The Trials of Hercules (10 page)

Not all goes smoothly, nothing ever does. Some men and some women just don’t mesh or the men treat their wives poorly, even cruelly. In these cases, women can seek divorce. Upon the man’s next birthday he will be remarried, but the most desirable women rarely enter the lottery for a divorced man. And the more divorces a man has under his tunic, the less he is sought after. Some men have been divorced so many times, the only wives that can be found for them are those too bossy, too lazy, or too drunk to make any man happy.

But I had been happy once. I lost Meg and have now destroyed the children she left me. I have no right to think the priestess feels anything for me but pity. Or scorn.

Iole stops and I swing up onto the horse to sit behind her. I instantly regret accepting the offer. She smells of fresh soap and it takes every bit of my will to resist wrapping my arms around her. I have no right to touch any woman, let alone a Herene. I should be breaking my fingernails on the inside lid of the blood crime vault, not dreaming up fantasies of her leaning back on my chest as we ride toward the city. I kick the idea from my mind and use my legs to balance as she clicks the horse back into a walk.

“Now, your story, Iolalus,” Iole says.

“Did you know that even as a baby Herc was a hero?”

I groan.

“Let him speak,” Iole says, glancing back at me with a teasing grin. Gods forgive me for wanting to touch my lips to hers.

“Sadly,” Iolalus continues, “he was only trying to save his own skin this time, not that of a beautiful woman.”

“Iolalus! Have respect. She was a girl at the time of her rescue.”

“Who says I was talking about Iole? Priestess, apparently my blushing cousin finds you beautiful.”

My cheeks burn and, if he was close enough I would knock Iolalus from his horse. I want him to stop now. There is no reason to go on with this story telling. We pass through the city gates and I can see the top of the House of Hera. Surely the priestess has to call a stop to this silliness, to force me to dismount, and march me through the streets as I deserve. 

The people of the city stop their morning chores of sweeping steps, hauling laundry down to the river, and setting up vendor carts to stare at us. As soon as we pass each group, a hiss of whispers erupts behind us. Although I want nothing more than to tumble off the Herene’s mare, Iolalus ignores the gawkers’ glances and scolds me.

“That should teach you to interrupt. Now, as I was saying, there was Herc who even as a little guy was a big boy. Alcmena, another beauty, left him in his crib for a nap. While in the middle of preparing a speech for our grandfather, she heard a giggle from across the room where Herc’s crib stood. As you can imagine, my cousin didn’t giggle much even as a babe, so Alcmena went over to see what had stirred him. Well, there was Herc, sitting up in his crib, a bright gummy smile for his mom.”

“What made him giggle?” Iole asks. She’s gotten so entranced by the story, she lets her reins drop. I grab them to keep the horse from walking into the cart of an herb vendor. People point at the sight of a Herene in a man’s arms. Iolalus, ignoring their stares goes on.

“In each hand,” he drops his own reins, but with most of our childhood spent on horseback under our grandfather’s training, Iolalus can guide even the most spirited of horses with only his legs. He raises his hands and balls them into fists. “Herc clutched a snake. Gripping them so tightly,” he shakes both fists as if grappling with a pair of snakes himself, “they died in his hands.” He picks up his reins again. “Apparently he liked the rattle at the ends of their tails and was giggling every time he shook them.”

This story, once one of my mother’s favorites, now turns my stomach. Those same hands that strangled the snakes have done very the same thing to Cassie. I suddenly want back in the vault, I do not deserve life. There is nothing, not enough tasks in the world to atone for what I’ve done.

“But you,” Iole twists to look at me. Gods be damned I don’t want her eyes on me, or her lips so close to mine. “You grew up in Portaceae.”

“Yes.” I lock my eyes forward. The House of Hera is straight ahead and I focus on that, not the Herene.

“But there are no rattlesnakes in Portaceae. Do you think the gods placed them there?”

“I don’t know. I was only a baby. What could I have done to anger the gods?”

Iole turns back around in silence.

Thankfully we are at the House of Hera and story time is over. The building is immense, the largest in all of Portaceae. It isn’t simply one building, but a complex of structures all housed behind a protective wall whose only opening is the Peacock Gate, a massive iron gate embellished with metal work in the design of a peacock’s tail.

The House was built not long after Osteria had formed into her twelve poli, generations before my grandfather led Portaceae. Even then, Portaceae already outshone the other city-states and had attracted artists and builders who set to work building the home for Hera’s priestesses, the Herenes, who would become the most revered women in Osteria.

Thanks to the skill of the builders and the dedicated work of the Herenes, the complex has withstood the neglect Hera has shown Portaceae, the recent earthquakes, and the financial downfall that came with Eury’s reign.

Although Portaceae’s true decline began in the last thirteen years of my grandfather’s rule, he made his own sacrifices and tightened the budget to ensure the strength of the polis. Even if Portaceae wasn’t flourishing, it was stable and healthy. But when Eury’s mother became regent, her spending knew no bounds, her management centered on personal gain, and her son learned how to be a leader at the hem of her skirts. By the time Eury took full power as Solon, the polis and its infrastructure were in tatters.

And yet, he thrived. He rode around in a carriage that was worth enough to pave all of the city’s roads, lived in a home that could house at least fifty families, and heaped gift after gift upon the Solonia Adneta. If only my cousin would reign in his greed there would be no talk of a coup. If he would only quell his certainty of privilege, the vigiles would not have put my name up as his replacement.

We enter through the Peacock Gate, pass under a massive stone archway, and arrive in a courtyard. Around the perimeter and crisscrossing the garden are pebble paths that crunch under the horses’ hooves. Grape vines with still developing clusters drape heavily over post-and-rail fences, nearly ripe apples and pears fill the branches of dwarf fruit trees, and several beds of vegetables are being tended to by women, some dressed in all white while others wear plainer clothes. Dozens of peacocks, the sacred birds of Hera, strut about the area ignoring the paths and walking straight through the beds.

“The courtyard used to be filled with flowers, but I thought we should grow crops,” Iole says. “Women who come to help out are allowed to take fresh food home to their families.”

The women stop their work to stare at us. Some carry amused or curious expressions, but a few pinch their faces in disapproval.

“Take the reins,” I whisper to Iole. She does, her hands brushing over mine as we trade off. The gods must certainly curse me for the jolt her cool touch shoots through me. I slide off the mare and walk beside it as Iole rides the horse along the center path of the courtyard.

“Is the whole thing marble?” Iolalus asks as he gapes around at the gleaming building that rises three stories tall. A peacock sidles up to me and I reach out to pet it. As soon as my hand is in range, the bird makes a sharp nip with its beak and then scurries off sending pea gravel scattering in his wake.

The birds know what I am and treat me accordingly, I think as I rub the pinched skin.

“No,” Iole answers, “just the walls facing inward to brighten up the courtyard. The interior is wood and stone and plaster just like any other home. We find that keeps it from feeling like a mausoleum.” She stops just before passing through another archway and turns her horse around so we can take in the main building. “The back of the building here is the Herenes’ quarters. The front building we just passed through is for the acolytes. Your rooms are in the wing to the left, second story. Most of the lower floor as you can see is passageway—good for rainy days—except in the right side of this building which houses the kitchens and other work rooms like the laundry. That’s the only wing so far with running water, so that’s also where the baths are located.”

“You have running water?” Iolalus asks. “How? The pumps have been down for years.”

“This way.” She turns the horse around and we proceed through the archway. The back of the complex is like a small city in itself, with a barn and animal pen, a granary with millstone, and a blacksmith’s shop. Rising up from the back stands a stone tower, at the top of which is a giant metal vat.

“Is that stable?” I ask. With the recent earthquakes, anything hovering above an Osterian’s head seems a precarious thing.

“It’s been stabilized. Engineers from Athenos made it so it could withstand the ground shifting. The tank catches water, which flows down from that pipe into the left wing. If we’re careful, a full tank lasts three months.”

“Why is there no water in the other wings?” Iolalus asks.

“Engineers don’t stick around Portaceae long. There’s plenty of work, but no pay. Most have headed off to other poli. We hope to eventually attract them back, get more towers built and running water to the rest of the complex and the city. Perhaps when the situation changes in Portaceae.”

I make no reply to her comment, but its meaning is clear: The Herenes also support a vigile coup. If Eury knew the House would be in grave danger. It’s one thing for trained fighters to take sides in a rebellion, quite another for a collection of unarmed women to go against the Solon.

We approach the stables at the edge of the barn and as soon as Iole and Iolalus dismount, a boy of no more than thirteen with an unruly cowlick in the back of his dark blonde hair comes out and takes the horses.

“I know that child. I caught him stealing,” I say as the boy leads the animals into the barn talking to them as if they are long lost friends.

“That’s Cy. He paid his tribute in our stables and then we hired him. He’s quite good with the horses. I’m planning to recommend him for training in the vigile stables when he turns sixteen. He’s not a bad boy, just a hungry one with three younger sisters to feed. He earns the bread here that the Solon refuses to give to people.”

I am about to defend my cousin when a woman, so wrinkled I can barely tell which line is her mouth, hobbles up to us. She wears the plain brown shift of a novice Herene.

“Shall I show them to their quarters, Your Highness?”

“Thank you, Euphemia, but I’ll see to that. And, please call me Iole like I’ve asked.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Euphemia says as she continues on, dragging one foot behind her.

Iole signals us back to the main complex. We head up a stairway where the rear building and north wing—the tribute’s wing—meet.

“How is it you’re head priestess?” Iolalus asks on our way up. “You’re much too young. And too pretty I might add.”

“Iolalus!”

“What? The head priestesses I remember as a kid all had liver spots on their hands and wattles under their necks.”

“Show some respect. We’re guests in their house.”

Iole laughs. “Don’t worry. It’s true. At twenty-eight I’m the youngest head priestess in Portaceae’s history.” Once on the second floor landing we pass through a wooden door into a broad hallway. The inside wall is lined with windows that peer down onto the courtyard. Along the outward side of the corridor are doors set apart at evenly spaced intervals. “I came in at sixteen to begin training and moved up quickly. When the last chief priestess died—and I do recall those liver spots,” she says glancing back at Iolalus, “Hera made the sign for me to take her place.”

“The sign?” I ask. I know the Herenes keep the law and the treasury and have their public rites to perform to the gods, but know little of their rituals. In truth I’ve had no interest in the matter before meeting Iole.

“It’s silly really.” She opens the next to last door in the hallway. “This is your room, Iolalus. When it’s time to select a new head priestess, all the Herenes sit in the courtyard, rain or shine. We then wait to see which of us the peacocks come to. It’s quite funny because some of the women try to befriend the birds giving them bread and seed hoping that when Selection Day comes, the peacocks will go to them. On the last Selection Day we’d barely sat down before all the peacocks came to me. No one had seen anything like it.”

“Hera favors you,” I say.

“Perhaps.” She shrugs off the comment. “Settle in, Iolalus. There’s pen, ink, and paper on the desk. Make a list of anything you want from the barracks and we’ll see it gets here. The first bell you’ll hear will be the call to lunch.”

“I won’t miss it. Thank you, Iole.” When she turns away from the door to continue to the final room, Iolalus gives me a wink. I roll my eyes and mouth
Shut up
before following after her.

“This is yours,” she says as she swings the door open. The room consists of a single sprawling living area with couch and chairs arranged as if I’ll be having guests over for a party. Shelves filled with an assortment of books frame the tall windows that look out over the city and a trunk rests at the foot of a bed that looks large enough to fit even my frame. Positioned at either side of the plush bed is a pair of matching nightstands.

“This is larger than my house. Or what was my house. I should sleep somewhere else. The barn perhaps. This isn’t punishment.”

“This is the tributes’ wing. This is where people atone for what they’ve done. In the barn you would feel like an animal, not the man you should be. My quarters and offices make up the top floor of the Herenes’ wing. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me.”

She touches my arm with her cool, delicate hand, but I brush it away. I hate myself for the hurt look that crosses her face.

“You shouldn’t touch me, you shouldn’t dirty yourself. I’m a blood crimer. I killed my family. I’m no longer a man.”