The Trials of Hercules (17 page)

“Their efforts also bring Portaceae much needed money,” Hera says. “Once your two million is accounted for by the Herenes, they will use it to benefit my polis.”

I turn to walk a circle around the room to hide my smile at Hera’s expense. The gods can be so blind when they think every effort is for them. The money rests in my hands. I’m not about to give it up.

“Two million drachars. What will that cover? The repair of a handful of buildings and a few miles of road?”

“I’ve no doubt you spent the money from the lion on your whore, but surely you can’t need two million drachars to keep her satisfied.” She looks to my groin on the final words.

If Hera had done her job and protected this polis, we wouldn’t have any need to worry about finances. We’d have an abundance of resources like all the other city-states of Osteria.

It takes every effort to keep my thoughts out of my mouth. I have other cats to hang and don’t want to bicker about who is truly responsible for Portaceae’s decline. I cross the room to Hera who has gone to look out the west-facing window.

“I won’t let them continue,” I insist. “If he succeeds again, the people will revolt and the vigiles will encourage it. Will you be able to stop them to keep me in power?”

She spins. The cool light in the room explodes with a burst of silver flames that flick hot tongues at me. Hera’s eyes flare with more anger than is boiling just below my surface.

“Do not judge me or think I will step in to help you,” she commands. “You need to manage your people.”

“They’re your people too, goddess.”

“Maybe,” she continues in a milder tone that is still tinged with acid. “Did it ever occur to you to cut the feed? They can’t celebrate and cheer for what they don’t know about. It was stupid to even allow it in the first place.”

“But the engineers say they can’t switch the power back to–”

“They figured it out once, they can figure it out again. I swear, had I known your incapacity for thought, I’d have forced Iolalus to appear before your father ever spat you into your mother’s womb. Now, do you really want to end this?”

I do, but I also fear sending my cousins under. With their popularity, if I relinquish my mercy now I will be seen as the monster. What then? How long will it take the people to tear down the very walls of my villa to get to me? But leaving either of my cousins alive to continue on this path to glory will certainly spell my doom. My head spins around again to the blood crime vault. If Portaceae was rid of Herc, Hera might be different. His death would call an end to her obsessive hatred, stop this stupid fit of jealousy, and Portaceae would thrive. And who would the people love for restoring the polis’s glory? Me. If I can only keep them from revolting first.

The benefits outweigh the risks. With two million drachars I can hire more guards and still have enough left over for Adneta.

“Yes, he’s failed this task. By the rules, it’s over,” I say. My heart thuds in my chest with every word.

I expect Hera to be elated, but no look of pleasure crosses her face at my answer. Her mouth sags with worry, but she flicks her head to toss back her hair and forces a curt smile. The flames die down and the silvery glow returns to the room.

“Fine. Personally, I’d rather watch him suffer, but so far the tasks have been too easy. He’s almost seemed to enjoy them. We’ll send him on another labor.”

“Another? But that will only give him more glory. No, he failed, he must be sent under.”

“Gods, is your mind so weak?” She flicks me on the head with a snap of her hand. The sting singes through my skull and down my neck. I glare at her, daring her to do it again. “Would you seem so petty? What would the people think? They saw Herc and Iolalus defeat the hydra. If you send him under on a technicality, they will indeed revolt. Why not show yourself the better man and allow him to serve Portaceae once more?”

“And if he succeeds? How will I be rid of him if he succeeds?”

“You’re so certain of his ability,” she says coyly.

“I know my cousin. His strength and cunning are as plentiful as his sense of duty and loyalty.”

“Rest assured that he will lose either way in this. If he fails, which is quite likely, you will have every right to send him under. If he succeeds, he will feel the wrath of a goddess who is not known for her forgiveness.”

Were any of them?

“What do you have in mind?”

“In Cedonia, Artemis keeps a herd of sacred deer. One of them, a stag born with a bronze hooves and golden antlers is her favorite. The animal is like a child to the goddess—eating out of her hand, sleeping at her feet. If Herc kills this creature, Artemis will take revenge on him. And Artemis’s revenge tends to be rather final.”

“But the gods can’t kill. Hasn’t that always been the only law that binds your power?”

“It is, but it seems Artemis tends to loose many stray arrows in her woods.” The corners of Hera’s mouth curl up in a satisfied and infectious grin. Despite the sting that still burns across my scalp, I can’t help but smile as well.

“Let’s send him now, then.” I take her cool, smooth hand and kiss it. “What matter that it’s nightfall, unlock the city gates and boot him out.”

“In the morning. Let him rest and have his wounds tended to. Let him enjoy a late start. You want to make sure he’s fully rested so he can find the stag, don’t you?”

“And the feed?”

She slips her hand out of mine.

“Leave it on. Let the people of Portaceae see their hero defiling the possessions of the gods. That way, when Artemis sends her arrow through him, they won’t mourn his death. They will know he got what he deserved. Without the feed, who knows what rumors might come of how he died.”

My elation at the thought of being rid of my cousin without dirtying my hands or reputation leaves me feeling more desirous than ever. I watch Hera look out the window at the shadows of Portaceae City, observe how her gown hugs the curves of her buttocks, and wonder what it feels like to be between a goddess’s legs.

I stalk toward her, trying to decide what to do first with my hands—hold her sleek waist, brush my fingertips along her upper arm, or just take a handful of ripe immortal ass? When I am within arm’s reach, she spins and gives me a cold stare.

“We are done here. I suggest you practice your grieving face for your cousins’ funerals.”

And with that, she disappears leaving me nothing to grab but the mist of air she leaves behind. I waft it over me, letting it kiss my skin like dew. The feeling, the idea it is Hera upon me coupled with my already aroused state, overwhelms me with desire. I hurry out of the Gods’ Room, rush down the stairs, and rouse Adneta from sleep by pushing myself between her thighs.

13

I
OLE

I’m tossing dried corn to the peacocks when a pair of black horses slows and the Solon’s golden carriage comes to a stop in front of the Peacock Gate. A flurry of protective anger surges through me. I throw down the remaining corn and march toward the gaudy contraption. Behind me, the peacocks scatter the pebbles of the walkway trying to race one another to the grain. As I approach, Eury’s tall, olive-skinned servant opens the carriage door.

“No,” I say as Eury steps one foot out of the carriage. “He has just spent a night getting filled and refilled with stitches. He can’t go on another task so soon.”

Eury pulls himself fully out of the carriage and scans me in a way that makes me feel as if I should put on more clothes, but I don’t back down. The wounds on Herc’s body had taken four medics to clean and close, and two bottles of wine to dull his pain as they worked. Cecilia, the House’s lead medic, had been irate when she saw the stitches on his back—the ones he’d received after facing the lion—had been ripped out. But she agreed the wounds had been surprisingly close to healed so neither the damage nor the blood loss had been as bad as they might have been.

Still, to send him on another task so soon would be cruel.

“Calm yourself, Priestess, or people will think you love him.” He grins and I hate myself for the burst of warmth in my cheeks. “The task I have in mind is simple. We need a new attraction to boost interest in the city, to draw tourists, to make Portaceae City proud.”

“What did you have in mind? A chimera? That’d be a nice challenge for your cousins.”

“I’ll add it to my consideration, but no. It’s a deer, my dear. The most beautiful in all of Osteria. He’ll have to travel to Cedonia and may use the train. I’m providing permits.” He snaps his fingers and the servant reaches up to rummage through a brown leather satchel on the driver’s seat of the carriage. “Today’s train has already gone and the journey will take at least another half day. Plenty of time for those wounds to patch up.”

I open my mouth to protest. He hasn’t seen the extent of the injuries. But Eury cuts me off before I can utter a word.

“No, don’t argue. If I know my cousin, it won’t take long. He was always such a fast healer. Such a freak.”

The servant hands Eury an envelope, which Eury then presents to me. I keep my hands crossed over my chest.

“Take it to him yourself.”

The Solon’s behavior changes in an instant. His cocksure stance falls away as he begins shifting about on his feet. His haughty expression switches to that of someone looking for a way out of an uncomfortable conversation. He even backs toward the carriage until he bumps into the still open door.

“Damn the gods,” he curses and throws the envelope at my feet. “He has two weeks,” he says as he fumbles himself into the carriage seat.

“Two weeks,” I scoff. “And only two days to tackle a lion and Old Lerna? Suddenly feeling generous?”

Eury stretches to reach for the door’s handle but his earlier bumble has knocked the door wide open. His eyes dart about for his driver who is busying himself with adjusting one of the horse’s bridles. Unless it suddenly sprouts an extra foot in length, Eury’s arm will never extend to the handle. I step over to the door and, resisting the urge to slam it on his stubby fingers, push it so it is just within his reach. As his fingers waggle to get a grip on the handle, he eyes me like a dog who wants to attack but hasn’t the nerve.

“No more generous than any man. I simply want to make sure he completes this labor. After all, it would be a shame to see him sent under, or so people tell me.”

The Solon’s fingers find the handle and he yanks the door shut. Not noticing the end of his toga still hangs out of the door, he bangs on the side of the carriage and shouts, “Get this thing moving.”

The servant’s face pulls into an annoyed scowl as he takes his time getting into the driver’s seat. With a jangle of the reins, the carriage rolls off, hits an easily avoidable pothole, and then another. The sight of the driver giving his master a harsh ride lightens my mood slightly.

I pick up the envelope at my feet. It is unsealed. Inside are two rail passes and two border crossing permits. The Solon hasn’t even bothered to fill in the names. Anyone could use the documents to leave the polis. My hands ripple with a tremble as I dart my eyes to the gate wondering if anyone passing by has seen what I have. To hold two blank travel permits is as risky as flaunting a satchel of gold in a dark alley of the city’s roughest neighborhoods. I tuck the papers deep into the pocket of the apron that covers my dress.

Of late, many people have expressed an interest in leaving Portaceae to look for a better life elsewhere in Osteria. They’ve come to me for travel documents, but Eury—no doubt exacting a hefty fee for the slips of paper—took control of all travel permits last year. Now, only the very rich of Portaceae can afford to leave, and many of them are taking their wealth with them leaving Portaceae even poorer.

If rumor was to be believed, the Karadimos—Portaceae’s wealthiest family and the only other resident left on the Solonian Hill—had recently held their own farewell party only days before heading north to Seattica. It would have been the night of Herc’s conviction, I now realize. Eury was invited as a jest to show him what his polis was losing with their departure. He’d apparently been too drunk to get the jape and signed off on their travel permits in a sloshing scrawl as he toasted the Karadimos’s good health.

I smile at the thought of Eury being made a fool of by people he believed to be his close friends, but something nags at me about this latest task. I watch the peacocks scuttling around one another after the remaining fragments of corn. Such undignified behavior for animals that are supposed to be sacred—

Dear gods, Eury wouldn’t dare.

Sending the birds into a flutter, I rush across the courtyard to the guest wing’s stairwell. A deer in Cedonia important enough to draw Eury’s interest has to be the stag of Artemis—a stag the goddess will do anything to protect. With no one around to see my unladylike behavior and not wanting to waste a single moment, I jog up the steps two at a time. Iolalus answers my knock on Herc’s door with an amused grin.

“Shut up, Iolalus,” I say imagining how my flushed cheeks and rapid breathing must look. I can’t help but smile. How could this good-humored man have come from the same family as Herc who is so serious, and Eury who makes my skin crawl with his every word and look?

Still, I need to control my feelings for Herc if even Eury can see them. There is little point of loving him anyway. I am a Herene for life as part of a pact I made with my mother long ago. A pact that if I break—

I stop my foolish thoughts. By law, Herc will be married again soon and when the tribute trials are done, I will be nothing more to him than head priestess of Portaceae.

Inside the room, Herc reclines on the bed. Bed rest was Cecilia’s condition for him to return to his quarters, but the instant he sees me, he stands.

“Priestess, I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting—” he stammers.

“No, I apologize. I should have sent a message to meet with you when you were ready. Rest.” I go to the empty glass on the bedside table and fill it with cold water from the pitcher. “Here.” His fingers touch mine as he takes the glass and I curse my imagination for thinking the action might be on purpose. “Your cousin has paid a visit.”