The Age Of Zeus (59 page)

Sam was tempted to ask where this Persephone was right now? Did she even exist? And what about the underworld? As far as she could tell, Hades spent all his time on Olympus. If he was the ruler of some other realm, he was very much an absentee monarch.

But a look from Zeus forestalled her before she could pipe up. He sensed exactly what was going through her mind, and a subtle sideways flick of his head indicated that it should remain there, if she knew what was good for her.

One suppertime, over a roast suckling pig cooked to perfection by Demeter, Hera turned the tables and embarked on a sustained critique of Zeus and his many infidelities. It seemed light-hearted at first, a piece of teasing, wife trying to embarrass husband even though knowing that he felt no shame. She couldn't, however, keep a trickle of venom from entering her voice.

"Antiope, the river god's daughter," she said. "What form did you take in order to attract her, Zeus? I can't remember, was it a satyr by any chance? How charming. A short, hirsute man with stubby little goat legs - I can't think of anything more alluring. And Europa. A white bull, wasn't it? Innocent little virgin, she wasn't to know any better. I wonder, did you woo her or
moo
her?"

Athena and Demeter both chortled archly at the witticism.

"And then there was that silly thing Leda," Hera went on, "who fell for you while you were playing at being a swan. Swans can break a man's arm with their wing, but all you managed to do was break her heart. And after she went to the trouble of laying a couple of eggs for you! And what about Callisto? At least you came to her in the shape of a man, without bothering with all that animal disguise nonsense. Although, hmmm, didn't you turn
her
into a bear after you'd had your wicked way with her, so as to hide her from me? And then Artemis hunted her down and killed her."

"Artemis," said Apollo. "Ha! That was just like her. Couldn't see a bear without wanting to chase after it." He tore some pork off the bone with his teeth, eyeing Sam all the while. "I miss her," he added, chewing morosely.

"Then there's Semele, Danaë, Leto, Alcmene, Io..." Hera checked off the names on her fingers. "The list is endless. You should count yourself lucky, Zeus, that you have a wife who's prepared to put up with your philandering."

"Dearest Hera," said Zeus, "'put up with' is hardly how I would describe your behaviour towards some of my conquests and their offspring. Take Io. I transformed her into a cow so that she would escape your notice and your ire..."

"A cow. So gallant of you."

"...and what did you do? Turned yourself into a gadfly and so tormented her with your stinging that she galloped halfway round the world in a maddened frenzy. If that's 'putting up with,' I'd hate to see what you're like when you truly take against someone."

"Speaking as Semele's son," said Dionysus, very drunk as was customary by this point in the evening, "I admit that my stepmother and I have had our misunderstandings, but we have managed to overcome them. Yes, she arranged for me to be torn limb from limb, and yes, she wasn't best pleased when I was presented to her dressed as a girl in the hope that she wouldn't recognise me and realise I had survived her murder plot. Weren't fooled for a moment, though, were you, O Hera the Fulfiller? But then I'd never make for a very convincing female, not with this beard."

"Maybe with those fat man-breasts of yours you would," said Ares.

"Thank you and fuck you," said Dionysus. "All I'm saying is, Hera can be forgiving, in the end. The fact that I am here, in the bosom of the family, regarded as close kin, proves it. Same goes for the twins. For Demeter too. There aren't many wives who'd happily sup at the same table as one of her husband's ex-lovers, let alone become good friends with her."

"I can be forgiving," Hera agreed. "But forgiveness is never boundless, Zeus. You'd do well to bear that in mind. There comes a point when enough is enough. An extramural indiscretion is one thing, but to flaunt it, to rub our noses in it, is quite another."

She didn't look at Sam when she said this, but then she didn't need to. Everyone present was aware who was the true focus of these remarks.

"There are acts no wife should be expected to support or tolerate," she added, laying down her napkin and pushing back her chair. "Decide sooner rather than later what it is you want to do, my husband, or the decision will be made for you, forcibly, permanently, and in a manner that will cause considerable distress to one of the parties concerned. Do I make myself clear?"

So saying, she left the dining hall, and Athena and Demeter followed her out in a show of solidarity.

Zeus broke the ensuing awkward silence. "Well. I, for one, have no idea what all that was about? Does anyone else?"

The joke fell flat. Only Dionysus found it funny, but then he was so deep in his cups that anything and everything seemed funny to him.

Hades, however, seemed very pleased by the turn of events, as though Hera's threat to Sam promised some kind of windfall for him.

66. MARTYRS

S
am stayed in her room for the next couple of days with a feigned illness, lying low, venturing out only to grab leftover food from Demeter's kitchen and scurry back to eat it alone. She had no desire to mingle with the Olympians, not now that Hera had so openly declared her hostility. Anyone could see that Zeus had been set an ultimatum. Whatever his intentions towards Sam were, he had better act on them, otherwise his wife would step in and cut through this particular Gordian Knot herself.

The impulse to escape, and the impossibility of it, warred within Sam, the one hemmed in tormentingly by the other.

On the morning of the third day, beginning to get stir crazy, she headed out into the frigid dawn air. No one else was around other than the ever-present, ever-vigilant Harpies, cawing and cackling on their roosts. She roamed, enjoying the semblance of freedom that being on her own gave her. Her wanderings took her eventually to a corner of the stronghold she hadn't explored before. Here she came across a low-built edifice, like a large mausoleum, sandwiched between a tall rock outcrop and the inner flank of the stockade. This had not been on the itinerary of the tour Zeus had given. Curiosity piqued, she tried to door, tugging on its large round brass handle. The door, banded with iron, did not budge. There was no evidence of a lock but something, certainly, was holding it fast. She circuited the building but found no other entry point, not even a window. Returning to the front, she searched for some outward sign of the structure's purpose but found none. It had one unusual feature, a copper lightning rod attached to the vertex of the roof, two metres long and greened with oxidation. Other than that the place was plain and nondescript, almost ostentatiously so, given the general grandeur and ornateness that could be found everywhere else in the stronghold.

Perhaps it was some kind of storage unit.

Or perhaps this is where they're keeping my TITAN suit
.

The thought galvanised Sam. She'd given up her battlesuit for lost, assuming Zeus would have destroyed it by now, but if by chance it was here, if she could be reunited with it, then a bid for freedom stood a substantially improved likelihood of success.

She resolved to come back after nightfall armed with something she could use as a crowbar to pry the door open.

Moving on, she shortly found herself passing the entrance to Argus's lair: a gap in a rockface surrounded by a carved-out portico, with giant bas-relief peacocks standing sentinel on either side. She had no intention of going in. Even the thought of Argus - that blubbery malodorous body, that wire-sprouting head - gave her the willies. But then a low, rippling voice called out from within: "Who's there? Someone's there. I'm picking up the sound of footsteps. I'm glad you've come. I need to talk to someone."

Sam started tiptoeing away, but Argus became plaintive and insistent. "Please. You must listen to me, whoever you are. It's urgent. Something important is happening. The mortals are up to something."

That was too intriguing to ignore. Turning, and bracing herself for the smell, Sam entered the chamber.

"Oh," said Argus. "It's only you, Samantha Akehurst."

"Only me."

"I need Zeus. Would you fetch him? I have intelligence I need to share."

"What's it about? I could pass on a message."

Sam glanced around as she said this, and noticed that several of the screens were tuned to surveillance satellite images - orbital views of Greece and the Mediterranean - while on others there were news broadcasts showing smartly dressed people, quite possibly diplomats, stepping out of limousines and walking quickly into imposing buildings. One screen featured warships at sea, another a series of military transport aircraft taking off. This was as much as she could take in before, with an "ah-ah-ah!," Argus swapped all these feeds for his peacock insignia. Hundreds of feather-mounted eyes glared reprovingly at Sam.

"Zeus," Argus said. "Not you. Kindly go and get him."

She came back shortly with a yawning Zeus. He didn't tell her to wait outside, so she went in with him.

"A bit early for our morning update, isn't it?" Zeus said to Argus.

"I regret getting you out of bed, but it just couldn't wait. Although," Argus added, "perhaps this should be for your ears only."

With a look at Sam, Zeus said, "Perhaps I should be the judge of that."

"But she's a mortal."

"So she is. But presumably what you have to tell me is news from the mortal world, meaning other mortals will know about it already, so why not her too? Besides, Sam is one of us for the time being, whether she likes it or not. Your tact is commendable, Argus, but unnecessary."

"As you wish, Cloud-Gatherer." The screens reverted from the peacock to the disparate images they'd been showing before. "This began late yesterday evening. I've been monitoring developments overnight."

"What am I looking at?"

"We have what amounts to a military coup taking place in the United Kingdom."

"What!?" Zeus exclaimed.

"General Sir Neville Armstrong-Hall is the instigator," said Argus. "Although he's calling himself Field Marshal now, because he believes Britain is on a war footing. He's invoked a law drawn up during the Cold War that's become redundant but hasn't been removed from the statute books. It was drafted to allow the mobilisation of British armed forces without parliamentary authority in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike."

"Mobilise them to do what?"

"Anything they like, more or less. In this instance, move on Olympus."

Sam saw Zeus's mouth drop open. "Preposterous! They can't. Why would they do that?"

By way of answer, Argus pulled up footage of a trim, grey-haired old soldier holding an impromptu press conference at an airbase, surrounded by a jostling mob of reporters all yelling, "Sir Neville! Sir Neville!"

"It's a nettle that needs to be grasped," Field Marshal Armstrong-Hall said, "and now seems to be the time to grasp it. People at home should rest assured that this is not, I repeat not, a declaration of martial law. Parliament is only being pre-empted, not supplanted. This is military action against an outside power, in retaliation for an attack that took place on British soil a few weeks ago - an attack that was, in my view, no less disruptive and impactful than a nuclear warhead would have been. I am simply doing now what the vast majority of the British public wish to be done and what our elected representatives, shirking their democratic mandate, have stubbornly refused to do. I regret that it's come to this. Since Bleaney Island I have been holding frequent behind-the-scenes meetings with Mr Bartlett, urging him to harden his stance towards the Olympians, but frankly I've been wasting my breath. Now, at a time when the Olympians have been proved to be vulnerable, and after an example has been so bravely and tragically set to us by these Titans,
now
is the moment to be decisive and take action of the kind that, God willing, has a decent prospect of success."

"There's more," Argus said. "The Americans are offering logistical support. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff have issued a statement in the past hour backing Armstrong-Hall."

At the Pentagon, a much-medalled general at a podium was addressing a rowdy press pack. It was 11pm Eastern Standard Time.

"We're pledging the Brits all of our Chinooks," the general drawled in iron-edged Texas tones, "plus ordnance, body armour, because we know how underequipped those fellas can be in that department, and last but not least the use of our one remaining aircraft carrier - the
Nimitz
-class USS
Prometheus
, which happens to be in the eastern Atlantic even as we speak, just off the Straits of Gibraltar - as a floating command post and field hospital."