“Ah, tortoise poop,” Hermes muttered.
“You are under arrest for thievery!” Apollo said. “I’m taking you to Mount Olympus for the judgment of Zeus!”
Apollo picked up the entire cradle and flew off to Mount Olympus. When he set the cradle in front of Zeus and explained that this newborn baby was a cattle thief, the other gods started giggling; but Zeus silenced them.
“This baby is my son,” Zeus said. “I’m sure he’s capable of anything. Well, Hermes, did you steal Apollo’s cows?”
Hermes stood up in his cradle. “No, Father.”
Zeus raised an eyebrow. He casually picked up one of his lightning bolts and tested the point. “I’ll give you a moment to reconsider your answer. Did you steal Apollo’s cows?”
“Yes, Father. But to be fair, I only killed two. The rest are safe and sound. And when I slaughtered the cows, I sacrificed the first meat to the gods.”
“And then you stuffed yourself!” Apollo growled.
“Well, I’m one of the gods, too!” Hermes said. “But all of you got a portion, of course! I would never forget to honor my relatives.”
The gods muttered among themselves and nodded. The baby might be a thief, but at least he was a respectful thief.
“This is ridiculous!” Apollo cried. “Father Zeus, he stole from me. Put him in juvie! Put him on the chain gang!”
Zeus suppressed a smile. He knew he had to be just, but he also couldn’t help admiring Hermes’s audacity. “Hermes, you will immediately show Apollo where you’ve hidden his cows. Then you will pay Apollo whatever price he demands for the two cows you killed.”
“I’ll throw him into Tartarus!” Apollo yelled. “That’ll be my price!”
Zeus shrugged. “You’ll have to work that out between yourselves. Now, off with you.”
Hermes sighed. “As you wish, Father. Apollo, you drive. I’ll navigate.”
Apollo picked up the cradle and flew off with Hermes. The baby god directed him to the secret cave where he’d hidden the cattle, but he took a roundabout route. He was furiously thinking about how he could avoid punishment.
When Apollo saw his missing cows, he calmed down a little bit, but he was still angry with Hermes.
“It’s Tartarus time,” Apollo snarled. “I’ll throw you so far into the abyss—”
Hermes pulled his lyre from the blankets of his cradle and began to strum.
Apollo listened, spellbound. He didn’t dare interrupt until Hermes was through.
“What—where—how—”
“Oh, this?” Hermes said casually. “I call it a lyre. I invented it last night.”
His fingers flew across the strings, creating a waterfall of beautiful notes.
“I must have it,” Apollo said. “I’m the god of music. Please! I—I must have it!”
“Oh, but you’re going to throw me into Tartarus,” Hermes said sadly. “I’ll need my lyre to cheer me up down there in the dark.”
“Forget Tartarus,” Apollo said. “Give me the lyre, and we’ll call it even.”
“Hmm,” Hermes said. “And I get to keep the rest of these cows?”
“What?!” Apollo demanded.
Hermes played another melody, as bright as sunlight through the trees.
“Yes, yes!” Apollo said. “Fine, keep the cows. Just give me the lyre.”
“Wonderful!” Hermes tossed the lyre to Apollo.
Then the baby god pulled out his double flute, which he’d decided to call a syrinx. He started playing that, and Apollo’s mouth hung open.
“Don’t tell me you invented that, too!”
“Hmm?” Hermes paused. “Oh, yes. Just a little something I thought up after dinner. It’s for sale…for the right price.”
Hermes played a little Mozart and some One Direction, and Apollo cried, “I must have it! The girls will go wild for that! I’ll offer you…well, I’ve got some nice magic items back at my apartment: a herald’s staff I’m not using, some flying shoes, and a sword. You can have all three!”
Hermes considered that. “Throw in the power of prophecy, and it’s a deal.”
Apollo scowled. “I can’t do that. Prophecy is my gig. Tell you what: I’ll give you the power to tell fortunes with dice. Nothing fancy, but it’s a good party trick, and you can make some decent money that way.”
“Deal.”
“Deal!”
So Apollo and Hermes ended up becoming good friends. Apollo forgot about the cattle thievery. He didn’t even mind that he’d totally been ripped off on the price of the lyre and the syrinx flute. Hermes got his own herd of cattle, which was how he became the god of cattle herders. He got a pair of winged sandals that made him faster than any other god. He got a sword made from adamantine and gold, with a blade so sharp, it could cut through almost anything. He got a herald’s staff, like human messengers carried when they traveled from city to city to show they had diplomatic immunity, except that Hermes’s staff was magical. Normally, a herald’s staff had two white ribbons twined around it. Hermes’s staff had two living snakes instead. It also had the power to put anyone to sleep, or to wake them up, which was helpful to a god of thieves. The staff became known as a caduceus—just because I knew you needed another complicated word to remember.
Oh, and the old dude, Battus, who told on Hermes? Hermes flew back to the farm and turned Battus into a pillar of stone. Battus is still standing there overlooking the road, wishing he’d never seen that stupid cattle-thieving baby.
Hermes grew into an adult (in a couple of days, being a god, and all). Usually he appeared as a handsome teenaged guy with curly black hair and just the beginnings of a wispy moustache. Of course, being a god, he could appear any way he wanted to.
He became the messenger of Zeus, and sometimes he even did secret dirty deeds for the boss man. That was Hermes’s favorite part of the job!
Case in point: One time Zeus fell in love with a river nymph named Io. (Yes, that was her name. Just I and O. I guess she came from a poor family that couldn’t afford consonants.) She was amazingly beautiful, but Zeus had the hardest time convincing her to go out with him. She always hung with a bunch of her nymph friends, so he couldn’t ambush her. She totally ignored his texts. He sent her flowers and candy. He put on a beautiful thunderstorm to impress her. He worked at it for weeks and weeks and got totally obsessed.
Finally she agreed to meet him alone in the woods, and Zeus was like, “YES!”
Unfortunately, Hera got wind of what was going on. Maybe one of the other nymphs told her.
Anyway, Zeus showed up in the clearing and Io was waiting for him in a shimmering white dress. She smiled and said, “Hey, handsome.”
Zeus nearly whimpered with excitement, but just as he took Io’s hand, he heard a familiar voice in the woods. “Zeus!” Hera screamed. “Where are you, you no-good cheater?”
Zeus yelped and turned Io into the first thing he could think of: a cow.
Not very nice, turning your girlfriend into a heifer. It’s like word association: chocolate—delicious. Sunlight—warmth. Io—cow! Or maybe Hera’s voice made him think of cows, since that was her sacred creature.
Anyway, when Hera stormed into the clearing, she found Zeus leaning casually against a large white cow.
Hera narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Hmm? Oh, hello, dear! Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“What’s with the cow?”
“Cow?” Zeus seemed to notice Io for the first time. “Oh, this cow? Um, nothing. Why?”
Hera clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white. “That cow wouldn’t happen to be one of your girlfriends, cleverly transformed?”
“Ha-ha! Oh, come on, dear. You know I wouldn’t…Um…No, of course not.”
“Then why is the cow here?”
A bead of sweat trickled
down the side of Zeus’s face. He panicked and blurted out, “It’s a gift! For you!”
“A gift.”
“Well, yes.” Zeus tried to smile. “Since…cows are sacred to you, right? I wanted it to be a surprise. But, um, if you don’t like it, I can return it to the cow store.”
Hera figured Zeus was more full of manure than the heifer. But she decided to play along.
“Why, thank you, dear,” she said. “It’s wonderful. I’ll take it with me right now.”
“You—you will?”
“Yes.” Hera smiled coldly. She summoned a magical rope and put it around poor Io’s neck. “I think I’ll put her in my sacred grove in Mycenae, where she’ll be safe and well guarded. What’s her name?”
“Um…Io.”
“Come, then, Io.” Hera led the cow away, softly singing, “Io, Io, it’s off to the grove we go.”
As soon as she was gone, Zeus cursed his horrible luck. He kicked some rocks and summoned lightning to blow up trees.
“I was this close!” he yelled. “I have to get that cow back. Who do I know who can steal cows…?”
Of course, he called Hermes.
When Zeus explained the problem, Hermes grinned. “No worries, boss. I’ll sneak into that grove and—”
“It won’t be that simple,” Zeus warned. “Hera said the cow would be well guarded. I’m afraid I know what she meant. She’s got this new giant working for her, a dude named Argus.”
Hermes frowned. “So? I’ll either sneak past him or kill him. I’ve got a sword.”
Zeus shook his head. “This guy is huge and strong and quick. You can’t beat him in a fair fight, even with your sword. And as for sneaking…no way. The guy has eyes in the back of his head, and—”
Hermes laughed. “I’ve heard that before.”
“No. I mean he literally has eyes in the back of his head. And on his arms and legs and all over his body. A hundred eyes.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“I know, right? But he never rests, and he’s always looking in every direction. If he’s guarding Io…”
Hermes scratched his head. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll figure something out.”
So off he flew. When he got to Hera’s sacred grove, Hermes saw Io the white cow tied to an olive tree. Standing right next to her was the giant Argus.
Just like Zeus had said, Argus was covered with eyes, all blinking and looking around in a dizzy, psychedelic way that made Hermes a little queasy. Argus was about ten feet tall, and the dude obviously worked out. He was holding a big wooden club with iron spikes on the end. Hermes wondered if Argus had eyes in his palms, and if so, whether he got black eyes from holding his club all day.
Hermes changed his form so that he looked like a simple mortal shepherd. His caduceus morphed into a regular wooden staff. He strolled into the grove, whistling casually, and acted surprised when he saw Argus.
“Oh, hello!” Hermes smiled. “My, aren’t you tall!”
Argus blinked several hundred times. He was used to people teasing him about his eyes, but this shepherd didn’t seem horrified or disgusted. The giant wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Hermes wiped his forehead. “Hot day, isn’t it? Mind if I sit and rest?”
Without waiting for permission, Hermes made himself comfortable in the meadow. He set his staff next to him and secretly willed it to begin working its magic on Argus. The caduceus sent out waves of sleepiness—making Argus feel kind of like how you would in sixth period after lunch on a hot day.
SLEEP, the caduceus seemed to say.
But Argus was a big guy with lots of eyes. He’d been bred specifically not to fall asleep. Hermes figured it would take a while. He had to buy time.
“Man, what a day I’ve had!” he told the giant. He pulled out a jug of water. “Join me, my friend, and I’ll tell you all about it! Happy to share this ice-cold water with you!”
Argus was really thirsty. He’d been standing in the blazing sun all day, watching this stupid cow, as Hera had commanded. But the cow was boring.
Still, he was on duty. He shook his head, which was all he could do. He didn’t like to talk, because it would reveal the eyes inside his mouth and all over his tongue.
Hermes started chatting. He was the god of travel, so he knew a bunch of good stories. He’d heard jokes from all over the world. And messengers had to be good at speaking, so Hermes knew how to entertain. He regaled Argus with the latest gossip about the gods.
“I heard this one god Hermes stole Apollo’s cattle!” Hermes said with a grin. Then he proceeded to tell the story as if it had happened to somebody else.
Meanwhile, the caduceus kept pulsing with magic, filling the air with a heavy layer of drowsiness, like a comfortable blanket.
After half an hour, Argus dropped his club. He sat next to Hermes and accepted some water.
Hermes kept joking with him, telling him stories, until Argus felt like they were old friends.
SLEEP, said the caduceus.
After another hour, Argus’s eyes began to get heavy. He knew he was supposed to be on duty, but he couldn’t remember why. His imagination was drifting through the wonderful stories that Hermes told.
Finally Hermes started singing a lullaby. “This is one my mother sang for me when I was just a baby.” He sang the same song he’d heard in his cradle the night he was born, about Artemis’s dogs and Poseidon’s horses and Apollo’s cows.
Argus’s head drooped once, twice—bam. All his eyes closed, and the giant began to snore.
Hermes kept singing. Very slowly he got to his feet and drew his sword. He crept behind Argus and chopped off the giant’s head.
“Nighty-night!” Hermes said cheerfully. (I take back what I said earlier. Hermes was a murderer.)
Hermes untied Io the cow and brought her back to Zeus.
Hera was enraged, but she couldn’t prove what had happened. Zeus was delighted. Hermes got a nice little bonus in his next paycheck. Poor Io…once Zeus was tired of dating her, Hera turned her into a cow permanently and sent a gadfly to sting her for the rest of her life, so Io had to be constantly on the move, roaming from country to country.
But, c’est la cow! At least Hermes got the satisfaction of a job well done.
DIONYSUS CONQUERS THE WORLD WITH A REFRESHING BEVERAGE
I SAVED THIS GUY FOR LAST, because he’s likely to turn me into a porpoise if I say anything bad about him. And honestly, I’m not sure I can say anything good.
Here goes nothing….
A while back I told you about this princess Semele who got vaporized while she was pregnant with Zeus’s kid? Anyway, Zeus had to rescue the premature baby by sewing him into his right thigh to keep him alive.
(Yeah, I know. Just another boring day in the life of a god.)
Several months later, the baby was getting big and uncomfortable in Zeus’s leg, so Zeus figured the kid was ready to be born. Zeus undid the stitches. Amazingly, the kid came out alive and healthy.
Zeus wrapped him in a blanket, but he didn’t know anything about raising babies, so he called in Hermes.
“Hey,” Zeus said, “take this baby down to the mortal world. I think Semele had a sister or something. Find her and ask her to raise this kid until he’s older.”
“Sure, boss.” Hermes took the baby and looked him over. “Is he a god or a demigod or what?”
“Not sure yet,” Zeus said. “We’ll have to wait and see. But I don’t want to be changing diapers in the meantime.”
“I hear you. What’s his name?”
The kid started screaming and yelling.
“For now,” Zeus decided, “let’s call him Bacchus.”
Hermes grinned. “The noisy one? Nice.”
“One more thing: Hera will be looking for him. She hasn’t been able to mess with the k
id while he’s been stuck in my thigh, but she’ll notice that the big lump is gone now.”
“Yeah, that lump was kind of obvious.”
“Might be best if Bacchus’s aunt raises him like he’s a girl, just for a while. Maybe that will throw Hera off the scent.”
Hermes frowned. He didn’t see how raising the baby as a girl would help. Hera wasn’t so easily fooled, but Hermes knew better than to argue with the boss.
“Got it,” he said. “Off I go!”
Hermes had no trouble finding the baby’s Aunt Ino and Uncle Athamas. They agreed to raise Bacchus with their own children, and the boy grew up at a normal human rate—not super-accelerated, like a god. Everybody decided he must be a demigod, but that just made Zeus more fearful that Hera would try to rip the kid apart.
As requested, Ino and Athamas dressed Bacchus in girl’s clothing to keep his identity secret. The first few years of his life, Bacchus was very confused. He wasn’t sure why his foster parents called him “he” in private and “she” in public. At first he thought all kids were treated that way.
Then, when he was three years old, Hera struck. Somehow she discovered where the baby was living, and she flew down from Olympus, intent on revenge. By the time Zeus found out what was happening, he only had a few seconds to act. He managed to zap Bacchus into the form of a goat so that Hera wouldn’t notice him, but Bacchus’s foster parents weren’t so lucky. Hera spotted them and inflicted them with a violent form of madness.
Uncle Athamas thought his oldest son, Learkhos, was a deer and killed him with a bow and arrow. Aunt Ino thought their younger son, Melikertes, needed a hot bath—a really hot bath, so she drowned him in a basin of boiling water. Then Ino and Athamas realized what they’d done. In despair, they both leaped off the side of a cliff and plummeted to their deaths.
That Hera…she’s all about wholesome family values.
Zeus managed to retrieve Bacchus and turn him back into a child, but the experience haunted Bacchus. He learned that madness could be used as a weapon. He’d learned that goats were good. (In fact, the goat became one of his sacred animals.) And he learned that you couldn’t hide who you were just by putting on different clothes. Later on, he became the god of anybody who felt confused about his or her own gender, because Dionysus could relate.