friends,
whatever your theories.’ We laughed. That much was true, no doubt. Medeia smiled and glanced at me.
“But now, standing at the balustrade and gazing
wearily
seaward, I saw all that more darkly. The Keltic king was lighter than I’d guessed. I’d achieved the ideal of
government
I dreamed of then: equal justice for all free citizens, peace in the city. Yet my beast heart yearned, past all
denying,
for violence. I envied Akastos, balanced, alive, on the balls of his feet, riding in that rattling chariot of
war
with the army of Kastor, repelling a wave of invaders
on the plains
of Sparta. In the silence of the star-calm night, I could
hear their shouts,
piercing the hundreds of miles—the snorting and
neighing of horses,
the swish of a javelin hungrily leaping, the tumble of
weighed-down
limbs.
“Medeia said, ‘Jason?’ I turned to her. ‘Tell me your
thought.’
‘No thought,’ I said grimly. She said no more. I saw mad
Idas
dancing with a corpse by the light of the burning gates
of the palace
of Kyzikos. Saw Idmon writhing, his belly ripped open. Saw the great eagle, with pinions like banks of silvery
oars,
sailing to the mountain of Prometheus.
“Hard times those were for Medeia. She tended to the children, kept track of
the household slaves
and hid from me her mysterious illness, or struggled to. I glimpsed it at times: a tightness of mouth, an
abstracted look;
and I remembered her sickness on the Argo. For all her
skill with drugs,
she couldn’t encompass her body’s revolt—now
menstrual cramps,
sharp as the banging of Herakles’ club, and indifferent
to the moon,
now unknown organs rebelling in their dens, now
flashes of fire
in her brains. I would find her standing alone,
white-faced with agony,
her corpse-pale fingers locked and her green eyes
glittering, ferocious.
At times in the dead of night she would rise and leave
our bed
and, passing silent as a ghost beyond the outer walls, hooded, a dark scarf hiding her face, she would search
the lanes
and gulleys of Argos for medicinal herbs—mecop and
marigold,
the coriander of incantation, purifying hyssop, hellebore, nightshade, the fennel that serpents use to
clear
their sight, and the queer plant borametz, that eats the
grass
surrounding it, and gale, and knotgrass … I began to
hear
reports of strange goings-on—a slain black calf in a
barrow
high in the hills; a grave molested; a visitation of frogs in the temple of Persephone. I kept my peace, watching and waiting. At times when I heard her
footfall, quiet
as a feather dropping, and a moment later the closing
of a door,
a whisper of wind, I would rise up quickly and follow
her.
She led me through fields—a dark, hunched spectre
in the moonless night—
led me down banks of creeks that she dared not cross,
through groves
of sacred willows as ancient and quiet as the stones of
abandoned
towns, then up to the hills, old mountains of the turtle
people
who cowered under backs of bone as they watched her
pass. She came
to a wide circle of stone, an ancient table of Hekate.
There she would slaughter a rat, a toad, a stolen goat, singing to the goddess in a strange modality,
older than Kolchis’ endless steppes,
and dropping her robe, her pale face lit by pain, she
would dance,
squeezing the blood of the beast on her breasts and
belly and thighs,
and her feet on the table of stone would slide on the
warm new blood
till the last undulation of the writhing dance. Then
she’d lie still,
like a bloodstained corpse, till the first frail haze of
dawn. Then flee
for home. She’d find me waiting in the bed. She
suspected nothing.
Little as I’d slept, I’d awaken refreshed,
would plunge into work as I did in the days when the
Argo’s beams
groaned at the hammering of waves or shuddered at the
blow of sunken
rocks. Pelias, weeping on the pillow, would stutter the
fruit
of his senility, clinging to my hand. “Beware of
puh-pride, my son.
My suh-son, beware of offending the g-g-g-gods.’ His
daughters’
heads hung pale as cornflowers; their pastel scarves fluttered in the flimsy wind of their love and awe. I
could bow
and smile, unoffended, as alive in the stink of his
sickness as I was
in the field of Aietes’ bulls.
“On other occasions, when she left to haunt the wilderness in search of some cure for her
malady,
I rose up, silent, and walked to the chamber of a certain
Slave
and slipped into bed beside her, my hand on her mouth.
I did not
love her, make no mistake, a cowering, mouse-shy
creature
as repulsive to me as Pelias was in his feeblest moods.
But I’d lie beside her, exploring the curves of her body
with my hands,
caressing her soft, damp fur, and at last would mount
and pierce her,
twist and stab till she cried out in pain and fright. Again and again, through the long still night I’d use her,
driving like a horse;
she’d weep—once dared like a fool to strike me. I
laughed. When dawn
crept near, I’d return to my own room, and when
Medeia came,
slyly I would make love to her. We’d awaken refreshed, rejuvenated. The slave soon came to expect my visits, came to take pleasure in my violent lust. Though
cowardly as ever—
hang-dog, feather-voiced, as stooped of shoulder as
Pelias at his most
obsequious—she began to throw me sidelong glances, for all the world like a litter-runt bitch in heat. When
she found me
alone in a room, she would come to me softly,
seductively touch
my arm, impose her scent on me. Sometimes even when Medeia was near, whose eyes missed nothing,
the wretched slave
would call to me down the room with her foxy eyes.
I gave
her warning. I was not eager to lose her—those great
fat breasts
dangling above me, glowing in the moonless night. She
refused
to hear. I gave commands; she vanished. I waited for
remorse;
it failed to arrive. I felt, if anything, nobler, more alive than before. I soon took other women,
choosing—from slaves, from noblemen’s wives—more
carefully,
women of taste and discretion. Even so, Medeia learned; flashed like a dragon, an electric storm. I pretended to
end
such pleasures. But I’d grown addicted, in fact. I’d
learned the secret
of g
odhood. In lust alone is mankind limitless, as vast as Zeus. Who hasn’t hungered to live all lives, pierce the secrets of the swan, the bull, the king, the
captive,
close all infinite space in his arms? Such was my desire, my absolute of hunger. I remembered the Sirens’ song.
“Meanwhile, word got abroad that Medeia had curious
powers.
I’d known, of course, it was only a matter of time.
Who learned
her secret first, I have no idea. She had visitors, impotent old men, young women with barren wombs.
They’d arrive
at the palace on flimsy pretexts, would tour, do the
honors to Pelias,
and eventually vanish with Medeia. I did not comment
on it,
though I knew in my bones we were moving toward
dangerous waters.
“I had at this time troubles more immediate. Our land
has been
divided since time began by the sacred Anauros River. In certain seasons a man or a team of oxen could ford it, but whenever the river was in spate, the kingdom
became, in effect,
twin kingdoms: if the people were starving on one side,
and corn and cattle
were plentiful over the opposite bank, the starving died while the oversupply of their immediate neighbors
corrupted. Old Argus,
at a word from me, had solved that problem, and in
the same stroke
transformed the very idea of the river. He would cut
a wide channel
where ships could pass, carrying the crops of the
midland to the sea
and foreign goods inland. So that men could cross it,
in any season,
he’d devised, with the help of Athena, the plan of an
ingenious bridge
that could span the torrent yet swing, by the force of
enormous sails
and waterwheels, so that even the loftiest vessel
might pass.
I had no doubt the assembly would quickly agree.
“By some cruel warp of fate, Pelias appeared at the assembly on the day the plan was first introduced. Who can say what
crackpot fears
assailed the man? Mixed-up memories of the oracle, which involved the river, or his well-known grudge
against all things daring—
the fear that had driven him to tear down Hera’s
images once,
his coward’s terror of acts of will … Whatever
the reason,
he opposed me. He shook like a tree in high wind.
He cajoled, whined, whimpered.
Now ashen, now scarlet, he appealed to the gods, the
fitness of things,
to tradition, to unborn generations, to all-hallowed
patriotism.
I was stunned, furious. I came close to telling him the
truth: he ruled
by my sufferance. When he tipped his head at me,
pitiful, appealing for tolerance
of an old man’s harmless whim, my rage grew
dangerous
I could feel the muscles of my cheek jerking. I hid them.
behind
my hands, pretending to consider his words, and by
force of will
as great as I’d used when I talked with Aietes, Lord
of the Bulls,
I closed the assembly for the day. We would speak of
the matter again.
“That night, standing by the balustrade, I thought
about murder,
my heart bubbling like a cauldron. My wrath was
absurd, of course.
I would win. I had no doubt of that. But the wrath was
there.
I did not hide it—least of all from Medeia. I half resolved in my mind to depose the old man at once,
without talk
or ritual. But in the end, I fought him on the floor of
the assembly,
as usual, polite, eternally reasonable, revealing my anger to no one, or no one but Medeia.
That was
my error, of course. The lady of spells had schemes
afoot.
“It seems the old man’s daughters had learned
of Medeia’s skill
and had come to her. Pitifully, timid heads hanging,
eyes streaming,
their long white fingers interlaced in lament, they
begged for her help.
They spoke of the figure their father cut once—how all
Akhaia
had honored him—and how, now, crushed by tragic
senescence,
he was less than a shadow of his former self. The eldest
wept,
grovelling, reaching to Medeia’s knees. ‘O Queen,’ she
wailed,
‘child of Helios, to whom all the secrets of death and
life
are plain as the seasons to the rest of us, have mercy on
Pelias!
We have heard it said that by your command old trees
that bear
no fruit can be given such vigor of youth that their
boughs are weighted
to the ground again. If there’s any syllable of truth in
that,
and if what you do for trees you can do for a man, then
think
of the shame and sorrow of Pelias, once so noble!
Whatever
you ask for this great kindness we’ll gladly pay. Though
not
as wealthy as those you may once have known in
gold-rich Kolchis,
with its floors of mirroring brass, we three are
princesses
as rich as any in Akhaia, and gladly we’ll pay all we
have
for love of our heart’s first treasure.’ Medeia was pale
and trembling.
They could hardly guess, if they saw, her reason. She
rose without a word
and crossed to the window and the night. They waited.
The thing they asked
was not beyond her power. Nor was it beyond the
power
of another talented witch, should she refuse. She
with difficulty. The daughters of Pelias stretched their
arms
beseeching her mercy. The youngest ran to her and
kneeled beside her
clasping her knees. ‘Have pity, Medeia.’ The queen stood
rigid.
Her head was on fire; familiar pain groped upward
from her knees.
At last she whispered,’ I must think. Return to me
tomorrow night.’
And so they left her. She threw herself on the bed
headlong,
blinded, tied up in knots of pain. She wept for Apsyrtus, for Kolchis, for her long-lost handmaidens. She wept
for the child
betrayed by the goddess of love to a land of foreigners. She slept, and an evil dream reached her.
“The following night when the daughters of Pelias returned to her, she
promised to help them.
They’d need great courage, she said, for the remedy was
dire. They promised.
She gave them herbs and secret incantations. When
the foolish princesses
left her room, she crept, violently ill, from the palace and fled to the mountains, her teeth chattering, her
muscles convulsing.
Vomiting, moaning, breathing in loud and painful
gasps,
she crawled to the old stone table of Hekate and danced
the spell
of expiation for betrayal of the witch’s art.
“On the night of Pelias’ birthday, the palace was a-glit
ter with
torches, and all
the noblest lords of Argos were present for the annual
feast.
The old man kept himself hidden—some senile whim,
we thought,
and thought no more about it, believing he’d appear, in
time.
There were whispers of a great surprise in the offing.
We laughed and waited.
We gathered in the gleaming, broad-beamed hall, lords and ladies in glittering attire, Medeia beside me, wan, shuddering with chills, yet strangely beautiful. I
remembered
the glory of Aietes as first I saw him, and the dangerous
beauty
of Circe, with her green-gold eyes. Then a nimble of
kettledrums,
the jangle of klaxons and warbling pipes, and like lions
tumbling
from their wooden chutes, in came the slaveboys bearing
trays—
great boats of boar, huge platters of duckling and
pheasant and swan—
a magnificent tribute to Pelias’ glory and the love of
his people.
Trays came loaded with stews and sauces, white with
steamclouds,
and trays filled with ambled meat. Then came—the
princesses rose—
the crowning dish, a silver pancheon containing, we
found
when we tasted it, a meat so exotic no man in the
palace,
whatever his learning or travels, would dare put a
name on it.
We dined and drank new wine till the first light of
dawn. And still
no sign of Pelias. The princesses, strangely excited,
their ox-eyes
lighted by more than wine, I thought, assured us he was
well.
And so, at the hour when shepherds settle on pastures
become
invulnerable to predators, shielded by Helios, the guests turned homeward, and we of the palace
moved, heavy-limbed,
to bed. We slept all day, Medeia on my arm, trembling. When the cool-eyed moon rose white in the trees, I
awakened, thinking,
aware of some evil in the house. I went to the room of
the children.
They were sleeping soundly, the slave Agapetika
beside them. I turned back,
troubled and restless, molested by the whisper of a
fretful god.
The moment I returned to our room, the princesses’
screams began.
Medeia lay gazing at the moon, calm-eyed. I stared at
her.
They’ve learned that Pelias is dead,’ she said. The same
instant
the door burst open, and a man with a naked sword
leaped in,
howling crazily, and hurtled at Medeia. I caught him