Jason and the Argonauts (8 page)

“Ring?”

“Boxing ring, where the king does his killing. He challenges someone to a fight and kills him in the ring.”

“Can’t anyone stand up to him?”

“Oh no. No one has a chance. You’ll see for yourself. He’ll be coming here soon to warm up.”

She sobbed again, gazing at me sideways through tears that seemed to magnify her green eyes.

“I may be able to help you,” I said.

“Help me?”

“To escape this island. I’ll go talk to the others.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay here. If they agree, I’ll come back for you. But you must promise not to say one word about your wicked brother-in-law and the way he kills people in the ring. If you do, we’ll never get off this island.”

“Why not?”

“We have some hotheads who love to fight, no matter what the odds. One in particular considers himself quite a boxer. If he hears about this king, he’ll challenge him immediately.”

“Oh no! He mustn’t! That would be terrible. I won’t say a word. Go quickly, sir, and arrange my rescue.”

“Too late,” I groaned.

Coming toward us, picking their way among the rocks, were Jason and Pollux.

“There you are,” called Jason. “We’ve been looking all over for you. The kegs are full. We’re ready to go.”

“Who’s your friend?” said Pollux softly.

They stood there, their tunics white-hot in the sun. Pollux’s hair was a nimbus of golden flame, and Jason’s black hair held blue light in the cusp of its wave, like a blackbird’s wing.

“This is a young lady of the court,” I said. “The queen’s sister. She needs rescuing.”

Her eyes had never left Pollux’s face. She began her tale, but dreamily, almost joyously, as if offering a gift to the young men who had come suddenly and gorgeously out of nowhere—like gods. They listened greedily.

“Do they fight down there?” asked Jason, pointing to the meadow.

“Yes,” she said. “The people sit up here when they’re invited. Look, here he comes! That’s the king! That’s Amycus!”

A troop of spearmen were trotting across the field. Following them was an enormous brute of a man who had placed himself between the shafts of an oxcart and was pulling it easily at a half-run. Two oxen trotted alongside. The huge man broke into a gallop as the soldiers divided into two ranks, allowing the oxcart to pass between. The king shouted with laughter and dropped the shafts.

He stood there clad in a leather clout, seeming about eight feet tall and wide as two men. He was hairy as a bear; we couldn’t see his muscles under the dense pelt, but knew they were there. He raised his hand. One of the spearmen, the largest, was carrying a club instead of a spear—a huge bludgeon carved out of hardwood. He raised his club and smashed it down on his master’s head.

The club broke cleanly in two. The soldier stood staring at the king, holding the handle. We heard the king laugh and saw him clap the man on the shoulder. The man staggered, straightened smartly, and marched back into the ranks. Amycus raised his arm again. An ox was led toward him. He grasped its horns, hunched his furry shoulders in a curious way, and seemed to be looking deeply into the animal’s eyes.

Suddenly he struck with his head, butting the ox terrifically between its horns. Now, any horned beast wears a bridge of heavy bone under its hide between the horns that is stronger than the horn itself. The king’s head struck full on this armored brow. For a moment I thought he was trying to break his head on the ox in some sacrificial rite. But it was the ox that fell, blood streaming from its nostrils. The soldiers shouted and beat their shields with their spears.

“That’s how he finishes them off,” murmured the girl. “With his head. If he doesn’t kill them with his fists, he butts them to death.”

“Oh, glory, glory,” I heard Pollux whisper. “This is the match I’ve been looking for.”

“Don’t even think about it!” I cried. “You’ll kill us all!”

Horrified, I saw the helmets swivel toward us as Pollux’s exultant yell sounded in my ears. I tried to grasp his arm, but he tore away from me and was bounding down the hill, yelling all the way. We followed the madman down the hill. I kept telling myself I could not afford to show fear. So I raised my white staff and walked slowly to where Pollux stood confronting the king.

Observing Amycus from the hillside, I had seen how big and powerful he was, but wasn’t able to pick out detail. Now, standing close to that head that had hammered down an ox, I couldn’t believe it belonged to a human body. It was totally bald, burnished a rich brown, taut and hard as a bullhide shield. The forehead was a corrugated ridge of bone. His face was meager; the features were huddled beneath that mallet of a brow. The nose was flattened, the eyes deeply pocketed, his mouth a thin pucker. His neck, surprisingly, was long but very thick, as wide as his head; it was one length of muscle, giving that murderous whiplike power to his butting.

“Amycus, king of Bebrycos,” I intoned loudly and clearly, “I come vested with the sacred office of herald to bear greetings from my lord, Pelius, king of Iolcus, whose herald I am, traveling on embassy extraordinary with this royal expedition to recover the Golden Fleece. The Middle Sea we ply in a ship called the
Argo,
and have put in here to ask your hospitality, also provisions of food and water, promising you the gratitude of Pelius the Impatient, monarch of Iolcus.”

“Shut up, runt,” grunted the king. “One more word out of you and I’ll shove that staff where it’ll do the most good. Your friend here says he wants to fight.”

We heralds, whose business is mostly with kings, are trained to ignore anger and seek to extract some profit from rudeness. I kept smiling, and said smoothly, “Yes, sire, that is the rest of what I have to tell you. Our champion, Pollux, son of Zeus, prince of Sparta, and the foremost pugilist on this earth, seeks the honor of engaging you, Amycus, in fisticuffs—and trusts that, according to the usages of such contests, you will extend a royal hospitality to his entire party.”

By this time the rest of the crew had joined us: Daphnis, bearing his lyre; Autolycus stalking beside him, wary as a cat; Idas, glaring about at the soldiers, itching, I knew, to fight them one by one. And Castor, who had shouldered up close to the king, stood there with his brother, staring up at the huge, hairy man.

“What are you, twins?” he growled.

“Yes, sir,” said Castor. “I am Castor, the wrestler. Do you have a champion for me to fight? A brother, perhaps. Or someone else big enough to make a contest of it? Or perhaps you would prefer to wrestle instead of box?”

“Stop that,” said Pollux. “He’s mine.”

“Easy, lads, easy,” said the king. “There’s enough of me to go around. I’ll fight you one after the other. You have my promise, Castor. After I kill this one, it’ll be your turn.”

“Thank you,” said Castor. “But I’m afraid I’ll be missing my turn.”

“Ho, ho,” rumbled Amycus. “You’re fine lads. I’m going to enjoy this. We’ll make a real event of it. We’ll fight this afternoon. Until then, rest yourselves. Until the match you are my honored guests. And after the match, that is, after I kill both twins, I’ll fight the rest of you, either separately or together. All except the two little ones …” He pointed at Daphnis. “You shall be my harp boy, blue eyes. And you, master herald, you’ll be less talkative after I cut out your tongue. Until then, enjoy yourselves.”

We went to the stream and rested in the shade of the trees. The Twins had stayed behind to choose the ground for the match. Idas and Autolycus and Rufus were deep in discussion. I knew they were planning something. I could see that Jason wanted to join them, but I held him back for a moment.

“Why are you letting him fight?” I said. “We could make a break for it. They’re guarding the skiff, but we could get into the surf, perhaps, and swim to the
Argo.”

“I can’t stop Pollux from fighting,” he said. “I wouldn’t if I could. You must allow a man to do what he does best.” He smiled at me. “You did well today. I was impressed by your eloquence. And we shall try to see that so clever a tongue does not fall under the knife.”

I watched the slaves dig a great pit to roast crayfish in. The sea here was colder than our home waters and the crayfish the most delicious we had ever tasted. A haunch of venison was turning on a spit; another spit held an entire lamb.

But the king’s generosity was wasted. Jason warned us to eat very sparingly. “Don’t stuff yourselves,” he whispered. “We may have to move fast after the fight.”

The spearmen who were guarding us happily ate most of the food, and the slaves devoured the rest. Castor and Pollux were still at the arena.

I was restless. I strolled back to the arena. The hillside was filling with people seating themselves on the boulders along the slopes; from there they could watch the fight comfortably. A vast throng was gathering. I saw the Twins in a corner of the field and went to them.

“Have you chosen your ground?” I said.

“Here,” said Castor.

It was a place where the field tapered toward a cliff face of sheer rock, which stretched up about ten feet before sloping.

“Why here?” I said. “Why not in the middle of the field where your speed would give you a chance? He’ll simply corner you here and pound you to pieces.”

“That’s exactly what I want him to think,” said Pollux.

“May the gods smile upon you, my brave Pollux. But I still wish you’d fight him out there.”

I stayed with them, waiting for the king to come. People were flocking in now, thronging the slopes. Some sat on boulders; others leaned against them or sat on the ground. Some stood. It looked as if the entire population of the island had come to see the fight. Vendors passed among them selling prawns, honeycombs, and melons.

The king came, surrounded by spearmen, trailed by slaves. He wore a blue tunic and a golden crown. I raised my staff to salute him, but he brushed past me and went to Pollux.

“Are you prepared to die?”

“I am prepared to fight.”

“Have you chosen your ground?”

“Here’s where we stand. This rock wall is one boundary. Then twelve paces out and across.”

The king turned to the soldiers. “Pace it off and stand your pickets.”

An officer marched off twelve paces from the rock wall, then another twelve paces parallel to the wall—and placed his men a pace apart along the boundaries, making a square with the wall at one end. The armored men formed a hedge of iron.

A trumpeter raised his horn and blew a clear call. He dropped his horn and addressed the vast crowd now blackening the slopes: “People of Bebrycos, you have been summoned here to watch your king, Amycus, Guardian of the Coast and Hammer of Justice, destroy another Middle Sea pirate who dares enter our land without invitation. Watch him perish. After destroying this man, who boasts of being a son of Zeus and prince of Sparta, our king will fight his twin. After that, he will fight the others of the crew, one at a time or all at once, as they choose.”

As this was being announced, the king’s slaves were stripping their master. He shed tunic and crown and loomed like a furry demon. The sunlight glinted on his naked head, making it glow like a brass helmet. The crier blasted his horn again. The fight began.

Pollux was a big man, but he looked pitifully small as he retreated before the hairy giant. As I had feared, the king owned every advantage in this tightly penned space. He could corner Pollux, maul him with his great fists until he worked in close enough for his death butt. Yet Pollux himself, with Castor advising, had chosen this place. Why? I couldn’t figure it out. Nor could I read anything in the faces of the others who were watching the fight.

Castor stood impassive as a block of marble; his yellow mane, ruffled by the wind, was the only thing about him that moved. Idas stood there, metal fangs flashing as he drew his lips back in a mirthless grin. Every once in a while he glanced at the hedge of spearmen, and I knew how avid he was to be at their throats instead of watching others fight.

It was strange what was happening in the ring. It was more like a dance than a fight. Amycus shuffled after Pollux, trying to block him off, but the blond youth simply flowed away from those fists and from those massive furred arms, moving head and torso just enough to escape the flailing blows, stepping away from the bull-like charges. Eyes pale as frozen lakes, yellow crest gleaming, he was untouched, although Amycus had aimed a hundred blows at him. Untouched—and he had not yet struck back at the king.

Jason, I saw, was smiling. Rufus was blazing with excitement—fire-red, twitching his shoulders, shuffling, eager to fight himself. I realized, with a lost pang, that I was with those who simply did not know what fear was. The thing about cowardice is that you can usually comfort yourself because it is so common. Other people, you think, are just as frightened as you are. But in this group I felt very much alone.

I looked quickly at Daphnis. Surely this frail poet must be terrified. But I’ll be cursed if he didn’t wear that goofy simper of his, gazing raptly at the fighters.

Pollux had changed tactics now. Where before he had been moving very thriftily, just evading the king’s blows, now he began to leap. He sprang backward from one end of the ring to the other. As soon as he touched ground, he leaped to the other side. Amycus rushed after him. He was no longer cool; he was losing his temper. He charged again, more swiftly this time. But just as he reached him, Pollux rose straight into the air. He leaped higher than the king’s head, leaned upon air, and launched a scything sidewise kick. Amycus ducked, and the foot whizzed past his head. I thought, “Why does he duck? Kicking that head is kicking a rock; any foot must break.”

And Amycus must have thought the same thing at the same time. For Pollux landed with knees bent and immediately sprang into the air again, kicking again at the king’s head—and this time the king did not duck. But the foot did not meet the head. It was exquisitely aimed. It swerved in the air, caught the ear of Amycus, and tore it half away. The side of the king’s face was painted with blood.

This did not weaken him but seemed to give him new strength. He bellowed with rage and charged again. This time, as Pollux sprang away, he did not rush after him but dove through the air—dove halfway across the ring, catching Pollux with his shoulder and hurling him against the hedge of armored men, who pushed him back into the ring. The king was all over him now, crowding him, mauling him with his fists. One roundhouse punch caught him between shoulder and elbow; his left arm went limp, as if broken. His mouth bled. The crowd on the slopes began to roar for the kill.