Medea (41 page)

'Pelias? But we have just lost most of our comrades, we have no army, and besides, Jason, he is my father and your uncle,' objected Akastos.

'I never forget that he is your father and my uncle,' said Jason hotly. 'Nor that he exiled my father and sits in his chair of state, holding his sceptre unjustly.'

My Lord shook his fist at the sky. 'There are gods. Why do they allow this to go on? They sent us on this impossible quest and we have achieved it, and yet my friends have gone their ways with not so much as a gold coin to sweeten their voyage or reward their labours; and we sit in this tavern, scolding like fishwives because there is nothing we can do.'

'Hera guarded us,' said Argos. 'I heard her voice as the ship was launched. She will contrive. Women always get their way,' said Argos. 'One way or another, in the end.'

'Women,' said Jason, and poured himself some more wine. 'I have married a witch of Colchis,' he mused. 'There must be something she could do.'

'The people would not accept it,' warned Akastos. 'If she turns him into a frog, they will insist that a frog rules Iolkos, as long as it is a native-born frog. They are suspicious enough of the foreign woman as it is.'

'That is true,' agreed Admetos. 'And she has not taken readily to Achaean customs.'

'They are strange to her,' said Jason. 'She spent some time with the Scyths, where women are allowed to run wild. She will be tamed when her babe is born.'

I had my doubts about that. I did not think the lady Medea was tractable. There are some animals which can never be truly domesticated. Weasels may share a man's house and his fire and hunt and eat his rats, but they act for themselves, not for him, and they own no master. A fox may be caught as a tiny cub, taken from his mother's care, but he will never become a dog, and when he is grown he will leave his master to rove the woods as a free animal. The lady Medea, I judged, was such a creature. But she was none of my concern and it was not right to allow my mind to dwell on her.

I could not imagine what Jason had in mind. But he went back to the palace, where he lodged, with a satisfied smile. He always had that smile when he was about to win a board game. I did not like it.

 

In the morning the streets of Iolkos echoed to the wailing of women. I stumbled out of my bed and leaned out of the doorway, trying to hear what they were crying.

'Pelias, Pelias,' the females keened. 'Pelias, killed by his daughters! Aie! Aie! Pelias is dead! The foreign witch has killed Pelias!'

I feared the worst. I put on my travelling clothes and took a bundle of belongings with me when I descended to the market-place, thinking that if the people reacted badly to this happening, Jason might have to run.

And that, of course, meant that I would have to go with him, because the oath which I had rashly sworn still held me. I had said I would stay with Jason until he was king of Iolkos, and unless we were all a lot luckier than we had been to date, he would never be king of the place where he was born.

There was a large crowd in the market-place before the palace. They were armed with cleavers and reaping hooks, and I was shoved and battered as I tried to push through them to reach Jason, who was standing alone at the bronze-bound doors with a drawn sword. He was dangerous, and they had not dared to approach too close. His hair was loose and he was snarling, teeth bared.

'The foreign witch!' shrieked the women, brandishing their razor-sharp oyster knives. 'Bring us the foreign sorceress who killed our king!'

'I am your king,' shouted Jason. There was a moment's silence. I paused behind my lord. The crowd were thinking about this. Then they howled him down. 'Medea, Medea!' they screamed.

I reached Jason and he allowed me to pass him. Behind the door I found the lady Medea, attended by her dogs. She was clad again in red and gold. Jason had been furious, but his furies never lasted. When he had been challenged sufficiently, he would give way as he always did, and then the mob would seize the Colchian witch and tear her to pieces.

She had been listening to the voices, screaming of what they intended to do to her, and she was not confounded. The lady Medea was steadfast and alert. Frightened, but alert.

'What is happening?' she demanded.

'They will come for you,' I said roughly, pushing her further into the room.

'Because the daughters of Pelias killed him?' she protested.

'You caused them to kill him,' I guessed.

She did not waver, agreeing calmly, 'I showed them the cauldron of renewal. They asked their father be allowed to touch it. I said that it was dangerous, they persisted. I said that I would not do it, and they tried it on their own. And failed. Pelias, they found, was just as old as ever when he was cut up and boiled, and dead as well. Why then do the people wish to kill me?'

'Because you are a foreign sorceress. Come, Lady, gather some gowns and food, we will have to leave.'

'Where shall we go?'

'I know not, unless Jason has a plan, but we have to move quickly or we are dead. Jason will not be able to hold them for long.'

'He thought that he would be king of Iolkos by now,' she said, growing pale and grasping for support. She caught at my shoulder. Pregnancy had not deformed her, just added fullness to her breasts and belly. But she was not as strong as she has been. I was worried for her health, and for that of my lord's incipient son, if we had to flee on horseback. Then I recalled that I had a boat.

'I thought it would work,' she murmured. 'But I still do not know enough about Achaean customs. Let me sit down, Nauplios.'

'Can I call your women?'

'They would not come.' She smiled wryly, with a quirk of her red mouth.

'I'll go,' I said. I ran into the princess' apartments, gathered a big armload of cloaks and blankets and tunics, bound them all into a bundle with her bags of herbs and her knife, and brought them to the water gate, where my father's boat, now my own boat,
Good Catch
, was moored. I threw both bundles inside then returned and led the lady Medea to the back door. She was sick and weak but she held herself upright with great effort.

'Wait for me here,' I said, and saw her sink down gratefully onto the step between the hounds.

I saw Akastos in the hall. He hailed me. 'Nauplios! Have you heard what that witch has done? There is no chance of Jason being king now. They'll kill him on the steps.'

'Not if I have anything to do with it. I will get him and the lady away, if you will calm the people, Akastos.'

'How can I calm the people?' he asked faintly. 'Gods of Olympus, Nauplios, my sisters killed my father and chopped him into joints and cooked him. I'm going to be sick.'

'No, you aren't,' I yelled, and he blinked at me. He was not used to being addressed so abruptly by a fisherman's son. 'Take hold of yourself, Akastos! Go out there and talk to them. Announce that your father is dead and tell them that they have a new king. Then proclaim three days of mourning so that we can get away.'

'Who can I say is king?' Akastos' eyes were dilated black with shock.

'Why, you,' I said, putting one hand between his shoulderblades and pushing him through the bronze door into the market-place. 'You, of course. If you say that you claim the kingship, and that you forbid pursuit of Jason, then you may keep Iolkos forever, and your sons after you, and you have the Golden Fleece as well. Go, now,' I ordered, and he went.

The howling broke over me as the door opened. The wash of fear and hatred left an aftertaste on the tongue like metal. Jason came, and I gave him no time to despair. I took him by the shoulders and marched him through the palace, as the screaming died down in the market.

The lady Medea rose and walked, though I was ready to carry her, and she sat by the steering oars as Jason and I shoved
Good Catch
out into the bay and began to row. Jason was weeping as he rowed. Scylla and Kore howled. The lady Medea stood to guide the boat, dry-eyed, though her face was as white as clay.

We caught a small breeze and hoisted the sail.

'Where are we going?' asked Jason dully.

'Be of good comfort, my lord,' said the Princess Medea. 'I have just remembered something. I am the grand-daughter of Helios, and the lordship of Corinth is in my right.'

 

Corinth was a prosperous city, but I was not in a good state to appreciate it.

It had all gone wrong. I had thought the daughters of Pelias almost too easy to persuade. A little sleight of hand and scented smoke, the old ram's portions in the cauldron and the lamb leaping out of the pot, had worked beautifully. They had been entirely convinced.

There is this to be said for Pelias, he died because his daughters had never been allowed to poke their noses out of their father's house into the world. They were astoundingly credulous, uneducated and superstitious. They instantly believed that a Colchian witch could do anything at all, even raise the dead. At the same time, they were motivated by their love for their father, which I had shamelessly abused to make them kill him.

I had been angry that my lord's right was denied by that old man with sharp teeth in his smile. I remembered also Talos the artificer, coughing out his lungs in the exile which Pelias had imposed upon him. I had listened to the angry Jason, railing into the night about justice as I lay beside him, unable to sleep.

Tyche's plan for outfacing my despised half-brother had leapt into my mind, whole and perfect. I would not even need to soil my hands with his blood, for his fools of daughters would kill him. And Jason would love me again, who had drawn away from me. I thought that if I removed the usurper, the traitor Pelias, who had broken his word and was keeping the kingdom when his terms had been fairly met, then my lord, whom I loved and worshipped, would be king as he deserved.

But then it had all gone wrong.

Jason was not king of Iolkos. We were fleeing in Nauplios' little boat to Corinth and I had compromised my skills and my integrity to no purpose, except that now even Jason was afraid of me.

And I was sick with pregnancy and weak. Corinth, they said, was a stone city with many buildings, but it chiefly interested me at that moment because it was dry land.

The journey took many days. We were able to pick up a couple of sailors, who wanted to go to Athens, to help with navigation as we rowed past Euboea, passing Orchomenus on the edge of a storm. Even Kore and Scylla were sick. It was, as the dead traitor Pelias had said, almost the end of the sailing season.

Jason had little gold, but Nauplios, my most trusted comrade, had wrapped my bag of money and jewellery in the bundle he had brought from the palace of the dismembered king. I broke a gold Scythian necklace into links and sold them one by one as we rowed from little village to little village, buying fish and bread at each stop when the hounds could not hunt for us. And at each place they had heard of the death of Pelias, and several times we were greeted with stones, because
Good Catch
harboured the murderous sorceress, Medea.

I could not eat much, though Nauplios made me swallow the mushy, salty cornmeal porridge that the inhabitants of those parts make with sea-water. I was close to despair.

Jason would not speak to me. Even lying close beside him I could feel his distance. I had lost him his heritage and almost cost him his life by my ill-advised action. It seemed like a long, long time before he warmed to me enough to touch me, to kiss me, and even then he was repulsed by my changed state. My belly was swollen, my breasts had grown heavy and tight.

Once, lying in a hut on some Eubocean shore, I had kissed him passionately, trying to bring him back into my embrace and my heart, and he had responded for a moment. I had felt the phallus rise under my touch. His hand caressed me just once, sliding over the altered contours, and then he had patted the curve which contained his child and turned his back on me. He had fallen asleep. I had not.

I estimated that I was two moons from my time of trial when we saw the harbour of Corinth.

Nauplios shouted steering directions to me and I managed to bring
Good Catch
into the shore without burying her prow in the stone quay. I had learned a little skill with ships on the voyage, for my lord was often so cast down in gloom that he would not help with the boat, caring not where we landed, or if we landed at all. I was pregnant, so I cared.

Jason leapt out and secured the mooring lines, nose and tail. He extended a hand and I clambered out. Kore and Scylla leapt thankfully after me and sniffed at the new scents.

'This is Corinth,' Nauplios commented.

'Do you know anyone here?' asked Jason.

'There is my cousin, Sisyphos, who lives above the market. Come, Lord, the lady is tired and needs rest, and we need to think what to do in order to put her claim before the
demos.
Corinth does not dislike strangers as much as Iolkos. Very many ships come here.'

Leaning on Jason's arm, I surveyed Corinth.

It was a white city, though grey under the lowering skies. It was four times the size of Iolkos, approaching the state of Colchis. It was piled like a child's building blocks, rank on rank of square stone houses from the waterfront to the hill, on which a series of white temples and what was presumably the palace stood. Above the town was a height, which Nauplios told me was the Akrocorinth, where their kings were crowned. The city looked firm, settled, sure of itself. There was no shore guard that I could see, such as small places keep to report on all new arrivals. Corinth had a lot of arrivals.

The stone landing stage was thronged with vessels, even at the end of the season. A shipwright was yelling orders to a group of sweating slaves, who were hauling a galley out of the water and into a cradle dug in the sand. Several fishing boats already lay there, masts dismounted and sails removed, waiting to be careened and stripped of barnacles. A long line of keels stretched from one side of the beach to the other, all cleaned and snugged down for the winter.

A cold wind scoured us with fine sand. The market traders had gone for the day. Night was imminent. The hounds shivered. So did I.