
‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘But before I leave, I have a gift for you.’
‘A gift?’
‘When you visited me that time in Tiryns, you told me you didn’t blame me for what I’d done to our children. Your grace helped me to face my guilt, Megara. Now I want to offer you the same kindness.’
He gave her his hand and led her back through the house, to the hall where they had reigned as man and wife until the night the gods had struck the cup of happiness from their lips. Then he pulled open the doors and led her out into the sunshine. A chariot and a pair of horses stood on the road a few paces away, the driver gripping the handrail as he stared at them. Megara let out a gasp.
‘Iolaus!’
She threw a glance at Heracles, as if suspecting a trick. But he gripped her hand more firmly and led her to the chariot.
‘What is this, Heracles?’ Iolaus demanded, stepping down and walking towards him. The scars left by the wolves were beginning to fade. ‘You said you’d come to say goodbye.’
‘I have, and now I must go. But you aren’t coming with me, Iolaus. Your path no longer lies alongside mine. You’re your own man now, with your own responsibilities.’
‘I don’t understand—’
Heracles took his nephew’s hand and placed it in Megara’s. He watched as their fingers entwined, a movement so natural that he accepted – for the first time – that her affections for him had been replaced. He had made the right decision: she was no longer his wife. Suddenly, the final burden was lifted from his shoulders.
‘Yes, you do,’ he said, smiling at them both. ‘I release you from the bonds of our marriage, Megara. Of all my labours, this is the most difficult. But I do it as a free man, not a slave, and I give you both my blessing. Begin a new life together; have children, be at peace.’
‘But…’ Megara began, tears rolling down her cheek. ‘But what about you? What will you do? Where will you go?’
‘The gods did not make me to be a husband or a father, or to live my life in one place,’ Heracles answered, gesturing towards the house. ‘I will go and find new cities to liberate and new monsters to kill. But first, I will drive to the oracle to claim the immortality I was promised. And if the priestess cannot give it to me, then I will climb Mount Olympus and demand it from the gods themselves.’
Iolaus laughed.
‘You don’t need to go to the oracle, or even to your father. You’ve made yourself immortal by your own hand. As long as the story of your labours is told, your name will be remembered.’
He extended his hand to his uncle. Heracles took it and held it for a moment, then climbed aboard the chariot and pulled on the reins. The gods were waiting, and with a shout, he sent the horses galloping down the road.
Glossary
A
Acheron – river in the Underworld
Admete – daughter of Eurystheus
Aegle – a daughter of Atlas
Aithre – former slave of Heracles and Megara
Althaia – Amazonian captain
Amazons – race of female warriors
Aphrodite – Goddess of Love
Apollo – archer god, associated with music, song and healing
Ares – God of War
Arethusa – a daughter of Atlas
Argolid – an area of the western Peloponnese
Artemis – moon goddess associated with childbirth, noted for her virginity and vengefulness
Atlas – Titan who rebelled against the gods
Atreus – Tirynian rebel, brother of Thyestes
C
Calus – Amazonian slave
Calyce – priestess of Aphrodite
Cerberus – three-headed hound, guardian of the Underworld
Ceryneian – Hind white deer with golden antlers and bronze hooves, sacred to Artemis
Charis – high priestess of Hera
Copreus – adviser to King Eurystheus
Creon – king of Thebes and father of Megara
Creontiades – son of Heracles and Megara
D
Deicoon – youngest son of Heracles and Megara
Dexios – a shepherd boy
Diomedes – king of the Bistones
Dynamene – Amazonian warrior
E
Erginus – king of Orchomenus
Erymanthean – Boar monster that lived on Mount Erymanthus
Erytheia – island at the edge of the world, home of Geryon
Eurystheus – king of Mycenae and Tiryns; cousin of Heracles
Eurytion – herdsman of Geryon’s cattle
G
Geryon – winged, three-bodied giant, son of Oceanus
H
Hades – God of the Underworld
Hephaistos – God of Fire; blacksmith to the gods of Olympus
Hera – Queen of the Gods, married to Zeus
Heracles – son of Zeus
Hesperides – daughters of Atlas
Hesperie – a daughter of Atlas
Hippolyte – Queen of the Amazons
Hydra – many-headed serpent, offspring of Echidna and Typhon
Hyperboreans – race of gian
ts
I
Iolaus – nephew and squire of Heracles
Iphicles – twin brother of Heracles and adviser to King Eurystheus
K
Kharon – ferryman who carries the souls of the dead to the Underworld
L
Laconia – an area of the southern Peloponnese
Ladon – many-headed serpent, offspring of Typhon and Echidna
Lampos – slave of Megara, husband of Aithre
M
Megara – wife of Heracles and daughter of Creon
Menoetes – companion of Eurytion
Mycenae – city in north-eastern Peloponnese
N
Nemean – Lion monster, offspring of Echidna and Typhon
O
Oceanus – Titan, father of Geryon
Odysseus – king of Ithaca
Omeros – Ithacan bard
Orchomenus – city in Boeotia, northern Greece
Orthrus – two-headed dog, brother of Cerberus
P
Pelops – king of Pisa, father of Thyestes and Atreus
Peneius – river in Thessaly
Perimos – Tirynian soldier
Pholus – a centaur; friend and teacher of Heracles
Phorcys – sea god with many names and forms
Pisa – city in the Peloponnese
Poseidon – God of the Sea
S
Styx – river in the Underworld
T
Taenarum – cape in the southern Peloponnese where the entrance to the Underworld is found
Tartarus – prison of the Titans and a place of torment
Thebes – city in Boeotia, northern Greece
Themiscyra – city on the southern coast of the Black Sea
Hero of Olympus Page 33