Celtika (7 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Jason

The ice was melting. Dawn had struck and torches were only needed for journeys into the deeper forest. Around the lake the scenes of activity were becoming more animated. As the world began to wake so, it seemed, did the passions and humour of the visitors to this northern place. Argo remained silent and alone in her basin in the ice.

Jason came in and out of consciousness for several days, his words rambling and incoherent, his mood occasionally violent. The crushing wound on his chest had started to bleed again and was bathed and tended by the Pohjoli, who had lichens and plant and bark extracts for every sort of wound, it seemed.

I waited patiently, and after five rests was told that Jason wanted to see me.

He had trimmed his beard but his hair hung long, the grey and black combed out straight. The scars on his face looked pale, but he was otherwise as burnished as when I’d last seen him alive, in Iolkos. And those dark eyes, those quizzical, canny eyes, were as sharp as ever. His hands shook as he grasped mine, the fingers still weak. His smile was as beguiling and ambiguous as ever, but he seemed genuinely glad that I was there.

‘Antiokus. Young Antiokus…’

‘I’m known as Merlin now.’

‘Antiokus, Merlin … what does it matter? It’s
you.
And how is it that you haven’t aged in the twenty years since you deserted me?’

‘I have. I wear it well.’

‘You certainly do. Not me, alas. Why did you leave me? Why did you desert me? I was so angry! I needed you so badly.’

‘I always told you,’ I said to him, still holding his hands in an embrace, ‘that I am destined to move on a path that circles the world.’

‘Yes, yes. I know,’ he said impatiently. ‘And every cavern and valley that leads down into the underworld…’

‘I spent longer with you than I should have. But when the company is good, and the adventure is good, and the food is good, and…’ I glanced across the tent. A young woman sat there, wrapped in black furs, watching us quietly and sleepily. ‘When everything is good, and everything was always very good with you, Jason…’

‘It was, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. And when it’s that good … I allow myself a little leeway. But eventually, I am always called back.’

He grinned again, his breath still cold, as if there were still ice in his lungs, but his eyes blazed with new life as he watched me. ‘That was a great voyage, that river voyage after we had stolen the Golden Fleece. Wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. A great voyage.’

‘What strange and wonderful encounters we had. What strange kingdoms we found. Did you ever see Heracles again?’

‘No, though I’ve heard a great deal about him since. He’s never out of trouble.’

‘I wish you had stayed longer with us. You should have
stayed!
I truly missed you after that witch killed my sons—’

He broke off abruptly, frowning, repeated the words, ‘My sons…’ then turned and sat down heavily on the wooden bench.

‘I’ve been dreaming something strange,’ he said.

‘Tell me about the dream.’

Face in hands, head shaking, he whispered, ‘Just a dream. A waking dream. A dream through the Ivory Gate, Antiokus … false and unwelcome.’

‘Describe it to me.’

‘Why? It was just a voice … a voice whispering to me that my sons are still alive. Such madness!’

‘What madness is that?’

He glanced up at me, then smiled wanly. ‘The madness of an old man desperate to hold on to his past, I suppose.’

‘You’re not old,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what age is. When Argo took you from the harbour at Iolkos, and brought you here to die, you had seen less than fifty summers.’

‘It felt like ten thousand.’

‘That
is
a lot,’ I agreed with a smile. Probably more than my own, I thought.

I’d lost count of my years, though there was a way to find out, should I choose to waste my time seeking out the deep gorge in the forests to the west, where I had been born and where the record of my life was stored.

‘And by the way,’ I added. ‘It was no dream.’

‘What was no dream?’

‘The voice. It was my voice. I called to you. Argo revived you…’ I thought sadly of the ship, still out on the lake. ‘Argo died bringing you back. And her body is in bad shape. But we can rebuild her; we can find a new spirit for her.’

Jason was staring at me, his face almost blank, a child struggling with a new idea. All wisdom, all connivance was gone from his rugged features as his dream and my reality began to rattle at his mental bars.

‘My sons are dead. Medea cut off their heads before my eyes…’

‘I know. I was there, remember? It was my last day with you. I was thinking about my next journey, and my talent for insight had somehow been stolen from me once I’d entered the palace. I wasn’t watching closely…’

‘What are you saying?’ the warrior asked quietly. ‘Antiokus, what are you saying?’

‘It might be best if I showed you, Jason.’

‘Showed me what?’

‘How we were all deceived.’

I hoped I could summon the vision. I had spent a long time preparing for it. It would cost me—I would age a little—but this was a man who had been my friend, and who had once saved my life when my own talents had failed me. What he and Medea had done to each other was unforgivable, and perhaps that is why I had finally left him to his fate, all that time ago. But now that I knew the truth, I felt strongly that I owed it to Jason to tell him what I’d discovered. It would be worth a few days on my flesh to convince Jason that he had mourned in vain. Or so I thought.

I was too young, at this time, to think through the consequences of such an action, of what the knowledge might do to the man.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘Get dressed. Warm clothes. Wipe your eyes. And follow me to the groves!’

*   *   *

Niiv was intrigued by what I was doing and insisted on accompanying us on the long journey through the heavy forest. Jouhkan came with us, and the youthful shaman who had helped me in my earlier preparations, and would now supervise my offering and ritual when we returned to the appropriate clearing. He wasn’t at all sure that I could achieve what I wanted, but if I did, then he too would have increased his skills.

In the time I had been by the lake I had learned a great deal about the
rajathuks,
the wooden totems of this land. At one time or another I had met them all, though only four had been friends with me. My difficulty was that those friendships were so very long in my past! I had maintained my appearance and mind as a young man, and my memory was powerful. But Time is a terrible enemy of detail and accuracy.

Those friends, now these idols, were very powerful sources of enchantment and vision, each specialised in a different way. The one who could help now was Skogen, the shadow of forgotten forests. It might be persuaded to draw out the memory of the tragedy in Iolkos from behind our eyes and present it in all its gory trickery again.

A winding archway of hazel marked the final approach to the sanctuary of the
Skogen.
At its end we faced a wall of crude stone, covered with niches in which carved bones and animal skulls had been placed over the years. Our guide added something in a pouch to one of the niches on our behalf. We passed round the wall and into the grove where four circles of wooden pillars surrounded the stone effigy. Four torches cast a net of flickering shadows. Acrid smoke billowed from small fires around the grove.

The stone was twice my height, a grey slab deeply and intricately carved with scenes from the past. The face that watched us was leafy and gnarled, the eyes at a curious slant. These were eyes that could see the shadows of the past and already I sensed its curiosity about Jason.

We were kept in the outer circle for a long while, repeating a short charm as instructed and inhaling the fumes from one of the fires. The priest performed one of the sing-chant rituals that are so common in northern lands, and scarified his skin. After a while he came back to us, grinning through broken teeth and dark beard. He picked up his skin drum and began to beat it rapidly with a piece of bone.

‘He’s very curious about you. Ask to see whatever it is you want.’

Jason and I stepped forward into the second circle, looked up at the watching face. Around us, the beat of the drum became a frantic, rhythmic tattoo, exaggeratedly loud, that seemed to make the whole grove shake. I was dizzy with the smoke. The trees seem to revolve around us, only Skogen staying still. This was the dream-trance, the crude magic of the shamans. At my prompting, Jason called out in a slurred and anxious voice, ‘The death of my sons. Show me the death of my sons.’ The request etched his face with pain, I saw.

For a moment the grove continued to thunder. Then abruptly it was still and silent.

I stared at Skogen, at the wide, stone eyes.

I heard the sound of men running, the stink of burning wood, the screaming of children and the clash of metal blades …

Jason cried out, ‘Oh gods! I remember that stink of blood and burning leaves! The witch is here!’

The grove seemed to draw in on itself and a strange fire dazzled my eyes …

*   *   *

We had fought our way through the palace grounds and seven of us survived to enter the building, storming its halls and corridors, finally facing the unnatural flames at its heart. I recognised their supernatural nature and hesitated, but before I could say a word Jason had leapt through the fire. Close on his heels, I followed him, slipping and sliding on the polished marble floor that stretched to Medea’s private chambers. The other argonauts, those who had survived the earlier fighting, burst through the flames behind me, round shields held at arm’s length before their faces, swords extended.

After that, things happened so fast I had retained only a fragment of memory of the moments before the dreadful deed we would witness.

‘Antiokus!’ Jason shouted in warning. ‘Look to your left!’

I turned in time to parry the javelin thrust from one of Medea’s guards. The wide blade struck my arm a glancing blow and the man slipped forward on to my sword. As he fell, his ram’s-skull helmet grazed my cheek, which was not a good omen. Jason and the others were already running along the narrowing, blue-walled corridor in pursuit of the fleeing woman and the boys she dragged with her. I fled after them, watched by the sinister dark eyes of golden rams, painted along the length of the passage. The boys were shouting, alarmed and confused by what was happening.

A rank of warriors, lightly armoured, helmeted and with wide shields, barred our way and Jason flung himself into the fray, fighting with a frenzy that I would more normally have associated with the tribes of the
keltoi
in the west. We broke through, scattering the grim-faced men, leaving Tisaminas and Castor to finish the slaughter.

Medea had fled to the Bull Sanctuary, and as Jason led us towards the bronze-barred gate, now closed and locked by the desperate woman, so we realised our mistake.

Behind us, across the narrow passage, a stone slab fell and trapped us. Ahead of us, the towering bull effigy, before which Medea stood triumphant, split in two, revealing itself as a doorway. There, outside, was the road to the north. A chariot and six horsemen were waiting, the animals impatient and frightened as their riders struggled to control them. I recognised the armoured charioteer as Cretantes, Medea’s confidant and adviser from her homeland.

The poor little boys struggled in her grasp, suddenly aware that their fate was destined to be a greater terror in their mother’s arms than the one she had told them to expect from their father.

Jason flung himself against the bars of the sanctuary, begging the black-shrouded woman to release the boys.

‘Too late. Too late!’ she cried from behind her black veil.
‘My
blood can’t save them from the ravages of
your
blood. You betrayed the ones you love, Jason. You betrayed us brutally with that woman!’

‘You burned her alive!’

‘Yes. And now you will burn in Hell! Nothing will change in you, Jason. Nothing can! If I could cut you out of the boys, and still let them live, then that is what I’d do. But I can’t. So say goodbye to your sons!’

Jason’s howl was vulpine. ‘Antiokus! Use your magic!’

‘I can’t!’ I cried. ‘It isn’t there!’

He flung his sword at the woman but the throw went wide. And at that moment, Medea did the terrible deed, moving so fast I saw only the merest glint of light on the blade with which she cut the throats of the twins. She turned away from us, covering their bodies with her robes, stooping to her work as Jason screamed. She wrapped and tied the heads in strips of her veil, tossing them to Cretantes, who put them in pouches at his waist. Then Medea dragged the bodies to the horses where they were flung over the blankets and tied into place.

A moment later, the troop had gone, leaving dust swirling into the sanctuary, and the smell and sight of innocent blood, and two cruel Furies taunting the argonauts, trapped in Medea’s lair.

Jason slumped, fingers still gripping the gate. He had battered himself unconscious against the bars of the temple; his eyes and face were bruised, his mouth raw. Orgominos was pushing against the stone door behind us, trying to find the lever that would release us from the trap. I felt helpless: all power in magic had drained from me from the moment I entered the palace, an impotence which astonished and confused me, and I assumed had occurred because Medea had used her own sorcery to ‘numb’ me for the moment of the deaths. Now I felt that familiar tingle below the flesh again, ability returning, saw at once how to open the door and persuaded it to do so. We dragged Jason’s body outside, through the fires, and into the fresh air.

Medea’s surviving Colchean guards were nowhere to be seen. They had certainly slipped away to join her in her flight.

‘Find horses,’ I said to Orgominos. ‘Get the others, wounded or not.’

Tisaminas crouched down beside me, lifted Jason’s battered head. Jason opened his eyes, then reached out to grab me by the shoulder. ‘Why didn’t you stop her?’ he whispered.