Alcippe looked bemused, but she helped Hero pile the branches. Oenone vanished for a time into the forest and returned with her arms full of fruits and flowers. She smiled encouragingly at Hero. “I have watched you worship the gods since you were a very small child, sister of my Paris. Perhaps they will hear you this time.”
THE SONS OF AGELAUS ran down the mountain. In the daylight, they covered the distance quickly until they came to the groves at its base. Again, whatever enchantment the gods cast, convoluted the way making the lines of trees fluid and unreliable. It was almost as if the groves were some kind of labyrinth which wound back on itself over and over before allowing them through. By now, they did not puzzle over it but increased their pace to compensate where they could.
The mist seemed, if anything, thicker and descended now to the olive groves. The clouds assembled in a churning sky and the day was no longer clear.
Machaon glanced up. “Looks like the last of the gods is arriving.”
“Let’s hope it’s not to watch the destruction of Athens,” Lycon said darkly. He closed his eyes as he tried to catch his breath. “I’m fine,” he said before his brothers could ask.
“Where are we going to look for Medea, Mac?” Cadmus asked, watching Lycon carefully.
Machaon pointed up to the Cercropia. “The palace,” he said. “I doubt Medea would consider anything less was worthy of her.”
Lycon nodded. “Medea seduces kings… rather well in fact.”
“And you really think she could turn back the Amazons?” Cadmus asked sceptically.
Machaon frowned. “Probably not. But we might have a chance if we knew why she used us to lead them here.”
Cadmus shrugged. “Hero is with Ares… that is what they wanted.”
“Not exactly,” Machaon said pensively. He recalled his conversation with the god of war. “They seem to have forgotten why Ares created them in the first place…”
They resumed the twisting trail out of the olive groves and emerged eventually near the Cercropia. Athens was in panic. Its citizens lamented in the streets. The men prepared to flee into the hills whilst the women hid their sons. Clearly they knew whose ships were in their harbour. The Amazons had taken the port without resistance.
“Where are their warriors?” Cadmus asked, surprised that the Attic capital should be so undefended.
An old woman passing heard him and spat contemptuously onto the ground. “Menestheus holds them back while he pleads for his own life. Our king is a coward!” She moved on, shouting at potters and farmers to do what the warriors would not, and calling on Athene to strike Menestheus dead.
“What now?” Lycon asked.
“We get into the palace and find out what this Menestheus is doing,” Machaon replied. “Someone needs to defend Athens.”
And so they began to climb the flat-topped rock, upon which stood the bronze and stone palace of the Attic kings. The stronghold was indeed dense with warriors whose eyes were all turned anxiously to the port. The armies of Athens were no happier about their king’s restraint than its citizens.
The sons of Agelaus moved among them without notice. The obvious strength and confidence of their young bodies invited the assumption that they were soldiers. The fighting men of Athens were neither so few in number nor so well organised that they would notice strangers in their midst.
Casually Machaon stopped beside a gathering of generals who muttered discontent as they stood uselessly watching Athens being encroached. Cadmus and Lycon followed their brother’s lead, and stood within earshot in the pose of men in intense conversation with each other.
“It is that woman,” one general said, sneering. “Athens will be seduced into defeat.”
“Menestheus has lost his mind to lust, and now he will lose Athens,” his comrade replied.
“In a single day she has destroyed us all,” the first said bitterly. “Perhaps she is an Amazon, sent first to ensure that Athens is unprotected.” He shook his head in frustration. “We might have stood a chance if we had defended the port.”
Machaon had heard enough. He motioned to his brothers. “Medea,” he said quietly. “She has seduced Menestheus.”
Cadmus and Lycon agreed. The witch of Kolchis was ensuring Athens would fall.
The palace of Menestheus was surrounded by a wall of white stone and protected by heavy gates of iron and bronze. Having grown to manhood in the shadow of the Trojan citadel, the sons of Agelaus were not daunted by these feeble fortifications. They found a way to breach the walls quickly, at a culvert which allowed the waters of a spring to flow into the palace grounds. The Herdsmen entered the fast-flowing water silently and slipped beneath its bubbling surface to emerge again on the other side of the wall. Wringing out what water they could, they considered how they would enter the palace from behind the potted olive trees which were the only vegetation on the rocky hill.
Soldiers stood in ordered lines around the palace. These men differed from those outside, dressed in the fine attire of courtiers, though they were armed.
“They’re a palace guard,” Cadmus murmured, unimpressed. “More ceremonial than able… they won’t be a problem.”
“Still,” Machaon replied, “let’s try not to let them see us.”
Cadmus shrugged. “I suppose it could take a while to kill them all.”
Machaon pointed to a shadowed corner of the building and signalled for his brothers to follow. Still wet, they stayed hidden as they slipped into the palace through what appeared to be a servant’s entrance. Once again the peculiar talent of the Herdsmen to go unnoticed was their advantage, and they were able to find the banquet hall without discovery by any member of the household.
The banquet hall was set for a feast. Sturdy tables were laden with silver platters of roast meat, elaborate displays of fruit, steaming whole fish and carved wooden bowls of sweet ruddy wine. There were chairs for at least fifty lords, but only two people sat in the hall, at the longest table, on burnished thrones. Menestheus, who as a suitor of Helen had brought fifty black ships to Troy, was slight. He may not have been frail but he gave no outward sign of strength. His robes were fine and stitched with threads of gold, gathered at the shoulders to give the slender King of Athens some breadth of body. His face was pale and lined and, if not for a crown, his scalp would have been completely bare.
In the throne beside him sat Medea, her grey eyes glittering, her lips curved into the barest of smiles. Her voice was low, and she crooned to Menestheus in a manner that seemed to hold him mesmerised and meek. All this the Herdsmen saw without being seen, hidden well amongst the tapestries and statues which had been looted from Troy, and which now decorated Menestheus’ hall.
A delegation of the generals whom the Herdsmen had overheard lamenting their king’s recalcitrance demanded an audience.
“Sire, the Amazons are taking your city,” the first of them said desperately. “There is no one to resist for we all stand around your palace.”
Menestheus did not even look at the man, keeping his eyes instead on Medea. “If Athens is destroyed it is the will of the gods,” he said softly. “Perhaps Athene punishes us for past misdeeds. To resist will be to defy them further.”
“Surely the gods do not expect us to die quietly, sire?” the general almost shouted.
Menestheus’ eyes were wide and unblinking. “They watch from the mountain. We are being punished as Troy was punished.”
Medea stood suddenly. “I will retire, my Lord,” she said, stroking the king’s gaunt cheek. “When you have convinced these fools of the folly of angering the immortal gods, I shall be waiting for you in my bed. In love we will see in a new age for Athens.”
Menestheus clutched at her robes, unwilling to let her go, but Medea was firm. She left the King of Athens to argue with his generals.
Machaon motioned his brothers. They slipped out of the hall whilst the king debated with his generals and followed her.
The witch of Kolchis made her way to chambers that were opulent and larg
e. The bed was well made with the smoothest linen and the floors were covered with carpets of finely woven wool. Medea dismissed her servants and then, when she thought she was alone, she laughed, giggling and rocking with glee like a small giddy girl.
Machaon and his brothers slipped out of the shadows and made their presence known.
Medea seemed more amused than alarmed… and she continued to laugh.
“She’s as mad as Orestes,” Cadmus muttered.
“What in Hades are you doing?” Lycon demanded, losing patience with her unnerving mirth. He moved to stand directly before her. “Why did you bring us here?”
“I did not bring you,” she crowed. “You brought me.”
Machaon spoke quietly, evenly. “Why do you destroy Athens?”
Storm-eyed Medea almost danced, so great was her joy at his words. “Yes, it is I who brings Athens low… though only a few shall ever know it.” She ran her hand across Machaon’s chest. “I am strangely glad that you know it, Herdsman. It is strange because you are nothing and I am a child of the old gods… but still I am glad that you know.”
The eldest son of Agelaus did not take his gaze from hers. “Why?”
Medea’s eyes burned angrily now. “Did they think they could banish me and my child without consequence? Did they think they could spurn my son for Aegeus’ bastard whelp? Did they think that she who cut the throats of her own sons would recoil from revenge?”
“You’re punishing Athens?”
“I am destroying Athens.” Medea’s voice was hard. “And when Attica is ashes and blood, my child, Medus, shall rule again.”
“Where is he?” Lycon asked, casting his eyes as if he expected Medea’s son to emerge from under the bed.
“He will come, I am preparing the way.”
“How will you persuade the Amazons to relinquish Athens once they have conquered it?” Machaon asked.
“The Amazons have little interest in Athens.” Medea waved her hand dismissively. “They only want your sister. When they have her, they will return to the Black Sea.”
“But you helped us retrieve Hero.” Cadmus shook his head, puzzled as well as angry.
“So they would follow us to Athens.” The Princess of Kolchis was smug, triumphant. “The Amazons are not my subjects—they would not do my bidding—and yet they invade Athens at my will.”
“And Theseus…?”
Medea smiled.
“Undo it,” Machaon demanded bluntly. “Turn the Amazons back, return to Menestheus the will to defend his kingdom.”
Medea seemed genuinely surprised. “What care you for Athens? Did you not see the spoils of Troy’s defeat that Menestheus displays? He was in the horse, you know.”
“That war is over,” Machaon replied. “This vengeance is not ours and you will not wreak it with our aid.”
“But Machaon, dear Machaon,” Medea said brightly, “I already have.”
Cadmus cursed. But they all knew she spoke the truth. Athens would fall by a hand more subtle than any that had ever held a blade.
Machaon sheathed his sword. “Come on,” he said to his brothers. “Leave her.”
“What are we going to do?” Lycon asked, his voice a little panicked. He and Machaon had been in Troy as it fell. They had seen the carnage, the frenzied bloodletting; they had both killed men there. The Greek warriors had been their enemies then, but he did not wish the fate of Troy upon Athens.
Machaon’s face was grim. “We are going to reason with the Amazons.”
For a moment Medea gaped at him, and then she threw back her head and screeched with laughter, falling back upon the bed in the paroxysms of her mirth. She did not stop, even as they left her.
It was admittedly unnerving.
But their options were few.
And so the sons of Agelaus slipped out of Menestheus’ stronghold as they had come, unnoticed albeit wet. They descended from the Cercropia towards the city below. The streets were empty. The citizens of Athens, it seemed, had largely fled. Lycon closed his eyes. Visions of Troy came too easily to his mind. The walls which had protected the Trojans for so long, had trapped them when the slaughter began. At least the Athenians could flee.
They were left with no hope of life, surrounded only by the blackest night and the raging fury of the deathless gods.
Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica, Book 14
BOOK XXXI
IT WAS NOT UNTIL THEY approached the port that they saw any signs of battle. On the beach, the bodies were dense—men who had died shoulder to shoulder, trying to find courage in the proximity of their comrades. Most had gone to Hades with surprise and horror masked upon their faces. It was among these lifeless forms that the sons of Agelaus lay down, taking the guise of dead men. The air was thick with the smell of fresh blood, the distinct scent of fear. There were no survivors or injured—the Amazons were efficient and remorseless killers.
A large pyre dominated the port now as the Amazons sacrificed to war-mongering Ares and wise Athene, in preparation to take the city.
The Herdsmen watched, lying still between severed limbs and slain flesh.
“What now, Mac?” Lycon asked, turning his face away from the staring eyes of the corpse beside him.
“I’m not sure,” Machaon admitted. “We must prevent them killing us long enough to be heard.”
“We haven’t anything to offer them this time,” Lycon murmured.
Cadmus stared hard at the flames around which the Amazons worshipped. “Mac, do you have any of Medea’s salve left—the one that cooled the flames on Skyros?”
Machaon nodded. “There’s enough for one of us, I think… Why?”
“I have an idea.”
“Is it stupid?” Lycon asked.
“A little,” Cadmus admitted. “It could go rather badly… in which case the Amazons will kill us pretty swiftly.”
“And if it works?”
“Ares will probably kill us.”
Machaon handed Cadmus the vial of Medea’s potion. “Well, we can’t just lie here among the dead.”
Quickly, Cadmus told his brothers of what he planned. Machaon and Lycon thought it absurd and for a brief while they resisted, but in the end they had nothing else and little time.
“You’re relying on your mother not to condemn you,” Machaon said quietly as he and Lycon helped Cadmus slather himself in the salve, whilst moving as little as possible.
“Clyemne helped us once before,” Cadmus replied.
“I don’t know, Cad.” Lycon kept his eyes on the pyre. “This plan of yours…”
“Is insane,” Machaon finished. “Perhaps the Erinyes have sent us mad already and we’re too crazy to know it.” He nodded towards the place where the Amazonian ships had been beached away from the pyre. “Ly and I will attract their attention from over there. It’ll give you a little time to do what you must.”
Lycon sighed. “If this is how we must die, let’s get on with it.”
Cadmus smiled. “Well said.”
Machaon and Lycon crawled silently through the bodies. The smoke from the pyre was thick and choking and it helped to conceal them.
They reached the Amazonian vessels and chose the largest for their purpose. Machaon slipped into the craft and set the sail alight. By the time it was visibly aflame they had ignited three more ships and then Lycon howled. Machaon raised his voice to join his brother’s.
It was the sound rather than the flames that caused the invaders to turn from their prayers. They surged immediately towards the burning craft.
Cadmus moved then, sprinting for the pyre. He hesitated for just a single draw of breath before climbing into the flames. Even in his urgency, he wondered at the miraculous protection of Medea’s salve. The blaze enveloped him but he did not burn. Upon his skin he felt the gentle lick of flaming tongues but nothing else. He did not delay, finding the very centre of the inferno before he shouted to the Amazons.
“Daughters of Ares!”
Despite the noise of the f
ires, the howls of Machaon and Lycon, and their own voices, Cadmus was heard. The Amazons turned to witness the Herdsman standing atop the pyre, engulfed by flame.
“You!” It was scarred Derinoe who recognised him first. “It is the man-beast who stole Bremusa,” she screamed, turning to her sisters. The Amazons returned to the pyre and Lycon and Machaon followed, ready to defend their brother for what it was worth.
“I am not a man,” Cadmus boomed.
Despite the peril in which they found themselves, Lycon rolled his eyes.
The Amazons were unsettled. No mortal could stand so in such a fire. He should have been consumed. He should have been ashes.
Derinoe roared. “You lie!”
“Do you doubt your eyes? We gods have often walked as men for a time—but men cannot walk as gods.”
“Who do you claim to be?” White-tressed Molpadia pushed her way to the front of the crowd.
Cadmus raised his arms. “Do you not know me, daughter? I am Ares.”
The Amazons seemed to gasp collectively.
Machaon glanced briefly at the marble hill. “Let’s hope the gods are preoccupied,” he said to Lycon.
“This will never work,” Lycon groaned.
“You lie,” Derinoe screeched. “This not our father… this is not strong-hearted Ares!” She appealed to her sisters. “He is the man-beast that Bremusa called brother.”
“Did you not think I would make myself known to Pentheselia’s daughter? Did you not think I would come to her aid?”
“Ares did not come for her—she was too flawed.”
“I did come for her, just not as you intended. I am displeased that you took her as you did.”
Clyemne now burst forth from the invading ranks and looked hard at the man in the fire. Cadmus returned his mother’s gaze. “This is Ares,” she declared. “How else could he have escaped the cage, how else could he have defeated the dracon?” The giant Amazon fell to her knees. “Hail Ares, lord of war.”
Lycon shook his head in disbelief. “Hades… it’s working.”
Many Amazons now knelt. But not all.
“Return to your own lands,” Cadmus commanded. “Athens is not yours—leave her in peace.”
Trying War Page 23