The Trials of Hercules (2 page)

I slide my hand under Sofia’s thin chest. As I cradle the back of her head in my other hand, I turn her gently to look at me. The sight churns my stomach bringing acidic bile into my mouth. Sofia’s darling face, now a tangle of blood and bone, has been beaten until crushed flat. I ease her down as a ripping sensation tears through my chest.

Heat flares through my eyes and, before I can blink them back, tears spill onto my twins’ ruined bodies. I stroke their backs as if lulling them to sleep.

The siren stops outside. Men shout and I wonder who’s out there. Who made the call? Which neighbor ran to the end of the street to trip the call box?

Did they see who did this? Did they see who destroyed my life?

I stand, ready to help my fellow vigiles.

“Hercules Dion.” The shout singes into my nerves and halts me. This isn’t the shout of someone calling out to see if all is well with a friend. It’s a command. “Come out willingly or we will use force.”

They think it’s me.

I try to push away the idea as ridiculous, but the truth I ignored earlier whooshes over me like an autumn gale.

As part of the day’s duty, I had planned to head into Forested Park at the western edge of Portaceae City. I had put on my treaded sandals for the task.

A feeling of being sucked to the depths of Portaceae’s deepest well overwhelms me. With a shaking hand and a prayer to The Twelve, I reach to my calf. My legs give out and I collapse to the floor. The dagger I and every human vigile wears is not in its holster.

No, no, it’s impossible.

Even on their worst days of sibling rivalries and tantrums, I had never raised a hand to my children. To think of doing this, causing all this blood, reeks of an impossible nightmare. The hand gripping my gut squeezes tighter sending a fresh burst of bile that burns my throat.

I push myself up, fighting the urge to grab my children to me, to hold them and protect them like I had failed to do what must have been only moments ago. On shaky legs that threaten to give out with every step, I take the few strides from the pantry, through the kitchen, across the living room, and to the front door. All the while I keep my eyes straight. I can’t look at the blood.

I didn’t do this.

Opening the door brings me face to face with at least twenty vigiles, men and centaurs arranged into double-row formation. The front row of men crouches low as the back row of centaurs remains standing. At their center is a flame-haired young man, his face etched in pain and pity. Every vigile except him has an arrow aimed at my chest. I thrust my hands above my head, then notice they’ve brought the cart—the walled-in, portable pen that provides a prisoner less space than a coat closet. I can’t remember the last time we had to use it, when the last blood crime was committed.

A hunched old woman dressed in a faded floral wrap of thin wool runs up to the vigile in charge. His height and flaming shock of red hair make my cousin hard to miss.

“That’s him,” she squawks, jutting her finger at me as if they don’t know who she means. “Screaming, I heard screaming and there he was with that poor little girl’s neck in his hands.”

“I didn’t do this,” I say to myself. I have no memory of what she says I did. I wouldn’t do such a thing. Not to my children, not to my babies. But here is Elena, my friend and neighbor for the past five years accusing me of just that.

“I sent Orpheus straight to the call box. It was too late though. That monster bashed his children—” She gasps for breath unable to finish the sentence. “I saw it. I saw it.” She breaks down as a lanky man with bowed legs wraps his long arms around her.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Iolalus says. He speaks gently, but with authority. “We’ll see to it from here. Now, please step back.”

She shoots a curse-filled look at me as her son, Orpheus, guides her back from the scene.

“Cousin, will you come with us?” Iolalus asks.

I hold Iolalus’s gaze, give a nod, and then walk slowly to him. Two other vigiles come from behind, stretching high to grab my hands so they can bind my wrists into cuffs. Knowing they can’t reach them, I lower my hands and ease them behind my back. Under the watch of a band of archers I’ve personally trained, I make each movement slow and steady. With practiced speed, the two vigiles lock my wrists into hard leather bands joined by a short piece of steel chain. The men step away as four centaurs form a wall around me.

More neighbors appear from their homes, gaping their mouths and pointing at the spectacle.

“I didn’t do this,” I say still holding Iolalus’s gaze as he steps in closer to me. I look to the cart. Icy sweat beads on my brow and my knees give a betraying tremble. “Please don’t put me in there.”

Iolalus looks me over. I know I’m being evaluated by my keen younger cousin. He knows people; it’s one of the rare skills he has over me. Even if Iolalus could never win a wrestling match against me—although he has come close on occasion—he can guess a man’s intentions simply by looking at him. I’ve often wondered if my cousin doesn’t have a touch of oracle blood in his veins.

Iolalus nods. “The cuffs have to stay though until we get to the arena and it’ll be Eury’s decision if you’re kept in the cart during or after your trial. As much as I’d like to, I can’t override the Solon. Come, we have to go.”

He guides me with a gentle touch on the arm.

Already the bells are ringing. The announcement of a public event in the arena. Not a game this time. Not a wedding. Today the people of Portaceae will be distracted from the mundane reality of their lives by a trial.

As the vigiles march me to the arena in the heart of Portaceae City, a procession gathers behind us. The mile-long journey passes like a dream as I continue to mutter, “I didn’t do this,” as if saying it often enough can make it true.

Once to the arena, I follow Iolalus through the building’s rear entrance where he unlocks my cuffs and tucks them into the belt of his tunic without comment of why he’s going against protocol. We emerge from the darkness of the structure’s underbelly and step out to the center of the arena’s sand and dirt floor.

During the last Osterian Games I won the laurel after wrestling and defeating eleven opponents in this dusty mix. The victory gave Portaceae a short-lived renewal of her former glory. Back then—standing in the center of the floor of Osteria’s largest arena, gazing up at the towering columns that provided support for stands that held thousands of people—I was filled with pride for my polis.

As a prisoner, the arena takes on a different countenance. The columns loom over me like giants on the attack, the walls of the arena floor hem me in, and the murmuring beehive buzz of the crowd delivers an eerie shiver down my spine. It’s a far cry from the jests and jeers that typically accompany a trial and a world away from the cheers I’d earned three years ago.

I didn’t do this, my mind screams. I don’t remember doing this. I didn’t do this.

With Iolalus by my side, I stand, not shifting, not fidgeting, but holding myself straight and tall as I’ve been trained to do since my sixteenth year.

The summer sun moves slowly over the arena. It doesn’t set, but instead lingers at the edge of the arena as if the gods don’t dare take their eyes off me. Finally, the trumpets blare to announce the arrival of the Solon. I square my shoulders as my elder cousin, the leader of Portaceae, steps onto the dais that perches above the arena floor.

“Finally,” Iolalus says. “Gods be with you, cousin.”

“Hera protect Portaceae,” I say.

“Not for the past thirty years she hasn’t.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Good luck, Herc.”

He steps back as I wait to be judged.

2

E
URY

The bells. Gods, why do they have to be so loud? I wouldn’t give up being Solon for a night with Hera herself, but I cannot bear those damned bells. After all, I rule Portaceae. I should have the say when I’m needed at the arena, rather than being summoned with this obnoxious pealing as if I’m a common kitchen servant being called to lay out the evening meal. But duty calls, or rings in my case. I grin at my wit as I pull the sheets up over my head to block out the late afternoon light. Surely, the people can wait another few minutes.

“Excellency,” Baruch announces from behind the closed bed chamber door. His smooth voice jerks me from my dozing slumber. “Hera awaits.”

I wriggle the sheets up further over my head. First the bells and now Hera. Can a man not rest peacefully in his own bed?

Before dragging myself to begin the day’s tasks, I lean over to kiss Adneta between her ample breasts. She moans and reaches for me. Unfortunately, with Portaceae’s patron goddess in the house I must ignore the surge in my groin. Unlike the people of the city, Hera will not abide waiting, nor will it benefit me to leave her twiddling her thumbs. It suits her vanity when mortals come running to her whenever she demands it. An inconvenient annoyance when you’re the one doing the running, but play to her vanity and Hera can be as easily duped as any naïve shopper trying to haggle for a bargain in the agora.

I fling the covers back causing Adneta to yelp despite the warmth of the sun seeping into our bed chamber. She shoots me a harsh glare, but then quickly mollifies the look into a flirty pout.

“Bring me something back,” she says. I blow her a kiss before entering my dressing chamber, but my wife entirely misses the gesture as she slips back under the sheets

In the room adjoining the bed chamber, Baruch busies himself with laying out my clothes. I watch his long, elegant hands as they delicately sweep a piece of lint from the garments. Going solely on the beauty of his fingers, one would never think he is a servant. My stocky digits, even with their manicured nails, look no more regal than those of a field worker. I tuck my hands behind my back. I ignore the voice of my mother in my head telling me I’m foolish to compare myself to a mere servant. Once the clothing meets Baruch’s approval, I squirm into my tunic and he dresses me in the formal attire of a public gathering. As he arranges the folds of the black silk toga until they flow like water over my frame, the scent of mint floats from his lips. I fish my tongue around my mouth wondering about the state of my own breath.

After slipping and securing calf-leather sandals onto my feet, Baruch places the Solonian Chain over my shoulders. The gold neckpiece is shorter than when I became Solon—several of the links having been clipped away to be melted into jewelry for Adneta—but it still retains enough loops to leave the Solon’s amulet, a gold-plaited peacock feather, resting just above my heart.

Only once he steps back and nods approval at his work does Baruch hand me my scepter and place a jewel-encrusted crown on my head. Does he know that all but one of the jewels are paste? The true gems became gifts to my loving wife within the first year of our marriage. I eye the scepter wondering how much can be trimmed off its length without drawing notice.

Baruch steps aside to allow me a glance into the mirror. I scan myself with pride from the crown resting amongst my black curls to the gold-embroidered chain of peacock feathers at the bottom hem of my toga. Despite a crooked nose that no medic can force straight, I look exactly the part I was born for: the Solonship of Portaceae.

“I assume Hera is in the Gods’ Room.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“You heard the bells. You’ll need to ready the carriage. My people are beckoning me.”

“Of course, Excellency.”

He holds the door to the hallway open for me, remaining behind as I stride to the stairway that leads to the third floor of the Solon’s villa—to the Gods’ Room. The
click-clack
of my sandals slapping the hall’s marble floor echoes in the vast interior of my mansion.

As always, the climb up the sweeping staircase’s forty-two steps gives me time to guess what Hera wants. No doubt this time her visit relates to the call to the arena, but I hope whatever the situation is won’t take long. In only a couple hours there is a party that I have no intention of missing. The Karadimos, the one family in Portaceae City whose company I can bear, will be breaking out some vintage Illamos Valley wine. Wine that costs over three hundred drachars a bottle being poured for free. One doesn’t miss an occasion like that for a mere public meeting.

The thought of the party brings a parched tightness to my throat. Gods, I could use a glass of wine even if it’s the kitchen swill made by the people of the city using scraps of fruit they’ve gleaned from outside the city gates. Hera is never an easy goddess to deal with, but a helping of the grape makes any meeting with her go much more smoothly. I try to keep stashes of wine in the wall niches along the stairway. Unfortunately, the servants always tidy up my stockpiles. My peek into each niche, just in case one bottle has been left unnoticed, causes me to lose count of the steps.

If only I’d been born to the Illamos Valley, I think as I trudge up riser after riser. Dionysus always strikes me as an amusing god to serve. But, alas, I’ve been blessed with the rule of Portaceae. And Hera. Rumor has it that decades ago she was an amiable goddess. Maybe not friendly or warm, but she at least cared for her polis. To think of the things I could get Adneta if I’d been Solon in my grandfather’s day when Portaceae was the envy of every other city-state in Osteria.

I pass the final wall niche—as empty of wine as all the others—and pause at the top of the stairs to catch my breath and gather my composure. After wiping the sweat from my brow onto my sleeve, I grip the door’s peacock-shaped handle and mutter to myself a curse on Hera if the door doesn’t open. If Hera has changed her mind and gone on to other business, the knob won’t turn and I’ll have made the climb for nothing. Whether it is her idea of a joke or she simply changes her mind, her abandoning the Gods’ Room after summoning me is something Hera does much too often. I clench the knob tighter and give a twist. Today my leg-burning efforts are rewarded by the clasp slipping out of its latch and the door swinging open.