Chapter 45 The Burden of Love
Hermes lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
He had not moved for some time. A thin crack, the length of his arm, splintered the marble.
He had never noticed it before. Around him, the chamber was in disarray.
Brightly coloured fabrics and torn cushions lay strewn over the exquisitely carved furniture, feathers and jewels scattered across the floor.
A week had passed since Zeus took away his secret mission and gave it to his siblings.
A week of living with the realization that he’d had a chance to earn his father’s esteem, to finally rise above the other Olympians, to earn everlasting glory, and he had failed.
His only consolation was that Zeus had been so consumed with quelling the threat of the dragon, Typhon, that he was yet to summon Hermes for punishment.
But it would come, of that he was certain.
The beating of wings sounded from beyond Hermes’ balcony. He tilted his head to gaze through the billowing gossamer curtains. Two horse-drawn chariots flew by, driven by an armour-clad Artemis and Apollo, no doubt leaving the palace to scour the land for the Titan girl on their father’s orders.
Hermes squeezed his eyes shut, tears trickling down his temples.
Then his door creaked.
Blankets tangled about his armoured legs as he scrambled to sit upright, grabbed his helm from the pillow beside him and pulled it over his head.
Aphrodite stood in the doorway, a golden goblet clutched in her hand. Her copper hair was loose, tumbling over her freckled shoulders, her blush-pink chiton draped perfectly over every curve.
On any other day, the Goddess of Love visiting his chambers would have been a pleasure Hermes could only dream of. Now it only confronted him with yet another failure.
‘You’ve been avoiding me.’ Aphrodite walked unsteadily into the room and took a deep draught from the goblet in her hand. The scent of ambrosia wafted across the chamber. ‘Where is my son?’
Hermes swallowed. Given all that had happened in the Underworld – Hades’ and Persephone’s deaths, the freed dragon – he hadn’t given much thought to another attempt to convince Aeneas to give up his pledge to fight for Troy in the coming war.
Her face crumpled in the wake of his silence. ‘Oh no, please … he’s not …’
Hermes’ eyes widened and he shuffled off the bed to stand before her. ‘No, no! He’s alive. He’s well. Strong and brave.’
‘Did you give him my letter?’
Hermes nodded.
Aphrodite’s breath shuddered. ‘And you told him about the war?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he somewhere safe?’
Hermes looked down at his feet. ‘No.’
The goblet tumbled from Aphrodite’s hand, clanging on the mosaic floor, amber wine soaking into the strewn silks.
‘Why didn’t you take him away!’
‘I tried to convince him to leave, but he wouldn’t go! So, I gave him one of your amulets, told him if he was ever in need to find a bird …’ He trailed off at the jewel-bright tears tumbling from Aphrodite’s bloodshot eyes.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she whispered.
Hermes blinked. This was not the response he’d expected. He shook his head. ‘This is Ares’ doing.’
She laughed, the sound brittle with pain.
‘I was the one who whispered in Paris’ ear that Helen was rightfully his.
I told him they were moulded from the same piece of clay and fate had cruelly ripped them apart …
’ Her lip quivered. ‘I should have known when Ares bade me do it violence would follow … he is the God of War after all.’
She slipped her hand into the pocket of her chiton and drew out a wooden figurine of a little dove, holding it to her breast. She swayed, her eyes closed, more tears seeping beneath her lashes.
Hermes desperately wished he knew how to comfort her. He wanted to place a hand on her arm, but his limbs felt as dull and immobile as bronze.
Aphrodite loosed a bone-weary sigh, then opened her eyes. ‘You think I forsook Hephaestus’ bed because of the injuries he sustained when Father threw him from Mount Olympus.’
‘No,’ Hermes said quickly.
‘Yes, you do,’ she replied sharply. ‘Everyone does. But it’s not true. Hephaestus stopped lying with me long before he was thrown from Olympus.’
Hermes’ cheeks reddened. He wished she would stop talking.
She looked down at the little dove. ‘No one has ever loved me like my mortal shepherd. Those few years with him are the only thing that has made this endless life bearable. Father has never stopped punishing me for running away, but I would do it again.’ Her voice faded to a whisper.
‘I don’t believe we can keep turning our hearts over afresh.
For me there was one person in all of creation, and I am prevented from seeing the fruit of our love.
’ Her tears flowed thick and fast. ‘I am Aeneas’ mother, I should be nurturing him, guiding him.
He will have such a short little life, and I’m missing it.
Sometimes it hurts so much I can’t bear it … ’
Hermes summoned his bravery and threw his arms around her. She stiffened, then melted into his embrace, resting her head on his armoured shoulder. Her body shuddered, her tears soaking his neck.
‘What do we have here?’
Hermes sprung away from Aphrodite. Ares stood in the doorway.
His lip curled. ‘Am I interrupting?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Aphrodite slipped the dove back into her pocket.
‘Don’t stop on my account.’ Ares prowled into the chamber. ‘I’m in need of some entertainment.’
Aphrodite recoiled from Hermes. ‘Stop it, Ares. He’s just a child.’
‘You hear that?’ Ares lifted the corner of a shredded cushion. ‘You’re nothing but a perverse little boy.’ He flung it from him. ‘You disgust her.’
The lump swelling in Hermes’ throat threatened to break free.
Barging past his brother, he ran through the doorway, Ares’ laughter hounding him down the corridor.
When Hermes finally returned to his chambers, he was relieved to find them empty. He pulled his helm from his head, crumpled to the floor in a heap of golden armour and sobbed until he ran dry.
He’s just a child.
He lay on the tiles for some time, the clay cool against his burning face.
Perhaps he deserved this. He had failed his father, failed Aphrodite. Maybe Ares was right and he was nothing but a perverse little boy.
He could leave, fly away and live with Arachne in her forest. The thought eased his anguish for a heartbeat. But no, there was nowhere in the great expanse of earth, sea and sky that he could hide from his father.
Remember what you found in the Underworld, said the voice.
Hermes wiped his cheeks. Of course, after everything that had happened in the past week, he had forgotten.
He glanced around the chamber for the tell-tale shimmer of a shade lingering in the shadows, then crawled towards the bed. Reaching beneath the swathes of silk draped over the frame, his fingers found what they were searching for.
He pulled a tattered saddle bag into the light.
It had been a strange item to find in Hades’ palace. On first inspection it appeared to be filled with useless tat. But his uncle had never kept anything that didn’t serve a purpose.
Hermes removed his gauntlets and undid the clasp.
He upended the contents onto his bed: a knife, a few coins, a clay pipe and a pouch of herbs.
He picked up the pipe and turned it between his fingers.
The faded likeness of a golden tree was painted across the barrel.
He sniffed the inside, wrinkled his nose and tossed it behind him. The herbs too he swiftly discarded.
Once more, he reached for the bag, his fingers prying around its depths. He paused. There was something still trapped inside. He turned the bag inside out and discovered an inner pouch sewn to the leather.
He drew out a ragged piece of brown cloth, wrapped around what felt like a roughly cut jewel. Swiftly peeling away the wrapping, he uncovered a shard of stone, all shining obsidian edges.
His pulse quickened, his palm warming beneath the worn cloth as his life-threads clustered into his hand.
A memory tugged at the far reaches of his mind.
Just after his father had made him divine, his brother, Apollo, had taken him to see Delphi.
‘What do people ask the oracle?’ Hermes had said as they soared above the holy city in Apollo’s golden chariot.
‘Anything they desire to know. Mostly it comes down to questions of power, lineage, infidelity, how to prevent an untimely death. Mortals aren’t very imaginative.’
‘And it always tells the truth?’
Apollo had smiled. ‘In one way or another. The stone never lies.’
Hermes recalled a chamber, thick with sulphurous smoke and something trapped beneath the ground, cracked and glittering like a great black eye.
‘Can I ask it something?’ he’d said.
‘No.’ His brother’s face had grown stern. ‘Father has forbidden any of us Olympians to touch the omphalos stone. It would weaken us, drain our godly powers.’
The same fear that had pricked Hermes then returned as he stared at the shard of rock. It was a piece of the omphalos stone, he was sure of it. But if it was so dangerous, why had Hades had it in his possession?
His hand was aching now.
Touch it, said the voice.
Heart thundering, Hermes rolled the stone free of its cloth, onto his palm.
As soon as his skin touched the shard, he was yanked from his physical form, his consciousness plummeting into a void of nothingness.
For a moment, there was only darkness. Then terror like he’d never known engulfed him as his shimmering life-threads fled away across the blackness.
He tried to reach for one, but he had no hand to grasp it.
Instead, his consciousness lurched forward, dissolving into the strand and travelling along its length as it joined another, then another.
Shapes began to emerge. Hermes soared through the wings of an eagle, glinted in the eye of a bull and shot through the antennae of a butterfly as he raced through the tapestry of life. He was flying across the curve of a dolphin’s fin when he remembered: he was meant to ask a question.
What did he desire the most? His father’s approval? Aphrodite’s love? Ares’ envy?
He wanted all of it.
Suddenly the tapestry changed. The web of gleaming threads twisted, forming something new.
A city drawn in ever-moving lines of light.
A fortress, its glowing towers stretching away into the darkness.
Troy. Then the image shifted, the threads weaving into a clash of bodies, Aphrodite’s son, Aeneas, falling back as a female soldier raised her sword against him.
Hermes tried to cry out, but he had no voice to scream.
The vision swirled again: the same battlefield, a different tangle of bodies.
He searched for Aeneas but could not see him.
Then a girl parted the throng, her short hair buffeted by an invisible wind.
She stared at Hermes as if she could see him, then raised her hands, Poseidon’s trident clutched in her fist. Life-threads streamed from her, leaching from the scene around him into her as she channelled her power.
With a gut-churning wrench, Hermes dropped the stone and returned to his body. He staggered from the bed, fell upon his hands and retched onto the tiled floor.
His insides emptied, he wiped his mouth and sat back on his heels, chest heaving.
Aeneas, Troy, the Titan girl, his uncle’s trident. It didn’t make sense. Yet, Apollo had said the stone did not lie. There must still be a way for him to redeem himself, even if the path was not yet clear. Perhaps he could save Aphrodite’s son after all and defeat the Titan girl in one fell swoop.
Hermes looked to the darkening sky beyond his window and curled his hands into fists.
Of one thing he was certain: his destiny waited in Troy.