Medea (12 page)

'I am Jason,' said my lord eagerly, 'Greetings, Philammon. Who is your lord?'

'Ammon Apollo, of course, and through him Orpheus.' His voice was an instrument as thrilling in its way as his lyre. It was impossible not to listen to the voice of Philammon the bard, given the gift of song by Orpheus, the sweet singer. His smile was sweet, holding power.

I remembered that the cult of Orpheus had followers all over the Aegean - a religion of great mystery. I was about to offer him a cup of wine when Atalante said, 'I know that you may not drink wine or eat flesh, Philammon, but we have here spring water and wheat bread. Will you eat with us?'

He stared at each of us in turn. When his eyes met mine I felt that he knew all about me. It was most unpleasant. He held us all with his eyes - even Jason wriggled under his cool regard - then smiled again, picked up a flat loaf of bread, and broke it in four pieces.

'I will eat with you,' he said.

It was quite dark when we had finished our meal. The torches had been lit outside Pelias' palace. We could hear the sound of heroes feasting inside, the barking of their hunting dogs and occasional smash of crockery. Argos had taken his son Melas and one to his own house. The light caught the ribs of the uncompleted ship, which looked uncomfortably like bones.

But since the coming of Philammon my mood had improved. Just to be in his company was comfortable. He knew all about me. And he still liked me.

The market-place was silent, the road empty. Then I heard the sound of weary footsteps. A heavy tread, and light feet pattering on ahead.

'Here, my lord,' said a boy into the darkness. 'This must be the town.'

'Is this Iolkos?' asked a quiet voice.'

I called, 'This is Iolkos. Come and have some wine, if you come in peace.'

'I come in peace,' agreed the man, and he and his companion walked to our table across the empty market. The boy dropped a bundle of cloaks and cooking pots with a clatter and threw himself down next to Atalante, who clipped amiably at his ears for shoving.

The man sat down heavily and removed one boot, looking mournfully at a hole in the sole. He wiggled one finger through it, then dropped it and took the offered wine cup, draining it at one draught. He laid a silver piece on the table, and refilled his cup.

He was ragged and dusty and old. His tangled grey hair was receding away from a lined brow, and there was a bunch of blue flowers behind his ear. He had bright grey eyes, shaggy eyebrows, and some sort of cured skin over his shoulders. He was tanned by at least fifty years in the weather, and his thigh, next to mine, was iron-hard and seemed to be made entirely of whipcord and bone. A long scar ran down his bare arm, and he wore an amulet of the Mother Hera around his neck.

The boy was pretty and knew it. His black curls were threaded with a silver band. His ears were pierced and ringed, and his slender body had never borne heavy weight; exercise, perhaps, but not hard work. I wondered what such a slip of the nobility should do, travelling with this old farmer.

The old man laid his gentian flowers on the table. 'Look,' he said, touching them reverently with the end of one work-worn forefinger. 'I picked them this morning on the slopes, but they will not last much longer. They smell cold. The mountain folk call them snowflowers.'

'Beautiful,' agreed the bard. He plucked a few strings in honour of the blossoms.

Jason was tired and did not want further company, especially not a pretty boy and his deluded lover. 'May we know, honoured lord, your name?' he asked with elaborate and ironic courtesy.

The boy began to giggle, then extinguished his laughter in Atalante's wine, for which she cuffed his ears again. The old man looked up from studying the blue flowers.

'My name? Oh, yes. You are Jason, son of Aison, are you not? I am pleased to meet a comrade,' he reached out a hand which engulfed Jason's palm and half his forearm. My lord was rather offended by this familiarity from a peasant, which made the old man's next words the more crushing.

'This is Hylas, my squire. I am Herakles of Tiryns,' he said. 'And for some reason, the goddess Hera, who is my mistress, wants me to embark with you on the quest for the Golden Fleece.'

 

My father owns the most ferocious bulls in the world. There are two of them, a matched pair of oxen. They stand almost sixteen hands high at the shoulder, and their horns and hoofs are shod with bronze. No woman may go near them or touch them, and every year the king yokes them and ploughs the first furrow, in honour of Ammon, the god of the sun, at the equinox when the year turns.

It had been as hard a winter as we had ever seen. Even the old women of Hekate's worship could not remember a time when the snow lay so long or so deep. I had piled all the wood we had onto the temple fire, and wrapped myself in so many layers that Trioda said I needed wheels, not feet, but even sleeping before the fire with a hound on either side, I had always been cold.

The goddess tried my body hard, making me into a woman fit for her purposes. My second bleeding came early and with much pain, and then the interval to the third was longer than a moon. But on the day that the priests proclaimed that the king would plough with the bulls, I felt the familiar trickle of blood, and bound my loins with pads of cloth, as is the custom of Colchis.

We stood in a row, the priestesses of Hekate, to one side of the field. I was shivering in my ceremonial mantle, figured purple on black with the three-legged cross of the Black Mother. The air was sullen and chill, with no signs of spring. Kore leaned on one side of me, Scylla on the other, panting. Their breath steamed in clouds. The surface of the River Phasis was as flat as a sheet of metal, unbroken even by ripples. The floods had passed, leaving rubbish and bodies caught in the willows. The sky was also grey, heavy with more rain. The plain of Ares looked desolate, untidy, and heavily cold. The ground was no longer stone-hard with frost, but I doubted whether even the great bulls could turn a furrow.

The whole populace of Colchis was gathered to watch this magical ritual. Women with babies, such small children as had survived the icy nights, old people waiting hopefully for another spring - when, according to my knowledge of medicine, they would also let go of their grip on life - all the able-bodied, farmers and traders and their women, even a group of Scyths, garish in their red, blue and green felt clothes and scandalous in their leather breeches. Everyone had been alarmed by the tenacity and cruelty of the winter. Everyone - even the Scyths - was relying on the ritual of the ploughing to restore the sun on his journey through the sky. I could see all faces, pinched by the cold, turned hopefully to the town, as trumpets announced the arrival of the king.

Aetes, my father, came, attended by many priests of Ammon. I reflected that they must be even colder than I was. At least I wore a hood. They were shaven and clad in one layer of thin saffron linen, and I could hear the chattering of their teeth half a s
tadion
away. They carried the litter with the king - for his feet may not touch ground except before the bulls, lest his magic be lost - and he stepped down.

The plough was laid next to the beasts. It was of a strange metal, silver-coloured, and forged all in one piece. This being men's magic, I had never approached it, but I did wonder what it was made of. Hephaestos, the smith god, had given it to our ancestors. By the king's side stood my half-brother, and behind a little to the left, the four sons of Phrixos. Should the king fail at this task, then his kingship would pass. His son would attempt and, if he failed, the next heirs, one after another, until some man could tame the bulls and plough the furrow which would ensure a good harvest. Trioda grunted that this was the last vestige of the good old custom of sacrificing the summer king.

My father looked old. He coughed, wiped his mouth and walked heavily toward the bulls, who turned to survey him, horns down. I held my breath. If this did not work, if my father failed at the bulls and my half-brother Aefialeus managed to tame them, then he would marry me by force, and I would have to kill him. And myself. No priestess of Hekate survives her own rape. The goddess has obviously withdrawn protection from her for some sin, or such a thing could not happen. Aegialeus, of course, would die first. And, if I had anything to do with it, painfully. Though perhaps She Who Meets would prevent it. I hoped so. My hand dropped to fondle Kore's ears and I felt better. While I had my guards, my half-brother would only get to me after he had been thoroughly chewed.

The king approached the bulls. They seemed to wind him. I saw their muzzles lift. Nostrils flared. Aetes held out both hands, the ceremonial red and gold cloak billowing around him as a little breeze picked up.

The bulls snorted and plunged, backing away a step. I thought that my father looked puzzled. He wiped his hands on the ground and held them out again.

I saw Aegialeus smile, as though pleased. That boded ill.

At my side Trioda cursed by Hekate under her breath.

'What's the matter, Mistress?'

'Someone has changed the ointments,' she muttered.

'Ointments?'

'Prepared by us to allow the king to approach those great beasts. I haven't told you about it - but you shall learn how to compound it. Now what shall we do, daughter? Rescue the king, or let events take their course?'

'What will happen?'

'If he approaches those beasts unanointed, they will either stampede or trample him to death.'

I thought about it. I knew no great evil of my father - though no great good either - and I certainly distrusted my half-brother Aegialeus. He might be the cause of my death. On the other hand, if we did rescue Aetes, he would kill whoever had made this substitution, and that would probably be my brother. Thus my brother would die if we rescued the king.

Better him than me. I said to my mistress, 'How shall we rescue the king my father?'

'Take this, daughter,' she handed me a small clay pot. 'When I distract them, run to the king and smear his hands. Then return fast - this must appear divine.'

The king was standing amazed. The bulls had sidled close to each other, heads lowered, dreadful bronze-sheathed horns lowered. Suddenly there was a bang and a bright flash and everyone turned.

I ran for the king. He had been looking at the flash and was blinded. I slathed the ointment onto his wrinkled hands and fled back to the crowd as the common people turned back to the field. The bulls sniffed deeply and ambled to the king, and he smiled as their soft muzzles nuzzled his hands.

They lowed, nudging him, as he laid the yoke across their backs - he had to stand on tiptoe to reach - and then they lumbered into a walk. I saw each red and white flank move as smoothly as a stone in a water-mill as the bronze hoofs slogged through the mud. The plough leaned, then was righted, and the metal blade cut a wet, heavy furrow in the wake of the bulls.

Trioda said, 'Neatly done, daughter,' and I breathed out.

'Who changed the ointments, do you think?' I asked, knowing the answer.

'You have only to look at him,' spat Trioda with satisfaction. I looked. My half-brother was crestfallen, his fine smile wiped away, and the beginnings of fear were crossing his face.

'One day a cock, the next day a fly-whisk,' said Trioda, quoting a Colchian proverb.

'What will my father do to him?' I wondered aloud.

'We shall see,' said my mistress.

The furrow was completed. The king loosed the bulls, which wandered away to their pasture, and walked the furrow, dropping barley seeds behind him. The people cheered; he was carried, shoulder high into the city, and we followed at the end of the procession, curious to see to which doom he would put his betrayer.

A fine, sleety rain stung my skin as we walked through the narrow streets to the palace, where the men would feast. Sweating slaves had been preparing bread and roasting meat since early morning. Trioda placed the other papyrus packet into her sleeve.

This was a mystery of the priestesses of Hekate; a combination of powders derived from mining, a yellow mineral, ground charcoal, dog dung, and a pale silvery powder would explode with a bang and a flash if they were lit and thrown. In such a way had the city been impressed with the power of Hekate when the common people had raided the shrines, some twenty years ago, after such a hard winter as this. It was the discovery of the priestess Althea, three generations ago, and she brought the secret from the Black Land with her. The ingredients were scarce and seldom found, and it was by the special intervention of the Lady that Trioda had been carrying a couple of them - or perhaps it was not. My mistress had a way of knowing most things. Now she was walking grimly beside me. I asked, 'What do you think will happen, Lady?' and she grunted.

'The king your father has no sense,' she said flatly. But she would not tell me what she feared.

The crowd had come into the precincts of the palace, where the feast was laid out. We walked through the throng of men, who were laughing and tearing chunks off fresh loaves, following the king into the inner palace and into the audience chamber. The noises of the feast faded behind us. My mouth watered. I seemed to be always hungry since the goddess made me a woman.

Aetes climbed out of his litter. A broad gesture dismissed the priests of Ammon, who scurried away. Facing the king as he sat down on his throne were the four sons of Phrixos and my half-brother Aegialeus.

Aetes surveyed them in silence.

'Someone tried to kill me this morning,' he said. There was no reply from any of them.

'The man who did so must have had the ointment on him,' he said.

No one moved.

'Turn out your pouches,' roared the king. Kneeling, trembling, the five young men did as they were bid and the king searched through the contents. Knives, letters, a piece of bread - that would be Melanion, my old companion, who was always hungry - a sharpening stone, a lump of wax, an ivory comb.

No little pot of ointment which could tame the bulls.