The Trials of Hercules: Book One of The Osteria Chronicles Read online

  I do have something in mind. There’s been word from other poli that black market dealers from Ares’s polis are willing to pay a Solon’s ransom for hydra’s blood—the most poisonous substance in Osteria. But if I want to keep Hera on my good side, I need to let her take her turn in this game.

  “I thought you didn’t want to think about it.”

  A wicked smile dances across her lips. “When an opportunity comes, I take it. I promise, I didn’t think long on him. I never do.”

  For someone who doesn’t think much about Herc Dion, she certainly seems to spend a great deal of effort devising ways to make his life miserable. But I hold this comment on my tongue. The rare moments when Hera is in a good mood are when she is pleased with herself. I have no desire to be the one to cause her foul mood to return.

  “Then by all means, share your idea.”

  “The Nemean Lion.”

  I stare at her. She has to be kidding. Hera will kill my cousins on the very first task.

  The creature that is now dubbed the Nemean Lion roamed into Osteria last year. Some say it came from the Middens, the high mountains at the far eastern edge of Osteria, but others say it came from the monstrosities in the Maisland, the barren plains beyond the Middens where all animals and humans are said to have mutated into living horrors during The Disaster. Regardless of where the lion came from, it has made its way across Osteria and has been terrorizing the people in the East Portaceaen district of Nemea for months. Its skin can’t be pierced with arrows or swords and the creature has eluded all traps. The beast has proven itself impossible to kill and bent on making meals of its foes.

  I can’t watch my chance to use Herc slip out of my fingers.

  “That thing can’t be destroyed,” I object. “Herc’ll be back in the blood crime vault before next Godsday. Why waste him like that? I thought you wanted to torment him.”

  “The people in Nemea have taken up a collection, a reward somewhere in the range of five thousand drachars. Apparently the lion has developed a taste for their children and they are desperate to be rid of it. Your cousin will torture himself knowing he must destroy it to protect the rest of the Nemean children.” She smiles, completely pleased with herself and the idea of Herc’s suffering. “You doubt the bastard’s skills too much when it comes to his need to do what’s right.”

  Five thousand drachars. If Nemea has that amount of money it should be paid to me, not squirreled away for their own use. My mind flits to ideas of what five thousand drachars could buy for Adneta. And to how she would reward me for the gifts.

  “You’re certain he’ll conquer it?” I ask.

  “Not entirely, but he has fair odds.”

  I consider arguing. How can he have fair odds if the thing can’t be stabbed with blades or shot with arrows? Still, I need to cement a deal with the Areans before I employ Herc against the hydra. Nemea will buy me time to haggle.

  “Then he shall go. But truly, Hera, I can think of much better ways to make use of Herc. Let me choose the tasks from now on.” In truth, I want to select the most profitable labors I can imagine. Hera will send him off rolling stones back and forth if she thinks it might cause him anguish. “Think of each one as a surprise. Besides, you have a wife to choose for him.”

  “Yes, there are certain criteria that must be met,” she says as she drifts over to a far window. “I can’t let him—” she trails off. “We’re done here,” she says dismissively.

  I leave Hera to her thoughts as I hurry down to the second floor to see what Adneta might want in the five thousand drachar range. And what pre-payment she might be willing to offer.

  7

  HERC

  I still can’t believe what has happened. For once, the gods have favored me and I’ve been given a reprieve. The moment I accepted Eury’s offer, my limbs felt as if they’d been filled with air, but it had only taken Iolalus’s volunteering to restore the weight of guilt upon them. I’d killed my family, my innocent children. I deserved the worst death imaginable. I’d almost had it, but now I risk my cousin’s life as well as my own for my crime.

  After descending the steps of the temple, I make a wide pass around the hole in the earth that I have escaped. The guards, who have begun shifting the vault cover back into place, scowl at me as I pass, but I do my best to keep my head high and not look in their direction. I worry that one false move will have them pulling me back in saying it has all been a joke.

  I follow the priestess and Iolalus to their horses who stand side by side in the field beyond the temple nibbling on whatever green they can find in the withered grass. Iolalus has brought a small, nimble horse whose long legs still retain a coltish look although I know the animal is full grown. This is a horse of the vigiles, bred to cross the width and length of the polis at great speed. The Herene’s horse is a sturdy creature that would look more appropriate in front of a plow than under Portaceae’s head priestess. When the grey mare nods a greeting the smell of lavender overwhelms me as if the horse is stuffed with the same plants that surround the temple grounds.

  “Iolalus, you’ll be able to keep your horse in our stables unless you need to return him,” the Herene offers.

  Iolalus swings up on his horse, a broad smile brightens his face. No doubt he enjoys that a woman of her rank knows him by name. I turn away from his pleased expression feeling burning frustration behind my eyes. How can I have gotten him involved in this? If only he’d stayed away this morning. Now, it will be up to me to keep him safe, and I don’t know if I can. Of late, it seems I have little ability to protect my loved ones. My throat catches and I thank the gods that I’m able to face away as I allow the priestess to use my back as a mounting block to get up on her mare.

  “She can carry us both, unless you prefer to walk,” she says looking down to me. The morning sun catches the glints of gold in her green eyes.

  Gods, how my thoughts betray the memory of Meg. This woman before me is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Wisps of blonde hair sneak out of her braid giving her a carefree, girlish appearance. Her dress, despite its simplicity, emphasizes she is no girl, but a woman with a trim waist that gently rounds to her hips. As she settles onto the back of the horse, she shifts her garment until it hugs her thigh and hitches up to expose the lower half of a slim calf. Realizing I’m ogling the body of the head priestess of the Herenes, I avert my eyes to her foot where a single silver ring decorates one of her toes. Somehow this small detail fascinates me.

  Damn it. What kind of monster are you?

  I curse my behavior and force my eyes to the ground reminding myself that under the sod is where I should be, not here enjoying the view of a perfectly curved calf or delicately decorated toe. Perhaps the gods have been mistaken about sparing me. I have killed my children and been saved from a torturous death only to thank the gods by undressing a priestess of Hera with my mind.

  Surely the gods have chosen the wrong man to pardon.

  “I’ll walk,” I say and leave them behind.

  The horses trot up to me with Iolalus to my right and the priestess to my left. Her horse gives off a warm jingle as hundreds of tiny bells on the bridle sing with each of the animal’s steps. My eyes refuse to obey and insist on sneaking glimpses of the ring on the priestess’s toe.

  “You know our names,” Iolalus says with his typical lack of formality, “but we only know you as High Priestess.”

  “Iolalus, speak respectfully to her.”

  “It’s no matter,” the priestess says. Her voice has a pleasant ring to it, as if she and the bells on her bridle are singing the same melody. Something about her nags at me, like searching for a word and being unable to come up with it. “We’re not at the House yet, we can still speak informally. Although, you’ll find I don’t stand on ceremony unless the occasion calls for it. My name is Iole.”

  “Iole?” I halt and whip my glance up meeting her green eyes whose gold flecks entrance me even more than the ring on her toe. Remembering what a monster she must
see me as, I quickly look away and continue my forward march. “Your name’s familiar.”

  She gives a little laugh. Amused at my expense, no doubt. “You saved my life when I was sixteen. Mine was the family you rescued in the Hestia neighborhood. Do you not remember?”

  “They do say Osteria is a small world,” Iolalus says. My mind races with the memory of that night, of saving that family before the neighboring building collapsed through their roof. That event changed the people of Portaceae’s view of me from bastard-born monster to hero. Perhaps they’d been wrong in their praise. “You know,” Iolalus continues, “that night made me want to become a vigile. I wanted to be a hero my first night of duty, just like my cousin.”

  “Shut up, Iolalus,” I say. “You wanted to be a vigile the day I was chosen to be one. And it wasn’t my first night. Just my first night on lone patrol.”

  How odd it is that the priestess and I have been thrown together again. Twelve years ago I saved her life and this morning she played a part in saving mine. Surely, the gods’ wheels must be in motion to bring us together.

  Stop it. She is a priestess, you are a blood crimer. You have no business thinking of fate like a schoolgirl with a crush.

  “Still,” the priestess says, “I’m glad you were there.”

  “Only a handful of vigiles were outside of the north section of the city,” Iolalus says, speaking as if reciting an adventure tale around a fire. “Most had to run buckets to burning buildings since the pumps weren’t working—shut down by our brilliant Solon to save money.”

  “Iolalus, enough,” I mutter.

  “No, let him continue,” the priestess says. “He’s a good story teller.”

  I chastise Iolalus with my eyes, but he smirks and looks away, continuing on as if he hasn’t noticed.

  “Well, who would have thought the wind would blow an ember all the way from the fires in the north of the city to the west of the city? Or that it would land on one of the most flammable buildings in the west.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating,” I say. We are within sight of the city walls now and I hope the priestess will call an end to Iolalus’s gabbing. Certainly it can’t fit with her status to be seen swapping tales with tributes.

  “It makes for a better story,” my cousin insists. “Now, it was by the luck of the gods that Herc, a novice vigile of eighteen, was on his first lone patrol and was passing the very building at just the moment it caught fire—”

  “I was down the block,” I correct. “I ran when I saw the flames.”

  Iolalus ignores me. “And it was lucky he did, because right next door to the building was a family with mere moments to spare and he rescued them.” He continues in a less dramatic voice, “My first lone patrol I only managed to help a woman find her cat.”

  “That’s still heroic,” the priestess says in a voice that reminds me of how I would congratulate the twins on a drawing they’d made for me in school. Even if I’d had no idea what the image was or how badly it was rendered, I praised them. By being convicted of blood crime, I have lost all rights to my home. Now that it will be given to another vigile and his family, I wonder what will become of those drawings.

  “Do you want another story of Herc? We’ve still got a ways before we’re to the House.”

  “Perhaps I should ride so we can move a bit faster and annoy the priestess a bit less with your chatter,” I say.

  “You can ride,” Iole says, “but I’d still love to hear another story.”

  I hate that I want to think her interest in me is more than just a way to pass the time. I hate that I hope she cares for me. Meg hasn’t even been gone from me a year. She deserves more devotion than eleven mere months of grief. I shouldn’t be able to so quickly abandon my love for her. And I had loved her. Although we only married to fulfill my mother’s dying wish, we had been happy.

  So many men detest the marriage law and even flee to other poli to escape the folly it has become. Most of Portaceae knows the system under Eury is rigged. It’s hard to miss that the richest women get the choicest bachelors. But once married most men find the comfort of a home, the responsibility of a family, the companionship of a wife makes them happy. That’s the whole point of Hera’s law really—to create cohesion and a sense of belonging.

  Not all goes smoothly, nothing ever does. Some men and some women just don’t mesh or the men treat their wives poorly, even cruelly. In these cases, women can seek divorce. Upon the man’s next birthday he will be remarried, but the most desirable women rarely enter the lottery for a divorced man. And the more divorces a man has under his tunic, the less he is sought after. Some men have been divorced so many times, the only wives that can be found for them are those too bossy, too lazy, or too drunk to make any man happy.

  But I had been happy once. I lost Meg and have now destroyed the children she left me. I have no right to think the priestess feels anything for me but pity. Or scorn.

  Iole stops and I swing up onto the horse to sit behind her. I instantly regret accepting the offer. She smells of fresh soap and it takes every bit of my will to resist wrapping my arms around her. I have no right to touch any woman, let alone a Herene. I should be breaking my fingernails on the inside lid of the blood crime vault, not dreaming up fantasies of her leaning back on my chest as we ride toward the city. I kick the idea from my mind and use my legs to balance as she clicks the horse back into a walk.

  “Now, your story, Iolalus,” Iole says.

  “Did you know that even as a baby Herc was a hero?”

  I groan.

  “Let him speak,” Iole says, glancing back at me with a teasing grin. Gods forgive me for wanting to touch my lips to hers.

  “Sadly,” Iolalus continues, “he was only trying to save his own skin this time, not that of a beautiful woman.”

  “Iolalus! Have respect. She was a girl at the time of her rescue.”

  “Who says I was talking about Iole? Priestess, apparently my blushing cousin finds you beautiful.”

  My cheeks burn and, if he was close enough I would knock Iolalus from his horse. I want him to stop now. There is no reason to go on with this story telling. We pass through the city gates and I can see the top of the House of Hera. Surely the priestess has to call a stop to this silliness, to force me to dismount, and march me through the streets as I deserve.

  The people of the city stop their morning chores of sweeping steps, hauling laundry down to the river, and setting up vendor carts to stare at us. As soon as we pass each group, a hiss of whispers erupts behind us. Although I want nothing more than to tumble off the Herene’s mare, Iolalus ignores the gawkers’ glances and scolds me.

  “That should teach you to interrupt. Now, as I was saying, there was Herc who even as a little guy was a big boy. Alcmena, another beauty, left him in his crib for a nap. While in the middle of preparing a speech for our grandfather, she heard a giggle from across the room where Herc’s crib stood. As you can imagine, my cousin didn’t giggle much even as a babe, so Alcmena went over to see what had stirred him. Well, there was Herc, sitting up in his crib, a bright gummy smile for his mom.”

  “What made him giggle?” Iole asks. She’s gotten so entranced by the story, she lets her reins drop. I grab them to keep the horse from walking into the cart of an herb vendor. People point at the sight of a Herene in a man’s arms. Iolalus, ignoring their stares goes on.

  “In each hand,” he drops his own reins, but with most of our childhood spent on horseback under our grandfather’s training, Iolalus can guide even the most spirited of horses with only his legs. He raises his hands and balls them into fists. “Herc clutched a snake. Gripping them so tightly,” he shakes both fists as if grappling with a pair of snakes himself, “they died in his hands.” He picks up his reins again. “Apparently he liked the rattle at the ends of their tails and was giggling every time he shook them.”

  This story, once one of my mother’s favorites, now turns my stomach. Those same hands that strangled the sn
akes have done very the same thing to Cassie. I suddenly want back in the vault, I do not deserve life. There is nothing, not enough tasks in the world to atone for what I’ve done.

  “But you,” Iole twists to look at me. Gods be damned I don’t want her eyes on me, or her lips so close to mine. “You grew up in Portaceae.”

  “Yes.” I lock my eyes forward. The House of Hera is straight ahead and I focus on that, not the Herene.

  “But there are no rattlesnakes in Portaceae. Do you think the gods placed them there?”

  “I don’t know. I was only a baby. What could I have done to anger the gods?”

  Iole turns back around in silence.

  Thankfully we are at the House of Hera and story time is over. The building is immense, the largest in all of Portaceae. It isn’t simply one building, but a complex of structures all housed behind a protective wall whose only opening is the Peacock Gate, a massive iron gate embellished with metal work in the design of a peacock’s tail.

  The House was built not long after Osteria had formed into her twelve poli, generations before my grandfather led Portaceae. Even then, Portaceae already outshone the other city-states and had attracted artists and builders who set to work building the home for Hera’s priestesses, the Herenes, who would become the most revered women in Osteria.

  Thanks to the skill of the builders and the dedicated work of the Herenes, the complex has withstood the neglect Hera has shown Portaceae, the recent earthquakes, and the financial downfall that came with Eury’s reign.

  Although Portaceae’s true decline began in the last thirteen years of my grandfather’s rule, he made his own sacrifices and tightened the budget to ensure the strength of the polis. Even if Portaceae wasn’t flourishing, it was stable and healthy. But when Eury’s mother became regent, her spending knew no bounds, her management centered on personal gain, and her son learned how to be a leader at the hem of her skirts. By the time Eury took full power as Solon, the polis and its infrastructure were in tatters.