Hades, page 1
HADES
ALSO BY MARK KNOWLES
Blades of Bronze series
Argo
Jason
Other novels
The Consul’s Daughter
HADES
MARK KNOWLES
www.headofzeus.com
First published in the UK in 2023 by Head of Zeus,
part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Mark Knowles, 2023
The moral right of Mark Knowles to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (PB): 9781801102766
ISBN (E): 9781801102759
Map design: Jeff Edwards
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM
For Rachael, my νόστος
By command of the wanax of Pylos, Great King Nestor, and his lawagetas Peisistratus, consider the orders of my followers as if delivered by the hand of the king:
• All coastal defences must be mobilised in both lower and upper fiefdoms against the enemy from the sea – 800 coastal watchmen and 600 oarsmen. Drafted by force, if necessary.
• All spare bronze will be requisitioned for the making of tips for spears, javelins and arrows. Scrap bronze to include votive gifts and grave goods, if necessary. By force, if necessary.
• A quantity of gold has been set aside for the payment of local chiefs and officials in enacting the above.
In addition:
• One golden cup and two women (to be drafted) as offerings for Potnia Hera.
• One golden cup and one man (to be drafted) as offerings for Hermes.
• One golden cup and one boy (drafted) as offerings for Zeus.
Adapted from Pylos Linear B tablet archive
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
From ‘Ulysses’ (1842) by Alfred,
Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
CONTENTS
Also by Mark Knowles
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Dramatis Personae
Map
Prologue: I, Orpheus
Book One: The beginning of the end Part One: A gathering Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Part Two: An arrival Lemnos, 1211 BC
Part Three: A return Valley of Nemea, 1205 BC
Part Four: An awakening At the same time, on Megalonisi
Book Two: Reprisal Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Book Three: The helmsman and the ring Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Book Four: Atonement Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Book Five: Across the sea Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Book Six: A time for anger Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Epilogue: Katharsis
Glossary
Months
Historical Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Lemnos
Alektruon warrior and member of the council
Auge Hypsipyle’s handmaid
Euneus wanax (king) and son of Jason, leader of the Argonauts
Ekhinos son of Plouteos
Hektor warrior and member of the council
Hilarion member of the council
Hypsipyle mother of Euneus and former queen of Lemnos
Khalkeus warrior son of Idas of Arene (an Argonaut)
Moxos warrior son of Meleager, prince of Calydon (an Argonaut)
Plouteos nomarch (leader) of Moudros
Teodora proud young woman from Moudros
Xandros son of Euneus
Surviving Argonauts
Acastus wanax of Iolkos
Ancaeus helmsman and carpenter, formerly of Samos
Butes warrior of Athens
Castor and Pollux exiled twins of Sparta
Jason former wanax of Iolkos
Idas spearman of Arene
Meleager prince of Calydon
Orpheus the bard
Peleus leader of the Myrmidons of Phthia; father of Achilles
Telamon brother of Peleus
Crew of the Salamander
Elissos an archer
Glaux a young lookout
Additional Characters
Acamas wanax of Athens
Atukhos Ancaeus’ young apprentice
Caeneus mercenary from Argos, son of Argonaut Polyphemus
Creoboros a fierce and loyal dog
Demophon brother of Acamas
Eriopis daughter of Medea
Huliat a warrior of the Peleset tribe
Medea princess of Colchis, formerly wife of Jason
Orestes wanax of Mycenae
MAP
PROLOGUE
I, Orpheus
Stranger, answer me this.
Imagine you are dying of thirst in a sun-baked wasteland, and you see a spring suddenly burble through the dust ten feet in front of you. Could you will yourself to make it to the spring? The answer, I would say, is yes.
But what if the spring emerged from the ground one hundred feet away. Could you will yourself to live then? What about one thousand feet? What about ten thousand?
At some point, your will to live would be broken by the reality of the task set before you, so that it would be easier for you just to lie down and die. At the point of our birth, the thread of our fate has already been spun. At the point of our birth, the limit of our will to reach that spring has already been ordained. I have toiled alongside men and women whose strength of will appeared inexhaustible so that it seemed inconceivable that they should ever fall, yet fall they did.
Then came an age of darkness.
The world had changed. Drought and hunger stripped whole towns and villages of all but the strongest. Western vassal states engaged in frequent rebellions against the Hittite heartland, which started a tidal wave of migration, war and piracy that swept through Anatolia. Confederations of marauding pirates laid waste to those Achaian states that did not tear themselves apart first.
Imagine, if you will, witnessing your loved ones slain or enslaved and your homes razed to the ground. Imagine, at the tip of a sword, shunning death or destitution and groping instead for that spring, that sweet trickle of life-giving water.
We speak so much of memory these days because there is so little of
I am Orpheus the Thracian bard, custodian of memory and keeper of traditions. Much has already been told about me: only some of it is true. It has been my fate to live a long and eventful life. I have loved; I have lost. I once teetered above the fetid precipice of Hades, minded to jump, but I held my nerve. I rowed with the men of Argo to the ends of the earth and back. I lived through the Eastern War and have turned men into heroes and even gods. There are some who say I was born of a muse and a god. Some men are fools.
In my twilight years, it was my misfortune to witness the slide of man into the abyss but heed me when I say that there is light even in its deepest blackness: light cast by the memory of what once was and by the hope of what is to come.
Memory is life, stranger. I have always worshipped the goddess who protects it, for she has been kind. Be kind once more, divine Mnemosyne, and I will ask no more of you before I set down this lyre at your altar, as I once laid down my bow. Grant me the voice; grant me the nimble fingers to take these strands and weave them whilst the thread of Fate – and my waning power – still allows.
It starts with Jason, as many stories do.
BOOK ONE
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
PART ONE
A GATHERING
I
The Isthmus of Corinth, 1212 BC
The crack was sharp, rattling the heavens, the shutters and the careworn man who now groaned beneath them.
Curse thunder and the god who wields it. Curse them all, the dogs.
It had heralded his birth and, doubtless, it would herald his end.
But that would not be today. Perhaps, if he prayed for life – and made the fiction convincing – they might deliver the opposite. That was how they worked, these Olympians. At least, it was how they had worked for him.
Jason buried his head in the sweat-sour pillow and sighed. Sleep had been close to claiming him but the storm had dragged him back from the void, and now he was awake.
He pushed himself upright and listened to the steady hiss of rain on the thatch above. All of the oil lamps had fizzled out save one. He watched the plucky little flame cast a disc of light around the scoop of clay as if protecting the precious oil within. It felt like a seed of hope, which he had no mind to entertain, and he flopped back upon the bed.
Had it been worth it?
He looked about him in distaste. A converted byre in a lonely farmstead off the Corinth road. This was where life had led him. From a frescoed palace and a blazing hearth; the patter of soft feet across the hall; the giggling; the warmth of two children’s smiles and their ready embraces. The innocent cast of one’s own face beaming back, as yet unstained by fault or sin…
I bore you love’s – life’s! – greatest gift, twice over. You kicked my sweet agonies aside like… like dirt from your shoe!
He clutched his face, nails digging into his eyelids. No! No! No! NO!
He felt the grief crush his chest and he struggled to breathe as panic flooded the breach, as it did most nights, when wine or a woman had not patched it up.
You are Midas, but his gold is your pestilence!
His head thrashed about on the pillow. Enough! Get out of my head! Out! OUT!
Kicking aside the dirty coverlets, he threw himself from the bed, landing on the cold, compacted earth. The shock of the dull pain silenced the voices. In the darkness, his throat felt raw but he couldn’t be sure the screams had ever left his head. He staggered to his feet and fumbled for the ewer of water.
No pain, no grief on earth could have prepared him for the passage of the past three years. His heart and mind had waded through Hades, scorched and tormented, and only his softening, ageing body had reminded him of his continued existence above the ground. No matter where he had roamed, no matter how he had punished his body through exhaustion or drink, his memories trailed behind him with his shadow and, whenever he closed his eyes, they pounced. He was cursed. Medea had done her work and she had done it well.
He felt a sudden rush of bile in his stomach as her voice returned.
Did her moans make you feel more of a man? Just as I made you, you filthy coward, so will I break you!
He made it to the door, falling against it with a clatter as the meagre contents of his stomach spattered onto the cool earth outside.
*
Dawn took her time in arriving. Once, when they were close, Medea had told Jason about the rumours of Helios being her grandfather, and how useful it was for common folk to believe this. He had to accept, given the pain of waking each morning, that there was some truth to it.
After bathing in a nearby stream, he gathered up his belongings and joined the road, full of misgivings. He walked for a mile, during which time the sun had begun to melt the hazy clouds and sweeten the earth after the previous night’s storm. To all of nature’s beauty, Jason was oblivious. At some point before midday, when his pace had slowed and his feet ached, he stopped and looked around him. Swifts swooped and chirped above a grove shelving towards the sea to the left while, to the right, the white hills of the central isthmus shone bright. The world was alive and people were waiting yet he had never felt so detached from it all.
He crested a rise and looked out westwards towards the remote, rocky peninsula of Perachora, spearing into the Corinthian Gulf. It would take him another evening and a morning before he would see its rocky waves diminishing towards the tip of that desolate triangle. Its very remoteness from an otherwise central region of Hellas, which had long since shaped its appeal for him, was now polluted. Yet it was here that the dwindling band of men would be gathering.
But his heart wasn’t in it; not this year, just as it hadn’t been for the last, nor the one before that. He took out a gourd of water and drank deep whilst he made a decision. Sated, he set off once more, resigned to follow whichever path his feet instinctively took him down.
II
Perachora peninsula (Isthmus of Corinth)
The big man removed his straw hat and ran his fingers through his shaggy greying hair. The lake opened up before him and he craved to immerse himself in it. He picked his way down the stony hillside and removed his damp tunic, balling it up and throwing it into the shallows. All around him, cicadas screeched and, in front, the sun dazzled his eyes as it glittered upon the water. He waded into the lake and then plunged in. He took a deep breath and spreadeagled himself on the surface, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness and the warmth of the sun on his face. Floating like that, occasionally splashing his face with water to cool it, he lost track of time until his eyes snapped open and he realised he was not alone.
He dipped his head under the surface and then emerged, his senses sharper as he waded ashore and scanned the rocks.
‘You’re getting fat, steersman,’ came a deep, familiar voice.
‘It helps me float.’
‘Glad to see you, Ancaeus.’
‘Always knew you had a soft spot for me. Been watching me for a while, have you?’
Meleager grinned and the pair embraced warmly. ‘Gods above, man,’ said Ancaeus, drying himself naked, ‘look how grey you’ve gotten! Burden of ruling, is it?’
Meleager chuckled and looked away. ‘Something like that.’
Ancaeus noticed how his friend’s smile faded a touch. He slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come on. Seen any of the others on your travels?’
‘Not yet.’
They gathered up their kit and made their way up the rocks to the path. Meleager frowned at Ancaeus. ‘Are you going to wear that or just let your pharaoh burn?’
‘Neither. I want to dry.’
‘You’ve been living near Sparta too long, you animal. What about our dioskouroi down there?’
‘Nothing.’ They shared a worried look. ‘Been a good few years now, hasn’t it?’
The blood feud between Castor and Pollux and the House of Atreus, they all knew, still held despite the turmoil and the bloodshed of the intervening years. Menelaus had been a brash young prince when he had laid hands on their sister Helen, and Pollux – already a champion boxer – had not pulled his punches in response.
