Jason and Medeia (4 page)

freed from the crawl of change like summer in a

painted tree.

When the three finished, they clapped as though the

lyric were

some sweet thing safe as the garden, warm as leaves.

Medeia

rose, took the children's hands, and saying a word too

faint

to hear in the room above, moved down an alleyway pressed close on either side by blue-green boughs. Jason turned his back on the window. He suddenly laughed.

His face

went grim. “You should see your Jason now, brave

Argonauts!

Living like a king, and without the drag of a king's

dull work.

Grapes, pomegranates piled up in every bowl like the

gods'

own harvest! Ah, most happy Jason!” His eyes grew

fierce.

In the street below, the three small boys who watched, in

hiding,

hunched like cunning astrologers spying on the stars,

exchanged

sharp glances, hearing that laugh, and a visitor standing

at the gate,

Aigeus, father of Theseus—so I would later find out, a man in Medeia's cure—looked down at the

cobblestones,

changed his mind, departed. In the garden, Medeia

looked back

at the house, or through it. It seemed her mind was far

away.

“Mother?” the children called. She gave them a nod.

“I'm coming.”

They ran ahead once more. She followed with thoughtful

eyes.

Her feet moved, hushed and white, past crumbling grave

markers.

A shadow darkened the sky, then passed. At Jason's

gate

a mist shaped like a man took on solidity: Ipnolebes, Kreon's slave. The three boys watching fled. With a palsy-shaken hand, a crumpled lizard's claw, he reached to the dangling rod, made the black bronze

gate-ring clang.

A slave peeked out, then opened the gate, admitting

him.

Jason met him at the door with a smile, an extended

hand,

his eyes hooded, covering more than they told. The bent-backed slave spoke a few hoarse words, leering, his

square gray teeth

like a mule's. Lord Jason bowed, took the old man's arm,

and led him

gently, slowly, to the upstairs room. The old man's

sandals

hissed on the wooden steps.

When he'd reached his seat at last,

Ipnolebes spoke: “Ah!—ah!—I thank you, Jason, thank you! Forgive an old man's—” He paused to catch

his breath.

“Forgive an old man's mysteries. It's all we have left at my age—he he!” He grabbed awkwardly for Jason's

hand

and patted it, fatherly, fingers like restless wood. The son of Aison drew up a chair, sat down. At last, his voice detached though friendly, Jason asked, “You have some

message

from the king, Ipnolebes?” The old man bowed. “I do,

I do.”

His skull was a death's head. Jason waited. “It's been

some time,”

Ipnolebes said, a sing-song—old age harkening back— “It's been some time since you visited, up at the palace.

Between

the two of us, old Kreon's a bit out of sorts about it. He's done a good deal for you—if you can forgive an

old fool's

mentioning it. A privilege of age, I hope. He he! Old men are dolts, as they say. Poor innocent children

again.”

Jason pressed his fingertips to his eyelids, said nothing. “Well, so,” Ipnolebes said. It seemed that his mind had

wandered,

slipped from its track not wearily but in sudden

impatience.

He frowned, then brightened. “Yes, of course. Old

Kreon's quite put out.

“Miffed,” you might say. He was a happy man when

you came, Jason—

the greatest traveller in the world and the greatest

talker, too.

You know how it is with a man like Kreon, whole life

spent

on bookkeeping, so to speak—no more extended views than windows give. It was a great stroke of luck, we

thought,

when you arrived, driven from home on an angry wind through no fault of your own.” He nodded and clasped

his hands.

His eyes moved, darting. The son of Aison studied him. That's Kreon's message?” Ipnolebes laughed. “No, no,

not at all!

I spoke no thoughts but my own there. Ha ha! Mere

chaff!”

The old man's voice took on a whine. “He asks you to

supper.

I told him I'd bring the message myself. I'm a stubborn

man,

when I like, I told him. A hard devil to refuse.” Again he laughed, a stirring of shadows, Ipnolebes leaned

toward him.

“Pyripta, his daughter—I think you remember her,

perhaps?—

she too is eager that you come. A lovely girl, you know. She'll be marrying soon, no doubt. How the years do

fly!” He grinned.

Jason watched him with still eyes. Ipnolebes wagged his head. “He'll be a lucky man, the man that snags Pyripta. Also a wealthy man—and powerful, of course.” Jason stood up, moved off. He leaned on the window

frame.

“Between just the two of us,” the old man said,

“you could

do worse than pass a free hour or so with Pyripta.

You never

know. The world—”

Jason turned to him, frowning. “Old friend,

I have a wife.” Ipnolebes bowed. “Yes, yes. So you do. So you feel, anyway. Forgive a poor old bungling fool. In the eyes of the law, of course … but perhaps our

laws are wrong;

we never know.” His glance fled left. “ ‘
Our
laws,'

I say.

A slave. My care for Kreon carries me farther than

my wits!

And yet it's a point, perhaps. Am I wrong? In the

strictly legal

sense—” He paused. He tapped the ends of his fingers

together

and squinted as if it were hard indeed to make his

old mind

concentrate. Then after a moment: “In the strictly legal sense, you have no wife—a Northern barbarian, a lady whose barbarous mind has proved its way—

forgive me—

more than just once, to your sorrow. The law no

more allows

such marriages into barbarian races than it does

between Greeks

and horses, say. If you hope to make your Medeia a

home,

and leave something to your sons, it can hardly be as

a line

of Greeks. If you hope to gain back a pittance of all

she's wrecked—

it can never be, if I understand Greek law, as Medeia's husband, father of her sons. —But I'm out of my

depth, of course.”

His laugh was a whimper. “I snatch what appearance

of sense I can

for Kreon's good.”

Jason said nothing, staring out.

So he remained for a long time, saying nothing.

The slave

chuckled. “It's a rare thing, such loyalty as yours,

dear man.

She's beautiful, of course. Heaven knows! And yet a

mind … a mind

like a wolf's. So it seems from the outside, anyway—

seems to those

who hear the tales. A strange creature to have on

the leash—

or be leashed to, whichever.” His chuckle roused

the dark

in the corners of the room again, a sound like spiders

waking,

the stir of uncoiling sea-beasts dreaming from the

deeps toward land.

“Well, no part of the message, of course. I shouldn't

have spoken.

Marriage is holy, as they say. What a horror this world

would become

if solemn vows were nothing—whether just or foolish

vows!

Even if there are no gods, or the gods are mad—

as they seem,

and as some of our learned philosophers claim—a

vow's a vow,

even if we grant that it's grounded on no more than

human agreement.

Indeed, what would happen to positive law itself

without vows?—

even if vowing is a metaphysical absurdity as it may well be, of course.” The old man grinned,

shook his head.

“—And yet for a man to be locked in a vow his whole

life long—

a marriage vow illegal from the strictly human point

of view,

sworn in the ignorant passion of youth, in defiance

of reason,

and proved disastrous!—” Ipnolebes closed his

heavy-knuckled

hands on the arm of the chair and, with a rasping sigh, labored up unsteadily out of his seat. Slowly, inches at a time, he eased his way to the stairs.

“Well, so,”

he said. “I've delivered the message. Do come,

tomorrow night,

if it seems to you you can do it without impiety. Oh yes—one more thing.” His head swung round.

“There are friends of yours

at the palace, I think. Men from the weirdest corners

of the world.

Merchants, sea-kings.” The old man chuckled, dark as

the well

the stairs went down. “All telling travellers' tales—he he! Monstrous adventures to light up a princess' eyes and

awe

a poor old landlubber king. It'll be like old times!” He peered, smiling, at Jason's back. “You'll come,

I hope?”

Jason turned from the window, eyes fixed on Ipnolebes'

beard.

“I'll help you down. The stairs are steep.” He came

and touched

the slave's arm and carefully took his weight. “You'll

come,”

Ipnolebes said, and smiled. Lord Jason nodded, the

barest

flick. “Perhaps.” His eyes did not follow the black-robed

slave

to the gate. The street went dark for an instant; a

whisper of wind.

Medeia, standing in the garden with folded hands,

looked up

and winced. Take care, Hera,” she whispered. She

called the children,

pale eyes still on the sky. “I know your game, goddess.”

On a hill, late that night, in the windswept temple

of Apollo

ringed by towering sentry stones, immemorial keys of a vast and powerful astrolabe, stern heaven-watcher, Jason stood, black-caped. On a gray stone bench nearby a blind man sat, at times a reader of oracles and soothsayer, at times a man of silence. Corinth glittered below like a case of lighted jewels falling tier by tier to the sea. The palace, high and wide, like a jewelled crown at the center of the vast display,

shone

like polished ivory. The harbor was light as dawn

with sails,

the ships of the visiting sea-kings.

“I know pretty well what he's up to,”

Jason said. “Better than he knows himself, perhaps.” The seer was silent, leaning on the staff of come! wood that served as his eyes. Whether or not he was listening, no one could say. Visions had made his face unearthly, stern cliffs, crags, the pigment blackened as if by fire, the thick lips parched. He was one of those from the

fallen city

of dark-skinned Thebes, old Kadmos' city: the seer

Teiresias

who learned all the mystery of birth and death when

he saw, with the eyes

of a visionary, the coupling of deadly snakes. Men said he paid in sorrows. Heros Dionysos—majestic lord of the dead, son of Hades, snatched at birth from his

mother's pyre—

sent curses from under the ground to the man who

had seen things forbidden:

changed Teiresias to a woman for a time, and for

seven generations

refused him the soothing cup, sweet sleep of death. He

was now

in his last age. Jason turned to him, not to see him but to keep from looking at the palace. He began to

pace, frowning,

bringing his words out with difficulty, by violence of will. “I'd win his prize. Terrific match, he'd think. Bold Jason, pilot of the mighty
Argo,
snatcher of the fleece,

et cetera …

I could do it. Oh, I'm no Telamon, no Orpheus; but I'd serve old Kreon better than he dreams. These

are stupid times,

intermixed bombast and bullshit whipped to a fine fizz. I may be a better man to ride them out than those I thought my betters once, my glorious Argonauts. I never lullabyed bawling seas with my harp, like soft-eyed Orpheus, or tore down walls with my bare hands like Herakles. But I've survived my glittering friends—

survived

their finest. Favored by the gods, as they say— Not

that I asked

for that. I no more trust the generosity of gods than I do that of men. I've seen how they

twist and turn,

full of ambiguous promises, sly double dealings.

They offer

power, then blast you with a lightning-bolt. Or if gods

are honest,

as maybe they are, their honesty's filtered by priests

and magicians

who may or may not be frauds. How can man trust

anything, then,

beyond his own poor fallible reason? I keep an eye out, keep my wits. If the gods are with me, good. If not, I stumble on. I play the chancy world like a harp tuned by a half-mad satyr on a foreign isle, finding its secrets out by feel. If the music's fierce and strange— kinsmen murdered, in my bed a woman from the

barbarous rim

of the world—don't think I pause, draw back from

the instrument

in horror, shame. I play on, not lifting an eyebrow, fleeing from resolution to resolution.

“So now

I might play Kreon's lust. —Mine too, Medeia would say. I could smile, ignore her. I've bent too much to that

hurricane.

Whose work but hers that I find myself where I am?—

great hero,

homeless, hopeless, my towering city in chaos, her