Chapter 20
The Lion
As the daylight faded, the crowd finally dispersed and traipsed back to their homes. In the end it took ten men to drag the Lamia’s corpse from the square. The stones were scrubbed, but the tinge of its dark blood remained, staining the slabs.
From conversations she’d overheard, Danae gathered the monster had emerged from a cave in the hills above Corinth a few months prior and would periodically venture down to the town to steal children and feast upon their flesh.
The town’s soldiers had proved no match for the Lamia, so resorted to keeping watch and sounding a warning bell whenever the creature was spotted.
In their desperation, the people had sent word to Greece’s greatest hero. And he had answered their call.
Heracles and his companions remained at the kapeleion to eat and drink their way through the rest of the young noble’s purse. Danae lingered too, sitting at a table in the corner, within earshot of Heracles’s group.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She should have found a map, left Corinth and been on her way to the Black Sea by now. But she could not silence the echo of the voice that was hers and yet not hers.
Fate.
The hero was important to her quest. She just had to find out why.
Her hands nudged the cup of wine she’d been nursing for the last hour, as the barkeeper placed a candle on her table.
He gave her a strange look but said nothing.
A seer’s coin was as good as any other. Her eldest brother, Calix, once told her barkeepers prided themselves on guarding the secrets of their patrons just as much as the quality of their wine.
She watched him move over to Heracles’s table with another candle.
The hero sat a good head taller than his companions, his eyes crinkling with amusement as the red-haired man talked animatedly.
At the climax of the story, Heracles let out a laugh that echoed round the kapeleion, and the woman snorted out a poorly timed gulp of wine and pounded the table with her fist, while the younger man slapped her vigorously on the back. They’d all had a lot to drink.
It was strange to see the hero like this, sitting amongst a group of ordinary people, sharing wine like he was one of them. She’d always imagined Heracles to be more god than mortal. A man of dignity and power, a miniature version of his father.
Zeus, the God of Thunder, the creator of mankind, the deity she was prophesied to destroy.
“It’s a fool’s errand,” said the flame-haired man loudly.
“I don’t know,” said the older man. “Apparently, this Jason has already gathered quite a following. They’re calling themselves ‘the Argonauts,’ after the ship King Pelias has had specially commissioned.”
“Ridiculous name,” muttered the woman.
He ignored her. “Apparently it’s the fastest vessel ever made.”
“I don’t care how bloody fast it is,” said the flame-haired man. “Even if the western wind blew us all the way, it would take most of the year to get across the Black Sea. Colchis is at the end of the world. Let’s go home to Mycenae.”
Danae sat up, straining to catch the next words.
“Mycenae isn’t home,” said Heracles darkly.
“The last labor that bastard Eurystheus sent us on was a joke.” The woman drained her cup and slammed it down on the table. “Stealing cattle? Who does he think we are, farmhands?” Then she added quickly, “No offense, Hylas.”
The young man shrugged. “We did have to kill a giant first. And there’s nothing wrong with being a farmhand.”
“That’s the spirit.” The red-haired man slung an arm around Hylas’s shoulders.
Danae had always assumed Heracles undertook his heroic deeds alone. But, she supposed, even a hero needed backup.
“I hear Ancaeus, the bearskin warrior, has already pledged himself to the Argonauts,” said the older man.
The woman laughed. “Warrior, my ass. He probably skinned the first beast he found dead in the woods.”
“Let’s settle this.” The flame-haired man looked to Heracles. “We could either go on a needlessly lengthy quest for some mythical golden fleece or go back to Mycenae, where there are warm beds and women waiting for us?”
The hero stared into his cup.
“Well?” prompted the woman.
After a stretch of silence, Heracles looked up from his wine. “I have no appetite for Mycenae or Eurystheus’s demands. We join Jason and these Argonauts.”
The red-haired man sighed but made no attempt to argue.
Danae’s mouth was dry. They were going to the end of the world.
This was it, the feeling like eels in the pit of her stomach.
The fates must have drawn her to Heracles for this reason.
Now all she had to do was convince the hero to take her with them.
She gulped down the last of her wine and rose to her feet, wiping her sweaty palms on her cloak.
“Heracles!” Someone called across the kapeleion.
Danae shrank back into her corner as a man came striding toward the hero’s table. From his blue cloak and armor, she recognized him to be an Athenian guard. She pulled her hood down lower over her face.
The guard and Heracles evidently knew each other well. After exchanging the sacred greeting, the hero rose to grasp the man’s hand and slap him on the back, the force of which nearly sent the guard crashing into the table.
“Leander, what in Tartarus brings you to Corinth?”
With a flick of his cloak, Leander sat at the table, forcing the older man to move along the bench. He leaned in and lowered his voice. Danae was forced to lip-read to determine what he was saying.
“You’ve heard about Delphi?”
The others shook their heads.
Leander sucked in a breath. “The entire city’s been razed to the ground. Balls of flame fell from the sky.”
All merriment vanished from the listeners’ faces.
“What?” Hylas’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Who would dare invade the sacred city?” asked the older man.
Leander stretched out a dramatic pause. “They’re saying Apollo himself.”
“Impossible,” said the woman. “Why would Apollo destroy his own city? His oracle?”
Leander shrugged. “It’s not for us to question the will of the gods.”
The silence was heavy. Danae felt nauseated as the smell of burning flesh came unbidden into her memory.
“Join us for a drink?” asked Heracles.
Leander shook his head. “Can’t, I’m on official business.
” He looked around again and leaned in even closer.
“Our queen’s gone missing. She was in Delphi when it all happened, but we know she got out.
Found her wedding ring in a bathhouse a few streets away from here.
” He shook his head. “Theseus will lose his mind, and I’ll probably lose my head if I return to Athens without her. Don’t suppose you’ve seen anything?”
Heracles shook his head. “We’re just passing through.”
Leander sighed. “Well, I’d leave tonight if I were you. The city’s going to be flooded with pilgrims before long. They’ll have nowhere to go.” He pushed himself up from the bench. “Right, I’d best be on my way.” He inclined his head, then left the kapeleion in a flare of blue.
“You heard him,” said the flame-haired man. “Let’s go before those bloody pilgrims get here.”
Danae watched them leave, rushed to the doorway and peered out into the square. After making sure the guard was nowhere to be seen, she slipped after them.
She followed Heracles and his companions to the outskirts of the town. The rich darkness of night had swept over Corinth by the time they stopped at a stable.
She crouched down behind a large juniper bush and watched the older man pay the stable owner while the others saddled up their mounts.
At the turn of each new street, she’d told herself this would be the moment she would introduce herself, but everywhere the hero went, admirers were drawn to him.
This was her last chance. Once they were on horseback, she would never be able to keep up with them.
She’d almost summoned the courage when she felt the cold kiss of a blade on her neck.
“Get up.”
Slowly, Danae rose to her feet. She hadn’t even heard the woman steal up behind her.
“Move.” The knife pressed into her jugular as the woman marched her out from behind the bush. “Told you there was someone following us.”
Danae fought to keep calm as the others stared at her. “Unhand me, if you want to live.”
The flame-haired man laughed. The blade jiggled against her skin as the woman caught his mirth. Evidently these warriors were not as easily cowed by her disguise as the ship’s captain at Cirrha had been.
Despite the knife, Danae lifted her chin. “You dare mock a messenger of the gods?”
There was a pause. Then Heracles said quietly, “Let her go.”
The woman withdrew her weapon.
Danae’s pulse quickened as Heracles dropped the reins of his horse and walked toward her. He was so powerful, and yet he moved with the grace of a panther.
“You were in the square.”
She was grateful for the poor light as her cheeks turned the color of a ripe fig. Heracles’s eyes were startlingly blue. Everything around him seemed to disappear under the weight of all that ocean. She dug her nails into her palms to focus.
“I received a vision from the gods. It led me to you.”
The woman tensed beside her, but Heracles said, “Go on.”
She had one chance to convince him. She bit the inside of her cheeks and tasted blood. It helped. As the metal tang swirled around her mouth, she thought of how easily Manto had lied to Captain Erastus.
“I was trapped in a labyrinth. I couldn’t find my way and was sure I was lost. Then, I saw a great lion. It led me through the maze and showed me the way out into the light. I did not know what it meant until I came here. When I saw you in the square, I recognized you.”
“Everyone recognizes me.” It was a fact, stated without arrogance.