Hermes smiled and shrugged. "Zeus has said you're not to be harmed, but I'm sorely tempted to take you up to a very high crag and — "
"Have they done this before?" Sam cut in, musing aloud. "Replaced an Olympian who's died with a substitute? It's conceivable. Maybe one of you was killed in action but the death was covered up and along comes a new face shortly afterwards, same outfit, same powers, but no one's looked further than that and spotted that it's an impostor. The brand continues, original packaging, new content. That really would make each of you immortal, after a fashion."
"I'm going to go now," said Hermes.
"And your memories get wiped, too. How does Zeus do that? I'm assuming it's Zeus behind all this. He gives the powers, takes away your past, somehow makes you convinced you're genuinely a Greek god…"
"Really am going."
"…and you're left none the wiser. Can it be done? More to the point, where is it done?"
"Goodbye."
Hermes vanished.
"Yes, off you go," Sam said to the empty space where he had just been sitting. "Run off and polish your helmet somewhere else. I know who you are and what you did, Pugh. You're on my shit list too, you know."
Empty as this threat was, she felt better for saying it.
Later, Zeus drew her aside for a quiet word. "Hermes tells me you were haranguing him today with this — I can only call it conspiracy nonsense. That's him in addition to me, Ares, Aphrodite, Dionysus… Anyone else? Just please desist, Sam. None of us is interested. Your convictions aren't convincing. We don't believe your disbelief. It's irksome and tiresome, and frankly your position here is tenuous as it is without you imperilling it further. Try and fit in and behave. That's all I ask."
"My position?" Sam retorted. "And just what position is that, Zeus? Because, me, I have no idea. Why am I even on Olympus? I hate it here. Everyone hates me. Why are you keeping me around? Am I a pet? Spoils of war? What? What the fuck do you want from me? "
Zeus took a step back, eyeing her with a lofty, paternalistic gaze. Behind it, though, she thought he looked hurt.
"I want nothing from you," he said, "that isn't given voluntarily."
"And that's supposed to mean…?"
He didn't elaborate.
"Zeus, either kill me or set me free. Those are the only two things I'm after. One or the other, you choose. I don't much mind which it is. Anything rather than stay on here with this dysfunctional so-called family of yours, half of who hate my guts and the rest of who either don't even notice me or else keep sniffing around me like a dog on heat."
"Who keeps 'sniffing around' you?"
"No one."
"Hades? It is, isn't it? Is he bothering you? I've seen him and you together a lot. I'll have words. You won't have to worry about him any more."
And from that moment on, she didn't. Hades kept his distance, although she often felt the weight of his stare on her, sulky now, baleful, offended. She noticed, too, that he had started making a point of removing his gloves in her presence and articulating his fingers, like a pianist warming up, practising invisible arpeggios in the air. It was a show for her benefit, and she resolved to be more careful around him from now on. A single touch of those skeletal fingers and she'd be dead in a flash, as had happened to Fred Tsang, as had happened to countless others. It didn't even have to be deliberate. A chance collision, an accidental misstep that brought her skin into contact with one of those hands, and it would all be over.
That she was anxious about Hades's hands told her a truth about herself.
She wasn't willing to die, for all that she had claimed she was.
She wanted to live.
And that meant escaping.
65. CRATES
But still she couldn't see how to actually escape. There was no way in or out of the stronghold except via the gate, which lacked an operating mechanism and indeed seemed designed to be openable only by hand. And the hand that opened it would have to be an Olympian's. So huge a portal would yield to the strength of an Ares, say, or a Hercules. Not, though, to the comparatively feeble strength of a Sam Akehurst.
Then, of course, there were the Harpies to take into account.
Gate apart, the one other route out of the stronghold worth consideration was the freight helicopter which came once a week, on Sundays, bearing a crate full of supplies. The crate, an eight-foot plywood cube with Greek script and right-way-up arrows stencilled on it, was winched down into the agora, then an Olympian, normally Hermes, would detach the cable and hook it to the previous week's now-empty crate for the hovering chopper to take away. If, Sam thought, she could somehow get herself into that empty crate without being seen, she could be flown to Katerini and safety.
It was a very big if, though. Each empty crate was sealed up in readiness the day before pick-up, usually sometime in the morning but never later than the evening. Assuming she managed to clamber inside and not be discovered during the sealing-up process, there was still the problem of her absence being noted over the course of the Saturday night — and it would be, by Zeus if nobody else, and he would raise the alarm, and then perhaps Hera would set Cerberus on her trail, all three of its noses sniffing out her place of concealment…
No, she had to accept that that particular crate plan was a non-starter.
Then how about leaping onto the empty crate and clinging on as it was being hoisted away?
This had potential. Except, the Sunday helicopter drops were a source of great excitement to the Olympians. Almost the entire Pantheon would turn out to watch the chopper fly in and out, and then be on hand for the opening of the new crate, the unveiling of all the essentials and luxuries inside. Sam would never make it onto the departing crate without one of them seeing, and Hermes would have her back down off it and onto the ground in no time.
Each time the helicopter arrived Sam steeled herself to put this plan into action. Each time, the sheer unfeasibility of a success overwhelmed her and left her paralysed.
Then all she could do was watch, crestfallen, disappointed in herself, as the Olympians clustered around the new crate and pried it open. There would be delight at some fresh seasonal delicacy the Greek government had decided to treat them to, disgust over some unfavoured foodstuff, affront that a particular item had not been included even though it had been on the request form which Argus had emailed to Athens the previous Monday. Then there was the division of the crate's non-edible contents, which really showed the Pantheonic hierarchy in operation. Hera had first pick and snapped up the best of the boudoir products for herself — this fragrance, that lip balm, those bath salts — before any of the other female Olympians got a look-in. Zeus likewise had first pick of the male-orientated toiletries. Then it was Athena's turn, then Poseidon's if he was there, then Ares's, then Demeter's, and so on all the way down to Dionysus and Hephaestus. Fortunately Dionysus was interested only in wine, which none of the others had quite such a penchant for, so he was quite happy to get dibs on the Beaujolais Nouveau or the retsina and forgo all else. Lame old Hephaestus, however, was invariably left with little, the dregs of the crate, and just as invariably he would fume and grouse about this to anyone who would listen, which was no one, until his wife Aphrodite told him to be quiet.
The weekly airdrop was a highlight of the Olympians' week, and it became clear to Sam, as her stay on the mountaintop wore on, that if there was one thing that characterised the general mood of the Pantheon, it was boredom. They had set the world to rights and now, interruptions like the Titans aside, there wasn't much to do except monitor the global situation and make sure the lid stayed tightly pressed down.
That, then, would be why they loved to argue amongst themselves so much — it helped pass the time. Bickering at table was commonplace. In fact, it seemed almost compulsory. Hardly a meal went by without someone dragging out some long-held grudge for an airing, and more often than not Zeus was the one who instigated these spats.
"Ares, remind me again," he said one lunchtime
, seemingly a propos of nothing. "Your little fling with Aphrodite, how did that end?"
"It ended," declared Hephaestus before Ares could reply, "because I ended it! Caught them out, didn't I? Ares seduced her, soiled her, my own wife, with his grubby, hairy paws, but I — "
"Seduced her?" Ares said, a scornful bark. "Oh, believe me, He Who Dwells In Etna, nobody seduces Aphrodite. She was willing, let me tell you. More than willing, downright eager. Couldn't keep her hands off me. Could you, O Beautiful-Buttocked? She craved the touch of a real man, a man with vigour and stamina, having had to suffer the attentions of a stunted, crippled blacksmith for so long. Tell me, Hephaestus, does 'limp' apply to everything about you or just the way you walk?"
"Oh, how funny," Hephaestus said. "Haven't heard that one in a long time. But I got you back. Got you back good and proper. With my bronze net I trapped the pair of you in bed together, and then the rest of us gathered round and how we laughed." He roared with laughter, to illustrate.
Aphrodite, throughout, kept her head down and her gaze fixed firmly on her plate.
On another occasion, again after a spot of none-too-subtle nudging from Zeus, Demeter started having a go at Hades for his having abducted her daughter and dragged her down into the underworld to be his queen.
"My poor dear Persephone," she said, "forced to be a consort in such a gloomy, sunless place when she was born a creature of the daylight, the breezes, the sky."
"She gets all that in spring, summer and autumn," Hades said. "She spends only the three winter months with me. That was our deal, after she ate three of the twelve seeds in that pomegranate, and it seems a more than reasonable one. If there's anyone you should feel sorry for it's me, deprived of the comforts of a wife for three quarters of the year. Besides, the kingdom of the dead isn't so bad, once you get used to it."
Sam was tempted to ask where this Persephone was right now? Did she even exist? And what about the underworld? As far as she could tell, Hades spent all his time on Olympus. If he was the ruler of some other realm, he was very much an absentee monarch.
But a look from Zeus forestalled her before she could pipe up. He sensed exactly what was going through her mind, and a subtle sideways flick of his head indicated that it should remain there, if she knew what was good for her.
One suppertime, over a roast suckling pig cooked to perfection by Demeter, Hera turned the tables and embarked on a sustained critique of Zeus and his many infidelities. It seemed light-hearted at first, a piece of teasing, wife trying to embarrass husband even though knowing that he felt no shame. She couldn't, however, keep a trickle of venom from entering her voice.
"Antiope, the river god's daughter," she said. "What form did you take in order to attract her, Zeus? I can't remember, was it a satyr by any chance? How charming. A short, hirsute man with stubby little goat legs — I can't think of anything more alluring. And Europa. A white bull, wasn't it? Innocent little virgin, she wasn't to know any better. I wonder, did you woo her or moo her?"
Athena and Demeter both chortled archly at the witticism.
"And then there was that silly thing Leda," Hera went on, "who fell for you while you were playing at being a swan. Swans can break a man's arm with their wing, but all you managed to do was break her heart. And after she went to the trouble of laying a couple of eggs for you! And what about Callisto? At least you came to her in the shape of a man, without bothering with all that animal disguise nonsense. Although, hmmm, didn't you turn her into a bear after you'd had your wicked way with her, so as to hide her from me? And then Artemis hunted her down and killed her."
"Artemis," said Apollo. "Ha! That was just like her. Couldn't see a bear without wanting to chase after it." He tore some pork off the bone with his teeth, eyeing Sam all the while. "I miss her," he added, chewing morosely.
"Then there's Semele, Danae, Leto, Alcmene, Io…" Hera checked off the names on her fingers. "The list is endless. You should count yourself lucky, Zeus, that you have a wife who's prepared to put up with your philandering."
"Dearest Hera," said Zeus, "'put up with' is hardly how I would describe your behaviour towards some of my conquests and their offspring. Take Io. I transformed her into a cow so that she would escape your notice and your ire…"
"A cow. So gallant of you."
"…and what did you do? Turned yourself into a gadfly and so tormented her with your stinging that she galloped halfway round the world in a maddened frenzy. If that's 'putting up with,' I'd hate to see what you're like when you truly take against someone."
"Speaking as Semele's son," said Dionysus, very drunk as was customary by this point in the evening, "I admit that my stepmother and I have had our misunderstandings, but we have managed to overcome them. Yes, she arranged for me to be torn limb from limb, and yes, she wasn't best pleased when I was presented to her dressed as a girl in the hope that she wouldn't recognise me and realise I had survived her murder plot. Weren't fooled for a moment, though, were you, O Hera the Fulfiller? But then I'd never make for a very convincing female, not with this beard."
"Maybe with those fat man-breasts of yours you would," said Ares.
"Thank you and fuck you," said Dionysus. "All I'm saying is, Hera can be forgiving, in the end. The fact that I am here, in the bosom of the family, regarded as close kin, proves it. Same goes for the twins. For Demeter too. There aren't many wives who'd happily sup at the same table as one of her husband's ex-lovers, let alone become good friends with her."
"I can be forgiving," Hera agreed. "But forgiveness is never boundless, Zeus. You'd do well to bear that in mind. There comes a point when enough is enough. An extramural indiscretion is one thing, but to flaunt it, to rub our noses in it, is quite another."
She didn't look at Sam when she said this, but then she didn't need to. Everyone present was aware who was the true focus of these remarks.
"There are acts no wife should be expected to support or tolerate," she added, laying down her napkin and pushing back her chair. "Decide sooner rather than later what it is you want to do, my husband, or the decision will be made for you, forcibly, permanently, and in a manner that will cause considerable distress to one of the parties concerned. Do I make myself clear?"
So saying, she left the dining hall, and Athena and Demeter followed her out in a show of solidarity.
Zeus broke the ensuing awkward silence. "Well. I, for one, have no idea what all that was about? Does anyone else?"
The joke fell flat. Only Dionysus found it funny, but then he was so deep in his cups that anything and everything seemed funny to him.
Hades, however, seemed very pleased by the turn of events, as though Hera's threat to Sam promised some kind of windfall for him.
66. MARTYRS
Sam stayed in her room for the next couple of days with a feigned illness, lying low, venturing out only to grab leftover food from Demeter's kitchen and scurry back to eat it alone. She had no desire to mingle with the Olympians, not now that Hera had so openly declared her hostility. Anyone could see that Zeus had been set an ultimatum. Whatever his intentions towards Sam were, he had better act on them, otherwise his wife would step in and cut through this particular Gordian Knot herself.
The impulse to escape, and the impossibility of it, warred within Sam, the one hemmed in tormentingly by the other.
On the morning of the third day, beginning to get stir crazy, she headed out into the frigid dawn air. No one else was around other than the ever-present, ever-vigilant Harpies, cawing and cackling on their roosts. She roamed, enjoying the semblance of freedom that being on her own gave her. Her wanderings took her eventually to a corner of the stronghold she hadn't explored before. Here she came across a low-built edifice, like a large mausoleum, sandwiched between a tall rock outcrop and the inner flank of the stockade. This had not been on the itinerary of the tour Zeus had given. Curiosity piqued, she tried to door, tugging on its large round brass handle. The door, banded with iron, did not budge. There was no evidence of a lock
but something, certainly, was holding it fast. She circuited the building but found no other entry point, not even a window. Returning to the front, she searched for some outward sign of the structure's purpose but found none. It had one unusual feature, a copper lightning rod attached to the vertex of the roof, two metres long and greened with oxidation. Other than that the place was plain and nondescript, almost ostentatiously so, given the general grandeur and ornateness that could be found everywhere else in the stronghold.
Perhaps it was some kind of storage unit.
Or perhaps this is where they're keeping my TITAN suit.
The thought galvanised Sam. She'd given up her battlesuit for lost, assuming Zeus would have destroyed it by now, but if by chance it was here, if she could be reunited with it, then a bid for freedom stood a substantially improved likelihood of success.
She resolved to come back after nightfall armed with something she could use as a crowbar to pry the door open.
Moving on, she shortly found herself passing the entrance to Argus's lair: a gap in a rockface surrounded by a carved-out portico, with giant bas-relief peacocks standing sentinel on either side. She had no intention of going in. Even the thought of Argus — that blubbery malodorous body, that wire-sprouting head — gave her the willies. But then a low, rippling voice called out from within: "Who's there? Someone's there. I'm picking up the sound of footsteps. I'm glad you've come. I need to talk to someone."
Sam started tiptoeing away, but Argus became plaintive and insistent. "Please. You must listen to me, whoever you are. It's urgent. Something important is happening. The mortals are up to something."
That was too intriguing to ignore. Turning, and bracing herself for the smell, Sam entered the chamber.
"Oh," said Argus. "It's only you, Samantha Akehurst."
"Only me."
"I need Zeus. Would you fetch him? I have intelligence I need to share."
"What's it about? I could pass on a message."
The Age of Zeus a-2 Page 39