They roamed the hills for four days, looking for sheep.
Because the market had been nearing its conclusion when the attackers had struck, much of the livestock had already changed hands and the gifts of exchange, their ownership. The meeting with the Phoenicians at the Temple of Aphrodite on the evening of the attack had convinced Neileus that the tin and silver no longer belonged to them and that, therefore, the rams did. He who recovered them, kept them. Unfortunately, many had been marked with the signs of their new owners and it was impossible, in fact undesirable now in any case, to attempt to gather them all into one place again to sort out the mess. The sheep-killers of Colchia and their mercenaries, those who had not defected, were still at large, and who knew how many more waited elsewhere for news of the first attack.
'I hope the boats are safe,' thought Neileus, as he stumbled across a stream.
Nothing would be more ludicrous than for us to scour the entire range of hills for a ram with the correct mark on its backside,' he thought, as he tried to keep up with Thersander near the brow of a ridge. 'They have made thieves of us all.'
Early on the morning of the fifth day, they met with a small flock of fleecy young rams, bounding over a ridge. Canthus raced ahead and was met by an arrow that pierced his shoulder. Then over the brow of the slope appeared Heracles, whom they had seen robbed of renewed kingship by inadequate timber. He was driving the flock before him.
'Well met, good Heracles,' yelled Neileus. Dipsacus scowled and attended to his friend's shoulder.
Heracles raised the oaken club he had set again on his own shoulder, waved it at them in greeting and stopped to let his charges graze.
'Beware the sons of Poseidon!' he warned, ignoring the blood that ran down Canthus's arm and dripped rapidly from the ends of his fingers onto the ground.
'You will find two of the stupid fellows, Ialebion and Dercynus beyond the next hill, feeding the crows.' And he related his story, as Dipsacus attempted to remove the arrow and staunch the blood from his friend's wound. On the first morning, after having travelled all night through the darkness, he had come to a stream and there consulted a water nymph, who advised him to travel westwards. On the second day he had ascended a hill in order to survey the area round about and had come at once upon a flock of fleecy young rams, guarded by a huge dog. It flew at him and would have done him great injury had he not been able to kill it with his club, whereupon he was attacked also by the shepherd, whom he had been forced to club to death as well.
He pulled out a flute, made from the leg bone of a swan, and made a tuneless whistle with his new toy before continuing his story.
Travelling with the flock he had very soon encountered Antaeus, another son of Poseidon, who had made the ludicrous claim to be their true owner. They had wrestled for control of the animals and Heracles had been forced to lift him high above the ground until he was dead. While so engaged, his young rams had been attacked by arrow fire; eyes were everywhere, hundred-fold, mouths also, speaking in diverse tongues. He could hear them. But his quiver was now quite empty.
At this point he knelt upon the ground and wept uncontrollably, like a child. Dipsacus glanced at the arrow he had pulled from his friend's shoulder. Thersander was at a loss to understand the childish impregnability, the indomitable helplessness of the man, and could only put it down to inbreeding.
Heracles had not slept for five days and Neileus offered to shoulder his burden and look after his flock while he rested. Heracles accepted this offer with overwhelming gratitude, set a large flask of raisins before them and lay on the grass in the warm sunshine with his hands clasped behind the back of his head. Before Heracles fell asleep, Neileus offered to accompany him back to Hala, as they had not found any rams themselves and were tired of looking. Heracles smiled and nodded and was soon asleep.
Neileus took Thersander and the others aside.
'We will split the flock and take the best three rams westwards, to Amathus,' he whispered, while binding Canthus's shoulder with strips of linen torn from his own clothing.
Heracles awoke to find no sign of his new-found companions and no sign of his flock. In a blinding rage he sprinted up the hillside and, hearing the distant sound of bleating, ran headlong towards it; but succeeded only in frightening his animals into a panic-stricken flight and it was late into the afternoon before he had them all under his control again.
·
On the sixth morning, Thersander rounded the top of a ridge and was met by the remains of Antaeus. A little further down the hillside lay the bodies of five or six men; most had been killed by arrows. The carcasses of some rams lay nearby. The body of Antaeus had been cut into large pieces, some of which were being washed down by the flow of the stream from the spring into which he had been dumped. 'A madness must have seized Heracles,' thought Thersander to himself, and began to count the pieces, before turning away in a twist of nausea and apprehension.
They moved away without replenishing their water jars.
For the next two days they drove their three young rams onwards towards Amathus. Along paths of light, dusty earth, following the winding tracks through the green scrub, always watchful, often within sight of the sea. Then, during the afternoon, with the harbour at Amathus almost in sight, Inachus lost control of his charge and it ran into a deep cave, followed by the other two rams. He was about to venture in after them when an insistent hissing stopped him.
'Do you recognise the snakes?' asked Neileus, when he entered the mouth of the cave.
'I can't see them,' replied Inachus, from deep within the gloom.
·
Ariadne set fire to a pile of wood, laced with a concoction of plants and bark, at the entrance to the cave, as the sun began to set. Thersander fanned the bonfire with another piece of bark while she went again to tend to Inachus, who had been bitten on the ankle by one of the snakes. He was in a great deal of pain. Ariadne tied another bundle of leaves around the wound, to try to counteract the poison.
Thersander was very worried.
But he was very pleased to be with Ariadne. Earlier, he and Dipsacus had gone down into Amathus and discovered that their boats were safely beached, surrounded by a number of others, and that Ariadne had been standing beside his vessel. Upon learning of their predicament, she had offered her services as a snake charmer and now she walked back to the bonfire, took the piece of bark from Thersander and began to fan the smoke so that it entered the cave. The smouldering plants cast a strange smell everywhere, and she whispered incantations towards the low entrance. Thersander stood by with a linen cloth, ready to put over his nose and mouth.
'They are small snakes but well able to inflict a lethal bite,' Ariadne warned, 'so tread very carefully. This smoke will soothe them into drowsiness but will not put them out completely, and some may flee to the back of the cave where the smoke may not penetrate. I do not know how deep the cave is, so be careful.'
'Baarrre,' agreed a muffled echo from within the chasm.
Thersander lit a torch of splints from the fire, lowered his head and entered the gloom. Walking, crouched, into the darkness, he stopped to listen; the torchlight revealed no sign of the snakes, and there was no sound except an echoing shuffle of ovine legs, disconcertingly distant. As Thersander walked slowly forwards, the light from the burning splints suddenly revealed a small snake lying on the ground. Edging carefully around its subdued form, he had to stoop more uncomfortably and then to crawl on his hands and knees in order to penetrate further into the tunnel. Thersander began to entertain the bizarre idea that the cave might close down upon itself altogether and that the sounds of the sheep were all a hallucination when suddenly, the light of the torch revealed a black space which grew until the cramped tunnel opened into a small cavern. All around was a clicking and squeaking of bats. On the far side the light revealed the three rams, staring disconsolately back at him and looking as though they wished fervently to be outside in the open air again. Thersander followed the wall around the cavern and the rams began to bleat with a diabolical resonance and move away. As the three animals neared the entrance to the low tunnel and as they saw the snakes where the light from beyond penetrated a little way and were about to dart away again, a pain shot into Thersander's knuckle. It felt as though two fangs had closed across the joint of his left hand and he dropped the torch in his urgency to pull his hand away. The words of the blind man rang in his head - 'A fleece guarded by a serpent. YOU will be bitten and die!' The heap on the floor of the cave burned brightly for a few moments, just time enough for Thersander to see that there was no snake in his immediate vicinity but a line of black across his knuckles, and then all was darkness. A splint from the torch had curled around and burnt the back of his hand.
It took seven more attempts before the rams condescended to go into the tunnel. Then only one made it through, the others turned and knocked Thersander over in the darkness, As he lay there, Thersander saw a snake. This must be it, he thought. The moment that had been prophesied. Waiting for what he thought might be the inevitable, a sense that can only be described as rebellion took control of him. Albion, he thought. Damn the script. 'Ariadne! I'm coming out!' he called and scrambled to his feet.
Dipsacus carried a pot filled with burning leaves into the cavern beyond the cave and scrambled out again as fast as he could. Soon, it had done its work. The rams decided that they would rather brave the inert serpents in the tunnel than suffocate in the cavern. They came bounding out and were recaptured.
As the dusk began to settle, the animals were allowed to graze and regather their wits. Then they were driven down into Amathus. Inachus had recovered enough to be able to walk unaided.
That evening, Thersander sat with Ariadne on the beach, watched a crescent moon set in the west and related the events of the last few days to her. At first light they would sail. Heracles had vowed to kill them all for the theft of his rams.
'He is quite mad,' said Thersander.
'It is a trait which is appearing more and more often among the sons of Poseidon,' agreed Ariadne. 'There are those who wish to discontinue the programme. But the Ladies of the Goddess and the children will have to be reincorporated into society and could bring the madness with them. It is a serious dilemma.'
'He cut a man into thirteen pieces! And it was foretold that I would find such a thing, by the blind seer I brought into the temple at Hala. He also foresaw the snakes in the cave. "A fleece guarded by a serpent," he said.'
'Blind men can be perceptive,' said Ariadne. 'But a serpent is a very common image in prophecy. It is a symbol of reincarnation. The snake sheds its skin and gives the impression of being reborn without having to go through the inconvenience of dying first!'
'But if the future can be known,' objected Thersander, 'why not tell it as it is? "YOU will be bitten and die," he said. Well, here I am. I am not dead, and I have not been bitten. Poor Inachus was the one who got bitten, but he is thankfully alright now. Yet the prophecy clearly referred to the cave this afternoon. How else could the blind man have seen 'a fleece guarded by a serpent'? There is no virtue in obscurity! Why not tell it as it is, if you can see clearly? I had the sweatiest palms of my life going into that cave. It was only a trip I made to Albion that gave me the strength to go in. So how could the blind man foretell it so accurately, but still, in the end, get it wrong?'
'If one knew the future precisely, one could change it,' Ariadne replied, 'and then it wouldn't be the future any more, would it? The world is predetermined,' she continued, 'only in the sense that all events exist and remain in their place, like islands. Islands in an endless archipelago of possibility. There is such an archipelago extending out from us now. You chose to come out of the cave and are still alive. You set your own course. When you steer a course, you will come upon the next island, this much is certain. But you have a choice. That by sailing in a certain direction you will come to a particular island, this much is predetermined, but your journey is not predetermined; and from each island there are an infinite number of possible courses radiating outwards towards an infinite variety of other islands.
'A good oracle will know the islands you are approaching, but only you can determine which you will visit and which you will steer to avoid.'
'But how can I steer properly when there are so many other hands on the tiller?' objected Thersander.
'Listen to your heart,' said Ariadne, 'and use reason as a sword but never as a whip. Give me control over your heart, then do as you desire, Thersander, because later you may loose that desire, or the ability to satisfy it, and be much the poorer for not having done it.'
And she leaned over and kissed him.
On the subject of love, Thersander told Ariadne about Silbury Hill, in the land of Albion.
'It can only have been a labour of love,' he explained. 'More than a thousand years ago. They still sing a ballad about it around the bonfires and I was taken to see it. Every man, woman and child from the nearby villages toiled hard for two months of each year of their lives, in the otherwise slack season after the harvest, carrying chalk and soil in baskets up to the mound. As the hill grew, they passed the task on to their children, and as it grew higher still, their children passed it on, in turn, to their own. Six generations lived and died whilst still working upon this hill and eventually the ballad sings of the wrinkled old folk who were led to the top when it was completed to tell stories that their mothers and grandmothers and great-great grandmothers had told to them. But why did they spend such a large part of their lives at such a pointless task? Was it a fear of being the generation to call a halt to a way of life that had become an accepted part of their lives? Was it simply inertia? It was not built as a platform for viewing. Not as a grave. Not even as a useless fortification. It can only have been art. A sculpture!' joked Thersander.
'A demonstration of their ability to change the Earth,' agreed Ariadne, in all seriousness. 'A need that is encapsulated in the symbol of the axe. The axe that clears the forest and changes the world.'
'And where will it end,' asked Thersander.
'That is up to all of us,' said Ariadne. And she took his hand in hers. 'I want you to help me,' she said.