Medea (43 page)

'Lady Medea,' said the child. 'My mother waits for you.'

'What is your name, maiden?' I asked. She was a very pretty, attentive child, with pale hair and bright blue eyes, much like her father's. We walked though another corridor. I was unsteady on my feet but she would not see that, and neither would her mother, Creon's wife.

'I am called Creusa, Lady,' said the child, and led me into a room where I could sit down at last. A slave helped me into a decorated, padded chair and immediately brought me a footstall and a mint infusion in a silver cup. Kore and Scylla did not relax, but sat as still as the stone dogs outside a temple.

'Princess,' said a faded, middle-aged woman in the robes of a queen, sinking down at my feet. 'I am Meroe, wife of Creon. Command me and mine anything.'

'Lady,' I replied, as courteously as I could, 'forgive me for not rising. I am advanced in pregnancy and ill. I greet you and I accept your service,' I added, remembering the formula. This released my hostess to rise and sit down at my side.

'They tell me, Princess, that you are the grand-daughter of Helios, and hold the kinship of Corinth by that descent.'

'Lady, that is so,' I agreed, as the room swam around me.

'The usurper Korinthos will not give up power easily,' she said.

'What manner of man is he, this grandson of Bounos?'

'Dry and dangerous,' she told me. 'Greedy and cruel. But you are tired, Lady. My lord has told me to lodge you fittingly, and I shall do so. Let Creusa conduct you to your rooms, The dogs can stay in the stables.'

'No, they stay with me,' I said as firmly as I could.

'Shall we provide you with an attendant, Lady?' asked Meroe, not pleased, though my dogs were well trained, and in any case I did not mean to be parted from them. I looked around at the massed, alien faces of the well-cared-for women of Corinth, as soft as new cheese. I was going to need a friend to support me in this new place, someone who knew the world. I needed a strong woman, a shoulder on which I could lean.

I knew just the person. 'Yes. Send for Clytie, Sisyphos the fisherman's wife. My lord's companion, Nauplios, will know where she is to be found. Give her husband this,' I took off a necklace made of linked golden shields, 'and beg Clytie, from me, to come and attend her stray from the sea.'

They did not even blink. Possibly they were used to strange requests, possibly they considered that anything could be expected of a foreigner, a stranger, a Colchian witch. Almost certainly they had heard of the death of Pelias. They were all staring at me, expecting me to turn into something, perhaps, or vanish in a chariot drawn by dragons.

I closed my eyes against their intrusive gaze. When I opened them again, someone was gathering me into strong arms and lifting me. I smelt salt and fish.

'There, sweeting,' said Clytie roughly. ''Tis a brave princess. Just like a man to make you walk all that way in the cold wind, then expect you to entertain the nobility when you are half-dead with exhaustion. A plague on all of them. Come along, dogs,' she ordered, and Scylla and Kore fell in obediently at her heels as she carried me away from the court of the Corinthian queen and into soft darkness.

 

Jason came two days later. I had been settled in soft coverings, provided with delicate scents and warm water, and as Jason arrived I was eating a dish made of eggs and milk, very lightly scented with anise. I tried to rise, but he sat down next to me on the bed.

'My princess,' said Jason, taking my hand.

'My lord,' I said, a little overwhelmed by the attention. He had not looked so kindly at me for moons, and I still loved him more than I could say.

'Lady, we dine tonight with the usurper of Corinth. Before I can be made king, he must be removed. But Creon judges it unwise to begin a war, which would ruin Corinth. He has suggested…' he faltered and fell silent.

I stroked the downcast golden head and prompted my husband, 'Creon suggests?'

'That he might be removed in a quiet way,'

I knew what this meant. I was frightened. The death of Pelias had sent us running from a mob. Occasionally in my sleep I still heard the howling of those people in the Iolkos market-place, calling for my blood. Would not the suspicious death of Korinthos expose us to the same danger of popular outrage?

I said so, but Jason shook his head. 'No. There is no one group in support of him. If he dies, then I will be king, and I have Creon's support in this, his sworn word. He is my man. He loves Corinth, and says that Korinthos is ruining it, killing the young men in senseless border wars, destroying the trade which is the life of the city. Creon is a man of the polis, devoted to the welfare of Corinth. I trust him.'

'This is a dreadful thing to ask and to do, my lord,' I said.

'But can you do it?' he asked eagerly, so loving and beautiful that my heart shifted and the baby kicked inside me. Was there anything I would not do to secure the love of this most delightful and wonderful of princes?

'My bag of herbs is on the bench,' I said. 'Fetch it.'

Using my despised and abandoned knowledge, I put together a potion which would destroy my lord's enemy. I ground the berries and mushrooms in a mortar and made a powder which could be sprinkled on food or dropped in wine and which would extinguish life like the flame from an oil lamp.

Then I poured it into a little bag and gave it to my lord, who kissed me with great fondness and left me.

I was in the first stages of labour, the next day, when they came to tell me that Korinthos the Usurper was dead, suddenly and mysteriously; and that my lord, Jason, son of Aison, would be crowned on the morrow king of Corinth, in the right of his wife the lady Medea, Princess of Colchis, daughter of Aetes, grand-daughter of Helios.

 

The lady Medea was confined while her lord was crowned on the Akrocorinth with great ceremony. I found it hard to keep my mind on the ritual; I was worried about her. I had, of course, not seen her since I had watched her sweep into Creon's palace as though she owned it. I admired her courage more than I can say.

She had been weak and should not have even been able to walk, or so Clytie, my cousin Sisyphos' wife, had said, while scolding the ears off the Corinthian women and tending the lady with great care. According to what the kitchen slaves had whispered, Clytie had made her presence felt. This was to be expected of Sisyphos' wife. She, like my cousin, had great authority.

But the last I had seen of the lady Medea had been her straight back and waterfall of black hair, following the little girl, Creusa, through into the women's quarters. And I was concerned for her, travelling so far in such an advanced state of pregnancy, and she a king's daughter. Her lord, however, had forgotten all about her. He did not even ask the women how the labour was proceeding - she had been in that perilous state for two days! - as we dressed and adorned for the ceremony.

He stood in the royal purple robes of the king of Corinth, crowned with his fleecy hair flowing golden down his shoulders and his bright eyes shining with pride. He was beautiful and kingly, but I could not be wholly pleased with my lord Jason. The priests sprinkled him with oil for luxury and sea-water to remind him that Corinth is born of the sea, with grain for increase and milk for prosperity. The chant rose and fell. It was so old that it contained many words which even the priests did not understand. I picked out occasional phrases in Colchian. I think it must have dated from Helios' time. Creon stood at the king's feet, grinning and rubbing his hands.

I turned my gaze away from a scene which ought to have been triumphant but somehow did not satisfy me, and looked out to sea. The ocean has always comforted me. I could see over the whole sweep of the bay, the blocky white houses and the palace on the hill, the boats drawn up on the beach, the few ships still at sea, to the coming storm, the black clouds on the horizon. Unless these priests got through their ancient liturgy fairly soon, we were all going to get very wet. As was the funeral procession of the late and entirely unrevenged lord of Corinth, the usurper Korinthos, which was winding its way to a pyre on the seafront. As I watched, the fire was lit with a sudden flame and smoke, fed by oil, which carried cinders even as high as the Akrocorinth, so that I tasted ashes on my mouth.

The demos of Corinth stood in a group at the bottom of the stairs - the priests and the new king occupied the highest point of the temple - and I scanned them for discontent. They seemed happy, but I noticed a strange shifting amongst them. If one man moved, all his neighbours rearranged themselves to ensure that they were not standing next to a bitter enemy. Surely they had enough fear of the gods to keep the peace in the temple of Apollo, I thought, noticing that the clouds were darkening to the colour of charcoal. Apollo has little patience with blasphemy.

The ceremony concluded with the sacrifice of a goat. We all filed forward to be marked with its blood and then, one by one, we knelt at the feet of the new king. Creon was the first to make obeisance, swearing on all the gods to be faithful to Jason for all of his life; and I followed after the old men. Jason put his hand on my head and I looked up into his strange eyes. He was shining with joy.

'Nauplios, my old friend,' he said.

'My lord Jason,' I replied.

'You are free of your oath,' he told me. 'You swore to stay with me, Nauplios, until I was king of Iolkos. I am king now of an incomparably better city, and I release you from all bonds.'

'Do you wish me to leave you, Lord?' I asked. I don't think my voice trembled.

'No, by all the gods, Nauplios,' he said hastily. 'Stay, stay with me all your life if you wish. I welcome you to my hearth, fellow fosterling. Wouldn't the centaur Cheiron be astounded if he saw us now?'

'Indeed,' I murmured, and he let me go.

I left the gathering as it progressed down the Akrocorinth. Such processions move at the speed of the slowest old man, and I had a religious duty to fulfil.

I went to the temple of the Mother, she who is Demeter and Hera and Persephone and Hekate. This was a fine temple, built on the new pattern, with an enclosed portico made of the stone figures of women, stooping as they hold up the temple roof on their shoulders. They were called caryatids. The temple was made of white marble and floored with cool red stone, highly polished. It smelt clean.

A priestess in loose, homespun robes, crowned with bay, came to attend me as I stood irresolutely on the threshold, not knowing if I was allowed to enter. Every cult is different, and every temple has its own rules.

'Greetings in the name of the Mother,' said the woman amiably. 'What do you seek, Achaean? A fisherman by the look of you, but no - you wear purple. You must be Nauplios, companion of our lord Jason, who by now, I expect, is king.'

'He is, and I am indeed Nauplios,' I answered. 'Lady, can you tell me of your worship here?'

'Certainly. Here we have priestesses of the Mother, in all her forms: Aphrodite, the goddess of love; Hera, the queen of heaven; the Maiden Persephone; the Crone, Hekate; and Demeter, the mother of the earth. If you seek Persephone, you must leave an offering of flowers and sacrifice a bird; if Demeter, corn or gold and the sacrifice of a lamb; if Hekate, a black dog's blood and precious stones or lead. For Hera you must give a kid or a laurel garland and silver, as for Selene or Artemis.'

'And Aphrodite?' I asked. That was the only goddess she had omitted from her catalogue.

'She seeks nothing but your gold and your seed,' said the priestess, and chuckled. She was a plump, sensible woman. I had not realised that the temple of Corinth housed sacred prostitutes. A sailor's life makes one's ideas about such things flexible. In some places the punishment, even for having lustful thoughts in a temple, is death. In others, the acts of generation is sacred and an act of worship in itself. It is always better to ascertain these things in advance.

'I do not know to whom to give my prayers, Lady.'

'Are they for a woman?' she asked.

'A woman in childbirth. She has lain in labour for days.'

'Is it your child?' she asked matter-of-factly.

'No, indeed.' The priestess nailed me to the temple wall with eyes as sharp as bodkins.

'But you wish it was, eh?' She was very shrewd. 'I think that you should best direct your prayers to Demeter, the Mother, lord Nauplios. I will show you how to make them fittingly. You can purchase corn and a lamb from the traders. Buy them and come back here, and I will conduct you.'

When I had done as she commanded and we stood before the altar of the Mother, the sacrifice drenching the statue's feet with blood, I scattered corn and prayed for Medea, lady of Corinth. The room was heavy with the scent of fruit and the air was so thick with incense that I could hardly breathe. I saw no change in the image's smooth bronze countenance, and the priestess seemed displeased.

'No, that isn't right. There is something you have not told me, Nauplios,' she snapped. 'For whom do you pray?'

I told her and her frown cleared. 'That explains it. Wrong goddess. Come, hurry. Take off that bracelet,' she ordered and I followed her out of the temple of the Mother down a flight of stone steps into the dark, lit by one small flame.

An old woman rose from her seat by the
enagismos,
the altar of the dead, and asked in a creaking voice 'Who comes to Hekate?'

'Nauplios, the Argonaut, to sacrifice for the lady Medea, who lies in childbirth and cannot be delivered,' snapped my guide. 'He has a piece of gold which belonged to her, or I am no judge of these things, and I think the need is urgent, Hekate's Maiden.'

'She left the worship of the Dark Mother,' said the old woman slowly. 'Why should I help her?'

'Because a man petitions you,' I said, now very seriously worried. 'Because she is brave and fair, and because I beg you.'

'And her lord is not here, and you are. Interesting. Well, well, Hekate will know what is acceptable. Give me the bauble. You shall have it again, young lord. Ah, yes,' she turned the band in her old fingers.