Medea (19 page)

The
Argo
was stored, cleaned, refitted and back in the water. As I lay with Iphinoe for the last night, I asked, 'Would you have killed me?' and she shrugged. She really didn't know, and neither did I.

The next day we set sail again on a fair wind for Samothrace and the Mysteries of Kadmon and Omania, which the bard said we needed in order to succeed.

 

I heard the rustling as I paused at the edge of the sacred wood.

The needles of many seasons made a thick carpet on the floor of the pine wood. The trees were strange to me. They were shaped like the spruce of upland thickets, but their needles were blue. In the strong sunlight they glowed, and the air was heavy with their distinctive, pungent scent. I had thought that nothing with a nose could live under them and had left Kore and Scylla in camp with Iole. Certainly nothing grew under them in that disinfectant smell. But there were some creatures alive in the pine needles. Bigger than insects.

I had with me water to sprinkle and my knife to let my own blood to re-sanctify the grove. The image of Hekate was ahead of me, a black pillar in the shape of a three-headed woman. It was so old that the carving had blurred. The forest litter had almost covered the icon.

I waded into the pine needles and the hissing was all around me. It was not the humming of summer insects. It was in the ground. I was walking through a thousand snakes. I heard the rustle as they moved and stopped as seven of them surrounded me, coiled to strike.

They were the black and red serpents called vipers. One was actually lying across my black hem, its venomous fangs bared, rising almost to thigh height next to my bare leg.

I stood still, as I had been taught. Although I felt that someone was emptying buckets of spring water down my back, I struggled to recollect that one who has twined with Ophis Megale is sister to all of the serpents. Now all I had to do was convince the snakes of that. If I panicked and ran I was dead. Very smoothly and slowly, I stretched out my arms and began to dance the snake-dance as I had danced before Ophis in the sacred grove at Colchis. I sang the chant, the simple rising and falling tune:
'Ophis Megale, Ophis Megale, Ophis Megale kale,'
and saw their heads begin to follow my movement, back and forth. I watched them form a pattern of red and black; the snakes' heads, the white fangs, the bare brown skin of my legs, the curve of my fingers, the cloud of my hair following. I was divorcing my mind from fear, from the picture of those fangs striking home into my shuddering, vulnerable flesh, of the painful death of those who died of snake-bite. The pine needles rustled under the lithe bodies as the serpents and I danced in the sunlight.

Then they lost interest in me and slid away on business of their own, leaving me exalted and breathless. I came to the image of the Mother and brushed away the litter, dusting spiderwebs off the Three-Headed One and pouring spring water at her feet. Then I cut my own thumb and sprinkled her with my blood, repeating the prayers to Hekate and dedicating the grove to her worship.

I met Iole at the fringe of the wood. She had Scylla and Kore with her and she stared at me in wonder.

'You are not bitten?' she asked anxiously.

'No, I am sister to Ophis, the great serpent of Colchis. The little ones will not strike me,' I replied, with the confidence of one who has managed to avoid death by one finger's width.

'Truly you are a priestess of She Who Meets,' she said with respect. 'Anemone sent me, Hekate's child. The Pardalatae are approaching, and we expect to meet them before evening. The queen bids you stay with the horses while we ride to battle.'

'Why are you fighting them?' I asked, as the hounds fell in on either side of me and we walked across the quiet, flower-strewn meadow towards the Scythian camp.

'They are the leopard-men, those of the nomads who do not follow our ways,' she said, as we came in under the trees. 'They seek to steal Sauromatae women as wives. We seek to kill them so that we can take men of our own. But woe to any woman they catch! She will be confined in a wagon for the rest of her life to breed and sew; no riding out or hunting for the women of those Scyths. They venture their lives to steal us; we venture our freedom to kill them. Thus has it always been,' said Iole, and left me to puzzle over foreign customs, while she groomed her own horse and I sat on the wagon with my hounds, watching the Scythian maidens prepare for war.

Horses were being watered and bridles were being cleaned and cinched. The camp was quiet. The maidens of the Sauromatae were all dressed in breeches, boots and jerkins emblazoned with the green lizard which was their totem. They were not talking, arguing and laughing as usual. They were heavy with some religious purpose, like the devotees of some goddess on pilgrimage, awaiting a mystery.

Across the plain came a band of horsemen. A banner floated before them. It was the Pardalatae; their totem was the leopard, a spotted cat on a red field. No wagons accompanied them. I counted twenty fighters - young men seeking Sauromatae mates. Opposed to them were twenty Sauromatae maidens, seeking to kill so that they could marry. The rest of the tribe were spread around the meadow, cracking nuts and watching, and I heard Idanthyrsus bellowing a wager across the wagon to the man next to me, offering a bronze brooch on Iole for first kill.

'I hope that she wants to marry me,' grinned the Scyth, tossing back his long black hair. 'If she kills and chooses me, Majesty, I'll give you two bronze brooches - but I'll never bet against my ferocious Iole.'

Someone else took the wager, I believe. I was shocked. How could these fathers and brothers idle under the trees and watch their daughters and sisters risk their lives in some stupid ritual? And why would the women risk death or capture for the dubious joy of making love to a man, a process which, despite the evidence of the one encounter I had seen, I could not believe was anything but a duty?

They were about to meet in the middle of the green meadow, in the bright sunlight. I saw the leopard banner clash with the lead Sauromatae warrior, dip, and then recover as the young woman was thrown from the saddle. She clawed after her horse and remounted in an instant, to a cheer from the ranks. I looked for Iole. She was locked in a deadly dance, circling a young leopard-man. His face was painted into the mask of a cat and his hair was clipped or tucked under his leather helmet. His horse trotted at his command and he and Iole were talking, were even laughing, as they circled, each with a long-bladed knife poised, looking for an opening. How could they talk and laugh and try to kill each other?

Kore whimpered and I let go of the ear which I had clutched and apologised to my hound. When I looked back at the fight, Iole had struck. The painted mask lolled over his horse's neck, and she was backing her steed, screaming, 'Mine!' In her fist was a leather helmet and a hank of black hair.

Her opponent's horse turned without command and cantered back to the eastern side of the meadow, where several older men were waiting. Horrified by Iole's bloody hands, I turned my gaze to the east. To my surprise, I saw Iole's opponent roll to the ground, wiping his face with both hands and apply a red cloth to the raw patch on his scalp. He was not dead. He was not, as far as I could judge, even badly injured.

But clearly he counted as a kill. Iole rode to the king, flourishing the scalp. He laughed aloud and tossed her a branch of the herb we call wormwood, herb of the reptile-kind. She rode a little way along the audience, then threw it to the young man who had refused Idanthyrsus' bet. He leapt up behind her, clutching her around the waist, and she rode off the field with her new husband. As she passed the king, her chosen one dropped two bronze brooches into the monarch's waiting hands.

A shriek announced the loss of one Sauromatae maiden. She had miscalculated her blow, missed, and had been grabbed and bound by a leopard-man and carried off the field, captive. Iole's friend Dianthys had her scalp, and chose her man. Now that I had digested my initial horror at these barbaric rites, I watched more carefully and realised that I was looking at a dance or a performance, not a war.

No one was trying to kill. Openings for lethal blows were passed over in favour of dramatic broadsides, narrow misses and displays of skilled horsemanship. In fact, the riders were assessing one another, changing partners until they found one whom they either liked or disliked enough to want to mate with or humiliate. The young men were risking injury and a shameful loss of hair and skin, which might possibly prove fatal if infected, but not otherwise. The young women were perfectly capable of fighting off unacceptable suitors, but were afforded the chance of leaving the Sauromatae if they wished and joining the Pardalatae, whose customs were different and might be more to their taste.

There are worse ways of finding a mate, I suppose. At least any woman who was taken by the other tribe had demonstrated her valour. And any Sauromatae male who minded to bully might recall that his bride had gained him through mortal - well, it could have been mortal - combat.

I began to enjoy watching them. The green jerkins clashed with the brown and white pattern of the cat people. The horses, obedient to the rider's least pressure, curvetted and ramped. The blur of weapons and riders was thinning. Eleven of the lizard-women had gained scalps and chosen mates. Five of the leopard-men had carried off lizard-women. Now the last four pairs were circling, shouting abuse at each other, lunging for a hold, in a close dance loud with hoofs and the smell of crushed grass on the green meadow.

It ended suddenly. There was a flourish of banners and a flash of knives. Three women were dragged east as captives, one rode back to our lines with her handful of black hair. The Sauromatae raised a cheer, which was echoed by the riders of the Pardalatae. They withdrew a little into the woods and children raced into the centre of the meadow with armloads of wood to start a bonfire for the wedding feast.

Hunters had come back with deer, the old people had gathered various herbs and milked horses and goats. I contributed a large cauldron full of a brew compounded of various berries which had been fermenting for the whole season. It tasted of distilled autumn, a dark, luscious taste, new to the Scythians as their barley-wine and kermiss were new to me. As dusk fell, the Cat People brought their captives back across the meadow, to gather their possessions and bid farewell to their kin. I tended the bruise on one girl's head as she folded her spare clothes.

'I won't need these again, Medea,' she said, putting down a pile of breeches and felt jackets. 'The Pardalatae dress their women in gowns. Take them, if you please. Ouch,' she added, as the ointment bit into the bruise.

'Are you sure that you want to leave us?' Iole asked curiously.

'I'm no fighter,' said the girl ruefully. 'Nor a rider. I'm not strong and I'm easily scared. I'm good at sewing and cooking and tending the sick. I'm no woman for the lizard-people. But I'll breed fine sons for the leopard-man who captured me.'

'You'd mate with a foreigner?' asked Iole, cleaning blood out of her fingernails with the tip of my knife.

'They're not all that foreign, the Pardalatae. He speaks my language. And I liked his smile, so I yielded,' she said. She pushed the garments into my arms. 'Farewell, Hekate's priestess. Give me a blessing,' she said. I gave the clothes to Iole and laid a hand on her belly. 'Hekate guard you. Hekate guide you. May the Three-Faced Goddess be with you forever,' I intoned. She bowed and was gone, her little bag of possessions swinging from one hand.

'She liked his smile,' said Iole disbelievingly. 'She liked his smile so she yielded, and abandoned all her sisters, her goddess, her customs and her kin.'

'Yes,' I said.

'I will never understand it.' Iole returned my knife, flipping it over to present it hilt first. 'Now, Hekate's maiden, I marry tonight. I must wash and prepare, will you help me? It is a sister's place, but I have no sister. My mother died bearing me.'

'So did mine.' I took Iole's hand. 'I will help you, sister.'

Preparations for marriage, it seemed, did not involve solemn instruction in the duties of a wife, as they did in Colchis, where maidens are told of the burden they are assuming to receive a man and bear his children. Amongst the Sauromatae, the bride (and presumably the man, amongst his brothers) takes a hot bath in a large bronze pot, fitter for cooking than bathing. She is scrubbed by her sister with soap-root, paying particular attention to the genitals and the hair. When the bride is thoroughly clean, she is rinsed and dried with linen cloths which are then hung to dry in a tree, as they will cover her wagon, to show that she is married.

Anemone came to Iole's bath and sat down, talking about the customs of other tribes, while I laboured over Iole's filthy hair. Its condition had not been improved by being oiled and stuffed under a battle helmet.

'Consider yourself lucky, Scythling, that you are not attending a bride amongst the Melanchthani, the black-cloaked ones,' she commented, passing me a cup of kermiss to sweeten my labour. Washing a Scyth is hard work. I had shed all but a light tunic, and sweat was trickling down my body.

'Why? What are their customs?'

'They all lie with the bride, so she is prepared with an ointment that deadens all sensation,' said Anemone, and I shuddered. Even Iole looked surprised.

'But she would feel no pleasure,' she objected, her head jerked to one side as the comb hit another knot.

'Better no pleasure than real pain,' said the queen. 'Or, of course, the Androphagi.'

'Androphagi?' I drank a mouthful and passed the cup to Iole, teasing at the meaning. 'Man-eaters?'

'Yes. A tribe to the south. They have marriage-feasts too, but the main course is…'

'Oh, Goddess, surely not, not even among barbarians!' I protested, dragging the comb at last through the shining black hair. 'Surely not human flesh!'

Anemone nodded. 'We always fight to kill when we meet them, for they do not take our women for brides, but for such cannibal feasts, and that cannot be borne. We have not clashed with the Androphagi for years, however. I believe they are avoiding us. Which shows some wisdom, even amongst man-eaters. Actually, in view of their omnivorous nature we ought to call them Anthropophagi.'