Medea (44 page)

It was an arm-ring which the lady had given me as a present, to thank me for taking Jason to Corinth. It was the one she wore on her own wrist, and I had been greatly honoured. I do not know how the priestess knew that, but priestesses know things. The old woman took a rope made of something like the tail of a black horse, intermingled with sable sheep's wool. It had nine knots in it. She passed it through my bracelet, muttering charms, then threw a handful of some foul incense on the brazier. It made a reek like a hundred rotting corpses. I squinted through this cloud and watched the old woman untie the knots, one by one, until the line ran smoothly through her fingers. Then she took a comb and drew out strands until there was no roughness in the skein, which flowed and bobbed like black hair.

Then she tossed the golden band back to me and closed her eyes.

My priestess led me up the stairs again. Once in the cool pillared hall, I coughed the noxious stench out of my lungs and thanked her.

'When you find the lady safely delivered, come back,' she told me, refusing my coins. 'Then you may make your own sacrifice, Nauplios, to Aphrodite, who will receive you gladly. But I would have you know that someone makes magic against the lady. Now, go; there is news for you in the town.'

I left the temple and walked down through the town. Nearing the palace, I heard one announcing that the Queen Medea, wife of King Jason, was delivered of a fair son and, almost as an afterthought, that the lady had survived the birth.

I lingered in the kitchen of the palace to hear the news. I managed to catch Clytie as she bustled out of the women's quarters, demanding strong honeyed wine mixed with barley meal, and that instantly.

'My lord?' she asked, not knowing me in my fine garments. 'Oh, it's you, lord and cousin. The king sent you to find out how the lady has borne her ordeal?'

I said nothing, and she went on, filling a large pitcher from the amphora of the best wine. 'She is exhausted, poor sweeting, but she is brave. Such torment would have drawn groans from a sea-rock, but not a whimper from the lady. Strange, you know, cousin.'

Clytie re-stoppered the amphora and balanced the full jug on her hip. 'She could not deliver, as though the child was lying across the womb. That is how my daughter died and I feared to watch it again. I passed my hands over my eyes for a moment. I heard both dogs get up, whining and barking, and then all of a sudden the babe appeared and the lady was lighter of her burden. Some deity had a hand in it, I would hazard. If so they took their time. Another few hours and she would have died of exhaustion. However, the baby is thriving and I believe the lady will recover. Ask my lord to wait until tomorrow to see her. She needs to sleep.'

This was not a difficult commission. Jason, much elevated on wine and pomp, called for his son, but did not enquire about his wife. The baby was brought to him on a shield by Creon, and Jason touched the little red hands with wonder.

'See, all his nails intact, so small, so perfect!' he exclaimed, as the baby clutched his finger and bawled a protest at being removed from his mother's breast. 'My son,' said Jason fondly.

Clytie was then allowed to carry the baby away, swaddled and held firmly to her bosom. I heard her talking to Jason's son as she went past me in a flounce of dark-red linen.

'I know that this may wound you, little Lord,' she said to the baby, 'But all men are fools. To bring you out into a cold hall when you are so new to the world shows no sense. Come along now, we shall lie you back in your nurse's arms. We've got that Nubian woman of Creon's - she's borne five living children. You'll like her milk.'

'Clytie,' I whispered, and she stopped.

'Cousin?'

'The lady, can you let me see her?' She levelled her eyes at me, as I strove to explain. 'I do not wish her to see me, or greet me, I just need to know that she lives. I made an offering for her to Hekate this day, and…'

She turned on her heel, saying, 'Pull your cloak over your head and follow,' and I did so, keeping my gaze down and watching the red hem as it flicked across the floor. Clytie had the firm, solid walk of a woman used to carrying baskets of fish on her head, but she moved much faster than one would think. I was out of breath when she shoved me into the antechamber of the princess' apartments.

'Stay there. When the door opens for me, shalt see your lady,' she said, and patted me briskly on the arm. 'Don't be alarmed by her appearance. She has been through a great ordeal.'

The door swung open, and Clytie handed the baby to someone inside. She leaned in the doorway so that I could see over her shoulder.

The lady Medea, still swollen-bellied, lay back on linen pillows, swathed in linen sheets, and her face was as white as her wrappings, even to the lips. Her long hair, drawn back and combed, was blacker than ship-builder's pitch, and there were dark shadowed hollows under her closed eyes. Even the Argonauts, after a long battle with a storm, had not seemed so tired. It was a face empty of character, perhaps even of life. Scylla and Kore lay together on the floor, one hound's head resting on the other's black back, which reassured me. They would not lie so if their mistress was dead. But somehow I could not leave for the temple until I had seen some sign of life.

Clytie, perhaps, knew this. She called almost gently, 'Sweeting,' and the eyelids flickered. Just for a second the lady Medea opened her eyes. They stared straight into mine, and she smiled at me, a faint quirk on the lips. Then she relaxed again.

Clytie pushed me out and shut the door, and I walked into the slaves' quarters as though I had been seeking a girl for the night, and thence to the temple as I had promised.

The priestess of Aphrodite I lay with was practised and easy to please. I stroked her with scented oil as she stroked me, until our passions were aroused enough to mate. I tried to keep my mind on the goddess. But at the moment of climax, so strong a climax that it almost hurt, I saw the face of Aphrodite, and she had pale cheeks and long, straight, black hair.

 

When his son, Polyxenius, was one year old, barely weaned, my lord sent him to the centaurs, as he himself had been sent. Clytie said that my lady wept, though I had not seen her in that time, except occasionally when she was required at some ceremony. Then she was beautiful, solemn, and always pregnant. She had evolved a stance to support her belly; she leaned back on her heels, a back-saving way of standing which, for some reason, caught at my heart.

And what concerned Nauplios in Corinth? Why was I still in Jason's city? I was free of my oath, loosed from my vows, but I did not want to return to Iolkos. There Akastos ruled; wisely, we heard. Thence I sent a message to Amphitrite's father that I could not marry, because I could not leave Corinth, and I sent her a golden belt set with pearls to assuage her disappointment, which would not have been great.

Jason showed me favour, repeatedly offering me a choice of the daughters of the nobility of Corinth, but I would have made but a distant husband to them, poor girls. I did not marry, because I could not give my heart to anyone except the lady Medea, wife of my lord. There was no hope for me in this love, but it would not be banished. The lady Medea smiled if she saw me at some festival, and she sent gifts 'to lord Nauplios the Argonaut'; such things as wine and honey and sometimes strange company, wandering madmen and bards and singers, for she knew of my fascination with odd things and tales from far countries.

I bought myself a little house near the waterfront and hired a woman to cook for me and keep my house clean. She was a crone, the mother of Clytie, the lady Medea's companion, and she was blessedly silent when I did not wish to speak. If she was cross-grained and sour, I did not need joyful maidens. I went to Aphrodite when the burning became too hot to bear, and the priestesses conceived a kindness for me, treating me well.

I spent my time on my lord's business, though it was not great. I talked to traders in their own tongue, for I had discovered a gift for languages when I sailed with the Argonauts in the quest for the Golden Fleece. But I interpreted for Creon, not Jason. Once all the border disputes had been solved by sending to the oracle at Delphi for solutions, there was little diplomatic business to be done. But there was a great deal of trading and barter, and ships sailed out from Corinth to every port in the world. Creon owned the vessels and Jason had no part in the life of the city, just its ceremonies. This pleased him. He had no gift for making decisions, and he seemed content to allow Creon to run Corinth, which he did very well.

I had been called down to the waterfront to try and puzzle out the speech of a very voluble sailor with rings in his ears and strange garment wrapping his legs, who had tin and jet to sell. He shared no language with any of the sailors, hangers-on and merchants, and we fell back on sign language, the oldest form of communication, which existed before the gods gave men speech. I wondered how far he had sailed his little boat, to have originated beyond the understanding of Libyan, Nubian Egyptian, Colchian, Phrygian, Trojan and Mysian. He was too tall to be a pygmy, and in any case could not understand their clicked speech, for in desperation I tried the few words of it which I knew.

He spread out his cargo. Lumps of jet, perfect for cutting and polishing into seals. Pieces of amber the size of hen's eggs, some with the much-prized insects or grain in them, amulets for a prince. Ingots of crudely smelted tin, essential for making bronze. He had a fortune in trade, the merchants were slavering, and we could not find a common language. I hoped that the trader was not concealing any knowledge of Achaean, for I heard whispers behind me that it might save trouble if we just killed him and stole his treasure.

Then I heard the sound of a lyre, which I had not heard for years. Someone was walking along the quay, cheek to soundbox, tuning the strings. He was tall, barefoot, dressed in a rough green tunic, and his hair was the colour of copper.

The strangely-clad trader cried something in a completely foreign tongue to the approaching bard Philammon who, when he looked up at the voice, ran to me and embraced me, talking all the time in rolling, melodic speech to the sailor.

'He's a Hyperborean,' said Philammon, without greeting me. He always took up his friendships exactly where they had left off. 'He wants golden jewellery, cooking pots and hounds.

'Don't cheat him,' he added severely, looking at the merchants. 'He is the first of his people to pass the Pillars of Herakles and come into Aegeas' sea. If you would have more tin and jet, then you must load him with treasure; and Dike will smite any trader with more greed than morality.'

Dike
- Justice, whom the Achaeans also call Themis - would support the most sensible and likely outcome. I impressed on the local merchants how Creon would feel about someone who suppressed a long-term trading advantage for short-term profit, to a general failure of knees, I dragged Philammon to the nearest tavern. I knew that he would not drink wine, but he could at least drink water with me. I was very glad to see him, so glad that I realised I had been lonely for longer than I could recall.

'How fares my dear Nauplios in Corinth?' he asked, accepting a cup of spring water and raising it as in a toast. 'You are older, no longer a boy. It has been - how many years since you came here?'

'Five,' I said, swallowing half a cup of wine. 'Jason has been king for five years. In that time the lady Medea has borne him four children. The last two are twins, they are two years old now. Jason sent the eldest son up to the mountain, to be instructed - and he died there, among the centaurs.'

'There is a sorrow,' said the bard, as he put one finger to my temple and stared into my eyes. 'You have borne it long, too long, perhaps, and it will not let you rest, Nauplios. You should leave this place. You have little status here and here you will never gain your desire. Yearning becomes a habit, and it poisons the blood.'

'You are right,' I agreed.

'I am a bard,' he said.

'Where have you been travelling?'

'On the salt river Ocean, where he bears me,' he said indifferently. 'I have seen some of the other Argonauts. Most prosper, though Ancaeas the Strong is dead.'

'Dead?' I remembered the large modest man, rowing amidships with Herakles. 'How?'

'He returned to Tegea and was sitting in his house. A seer told him that he would never drink the wine of a particular vineyard.' The lyre sang behind his voice as he dropped into a chant.

Here is the wine, Lord,

Harvested at your order, the

Grapes pressed from the doomed

Vine. Do not drink, Ancaeas,

Do not challenge their might,

The all-powerful gods.

Plenty of wine, Ancaeas,

Many other vines flourish.

Drink another vintage.

But he called his slaves

And drank the bitter wine. Then

'My lord' called a slave, 'a wild boar,

Tusked and dangerous, destroys

Your grapes.' He seized his spear,

His boar-spear and his sword.

Out hurries Ancaeas the Strong.

Wine still wet on his lips,

The boar charged,

Ancaeas' strength did not prevail.

 

'He was so strong a man I did not think even the gods could kill him,' I said.

'Alabande is growing fat; he has three sons and spends the day in hard labour like a farmer, but his nights in eating and drinking; he is content,' continued Philammon.

'Idas and Lynkeos are still arguing; now it is about the respective merits of their wives, who are identical twins. Wagers are being taken as to their children. I have not seen Oileus or Telamon, but I hear that they are well, as is Nestor. Do you remember Autolycus? He has made himself a small kingdom on a very poor island called Ithaca. And Hypsipyle, the Lemnian queen, bore Jason a child from that winter. He is called Thoas, a fine son, bright-eyed and sturdy. I know no more. The women of Lemnos are greeting all ships with arrows now.'