Medea (24 page)

'Yes,' I agreed.

'And a young man who is intending to blaspheme against Hekate by taking a maiden priestess unwillingly to wife may be frightened and outfaced,' she concluded.

'I suppose so,' I said.

'Watch,' she commanded.

The fire burned up around the cauldron. Into the flames she sprinkled a powder which gave off a thick white smoke. Then she reached into the basket and brought forth the old rabbit. It hung limply in her hand as her knife came down with a skilled stroke and severed its throat. Then she cut it into joints and dropped them into the bronze pot.

Then she began to chant. I did not know the words. It might have been any ancient language, no longer spoken by humans, or even the grunts and squeals of some savage tribe who know no gods. The smoke rose. It had a sweetish scent. I began to feel a little light-headed. I watched Tyche as she paced around in a circle, chanting her strange words.

She stood up to her full height and made a broad, summoning gesture. Her arms in their wide black sleeves swept over the cauldron. She screamed like a hawk. Then she stood back, turned to me, and out of the bronze pot leapt…

A baby rabbit.

It was perhaps seven weeks old. It sat still for a moment, perfectly real. It licked its paws nervously, flicking its silky ears. I could see early sunlight on its fur.

Then it caught the scent of the dogs. The baby nose twitched, it leapt into the air, and it was gone. A white scut flashed for a moment in a patch of briars.

'And the only thing you must remember,' said Tyche, a little breathlessly, 'is not to allow anyone to look into the pot.'

I rose unsteadily and hauled the cauldron off the flames. It was burning hot to the touch, and from it arose a smell of unskinned, roasting, very old rabbit.

'It's simple,' explained Tyche. 'Fireweed produces a mildly hallucinogenic smoke. The baby rabbit was in my sleeve, but the robes are wide enough to conceal anything up to a kid or a lamb.'

'Why did it leap from the pot?' I asked stupidly.

'Because it scorched its feet,' she said.

'And the chant?'

'A Libyan taught it to me, but any words will do, as long as no one can understand them. You must not use a real invocation of the Three-Headed One for this sort of thing, you know.'

'That was terribly impressive - what were you saying?'

'It's a very rude song about the neighbouring tribe,' said Tyche.

I was so torn between weeping and laughter that I did both, and the old woman had to sit me down and douse me with spring water before I could stop.

 

Three of us were wounded. Erginos had a speared leg, Alabande had a bruised belly which made him vomit repeatedly, and I had double vision and growing pain in my head. We could not row, but it didn't matter, because
Argo
was staying just where she was, pulled up on the pebbled shore in the country of Doliones, at the foot of Mount Didymum.

We were cared for by Idmon, Melas, Philammon and Hylas. My head hurt all the time. I slept with a pain above my eyes and woke to the same pain. It was my punishment, just as the howling winds which made it impossible for us to leave the harbour were an expression of just how offended the gods were with the crew of the
Argo.

I asked Philammon how many gods we had outraged by killing the Doliones. He brushed his copper hair back from his forehead and began a list. Apparently we had angered Hera, goddess of women (by occasioning the queen's suicide); and Hestia, goddess of the hearth, by outraging hospitality; Talthybius, the divine herald, by ignoring the usages of war, which had also defied Ares; and then Poseidon, by misusing the gifts of the sea and not trusting in him enough. By the time the bard reached Clio, the muse, who would be angry with us for not using words, I begged him to stop.

'Actually, son of Dictys, I can't think of an Olympian we haven't affronted,' he said mildly. 'We deserve whatever happens to us. How is your head?'

'It hurts,' I mumbled. Settling back into a comfortable position, he began to play a sweet, plangent tune and some of the pain seeped out of me.

I fell asleep, and woke to smell smoke. The Doliones were burning their dead. I heard Philammon's voice intoning the instructions to the departed. The Orpheans know where the soul must travel after death, and willingly impart this knowledge to the dying and to those who have already begun their journey. I heard his strong, clear voice chanting through the smoke and the stench of roasting. It made a pattern to my unfocused senses; the voice and the mountains and the darkening sky, the cold wind, the gritting of sand under me, the cup of watered wine which Hylas held to my lips. The sweet flowery scent of his ringleted hair and the salt smell of the sea were all part of the pattern, in which throbbing pain and the wailing of women and gulls were also mingled.

'Open your eyes,' sang the bard to the dead. 'You can see. You will see a dry valley with one dead tree. Rise to your feet and walk through it towards the stone wall. Let no shadow stay you, but walk and climb towards the sun. If any try to stop you, say, "I am the child of Phanes, thou knowst I have free passage of thy realm, Shadow," and the shadows will leave you alone.

'Do not fear shadows,' sang Philammon, amid the keeing of the Doliones, weeping for the irreparable loss which we had caused. 'Do not turn back. Over the wall you will find a green meadow, and in it is a spring of clear water. There are guards on it. As you kneel to drink, cup water in your hands and say, "I am a child of Earth and Sky, of Heavenly Race and the universe's child; you know this well. I am parched with thirst, I perish. Therefore give me leave to drink of the spring of recollection."

'They will allow you to drink,' sang the bard to the writhing corpses, as the fire took on their limbs. 'The water will give you remembrance of the path, for you have been this way before; for you are Phanes' creation and part of all things and worthy to walk in light. Walk therefore to the right of the spring, and thence into the light, where lies the land of heroes. Many wait to greet thee there with joy and music.'

He sang this three times at the pyre of the Doliones. I drifted out of consciousness and walked in dark ways, in agony and despair, for many days.

The next time I came back to myself I could see clearly and there was only one of everything. I was so pleased that I smiled into Hylas' face, and saw my smile mirrored in his dark, almond-shaped eyes.

'Nauplios, you are back,' he said, sliding an arm under my shoulders and lifting my head with gentle skill. I lay back against his slim bare chest and sipped from the cup he held to my lips. He was a tender nurse. He could judge when to lift the cup away and allow me to swallow, his strength was sufficient to hold me and his dexterity admirable in touching without hurting. 'I'm glad you are better,' said the boy. He stroked my hair back from the healing scar on my forehead and asked, 'Does it hurt when I press here? Or here?'

'Not much. Hylas, where did you learn to tend the injured?'

'My mother had great skill,' he answered. 'There. The bone was broken - it was a heavy blow. It is knitting, and as long as you are careful it will not cause any more trouble. I found some of the herbs my mother uses, but the most powerful do not grow here. I could not find wound-leaf, which dulls pain. I am sorry that I could not find it.'

I vaguely remembered that I had drunk bitter concoctions. I also remembered that it had been Hylas who had been there when I called for my mother, for death, and it must have been these slender arms which had embraced me when I cried with the pain in my head, which had been worse than anything I had ever suffered before. I was ashamed at having dismissed him so easily as worthless, valuable only for his beautiful face. I finished the soup and he laid me down again, tucking my cloak around me, for the wind was cold. The he rose effortlessly, with a flask of smooth thighs, and I touched his foot like a supplicant.

'Stay a little and talk to me,' I said haltingly. 'I thank you for your care, Hylas.'

He smiled again, so vulnerable and so young that I was freshly ashamed of my suspicions. He sat down, cross-legged, next to me, saying easily, 'Idmon has had a sign. A sea-eagle came down to him and told him that the gods would be appeased if the Argonauts built a shrine to Rhea, goddess before the gods. Most of them have gone up to the top of the mountain. Can you hear the singing?'

Faintly, the noise of spear clashing on shield and deep voices chanting came to me on the wind.

'What brought you on this voyage, Hylas?' I asked.

'I came with the hero, Herakles,' he said. 'I came seeking adventure. I made him bring me, otherwise I would never have left my father's land. But I came in search of a dream.'

'What dream?'

'I saw her in my sleep, and now she comes almost every night. I thought she might be on Lemnos, but she was not there. I shall find her soon. She is the most beautiful maiden in the world.'

'A real maiden or a dream maiden?' I asked. For the first time since my injury, I was not in pain. Nothing hurt. The relief was so profound that I was falling asleep.

'A real maiden and a dream maiden,' said Hylas. I saw his grave and beautiful face, smooth and terribly young and solemn, as Morpheus gathered me into his arms, and it stayed with me until I woke again. Hylas was in love with a dream.

We set sail the next morning. The sea was as smooth as glass, and we sped through the water on whirlwind feet, like the horses of Poseidon, leaving the Doliones behind us with relief. We rowed well until the hour of Selene, when a breeze chopped the sea and rowing became difficult. The Mysian coast was in sight, we were weary, and the oars heaved
Argo
through the water, dropping from crest to trough. We passed Rhyndacus and the barrow of Aegeas, we were almost to Phrygia, when the oar in Herakles' grasp stuck fast, it seemed in the sea itself, and with a creaking crunch, broke in half.

We stopped immediately. The hero sat on the bench opposite Ancaeas the Strong, glaring at the oar-shaft still retained in those great hands.

'Snapped!' breathed Atalante in astonishment. 'Two spans thick pine wood and it's broken in half!'

'We'll need to stop,' said the hero. 'We can't get far without the amidship sweeps. You, Clytios, unstrap your oar and bring it here, and you, Lynkeos, stop rowing. The stern pair can have a rest for the present. There.' He pointed to the thickly forested shore. 'What do you think, Jason? Will that yield me a suitable tree?'

'I believe so,' agreed my lord.

At the time in which fishermen, possessed with longing for food and a dry bed, commonly turn their boats for home, we came to the Mysian shore. We made landfall without difficulty, and some shepherds brought us two sheep and a couple of skins of wine. We made camp. I was restless, possibly because I had spent such a long time asleep. Hylas, bearing a bronze ewer on his shapely shoulder, was going in search of water, and I wandered along after him and Herakles, who was looking for a suitable sapling to fell for the new oar.

It was a pine forest. The needles blanketed my footfalls. I was not trying to avoid being seen, but I did not want to talk, either. Herakles was touching trees as he passed, as though he could test their soundness by the feel of their bark. I watched as he grunted in approval, stopped, and raised his club.

Methodically and with great force he struck each root of the tree, on one side and the other, until it was loose in the ground. The earth rang under the blows of the olive club. Then he wrapped his arms around the tree, legs wide, seized the trunk low down, and lifted.

It was a pine tree, ten years old, straight as a poplar. I had frequently cut such trees down and it had taken a hundred blows of an axe and three men's strength to win the wood. This tree was strongly fixed in the ground. But it came up roots and all, shedding clods of earth, like a mast torn out against the wedges by a sudden squall of wind. Herakles was not even rendered breathless by this monstrous effort. I had never seen anything like it in my life.

He snapped off the branches between thumb and forefinger - branches as thick as my arm - then hefted the trunk over one shoulder and walked past me, heading for the shore where Argos was waiting to adze off the bark and smooth and shape the raw wood into a new oar. The favoured of Hera looked as he always looked, like an old peasant. Hylas had braided his hair and decorated it with feathers, but Herakles never looked like a hero.

Except that I had just watched him tear a ten-year tree up by the roots with the same ease as my mother pulled chickenweed out of her herb garden.

A little amazed, I wandered on toward the river, hoping to meet Hylas. I had carved a small image out of the head-bone of the big fish which we had speared the day before. I wanted to give it to him as a thank-offering for his care. I had tried to make a sea-trout. It wasn't a very good sea-trout, but I was pleased with the curve of its back and belly, which were almost lifelike, though the fins weren't quite right. Hylas liked decorations. I thought he might plait it into his beautiful black hair, along with the shells and pearls.

But I did not find Hylas. The bronze ewer was lying by the side of the stream, empty. I called, but there was no answer.

Oileus and Atalante came in answer to my cry, and cast aside like hounds, looking for tracks.

'He came here,' said the young woman, her cheek on the mossy edge of the stream. 'See, comrade, here is his sandal-print, and there… see?' She pinched something between finger and thumb and lifted it to Oileus' eyes. He squinted.

'Gull's feather,' he said.

'Yes. And what is a gull doing here in this pine wood,
stadia
from the sea? Hylas was here.'

'And is here no longer. Where can he be?' asked Jason, hastening out of the trees.

'He must be in the water,' said Atalante, reluctantly coming to a distasteful conclusion. She stepped down into the stream, taking Oileus' hand unselfconsciously to steady her against the current. The water foamed about her knees, making a collar of glass, and Oileus hauled as her feet were suddenly snatched from under her. He lifted Artemis' child out of the stream and set her upright as he would a man.