Medea (53 page)

I didn't know if I could love anyone ever again. Then I didn't know if I could ever desire anyone again. I had not spoken until we had worked our way almost out of the sea of Aegeas. Even then I only asked him if he still wanted me. He had been living close to me for moons, holding me when I screamed in nightmare or cried for my lost ones. His touch pleased me, and for a week I had been feeling a quiver of desire when I leaned on him to push an oar or touched his hand while tending a cooking pot. My body wanted a man. My mind hoped that it would be all right. It was more than all right. It was wonderful.

I had no right to expect that, after all my sins, I would find a lover again, much less a loving husband. I had not expected to have such pleasure in anyone. It was greater than I had felt with Jason. He had never striven after the first few months, to please me, but I wanted him so much that I was pleased with the most perfunctory attention.

Nauplios was different. He felt my climax in his own bones - I felt his in the same way. We were old friends, comrades, and lovers as well. There was no grabbing, no sense of urgency, to seize the moment before it flew away. After the first night, when I woke covered in bruises, lying on his bruised chest, we had not hurt each other. Even then I had not felt any pain at the time.

And he could still make me laugh; and a man who can make a woman laugh when she is cold, cross and moon-struck, facing a night spent on a wet rock with nothing to eat and no shelter, as we had been one soggy night off Lesbos, is something close to a demigod.

And I relied on him, as he relied on me. 'Back is bare that is brotherless', the proverb said. My back was no longer brotherless. I was rich beyond all deserving.

Kore and Scylla approved, too. It meant that both hounds had a human to rest their chins on, and eliminated their nightly argument about who got to sleep with the princess and who got to sleep on the floor.

We travelled through spring and into summer. I heard the goat bells as we passed Andros; male goats only, of course, which condemned the inhabitants of this gynaephobic isle to a diet of meat and herbs. We were showered with petals as we came into one little bay, where a high wind had stripped the orchards of blossom. It fell all about us, scattering the boat with sweetness. My moon blood continued. I had not conceived. I did not need the little phial of venom which would loose a baby from my womb.

Other mariners hailed us occasionally, telling us news. One said that Jason was much execrated in Corinth, where he still remained. He was always drunk, and the traders were complaining about his demands for wine, saying that he was ruining Corinth's reputation by slobbering over the new arrivals. Nauplios shot me a sharp look when we heard this, wondering how I would react, but I truly no longer even thought of Jason. My love for him, whatever it was, had gone like writing wiped off a Colchian child's slate. The Corinthian plague, it appeared, had been controlled by religious rituals, and the children and Clytie were now the subject of many prayers.

They still had mine, as well. I missed them, and Nauplios' love had not removed their memory. But time was rubbing the edges off the pain. I would never be entirely joyous and carefree again, but that would not be fitting for a woman of my age and a priestess of the Dark Mother, anyway. And although I was still mourning them and would be for all of my life, I was happy.

We reached the portage way and slogged through mud along the well-trodden channel, persuading a very reluctant mule to follow. It was essential, because it bore the refreshment: huge jugs of sticky, sour ale which the carriers consume all the time. I had tasted it out of curiosity, and wondered where they had obtained enough mule urine to compound it. But the porters lived on it and they did carry the boat.

Thus we did not dare the Clashing Rocks, which we had seen at sufficiently close quarters already. As Nauplios remarked, the world required enough of our courage, without our going out of our way to find more dangers.

And somewhere in the Euxine Sea, where a reedy river met the ocean, a black bird came flying; a raven of Hekate. It stooped over us, croaking, and dropped three golden flowers into my lap. There were colchidiums, the princess' flowers. It was summer, and I was going home. As a princess, as a priestess.

I thought vengefully of Trioda. She had, after all, told me that poison was power; and I could still remember fifty-odd death-dealing potions without straining my memory. I knew nothing of this Perses who had usurped the kingship, but he could not have done it without her help. And she had cursed me with good solid curses which had all come to pass.

'Think, my princess,' Nauplios had urged, after listening to me rail for an afternoon. We were lying under the trees, waiting out the might of the sun, before going on to a safe harbour the other side of the Bynthian Islands. 'Think of what you are saying. Has the use of poison ever done you any good, Medea?'

He was right, of course. I lay down next to him on the pine needles and closed my eyes. I saw the children again. I had lost all of them.

When we enquired in Iolkos for my first-born son, Polyxenos, no one could tell us where his grave was. The centaurs had left Centaurs' Mountain and gone into the hinterland, taking their secrets with them. All of my children were gone.

Nauplios embraced me against his bare shoulder as I wept.

I did not want to take Nauplios, the only human dear to me, into danger; but something had to be done about my father, my only remaining kin.

We brought the boat into a cove where a river ran into the sea, and I hung over the side. I had noticed something.

'Look!' I said excitedly.

Nauplios was unimpressed. 'I see a wash of dirty water, stained with something which kills fish,' said my dear lord. 'It isn't doing the sea much good, either. What is it? Clay?'

'Lye,' I told him. 'We have come to the Washing Place, and with any luck we have found the Sauromatae. They will know where the Royal Scyths are. Let's get
Good Catch
up onto the strand and cover her with branches. If the Sauromatae are here, we can travel with them. They are going back towards Colchis, and they are - or were - my friends.'

'The lizard people?' he translated as we hauled the boat out of the water.

'The lizard clan. The women were Amazons who lost their way and now can't go home. I'll tell you about them as we walk. But if we are ambushed, don't react. They have a tendency to spear first and then not even bother to ask questions afterwards, which they would see as futile, because they never miss.'

'An interesting people,' said Nauplios, taking my hand. 'Hasty, perhaps.'

'No, I wouldn't say they were unduly hasty. They are just quick, that's all,' I smiled. 'All the different clans gather here to sleep out the summer. And this is where Herakles killed the Androphagi.'

Kore and Scylla frisked ahead, delighted to be on land and in familiar forest. I began to sing as we walked through the shrubbery and into the forest, so that a sentry would not leap to any unfortunate conclusions about who we were. I was wearing my priestesses robes, but my companion was identifiable as an Achaean. I sang the lullaby which Anemone had taught me.

Sleep little Scythling,

Thy mother is here.

Shalt be a rider,

Shalt be a fighter,

Shalt be a fine woman

When thou art grown.

 

A voice growled, 'Stand, woman of Hekate,' and, as we stopped, someone dropped neatly from a tree and roughly dragged back my hood. Nauplios tensed but did not speak.

'It's not her,' shouted the sentry, and was answered from another tree, 'Bring her to the king. Who is she?'

'I am Medea,' I said.

The woman lowered her spear and stared at me, putting back my hair with a hard hand, then suddenly grinned. Nauplios did not relax, but I did.

'Scythling Medea,' said the sentry, then shouted it to the tree-dweller. We heard the message repeated in three more voices, then the noise of hoofs, galloping.

Straight through the forest, avoiding death by inches, a horse ran at its fastest pace. The rider leapt down to land beside me and fold me in a close embrace, so that my face was pressed into a scarred breast and corded shoulder. I could not see the rest of her but I knew the scar.

'Iole,' I said, returning the pressure of her arms as best I could. 'Iole, how good to see you!'

'And you, Scythling! Anemone will be delighted. Not only because we heard that you were dead - or are you?' she demanded, frowning suspiciously. I pushed her fingers into my throat and let her feel the pulse, and her face cleared.

'But also because the king, your father, is a fugitive and there is a usurper in Colchis, one Perses, a tyrant, and one of your order is helping him,' she continued. 'We thought you might be her, and a quick spear would have solved the problem.'

'That's why I have come, to solve the problem of Trioda,' I said. I presented Nauplios, who was far too polite to stare at this painted savage, but who was looking a little bemused. 'This is my lord, Nauplios the fisherman.'

'I thought you ran away with that smooth, pretty one,' said Iole, who had never heard of tact. She punched Nauplios lightly in the upper arm, tapped his chest, and held out her hand for a warrior's salute. Nauplios grasped the offered palm and evidently applied enough pressure to impress Iole, because she punched him amiably again.

'I like this one much better,' she commented. 'This way, Lady. You'll want to speak to the queen.'

We found Anemone sitting on a wagon, shouting at the Scythian king, who was shouting back. Nauplios looked at me, but there was no need to be concerned. Shouting was the standard way of impressing an opponent with your argument in Scythian.

 

I noticed that my lord was managing to follow most of the conversation and his eyebrows were rising. He had some knowledge of Scythian, but his teachers must have been very polite. A Scythian cursing match can curl bark and set fire to forests up to three
stadia
away.

Anemone halted in the middle of advising the king to go and mate with a black pig, and yelled into his wagon, 'Come out, sulking one! Look who's come back to deal with the renegade Hekate's priestess.'

Idanthyrsus poked his head through the curtain, saw me, and grinned his lecherous grin, which I always thought would be more effective if he had been more liberally provided with teeth.

'Princess Medea and the hounds of Hekate. She's not a virgin any more,' he concluded sadly. 'And she's brought her own man. Is not a Scyth good enough for you?'

'One at a time,' I said, and he laughed. I had never liked Idanthyrsus before, finding his sexuality offensive to my modesty. Now he seemed as innocent as a rutting beast, compared to the vice and cruelty of Achaeans. Of course, I no longer had much modesty to be affronted.

'Good. We can send word to your father and plan a campaign. Meanwhile, we can rest. Iole! Bring a jug and some cups.

'Medea, Princess, we heard that you had died, we heard that your children…'

'They are dead and in the Elysian Fields, and the city has been punished for their murder,' I said, finding my voice steady. 'This is Nauplios, who rescued me.'

Anemone sized up Nauplios in one glance and came to the same conclusion as Iole, which was heartening.

'Your man?'

'My man,' I replied.

'Looks like a good fighter,' said Idanthyrsus. 'Probably a good lover, too, so I shall contain my lust. Now, sit down, Lady, and let's talk.

'Aetes your father was deranged after you left with the treasure; and the people murmured, because he had broken his word, and that is bad in a king. But that would have died down, except that the sons of Phrixos left to found their own colony. Then Chalkiope, your sister, died of the spotted fever - though some wondered later if she had been poisoned.

'Then this Perses appeared, a tall man in black armour. He had twenty men with him, but he would never have got through the palace defences if Trioda had not let him in through the back gate. Aetes woke with a knife at his throat and this Perses demanding that he leave; and he obeyed, he and his wife Eidyia and several of the counsellors. They put them out of the city - it is easy to contain a walled city, and this Perses has some military skill, it seems - and into the marsh, where they wandered all night until the Scyths found them and helped them get away.

'Your father consulted The Old Woman in the Cave, and she counselled that he should send for you, saying that you were still a priestess and a child of Hekate, and that Trioda had no right to cast you out.'

I felt a pang. I had been right. I had been a priestess all the time, and a faithless one. The loss of Hekate had been hard to bear, and I had not even lost her.

'So we carried a letter to the scribes on the coast and sent fifty copies of it to the temples of Achaea and Thrace and Mysia, wrapped in wheat-straw like offerings. No one will meddle with a parcel wrapped in sacred straw. But it has been almost a year, Scythling, and we heard that you had died. We are very glad that it is not so.'

'I am glad also,' I agreed.

'And meanwhile your father grows weaker and the tyrant Perses loots Colchis, sending his plunder over the sea to Asia. He won't stay, of course, he will leave when there is nothing more to steal. We heard recently that he is intending to sell the populace as slaves.'

'He must be stopped,' I said firmly. 'We will find a way.'

 

The Scyths were very hospitable, and clearly very fond of my lady. They are friendly and warlike and they have great strength and stamina. They demonstrate this particularly in their massive consumption of a drink called kermiss; made, I was told, of fermented mare's milk. It is golden brown, foaming, clear, and tastes like nothing else I have ever tasted.

It is also very potent, especially if one is not used to it. I found myself telling an audience of fascinated Scyths the whole tale of the Golden Fleece and all the subsequent history of the Argonauts, from Ancaeas, dead in his vineyard, to Herakles, burning in the shirt of Nessus. They listened with great interest, prompting me when I flagged.