The God Beneath the Sea

by Leon Garfield

  ‘Cyllene! Cyllene!’ she called to a nymph who served her. ‘Go quickly to watch over my child.’

  Cyllene turned to obey, and Maia murmured: ‘But softly, for I think he is asleep.’

  Now, belonging to the estate of the sun was a herd of cattle whose browsing gold enriched the pastures they fed upon. They bore the brand of mighty Apollo, god of the black-winged arrows and master of the sun.

  Each morning as the sun-god rose he saw his cattle and westward scored their tally in shadows on the ground. So confident was the great god of this daily arithmetic that one day he was midway in the sky before he saw the fields were clean. His cattle were gone.

  He stared and the earth sweated under his gaze.

  He called them, but they did not appear. He shouted, in vain. A thief! A thief!

  Blazing with fury, the great god left his chariot and came down into the field where his beloved herd had once grazed. He stared at the ground. Not even the marks of their hoofs remained.

  His rage increased as he began his search. He peered into valleys, stared over mountains and along the banks of glittering rivers: but neither hide nor hair of his cattle was to be seen.

  At last he came to Arcadia. He passed by a wood, full of the sounds of hiccoughs, chuckles and cracking nuts. Apollo’s brows grew dark with contempt. He spread the branches and peered down into a clearing. There sat the fat, shaggy half-god Silenus, child of Pan. He was belching and telling wild tales to some dozen other satyrs like himself, but younger and not quite so fat. They drummed on the earth with their hoofs as they listened, chuckled and ate. Their chins were stained with berry-juice, and their strong yellow teeth were furred with half-chewed nuts.

  One by one they turned their thick necks awkwardly as they felt the sun-god’s gaze, till Silenus was left telling his tales to the unattending air. His coat was fuller and Apollo’s radiance took longer to penetrate. Then at last he, too, turned, licked his lips and blinked uneasily into the sun-god’s angry face.

  ‘My cattle,’ said Apollo, ‘have gone.’ The satyrs looked up at him with crafty innocence. ‘Who has them?’

  No answer; Silenus sadly shook his head.

  Apollo’s eyes pierced the depths of the woods. ‘I will give you,’ he said, ‘a mountain of berries, grapes and nuts. I will give you warmth in the cold and light in the darkness. I will give you whatever your wild hearts desire if you will find my cattle – and the thief.’

  Berries? Grapes? Nuts? Wild desires?

  They grinned – and were off. They scattered through the wood – then beyond it, in all directions, and their hoofs sounded like diminishing hail.

  All day they searched – then looked in alarm at the heavens. Night was in abeyance; the angry sun-god had not returned to his chariot; it still burned in a morning sky.

  At last they came to a sharp blue mountain. They peered up at its rocky sides. Silenus grunted. No place for cattle – not even the sun-god’s. Then suddenly came a strange sound. It was a sound of music, but not like any they had heard before. It was a rippling, twinkling sound; very curious, very haunting.

  ‘You go,’ said heavy, fat Silenus, ‘and come back and tell me what it is.’

  So his companions scampered up the mountain, with grunts and cries and clattering hoofs. The music stopped as if frightened away. The satyrs stared at one another.

  ‘What do you want?’

  A nymph was sitting in the mouth of a cave.

  ‘Nothing,’ said a satyr. He belched and laid a hairy hand over his mouth. ‘Heard music.’

  ‘There it goes again,’ said another, tilting his crooked head towards the cave.

  They began to slip and shuffle, uneasy on their hoofs. ‘What’s delaying you?’ came Silenus’s voice, impatient, from below.

  ‘A nymph.’

  ‘Up there?’

  ‘A mountain nymph.’

  ‘I’ve seen them when I was young. They’re as hard and cold as the rock. Come down!’

  ‘The rocks are warm and soft when you’re up here, Silenus. And so is she!’

  Sounds of Silenus fidgeting below. A rough scrambling as if some fat creature was attempting to mount.

  ‘Hush,’ said the nymph. ‘A baby is asleep.’ She sighed. ‘Such a baby! He charmed a tortoise from its shell. Alack, the tortoise died. But of that shell this marvellous baby made music. He strung it with cowgut—’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Cowgut.’ The nymph, her sweet tale interrupted, was sharp.

  ‘Where did he get the cows?’

  And the sun still blazed in the sky.

  The great charioteer, forgetful of the morning he had left unfinished, strode up to high Olympus. Over his shoulder were flung the skins of two of his cows. Nothing more had remained of them. Under his left arm, he carried something else.

  With a pang of affection and alarm, Zeus saw it was Maia’s newborn child.

  Apollo, panting with haste and anger, threw down the skins of his slaughtered cattle at his father’s feet; then, scarcely more gently, laid the infant on them.

  ‘Here is the thief.’

  The infant dug its tiny fingers into the rich red wool, and looked in innocent bewilderment from god to god.

  ‘Who – me? I was born but yesterday.’ He began to cry and, cupping his face with his hands, peered out from time to time to see if any hearts had been wrung.

  Not Apollo’s. The skins had been found in the infant’s cave.

  The infant turned to mighty Zeus. He spread out his little hands in a gesture of amazement and disbelief. Then Apollo pounced.

  ‘See!’ he cried, seizing one of the offered wrists. ‘Red-handed!’

  Zeus looked down. There was no doubt. The infant’s guilty fingers were tipped with bright blood.

  Zeus frowned. The infant, feeling himself to be overhung by two great clouds, smiled humbly at the lesser.

  ‘Great Apollo,’ he said. ‘Only you could have found me out. No other god has half your skill.’

  Apollo nodded, and almighty Zeus could not but feel proud of his new son’s tact.

  Then the child fumbled among the skins and drew out the tortoise shell, strung with the damning cowgut, that the sun-god had brought as further evidence. Apollo looked at it curiously.

  ‘I made it specially for you,’ said the child. ‘Listen!’

  He plucked the strings, and the music that the satyrs had heard sweetened the air of Olympus. It haunted the courtyards and the terraced walks, so that gods and goddesses, about their great business, paused to listen. Mighty Hera, aching from the child which was still growing within her, smiled and dreamed on the birth to come.

  Then the infant began to sing. He sang of Apollo’s beauty and Apollo’s wisdom and Apollo’s kindness – and Apollo’s generosity to Maia’s child. Then he finished, and the two clouds that hung above him had gone away.

  The sun-god and his father smiled.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Apollo, ‘how did you do it?’

  ‘I bored holes in the shell—’

  ‘No! My cows! There were no hoofmarks or anything.’

  ‘Oh . . . Yes. The cows.’

  Then the child explained, with many a charming smile and sidelong glance at Zeus, how he had fastened pieces of bark to the hoofs of the sun-god’s cattle, so that, wherever they went, no trace remained behind.

  ‘But you may have my toy instead,’ the child finished up, and held out the marvellous shell.

  Apollo took it with a rueful smile.

  ‘Keep the cows,’ he said.

  Idly, Apollo fingered the strings. He knitted his brows and began to discover a grave music. So intent was he that he did not observe the child. Consequently he was surprised when a new sound joined with his: a delicate crystal piping sound, that wove in and out of his majestic chords, like a fine silver tapestry. The child had another toy. It was a pipe, cut from reeds of subtly graded length. Apollo stared at it.

  ‘I will give it to you,’ said this remarkable child, �
�if you will teach me how to tell the future.’

  But here he had over-reached himself. Apollo took the pipe, but gave in return his golden staff with which he’d herded the cattle he no longer had. So the child, being small, new-born and defenceless, made the best of the bargain and took the staff.

  ‘To learn the future,’ said Apollo, feeling perhaps he had taken unfair advantage, ‘you must go to the Muses on Mount Parnassus. They will teach you, even as they taught me.’

  This done, Apollo declared himself satisfied and returned to his chariot still burning in the noonday sky.

  ‘It has been a long morning,’ said the new god to his father, and gave a sidelong smile.

  Zeus sighed.

  ‘I will not ask you what birthright you desire. I fear it would be too much. Instead, I will give you what I think is fitting. You shall be the god of thieves, sharp practice and fanciful make-believe.’

  ‘And—’ said the child.

  Zeus laughed. ‘And you shall be my messenger, if you promise never to tell lies.’

  ‘I promise, father, so long as I am not bound to tell all the truth. There must be room for fancy.’

  Zeus laughed again and nodded his head in assent. Then he gave this new god a herald’s staff with white ribbons. He gave him also winged sandals so that he might move with the speed of thought. He called him Hermes.

  SIX

  DESIRE

  A brazen shout shook the heavens. Everywhere, in woods and fields, living creatures stopped, turned and stared.

  A strange alarm filled every heart. A new light was burning on high Olympus. Hera’s child was born.

  Again the infant shouted – this time as his vast father held him up for all the universe to see. He was flawless; he was the unblemished son of Zeus. His father’s radiance and his mother’s pride marked his countenance and gave strength to his splendid limbs.

  Vigorously he kicked in his father’s arms – as if he would boot the stars out of the sky . . .

  Mighty Hera lay back on her couch and smiled. Her wretched firstborn was quite blotted out in the glory of her second.

  ‘Ares!’ shouted Zeus. ‘Behold Ares, my son!’

  Now began the great procession, as all the gods and earth-spirits left their palaces and haunts to honour the new god on Olympus.

  Goat-Pan combed the twigs and leaves from his shaggy hide, bent the forests aside and left his nests of shrieking, sighing nymphs.

  Deep-thinking Titan Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus left their garden and, as they passed on their way, caught the tragic gaze of Atlas. Prometheus shivered as he sensed the force of the huge Titan’s reproach; and he felt like a traitor to his race. Vainly he tried to pierce great Atlas’s mind with what was in his own; but the one-time leader seemed turned to rock. So Prometheus hurried on to pay his homage to great Zeus’s son; while his thoughts, as always, were elsewhere . . .

  Grim Hades harnessed his four black horses to leave the sullen underworld; and Poseidon the earth-shaker mounted his golden chariot under the ocean and sent the sea-creatures scudding from his path. The sea-forests bent and swirled away before his coming, and the conch-shell at the entrance to the grotto of Thetis and Eurynome blared out the waters like a trumpet. Briefly, Poseidon leaned against the rock, resting his little finger idly against a curious crystal jewel, and bade a sea-nymph tell the goddesses of the grotto that Hera’s child was born and that they, like all creation, must come to Olympus and honour it.

  ‘What will be my son’s birthright, great Zeus?’ demanded Hera, leaving her couch and pacing her cloudy chamber. Through the tall casements she could see from afar the glimmering approach of the immortals, laden with blessings and, no doubt, gifts for Ares . . .

  ‘What will your gift be, almighty Zeus?’

  The king of the gods smiled. The sun and moon he’d disposed of; likewise the harvests, the flocks, the sea and the underworld. Briefly he wondered if some distant star might stand in need of a lord?

  Hera frowned. Zeus’s smile did not deceive her. ‘Your gift, lord of the sky? What shall it be?’

  ‘Do not press me, Hera. When the time comes, my gift will not be found wanting.’

  ‘What is there left, great Zeus, that you have not already given away? Must my son be idle while the creatures of your lust lord it everywhere?’

  ‘Do not press me, Hera. Though you are queen of Heaven, remember that I am the king. Ares will have his birthright – when the time comes.’

  With that, great Zeus left the chamber, brooding on what that birthright might reasonably be.

  He paced the clouds and strode the universe; but no answer came. At last, he summoned Hermes, his messenger.

  ‘Go,’ he commanded the god of thieves and lies. ‘Find me a gift for Ares.’

  So immortal Hermes, quick as air and light as fire, flickered through the groves and forests in search of some bright, gaudy trifle. Something easily come by – yet looking as if worlds would not have bought it. Something that would do great credit to his own judgement, please mighty Hera and content her savage child.

  Hermes did not like Ares. Though the new god was as handsome as could be wished, he was, in Hermes’ eyes, a dull and surly brute. A loud voice and a powerful kick seemed to be the scope of his talents and the top of his wit. He was a fool; and Zeus’s messenger abhorred all fools . . .

  Nonetheless – he flew on his winged sandals over Arcadia and the mountains to the west, dropping down whenever something glittered below. Here it was a hillside spring, there a forest pool that drew the thieving god. Once, he glimmered in a grove of myrtle . . . lingered, then flashed, laughing, on. What had he stolen? A nymph’s maidenhead and her necklace of fine sea-pearls: both charmed away.

  At last he came to the isle of Cyprus and rested on the wide, ribbed sand at the ocean’s edge. The sun was rising and everywhere little land-locked pools of the sea flashed and shone and seemed to dance.

  Hermes, forgetting all, was captivated. Pearls, diamonds, gold were all as nothing beside this humble water set in the inexpensive sand. If he could have done so, he would have lifted it entire, carried it to Olympus and fixed it on a chamber wall as a joy forever to behold.

  He let fall the pearl necklace as thoughts strange and new flooded his supple mind. So absorbed was he, that he did not observe a great commotion that had sprung up in the midst of the sea.

  The waters boiled and leaped and sprang aside. Large sea-creatures rose and flashed in the sun, turning over and away from the gushing deep. Then there erupted four gigantic white horses, streaming under veils of green, and the huge gold chariot of Poseidon reared aloft.

  The sun stared down and seemed to water at the superior radiance of the god . . . and the outriding nymphs and Tritons, fiercely blowing the air, dissolved in a cloud about Poseidon’s blaze.

  Poseidon set his steeds towards Olympus and began to mount – great guest at the banquet for Hera’s child.

  As the chariot left the sea and the last linkages of water drained from its golden wheels, the commotion subsided and dispersed itself over the ocean. Great waves raced shorewards bearing in their teeth fragile shells and curious twisted pebbles – like messages from the deep. As they neared the shore, their speed diminished, their passion sank and they tumbled up on the sand, quite spent. Gently, they lapped by the pensive god of thieves, and plucked at his winged feet.

  Hermes looked down. The waves had drifted the sand over the pearl necklace. But that did not concern him.

  Instead, he gazed at what the sea had cast up. A piece of coral: a curious coral, with a faint, delicate blush.

  Hermes picked it up. It was scarcely bigger than a thumbnail. In some marvellous and bewildering way, it resembled a nymph. See! There were her breasts, her belly, her enchanting, slender legs! There was her head, stretched back in a dreaming ecstasy, and her long hair coiling in a strange, intricate design. The god could even make out her face, like a tiny flower on the stem of her neck.

  Who had fash
ioned this marvel – or was it but a chance of ceaseless currents under the sea that had so shaped the coral? And was it only in the god’s imagining that the uncanny nymph had come to life?

  Hermes brooded, but found no answer. The coral nymph troubled him and set up a turbulence in his infinite mind.

  ‘Hermes! Hermes!’ A distant thunder rolled down the sides of Mount Olympus. Zeus was summoning his messenger.

  ‘Hermes! Hermes!’ The thunder slackened to an angry rasp. Hermes half awoke from his dream. He stood up and gazed towards Olympus. Lightnings flickered and stabbed the cloudy heights. His great father was angry with waiting. So shrewd Hermes sped.

  The sand rippled and danced vainly in his wake and covered the strange prints of his feet – for this young god left no tracks and moved with the speed and secrecy of thought. He met with Zeus on Olympus’s slopes, where the rock gave way to trees, and where springs had their origins.

  ‘Must I call twice, boy?’

  ‘I came directly, great father.’

  ‘Lies! I saw you dreaming by the sea. Not even Poseidon’s noisy eruption disturbed you. What were your dreams, Hermes?’

  ‘They were of – of Ares, sir:

  ‘Have you the gift? Have you done my bidding, little liar?’

  Hermes held out his hand in which lay the coral nymph. The lord of the sky frowned. He took up the coral and stared at it.

  ‘Who made this, Hermes?’

  ‘The sea, perhaps . . .?’

  ‘Only the immortals can create.’

  ‘But this is no creation. It is no more than a piece of coral. It neither grows nor lives—’

  ‘It lives, it grows, Hermes—’

  ‘In the mind, great Zeus . . .’

  ‘In the mind of a god.’

  Zeus’s eyes grew terrible with thought. He crouched above the tall trees and rested his head on his mighty hand. Wonderingly Hermes crouched beside him; and a strange expectancy fell upon the mountain and across the world beyond.

  Springs gushed crookedly and smooth rivers overslid their courses as their guardian spirits turned from their tasks to watch the two gods brooding on the mountainside.