Medea (6 page)

Into the audience chamber I fled, but it was empty; no counsellors stood beside the bronze throne of Colchis. I skidded straight into the king's only son, Aegialeus. He was taller than me and stronger, a warrior, wearing armour and newly come, judging by the mud, from practise.

'Medea?' he asked, pushing me aside, so that I grabbed for a bench to regain my balance. 'Why are you here, Hekate's bitch?'

'Lord Brother, our father is ill, and I am seeking aid. Where are his men?'

'He sent them away, flogging them from his presence with a flail.'

'He needs them, summon them,' I said imperiously. The dark eyes laughed at me and I lost my terror and stared at him. He was considered beautiful, this only son of the king. I had heard women say so. He was rounded and smooth and his skin had the gloss of oil and exercise, but I found him abhorrent. He put back his hair and said casually, 'In due time, priestess.'

'In due time we will mourn the death of the king,' I snapped. 'Let me pass.'

'Then Colchis will celebrate the accession of a new king to the throne,' he continued smoothly.

'No, lord Brother, there is no daughter of Aetes for you to marry, to confer the kingship upon you.'

'Medea,' he said, his hand sliding down my breast and further down, 'there is you.' And then he smiled.

I was outraged. My flesh cringed away from his contaminated touch. Furious, I screamed, 'Scylla!' and heard the thud of pads as the hound raced to my side, teeth bared, hearing the fear in my voice. Her sharp bark dropped to a low growl, and the king's son stepped away from me.

'Summon the men, tell them to bring the herbs I need,' I shouted. Scylla snarled at him. His face frew white under the mud and he turned and ran from my presence.

I laid a hand on Scylla's neck where the hackles rose. I stood where I was until a gaggle of frightened slaves appeared, bearing - thanks be the Triple Goddess! - warm wine and a decoction of the correct herb. I carried it to where the king lay, Kore standing over him as I had bidden her. She was licking the sweat from his face. I lifted him on my arm and dripped the decoction through the drawn-back lips and he swallowed, which was a good sign.

'Time to wrap me in oxhide, daughter,' he whispered.

It is our custom to inter the bodies of men in an untanned hide, wrapped about with ropes, and suspend them in the willows at the river's edge, so that neither earth nor fire are contaminated with their death. They dessicate in the air as the oxhide shrinks, until only dry bones are left. Only women, givers of life, may lie again in the womb of the Mother.

'Not yet,' I replied. He tried to smile, I think. I supported his heavy head against my breast, feeling a gush of some emotion as I saw the decoction begin to take hold. His breathing deepened. Under my hand his heart, which had fluttered wildly, began to beat regularly, a slow, strong pulse. His flesh, however, felt loose and dry.

'The blessings of the Triple Goddess, Maiden, Mother and Crone, be upon you,' I said, as I had been taught. 'Not yet will you be buried in air, Lord. But your attendants should be about you, Father. Has this fit come upon you before?'

'It has,' he said, sitting up and wiping his brow with the edge of my peplos. 'That is why the potion was prepared and ready. Your mistress Trioda made it, little acolyte of Hekate.'

'My Lord!' wailed a voice. Sandals scuffed and a fragrant white arm jiggling with heavy bracelets displaced mine to support the king. Eidyia, the queen of Colchis, braving the courtyard where no woman might go, had come and I would not remain. I relinquished my father to her scented breast and knelt to gather my fallen harvest.

'My Lord, my Lord, you should not banish your attendants!' wailed the queen.

He grunted and shifted in her embrace and called to me, 'Medea!'

'Lord?' I had secured all my flowers and called my hounds.

'I thank you,' he said painfully, as the slaves lifted him to his feet. 'Come and speak with me again.'

'Father,' I agreed.

I resolved that before I ventured into the king's presence again I would have words with my half-brother, the beautiful prince of Colchis.

 

I opened my eyes on a horse's face.

Hands were busy about me. A weight was on my body, a crushing weight which lifted and I felt myself groan, though I yet felt no pain. A spurt of warm liquid spattered my face, and I lifted a hand to wipe my eyes.

I still had hands, which meant that I still had a body and I was still breathing. I chuckled, pleased. The masked priest of the centaurs, Hippos, their holiest and most learned man, was feeling over my body for injuries. Suddenly, everything hurt. I felt as though I had been flattened in a wine-press under the stone.

Tears came to my eyes, but I made no sound. To distract myself from the sharp stabs shooting through my bones at every touch - though Hippos was clever and gentle - I looked around.

I was lying in the clearing. Beside me lay a giant boar. It had taken four of the centaur hunters to lift and drag the corpse off me. I shivered at the memory of the ravening mouth, the brute strength of the beast, its murderous weight on my body. I shifted a little, biting my lip, to catch sight of the head. Its red eyes were open and glazed. It was, somehow, miraculously, dead.

And I was alive. Although all my limbs felt like they had been broken, I was not, by the feel of it, badly hurt. I looked for my lord. Jason, dyed with blood to the elbow, was cleaning his knife in the grass. He must have dived for the boar and cut its throat while I lost consciousness. I blushed, ashamed of my weakness. I had fainted.

The horse priest made a pleased sound, then struck me lightly on the chest three times with his horse-tail switch. 'Rise,' he commanded, and I rose, grunting with pain. Jason did not come to me to help me walk. Instead, Cheiron himself mounted me on his favourite horse, and I clung on with both hands as it paced down the slope and through the stream and then up the worn path to the camp.

There I was laid down in fern, while a steam bath was prepared. Beside me lay a centaur youth. It was always hard to read their dark faces, but he was sweating with agony. His shoulder had been dislocated, and his elbow, and although they had been replaced by the skill of Hippos, he was in considerable pain and could not speak without disgracing himself.

I wanted words, a friendly face, a friendly touch, but Jason did not come to me. I had been so close to the dark angel Thanatos, who is Death, brother of Sleep, that Morpheus took me unawares, and I slept.

I woke again in darkness. I smelt the pungent scent of the purifying herbs, hyssop and rosemary. I was lying in hot water in the caves of Dictes, the cave of never-failing hot springs. The centaurs had carved out a basin to catch the mineral-rich water, wide enough to hold three men and deep enough for me to float, steadied by someone's hand under my neck. On a ledge sat Hippos, in robes and mask; beside me lay the centaur youth whose name I did not know.

'You will lie here for one quarter of this night,' said Hippos. 'I will tell tales to you, young men, and this shall be your manhood ritual. Then you shall rise, being healed, and go to the meadow where the centaurs sport with their mares. There Jason waits for you, son of Dictys. He who hesitated long enough to kill you then acted fast enough to save your life. You will forgive him.'

'Horse-priest, there is nothing to forgive,' I said. The warm water bathed my hurts. I could feel my bruised limbs slackening, relaxing, and almost cried with relief. I heard a sob beside me as the centaur boy experienced the same blessing.

Hippos was masked so I could not see his expression, but he made a tongue click which in the centaur's language means vexation. I wondered how I had offended him, but he said nothing more of the matter; instead beginning a story in the centaur's deep, rich voice, which could make the driest matter fascinating.

These caves belong to Hephaestos, smith of the gods, husband of Aphrodite. He is crippled by a fall, but he is the greatest metal worker that has ever been. His son is Talos, who made the bronze giant. When this part of the world was formed, Hephaestos forged the doorposts of the palace of the gods here, even for Zeus Cloud-Compeller's palace, that Zeus who is Lord of the Lightning. When the metal was quenched with a river, the rock melted, and steam caves were formed.

When he returned with the forging to heaven, he left this gift for the centaur people who were his friends. He left us healing waters to comfort our hurts and cleanse our spirits. On this holiest of nights, when the tribe embraces Hippia and our boys become young men, the waters have special virtue.

Hippos indicated the centaur boy. 'There lies beside you, son of Dictys, Philos, who is now your brother, for you have been healed together. He is the son of Cheiron.'

There were many sons of Cheiron - the centaurs keep no wife to themselves - but I smiled as best I could at Philos, and he smiled at me. There was no manhood tattoo on his chest, but he was already sprouting a beard.

'Semele, the moon, is riding high, watching over our ceremony,' Hippos said, and continued his story.

Under such a moon heroes have come to Cheiron; heroes and gods. Herakles came here. He is the son of Zeus, and Alkmene to whom he appeared in the shape of her husband. She lay with him unknowing - she was a faithful wife, most unusual among women - and conceived the hero. He was designed by the Father to suffer as men suffer, to gain special insight into the lives and minds of men, and when he dies Zeus will take him into his counsels, and he will advise the Caster of Thunderbolts on the ways and feelings of his subjects. And that hero suffers more than men suffer, because he is struck mad. In this madness he killed his sons, and was condemned to labour by Eurystheus of Mycenae, who would not otherwise cleanse him of blood-guilt.'

I stirred in the water. My skin itched, as though a thousand ants were biting me.

Hippos stroked my forehead and said, 'It is the magic, Nauplios, lie still,' and I strove to obey him. My hand met the hand of the centaur Philos under the water, and clasped. It was the first time I had touched one of the centaur men in amity, and I was so surprised by the cordial grip that I sank a little and choked.

Hippos lifted my chin, reminding me that men breathed air, not water, and I laughed. Philos, my new brother, laughed too.

It was the girdle of Hippolyte, the Amazon queen, that was demanded of the hero, and he did not fail at his task. But the strength of a hero is not only in his body, young men, nor even in his loins - though it was Herakles who lay with the fifty daughters of a king in one night. It is in his mind that a hero needs strength. For muscle alone would not have won him this prize.

The Amazons are women, but not like other women. They are fighters, fierce and dangerous; sworn maidens and protected by their goddess, Hekate, Blood-Drinker, the Black Bitch. Flee such women, they are unnatural. They have no timidity of the flesh, no modesty, no fear.

Herakles could not have overcome them without battle, and he was one alone and they were many. He took men with him, but they were separated by the action of some malign god; and Herakles walked unprotected, his back bare of a brother; into the city of the Amazons.

They took him to the queen. There he could have done several things. He could have challenged her to single combat, shameful though that would be, for a man to challenge a woman. He could have tried to deceive her, pleading for her girdle as a token of love, which would be even more dishonourable than offering to duel with her.

Instead, they say, he sat down in familiar fashion at the foot of her throne and told her why he had come. He never had the sweet tongue of the singer, Herakles the hero. His words were blunt and flat.

'I am Herakles, son of Zeus, and I have come for your girdle,' he told her.

'Why do you seek my girdle, foreigner?'

'I have been set twelve tasks by Eurystheus of Mycenae before he will cleanse me of the blood of my children, whom I killed in a fit of madness, thinking they were bandits,' he replied. 'I am Herakles of Tiryns.

'You have come alone,' she observed.

'I brought an army to assail you, but it is wrecked and astray.'

'So you came anyway.'

'Even as I am,' said the hero.

'And what will you do to accomplish this task?' she asked.

'Anything I have to,' he replied.

The queen of the Amazons was a good judge of fighters. She looked at the hero. He is not tall but he is broad, and his body is whipcord, tanned by the weather. His hair is long and tangled. He bears no edged weapon but carries a mighty club. He did not plead or threaten, but looked at the queen of Amazons for a long time. This queen stated no false woman's terms but, like a warrior or a king, made her bargain.

'I could ask you for anything,' she said. 'But I will take no advantage of a warrior under such a burden of guilt. I will ask you to lie in the act of love with some of my women, that they may bear strong daughters with your blood in their veins. And as a reward, Herakles of Tiryns, I will give you my girdle at the end of three days, and my fighters will escort you to the sea, where you may find a ship.'

'You do not ask me to lie with you,' Herakles said, for his heart inclined to her. She was beautiful they say.

The queen shook her head. 'I do not lie with men'.

At the end of three days, when such of the Amazon women who could bear the touch of man had all lain with Herakles, Hippolyte the queen gave him her golden girdle and he came to the coast, where he found a ship trading out of Achaea, which took him home.

Hippos paused, then added, 'Authority is the quality of the king. Hippolyte had it, when she made and kept a bargain with a hero. Herakles, had it, when his gaze was enough to warn the queen that fighting him would be unwise. Now, young men, rise from this water. You are healed.'

I turned over, grasping for the edge, and found that he was right. Nothing hurt. I got one knee on the ledge where Hippos was sitting, and my body moved as smoothly as oil. We were dried and dressed in tunics, then Hippos led us down from the cave to the meadow. Philos went ahead with the horse-priest, and I stood watching from the rocks that marked the edge of the flat green space, now grey under the moon.