WRATH OF THE GODS

by Glyn Iliffe

  ‘Where’s the king?’

  ‘The moment the river broke, he turned his chariot around and returned back through the gate-tower, followed by his soldiers,’ Iolaus said. ‘But I don’t understand why they were trying to stop you.’

  ‘You will soon,’ Heracles told him. ‘Is our chariot still here? Then go and fetch it, will you?’ He turned to the old cowherd. ‘King Augeias offered me ten cattle as my payment. Find me ten of the best, and have them ready for when I return.’

  The man nodded and returned to the bridge with the other herdsmen. Heracles walked to the stable gates. The noise of rushing water echoed back from the walls, reminding him of a waterfall he had once discovered in an underground cave. Peering inside, he could see the surface of the waters sloshing around in the gloom, black now with the filth they were carrying. Several columns had collapsed and brought down a section of the roof, while in the south-western corner, he could make out the breach that he had made in the wall. The fading afternoon light caught on the surface of the water as it flowed out, and he could see great clods of dung being taken away on the current.

  A shout from Iolaus informed him that the horses were harnessed once more and the chariot was ready. Heracles mounted and his nephew drove the chariot back to the gate-tower and out to the grasslands beyond. For a moment, he feared that the second channel he had cut might not be deep enough, or the eastern embankment high enough, to protect the city from the waters of the Peneius. But his fears were unfounded. The grassy plain east of the conduit was dry and unaffected. To the west, though, the slopes were overflowing with waste from the stables.

  ‘Zeus’s beard,’ Iolaus said, his voice almost a whisper. Then he began to laugh. ‘Zeus’s beard ! Look at the palace!’

  Heracles raised his gaze from the incline to Augeias’s home, which shared the same raised shelf of land as the stables. By making the breach in the west wall instead of the south, Heracles had ensured the effluence would sweep through the palace before following the slope down to the waiting channel. And so it had. The black waters were pitching themselves angrily against the walls, leaving tall arcs of filth on the white stucco where the backwash had thrown it upwards. Men and women glanced from the higher windows in dismay, watching the flotsam in the courtyard below. Horses were swimming chest high in the waters, while the shattered remains of chariots swirled amid the sewage. He assumed these had belonged to the king and his men, for there was no sign of them on the empty grassland to the east. Instead, a few lengths of broken wood were all that remained of the makeshift bridge they must have thrown across the empty channel, and which they must have sped back over before the Peneius had thundered its way through the stables.

  ‘There’s Augeias,’ Iolaus said, pointing to the flat roof of the palace. ‘And Copreus is with him.’

  Heracles took a deep breath and released it slowly. The stables had been cleansed in a day; the labour was complete. And King Augeias had learned that oaths were not to be taken lightly. Not when they were made before the son of Zeus.

  Chapter Eight

  THE STYMPHALIAN BIRDS

  The old herdsman was waiting by the bridge with ten of the finest cattle Heracles had ever seen. The caked-on filth that gave King Augeias’s cows such a wretched appearance had been scrubbed off, and their hides had been groomed as if in preparation for sacrifice. Stripping a branch from a nearby tree, Heracles thanked the herdsman and drove them along a track that followed the old course of the river, where now only a small stream ran. Iolaus followed in the chariot and soon they were returning down the road along which they had arrived at Elis the previous morning. To Heracles’s tired mind, it seemed like many days had passed.

  The journey from Daitor’s house to the city had taken them a morning in the chariot, but with the slow-moving cattle and Heracles’s exhaustion, they were barely able to reach the hills that edged the valley before the moon rose. After securing the cows, Heracles lay down to sleep and did not wake again until two days later. Wisely, Iolaus had let him rest and regain his strength.

  They drove the small herd to the village where Daitor and his son lived, gifting the cattle to the old man, who at once shared them out among his half-starved neighbours. They stayed several days, at the insistence of the whole village, then took to the road again. Copreus and his escort must have passed them while they were staying at Daitor’s house, for he was at Eurystheus’s side as the king pronounced that the labour would not be counted among the ten.

  ‘The oracle commanded you to carry out the labours as my slave, did it not?’ he said, from the safety of his battlements. ‘But a slave is not paid for his work, and so the labour cannot count.’

  Heracles was barely able to believe what he was hearing. All the effort he had expended in diverting the course of the river had been for nothing, and now a new – probably harder – labour would be demanded of him. He felt the fury coursing through his limbs, demanding satisfaction. He wanted to storm the palace walls and tear his smug, toad-faced cousin limb from limb. But the restraints on his anger were greater still: his sacred oath not to harm the king; more compelling still, his need to complete the labours and be free of his sin; and greatest of all, the desire to find out who had drugged him and caused him to murder his own children. He would not let his rage deny him his redemption, or his revenge.

  But neither would he allow Eurystheus to deny him any more labours.

  ‘That’s twice you’ve robbed me, Eurystheus,’ he warned him. ‘Do not presume I’ll let you do it again. Provoke a dog and it may bite you back, but provoke a lion and it will kill you.’

  ‘Do you dare to threaten me?’ Eurystheus challenged, though the shrillness in his voice betrayed his fear. ‘Will you break your sacred oath?’

  ‘If you deny me the right to free myself from what I did, what will I care for oaths?’ Heracles answered, before turning his back on the king and marching out of the citadel.

  The first signs of spring were appearing before Charis learned of the next labour in a dream. Heracles had spent the last of the winter in the hovel Eurystheus had given him as a home, sharing it with Iolaus as they awaited the next task. Though still the king’s bondsman, he had not been assigned any demeaning jobs to fill his time, as had happened in the first few months of his servitude. Eurystheus had long since realized that the more he tried to humiliate his cousin, the more Heracles was able to turn it to his glory – the Augeian stables being only the latest example.

  Boredom was now Heracles’s greatest enemy. In the past, it had driven him to overindulge in wine and feasting, or led him into the arms of too many women. Often, he had sought amusement in fighting, the ultimate expression of which was his liberation of Thebes. Now, feeling the tedium return as he sat in the cramped shack – mulling over who had caused him to murder his children and how he would exact his revenge – he decided to do something useful with his time.

  Unable to leave Tiryns without Eurystheus’s permission, he cleared nearby fields of stones so that they could be ploughed and sown for crops. In return, the grateful farmers paid him in lambs, goats and grain. These he sacrificed to the gods, distributing the meat to the most needy of his neighbours. The stones he used to repair the broken walls of their homes, or build huts for the widows, cripples and beggars who had no roof over their heads. Many were drunks who stank of cheap wine and stale sweat, and whom he had fed many times in his brief stays in Tiryns; it might have been better to let them die and end their misery, but that was a choice for the gods to make, not him, so he built them huts anyway.

  He had carried out similar works when he had first arrived in Tiryns, but now – with Iolaus’s help – he began to transform the outer city from a place of suffering and despair to a community that felt the beginnings of hope. He cut down trees and repaired roofs and doors with the wood. He walked the streets after dark, making them safe. And – inspired by his last labour – he cut a channel from the nearest river to bring fresh water to the homes of his neighbours.r />
  His reputation grew with every act of kindness, spreading beyond his own small neighbourhood to encompass the outer city. The people loved him as they could never have loved the cold, selfish Eurystheus, and that truth filled Heracles with pleasure. But if the king and his army did nothing about it now, Iolaus reminded him that the day would come when his labours were completed, or one came that defeated all Heracles’s attempts to overcome it. Then, either in triumph or defeat, he would leave Tiryns forever, and Eurystheus’s rule would be absolute again.

  Then he was summoned to the citadel. Charis looked down at him from the battlements, with Eurystheus at her side, and told him only that he was to drive off a large flock of birds from the swamps around the Stymphalus River. The task intrigued him more than any of the others. The lion, the Hydra and the boar he had understood – each one a monster that had to be fought and defeated. With the Ceryneian Hind the challenge had not been the ferocity of his quarry, but its purity. And the stables had required both strength and ingenuity. But a flock of birds?

  * * *

  If Heracles knew little about the next labour as he and Iolaus set off from Tiryns, he learned more the closer they came to the Stymphalus River. Rumours grew of a dark terror haunting the valley farther to the north, of a distant presence felt more than seen. There were whispers among the villages they passed through and in the inns where they stayed of a shadow that blotted out the sun and a strange sound like the repeated scraping of thousands of knives. Whole herds of sheep and goats were reported to have disappeared – taking their herdsmen with them – and the rivers and streams that fed down from the northern mountains were being stripped of their fish. But when Heracles questioned those spreading the rumours, to his frustration they could offer nothing of substance, only the exaggerated hearsay they had picked up second- and third-hand from others.

  Yet it left him feeling uneasy. Rumours did not spread from nothing, and the absence of witnesses left him wondering: what was waiting for him in the upper part of the Stymphalus Valley? Indeed, what were these birds he had been sent to disperse, and what power did they have to spread such fear? Only after they had reached the higher levels of the valley did they find somebody who claimed to have seen the birds with his own eyes.

  ‘So what do you think they look like?’ Iolaus asked, as they trudged through a boggy meadow, ankle deep in water.

  ‘I only know what the farmer told us,’ Heracles replied.

  The Stymphalus flowed wide and deep to their right with snow-capped mountains to their left, gleaming white in the late afternoon sunshine. At the far end of the meadow was a wood of tall, spindly trees, but nowhere could he see a single bird. That, in itself, was strange enough.

  ‘Maybe they’re eagles,’ Iolaus continued. He was swinging his sword at clumps of thistles that sprang up in knots from the marshy ground. ‘Now, a flock of eagles I could understand – large and powerful, with vicious talons and those hooked beaks.’

  ‘When have you ever seen a flock of eagles?’ Heracles asked.

  There was an impatient snap to his tone that he immediately regretted. Something was making him feel nervous. That morning, they had met a farmer who claimed to have witnessed several large, golden birds attacking a herd of deer. It was enough evidence for them to leave their chariot in his care and set off on foot. They had seen and heard nothing unusual since then, but as they approached the wood, Heracles’s instincts became edgy.

  ‘Can you smell that?’ he asked.

  ‘Smell what? Zeus’s beard!’

  There was a brittle snap and Iolaus pulled himself sharply back, staring down in horror at the long grass. Heracles ran over to his nephew’s side. A human skeleton lay half-hidden in the grass. It was on its front, its arms splayed out before it and its head turned. A few patches of skin were still attached to the skull, and the long black hair trailing from it was the only sign that the body had once belonged to a woman. Fragments of rotting clothing hung over the ribs and shoulders, and the remains of a leather belt sagged across its pelvis. The bones had half-sunk into the swampy ground and new grass was creeping up through the gaps between them. Its open jaw seemed locked in a final scream as it bit into the damp, black earth, and something slimy was moving inside the empty eye sockets. It was difficult to say how long the skeleton had lain there, but it was clear the flesh had not rotted. It had been eaten; picked clean – and by more than just worms.

  Perplexed, Heracles knelt by the remains. He ran his fingertips along the bones, which were strangely notched and pitted. He reached past the spine to something that gleamed dully in the layer of water beneath. Immediately, he felt a stab of pain. He snatched his hand back and looked at the globules of blood welling up from his index and forefingers. Then, pulling a strip of cloth from the ribs, he wrapped it around his fingers and reached in again, this time drawing out something that shone in the sunlight.

  ‘What is it?’ Iolaus asked, leaning closer. ‘A dagger?’

  Heracles held it up. It was made of bronze and blade-like in shape, but it was no dagger.

  ‘It looks like a feather. I’d have said a decorative knife, except the detail is too fine. See? Only Hephaistos himself could make something this detailed.’

  Each bronze barb was separately crafted, and there was no sign of braze where they were attached to the central spine of the feather. It was more like an actual feather that had been turned to bronze – exquisite to look at, and yet deadly.

  ‘This is what killed her. This, or whatever made these marks on the bones.’

  ‘I think I know what they are,’ Iolaus ventured. ‘They were made by beaks. Dozens of beaks.’

  ‘A beak couldn’t do that,’ Heracles scoffed. ‘Not even an eagle’s.’

  ‘But a bronze beak could. I think we’ve found the first sign of these birds you’ve been sent to get rid of.’

  Heracles looked again at the feather, then wrapped it back in the cloth and placed it in his satchel. Bronze birds? The idea was ridiculous, but then so was a seven-headed serpent with poisonous breath, or a boar the size of a bear. And had not the farmer they had spoken to said he had seen golden birds?

  He slipped his bow from his shoulder and fitted a black-fletched arrow. After scanning the empty skies, he signalled to Iolaus to move on. They advanced carefully now, checking for signs of more bones hidden in the grass. He found a discarded sandal, and a bit farther on the skeletal remains of an arm, which bore the same strange notches he had found on the woman’s bones. And all the time the unpleasant smell was growing stronger, making him conscious of every breath and filling him with an inexplicable foreboding.

  As they approached the tree-line, he felt a strong urge to run into the shadow of the eaves; but looking around himself – and again at the skies – he saw nothing to explain the impulse. Inside the wood, the ground became firm and springy underfoot, covered as it was with outstretched roots and a carpet of rotting leaves. New plants had started to push their way through the mulch, but the branches above remained clear of foliage. There were scores of abandoned crows’ nests in the highest boughs, but still no birds. Heracles waited for Iolaus to catch up with him.

  ‘Do you notice anything?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s too quiet. No birds, no deer, no rabbits. Just us.’

  ‘For how long, I wonder.’

  They found a path curving up from the direction of the river, which was audible but unseen through the boles of the wood. It led them deeper into the wood, until – a little way ahead of them – they saw the telltale gleam of more bones. As they came nearer the skeleton, they saw by its small size that it had once been a child. Iolaus let out a despairing sigh. Its forearm lay across its face, which was turned aside. The bottom of the jaw had fallen away and been covered by the drift of leaves below, making the remains seem even less human. A little stone amulet on a leather cord was draped across the bare ribs.

  ‘We should bury it,’ Iolaus said.

  ‘Not now. I fear these are just the
outliers of a greater massacre. First, we must find what this child was fleeing from. Keep your sword to hand, Iolaus.’

  They followed the path until the trees began to thin and an open field became visible ahead of them. Several buildings were clustered at its centre, but they could see no movement, nor hear any sound. Pausing at the eaves of the wood, Heracles counted thirteen houses, some stone-built, others merely wooden shacks. There were pens for livestock, but no noise of bleating or lowing. Even the dogs were silent, so that the only sound was the distant murmur of the Stymphalus at the lower edge of the meadow. The woods continued beyond the village.

  As they advanced, they passed more skeletons, all picked clean and in poses that suggested terror and flight. Heracles found two more bronze feathers beside one of the stricken figures: one in the cavity beneath its protruding ribcage, the other lodged between its wrist bones. Again, the skeleton had been cleansed of all but a few scraps of skin and the bones were covered with notch marks. The carcasses of several animals were scattered over the meadow, too, the weathered grey horns of the cattle and goats contrasting starkly with the white of their skulls.

  The worst of the carnage was yet to come. As they walked cautiously past one of the houses, they found themselves in a circle formed by half a dozen other dwellings. This was the heart of the settlement: where children played and women shared their household chores; where men gathered after the day’s work, to drink wine and talk livestock and crops; where the lines between families and neighbours were blurred, so that the bonds were many and the secrets few. Here they found the greatest concentration of slaughter.