Celtika (9 page)

A series of gullies, each with a marble arch at its mouth, led deeply into the foothills, winding through craggy rock and clinging bushes until the land opened at the gleaming temple of Poseidon. This single building stood before a dense woodland of oak and tall, fragrant cedars, growing over massive piles of grey rock, which barred the way to the deep gully and cave system where the oracle resided. A giant, ram-headed bronze horn hung from two poles, the mouth opened towards the lowland. It swung gently on its rope harnessing.

Here, a number of shelters had been constructed for the visitors and there was much activity as horses were rubbed down, fed and watered, and cooking fires started. I tethered my own horse in the shade, left feed and water in clay dishes, and slipped away, skirting through the edge of the woods. Soon I came to the rock recesses that bordered the chasm where the voice of the oracle would speak. Sound, here, echoed hugely. The slightest whisper seemed as intimate at this distance as it would have been to the questioner by the cleft.

There was a smell of sulphur in the air, and of burned flesh. I could hear the shuffling and organising of the oracle’s attendants. A low, moaning wind spoke from the bowels of the earth. The edge of the woodland was alive with silent, perching crows.

The visitors came and asked their questions. The voice of the oracle was gentle, that of an older woman, kindly, sometimes amusing. Wherever she was sitting, she was hidden from view. It was a hot day and the air was heavy. I drifted into slumber in the overhang, the scent of sulphur and thyme in my nostrils.

It was hours before I woke. Already the day was slipping towards evening, though still the crows sat in their thousands, silent and motionless on the canopy of the wood. The oracle was being consulted in the language of the Greeklanders, but with the accent of a northerner. I glanced round the rock. As I’d thought, this was the strange-looking
keltoi.

‘I have heard of an army gathering in the north,’ he was saying. ‘The talk is of a Great Quest, led by a man called Brennos. Am I wise to think of joining this army?’

The oracle was silent for a long time and the young man became restless. Only the gusting wind from the cave, with its suggestion of breathing, implied that the question was being considered.

Then the answer came.

‘No harm, Orgetorix, but the harm of sword and spear will come to you if you join the Quest. But it will take you to the place where you were born, and you will have to make a dire decision.’

‘What decision?’

‘Unclear. Unclear. The torment of your dreams a hundredfold.’

Now the silence was the
keltoi
’s. I could see him, standing in the circle of rocks before the narrow entrance to the world below. His arms were folded, his head down; he was deep in thought.

Orgetorix?
A strong name. King of Killers!

He suddenly came to life again. ‘I have more questions.’

‘Ask them,’ the oracle whispered, and I was surprised. This oracle was indulgent—or was indulging this particular visitor.

The question came: ‘I know what my father did. A ghost showed me when I was a boy. I am aware of his betrayal. But I never knew his name. So I ask you: what was my father’s name?’

‘Rottenbones!’

Orgetorix hesitated. The word had been coldly, harshly whispered fom the oracle. His own breathing sounded angry, but he controlled the emotion, saying only, ‘A terrible name. That is a terrible name. Now answer me truthfully.’

‘Your father was a terrible man. Ask no more about him.’

‘I demand to know his name.’

‘Your demand is no more than smoke in a storm.’

‘Then tell me: what was my mother’s name?’

‘Your mother was Medea. Daughter of Aeëtes, King of Colchis. She hid you from your father, very far away. The effort was very great. The loss was very great. She died in great pain.’

For a moment the words hung in my head like a strange dialect, familiar yet unfamiliar, almost recognisable, but elusive; not quite focused. Then they hit me with the power of a spear butt to the front of the head. The words rang.

Medea?
Of Colchis?

How I managed to control my surprise I cannot answer. I’m sure I gasped out loud. The name resonated like a scream of anguish. Medea? Not possible!

There was something stranger than I could comprehend at work here. Whether game or coincidence I couldn’t tell; but I was suddenly afraid, and that fear had no foundation, except that it came from my recognition that nothing occurring below me was
right.

But …
Medea?
Now I recognised something in the young
keltoi
’s voice—that softness of tone that could so quickly turn commanding. Indeed, he sounded very like his father. Jason! Son of Aeson and the wise Alcimede.

Was it possible that this was one of Jason’s sons?

He should have long since been in his grave.

Loose stones rolled from the ledge as I drew back to try to consider what I was witnessing. I thought I must have been discovered. The conversation by the speaking pit was interrupted for a moment, but then continued.

The
keltoi
asked, ‘How far am I … how far from home?’

‘Very far. You can never go back. There is no going back. You have lost your world.’

If son this was,
which
son?
And where was the other?

‘Is my father dead?’ the young man asked quietly, and there was an element of menace in the question.

‘Long ago. You can never go back, Orgetorix. Only forward. And that is the end of your questioning.’

There was angry movement by the oracle, the sound of metal rattling. ‘No. One more question.’

‘No more questions. Your time here is finished.’

‘One more! I offer my shield hand for one more question!’ He sounded defiant.

I heard the sound of a sword being drawn. Glancing round the rock, I saw Orgetorix about to cut through his wrist.

‘What in your life is worth a hand?’ the oracle asked pointedly.

‘A
brother
is worth a hand.’

Softly: ‘Well, then. Save your hand.’

He sheathed the weapon. ‘I remember my brother, but only as if in a dream. That was his nickname: “Little Dreamer”. We were taken away together, from our home, with blood on our bodies. We were fostered. We grew up in a wild land in a fine fortress. We trained in arms together. And then I lost him. He disappeared like a shadow in the night. Where is my brother?’

The oracle was silent for a long time. Then the voice said quietly, ‘He lives, now, between sea-swept walls. His name can be heard where the serpent lives. He rules in his world, though he doesn’t know it. And that is all…’

‘That’s all? That’s nothing!’

Frustrated now, the oracle hissed: ‘Because you are lost, I have given you more than I should. Because you showed enterprise in finding this place, I have stayed with you longer than I should. But my time here is finished. And there is someone listening to us. And I am afraid for you.’

The young warrior backed away from the chasm, looking around the sanctuary, his hand on the hilt of his sword. But he failed to see the watcher in the cave. He left the oracle, reluctantly but now alert for attack. He entered the wood again, to return to his companions.

*   *   *

Medea!

That woman had been powerful to an extent I had never imagined. I had no doubt that what I had just witnessed was true. Displaced in time, this
was
Jason’s eldest son, Thesokorus, calling himself Orgetorix, brother of ‘Little Dreamer’. Her trickery, her sorcery, had bordered on the magnificent! It must certainly have killed her to have hidden her sons in so distant a world.

I had hardly known her, yet she had been at the centre of my life for those few years I had spent with Jason. A black veil, that glittering coat of bronze and gold, the rattling beads, the scurrying walk, the unearthly incantations, the smell of sacrificial blood and burning herbs … I had preferred to stay away from it. I had not interfered in the relationship between my lusty, adventurous friend and his stolen love.

My heart had broken for him, though, when she had killed his boys.

*   *   *

After the encounter at the oracle, I stayed in that Makedonian town for several days, thinking hard. Orgetorix and his horsemen had slipped away. I was surprised they had disappeared so completely, but despite my small effort, using a little charm, I could not find them. That was strange, but no matter. They were heading north, to join an army and participate in a great adventure.

By morning I had decided on a quest of my own: to also go north, but to the place I had long believed Argo had taken Jason for mutual burial. I had journeyed past that lake so many times. I had heard the local legends of the ship from the ‘hot south’, and the man aboard who screamed for his sons. But I had never looked any closer. I’d had no reason to. Now I would go there to see if the ship, who had so loved the man that she had chosen to stay with him, might have kept him warm.

And I found him! And now I had a frightening truth to convey to him.

‘No amount of searching, no years of hunting,’ I said to him, ‘would have been sufficient to find your sons. Medea didn’t hide them in the world as you knew it. Not on any island, however remote; or in the mountains, however far; or in caverns below the ground, however deep. She didn’t take them to her home in Colchis, or to the barbarian north…’

Jason’s gaze was gloomy but interested. ‘Where, then?’

‘She hid them in Time. In the future. She hid them
now.
’

‘She summoned Cronos?’

‘I don’t know what she summoned. I hardly dare think about it.’

Jason stared at me. ‘And when … when is now?
More
than twenty years?’

How would he react? It took me so long to find the words. Should I try to prepare him for the news, or just blurt it out? I thought it unlikely that he would believe me at first, so perhaps a quick answer and leave him to think about it.

‘Seven hundred years!’

He stared at me as if the words meant nothing, only the slightest frown dimpling his forehead. Then just the merest shake of his head.

I went on, ‘She couldn’t have known how Argo would protect you through time as well. You’ve been at the bottom of this lake for so long that the world you know has changed beyond recognition. Perhaps I should have left you there … I’m suddenly frightened…’
that I’ve done the wrong thing,
I added to myself.

Still the silent stare.

‘I’m sorry, Jason.’

Everything he had ever known, every town, every city, was either dust and ruin or lay buried beneath new walls. I’d watched them crumble. I’d seen the world change. Everything Jason had once depended on had been wiped away by the years and by invasion.

I told him what I could; answered his questions as best I could. If he was curious as to the circumstances of Medea’s death, he kept the question close to his heart. When I had finished my account of his lost years, I murmured, ‘Everything you loved is in its grave…’

His frown deepened. He leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Except for my sons.’

‘Yes. If the oracle is to be believed. Except for your sons.’

‘And you,’ he added hoarsely. ‘Don’t forget you.’ His tired gaze was searching. ‘You came to find me. You crossed half a world to find me. Why?’

I shook my head, alarmed by the question. Why indeed? All I could think to say was, ‘Because I was happy then. On Argo. In Iolkos. And I knew where to find you. I know this lake. I’ve heard the man crying. I couldn’t be sure, but I felt certain it was you. And after all, I had the time to find out, right or wrong.’

He thought about this answer, then turned away and stared at the fire, sinking slowly forward where he sat, his face in his hands, burying himself from the concerned gaze of the world around him.

*   *   *

After a while he got up and left the tent. I had been so preoccupied with Jason that I’d failed to notice that both Niiv and Urtha had been listening to me, though neither would have understood our conversation. Niiv, nevertheless, was transparently curious, and quite delighted. Had I revealed something to her, not in words, but in a more silent language? I would have to be careful.

Urtha watched me curiously. ‘He seems upset, your friend.’

‘I’ve just told him how far he is from home.’

‘That’s enough to upset anybody,’ Urtha grumbled. ‘How far from home is he, exactly?’

‘Put it this way, he can never go back.’

‘You weren’t very tactful, I think.’

‘No. I don’t suppose I was. He’s been in that lake a long time, Urtha. He was once a great friend of mine. He got me out of a difficult situation, once. You wouldn’t believe it, even if I told it to you as a story—’

‘I’ve heard that before,’ Urtha said with a smirk. ‘It usually means there’s not much of a story.’

‘Well, maybe not. I know how
grotesque
you
keltoi
like your stories to be. But he did help me. Jason and I are tied by the sort of bond that you would understand well. He behaved like a monster to his family; his wife punished him horribly.’

Urtha visibly winced at the thought of that.

‘All of which is in the past. The point is, for the last year I’ve dragged my poor horses across half the world to find Jason again, to bring him strange news—’

Urtha laughed quietly as he watched me. ‘Yes. Strange friends you have: drowned at the bottom of lakes…’

‘Just the one friend at the bottom of a lake. And now that I’ve found him, I’m beginning to wonder where that urge came from.’

‘To raise him from the dead?’

‘To raise him from the dead.’

‘A debt of honour. A bond, you said.’

‘Or someone using it to use me…’

Urtha laughed and drank from his flask. ‘You’ve lost me there. I hope your stories are more coherent. Grotesque is fine. But we certainly approve of coherence. I’ll ask again: how far is he from home?’

Niiv was annoyed that she couldn’t understand, but I kept talking in Urtha’s language. And I came to a decision and told him what I had told Jason, swearing him to silence, even if he didn’t believe a word of what I’d said.