The Poison In The Blood (2 page)

The shepherd told her. Great things had happened. Everything Aphrodite had said had come true. Paris had been recognised by his parents, the King and Queen of Troy, as their long-lost son. In their love and shame, they had promised him anything. Paris had asked for a ship and had sailed on it to Greece. He had been welcomed there as a special guest by Menelaus, the King of Sparta. Helen, the Queen, the most beautiful woman in the world, had also welcomed Paris. He had captured her in the night and brought her back with him to Troy. She was there now, in Paris’s bed. All of Troy was in love with Helen. They were dazzled by her beauty.

Yonani let the shepherd go. She felt as though her heart had cracked. She sped through the trees and reached the summit of the mountain. She looked at Troy far below her on the plain. Paris was there, somewhere within its walls, in bed with another woman. Yonani choked. For the first time, she cried. As she did so, she felt the ice in her heart turn to a fiery hatred.

Another year passed. Rumours of war reached Yonani. One day she climbed to the summit of her mountain again, and when she looked out to sea she saw a fleet of a thousand ships heading for Troy. When they got there, a great army of men wearing bronze pulled their ships on to the beach. Yonani knew who they were. They were the Greeks. They had come with Menelaus to claim back Helen. They built their camp on the beach. The Trojans came out from behind their walls to meet them. There was a great battle. Neither side won. The Trojans withdrew to their city, the Greeks back to their camp. The walls of Troy could not be brought down, but the Greeks did not go away.

They stayed in their camp for nine years, and for nine years the walls of Troy held firm. For nine years the Greeks and the Trojans fought. Sometimes Yonani would hear the din of battle drifting up to her through the trees. Sometimes she would see a dirty haze in the sky, as thousands of marching feet kicked up the dust of the plain. But the war never came to her forest. The Greeks, like the Trojans, were afraid of the goddess. They knew better than to climb up her mountain and risk her anger. Even the shepherds kept away now.

So Yonani had no news of Paris. She did not even know if he were dead or alive. Her hatred of him was as strong as ever - but so too was her love. She wanted him to suffer - but she wanted him to be safe. By now it was the tenth year of the war. It seemed to Yonani, watching the plain from her mountain, that the fighting was getting even worse. Sometimes the battle could not be seen for all the arrows. The sound of bronze hitting bronze made the horizon echo. Rivers flowed with blood. Yonani grew afraid.

Then, one day, she heard a crashing through the trees coming up the mountain. She cupped her ear. She stood frozen to the spot, startled. Mortals had dared to enter her forest. Her face darkened with anger. At the same time she felt a surge of excitement. Now she could find out what had happened to Paris. She moved like the wind to the spring where she had first met him. There she sat and listened to the water. She also listened to the crashing of the men coming up the mountain. They were making straight for her, as though they knew where to find her; as though someone were directing them to the very spot.

It had to be Paris. Yonani gazed through the trees and saw a group of men approaching her. They looked pale. When they saw her they lowered their eyes and began to shake. But still they climbed towards her and, as they drew nearer, Yonani saw they were carrying a stretcher.

She rose to her feet. “Paris,” she called.

“He is dying,” answered one of the men carrying the stretcher. “He asked to be brought to you. He said that only you could save him.”

Yonani’s face darkened again. She stood where she was. She did not go down to meet the stretcher. She waited for it to be brought to her. The men carrying it stopped before her and lowered the stretcher.

Yonani looked down. There was Paris. His face was burning. It was covered with beads of sweat. He was tearing at his skin. It was as though his own blood were burning inside him. He wet his dry lips with his tongue. “Yonani,” he gasped. “Yonani.”

She did not answer.

“Please,” he begged. “Heal me.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you can heal anything you care to. You have only to see a sickness and at once you know the cure. You think I have forgotten that?”

“I thought you had forgotten me.”

“No,” moaned Paris. His breath rattled. “No, no, no . ..”

Yonani stooped and laid a hand on his forehead. It burned. She closed her eyes. She listened to the clouds, to the breeze, to the sap rising in the trees. She felt a surge of power. It was like gold in her blood. “Poison,” she said. “Poison on an arrow’s tip.”

“Yes,” moaned Paris. “there was an arrow . . .”

One of his attendants lifted the blanket that covered his leg. There was a thin scar on the thigh.

“There,” said Paris. “An arrow. This morning. Just a graze.”

“But it was poisoned,” said Yonani. “Just a graze, but it set the poison to work in your blood.”

“Then cure me!”

“Do you know what the poison is?” asked Yonani, laying a hand on Paris’s forehead.

He struggled to sit up. “No. Tell me.”

Yonani rose to her feet again. She looked down at Paris coldly. “I know what the poison is,” she said. “And I know where the arrow came from. Are you sure you wish me to tell you? Do you truly want to know the worst?”

Paris looked up at her desperately. He licked his lips and nodded. “I want to know.”

“It is a long story,” answered Yonani. “But I think you should have just enough time to hear it”

And so she began her tale.

In the beginning, said Yonani, before there were men or gods, there was only one living thing in the universe. That was the Sky. Everything else was chaos. Infinite chaos. Chaos without end. Then, in the middle of the chaos, something took shape. This was Mother Earth. She spread and became solid. The Sky had been lonely for eternity. Now there was another living being alongside him in the universe. He fell on Mother Earth and embraced her. Not an inch of her body was left uncovered.

All the Sky could think of was sex. He had to have Mother Earth. He pumped his seed into her without rest. Mother Earth became pregnant. But she couldn’t give birth. The Sky was still on top of her. Still he fucked her. Mother Earth became pregnant again. And again. And again. Soon her belly was filled with children. But none of them could escape. Mother Earth groaned with the pain. She felt she would burst. Still the Sky continued to fill up her belly with seed.

At last, Mother Earth could bear it no longer. She spoke to her unborn children. “Listen!” she said. “Your father will never stop his rape of me. You will be prisoners inside my belly for ever. Something must be done. You must attack him, quickly!”

But her children were scared. They did not want to attack their father. They were afraid of what the Sky might do to them. However, one of the children overcame his fear. His name was Cronos. He made a sickle and sharpened the blade, then pushed his way through his mother’s bulging womb. He swam through his father’s flow of seed and reached for the Sky’s testicles. He grabbed them in his hand. The Sky howled in agony. His cry filled the universe. Cronos tightened his grip. With his other hand he raised the sickle. Swish! The sickle came slicing down. The blade severed the Sky’s testicles right through. He cried out in pain and finally pulled out of Mother Earth. He shrank from her as far as he could. He shrank to the limits of the universe. The Sky and Mother Earth were separate at last. Their children could escape from their mother’s belly. Out they came. They filled the earth and life began.

And Cronos? He held his father’s testicles in his right hand, then flung them over his shoulder. They soared through the air before falling at last in a froth of blood and sperm. The blood and sperm bubbled and turned the earth where they fell into mud. Centuries passed, but they did not stop bubbling. And the mud and blood and sperm began to thicken into a soup. Then into a slime. Then into living flesh. At first it just beat and shook - a horrible, pulsing heart. Swamps stretched all around it. The liquid was poisonous. No one dared to enter it. No one disturbed the thing that was lurking in the swamp. More centuries passed; and the thing began to grow.

Meanwhile, in the world beyond the swamps, great events were taking place. Cronos had made himself the King of the Gods. He married his sister. Together, they had children. But Cronos was afraid. He was scared that one of these children would attack him, as he had attacked his father, the Sky. Whenever his sister gave birth to a son or daughter, he would swallow the child. His sister wept. She did not want Cronos to swallow all her children, so when she gave birth to her last baby, she hid him in a cave. When Cronos demanded the baby, she handed him a stone wrapped in a blanket. Cronos swallowed the stone. He did not know that the baby was still alive.

The baby’s mother called him Zeus. Once he had grown up, he left the cave in which he had been hiding. He made a potion and swapped it for the wine that Cronos was drinking. The potion made Cronos vomit and up came the stone he had swallowed. Next came the children, Zeus’s brothers and sisters, all of them still alive. They attacked their father. Cronos was flung into a pit of darkness. Zeus took his father’s crown. With his brothers and sisters, he made his home on Mount Olympus. There he married his sister, Hera, and ruled as the King of the Gods.

More centuries passed. The rule of Zeus gave peace to the world. The wilderness was tamed. Fields were ploughed. Cities were built. Sometimes Zeus would walk around the world and admire the beauty of the women. If he desired one, he would take her. He was the King of the Universe, after all. He could do as he pleased. And sometimes one of these women would bear him a child.

One day, the gaze of Zeus fell upon the city of Argos. He stared into the King’s palace, into the room where Alcmena, the King’s wife, was having a bath. He felt a blaze of lust. He moved through the sky. He fell upon Alcmena, wrapped her in his arms and plunged deep. He spasmed and bellowed with the joy of it. He knew in that instant that Alcmena would bear him a son.

Back on Olympus, he told the other gods his news. Alcmena’s son, he promised, would be the greatest hero who had ever lived. The other gods applauded. Only Hera narrowed her eyes. She felt a bitter pang of jealousy. When the child was born, he was named Heracles, in Hera’s honour, but she still hated him. No sooner had Heracles been laid in his cradle than she sent two giant snakes to kill him. But Heracles only gurgled, and reached out for the snakes with his bare hands. He gripped their necks, his fingers tightened and he killed them both. He tossed away their bodies. And all the while he continued to gurgle and smile.

Heracles grew up to be incredibly strong. Everyone in Argos loved and admired him. Everyone was glad when he became their king. But Hera had other plans for him. She sent a fit of madness upon him and he went insane. He ran through the palace, frothing at the mouth. He reached for a dagger, and killed everyone in his path. He killed his own wife. He killed his own children. When the madness came to an end, he blinked and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t know what he had done. When he found out, he threw himself to the ground in despair and tried to kill himself. His friends managed to stop him. Heracles’s grief could not be stopped, however. After all, he had committed a terrible crime: he had murdered his family. How could he pay for it? He travelled to an oracle. Mortals who came to the oracle could ask for answers to their questions. The oracle told Heracles that he could no longer be the King of Argos. Instead, he would have to leave his palace and roam the world. His task would be to clear the world of all its monsters. Wherever they hid, Heracles would have to hunt them down. By doing this, he would pay for his crime. The spirits of his wife and his children would finally find their rest.

Heracles returned to Argos and told his people what the oracle had said. They wept and begged their king to stay, but Heracles refused. He laid down his crown and gave up almost everything he owned. The only things he kept were a sword, a bow and arrows, and a club. Then he headed off, to search the world for monsters. He had soon left Argos behind.

Meanwhile, in the swamps that stretched south of Argos, something was stirring. Something bred out of mud and sperm and blood. Something hungry for human flesh.

Sheep and cattle began to vanish first. Then the shepherds and farmers who looked after them, men who lived alone, not the kind to be missed. Even so, the people of Argos began to whisper. They cast nervous eyes towards the swamps. The mists that rose from them had always seemed like poison. Now the shadow seemed to be spreading. The roads began to empty. Men locked their doors at night. Fear like the closeness of a muggy day spread over Argos.

Then, horror! A man rode from his village to the market at Argos. He sold what he had brought to sell. It was late by the time the market finished. The man spent the night in the city. In the morning he climbed on to his horse and made the journey back to his village. First, he smelled the stench, acrid and burning, but mixed with a sticky sweetness. Then he noticed the silence. Only an open door creaking in the breeze made any noise. The man rode into the village square and looked about. No one. He called out. No answer. He climbed down from his horse, crossed to his house and entered it. Then he screamed. There, on the floor, lay puddles of melted flesh and bone. His family. He could tell by the matted scraps of hair. But of their human form nothing was left. Something had torn them to shreds. Something that had dissolved the few remains into sludge. All across the village there were these scenes of murder. No one had been spared. Everywhere there rose the acrid stench, and the ground itself seemed scorched.

The poor man was dazed with shock and misery. Nevertheless, he jumped on to his horse and galloped back to Argos. He told everyone what he had seen. The new King ordered his men to go to the village. When they arrived, they looked around for clues. They soon found a trail leading from the village. A monster wider than a house appeared to have left it. The smell of acid rose from the tracks. Drops of something like poison had fallen on the grass along the way and burned up the soil. The King’s men followed the trail until it reached the edge of the swamp. The water was bubbling. No one dared to go any further. Instead, they hurried back to the King and told him what they had found.