Chapter 11 Child of Love
Hermes trod the woodland path, battling the tempest of his thoughts. He wore only his winged golden boots and a simple blue tunic. The rest of his armour was stowed away in a bag slung across his shoulder. In his other hand he carried a basket of fresh bread, figs and a pot of honey.
He’d spent the past week visiting his temples in the Argolid region and the surrounding territories, hoping one of his priestesses might have heard whispers of a strange girl with god-like powers.
But his search had proved fruitless. In his desperation, he had flown across the Aegean Sea to the outskirts of a small town in the kingdom of Lydia called Hypaepa.
The trees rustled as he stepped into the familiar clearing.
As he approached the little hut nestled in the centre, his brow darkened.
The vegetable patches he’d planted were overgrown, and many of them had gone to seed.
He would have to pay a visit to the local boys he’d instructed to tend it and remind them what happened to those who disobeyed the Messenger of the Gods.
But his heart lifted as he heard a warbling voice from within the ramshackle dwelling.
The singer was not skilled, but she sang with the unbridled joy of one who does so purely for their own entertainment.
Hermes pushed open the crooked wooden door. The singing stopped.
‘Who is it?’
‘Just me,’ he called as he stepped inside.
The hut was a shambles. A three-legged table propped up on a barrel was heaped with spools of thread and an array of pottery; most of which had been broken then glued back together incorrectly, the artwork a cracked, nonsensical jumble.
Several chairs and stools were littered throughout the single room, twine wound around them to create pathways leading to a table, hearth and a single pallet pushed against the far wall.
‘Don’t move anything. I’ve got it all just where I want it.’ An elderly woman sat in a corner of the room on a stool working an old loom, thread coiled in little coloured heaps beside her.
Hermes smiled. ‘The next time I visit, I’ll find you with a broken leg from tripping over all this mess.’
The old woman lifted her hands from her weaving. ‘The next time you visit I’ll be dead if you leave it so long again.’
Hermes’ grin faltered. ‘How long has it been?’
She sighed. ‘Two years give or take.’
Hermes’ frown returned. He set down his bag of armour by the door and picked his way through the obstacle course of furniture to draw up a chair next to the old woman, placing the basket of food down beside him.
She looked smaller than the last time he’d seen her.
He burrowed his head between her hands and lay it on her lap.
‘Did you miss me, Arachne?’
She smoothed his hair, her twisted fingers raking across his scalp with just the right amount of pressure. She always knew how to relax him.
‘No, you’re a damned nuisance.’
Hermes smiled, then sniffed. He closed his eyes as she groomed him.
‘You always sound the same,’ she murmured. ‘Such a youthful voice.’
Hermes sat up and leant across her to inspect the tapestry. He cocked his head.
‘What’s this one meant to be?’ He could make out no discernible shapes in the design.
‘A horse making love to a donkey.’
Hermes laughed. He had once asked Arachne why she continued to weave after her sight was taken.
She had replied that it was the making, the texture of the thread beneath her fingers, rather than the finishing that gave her pleasure.
Hermes didn’t understand. Arachne had been brilliant once, a weaver possessed of a skill so beautiful it was almost divine.
But her talents with thread were matched only by her wicked sense of humour.
She had created a series of works depicting the gods’ debauchery and philandering that became very popular in her town, then swiftly the rest of the kingdom.
When it came to Athena’s attention that there existed a tapestry of her amorously chasing a bull, she had put out Arachne’s eyes and destroyed all her work.
Well, most of it. Hermes had managed to save a couple of tapestries.
He kept them hidden far from Olympus, and it amused him to look at them from time to time.
In his opinion they were finer works of art than anything in the marble sky palace.
‘What did you bring me then?’ A glint appeared in Arachne’s milky eyes.
‘Goat droppings and tree sap.’ Hermes lifted the basket onto his lap, took the lid off the honey pot and dipped one of the indigo figs into its gooey interior.
‘All disgusting, I’m afraid.’ He lifted the honeyed fig to Arachne’s lips and watched the golden syrup drip languidly down her chin as she bit into the fruit.
‘Absolutely disgusting.’ She chewed for a while. ‘Go on then, what is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You only ever come to me when you want something.’
‘That’s not …’ Hermes twisted another ripe bulb between his fingers, the word ‘fair’ dying on his lips. He could never hide his feelings from Arachne. ‘You remember I told you that my father is a very powerful man … well, he’s ordered me to do something for him.’
Arachne nodded. ‘Go on.’
Hermes wondered how much he dared reveal.
‘It’s a secret task he’s entrusted only to me …
I have to find something for him that doesn’t want to be found, and I’m afraid if I fail he might …
No, failure isn’t an option.’ He sighed, squashing the fig between his fingers.
‘I’ve not had any luck so far, and then to complicate things, there’s this woman –’
‘Ah!’ Arachne reached for his hands and when she found them, plucked the fig from his fingers. ‘You like her …’ She popped the fruit into her mouth.
‘Yes,’ Hermes said quickly. ‘And she’s asked me to do something too.
She’s so sad, because someone precious was taken from her, and if I find him and give him her message, I could make her happy.
I would like that very much. But if my father finds out he’d be furious to know I’m not fully focusing on his quest.’
‘Hmmm,’ Arachne nodded sagely. ‘This woman, you like her a great deal, don’t you?’
Hermes flushed crimson. He was glad Arachne could not see him.
‘You love her,’ the old woman said softly.
He swallowed. It felt reductive, simplifying the knot of desire, guilt, shame and hope he felt for Aphrodite into one little word.
‘I think,’ he croaked, ‘this might be my chance, for both my father and this woman to finally see me as a man.’
‘You care too much about what others think, my young friend.’ Arachne wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.
‘For what it’s worth, when I am trying to find something, I think about where I would be if I were that thing.
A pot of honey doesn’t like the window, you see, because it melts in the sunlight.
But a dark shelf, or a cool patch of floor?
Perfect. And as for your love, I’d be wary of setting such high hopes on the outcome of giving her what she desires.
Seems to me she’s gaining a great deal from your friendship, and you not so much.
But then what do I know? I’m just a mad old woman who made fun of the gods and lived to regret it. ’
Hermes scowled but laid his head back on Arachne’s lap, his face tilted to look up at her. ‘Do you really regret it?’
Arachne’s lined lips spread into a smile. ‘Not for one moment.’
Hermes pelted through the sky, the clouds beading his armour with dew.
He turned Arachne’s words over in his mind.
Where would he go if he did not want to be found?
Where in all of Greece would he hide if he were fleeing from the gods?
If he were, like his father had said of her, a creature from the Underworld transformed to appear mortal?
Hermes halted so abruptly, he almost tumbled down to earth. Fighting against the buffeting wind, he trod the air.
How could he have been so foolish?
‘She has returned to her master!’ he proclaimed to the sky.
He was about to turn and fly back across the Aegean, when the wind parted the carpet of cloud below.
The stone fortress of Troy reared out of the landscape beneath him.
It looked as though another city had been erected across the bay, at the edge of the sparkling sea.
A labyrinth of tents and standards stretched out for at least a mile, and lining the coast were rows of triremes, the great warships flying flags from all corners of Greece.
Hermes sucked in a breath. Aphrodite’s boy dwelt within the city of Troy. He wondered how she felt about her lover, Ares, orchestrating a war that could very likely end her son’s life. He revelled in a sharp stab of satisfaction as he imagined the rift tearing open between them.
You could have it all, said the voice. Your father’s respect and Aphrodite’s love.
Indecision tugged at him for a heartbeat, then he tilted his body and flew down towards Troy.
As he passed over the Greek encampment, the stench of unwashed bodies wafted up to greet him.
He wrinkled his nose and beat his ankle-wings faster.
Soon, he was soaring over the vast stone walls of Troy, lined with bronze-helmeted sentries, before continuing on over the city.
Hermes landed on the flat roof of a dwelling that wasn’t overlooked. It was always a dangerous thrill, venturing this close to so many mortals. He chewed his lip as the clamour of the city pressed in on him and decided what to do next.
He walked to the edge of the roof and peered down to the street below. It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for.