Fleeced (25 page)
Authors: Julia Wills
Sconces
Sconces are iron candleholders. Written down the word looks like ‘scones’. However, jam and cream doesn’t improve the flavour of sconces and they really hurt your teeth when you bite into one.
Scylla
This sea monster had six heads, tentacles for legs and a ring of dogs’ heads around her waist that wouldn’t win best of anything at Crufts. She lived next to Charybdis, the whirlpool, so that sailors who tried to sail between her and Charybdis either sailed too close to Scylla and were devoured, or sailed too close to Charybdis and were drowned.
Shades
This is the correct name for the ancient Greek ghosts
who dwell in the Underworld, making Alex and Aries a pair of shades. However, only Aries would be much good at blocking out the sun.
The Spartan Army
Sparta was an area of ancient Greece famous for its ferocious army. Boys joined when they were seven years old and, if they survived the brutal military training, served until they were thirty. Girls didn’t join the army, but were scarily tough and would punch you on the nose for nothing.
Stymphalian Birds
Man-eating birds with beaks made out of bronze. You wouldn’t want one of these sharing a cage with your budgie.
Tartarus
This was the darkest, most horrible part of the Underworld, containing a prison where the wickedest ghosts were held.
Theseus
One of Jason’s Argonauts, this prince killed the half-man half-bull Minotaur in his maze armed with just a sword and a ball of wool.
Trireme
A trireme was an ancient Greek ship with three rows of oars on each side with one man per oar. They were streamlined and fast and used as warships in sea battles.
The tri of trireme means three, like the tri in tricycle. However, tricycles were not nearly as useful in crossing the oceans and left everyone very wet and bad-tempered.
The Twelve Labours of Herakles
Pronounced hair-a-klees, the Romans called this hero Hercules. By either name his stepmother, Hera, hated him because he was the son of one of her husband, Zeus’s, many girlfriends. To punish Herakles, she sent him into a mad destructive rage during which he killed his wife and children. When he came round he was horrified and stricken by grief. The god, Apollo, gave him the chance to cleanse his conscience by performing certain labours, or tasks, for King Eurystheus. A bit like Jason’s three tasks on Kolkis, Herakles’ labours were believed to be impossible. Worse, Herakles had twelve of them and they comprised a mixture of killing, capturing, stealing and er, spring cleaning.
He killed the
Lion of Nemea
(and wore his lion-skin pelt), the
Hydra
and the
Stymphalian birds
.
He captured the
Ceryneian Hind
, the Erymanthian Boar (a wild pig with bristles and tusks), the Bull of Crete and the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who guarded the entrance to the Underworld.
He stole the four
man-eating horses
(and fed Diomedes, their owner, to them), a flock of sheep from under a monster’s nose and the golden apples from Zeus’s
back garden. He also stole the girdle of the queen of the Amazons and, believe me, she wasn’t happy about it when she couldn’t get her frock on.
His tidying job was to clean the Augean stables, a horse block even filthier than Medea’s cellar, which had been left festering for several years. However, rather than scrub them by hand, he diverted a river to
whoosh
through them and flush them clean. Neat, eh?
And finally, just in case you were wondering:
The Legend of the Golden Fleece
Long, long ago in ancient Greece, a hero named Jason sailed across the sea with his band of Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, in order to win back the throne his wicked uncle, Pelias, had stolen from Jason’s father.
With its ringlets of glittering gold, the fleece was truly the greatest treasure on Earth. Once it had belonged to Aries, the flying ram, but he was sacrificed and his coat given to King Aeetes of Kolkis.
To protect it, he hung it on the topmost branches of an oak in the palace’s dark forest and left it guarded by a man-eating snake. Eighteen metres long, a writhing, slithering heap of coils and teeth, Drako, was said never to sleep. Instead he watched the fleece, day and night, night and day, the ruby lights of his eyes blazing through the forest gloom, poised to slice through its creepers and shred
would-be burglars into bundles of bones.
After a long and dangerous voyage, Jason and his men sailed into Kolkis Harbour. Jason presented himself to King Aeetes and told him that he had come for the fleece. King Aeetes could not refuse Jason – that would be seen as rude – and so he told Jason that he could have the fleece, if he could perform three special challenges. The challenges were, of course, impossible and Aeetes was sure that Jason would die in trying to achieve them.
However, Aeetes had reckoned without Medea, his daughter, a powerful sorceress. The moment she saw Jason she melted, falling helplessly in love, and vowed to use her dark magic to help him.
The king told Jason to yoke two fire-breathing bulls; Medea created a salve to protect Jason’s skin from the flames.
The king told Jason to plough a field with the yoked bulls; Medea hypnotised the animals so they followed his every command.
The king told Jason to plant dragons’ teeth and when those dragons’ teeth sprang out of the soil as skeletons dressed in armour, it was Medea who told Jason to throw a rock into their midst, confusing the bone men into fighting and destroying each other.
The king was furious at the thought of losing his fleece and in fury, he ordered his generals to kill Jason
at the feast that evening. But Medea overheard him and crept down to her secret rooms to mix a potion of herbs and magic. Then she led Jason into the enchanted forest, sprinkled the mixture over Drako’s snout, sending the snake into a dark, blissful sleep, so that a moment later, Jason scaled the serpent’s slumbering coils, snatched the fleece and sailed home on the Argo with his new bride by his side.
And everyone lived happily ever after.
HE
E
ND
Oh no they didn’t.
Because as we know now, even though Mr Printer typed a big fat
THE END
at the end of Jason’s story, what he should have typed was
THE BEGINNING
. In fact, since Jason dumped Medea, resulting in her staying on Earth with the fleece and causing all manner of misery, writing
THE END
was the biggest, fibbiest myth of them all because the most important story, Aries’ story, was yet to start. To be honest, I expect the printer only typed
THE END
so that he could lock up early and go home for his dinner.
Julia was born in Stafford, but has also lived in Australia, Stockport and Oxford. Unfortunately, since she was a toddler at the time, she can't remember much about Australia, other than that she's pretty sure that the spiders were nearly as big as she was and that there were shark-watchers on the beaches. She's certain this is why
Jaws
remains her favourite film.
Julia has had lots of jobs, including keeping a photographic library of petrol stations for an oil-company, deciding what colour packets sausages look their best in and teaching eight-year olds. As Miss Wills her favourite lesson was history since it was here that she and the children first discovered the Ancient Greeks, their fabulous monsters and the problem with wearing a chiton on a windy day.
She now lives in Warwickshire with her partner Jim and Bosworth the dog, who is half-cocker-spaniel, half-poodle (and all teddy bear). She enjoys planting her garden with roses and violas â the flowers, not the instruments, as they tend to twang in the breeze and there's nothing like a furious orchestra stomping across your lawn to retrieve them to spoil the grass.
A TEMPLAR BOOK
First published in the UK in 2014 by Templar Publishing,
an imprint of The Templar Company Limited,
Deepdene Lodge, Deepdene Avenue, Dorking, Surrey,
RH5 4AT, UK
www.templarco.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2014 by Templar Publishing
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2014 by Julia Wills
Cover illustration by Martin Simpson
The right of Julia Wills to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN (ePub) 978–1–78370–032–5