“all will be well, I think.” He patted the slave's hard arm. “We'll be all right. The fortunes of our troubled house
are at last
on the upswing. Trust me! We've nothing more to do
now but wait,
observe with an icy, calculating eye as tension mountsâchurns up like an oracle's voice. We'll see,
my friend,
what abditories of weakness, secret guile they keep, what signs of virtue hidden to the casual glance.
Remember:
No prejudgments! Cold and objective as gods we'll
watch,
so far as possible. The man we finally choose we'll choose not from our own admiration, but of simple necessity. Not the best there, necessarilyâthe mightiest fist, the smoothest tongue. Our line's unlucky. The man we
need
is the man who'll make it survive. Pray god we recognize
him!”
He smiled, though his brow was troubled. It seemed
more strain than he needed,
this last effort of his reign, choice of a successor. He
stood
the weight of it only by will. He opened his hands like a
merchant
robbed of all hope save one gray galleon, far out at sea, listing a little, but ploughing precariously home. “What
more
can a man do?” he said, and forced a chuckle. “Some may well be surprised when we've come to the end of
these wedding games.
We two know better than to lay our bets on wealth alone, honor like poor Jokasta's, or obstinate holiness, genius like that of King Oidipusâthe godly brain he squanders now on gulls and winds and crawling
things.
Yet some man here in this house ⦔ The king fell
silent, brooding.
“And yet there's one man more I wish were here,” he
said.
He pulled at his nose and squeezed one eye tight shut.
“A man
with contacts worth a fortune, a man who's talked or
fought
his way past sirens, centaurs, ghosts, past angry seas ⦠a slippery devil, honest, not overly scrupulous, flexible, supple, cautious without being cowardly, a proven leader of men ⦠âthe man who brought
help,' as they call him,
for such is the meaning of his name.” The slave at his
elbow nodded,
smiling. His eyes were caves. King Kreon wrinkled
his forehead
and picked at his silvery beard like a man aware, dimly, of danger crouching at his back.
Just then, from an upper room,
a girlish voice came downâPyripta, daughter of the
king,
singing, not guessing that anyone heard. Wan, giant
Kreon
raised one finger to his lips, tipped up his head. His
servant
leered, nodding, wringing his fingers as if the voice were sunlight falling on his ears. She sang an ancient
song,
the song Persephone sang before her ravishment.
Artemis, Artemis, hear my prayer, grant my spirit the path of the eagle; in high rocks where only the stars sing, there let me keep my residence.
When the song ended, tears had gathered in the old
king's eyes.
He said, “Ah, yes”ârubbing his cheeks with the back
of his hand.
“Such beauty, the innocent voice of a child! Such
radiance!
âForgive me. Sentimental old fool.” He tried to laugh,
embarrassed.
The god feigned mournful sympathy, touching an ash-gray cheek with fingers gnarled like
roots.
Kreon patted his servant's arm, still rubbing his
streaming
eyes and struggling for control. He smiled, a soft
grimace.
“Such beauty! You'd think it would last forever, a
thing like that!
She
thinks it will, poor innocent! So do they all, children blind to the ravaging forces so commonplace to us. They live in a world of summer sunlight, showers, squirrels at play on the lawn. They know of nothing
worse,
and innocently they think the gods must cherish them exactly as they do themselves. And so they should!
you'd say.
But they don't. No no.” He rolled up his eyes.
“We're dust, Ipnolebes. Withering leaves. It's not a thing to break too soon to the young, but facts are facts.
Depend
on nothing, ask for nothing; do your best with the time you've got, whatever small gifts you've got, and leave
the world
a better place than you found it. Pass to the next
generation
a city fit for learning, loving, dying in.
It's the world that lastsâa glorious green mosaic built of tiles that one by one must be replaced. It's thatâ the world, their holy artâthat the gods love. Not us. We who are old, beyond the innocent pride of youth, must bend to that, and gradually bend our offspring
to it.”
He sighed, head tipped. “She asks for freedom, lordless, childless, playing out life like a fawn in the
groves.
A dream, I'm sorry to say. This humble world below demands the return of the seed. Such is our duty to it. The oldest oak on the hillside, even the towering plane
tree,
shatters, sooner or later, hammered by thunderbolts or torn-up roots and all by a wind from Zeus. On the
shore,
we see how the very rocks are honed away, in time. Accept the inevitable, then. Accept your place in the
march
of seasons, blood's successions. âIn the end she'll find,
I hope,
that marriage too, for all its pangs, has benefits.”
He smiled, turned sadly to his slave. “It's true, you
know. The song
that moved us, thereâbubbled up feelings we'd half
forgottenâ
I wouldn't trade it for a hundred years of childhood play. The gods are kinder than we think!” The servant nodded,
solemn.
Kreon turned away, still sniffling, clearing his throat.
“Carry a message for me, good Ipnolebes. Seek out Jasonâsomewhere off by himself, if that proves feasibleâand ask him, with all your skill and
tact
âwith no unwarranted flattery, you understand (he's nobody's fool, that Jason)âask, with my
compliments,
that he dine in the palace tomorrow night. Mention our
friends,
some few of whom he may know from the famous days
when he sailed
the
Argo.
Tell himâ” He paused, reflecting, his
eyebrows raised.
“No, that's enough. âBut this, yes!” His crafty grin came back, a grin like a peddler's, harmless guile. âTell
him,
as if between you and himselfâtell him I seem a trifle âmiffed' at his staying away, after all I've done for him. Expand on that as you likeâhis house, et cetera.” The king laughed, delighted by his wit, and added, “Remind him of his promise to tell more
tales sometime.
Mention, between the two of you, that poor old Kreon's hopelessly, sottishly caught when it comes to adventure
storiesâ
usual lot of a fellow who's never been away, worn out his whole long life on record keeping, or sitting in
judgment,
struggling to unsnarl tortuous tangles of law with
further
law.” He chortled, seeing it all in his mind, and beamed, clapping his plump dry hands and laughing in wheezes.
It was
delicious to him that he, great Kreon, could be seen by
men
as a fat old quop, poor drudge, queer childish lunatic. The river shone like a brass mirror. The sky was bright “Go,” said Kreon, and patted his slave's humped back.
“Be persuasive!
Tomorrow night!”
He turned, still laughing, lifting his foot
to move inside, when out of the corner of his eye the
king
sawâsudden, terribleâa silent shadow, some creature
in the grass,
glide down the lawn and vanish. He clutched at his
chest in alarm
and reached for Ipnolebes. The stones were bare.
“Dear gods,
dear precious holy gods!” he whispered. He frowned,
blinked,
touched his chin with his fingertips. The evening was
clear,
as green as a jewel, in the darkening sky above, no life. “I must sacrifice,” he whispered, “âpray and sacrifice.” He rubbed his hands. “All honor to the blessed gods,”
he said.
His red-webbed eyes rolled up. The sky was hollow,
empty,
deep as the whole world's grave.
King Kreon frowned, went in,
and stood for a long time lost in thought, blinking,
watching
the frail shadows of trembling leaves. His fingertips
shook.
In Corinth, on a winding hillside street, stood an old
house,
its stone blackened by many rains, great hallways dark with restive shadows of vines, alive though withered,
waitingâ
listening for wind, a sound from the bottom of the seaâ
climbing
crumbling walls, dropping their ancient, silent weight from huge amphoras suspended by chains from the
ceiling beams.
“The house of the witch,” it was called by children of
the neighborhood.
They came no nearer than the outer protective wall of
darkening
brick. They played there, peeking in from the midnight
shade
of olive trees that by half a century out-aged the oldest crone in Corinth. They spied with rounded
eyes
through the leaves, whispering, watching the windows
for strange lights,
alarming themselves to sharp squeals by the flicker of
a bat,
the moan of an owl, the dusty stare of a humpbacked
toad
on the ground near where the vines began.
He saw it, from his room
above, standing as he'd stood all dayâor so I guessed by the way he was leaning on the window frame, the
deep-toned back
of his hand touching his jaw. What he thought, if
anything,
was locked in his mirroring eyes. Great Jason, Aison's
son,
who'd gone to the rim of the world and back on nerve
and luck,
quick wits, a golden tongueâwho'd once been crowned
a king,
his mind as ready to rule great towns as once it had been to rule the Argonauts: shrewd hero in a panther-skin, a sleek cape midnight-black. The man who brought
help.” No wonder
some men have had the suspicion he brought it from
the Underworld,
the winecup-crowded grave. His gray eyes stared out now as once they'd stared at the gleaming mirror of the gods,
the frameless
sea. He waited, still as a boulder in the silent house, no riffle of wind in the sky above. He tapped the wall with his fingertips; then stillness again.
Behind the house, in a garden hidden from strangers'
eyes
by hemlocks wedged in thick as the boulders in a wall,
a place
once formal, spare, now overrunâthe vines of roses twisting, reaching like lepers' hands or the dying limbs of oaksâwhite lilies, lilacs tilting up faceless graves like a dry cough from earthâhis wife Medeia sat, her two young sons on the flagstones near her feet.
The span
the garden granted was filled like a bowl with sunlight. Seated by the corner gate, an old man watched, the household slave whose work
was care
of the children. Birds flashed near, quick flame: red
coral, amber,
cobalt, emerald greenâbright arrows pursuing the
restless
gnat, overweening fly. But no bird's wing, no blossom shone like Medeia's hair. It fell to the glowing green of the grass like a coppery waterfall, as light as air, as charged with delicate hues as swirling fire. Her face was soft, half sleeping, the jawline clean as an Indian's. Her hands were small and white. The children talked.
She smiled.
Jasonâgazing from his room as a restless lion stares from his rocky cave to the sand where his big-pawed
cubs, at play,
snarl at the bones of a goat, and his calm-eyed mate
observes,
still as the desert grassâlifted his eyes from the scene, his chest still vaguely hungry, and searched the wide,
dull sky.
It stared back, quiet as a beggar's eyes. “How casually you sit this stillness out, time slowed to stone, Medeia! It's a fine thing to be born a princess, raised up idle, basking in the sunlight, warmed by the smile of
commoners,
or warm without it! A statue, golden ornament indifferent to the climb and fall of the sun and moon,
the endless,
murderous draw of tides. And still the days drag on.” So he spoke, removed by cruel misfortunes from all
who once
listened in a spell to his oratory, or observed with
slightly narrowed eyes
the twists and turns of his ingenious wit. No great wit now, I thought. But I hadn't yet seen how
well
he still worked words when attending some purpose
more worthy of his skill
than private, dreary complaint. I was struck by a curious
thing:
The hero famous for his golden tongue had difficulty
speakingâ
some slight stiffness of throat, his tongue unsure. If once his words came flowing like water down a weir, it was
true no longer:
as Jason was imprisoned by fate in Corinthâuseless,
searchingâ
so Jason's words seemed prisoned in his chest,
hammering to be free.
A moment after he spoke, Medeia's voice came up to the window, soft as a fern; and then the children's
voices,
softer than hers, blending in the strains of an ancient
canon
telling of blood-stained ikons, isles grown still. He
listened.
The voices rising from the garden were light as spirit
voices