Hercules smiled as he watched the smaller man heft the heavy leather pouch and jingle it with amazed consideration. “You’re a rich man now, Iolaus,” he said as the two walked along the dusty road that led west from the bustling town of Arcadia. “You can do anything you like. Well, almost anything,” he amended.
Iolaus grinned shyly. “You don’t think they, maybe, overpaid me?”
“Tartarus, no! If anything, you could have asked twice the fee and gotten it with no argument.”
“But I didn’t really do anything.....”
“No? Funny. I would have said that redefining the town’s aqueduct system so that every citizen will now have access to fresh, clean water counts as something.”
Iolaus shrugged, blushing. “It was a simple plan. I just happened to come along....”
“Maybe so. But you were willing to help those people...it was quite an ingenious plan that not everyone would have thought of...and they were grateful.”
Iolaus grinned. “Okay. I guess they were. It’s just that....” He paused.
“It’s just that...what?”
“This is more money at one time than I’ve ever had in all my life. And it’s all mine.” He beamed. “Honestly earned!” He shook his head. “Three hundred dinars! Who would have thought! And I didn’t even build the system, just designed the plans for it.”
“People appreciate ingenuity,” Hercules assured him. “So...what will you do with it?”
“I don’t know.” Iolaus looked up at him with a bemused expression. “Buy us a few days’ vacation in an inn somewhere with good food and soft beds?”
Hercules laughed again. “You don’t really like sleeping on the ground, do you?”
Iolaus grimaced comically. “No! Maybe you’re used to it, but I’m not.”
“Well, it sounds like a plan to me, but your three hundred dinars won’t buy you a bed for the rest of your life and when you have to leave the creature comforts behind, the ground will seem harder than ever.” Hercules fell into thought as they walked along. “But it could get you started in a business of your own somewhere. You could pick a place, settle in, put down roots....” He paused and then glanced at his companion when there was no eager response forthcoming.
Iolaus trudged along, eyes on the ground, one hand still clutching the money pouch and the other grasping the straps that balanced his heavy pack across his shoulders.
“If you want to, that is,” Hercules added.
“Want to?” Iolaus glanced up at him and then looked back down at the path beneath their feet. “Oh. Yeah. Someday. Not right now though.”
“So you like this wandering life?” Hercules asked in feigned amazement.
Iolaus blushed slightly. “Yeah, I guess I do. It’s fun. Interesting.” He paused almost imperceptibly. “Different.”
“Even if you do have to sleep on the ground?” Hercules teased.
Iolaus laughed good-naturedly. “Yeah, even if.”
They walked in silence for several more minutes before Hercules took up the conversation again. “Well, anyway, you can get yourself some better clothes now.”
“What’s wrong with the ones I have?”
“Well, they’re a little...ostentatious, don’t you think?”
“I’m used to them,” Iolaus said, a little flatly. “I haven’t worn anything else for years.”
“That was then. This is now,” Hercules offered. He reached out and tugged at his companion’s somewhat grimy sleeve. “All this silk and velvet is fine for a palace. But it doesn’t hold up very well on the road. You’re beginning to look a bit disreputable.”
Iolaus glanced away. “Like your friend?”
Hercules sighed. “You can’t let it rest, can you?”
“What?”
“This idea you think I have about you trying to be like...like the other Iolaus.”
The Jester shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. It isn’t that. I guess...I suppose I don’t want to give up these clothes because they’re the last link to my world.”
“I thought you wanted to leave that world behind you?”
“I do!” Iolaus answered, just a shade too quickly. He shot a sideways glance at the man who walked beside him, but the demigod hadn’t seemed to notice the subtle change of tone. “That is, I will,” Iolaus amended more calmly. “I just need some time. Everything is so different here. I’m still getting used to it.” He giggled a little nervously, a sound that did register with his traveling companion.
But Hercules bit back the words that were on the tip of his tongue...for a moment there you sounded like...and changed them to, “Well, one thing you must be used to by now is hunger. Traveling this way, you won’t find snacks by the roadside...even Falafal can’t be everywhere all the time.”
Iolaus made a gagging noise. “Why hasn’t he been arrested for attempted murder?”
Hercules laughed. “I’m clueless. But I know of a good tavern in the next village and I wouldn’t mind if you bought us a couple of ales and a good dinner.”
“Okay! That I can do!”
Their laughter floated on the autumn breeze and the setting sun followed them along the road into the dusk.
The village was small but the tavern was clean and not crowded. When Hercules and Iolaus had chosen a table, Iolaus shrugged his pack to the floor with a grateful sigh and sat down, rubbing his tired and cramping leg muscles, while Hercules went across the room to order their dinner.
The little Jester was trying vainly to remove some of the dusty road from the front of his jerkin when a shadow fell across him. He looked up, expecting to see Hercules. The next moment he had a lapful of lushly endowed girl who wrapped her warm arms around his neck and begin to nuzzle his ear.
“Uh...what...wait!” Iolaus exclaimed, trying to fend her off and not succeeding. She seemed to have more arms than a hydra had heads and her lips were wickedly mobile.
“Come on, fella, don’t be shy!” she cooed in his face. “Dressed in an outfit like that, you must have just come from a festival and I love festivals!”
Iolaus opened his mouth for a reply but he never got the words out because her warm lips were suddenly plastered against his and her tongue was busily investigating the sensitive recesses behind his teeth.
Panicked now, Iolaus struggled violently. He succeeded in dislodging her so effectively that the girl fell off his lap and hit the floor with a bounce.
“What in Hades is wrong with you?” she exclaimed with outraged indignity. “I was just trying to be friendly!”
“I know...I’m sorry...I’m not used to...,” Iolaus stammered as he leaned down to help her to her feet.
She slapped his hand away angrily. “Don’t do me any favors, you lout!” she snapped as she got to her feet. “If you’re going to advertize yourself like that, you might at least have the decency to warn a girl that you’re not looking for female entertainment!”
“Is there a problem?” Hercules said as he approached the table, carrying a tray heaped with food. He stared from Iolaus’ blushingly red face to the girl’s even angrier red one and his eyes widened in helpless surprise.
“Oh, there’s no problem!” she declared. “I was just offering your friend here a little welcome and he practically had a heart attack.” She flounced her skirts back into place and smoothed her hair down. “I didn’t realize that he preferred another sort of entertainment!” She gave her skirts a final twitch and stalked away in a huff.
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” Hercules asked as he placed the food and drink on the table.
Iolaus’ head was down and, if anything, his face was redder than ever. “She practically fell on me,” he muttered, straightening his tunic in an agony of embarrassed confusion. “I never saw her before in my life but all of a sudden, there she was, coming on to me like we were long-lost sweethearts.” He looked up with helpless pleading. “I didn’t throw her on the floor. She fell.”
Hercules hid a smile as he sat down. Much as he was trying not to make comparisons, he was beginning to believe that the little Jester shared more of Iolaus’ attributes than either of them realized...with one difference. Iolaus had been a shameless flirt while the Jester was painfully shy.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he soothed his friend. “She was probably just lonely and...and just lonely.”
Iolaus reached for a mug of ale and lifted it for a long, deep swallow. “Yeah, I guess. It just took me by surprise, is all.” He took another swallow before reaching for a bowl of stew. “You may be right about my clothes though.”
“How so?” Hercules asked indistinctly around a hearty mouthful of bread and cheese.
“She said I looked like I was dressed for a festival. I guess I do kind of stand out, don’t I?”
“Somewhat,” Hercules agreed with a smile that removed any sting of criticism from the words.
They ate in companionable silence for a few moments before Iolaus ventured, “Did that happen to your friend a lot?”
“Did what happen to him a lot?” Hercules paused in mid-chew.
“Girls falling all over him all the time?”
Hercules grinned. “Well, it didn’t happen all the time but a lot, yes. Of course, he encouraged it.”
“How?”
The demigod shrugged. “He liked women and women knew it.”
“And I don’t? Like women, that is?” Iolaus asked, a little harshly.
“I didn’t mean....”
“Because I do like women! I mean, I would if I got the chance. But I never...I mean, I seldom had opportunities. There was the Sovereign, you know...I mean, my job as his jester. It didn’t leave much time for extracurricular activities.” Iolaus was blushing again, furiously. “I guess you think I’m an idiot,” he finished lamely.
“No. You’re just what you said, a man with few opportunities,” Hercules told him after a moment of studying him with reflective thoughtfulness. “But I do think that a change of attire could very well improve those opportunities...you’d attract a more normal sort of girl.”
Iolaus’ head came up. “You mean, she wasn’t normal?”
Hercules couldn’t help laughing. “Let’s just say she was a lot less...patient than some.”
Iolaus grinned in response. “I’m not a virgin, if you were wondering.”
Hercules put up his hands in amused supplication. “It’s none of my business....”
“I know. I just thought I should tell you. There was a girl once...when I was about 18. Her name was Ania”.
Hercules sobered immediately and a shadow of pain crossed his face. “What happened?”
Iolaus shrugged sadly. “The usual thing. I was poor and she married someone else. Probably has half a dozen children by now and doesn’t even remember me.”
Hercules reached across the table to give his friend’s arm a compassionate squeeze. “Tomorrow we’ll see about those clothes,” he said. “After a good sleep in comfortable beds which you are so generously providing.”
Iolaus’ grin metamorphosed into a yawn. “Good for me!”
Hercules shook his head with puzzled amusement. “Iolaus, are you sure that’s what you want?”
Iolaus turned to face him in the narrow confines of the tailor’s shop. “Of course! What’s wrong with these things?”
Hercules continued to shake his head helplessly. “Nothing if you were going to live in the land of the Vikings. On a dusty road in Grecian high summer, you’re going to be miserable.”
Iolaus looked down at the clothing he just donned. He’d chosen sturdy, brown leather boots that reached to the knee, baggy trousers of thick, brown wool and a tunic of heavy linen in dull, unadorned gray. The tunic had a high, banded collar and loose sleeves that fastened closely at the wrists. Over it all, he had put a long, hooded cloak of black wool.
As well as covering him from head to foot, the clothing was also as drab as his former outfit had been rich and colorful. It was almost as if he wanted to carry his own shadows around with him to hide in.
“Well, I won’t wear the cloak all the time, of course,” he said, reasonably. “And it’ll make a good blanket for sleeping on the ground at night. And I’ve got another, lighter shirt on under the tunic for when it’s hot. This is a really versatile ensemble, you see. Layers that can be added or removed as the seasons requires.” He raised his arms and pirouetted around the room. “And quite comfortable.” He winced as he stumbled. “Or it will be when I get the boots broken in.”
Hercules gave in. “Okay. But I still say that you’re loading yourself down with way more than you need. Add the weight of your pack to it and you’re going to feel like an overstuffed sofa.”
Iolaus gave him a pleading look. “It’s what I want, Hercules. Really!”
“Okay. What are you going to do with the other stuff?” Hercules asked with a gesture at the heap of discarded jester costume.
Iolaus gazed at it wistfully. “Leave it with the tailor. I won’t be needing it any more.” He took up his money pouch and began to count dinars into the tailor’s outstretched hand. The man had added a couple of spare linen breechclouts to the tally and, when he had paid his bill, Iolaus packed the extra items into his backpack, folded the cloak and lashed it to the top of the load and looked up expectantly at Hercules. “I’m ready,” he said brightly as he hoisted the pack onto his shoulders.
Hercules picked up his own much lighter pack, bowed and gestured to the open door. “After you!”
Outside on the dusty street, Iolaus glanced around. “Now what?”
“Whatever you like,” Hercules said agreeably. “We’re about four days from Corinth where my half-brother Iphicles is king. I’d like you to meet him. Or we can go visit my friend Jason...his village is closer.”
“Jason!” Iolaus came to a dead halt in mid-step. “The Butcher of Thrace?”
“The what?” Hercules stammered, staring at him, aghast. “Jason is the former leader of the Argonauts, a warrior, a hero and the former king of Corinth, not to mention being a good man and my mother’s widower.”
Iolaus looked away, shamefaced. “I’m sorry...I keep forgetting that it’s all different here.”
“Way different, if the Jason in your world was what you say,” Hercules declared. “What an awful world it must have been.”
“Oh, there were some good people in it,” Iolaus said as they began to walk again along the road that led out of town. “Joxer was a kind and beloved leader of the rebels.”
“Was?”
Iolaus sighed. “He was killed in battle right after I got back that first time. And Salmoneus.”
Hercules grinned. “What was he like?”
“He was a teacher and a healer, one of the best. And a wealthy man who used his money to help the poor.”
“Is he dead too?”
“No, he was still alive, last I knew.” Iolaus sighed. “I only saw him once or twice but he was a good man. I’ll miss him. Is there a Salmoneus here?”
Hercules’ lips quirked wryly. “Yes, and he’s a good man too, in his own way. Not a healer or a teacher and certainly not wealthy though he’d love to be and works very hard at it. Who else do you miss?”
Iolaus smiled. “Dirce.”
“Dirce?”
“A priestess in Hera’s temple...my Hera,” Iolaus added, meaning the goddess who manifested as Aphrodite in Hercules’ world. “She was kind to me on several occasions.”
Hercules gave him a poke in the ribs. “Was she one of those few opportunities you mentioned?”
Iolaus drew away from him in shock. “She was a priestess!”
Hercules made his expression humbly contrite. “Oh. Yes, of course.” And wondered, privately, if he could contrive to introduce the former jester to the Dirce of the present world. “Anyone else?”
“Not really. I didn’t have many social contacts and the ones I did have were the sort of people that the Sovereign liked.”
They were beyond the confines of the town now and strolling along the beaten path. A wind picked up and clouds rolled over the sun.
Hercules sniffed the air. “Rain’s coming. Want to go back to the village and wait it out?”
“Not unless you do. I’d rather move on. How close is Jason’s house?”
“At least a day and a night. But there are some caves in those hills on the horizon. We could shelter there. There’s good hunting in the area and a small river nearby where Iolaus and I used to go fishing....” Hercules stopped, flustered. “Sorry.”
“Why should you be?” Iolaus asked him calmly. “I guess I can’t expect to travel with you and not see places that you and your friend knew well. It’s okay. I’ll deal with it.”
Hercules gave him a grateful look. “You have at least one thing in common with him,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“A kind heart,” Hercules said, and Iolaus blushed shyly.
Hercules held up the torch he carried as they entered the cave. “Not too bad,” he commented after a quick look around. “Looks like hunters have used it, kind of like a way station for travelers.” He indicated the heaps of skins piled near the stone fire pit. “At least we won’t have to sleep on a bare stone floor.”
Iolaus moved around him and hefted his pack off his shoulders, propping it against the rock wall. “It does look cozy, doesn’t it? And the entrance is narrow so the wind won’t blast through.” He skipped nimbly over to a shelf hacked out of the wall. “Look! Someone left a couple of kettles and some skillets. I’ll fix us a meal fit for the gods!” He was already turning over the implements with eager fingers.
“Well, that sounds like my cue to go hunting,” Hercules commented as he divested himself of his own pack. “Ever dress out a deer?”
Iolaus grimaced. “No!”
“Don’t worry, I can do it. But first we should get plenty of wood in before it rains. Wet wood is a real bitch to light, even with your spark jug to help us.”
“I can get the wood,” Iolaus offered. “It’ll give you more time to hunt.”
“Okay,” Hercules agreed. “I shouldn’t be long.
Iolaus gave him a cheery wave as he darted out of the cave.
The sun was westering beneath the lowering clouds and the wind picking up when Hercules returned to the cave with a dressed haunch of venison across his shoulders. He’d used the deer hide to package the rest of the meat and had strung it up in a tree not far away, to keep it safe from predators. He thought it would be a good idea to stay at the cave for a few days while he taught Iolaus to dry the meat into travel food.
“Iolaus?” he called when a glance around showed the cave to be empty. But a fire burned brightly in the fire pit, a large heap of wood was stacked nearby and the skins and furs were piled up into two pallets near the warmth of the flames. But the author of these things was nowhere in sight.
Hercules put the haunch of meat down and glanced at the Jester’s pack, still leaning where he’d left it. Given what he’d had time to do, he couldn’t have been gone long...probably just out to answer the call of nature, Hercules decided, as he filled the smaller kettle from the water in the larger one (how had Iolaus managed to haul it, full, up from the river?) and hung it on the hook of the iron tripod over the flames. For several minutes, he worked busily at cutting up chunks of the fresh meat and dropping them into the water.
He’d almost forgotten how much time had passed until a distant rumble of thunder caught his attention and he looked up. Iolaus still hadn’t returned and he’d been gone far longer than he would have needed to be.
Worried now, Hercules poured a little water over his hands to clean the blood off of them and wiped them dry on his shirt. Then he headed determinedly out of the cave, his keen eyes searching the immediate area for any sign that his friend had been there. The country was rough terrain for anyone who didn’t know it; Iolaus might have gotten lost or fallen into a ravine.... Hercules picked up his pace.
Shortly, he spotted a trail leading down to the river and followed it. Iolaus would have used it to get the water and it was as good a place as any to start looking for him.
He was hurrying as he slipped and slid down the muddy, stony track to the river. But the sound of splashing made him pause and then grin. Of course. His friend had decided to take a bath. He bathed whenever he could, preferring cleanliness to the grime and stink of travel. “Iolaus?” Hercules called as he came out on the sloping bank.
“Hercules?”
The voice was farther downstream and Hercules looked that way, squinting in the gathering dusk.
Iolaus’ clothes were piled in a dry spot on the bank and their owner stood several feet out, waist deep in water his hands full of soaproot and his hair plastered with of suds. Seeing the demigod approach, he immediately squatted down in the water and ducked his head under to rinse it. But when he came up for air, he stayed squatted down, arms hugged around his ribs and shivering.
He smiled uncertainly. “Uh...hi. I thought I’d be done before you got back.”
“That looks like a good idea,” Hercules declared, peeling off his chamois shirt. “There’s just enough time before the rain gets here.”
Iolaus jerked backward in the water and sat down with a splash that sent water cascading over his face. “Uh...what...what are you doing?” he gurgled, choking on water.
“Coming in,” Hercules said as he bent to push his boots off. “I haven’t had a bath for days and I’m kind of itchy.”
Iolaus splashed frantically toward some bushes overhanging the bank, still hunkered down in the water. “Well...uh...wait a minutes...I’ll get out....”
“Why?” Hercules laughed as he unfastened his trousers and worked them down over his hips and legs. “It’s not like it’s a really small river.”
“Uh...yeah...but...uh...I’m done now...I need to get out and get dressed...I’m really cold....” Iolaus had reached the bushes but he crouched there, making no move to stand up and move to where his clothing was.
“Okay. Go ahead. This will only take a few minutes.” Naked, Hercules stepped into the water and gasped, “Wooo! You’re right! This is cold!” He was busy splashing water over himself so he missed seeing Iolaus whip his head around, averting his gaze. He crouched, then dove head under, coming up spluttering and blowing water through his nose. When he looked around for Iolaus, he saw that his friend was already out on the bank, his naked and shivering body wrapped in his cloak as he hastily gathered up his garments.
“Iolaus?” Hercules called.
Iolaus froze, clutching his cloak more closely around him. “W...what?”
“Where are you going?”
“B...back to the cave. To dress....”
“That’s crazy. Put your clothes on here. You’ll freeze if you wait till you get back to the cave,” Hercules said reasonably.
“Well...uh...there’s no place to go...,” Iolaus stammered
“For what? Just put....” Hercules paused suddenly, dumfounded. Then it occurred to him that, in all the time that the jester had been with him, the only times that either had bathed were alone and in the privacy of inns. But there was more here than just two friends not used to each other. A dark worry creeping over his heart, Hercules turned away. “Go ahead and dress, Iolaus. I give you my word that I won’t look.”
“Uh...thanks!” was the low reply he got.
He busied himself with his bath for a few moments, taking note of the hurried and covert sounds on the bank. “I put some venison in the pot over the fire,” he called casually over his shoulder.
“Great. I’ll see what I can do with it,” Iolaus answered and there was the sound of his boots crunching on the stones of the path as he scrambled up to the higher ground.
Hercules sighed dismally as his finished his bath. By the time he’d left the river, rubbed the water off his body, dressed and climbed the path back to the cave, it was dusky dark and drops of rain were beginning to pelt down.
“Whew!” he exclaimed as he dashed into the cave and made for the fire. “It’s gonna be one cold, rainy night!” He squatted down by the flames and stretched out his hands to the warmth, sniffing appreciatively at the agreeable odors rising from the pot. “That smells really good.”
Iolaus glanced up with a diffident shrug. “I found some tubers and herbs when I was out gathering wood. I put them in. There’s some fruit too,” he added with a nod at a heap of apples nearby.
“A feast,” Hercules said kindly as he stood up and rummaged in his pack for a couple of wooden bowls and spoons.
A blue-white light flashed suddenly outside the cave and Iolaus flinched noticeably. When the thunder boomed, he almost dropped the wooden spoon he was using to stir the stew. The slashing rain drove briefly in through the cave entrance and then veered away as the wind shifted. He drew a shaky breath and went back to stirring the stew.
“You don’t like storms, do you?” Hercules asked him.
Iolaus giggled nervously. “Oh, I don’t mind storms. It’s the lightning...I’m...I’m afraid of it. I was almost struck once, did I ever tell you?”
Hercules shook his head. “No. But I can understand your fear. It’s normal to be afraid of dangerous things.”
Iolaus didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t say much of anything throughout their meal.
“Tired?” Hercules asked him when he put his half-empty bowl down with a sigh.
“Huh...what?” Iolaus glanced at him and then away. “No. Well, a little, I guess.” He smiled slightly. “Do you think I’m getting used to this life, maybe?”
“I’d say definitely,” Hercules told him. “You do more than your share of the work, you don’t complain about the hardships and inconveniences, you’re a good conversationalist...what more could I ask for?”
Iolaus grinned again, hesitantly, as he settled back on his buttocks and crossed his legs, feet stretched to the fire. He’d removed his boots and he wiggled his bare toes gratefully in the heat. Then the grin faded.
“Uh...Hercules?”
“What?” Hercules spooned up the last of his stew and put the bowl aside.
“I...I’m sorry I acted like such a wuss.”
“When?”
“Earlier. Down at the river.”
Hercules smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it. If someone’s used to privacy, it’s a little difficult to change over the call of the wild at a moment’s notice.”
Iolaus laughed and seemed to relax. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Hercules leaned back on his elbows and studied the man on the other side of the fire. “It must have been a hard life for you,” he commented presently.
“What? Oh, you mean my life...there.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to....”
“Oh, I don’t mind talking about it. It’s just that there’s not much to tell. It’s kind of boring, actually,” Iolaus offered. He got up on his knees and began to clear away the remains of their meal. When Hercules got up to help him, he paused, a surprised look on his face.
“What?” Hercules asked.
“You don’t have to help.”
“Why shouldn’t I help? I contributed to the mess, didn’t I?” Hercules paused. “Iolaus...you keep forgetting that I’m not him.”
Iolaus’ head was down as he busied himself with the camp chores. But he said, “No, you’re not.” And added, under his breath, “Thank the gods!”
Silence reigned while they prepared the camp for the night. Presently, both men were sitting cross-legged on their pallets of furs, contemplating the flames. Several times, Hercules was on the verge of speaking but something held his tongue. He couldn’t see Iolaus’ face very clearly but there seemed to be a glimmer of tears in his eyes.
“Are you sorry?” Hercules asked softly.
Iolaus’ head flew up. “For what? That I came here? No!”
“Well, something’s weighing on you and it isn’t just trying to get used to the new life. If it’s me....”
“No, it isn’t you...of course not. I...uh...nothing’s bothering me, really. I guess I’m just tired,” Iolaus offered in a pleading tone.
Hercules let the issue pass, but he found himself dwelling on the similarities between this man and the Iolaus he had known. Both men were very reticent about their feelings, but the jester seemed to carry the additional onus of thinking that what he felt didn’t matter to anyone.
Thinking to try a different tack, Hercules asked, “How did you become the Sovereign’s jester anyway?”
For a moment, he thought that Iolaus hadn’t heard him. Then his head came up and stark horror sat in his eyes. His face drained of color so suddenly that Hercules reached out to him, thinking he was about to faint.
Iolaus flinched away from the outstretched hand with an audible gasp and Hercules drew it back.
“Iolaus...?”
Looking like death was immanent, Iolaus staggered to his feet. Then he bent, groped for his cloak and pulled it around him. “I...uh...I...t...think I’ll turn in. I’m really...r...really tired, Hercules. We’ll talk...tomorrow. Okay?”
“Sure,” Hercules said with a calm he was nowhere near feeling . “If you like.”
“Okay...fine...sure.” Iolaus turned blindly, stumbled to his pallet and all but fell on it, drawing his cloak tightly around him.
Stunned, Hercules stared at the hunched back. There was no sound in the cave but the crackle of the flames and the echo of the driving rain outside in the darkness.
When the huddled form didn’t move, Hercules said gently, “Good night, Iolaus.” He waited a moment but there was no response except for a very faint sound that might have been the beginning of a snore. He sighed and stretched himself out on the rough pile of skins that did little to alleviate the hardness of the stone floor. He lay listening to the silence on the far side of the fire, but gradually his muscles loosened and relaxed, and he drifted off to sleep.
Long after Hercules began to snore in truth, the man curled beneath the woolen fabric didn’t move. He lay staring through distended eyes at the rock wall nearby, but he didn’t see it...couldn’t see it for the tears that washed across the bridge of his nose and ran down his cheeks to soak the rough pillow beneath his head. He also couldn’t move because every muscle and tendon in his body was clenched as hard as the rocky floor beneath him, in a desperate effort to keep from making the slightest sound.
Deep in the night, when the fire was guttering and a cold wind was gusting fitfully through the cave, Hercules was jerked out of a sound slumber by a terrible sound. It was a high-pitched scream of terror and loathing that echoed through the cave, bouncing off the walls like glass shattering. He sat bolt upright and then was on his feet before he realized that he’d moved, glancing wildly about for some weapon to defend himself. Then, in the dim light, he saw Iolaus thrashing furiously, his body tangled in his cloak, evidently fighting some foe that existed only in his nightmare. He screamed again, an awful sound that ended in a sobbing gurgle of half-coherent words: “No!...don’t touch me again!...stay way away...leave me alone...please leave me alone please...!”
Hercules grabbed up a handful of sticks and tossed them on the dying fire, then used the toe of his boot to kick the sparks into flaming life. As the fire leaped up, he saw Iolaus more clearly. The little jester was on his back, arms flailing and face stark white with wild terror.
Hercules stepped around the fire and knelt by his friend, grasping his shoulder to shake him awake. “Iolaus!” he called clearly. “Wake up, Iolaus! It’s just a dream....”
At his touch, Iolaus gasped tearingly and flung himself upright, eyes wide open and fully dilated. Then they focused and, when he saw who was crouched next to him, he yelled in utter panic; his body spasmed, throwing him backwards into a sitting position against the rock wall. “No!” he shrieked. “No...please...!”
“Iolaus, it’s all right, “ Hercules soothed. “You were just having a bad dream, that’s all.”
For a moment, Iolaus stared numbly at him, mouth gaping open, his breath still rasping in and out of his lungs. Then his face crumpled and he collapsed, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. As his head fell forward, he burst into tears, crying shrilly like a very young child. His whole body shuddered and shook with the force of his sobs.
Hercules reached for him again and then drew back, afraid of what his touch might do to further agonize the shivering, weeping man crouched in a pitifully forlorn heap. He could only sit, helplessly, not knowing what to do. Iolaus was obviously in the grip of some awful terror, some malaise that he had been battling, Hercules now realized, for many days. The demigod’s touch and his appearance had somehow been the explosive trigger, setting off something that had been exposed in the nightmare.
The hysterical crying was gradually subsiding into more normal weeping, wretched sobs of anguish that seemed to pull all the energy out of the slumped body. Iolaus remained huddled but the tenseness of terror had left him.
Moving slowly and quietly, Hercules pulled the cloak off the pallet and then knelt in front of the weeping man, drawing the fabric warmly around his shoulders. He tried to avoid touching Iolaus but, even when his fingers brushed the bent head, Iolaus didn’t react. He seemed so lost in his own misery that Hercules’ throat close with a choke of compassion.
Still being as silent as possible, he went back to his pack on the other side of the fire and rummaged in it for the herbs he knew were there. In minutes, he had water boiling and several minutes after that had the herbs steeping for tea in a wooden cup.
The sounds of woe had subsided further by the time he had the medicinal brew ready. Iolaus’ sobs had lessened to spastic hiccups interspersed with deep sniffs. He had raised his head enough to reach and pull the cloak more closely around him and now he sat huddled into it like some frightened thing trying to disappear into the safety of its den.
Moving slowly and carefully, Hercules went to him, knelt in front of him and offered the steaming cup.
Iolaus eyed it warily. “What?” he asked, his voice harsh and raspy. Tears still wet his face but, beyond rubbing his hand across his swollen eyes occasionally, he seemed to ignore them.
“It’s just some herbal tea,” Hercules told him gently. “You probably have a headache. This will help ease it and also calm you down a little.”
Iolaus grasped the cup with fingers that trembled. “Thanks,” he murmured and began to sip at it. He made a face. “It tastes so awful that it must be good for me,” he commented in an almost normal tone of voice.
Hercules smiled; he couldn’t help it. But he made his face sober again when Iolaus looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” the little jester said. “I’m fine. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Hercules shook his head. “My friend, you are many things but, at this moment, ‘fine’ isn’t one of them.”
“It was just a dream...I have them a lot,” Iolaus said with feigned casualness. “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter....”
Hercules put a hand on Iolaus’ forearm, noting with dismay that the muscles tensed beneath his fingers. “Iolaus, you were crying in your sleep, you woke up crying and you haven’t stopped crying since. I’d hate to see how you react to something that does matter.”
Iolaus hung his head. “I went to sleep that way,” he muttered.
“What way?”
“Crying.”
“I thought you were asleep before I was.”
Iolaus took another sip of the tea before he shook his head. “I’m glad you thought so. I was hoping to get a handle on this.”
Hercules moved sideways and sat beside him, not close enough to be invading his personal space but close enough to be able to reach out and touch him, hug him, comfort him. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything but merely watched Iolaus sip tea and wipe tears. Occasionally the jester varied the routine by blowing his nose vigorously on a square of linen that he rummaged out of his pocket.
Finally, Hercules ventured, “Would I be correct in assuming that all ‘this’ has something to do with the Sovereign?”
He was prepared for any reaction except the one he got.
Iolaus laughed.
“The Sovereign? What makes you think I’m grieving for him?”
“I didn’t say anything about grief,” Hercules pointed out. “But I’m starting to put some things together in my head and your condition now confirms a lot of what I’ve suspected for a while.”
The laughter died out of Iolaus’ eyes and, curiously, so did the tears...dried at their source by some flare of heat that rushed over him in a wave. “What...things?” he asked in a voice so faint that it barely carried any sound.
“Little things. But lots of them. Meaningless by themselves but all together making me see something...something awful.”
The blushing heat faded, leaving Iolaus pale, his eyes wide and dark. He looked away, then looked down, studying the cup in his fingers as if it was the most important thing in the world. “What do you think you see?” he whispered.
“The answer that you didn’t give me earlier.”
“To what question?”
“When I asked you how and why you became the Sovereign’s Jester,” Hercules answered. “You looked completely horrified, as if I’d asked you the one thing you didn’t even want to think about. That’s when I started to put everything together.” He reached out and gently removed the cup from the hands that were about to drop it. “What did he do to you, Iolaus?” he asked, so tenderly that his voice cracked.
Iolaus stared straight ahead at nothing. “You tell me,” he said in a voice so flat and empty of all emotion that it almost didn’t sound human.
Hercules sat back with a sigh, crossed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loosely between them. “Okay, the little things. At the very first, when you came through the portal, the way you were completely terrified of me yet stayed near me, sometimes close enough for our bodies to touch. Then, when I came into the Alternate World, that combination of repulsion and surrender was more pronounced. The way you led me directly to the Sovereign’s bed chamber. The fact that you knew which outfit was his favorite. And later, in the Labyrinth of Eternal Memory when the God of Love Ares remarked that he was glad to see us getting ‘close’, you flinched away from me.”
Hercules glanced at the unmoving man next to him. “And then, here. Your reluctance to give up your Jester clothes...clothing that covered you from head to foot. Then, when you did opt for new garments, you chose things that were even more concealing. And today, when I came to the river where you were bathing...if you were a woman, I would have said that your reaction was that of a virgin who feared...attack.”
Iolaus still hadn’t moved or made a sound.
Hercules almost put out a hand to touch him consolingly, then thought better of it and refrained. “What did he do to you, Iolaus, to keep you in such complete bondage that, even after his death, it still holds you?”
Iolaus shrugged helplessly. “You seem to have the answer you want. Why not just leave it at that?’
“Because I can’t leave it at that!” Hercules declared. “Iolaus...we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
“What’s changed?”
“The fact that you want a confession that I can’t give you. Your friend could confide in you. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Instead of replying, Iolaus twitched the cloak away from his shoulders and got to his feet, bracing himself with a hand against the cave wall when his knees threatened to buckle. Then he moved away slowly and began to gather up his things.
Hercules watched him in dumfounded surprise. Finally he asked, “What in Tartarus are you doing?”
“What does it look like? Packing to leave. I might as well do it now as later.”
“Why do it at all?”
Iolaus stood for a moment. Then the pack fell from his nerveless fingers and bounced on the floor, spilling out the items he’d already stuffed into it. “Because when you hear what I’m going to tell you...what I know I have to tell you...you won’t want me within ten leagues of you ever again.”
Hercules laughed shortly. “Why not do me the courtesy of letting me decide that?”
Iolaus turned and looked at him...straight at him, meeting his eyes more directly than he had for days. For a moment, he slumped and a fleeting expression of panic crossed his face as he glanced at the cave entrance. Then he appeared to decide that flight was not an option. He squared his shoulders and faced Hercules with a very patently feigned calm.
“All right. The truth in a nutshell. A truth I didn’t fully realize until I came to this world.” Iolaus drew a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. “Everything in my world is essentially the opposite of what it is here. There, you are...were...a despotic maniac. Xena is a slut, Nebula a tyrant, Joxer a rebel leader. Even the gods...all different. Everything opposite.”
Hercules nodded. “Okay, I agree. Everything is opposite.”
Iolaus gave him a look compounded of pleading and anguish. “Everything, Hercules. Everything.”
“Every....”
“Ideas. Attitudes. Feelings.”
Hercules shook his head. “I don’t see.....”
Iolaus tossed his head in anguished frustration as he turned away. “See? Of course you don’t see! How could you? You’re kind and decent and noble. How could you possibly see that...that the Sovereign would....” He faltered as a sob strangled in his throat.
“That the Sovereign would love Iolaus in a different way,” Hercules finished quietly.
Stunned, Iolaus swung on him, his mouth open. Then he snapped it shut on a laugh so harsh that it was like a curse. “Love!” he said bitterly. “There was no ‘love’ in it anywhere. There never was! Only...only bondage.”
He came back to Hercules and stood looking down at him. “The opposites, don’t you see? The love you had for your friend, as a friend, was real and deep. Supportive. Tender. You would never have hurt him, used him, made him your pet....” He choked again and turned away.
“What happened?” Hercules asked gently.
Iolaus slumped, then passed his hands over his pale face. At last, he came back to Hercules and sat down beside him limply. “I’m sure it happens here too. It isn’t a new story. It’s just mine...a story I would never have written for myself and could never escape from. Until I fell through that gateway and found another world.”
“Tell me,” Hercules encouraged him.
Iolaus drew up his knees and hugged his arms around them. “I never really knew my father,” he began.
“Skouros?”
Iolaus glanced at him, startled. “Your friend’s father had the same name?”
“Yes. He was a warrior, a general who was killed in battle.”
“Well, my father was no warrior. He was a criminal, a thief who spent most of his adult life in various prisons. Eventually he was executed for murder. My mother was...well, she said she did it to support us but I knew that she really did it because she enjoyed it. I seldom saw her; she was always out hustling. So, when a kid has a criminal for a father and a whore for a mother, he doesn’t have many options in life. But I’d always liked to make things, you know? Put them together, take them apart, make them better. When I was 12 years old, I talked this blacksmith into taking me on as an apprentice. He wasn’t so bad...he beat me a lot but at least he also fed me and kept me clothed.”
Iolaus paused for a moment, wandering sorrowfully through those early memories. “When I was 20, I left him and tried to set up my own shop. But it was difficult to make a living...I always needed money for equipment and materials. I discovered, kind of by accident, that I could make people laugh if I was willing to act like an idiot. So I started doing gigs in inns and things. And one night the Sovereign...he’d just come to power then...came in during my act...he was returning from some campaign or other. I thought...I supposed he noticed me because I was funny but it was really because....”
“Because?” Hercules asked, his pity and compassion making his voice uneven.
“Because I was a...a pretty guy,” Iolaus answered with a sorrowful frown. “I’d always known I was. Don’t get me wrong...women weren’t falling over each other to get to me, especially when they discovered that I wasn’t very good at...things.” He laughed uncertainly. “Not much experience, you see. But a few did notice me. And guys...men...noticed too, but I also knew that I wasn’t inclined that way so I stayed away from that sort. But the Sovereign...he...well, he called me over to his table and we got to talking. I was flattered that he’d noticed me. I told him how I was really an inventor and that I just did the comedy act to earn money. He offered...he said he would back me if I’d come to the palace and work on some stuff for him.”
Iolaus laughed again, bitterly. “I really was a fool. A completely naive idiot. I believed him. I went.”
“And?” Hercules asked when Iolaus fell silent.
“He let me work. At first. Gave me a good workshop. Nice quarters...didn’t even lock me in like he did...later. Good clothes. Showed an interest in what I was doing. I...I...uh...used to work late a lot, nights. It was quieter then and I could think. Then he...he came to the workshop one night. Said he had something broken in his bed chamber and would I come and take a look at it, that maybe I could fix it.”
Iolaus shivered suddenly and wrapped his arms around his ribs. Unconsciously, he began to sway a little, back and forth, in a self-hypnotic rhythm. Tears welled in his eyes again and began to splash down his face but he seemed unaware of them. “I wasn’t stupid, you know,” he continued in a dull voice. “I knew what he was by then. Wicked. Arrogant. Malicious. Powerful. I’d seen him kill without a thought if someone displeased him. But I thought I’d be safe with him. He’d never harmed me. He laughed at my jokes. He let me work. But that night....” He stopped.
Hercules swallowed against the lump of pity and revulsion in his throat. “That night...he raped you.”
Iolaus choked on a sob as he hid his face in his hands. “Oh, he didn’t call it that. And...believe it or not, neither did I. Then. He said he loved me, had loved me ever since he first saw me. And that because I’d accepted his invitation to come to his palace, that I’d also accepted whatever relationship would exist between us.”
Crying openly now, Iolaus shook his head dismally. “I couldn’t deny it. How could I? I’d been offered everything I’d never had from anyone in all my life...food, safety, work that I loved. I was even sort of fond of him, in spite of knowing what kind of person he was. But when I understood that none of it was free, that there had to be payment....” Iolaus raised his head and almost glared at Hercules. “Now do you understand why I said you’d want me to leave? Now that you know what I am!”
Hercules stared back at him. What you ‘are’?” Iolaus, what you are is a victim...or you were. You had no choice....”
Iolaus flung himself to his feet so abruptly that he almost tripped himself. “I did have a choice, don’t you see that, dammit? Maybe not that first night but later...I could have left. Walked out. Gone back to the life I knew. He wouldn’t have stopped me....”
“Wouldn’t he?” Hercules argued. “He was the sort of man who took what he wanted...and kept it or destroyed it.”
“Okay, maybe he would have tried to stop me. But I could have escaped him. If I’d tried. But I was a coward. All my life I’ve been a coward. I learned really early that the way to have a safe life was to keep my head down, to agree, to submit. To anything. I stayed with him....”
Iolaus turned away again, his eyes tracking around the cave in bleak misery. Then they fell on his overturned pack, and he bent and picked it up. “So I’ll be going now,” he said, as though concluding a conversation. “I’ll just get everything together and go away and you’ll never have to see me again and...and I’ll always appreciate what you tried to do for me but I really have to leave now....” He was picking up things at random and poking them into the pack as he spoke so he didn’t notice Hercules getting to his feet.
The demigod walked up behind him and put his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders. “Iolaus....”
With a yell of anger and anguish, Iolaus jerked away and swung to face him. “You don’t get it, do you, oh mighty, noble Hercules? I stayed with him...for years! He mocked me, bullied me, humiliated me...and I stayed. He demanded more and more debasing acts of idiotic comedy...and I stayed. He threatened me, tortured me...and I stayed. He took me...over and over...for hours...everywhere...every way...and I s...stayed. He took me in public...with people watching...and I stayed! And you want to know why? Because it was all funny to him! I stayed because I could make him laugh! And when he laughed...just for those few moments...I believed that he did love me...the only...p...person in my whole l...life who ever cared about me....”
Sobbing, choking on tears, Iolaus fell to his knees, hands clasped tightly and shoved between his knees as he rocked back and forth in his agony.
Stunned with horror and outrage and burning compassion, Hercules stared down at him, speechless and blinded by his own tears. And, for the first time in his life, he felt deeply grateful to Ares...Ares, who had killed the demigod’s monster self in that other world....
For long moment, there was no sound in the cave except the sigh of the wind against the stone wall and Iolaus’ weeping.
Then Hercules bent and grasped the smaller man’s arms, pulling him strongly to his feet. Held limply and dumbly in that powerful grip, Iolaus looked up at him, his white, wet face like a mask carved in stone. Then he swayed forward, against Hercules’ chest, and those powerful arms closed around him. Safe in that embrace, he stood, unresisting, as his tears subsided.
Hercules rested his chin on the blond head. “Iolaus, it’s over. Whatever you were in that other world, whatever choices you made for whatever reasons...it’s past. It’s finished. This is a new world and a new life and you can be a new person if you want to be. You can accept my friendship or not, but whatever you choose, let it be for the right reasons, You don’t have to run and hide any longer.”
Iolaus didn’t answer but slowly, tentatively, his arms went around Hercules’ waist.
Hercules turned his head slightly. “Listen.”
“To what?” Iolaus mumbled, his face still pressed against Hercules’ shirt.
“To the birds outside. It’s coming on dawn. A new day.”
Iolaus drew back in his embrace, listening now too. “A new day,” he repeated. He looked up at the son of Zeus, into the blue eyes fastened on him, glowing with love and compassion and understanding and acceptance. “Is it really? Can it be?”
Hercules smiled. “If you want it to be, my friend.”
Iolaus smiled too, then, uncertainly at first, then with growing confidence. “I want it to be.” And he added, with all the sincerity in his battered heart, “My friend.”
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