The Trials of Hercules (6 page)

Herc stops in front of the vigile cart. For a moment I think he won’t get in, that Iolalus will allow him to remain free of the cart’s confines like any free and innocent man. But Herc focuses his eyes on the box, mutters something, and steps inside. I close the curtain once more and laugh when I hear the jeers and taunts of the crowd as they hurl insults at the man they once called hero.

I strip off my crown, chain, and toga and toss them onto the bench seat opposite me. It’s too perfect really. With this blood crime conviction, Herc’s shining chest plate has tarnished in the people’s eyes. I’ve wanted to be out of the shadow of my heroic cousin since I was a child, but the need to be rid of him has become especially urgent since talk of this coup sprang up like a weed whose roots infest your garden.

The carriage finally starts rolling again. I peer out once more. The crowd has thinned, the people returning to their daily chores, the vigiles returning to their patrols. There will be no coup today.

When my guards first told me the vigiles intended to depose me and put Herc in my place, I had wanted to order them to hurl Herc into the deepest pit they could find. Unfortunately, unless he directly committed a treasonous act against me, there was no way to do away with my cousin without my hands being dirtied by a blood crime or without turning my cousin into a rallying point for the people. 

Still, all this is terrible timing. Don’t get me wrong, I do hate my cousin, I do wish he never existed, but before this gossip of rebellion, I had been thinking I could make use of him. After all, if I can’t wish him away, he might as well serve some purpose.

Adneta’s wants have grown to impossible standards in recent months. For her last gift, she’d wanted one of the Herenes’ birds—the sacred peacocks of Hera—dipped in gold and brought to her. My wife wasn’t happy when I had Baruch bring home a peacock from the marketplace and cover it in a dusting of the gold powder he uses to add warmth to my pallid skin. No, not happy indeed. She withheld her pleasures from me for three weeks, until I finally caved in and did the deed. The head priestess of the Herenes raged for days over the matter, but I was too satisfied by my beloved’s passionate enthusiasm to care.

She wants. I want. It’s a fair exchange and I would obtain anything to make her happy if only I could. One day a few weeks previous as I lingered in the immense tub of my private bathhouse, I had mused that if only I were a bit more daring, a bit more like my brawny cousin I could get her more. Despite my paunch, I still retain the trim, leanly muscled figure of my youth, but once my grandfather died and my mother took the regency she had insisted I stop childish sports like wrestling and any activity she considered dangerous. Instead, she insisted I study dance. The exercise toned me, gave me the skill to move gracefully, and taught me how to carry myself as a Solon should, but did nothing to endow me with the muscular power of my cousins. My father bristled at her turning his only son into the “prancing Solon of Portaceae,” but my mother’s word had always been law and hers remained the ruling voice in all of Portaceae until I came of age.

By the time I was an adult, I had lost all interest in sports and now bed games with Adneta, a few autumnal hunts in Forested Park, and stair climbing at Hera’s behest are my only regular athletic endeavors.

My cousin on the other hand seems always to be training, always ready for action, always working his body. There had to be some use for that. And I was just the man to discover it. I could send Herc on errands, telling him they were to benefit his treasured polis and he would have done them without question thanks to his unfathomable sense of duty. With the objects he could have obtained for me, Adneta’s gratitude would have been so passionate, so constant we would have had to replace our bed every moon’s turn.

The carriage lurches over a rut in the road and my shoulder rams into the vehicle’s wall. I curse at Baruch, insult the workers who are to maintain Portaceae City’s streets, then slump down in my bench seat rubbing my shoulder as irritation nibbles into me. Damn Herc Dion. He just never seems to play the part I want.

My stupid cousin has used his brawny gifts against his children ruining my hopes of using him to boost the frequency of my bedchamber enjoyment. To tell the truth, I still can’t believe it. Those children were his world, especially after Meg’s death. Seeing him in the agora playing with them, laughing at their childish observations made him seem a tad more human. Still, if the hag had seen him do it and our cousin who idolizes him confirmed it, there’s little room left for doubt.

The bastard.

Ah well, certainly I’m clever enough to come up with another plan, a more reliable plan, one that requires less contact with Portaceae’s supposed hero. I pick up my crown, pluck the final true gem from its setting, and drop the ruby into the pouch on my tunic’s belt.

The carriage slows. It veers around a curve and I peer out to see we’re approaching the courtyard of my villa. The horses stop with a snort and a heartbeat later, Baruch opens the door. I step out and cross the enclosure that, with its arched breezeway and bubbling central pool, cools the sultry evening air that smells of jasmine.

“There’s no need to return it to the carriage house. We’ll be going out again shortly. Also, return my judicial garments to the dressing chamber and prepare my clothes for tonight. Something festive, I think.”

Baruch gives a curt nod and moves toward the breezeway that will take him to a back stairwell that runs between the servants’ quarters in the basement to the main floors of the villa. Before he gets more than a few paces, Adneta slinks out from the breezeway, her steps making light crunching sounds on the pea gravel-lined paths of the courtyard. Her hips sway under a sheer gown and her corset is cinched tight enough to press her breasts up to a delicious swell. She nods to Baruch before turning her coy eyes to me. Like the magnets my mother had given me to play with as a boy, I am pulled to the Solonia in two strides, my head dipping down to kiss the platform of cleavage the corset creates. Before my lips meet her flesh, she catches my chin in her hand.

“What did you bring me?”

I press my hips into her thigh. “You’ll have to unwrap it upstairs.”

She pushes out of the embrace. Her dark eyes flame with annoyance and she whips around to head back under the breezeway. I catch her wrist, but she flicks my hand away.

“Adneta, my love,” I plead.

She spins and, seeing the rage pinching her face, I stagger back a step.

“You haven’t brought me anything for ages,” she says with contempt before dropping her scowl into a pout. “If you loved me you would bring me things. Gold things, jeweled things. Not just,” she steps in and squeezes my crotch, “hard things.”

Her hand drops and as she glances at me from under her lashes she parts her lips. Gods, I’d give Hera’s tits to have that mouth around me right now. I fish the ruby from my pouch and hold it out for her between my thumb and forefinger. When she tries to grab it, I close my hand over the gem, lean in, and give her lower lip a light bite. She moans and slides one hand along my groin as her other hand unlocks my fingers from the ruby.

Cupping the back of her head in my hand, I crush my lips against hers and thrust my tongue into her mouth. Pulling away from the kiss, I press down on her shoulders indicating what I want. She gives my lips another lick and drops the jewel into her cleavage as she lowers to her knees.

“Excellency,” Baruch’s deep voice calls from the breezeway just as Adneta is lifting my tunic. “Hera awaits.”

“Gods be damned.” I look down to Adneta, her cheeks blush. The yearning for what she’d been about to do sends an aching pulse through my body.

She moves to perch herself on the edge of the courtyard’s central pool, her eyes darting from me to Baruch. I consider making Hera wait. The act certainly won’t take long, not with Adneta’s skills. But I resign myself to resist, hoping the anticipation will make it all that much better. I bend down, brushing my hands on her breasts as I whisper in her ear, “Later, my love. In the carriage.”

Cursing every step, I climb the stairs to the villa’s third floor for the second time today. At least the burning in my thighs distracts me from thoughts of Adneta. Once to the top of the stairs, I pause to pull each heel to my butt to release the tension searing the front of my legs.

This had better be good.

A bead of sweat drips into my eye as I turn the knob to enter the Gods’ Room. With the setting sun forcing its way through a gap in the black clouds, the Gods’ Room is bathed in orange light as if every window holds a roaring fire. Hera’s gown shimmers like copper as she turns to me.

“Guilty?” she asks.

“Quite. Witnessed by his—”

“Fine, fine.” She cuts me off with a wave of her hand and a bottle of sparkling wine appears alongside two fluted glasses on a mirrored table. I examine the bottle and nearly drop it. It’s the finest vintage in all of Osteria. Worth a thousand drachars, but most dealers squeeze at least twelve hundred from wealthy buyers. I pop the cork and take a swig before filling the two glasses. Hera’s face houses a conspiratorial smile that only makes her more captivating.

“To Herc,” she toasts. We clink our glasses and she takes a few small sips. “Have you sent him under yet?”

“In the morning. I have a party to attend.”

The news brings an event as rare as a summer blizzard:  Hera allows a genuine smile to take over her face from eyes to chin.

“Oh, that will be bad for him. A night in a tiny cell.” She takes another sip as I refill my glass. “But he won’t be sent under.”

I drop the flute. Being an object of the gods, it doesn’t break, but the champagne hisses its bubbles across the floor.

“It’s the law,” I argue. “The law of Osteria. Blood crimers are sent under.”

“I don’t want him dead, you silly oaf. I want him to suffer, to beat him down until he is a shred of a man.” She pauses for a sip. “Let him live with the guilt of what he’s done. Let him pay tribute.”

“Tribute?”

Her words make no sense. Could one glass of bubbling alcohol have muddled her head? Tributes are the punishment for minor crimes. When someone is convicted of a crime such as stealing or property damage, he’s held in jail until a job that will use his skills to benefit the polis is found for him. Tribute service is never used for blood crimes. But something nags at me about the idea. A hint of possibility.

“Yes, tribute. Send him in for the worst, the harshest, the most dangerous tasks you can come up with. Not just one, but—” she waves her hand dismissively as she thinks of a number, “—ten. Yes, ten should drive the pain in, bring him down a few notches.”

“And I can choose these labors?”

“Of course, I have some ideas, but honestly, I don’t want to waste much time thinking about Hercules Dion.” A scowl crosses her face at the mention of Herc’s name—words she rarely lets slip last her lips. She gulps down the rest of her glass’s contents as if to rinse from her mouth the vileness of my cousin’s name.

Ten labors. Ten chances for me to send Herc to do whatever I want. Thank the gods for Hera’s vindictiveness. Perhaps, my idea of using Herc to my benefit has been blessed by the gods. With these labors, he can procure unimaginable treasures for Adneta. Gods, she will love me until I can no longer stand.

My good mood dispels as quickly as fog in wind.

There is still the problem of my cousin being left alive. He could be useful, but I can’t have him stirring up people’s approval again once the tasks are over. There has to be a way out. My memory of the laws my grandfather tried to drill into me is rusty, but I still recall fragments of a few.

“The law states if the tribute can’t be paid,” I recite pacing the room to wake up my memory, “such as if he fails one of these tasks or refuses to complete them, he will have to face the original punishment he was sentenced to. In fact, I’m certain I can ensure the final task will be something he can’t complete.”

Hera purses her lips and taps her fingers against her glass. “I don’t know. I like him alive. There’s no way to torment the bastard if he becomes—if he dies.” A look of annoyance clouds over her and I know her momentary good mood has died away. “Why is my glass empty?” She waggles her glass at me and I fill it to the rim. In two swallows the drink is gone. I take another deep swig from the bottle and pour the remainder of the wine into her glass. “Besides, it’s always been a wonderful distraction to bring him pain. I thought I’d done well by ensuring you were born first and denying him the Solonship, but when I got him to kill his own offspring—” Her words are cut off by a snort of laughter.

I stare at her.

“You did that? You killed his children?”

“No, he did that. I just made him,” she holds the thumb and forefinger of her free hand a finger’s width apart, “a tiny bit insane so he’d do it.” She downs the last drop of wine and the glass disappears. “He’s still guilty.”

She must be mad, but her madness could get me what I want and, in the end, I will make certain I am rid of Herc regardless of how entertaining Hera finds him.

“And Zeus won’t interfere to help his son?” I ask.

“He never has.”

“You and Herc are two sides of the same coin. Both abandoned by the great Zeus.”

Hera’s eyes flare. The bright green- and gold-flecked irises ignite into hot embers. The scorching burst only lasts a moment, but it is enough to make me regret my cocky observation.

“Never compare me with the bastard. Remember, I made you Solon. I can just as easily change the laws and make someone else Portaceae’s ruler.”

I bow low. I want nothing more than to be out of the room, to be dressed in my finery, to lose myself in Adneta’s mouth, and to get to the evening’s festivities. But most of all, I want away from Hera before she sets her wrathful hatred on me.

“I never forget, my goddess. Now,” I say picking up my glass and placing it on the table, “I must go.”

“To your whore?”

“I made her my wife,” I say jovially. “You have no reason for complaint.”

“Yes, but you tested every girl in the brothel before settling on her.”