Medea (21 page)

It was like a tavern fight. One, feeling the blow, struck the one next to him. That warrior flung out an arm and struck another, who retaliated by stabbing the man next to him. In falling, that one sliced the feet out from under the fourth. In a moment, all of the earth-born men were fighting, spears moving like reaping hooks. No blood flowed, for they were not living. Unliving, they died, falling one on top of the other, until there was no movement in the heap of dead.

And beside them Kadmos leaned on his spear, weak with relief.

Then we all cried out and hid our eyes, for the light brightened to a dazzling ray. In the light came a golden woman and, when we could see again, the earthborn corpses were gone. Kadmos was transfigured, clothed in golden light, and a god was arraying him for his marriage. He was stripped naked, washed in a shower of light and combed and crowned with gold.

We were transfixed. I could hardly breathe. The golden woman, naked and lovely beyond belief, came to Kadmos as the god urged him forward. They met face to face in the middle of the cave. We sat in the scent of honey and flowers, abolishing the battle-smell of smoke and blood. And there, as we watched, Kadmos' hand touched the maiden Omonia's hand. She stretched out her arms to him.

Without kiss or caress, moving as those who are fated, the bodies met and embraced. The phallus slid into the sheath, and Kadmos and Omonia were joined in a flash of light so bright that we covered our eyes. When we looked again, they were gone. Only golden after-images danced in my sight, of golden body on golden body, of the divine marriage.

Such were the mysteries of Samothrace. We were conducted into an antechamber and allowed to sleep. I woke the next day with a headache and my stomach rebelled against me for two days - the first time in my life that I have ever been seasick.

But every member of the crew now wore around his neck the purple amulet of Samothrace, which guards against drowning. And in the light of my recent discoveries about the flesh, I wondered again about the nature of human love. I knew, now, all that I could know about women and their bodies and their sex. But I knew nothing of their mysteries. And it seemed that I was destined never to know more, because I could not imagine who would teach me.

But with any luck I was proof against drowning - something my father had prophesied also. His view, of course, was that I would die a 'dry death' - somewhere on this dangerous voyage.

We rowed out over the gulf of Melas, with the land of Thrace on the left and Imbros on the right. Just as the sun was setting and Philammon was playing his tune in honour of Apollo (or Ammon), we caught a wind at the headland of the Chersonese.

 

We set the sail, leaving Argos to steer. The old man knew these waters well, and called out to us as we passed the landmarks, visible in starlight because of the pale cliffs.

'This is the Hellespont,' he said. 'If this god-provided wind lasts, friends, we will pass it without rowing, a special mark of favour, for I know of no ship which has managed that feat.'

Argo
flew like a bird, dived like a dolphin, all that night. She would rise as the wave crested, then bury her nose in the sea, rising with a spout like a whale, then sliding down again. It was intoxicating after the long rowing we had endured coming out of the lee of Samothrace. I lay back on my bench, my head on Clytios' thigh. He was sitting with his back braced against the bulwark, talking to Atalante, who was plaiting flowers into Hylas' hair. Alabande was greasing his hands yet again, cursing the blisters which deformed all our palms. Herakles was asleep, breathing like a grampus. Oileus and Telamon, having settled some sort of argument about who was to sleep where, were lying head to foot on a board which had been laid over both their benches. Nestor was talking in a low voice with Authalides and Philammon - something about omens, to which Idmon was contributing a story about ravens which I could not quite follow. Idas was telling Lynkeos that he was too modest and Lynkeos was responding that any modesty, however self-effacing, was better than the arrant and shameful boasting of his brother, and that, modesty aside, he had lain with more than seventy Lemnian women, and happened to know that this was a total far higher than that of his proud brother. Idas responded that numbers were not important and that he had possessed the most beautiful of the Lemnian maidens. They had conducted this argument at least twelve times in my hearing, and it always ended with Lynkeos calling Idas a puffed-up braggart and Idas calling Lynkeos a chicken-hearted coward, so I stopped listening.

Jason was talking to Melas about being a hero. 'If your destiny is to be a hero, there is no use fighting it. The gods direct all the actions of men. You must allow them to move you, like a piece on a board.'

I hoped that the gods would take care of the minor and unimportant game-piece called Nauplios and went to sleep.

I woke as Argos announced, 'We have passed Dardania, Abydos, Percote and Abarnis. We are through the Hellespont without touching an oar, and if you heroes will apply yourselves a little before we miss the harbour, we shall greet the dawn at Artarkis in the Propontis. To your oars,' he bellowed.

We jumped. There was a flurry of limbs, a heartfelt curse in two voices as Oileus and Telamon unbalanced each other and fell off their bed, some very rude comments from Ancaeas, who was attempting to untangle himself from his usual sleeping place under his bench - I still do not know how such a huge man managed to pack himself into such a small space while retaining the ability to breathe - and we were reacting to the drum.

Forward the oars swept, then backward they were hauled.
Argo
skimmed, turned, and dived for the harbour of Artarkis, the haven in Bear Island. We were, in truth, in the Propontis, the arm of the salt river ocean between the sea of Aegeas and Euxine Sea.

And people came to meet us on the beach as the sun rose. Three fishermen dropped the nets they were mending and approached, hands held out in token of peace.

'Hail, comers from afar,' they chorused, eyeing us narrowly.

'Hail,' replied Jason. 'Who is your king?'

'Kyzicus, and he is still at his wedding feast,' they replied. 'What name shall we report to him, Lord?'

'Jason out of Iolkos, on the quest for the Golden Fleece,' replied my lord. We dragged
Argo
up the pebbly beach as the fishermen withdrew to the town. To pass the time, we left three of the heroes on guard and made a small altar to Apollo of Landing, to thank him for his protection. Atalante was standing by the edge of the sea, looking fixedly up into the thickly wooded slopes of Bear Mountain.

'What is it?' I heard Herakles ask. She blinked, made a sight with her fingers' ends, then shook her head.

'I thought I saw something - several things - up on that ridge.'

Herakles looked along her line of sight.

'I see nothing there now, but your eyes are keener than mine, Artemis' maiden. What did they look like?'

'Bears, I suppose,' she said with decreasing confidence. 'They were as big as bears. But they seemed to have more arms than a bear. Six arms, in fact. No, I've been deceived - the distance must have confused my eyes.'

'I have never known you mistaken by distance,' said Herakles. 'We must keep a careful watch on Bear Mountain, about which I have heard some very strange tales.'

'What tales?' asked the young woman.

'About the savages,' said Herakles. 'Earth-born men, knowing no law, having no language, fierce and sullen. Poseidon, they say, keeps them from troubling the land of the Doliones, where we now stand. I think, perhaps, that they are afraid of the sea. They are supposed to have six arms, maiden, which is why I do not think your keen eyes were deceived. Two in the usual place, four around their waists. We shall see if this is true, if we are unlucky. Keep your weapons about you, Atalante. Here comes a nobleman. What welcome will we have from the Doliones, I wonder?'

It seemed to be all the same to Herakles if we were greeted with flung flowers or flung spears. Fighting did not trouble him, nor did adulation particularly please him. I admired him more than I could say. I was deeply honoured that he tolerated our company, even that of the boastful Idas and the brutish heroes - grey Erginos with his tales of slaughter and rape amongst the Amazons (whom I was convinced he had never seen), Oileus with his greasy beard, Telamon with his continual hearkening to the time when he felled a Cyclops with one blow, even Jason and his stories of the centaur way of mating. I was getting tired of heroes, but there was no way home for me but the long way, for I was bound by my oath and I would not be forsworn, and I had promised not to leave Jason until he was king of Iolkos.

Kyzicus had come down himself to greet us. He was the same age as Jason, and the same stature - fifteen years old, the down growing on his cheeks, a golden young man redolent of virtue and good-fellowship. He took us all into his city, a small one but prosperous, and sat us down to dine with him. He had been married only the day before, and the Doliones' wedding feasts last for three days, until the husband professes himself pleased with his bride, can confirm that she has no private faults, and the dowry is delivered to her father.

To judge from the king's glowing delight, I would have said that the dowry was as good as paid.

As was proper for my lowly status, I sat at the end of the long table and talked to some old men who seemed, from their wrinkled eyes and worn hands, to be fishermen like me.

'We are sailing to Colchis,' I said, dropping automatically into the fishermen's dialect. 'Can you tell me anything about the route, Lords? For you are men long used to the ocean, or I miss my guess.'

'Long used to ocean, aye,' said one. 'You are a mariner's son also, young man.'

'I am called Nauplios. My father is Dictys, the net-wielder of Iolkos, Lords, who laid me in the Nereid's arms when I was two hours old,' I confirmed. Three old heads nodded, bald polls together.

'Ah, so did I to my son, and my father to me, and my son's son after me,' agreed the first old man. 'That's the right way for the sons of Oceanos. Such being the case, Dictys' son, Nauplios of Iolkos, we can tell you a little as a sharer of our mystery. Your leader, I guess, is not.'

I unravelled the sentence and nodded. Jason belonged to the centaurs much more than he belonged to the Ocean, and his patron was Hera, not Poseidon Earth-shaker.

'Beyond this island you will seek the coast of Mysia which, unless the wind is divinely inspired, you will have to reach by rowing. You must pass the mouth of the River Rhyndacus, which you will know because beside it is the barrow raised over Aegeas. Then you will find the harbour of Kius, under Mount Arganthon. Beyond that, Nauplios, other men must guide you. But there are fishermen there, my heart. You will always find a guide, as long as you can proclaim your name and kinship with Oceanos, our master.'

I thanked them for their counsel and they wandered off into telling stories, the endless talk of fishermen, punctuated with, 'That was the night that a tree fell on Didymum, felled by the lightning, and we saw the mountain burning as we came in from the sea,' or 'That was the day that Promeos caught that massive eel, that serpent - you remember, Telekles, he tied it to his boat and it took him and his two brothers to counterbalance the weight.' It is a soothing and fascinating speech, endless as the tide, and I could listen to it all day. It had run in my mother's blood and in my father's, and I had listened to it as I lay in the salty tides of my mother's womb. We ate largely of roasted flesh and fruits, and I drank two cups of grapey wine. Jason, at the high table, was flushed, as were most of the heroes. Herakles put down his cup. He never drank much. He hauled Ancaeas to his feet and said roughly, 'It is time for us to set forth.'

Ancaeas grabbed Oileus, who brought Telamon with him, and we swayed down to the shore again, laughing and singing snatches of exceptionally indecent songs. I was afraid that the heroes would overset the boat, but they were strong men, and we backed and rowed out of the harbour of the Doliones.

We had been resupplied with fresh water by Atalante, Hylas and Melas. Hylas was even more biddable than he had been before, and I felt that this boded no good. I saw Philammon looking hard at the graceful head, bent under the burden of a basket of bread donated from the feast, and exchanged a glance with him. Hylas was clearly planning something, though I could not imagine what it was. Herakles appeared to notice nothing amiss, and it was not our business to inform a hero that his protégé was up to no good - even though we were both sure that he was. Melas knew. The son of Argos was glowing with a secret. I wondered if his father would notice and force it from him, though boys have very high notions of honour and he might not have told, even under a beating.

However, it was time to pay attention to my oar and stop worrying about wayward children. Oileus, Erginos and Telamon were bellowing out a scandalous chorus as we left the haven and took to the sea again.

Then the storm struck.

It picked up
Argo
as though she were a splinter and whirled her around, until we lost all sense of direction. There was no wind which would help us, and every time we tried to row in any direction it was like forcing a cow up a mudbank. For every shoulder-cracking heave we made in one direction, the current dragged us back to where we had been. For one step forwards we made two steps backwards, but even backwards we did not continue for long. Another current under the sea would catch
Argo
and pull her. It was like being a rat shaken to death by a dog. We were sick instantly, vomiting mostly over the side all of the wine the hospitable Doliones had given us.

'Land!' yelled Argos, and we braced for a shock. The ship was picked up and flung onto a shelly slope, from which the sea retreated fastidiously, like a dog who has mouthed an unclean thing, spits it out and wipes its mouth on grass. We sat for a moment, breathless and sick and desperately glad to be on dry land which stayed where it was put. My head spun. We all looked at each other, wondering what to do next, so sudden had the blow been. Fortunately, we had a captain.