freed from the crawl of change like summer in a
painted tree.
When the three finished, they clapped as though the
lyric were
some sweet thing safe as the garden, warm as leaves.
Medeia
rose, took the children's hands, and saying a word too
faint
to hear in the room above, moved down an alleyway pressed close on either side by blue-green boughs. Jason turned his back on the window. He suddenly laughed.
His face
went grim. “You should see your Jason now, brave
Argonauts!
Living like a king, and without the drag of a king's
dull work.
Grapes, pomegranates piled up in every bowl like the
gods'
own harvest! Ah, most happy Jason!” His eyes grew
fierce.
In the street below, the three small boys who watched, in
hiding,
hunched like cunning astrologers spying on the stars,
exchanged
sharp glances, hearing that laugh, and a visitor standing
at the gate,
Aigeus, father of Theseusâso I would later find out, a man in Medeia's cureâlooked down at the
cobblestones,
changed his mind, departed. In the garden, Medeia
looked back
at the house, or through it. It seemed her mind was far
away.
“Mother?” the children called. She gave them a nod.
“I'm coming.”
They ran ahead once more. She followed with thoughtful
eyes.
Her feet moved, hushed and white, past crumbling grave
markers.
A shadow darkened the sky, then passed. At Jason's
gate
a mist shaped like a man took on solidity: Ipnolebes, Kreon's slave. The three boys watching fled. With a palsy-shaken hand, a crumpled lizard's claw, he reached to the dangling rod, made the black bronze
gate-ring clang.
A slave peeked out, then opened the gate, admitting
him.
Jason met him at the door with a smile, an extended
hand,
his eyes hooded, covering more than they told. The bent-backed slave spoke a few hoarse words, leering, his
square gray teeth
like a mule's. Lord Jason bowed, took the old man's arm,
and led him
gently, slowly, to the upstairs room. The old man's
sandals
hissed on the wooden steps.
When he'd reached his seat at last,
Ipnolebes spoke: “Ah!âah!âI thank you, Jason, thank you! Forgive an old man'sâ” He paused to catch
his breath.
“Forgive an old man's mysteries. It's all we have left at my ageâhe he!” He grabbed awkwardly for Jason's
hand
and patted it, fatherly, fingers like restless wood. The son of Aison drew up a chair, sat down. At last, his voice detached though friendly, Jason asked, “You have some
message
from the king, Ipnolebes?” The old man bowed. “I do,
I do.”
His skull was a death's head. Jason waited. “It's been
some time,”
Ipnolebes said, a sing-songâold age harkening backâ “It's been some time since you visited, up at the palace.
Between
the two of us, old Kreon's a bit out of sorts about it. He's done a good deal for youâif you can forgive an
old fool's
mentioning it. A privilege of age, I hope. He he! Old men are dolts, as they say. Poor innocent children
again.”
Jason pressed his fingertips to his eyelids, said nothing. “Well, so,” Ipnolebes said. It seemed that his mind had
wandered,
slipped from its track not wearily but in sudden
impatience.
He frowned, then brightened. “Yes, of course. Old
Kreon's quite put out.
“Miffed,” you might say. He was a happy man when
you came, Jasonâ
the greatest traveller in the world and the greatest
talker, too.
You know how it is with a man like Kreon, whole life
spent
on bookkeeping, so to speakâno more extended views than windows give. It was a great stroke of luck, we
thought,
when you arrived, driven from home on an angry wind through no fault of your own.” He nodded and clasped
his hands.
His eyes moved, darting. The son of Aison studied him. That's Kreon's message?” Ipnolebes laughed. “No, no,
not at all!
I spoke no thoughts but my own there. Ha ha! Mere
chaff!”
The old man's voice took on a whine. “He asks you to
supper.
I told him I'd bring the message myself. I'm a stubborn
man,
when I like, I told him. A hard devil to refuse.” Again he laughed, a stirring of shadows, Ipnolebes leaned
toward him.
“Pyripta, his daughterâI think you remember her,
perhaps?â
she too is eager that you come. A lovely girl, you know. She'll be marrying soon, no doubt. How the years do
fly!” He grinned.
Jason watched him with still eyes. Ipnolebes wagged his head. “He'll be a lucky man, the man that snags Pyripta. Also a wealthy manâand powerful, of course.” Jason stood up, moved off. He leaned on the window
frame.
“Between just the two of us,” the old man said,
“you could
do worse than pass a free hour or so with Pyripta.
You never
know. The worldâ”
Jason turned to him, frowning. “Old friend,
I have a wife.” Ipnolebes bowed. “Yes, yes. So you do. So you feel, anyway. Forgive a poor old bungling fool. In the eyes of the law, of course ⦠but perhaps our
laws are wrong;
we never know.” His glance fled left. “ â
Our
laws,'
I say.
A slave. My care for Kreon carries me farther than
my wits!
And yet it's a point, perhaps. Am I wrong? In the
strictly legal
senseâ” He paused. He tapped the ends of his fingers
together
and squinted as if it were hard indeed to make his
old mind
concentrate. Then after a moment: “In the strictly legal sense, you have no wifeâa Northern barbarian, a lady whose barbarous mind has proved its wayâ
forgive meâ
more than just once, to your sorrow. The law no
more allows
such marriages into barbarian races than it does
between Greeks
and horses, say. If you hope to make your Medeia a
home,
and leave something to your sons, it can hardly be as
a line
of Greeks. If you hope to gain back a pittance of all
she's wreckedâ
it can never be, if I understand Greek law, as Medeia's husband, father of her sons. âBut I'm out of my
depth, of course.”
His laugh was a whimper. “I snatch what appearance
of sense I can
for Kreon's good.”
Jason said nothing, staring out.
So he remained for a long time, saying nothing.
The slave
chuckled. “It's a rare thing, such loyalty as yours,
dear man.
She's beautiful, of course. Heaven knows! And yet a
mind ⦠a mind
like a wolf's. So it seems from the outside, anywayâ
seems to those
who hear the tales. A strange creature to have on
the leashâ
or be leashed to, whichever.” His chuckle roused
the dark
in the corners of the room again, a sound like spiders
waking,
the stir of uncoiling sea-beasts dreaming from the
deeps toward land.
“Well, no part of the message, of course. I shouldn't
have spoken.
Marriage is holy, as they say. What a horror this world
would become
if solemn vows were nothingâwhether just or foolish
vows!
Even if there are no gods, or the gods are madâ
as they seem,
and as some of our learned philosophers claimâa
vow's a vow,
even if we grant that it's grounded on no more than
human agreement.
Indeed, what would happen to positive law itself
without vows?â
even if vowing is a metaphysical absurdity as it may well be, of course.” The old man grinned,
shook his head.
“âAnd yet for a man to be locked in a vow his whole
life longâ
a marriage vow illegal from the strictly human point
of view,
sworn in the ignorant passion of youth, in defiance
of reason,
and proved disastrous!â” Ipnolebes closed his
heavy-knuckled
hands on the arm of the chair and, with a rasping sigh, labored up unsteadily out of his seat. Slowly, inches at a time, he eased his way to the stairs.
“Well, so,”
he said. “I've delivered the message. Do come,
tomorrow night,
if it seems to you you can do it without impiety. Oh yesâone more thing.” His head swung round.
“There are friends of yours
at the palace, I think. Men from the weirdest corners
of the world.
Merchants, sea-kings.” The old man chuckled, dark as
the well
the stairs went down. “All telling travellers' talesâhe he! Monstrous adventures to light up a princess' eyes and
awe
a poor old landlubber king. It'll be like old times!” He peered, smiling, at Jason's back. “You'll come,
I hope?”
Jason turned from the window, eyes fixed on Ipnolebes'
beard.
“I'll help you down. The stairs are steep.” He came
and touched
the slave's arm and carefully took his weight. “You'll
come,”
Ipnolebes said, and smiled. Lord Jason nodded, the
barest
flick. “Perhaps.” His eyes did not follow the black-robed
slave
to the gate. The street went dark for an instant; a
whisper of wind.
Medeia, standing in the garden with folded hands,
looked up
and winced. Take care, Hera,” she whispered. She
called the children,
pale eyes still on the sky. “I know your game, goddess.”
On a hill, late that night, in the windswept temple
of Apollo
ringed by towering sentry stones, immemorial keys of a vast and powerful astrolabe, stern heaven-watcher, Jason stood, black-caped. On a gray stone bench nearby a blind man sat, at times a reader of oracles and soothsayer, at times a man of silence. Corinth glittered below like a case of lighted jewels falling tier by tier to the sea. The palace, high and wide, like a jewelled crown at the center of the vast display,
shone
like polished ivory. The harbor was light as dawn
with sails,
the ships of the visiting sea-kings.
“I know pretty well what he's up to,”
Jason said. “Better than he knows himself, perhaps.” The seer was silent, leaning on the staff of come! wood that served as his eyes. Whether or not he was listening, no one could say. Visions had made his face unearthly, stern cliffs, crags, the pigment blackened as if by fire, the thick lips parched. He was one of those from the
fallen city
of dark-skinned Thebes, old Kadmos' city: the seer
Teiresias
who learned all the mystery of birth and death when
he saw, with the eyes
of a visionary, the coupling of deadly snakes. Men said he paid in sorrows. Heros Dionysosâmajestic lord of the dead, son of Hades, snatched at birth from his
mother's pyreâ
sent curses from under the ground to the man who
had seen things forbidden:
changed Teiresias to a woman for a time, and for
seven generations
refused him the soothing cup, sweet sleep of death. He
was now
in his last age. Jason turned to him, not to see him but to keep from looking at the palace. He began to
pace, frowning,
bringing his words out with difficulty, by violence of will. “I'd win his prize. Terrific match, he'd think. Bold Jason, pilot of the mighty
Argo,
snatcher of the fleece,
et cetera â¦
I could do it. Oh, I'm no Telamon, no Orpheus; but I'd serve old Kreon better than he dreams. These
are stupid times,
intermixed bombast and bullshit whipped to a fine fizz. I may be a better man to ride them out than those I thought my betters once, my glorious Argonauts. I never lullabyed bawling seas with my harp, like soft-eyed Orpheus, or tore down walls with my bare hands like Herakles. But I've survived my glittering friendsâ
survived
their finest. Favored by the gods, as they sayâ Not
that I asked
for that. I no more trust the generosity of gods than I do that of men. I've seen how they
twist and turn,
full of ambiguous promises, sly double dealings.
They offer
power, then blast you with a lightning-bolt. Or if gods
are honest,
as maybe they are, their honesty's filtered by priests
and magicians
who may or may not be frauds. How can man trust
anything, then,
beyond his own poor fallible reason? I keep an eye out, keep my wits. If the gods are with me, good. If not, I stumble on. I play the chancy world like a harp tuned by a half-mad satyr on a foreign isle, finding its secrets out by feel. If the music's fierce and strangeâ kinsmen murdered, in my bed a woman from the
barbarous rim
of the worldâdon't think I pause, draw back from
the instrument
in horror, shame. I play on, not lifting an eyebrow, fleeing from resolution to resolution.
“So now
I might play Kreon's lust. âMine too, Medeia would say. I could smile, ignore her. I've bent too much to that
hurricane.
Whose work but hers that I find myself where I am?â
great hero,
homeless, hopeless, my towering city in chaos, her