by Emily Hauser
‘They will,’ Iris says again.
Hermes uncrosses his arms, crosses them again, then stands up, his shadow long over the ridges of the mountain in the dawn light. ‘I don’t trust you, Iris. First you put Poseidon and me to sleep and ruin a perfectly harmless evening of—’
‘Ravishing innocent nymphs, yes, I know.’
‘And now there’s this golden apple,’ Hermes continues, ignoring her, ‘you and Hera suddenly all keen for a contest – I don’t like it. What schemes have you two been hatching in her boudoir?’
‘Iris?’
Iris springs to her feet, tossing the apple into the air one last time and catching it, clasped, between her pale hands. ‘Hera.’
Hera, dressed as always in robes of white and wearing her golden crown of oak leaves, gleams a smile at her as she approaches her herald, then looks at Hermes. Her eyes narrow slightly. ‘Messenger boy.’
‘Hera,’ Hermes says, with easy nonchalance. ‘Well, at least one of you is here. I was placing bets with Iris that none of you would respond to the summons, but then, I suppose, we all know who is the master and who runs to Iris’s every command—’
‘Silence,’ Hera snaps.
‘Hermes is a fool, Hera – a court jester engaged to humour Zeus,’ Iris says, and she gives Hermes a look of contempt, wrinkling her nose as if she has a bad taste in her mouth. ‘You should ignore him.’
‘I always try to,’ Hermes says cheerfully.
Hera turns to Iris. ‘How are things progressing?’ she asks, lowering her voice.
Iris glances around, then draws her mistress to sit on an outcrop of snow-clad rock on the other side of the mountain’s face, well out of Hermes’ earshot. The sun’s rays have not yet reached here and it is cold and dark, shadowed – a good place in which to plot.
‘Jason?’ Hera asks, without preamble.
‘On the Argo,’ Iris replies, her voice low. ‘They departed the Phasis as night fell.’
‘With the Fleece?’
Iris nods, disguising her twitch of annoyance.
‘Medea aided them, as we planned?’
She nods again, noting the ‘we’ with bitter amusement.
Hera relaxes, her shoulders falling. ‘You have done well,’ she says, and Iris bows her head, not meeting Hera’s eye.
‘Now, then, it is time,’ Hera continues, rising to stand and brushing the snow from her robes, ‘that we distract Poseidon from the storm, and Zeus from Atalanta. You have the apple?’
Iris takes it from her robes and shows it to the queen of the gods. Hera nods, once, and turns away. ‘Oh – and you have not seen the girl since she was exiled, have you?’ She looks back over her shoulder at Iris.
Iris shakes her head, schooling her expression. ‘No, my lady. I have not seen her at all.’
Hera walks to the other side of the peak, Iris following her, just in time to see Zeus and his brother Poseidon striding up the steep mountainside, their footsteps kicking up a fine veil of snow as they go. Zeus’ expression is merely curious, but Poseidon is glowering with fury, his teeth gritted, clearly determined to beat the queen of the gods hands down in the contest as vengeance for the incident in the Library of the Muses.
‘Hera,’ Zeus calls. ‘What’s this I hear about a golden apple?’
‘I have it here,’ Iris says, stepping out of the shade of the peak and holding it up to the light. The sun’s rays – so much clearer and warmer up here on the peak of Mount Olympus – sparkle off the apple’s golden skin, splitting into a thousand tiny dots of glimmering light that shimmer over the jagged rocks surrounding the gods. Upon its surface are the two words, inscribed in her own long, slanting writing: TΩI NIKΩNTI.
‘The winner of the contest earns this,’ Iris says, into the sudden silence, enjoying the power of knowing that the three gods’ eyes are fixed upon the apple in her hands, that she has them completely in her grasp.
She holds the apple, spinning it around its stem, and in the golden light of dawn a thousand fine threads of light sparkle from its skin, spiralling out, then joining into an intricate pattern, lacing over each other, forming images, shapes, figures. She can almost see three scenes forming themselves in the air: a mirage of the beholders’ deepest desires.
For Poseidon, to win means to reign alone: a mountain, gold-tipped and showered in golden snow-dust, upon which he alone is the ruler, without his brother Zeus, the entirety of earth spread out beneath him in intricate, gold-laced detail, his to command.
For Zeus, it means to hold his rule: a throne, surrounded by gods who love and respect him and a wife who congratulates and supports him in his command, the mortals all at peace below, sacrificing golden calves whose smoke wreathes heaven in flaxen spirals.
And for Hera: a garden lined with pebble paths where she and Zeus walk together arm in arm, gold blossom falling upon them from the apple trees, as Zeus whispers a word in her ear. Hera looks away as the vision fades.
Each of them dreaming of winning.
Each of them dreaming of what winning this contest – then the next struggle, and the next conflict, in the fight that has been going on and will go on for all eternity – might bring them.
The silence is so deep that Iris can almost hear the storm clouds in faraway Colchis receding, the thunder rumbling itself into nothing, the air clearing as the sun’s light penetrates the mists and reflects from the flooding plains. Hera’s plan is working. Poseidon is entirely engrossed, his eyes fixed upon the shining outlines of the letters upon the apple’s flesh.
‘The first god to fell both of his—’
‘Or her,’ interrupts Hera.
‘Or her opponents,’ Iris bows to Hera, ‘wins the apple.’
She moves down the mountain slope a little to a level plateau that stretches out in a scree-covered basin below the peak. As the three gods take their positions for the contest over the plateau, Iris moves to seat herself upon a jutting crag with a full view of the battleground, acting as judge. She can sense Hermes behind her, still seated upon the peak, his arms and legs crossed.
‘Choose your weapons, gods,’ she says, and in spite of herself her heart starts to beat a little faster with excitement as she holds her rod high into the air.
It is a marvel to watch, even for Iris, goddess of the rainbow, who has seen the gods shape the elements to their whims so many times before. The air above Zeus, god of thunder, is thickening, growing dark, as if a cloud has opened above him, and flashes spark above his head as lightning crystallizes and forms itself in the god’s outstretched hands. Hera’s robes are rustling in a wind that has whipped up around her, blowing the locks of her hair, the loose stones of the slope swirling in snake-like circles around her figure. Poseidon is holding his cupped hands before him, and in them water is swelling, rising, surging, forming itself into a roiling sphere of blue, growing larger with every moment …
‘Fight!’ Iris calls, bringing her rod down to her side with a swish of gold.
It is Hera who attacks first. Pursing her lips she blows, and the wind whistles from her in a fierce gale and blasts into the sphere of water in Poseidon’s hands, sending it crashing over its maker in a wave of flashing droplets. Poseidon stumbles, water spilling out of his palms, and Zeus seizes the advantage to send a thunderbolt sparking across the battleground towards Hera. She parries it with a swirl of wind that sends it arrowing towards Poseidon, who deflects it with a wall of water that quenches its flames with a hiss of steam …
Iris watches with fascination as Poseidon rolls his palms around the water, letting it grow larger and larger until it curls over on itself into an enormous, swirling ball. Then, with a single swipe of his hands, he sends it rolling towards Zeus. The father of the gods tries to reach for another bolt but, before he can hurl it towards his assailant, the water has engulfed him, crashing over him, with Zeus held in the centre, like a fish flailing in the midst of a raging sea-storm. She feels Zeus concentrate on the thunderbolt in his hand, the current running through him
with a powerful, vital force, crackling with blue light; watches as he brings the strength of the bolt into himself, then sends it rushing out through his skin. With an explosion of fire the water collapses outwards, wave upon wave crashing down over the plateau, and with a blast of wind from beneath, Hera lifts the waves up, up, up into the sky, then lets them drop, the force of a waterfall breaking over the two gods, soaking their robes. She moves forwards, gales howling about her figure, and Poseidon and Zeus can barely move for the force of the hurricane that is driving them backwards, their beards flying out behind them …
With the effort of a Titan, Zeus fights the wind to crouch to the ground and, his shoulder muscles taut with exertion, hurls a thunderbolt through the gale to strike at Hera’s ankles. The flaming bolt catches her robes and, with a roar of bright orange fire, they are set alight. Hera’s figure is a pillar of flame, sending burning black smoke up into the sky, and she is shrieking to Poseidon for water, but the two gods are fighting each other with vindictive fury, Zeus sending a thunderbolt crackling in a wave of white light, Poseidon summoning his waters into a wall that slams into Zeus’ chest and sends him stumbling backwards. Through the column of flame that surrounds her, Hera whirls the winds to her and summons the waters, wave breaking over wave, until they crash down upon her and the fires are extinguished in a column of spiralling grey-blue smoke.
The battle rages until the sun has risen fully out of the sea to the east and is burning into a sapphire-blue sky, heating the rocks of Mount Olympus and warming the air so that eagles glide by the gods, wings outstretched, and still Zeus is hurling balls of fire at his adversaries, Poseidon is shaping water into darts that arrow through the fireballs, and Hera is blowing wind that blasts water into tiny slivers flying through the air, and none of them has fallen …
At last Iris holds up her rod.
The three gods are panting, chests heaving with effort. This could go on for all eternity – in truth, Iris thinks, it already has, for these three have been fighting each other ever since they were first created.
‘A draw!’ Iris calls.
She holds the apple up to the skies, its pale gold skin shimmering in the morning sun, and takes a deep breath.
‘For the Winner!’ she calls, and then, with all the strength she can muster, she tosses the apple up, up, up into the air, as if towards the gods who have battled for the trophy. The three gods and Hermes turn their faces towards it – she sees them stretch their arms high as the apple curves on its arc – but it hurtles past their outstretched fingertips, tumbling through the sky, out through the clear, sharp air, over the slopes of the mountain and the sparkling jewel-bright sea towards the mass of land towards the east, down, down through the treetops and into the very depths of the forest where the gods will never be able to find it …
‘What did you do that for?’ Zeus explodes at Iris, turning an irate, bedraggled, sweat-covered face towards her.
‘Sorry,’ she says, her expression guileless. ‘Missed.’
And yet, while Iris deals with the angry rebukes of Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes, and Hera secretly congratulates herself on having distracted the sea god from his vengeance upon Jason, the queen of the gods would not be amused to know that Apollo is, at that very moment, on his way to earth on Poseidon’s orders.
That Poseidon has seen through her scheme and has already taken measures to ensure he can have his revenge on Jason while Hera’s back is turned. While she thinks she is tricking him, he is, in fact, planning to do to Jason the very worst he can imagine, aside from sinking his ship in a storm.
He is going to steal the Fleece.
Apollo’s journey to earth is uneventful. He’s a little sleepy, as it is earlier than he usually likes to wake up, but Poseidon promised him several sea-nymphs in return for what he’s doing now, so he is bearing it with as good a grace as a child bribed to attend his lessons.
Not much, in other words.
He lands upon the Argo light as a seabird skimming over the waves and looks around him. The ship has made its way out of the storms that have plagued it since it left Colchis and is floating upon the now-calm, pink-tinged sea, rather the worse for wear. He takes an inventory of the damage: torn sail, several wounded sailors, countless sacks of grain split open or sodden and ruined, a broken prow, a shattered steering oar and at least five oars split … That will take quite some time to repair.
He tries to commit the details to memory, and grins as he surveys the extent of the destruction. Poseidon will like to hear how much damage his storm has wreaked on Jason’s ship.
The mortals have laid anchor – they clearly did so as soon as the winds abated – and are draped over their rowing benches and the ship’s edge, fast asleep after an exhausting night battling the storm. He spots Jason, slumped forwards, his head on his hands, beside a slim, black-haired woman, who is lying on her back alongside him and has rather lovely—
Focus, he tells himself. Focus. Get the Fleece.
Remember the nymphs.
It is not hard to find, for mortals always mark their most treasured possessions by hiding them away; and sure enough, a blast of wind from Apollo’s pursed lips is enough to blow open the locked storage. He steps over the prone figure of Peleus, passes Meleager, then stoops to look into the dark hold beneath the stern deck. A leather sack is hidden there, tied tight with two thongs that unravel as he gazes upon them. The bag falls open. Apollo draws it closer and peers inside.
A shimmering golden cloth is folded carefully within, woven from ten thousand golden threads, the early-morning light sparkling on its glimmering surface. Apollo recognizes it at once, with a jolt of surprise.
It is a shawl.
Aphrodite’s shawl.
Hadn’t she dropped it, a while ago, when she and Ares were getting it on in the Caucasus Mountains? Yes, he thinks, leaning closer – he even remembers Ares telling him it happened. Hadn’t she snagged it on the peak of Mount Elbrus, and hadn’t Ares, hot with passion and keen on doing the deed, tossed it away, saying she was too desirable to wear clothes?
He chuckles to himself.
Only the mortals, he thinks, could turn the abandoned raiment of a divine hussy into an immortal manifestation of the king of the gods.
He reaches in and runs the material over his hands, the threads, no doubt woven by those consummate spinners, the Fates, shimmering through his fingers like liquid gold. At least Aphrodite will be glad to have it back.
He strokes the material, fine as a woman’s hair.
Maybe she’ll even confer a favour in repayment for the return of her shawl …
A slow grin broadens on his face.
Three nymphs promised to him, Aphrodite too, he thinks, and the sun hasn’t even risen over the horizon.
He is so busy imagining the compensation Aphrodite might provide as he backs out of the hold that, as he straightens and turns, he catches the corner of the shawl upon the bolt of the door. He pulls it free, fumbles and takes a few steps to the side, trying to avoid the sleeping figure of Meleager. As he does so the shawl, slippery as silk, glides through his fingers and over the side of the ship.
It floats down through the air, light as a spider’s web.
With a faint ‘plop’, it settles on the surface of the sea, and slowly, ever so slowly, the threads discolouring in the water, it is submerged. And then it is gone.
Apollo looks at the place where the gold shawl disappeared, watching the rings upon the water growing smaller.
Then he shrugs his shoulders. ‘Oh, well,’ he says. ‘He wanted it gone, didn’t he?’
And, unaware of the enormous significance of what he has done, he turns and, leaving the crew of the Argo still sleeping, makes his way across the calm surface of the sea back towards Olympus.
Before Greece
The River Phasis
The Hour of the Rising Sun
The Thirteenth Day of the Month of the Grape Harvest
Footsteps over the wet leaves beyond the cave awoke me s
hortly after dawn broke. My thoughts flew instantly to the riders from the day before, and I tried to push myself to stand, my fingers fumbling over the dirt and leaves of the cave floor for my quiver. My breathing was easier but my side was still swollen, a large bruise blossoming over the skin, and I forced myself to move, though the pain was making my eyes smart.
Then the footsteps grew louder, and Hippomenes appeared at the mouth of the cave, silhouetted in the pale pink light, his head bowed, a young deer slung over his shoulders.
‘Where have you been?’ I accosted him, my momentary terror at being left alone and wounded turning instantly to anger. I was angry, too, with myself that I should have cared whether he had left or not. He ducked to enter and flung the carcass down beside the ashes of last night’s fire. I tried to move towards him, but he was too far from me and I could not go any further for the pain in my side. I collapsed upon the ground. ‘I thought you had gone! I thought you had left!’
He shot a glance at me as he knelt beside the remnants of the fire and began to try to light the branches he had gathered from the forest. ‘Would it have mattered if I had?’
I did not answer. ‘Well, in any case,’ I said, discountenanced, and I shifted to remove his cloak from beneath me and threw it to him, for he was bare-armed, ‘you should have woken me to tell me.’
He shrugged the cloak off. ‘I do not need it,’ he said, and as he gestured to his woollen tunic I noticed for the first time another pouch that had not been there before, hanging from his belt beside his money bag, something round inside it creating a soft bulge against the leather. Hippomenes saw me looking at it, and covered it with one hand, pushing it around so that it was hidden, tucked beneath his sword. I opened my mouth to ask him about it, but he continued, as if nothing had happened: ‘I am hardened to the cold after winters in Onchestos, cutting wood and tending the farmers’ vines – and in any case, you have need of it, with your wound.’ He passed the cloak back to me.