Jason and the Argonauts (11 page)

She had stretched her legs while speaking, and he slid away. She was on him in three strides. He felt himself being plucked off the grass and folded across her long thighs. One hand clamped him there.

“No … no …” he yelped. “Please.”

She dug her fingers into his flesh and twisted in a slow pinch.

“Owww …”

“If you scream like that now, what will you sound like when I’ve been smacking your divine little bottom for an hour or two?”

“I give up. Completely. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Are you sure you know what I want?”

“I’m to go to Colchis and shoot my arrow into Medea, making her fall in love with Jason with a love that will change to hate.”

“Can I trust you?”

“You have to. I’m the only one who can do it.”

“Tell me exactly how you’ll go about it.”

“I’ll shoot Medea with a golden arrow as she’s looking at Jason. Immediately afterward, I’ll shoot Jason with a leaden arrow of indifference. She’ll love him till they’re married, and for a time thereafter. But when her love meets his indifference, it will turn to hate.”

“Hearken, Eros: if you betray me, if you fail to do what you’ve promised, or do something else, I’ll search the world for you. I’ll find you wherever you are and after I finish with you, you won’t even be able to sit down on a cloud.”

“May I go now?”

She lifted him off her lap. They looked at each other. She was very beautiful. She suddenly bent and kissed him on the lips. He smiled. He was the godling of love, after all; his flesh was magical. To touch him was to risk enslavement, which was really why Aphrodite had never dared punish him. And he knew he had awakened something in Lethe that would never sleep again.

T
HE ARGONAUTS LANDED BY
night on the wild coast of Colchis. The black ship slipped silently into a little cove; the men disembarked and pulled it ashore. They held council on the beach under the moon.

“We are too few to do it by force,” said Jason. “So we must hide our intention under a cloak of diplomacy. Four of us will visit the castle: Ekion, myself, and two volunteers. The rest of you will remain here, in hiding, until such time as we reappear with or without the Fleece. We shall then hold counsel again and make final plans.”

“You’ll have no chance to practice diplomacy,” said Argos. “King Aetes will lop off your heads as soon as he lays eyes on you. He will kill you and then send troops to search inlet and cove. We shall be found, we shall be slaughtered. And the ship, my beautiful ship, will burn.”

“Less talk and more action,” growled Castor. “This quest is turning into a debating society. I’ve had no chance at all to break any necks. If you’re going to the castle, I’m going with you. I suppose that’s what you mean by volunteering. My brother volunteers, too.”

“Yes,” said Pollux. “I haven’t had any chance to test my new fists.”

“Our
new fists,” said Rufus. “I should be going with you, too, Jason.”

“Sorry,” said Jason. “Three is all I can take this time. But I think I can promise every one of you all the action you’ll want.”

Some hours later, it appeared as though the shipwright’s gloomy hunch were to come true. Before Aetes’ throne stood Jason, Ekion, Castor, and Pollux, manacled with thick chains and hemmed about with heavily armed warriors of the royal guard. Aetes sat on a high throne made of ivory and jade. He was a squat, vicious-looking man. His robe was a pelt taken from the rare white polar wolf. His crown was of red gold inlaid with the teeth of the same wolf. But it was his daughter who occupied Jason.

Medea sat at the foot of the throne. Jason, studying her, saw a very tall woman, sleek and muscular in her short linen tunic, with huge yellow eyes and a mane of black hair. He was fascinated by her hands. They were beautifully shaped with very long fingers, but instead of fingernails they were tipped with ripping talons like a hawk’s.

“You have come to take my Fleece,” said Aetes. “So I shall take your heads—which seems eminently fair.”

“Indeed, O King,” said Ekion. “All the civilized world marvels at your instinct for equity. So you should recognize that we do not come here to steal the Fleece, but in honorable embassy, seeking to arrange a transfer. It was stolen from our ancestors, after all, by your ancestors. Naturally, we would be prepared to make a contribution to the upkeep of its shrine.”

“Honorable embassy, eh?” said Aetes. “Is that why you steal ashore like thieves in the night and leave your crew hiding on the beach while you come here to spy out our position? No, my friends, you are not ambassadors but thieves, thieves and spies. Now you, Jason, your snake-tongued herald, and your two Spartan thugs must pay for your folly with your heads.”

It was now that Eros came to them. He flew into the throne room just as the king was pronouncing sentence, notched an arrow, and shot it into the heart of Medea. The whole performance was invisible.

Medea felt a strange sweet pain stabbing into her chest. Now, she dabbled in witchcraft, was acquainted with spells, enchantments, and other magical effects—but for all her experience she could not believe what was happening to her. It was as if a membrane had been peeled from her vision. She saw the world all new. And the main fact of this new world was a condemned prisoner, a boyish pirate with black hair and gray eyes who bore his chains with such dignity. Suddenly she saw him as a pillar of rosy fire casting a fragrance that almost made her swoon. The sparks of this fire entered all her tender places and made her burn with agonizing sweetness. She wanted to dig her claws into him softly, lick his blood like honey, feast on his mouth. She wanted to be all the women he had ever known—mother, nurse, sister, wife, slave—daughter if he had one.

The soldiers of the guard laid hands on the chains, preparing to lead the prisoners away. Medea uncoiled her full length and raised her voice in a blood-chilling falcon shriek. It stopped all sound, all movement in the huge throne room. All eyes swung to her.

“O great Aetes, Father and King, I am weary of executions.”

The king frowned. “What is your meaning, princess? Would you pardon these thieves?”

“Not at all. But beheadings grow monotonous. Let us gain some entertainment from their punishment.”

“Entertainment? What do you suggest?”

“The Marriage Task.”

The king’s scowl deepened. The courtiers gasped. For the Marriage Task was an outmoded rite. In times past, it had been the sacred ordeal to be undergone by anyone who aspired to wed a princess of Colchis. It was centuries old, but in Medea’s time it was used not as a courtship rite but to rid the king of any suitor he considered undesirable. And Aetes was surprised now that Medea had thought of this robber as a suitor, even if she meant him to die in the arena.

“Do you consider this Jason a candidate for your hand, O daughter?”

“I consider him a candidate for Hades, O Father. I am proposing that he be dispatched to those dark precincts by the Brass Bulls.”

“Very well,” said Aetes. “We shall forgo the chopping block for these young men, although I think it would be much simpler. Take them to the dungeon. They face the Brass Bulls tomorrow.”

J
ASON LAY UNCOMFORTABLY ASLEEP
in his tiny stone dungeon. He dreamed that he was bound like Prometheus to a crag, and that a huge sleek black bird with a woman’s face was diving at him, claws extended. He awoke to find Medea bending over him.

“You will be more comfortable without the chains,” she said. She pointed to the manacles, muttering. They dropped from him like strands of seaweed.

“Thank you, Princess.”

“Yes, you have much to be grateful for. Had it not been for me, your headless body would now be ripening on the midden.”

“I know how much I owe you,” said Jason. “Perhaps my performance tomorrow may provide you with sufficient entertainment to pay some small part of my debt.”

“Your performance tomorrow, and that of your companions, will last precisely as long as the wink of an eye, my dear pirate, unless special arrangements are made on your behalf. The monsters you will face come out of the smithy of Daedalus. They are giant bulls cast in brass, made by the arch-mechanic as instruments of war for his master, Minos, and purchased by my father after Minos died. Their horns can shear through any substance. They can charge through a stone wall ten feet thick and come out the other side without a dent. But they will not have to touch you with their horns or their razor hooves. For their breath is of fire. They spit flame. At the distance of a mile they can ignite a whole forest, or, with exquisite marksmanship, burn the bark off a sapling and leave the trunk unmarked. All those who have entered the arena with them have been incinerated.”

“Now, truly,” said Jason, “my companions and I would seem to need these special arrangements you mention.”

“You must anoint yourself with this unguent,” she said, giving him a small crystal flask. “It is made of the tears that Io wept after she was changed into a cow and tormented by Hera’s gadfly. And these tears are mixed with fat rendered from the salamander that lives in flame and from certain essences of the phoenix, that marvelous bird that dies in flame but is resurrected therein. Spread this salve upon you from head to foot, and have your companions do likewise. Then the fiery breath of the bulls will play about you as harmlessly as the evening breeze.”

“I shall spread the salve,” said Jason. “What else must I do?”

“Nothing. The bulls will become confused when they see you unscathed by the flame. They will panic, and turn upon each other, breathing fire, and be turned thereby into pools of molten brass.”

“Indeed, dear lady, how shall I ever be able to thank you?”

“Oh, you will have a lifetime to think of ways,” said Medea. “This ordeal is a Marriage Task. You will be the first to have passed it. Why do you furrow your brow, O successful suitor? Do you find the prospect of marriage with me so displeasing?”

Jason looked at her. She was formidably tall in the glare of moonlight that lanced through the slot in the dungeon wall. She seemed to grow taller as he watched. Medea had the weirdly limitless quality of those who work in magic. He did not know how to estimate her; she was without frontiers. The idea of “too much” was at the marrow of her manner. She stood there before him, alert and powerful as a predatory bird. She lifted her long arm and softly raked his cheek with her claws. He concealed his shudder behind a smile. She was the hawk girl who had visited his sleep; she had no wings now but was otherwise the same. Had she known she was waiting for him? He took her hand and examined it, turned it over, and kissed its palm. “Sharp claws,” he murmured. “I shall have to file them down.” She took the flask from him. “Let me anoint you, fiancé.”

At first it all went as Medea had promised. The Brass Bulls, each larger than an elephant, stood pawing the ground, glittering in the sunlight, as the dense swarm of onlookers began a low, seething murmur like the wind in grass. The bulls spotted the three young men standing in the arena; they shook their horns and leveled their heads. Twin jets of fire spurted from their brass nostrils.

Jason believed in Medea’s magic, but it was all he could do to stand there pretending no fear as the brazen beasts spat flame. He stood between Castor and Pollux, a hand on the arm of each. He felt their massive arms quivering and clasped them more tightly, whispering, “Show them.” The ancients believed in appearances. They believed that outward manner revealed inner quality, that the weakness that was not indulged could be transformed into a strength.

So the young Hellenes stood awaiting fire.

The amazed crowd saw them continue to stand there, arm in arm, smiling, unconsumed in the very heart of flame. Jason left the others and vaulted over the railing into the royal box, where sat Aetes and Medea. He bowed to the king and knelt before Medea—who raised a wand and touched him on each eye, the mouth, and the knees.

The willow wand turned into a snake in her hands, a mottled yellow and black serpent that cast itself into loops, swiftly and more swiftly twining, coiling, uncoiling, weaving itself into hypnotic patterns as Medea crooned a wordless song. Then the snake was a rope braiding and unbraiding itself in Medea’s hands. The rope became a garland of red and purple flowers that Medea twisted into a wreath and placed on Jason’s head. All Jason’s attention and the focus of the crowd had been turned from what was happening in the arena and were caught up in the sleepy maze of snake and rope and garland.

But there is always a level of a hero’s awareness that cannot be lured from the business at hand, especially when the business is fighting. Something broke into Jason’s trance and pulled his eyes away from Medea’s magic. He abruptly looked up and saw what was happening in the arena.

When his gaze pierced the dust, he realized that his bride-to-be was acting treacherously. The Brass Bulls had not turned upon each other as she had promised—but, seeing Castor and Pollux unconsumed by flame, were charging in to finish them off with horn and hoof. When Jason saw them they were in mid-charge, galloping with such terrific speed that he had no chance of intervening, but had to stand by helplessly and watch the Twins being destroyed.

A hideous clanging shattered the air as metal crashed on metal—and Jason, amazed, overjoyed, saw Pollux punching great dents into the Brass Bull with his iron fists. Iron is harder than brass, and the Spartan was fired by a gleeful battle rage. His shoulders bunched with muscle; he swung his arms like sledges. The huge iron mauls that were his fists crashed again and again into the beast, knocking off its horns, flattening its face, pounding it into a shapeless mass of metal.

Castor had seized the horns of the other bull and, straining his thews until he thought they must burst his skin, was slowly twisting the monster’s brass head around. Finally he wrenched it off with a bell-like sound, turned, and tossed the head to Jason in the Royal Box. Jason caught it and offered it to Medea, saying, “A souvenir of your treachery, Princess.”

“I meant no treachery, husband.”