The Trials of Hercules: Book One of The Osteria Chronicles Page 4

  “Quite. One of the best, people say. It was always odd in school hearing about his great deeds from my teachers when every Godsday he would be at our house, playing with me, tossing me around like a toy. Until I grew too big for such games.” I smile at the memory.

  “And you’re not leader? Why? You certainly look—” he pauses scanning me up and down looking for the right word, “—qualified.”

  “Rule is hereditary in Portaceae. Nikos had three girls. Zoe was the youngest; Rena, Eury’s mother, was the middle child; and my mother, Alcmena, was his oldest.”

  I stand to stretch, stepping over to the window that is level with my eye. The temple glows in the moonlight that has forced its way through the clouds, but the beauty of the scene is ruined by the stench coming from the buckets in the corner of the cell.

  “Then your mother should have become leader and you after her. We have elected leaders in Athenos, but that’s how they do it in Cedonia.”

  I turn back to him. The earlier contempt in his face is gone, replaced with curiosity.

  “No, women don’t rule in Portaceae. They can be regents, but it’s the next male born in the Solon’s line that leads after he dies. When both my mother and Rena became pregnant at the same time, there was a flurry of bets and whispers.”

  “Whispers?”

  “My mother wasn’t married. To make things worse, she refused to tell anyone who my father was. Some people even said it was an Incubus who ravaged her. To her dying day she never uttered the name of my sire.”

  “That’s not right. A man should be a father to his children.” The words sting. What kind of father had I been to my children? “Well, go on. What’s the rest?”

  “My mother went into labor first and people actually started collecting their bets. A midwife arrived, one unfamiliar to my mother. My mother already had a midwife who had attended her through the pregnancy, her friend Agalia from the Augean District of Portaceae. The new midwife told Agalia that my mother no longer needed her services and sent her away. In the pain of labor, when my mother called out for Agalia, the new midwife said Agalia had been heavily drunk when my mother’s call came and should be kept away.”

  “Who was the mystery midwife?”

  “My mother never found out. She was in a beast of a labor and needed every trick in Agalia’s bag. The pain had her in and out of consciousness for hours.”

  The words stir up memories of Meg withering away in agony to bring Cassie into the world. Stavros, wanting his story, doesn’t let me linger long on the agony-ridden thought.

  “I don’t doubt it. Look at the size of you. You could never have been tiny.”

  “No, but I wasn’t overly large either. In my mother’s twentieth hour of labor, Rena’s waters broke. Within an hour Eury was born.”

  “And you?” He asks the question as if he can’t tell I made it out alive.

  “Agalia, hearing rumors of my mother’s strenuous labor, knew she had to take action or my mother would die. She sent a boy to tell the unknown midwife that Rena had birthed a son but needed assistance to stop the bleeding. The midwife gave my mother a final look— which my mother described as haughty— before she ducked out the door leaving my mother lying there with a baby still stuck in her womb. The moment the midwife stepped outside, Agalia rushed into my mother’s house, locked the door, and tended to my mother. She said I was doing my best to get into the world, but each time I’d gain some ground it was as if an unseen hand would push me back in. I’d start out, and then back in I went. But under Agalia’s care I was birthed only a few hours after Eury.”

  “If you’d only been born first.” He shakes his head. “Bad luck.”

  “It’s the only luck I seem to have.”

  “And is that why you’re here? Bad luck? Or did you fail to kiss your cousin’s ass?”

  I don’t want to tell him what I’ve done. If I do he will shun me, refuse to speak to me. I can’t bear to be left in silence in this cramped cell. But I will not let the last words out of my mouth be a lie.

  “Blood crime. They say I killed my family. I have no recollection of it, not a single moment. But I was witnessed.”

  Crickets chirp outside the cell, but inside silence reigns. Even the mattress doesn’t squeak. Stavros stares at me as I slip down onto the bench again.

  The shaking starts in my hands.

  The cell, had the walls been so close when I walked in?

  I jump up from the bench. One stride delivers me to the window.

  It took two or three before, didn’t it?

  I look out, straining my head against the bars to take in the vastness of the world outside and suck in deep breaths of humid air.

  “The gods can bring insanity.” Stavros’s voice whips me back around. The walls ease back, just a hand’s breadth, but it’s a start. “Even if it’s only temporary.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I won’t blame my actions on the gods.”

  “No, and that’s exactly why I think your own mind wouldn’t let you do this. You have honor, not murder in your veins. Are you being sent under?”

  “In the morning.”

  “Would you like to sleep?”

  “I don’t think I could.”

  “Good. I miss talking to people. I’ll tell you about Athenos, if that’ll help take your mind away from your troubles.”

  I thank him and he begins his tales. Stavros has travelled across Osteria and not only tells me about Athenos, but about the other city-states and even details of the outlying kingdoms that make up the realm of Osteria. Thunder rumbles throughout the night, but the cell is never brightened by lightning. Stavros talks until the candle burns out and continues his tales despite the darkness. He only stops twice to take a cup of water from one of the buckets in the corner. Each time he sniffs the cup’s contents before drinking. “There’s certain mistakes you only make once.”

  In the morning, when a line of orangey pink begins to draw along the edges of the clouds that still litter the sky, a guard approaches the cell. Prepared for trouble, he has armed himself with a club in hand, dagger at his boot, and sword at his waist.

  “Prisoner Dion, up now.”

  I stand and shake the knobby hand of my cellmate. “Thank you, Stavros. It was a good final night.”

  “Watch out for Hera, son, I don’t think she favors you.”

  “No, sir, I don’t think she does.”

  “Prisoner, now,” the guard barks as he yanks the cell door open.

  The moment I step out, the bars clank shut and three other guards flank me. Royal guards, Solonian Guards who serve Eury. My cousin is risking no chance on a fellow vigile taking pity on me. I march with them, trying to stay tall but my legs quaver under me.

  We double time across the field that separates the jail from the temple. The movement eases the tension in my muscles until I remember it will be the last motion I’ll experience. Or will be until I start trying to claw my way out from the blood crime vault desperate for air, desperate for space.

  As we march I catch glimpses of the temple grounds and can see two people waiting in the area in front of the altar where the blood crime vault is. One will be a Herene, a priestess of Hera, the other should be Eury. But where is his carriage? My cousin rarely travels anywhere on foot and certainly would not walk such a distance at this early hour.

  As I near, the clouds break apart in places and the low morning sun brings out the coppery brightness of the second person’s hair. My heart clenches. Why did Iolalus have to come? I love him greater for it, but do not want this to be his last memory of me.

  On my arrival to the temple, I want to say something to Iolalus, but the metal coffin already gapes open as if flaunting its tight interior. I halt in my tracks and the guards stop as one. The lead guard spins in an impressively quick about face.

  “Prisoner, in.”

  I want to step forward. I want to make my sacrifice for what I have done, to let the gods judge me as I deserve to be judged, to die
with honor. Instead, a warm liquid trickles down my leg.

  Two of the guards snicker. Iolalus shoots them a harsh look but the Herene keeps her eyes forward.

  “Blood crimer, in. You insult the gods.”

  “Enough of that,” the Herene snaps. “Do not dare to presume you know the gods’ minds.”

  I want to thank her, but my throat clenches tight. If I am lucky, my fear will suffocate me before the vault is sealed. But the guard is right. It’s time to do my duty. On unsteady legs that feel no stronger than twigs, I step into the coffin. I pause a moment and look to Iolalus. Tears wash down his face, but still he stands tall and proud—once a vigile, always a vigile. I remove the braided leather strand that hangs around my neck. The silver peacock charm dangling from the cord glints in the morning light as I pass the symbol of my command over to Iolalus.

  My eyes then meet the Herene’s. With her white-blonde hair catching the pink light of dawn she emits a radiant beauty. I need beauty at this moment, not thoughts of what lay ahead.

  Holding her gaze, I fold myself into the coffin. Her chin wavers and I look away. I don’t want to see her cry. Not for me. I lean back into my final bed, keeping the Herene’s image in my mind as the lid closes over me.

  4

  EURY

  Just as the carriage rolls away from the arena, it jerks to a stop. My heart drops into my bowels that suddenly feel as loose as custard. My guards have warned me of a coup. Gods, why hadn’t I brought them with me today? I should have been aware that any judgment against my cousin could be the ember on the vigiles’ tinder.

  I peek out the curtain expecting to see the angry faces of people on the attack for my ruling, to see vigiles with their swords drawn, to see how violently my death will come. But the way has only been blocked by the boisterous crowd spilling from the arena, most vigiles are only busy with keeping the masses organized, and no one is threatening my life. All eyes are focused on my murderous cousin. I push the curtain further back to get a better view.

  Herc stops in front of the vigile cart. For a moment I think he won’t get in, that Iolalus will allow him to remain free of the cart’s confines like any free and innocent man. But Herc focuses his eyes on the box, mutters something, and steps inside. I close the curtain once more and laugh when I hear the jeers and taunts of the crowd as they hurl insults at the man they once called hero.

  I strip off my crown, chain, and toga and toss them onto the bench seat opposite me. It’s too perfect really. With this blood crime conviction, Herc’s shining chest plate has tarnished in the people’s eyes. I’ve wanted to be out of the shadow of my heroic cousin since I was a child, but the need to be rid of him has become especially urgent since talk of this coup sprang up like a weed whose roots infest your garden.

  The carriage finally starts rolling again. I peer out once more. The crowd has thinned, the people returning to their daily chores, the vigiles returning to their patrols. There will be no coup today.

  When my guards first told me the vigiles intended to depose me and put Herc in my place, I had wanted to order them to hurl Herc into the deepest pit they could find. Unfortunately, unless he directly committed a treasonous act against me, there was no way to do away with my cousin without my hands being dirtied by a blood crime or without turning my cousin into a rallying point for the people.

  Still, all this is terrible timing. Don’t get me wrong, I do hate my cousin, I do wish he never existed, but before this gossip of rebellion, I had been thinking I could make use of him. After all, if I can’t wish him away, he might as well serve some purpose.

  Adneta’s wants have grown to impossible standards in recent months. For her last gift, she’d wanted one of the Herenes’ birds—the sacred peacocks of Hera—dipped in gold and brought to her. My wife wasn’t happy when I had Baruch bring home a peacock from the marketplace and cover it in a dusting of the gold powder he uses to add warmth to my pallid skin. No, not happy indeed. She withheld her pleasures from me for three weeks, until I finally caved in and did the deed. The head priestess of the Herenes raged for days over the matter, but I was too satisfied by my beloved’s passionate enthusiasm to care.

  She wants. I want. It’s a fair exchange and I would obtain anything to make her happy if only I could. One day a few weeks previous as I lingered in the immense tub of my private bathhouse, I had mused that if only I were a bit more daring, a bit more like my brawny cousin I could get her more. Despite my paunch, I still retain the trim, leanly muscled figure of my youth, but once my grandfather died and my mother took the regency she had insisted I stop childish sports like wrestling and any activity she considered dangerous. Instead, she insisted I study dance. The exercise toned me, gave me the skill to move gracefully, and taught me how to carry myself as a Solon should, but did nothing to endow me with the muscular power of my cousins. My father bristled at her turning his only son into the “prancing Solon of Portaceae,” but my mother’s word had always been law and hers remained the ruling voice in all of Portaceae until I came of age.

  By the time I was an adult, I had lost all interest in sports and now bed games with Adneta, a few autumnal hunts in Forested Park, and stair climbing at Hera’s behest are my only regular athletic endeavors.

  My cousin on the other hand seems always to be training, always ready for action, always working his body. There had to be some use for that. And I was just the man to discover it. I could send Herc on errands, telling him they were to benefit his treasured polis and he would have done them without question thanks to his unfathomable sense of duty. With the objects he could have obtained for me, Adneta’s gratitude would have been so passionate, so constant we would have had to replace our bed every moon’s turn.

  The carriage lurches over a rut in the road and my shoulder rams into the vehicle’s wall. I curse at Baruch, insult the workers who are to maintain Portaceae City’s streets, then slump down in my bench seat rubbing my shoulder as irritation nibbles into me. Damn Herc Dion. He just never seems to play the part I want.

  My stupid cousin has used his brawny gifts against his children ruining my hopes of using him to boost the frequency of my bedchamber enjoyment. To tell the truth, I still can’t believe it. Those children were his world, especially after Meg’s death. Seeing him in the agora playing with them, laughing at their childish observations made him seem a tad more human. Still, if the hag had seen him do it and our cousin who idolizes him confirmed it, there’s little room left for doubt.

  The bastard.

  Ah well, certainly I’m clever enough to come up with another plan, a more reliable plan, one that requires less contact with Portaceae’s supposed hero. I pick up my crown, pluck the final true gem from its setting, and drop the ruby into the pouch on my tunic’s belt.

  The carriage slows. It veers around a curve and I peer out to see we’re approaching the courtyard of my villa. The horses stop with a snort and a heartbeat later, Baruch opens the door. I step out and cross the enclosure that, with its arched breezeway and bubbling central pool, cools the sultry evening air that smells of jasmine.

  “There’s no need to return it to the carriage house. We’ll be going out again shortly. Also, return my judicial garments to the dressing chamber and prepare my clothes for tonight. Something festive, I think.”

  Baruch gives a curt nod and moves toward the breezeway that will take him to a back stairwell that runs between the servants’ quarters in the basement to the main floors of the villa. Before he gets more than a few paces, Adneta slinks out from the breezeway, her steps making light crunching sounds on the pea gravel-lined paths of the courtyard. Her hips sway under a sheer gown and her corset is cinched tight enough to press her breasts up to a delicious swell. She nods to Baruch before turning her coy eyes to me. Like the magnets my mother had given me to play with as a boy, I am pulled to the Solonia in two strides, my head dipping down to kiss the platform of cleavage the corset creates. Before my lips meet her flesh, she catches my chin in her hand.

&n
bsp; “What did you bring me?”

  I press my hips into her thigh. “You’ll have to unwrap it upstairs.”

  She pushes out of the embrace. Her dark eyes flame with annoyance and she whips around to head back under the breezeway. I catch her wrist, but she flicks my hand away.

  “Adneta, my love,” I plead.

  She spins and, seeing the rage pinching her face, I stagger back a step.

  “You haven’t brought me anything for ages,” she says with contempt before dropping her scowl into a pout. “If you loved me you would bring me things. Gold things, jeweled things. Not just,” she steps in and squeezes my crotch, “hard things.”

  Her hand drops and as she glances at me from under her lashes she parts her lips. Gods, I’d give Hera’s tits to have that mouth around me right now. I fish the ruby from my pouch and hold it out for her between my thumb and forefinger. When she tries to grab it, I close my hand over the gem, lean in, and give her lower lip a light bite. She moans and slides one hand along my groin as her other hand unlocks my fingers from the ruby.

  Cupping the back of her head in my hand, I crush my lips against hers and thrust my tongue into her mouth. Pulling away from the kiss, I press down on her shoulders indicating what I want. She gives my lips another lick and drops the jewel into her cleavage as she lowers to her knees.

  “Excellency,” Baruch’s deep voice calls from the breezeway just as Adneta is lifting my tunic. “Hera awaits.”

  “Gods be damned.” I look down to Adneta, her cheeks blush. The yearning for what she’d been about to do sends an aching pulse through my body.

  She moves to perch herself on the edge of the courtyard’s central pool, her eyes darting from me to Baruch. I consider making Hera wait. The act certainly won’t take long, not with Adneta’s skills. But I resign myself to resist, hoping the anticipation will make it all that much better. I bend down, brushing my hands on her breasts as I whisper in her ear, “Later, my love. In the carriage.”