Medea (33 page)

Once they had stopped scratching, the crew sat down to demolish the feast. It had taken me and two slaves to carry the provisions along that dark and haunted path, and when a damp Oileus demanded more wine I refused to go back for it. I had heard strange noises, whispering and rustling, which the slaves said were the ghosts of dead Colchians, and I had no reason to think that they were lying to scare the foreigner, for they, also, were frightened.

Philammon began to play the long, long tale of our voyage, to which he had added another two verses of heart-felt complaint on the subject of Colchian midges, and Oileus and Perithous went back to Colchis for more supplies.

They arrived out of breath after what must have been a very fast trip. They would not tell us what they had seen on the way, but they did not demand that anyone else make the journey when they had finished the new jugs of wine.

Then we slept, and Jason returned to us with the dawn.

He had agreed to plough with the king's bulls as the price of the Golden Fleece and the bones of Phrixos. He had not, at any time, any idea of what these monsters were. Aetes was playing with us. He had given my lord an impossible task. No human could tame the bulls, said the Colchian slaves. Only once a year they yoked and used for ploughing the sacred furrow, and no man but the anointed king of Iolkos could handle them. They were twice the size of ordinary cattle. Their horns were sheathed in bronze, as were their hoofs, and they were trained to gore and trample any profane man who approached them.

Jason sat, sunk in gloom. Occasionally someone would offer a suggestion.

'Philammon, can you sing them to sleep?' asked Atalante.

'My master Orpheus could,' he replied regretfully. 'But I do not have that skill.'

There was another heavy silence.

'I say we fight,' said Oileus, and Telamon nodded agreement.

'You always say that,' snarled Clytios. 'There aren't enough of us.'

'Seven men took Thebes,' objected Telamon.

'Seven armies took Thebes,' replied Authalides irritably.

We sat in silence again.

'I shall attempt it,' said Jason. 'I can only fail. You stay here. Be ready to sail, whatever happens. If I win and get the fleece, then that is well. If the bulls kill me, I would not have any of you share my fate.'

We all protested, but he was right. Powerful deities protected Jason, most especially Hera, wife of Zeus. She had spoken when
Argo
was launched. Someone had thrust the ship through the Clashing Rocks. I had a hopeful thought.

'Phineas said that you would succeed,' I offered. 'So did Idmon, when
Argo
was being built, do you remember?'

'Yes,' said several voices.

'That is true,' said Akastos. 'Idmon foresaw that Jason would return with the Golden Fleece.'

'And he was a true prophet, even to the foreseeing of his own death,' agreed Ancaeas.

'And the old man of the island, as you say, Nauplios. Phineas said that I would succeed, a man of truth, a man of such probity that the gods cursed him for it. Well, if I am fated to succeed, I cannot fail no matter what I do. Today I face the bulls. And I will either win or lose,' said Jason. 'It is as Destiny decides.'

Full of misgiving, but saying nothing - there did not seem to be anything more to say - we dressed him for this combat, not in armour, but in a tunic and heavy boots; and we cast a short cloak around him. He looked kingly, indeed, with his hair arrayed on his shoulders. Then he walked alone, as he insisted, to the bulls' field which lay close to the reed-bed in which our ship was concealed.

As soon as his straight back had vanished, Atalante said to me, 'Go, Nauplios, follow him. Do not let him see you. But we need to know what happens, whether we should flee or rejoice. Also, you are his oldest friend, and the Achaeans say that a man's back is bare indeed if it is brotherless.'

I looked around the ship. All of the crew were in agreement. It was the first time I had ever seen that happen on the whole voyage. So I took up my dark cloak and followed my lord to the flat space next to the sacred grove. There a plough made of some strange silvery metal - surely not even Colchis, legendary in wealth, would make a plough out of solid silver - lay with yoke and reins on the ground.

Jason halted in a coppice, and I came up behind him carefully. I had watched Atalante and Clytios, and I moved with little noise, stopping whenever Jason stopped. I did not think he knew I was there.

Someone else was in that clump of trees. Someone flitted past me, a woodcrafty maiden, moving so lightly that her feet scarcely stirred the leaves. She halted, poised, looking into my face. I gestured towards Jason's back, and she smiled that smile again and went on, leaving me to lean against a trunk to regain my breath.

'Achaean,' she whispered. Jason left off contemplating the soggy expanse of earth and turned swiftly, his hands going to his sword.

'Princess,' he said, astonished.

'My father is unjust, setting you an impossible task,' she said, in her quick, decisive voice. 'Strip and smear this ointment all over your body, then don your tunic again.' She held out a little pot made of white clay, sealed with three seals.

Jason stared at her suspiciously, and her voice sharpened. Her eyes would have bored holes in trees. 'Hurry!' she said. 'They are herding the bulls this way. I have broken my oath and my allegiance and made myself traitor to my family by venturing here. I have put my maiden repute in peril as well, and I do not have time to convince you of my skill. In the name of the Black Mother, do as I order or you will die.'

Jason unpinned the brooch on each shoulder and let the chiton fall. I heard the maiden gasp as she looked at him, but she recovered her wits quickly.

He stood holding the pot, astonished, unmoving, until she took it out of his hand and began applying the ointment to his skin in quick, deft strokes, covering his body from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Her hands did not shake as she anointed his intimate part, although I could have sworn she had never touched a man before. Fortunately for her modesty, her touch did not arouse any passion in my lord.

'They will bring the bulls here,' she instructed. 'They are perfectly matched, because they are twins. Have you ploughed before?' Jason inclined his head, still dumbfounded. The priestess continued, 'Do not make sudden movements, do not startle them, and they will be tame and willing under your hands. There. I can hear them.'

An ear-splitting bellow announced that the bronze-hoofed, man-killing beasts were being herded by many men and dogs into the field. It was bounded on one side by the River Phasis, on the east and west by the forest, and towards Colchis by a wooden barrier which was being drawn up behind them.

The bulls were monstrous. I thought that I knew cattle, but these had heads the size of
Argo's
bow-post and were the general size and shape of a small boat. They tossed their heads, crowned with metal horns, and pawed the ground with their shining hoofs, cutting deep gouges in the clay. Those hoofs must have been as sharp as bronze razors. Jason took a deep breath and walked out into the field.

He sloshed through the mud. The surrounding countryside was dry, so I assumed that there was some underground soak in the sacred meadow which kept it perpetually wet. Jason seemed tiny against the bulk of the monsters, two huge red-and-white bulls as tall as horses. The men of Colchis were watching silently. I heard no jeers, as might have been expected from an Achaean audience.

The bulls saw him coming and wheeled together, lowering their horns and bellowing a challenge. I saw my lord glance around, as though looking for a place to run, but he was a long, slippery distance from any refuge. He stopped, allowing the bulls to approach him.

Standing next to me in the coppice, the priestess Medea, sworn virgin as she was, leaned back against me as though I was a tree, and I put my arm around her as I would my own sister. She accepted this embrace.

She felt very good in my arms. She was not brittle, as her delicacy of bone suggested. She felt warm and rounded as my arm encircled her waist. She was so distracting that I almost forgot to watch as the bulls stamped towards Jason, utterly alone in the middle of a field of mud.

When they were perhaps ten paces away from him, they both stopped and sniffed. I felt the Princess Medea vibrate in my clasp like a lyre when the wind blows through the strings. She was completely alert. She began to sing just under her breath, a prayer, perhaps, in a language I did not know, but which was all gutturals and liquid sounds, like the song of a strange bird.

The bulls walked to Jason and shoved their muzzles into his hands, almost snuffling him off his feet. Medea and I relaxed a little. The ointment had worked.

Now to see if Jason, son of Aison, who had spent most of his life with centaurs who grew no grain, could remember how to plough a field.

He managed to yoke the bulls without making more than three or four mistakes with the reins and harness. Then he walked back five paces, took the strain off the plough, and yelled, 'On!' and the great bulls of Colchis moved forward at his order.

Down the field to the river, up the field to the gate and down again. I knew that my lord was strong, but he was not used to such labour. I was close enough to see Aetes' face. It was set into lines of fury, and my heart misgave me.

'Lady, your father will not give Jason the Golden Fleece, will he?' I asked softly.

'He has sworn, and I have not known him break his word,' she said, never taking her eyes off the field, where more than two thirds of the mud had been cut into wavering furrows.

I would not have liked to sow barley into Jason's seedbeds, but the task was to plough the field, not to plough it well. And my lord Jason, son of Aison, was accomplishing this task. He was tired, but not yet faltering, when he turned the last corner and was approaching the gate again, urging the beasts on with his voice to one last effort.

At this moment Lynkeos and Idas came creeping through the wood, gaped briefly at the sight of Nauplios embracing a priestess in the black robes of Hekate.

'We've had word that Colchis means to play us false,' Idas said. 'Even now an army is massing to attack us - and that at least is true, we've seen them. Even if Jason completes this task, we are lost.'

'He is not lost yet,' snapped the maiden, removing herself from my arms. 'How long will it take for you to gather your crew to defend the ship?'

'Lady, they are already there, except for we three and Jason,' replied Lynkeos.

'I am reluctant to believe that my father means to betray a guest, one who has eaten with him - that is a sacred bond in Colchis. But I am no longer certain of anything. It is all confused which once was secure.' She wrung her hands and I longed to comfort her. 'See, your lord is completing the last furrow. Let us see what the king says.'

We watched from the shadow of the little wood. Jason's bulls finished the last furrow. He lifted the yoke from their sweating backs, patting them. Then, with one arm round the neck of each sacred bull, he said to the king, 'The task is accomplished, my lord of Colchis, and I claim the bones of Phrixos and the Golden Fleece.'

The king rose from his chair of state and smiled. 'I will give them both to you,' he said loudly, and gave a signal. Three warriors seized Jason and bound his hands behind his back.

'Treachery,' said Lynkeos.

'It is proved,' said the maiden in a strange, distant voice.

The king gave an order that we did not hear, and the men moved the fence, allowing the sacred bulls to walk through. The cattle-herders came with their dogs to escort the sacred bulls to their own place, and they brought Jason, who was not struggling, across the furrows.

The princess gasped and said, 'They are pushing him into the sacred grove. Nauplios, stay with me. You, Achaeans, gather all the Argonauts and go back to the ship. Only I can rescue your lord, and I may fail. The guardian is Ophis Megale, the great serpent, and she is unpredictable. She may not remember me. Take my hounds. Scylla, Kore, go with the Achaeans and I will come soon or not at all.'

She spoke to two perfectly black dogs which stood almost waist high on the small princess. They did not like it, but they were obedient. They followed as Lynkeos and Idas crept back through the trees towards the reeds.

The least I could do was to be as obedient as the animals. 'What shall I do, Lady, to help you?' I asked.

'I have the infusion with me. I feared this might happen, but I need milk. You will find goats in the field on the other side of this wood. Fill a large dish with milk, and meet me at the sacred grove, where there is a broken, burned tree. Nearer the river, that way. I have preparations of my own to make, Nauplios. If you love your lord, hurry!' She shoved me in the direction of the field, and I ran.

I know nothing of ploughing, but I do know about goats. I found a leather bucket hung on a well-coping, and called over a mother goat with the goat-herd's calling tune. Luckily the Colchians used it too, and I rewarded the patient lady with a handful of sweet grass as I milked her quickly. The bucket was half-full of warm, chalky milk when I carried it away, skirting the dark forest until I came to a burned stump and heard someone hiss, 'In here!'

A naked woman wearing a snakeskin cloak held out her hand for the bucket. She poured into it a flask of some dark fluid, tasted, and added a whole pot of honey, stirring with her hand until the brew was sweet enough.

I could not take my eyes off the Princess Medea, priestess of Hekate.

She was smeared with oil, or perhaps serpent-fat. Her brown skin shone, and light fell over her contours; shoulder, breast, belly and hip, and her hair like shadow around her thighs. The snakeskin wrapped her three times, and the thought of how big a snake must be to shed a skin of that size appalled me so much that I took an involuntary step backwards.

'Stand still,' she snapped. 'Haven't you ever seen a naked woman before?'

And despite Lemnos, I really felt that I hadn't. Not like this. The Lemnian women had stripped and lain down for me, for us, with abandon and lust or cold purpose, unaware of being naked as was this priestess of Hekate. She had immense authority, clothed or unclothed, and I was suddenly sure that if anyone could save Jason, and all of us, it would be the Princess of Colchis.