Jason and Medeia (47 page)

white-faced with agony,

her corpse-pale fingers locked and her green eyes

glittering, ferocious.

At times in the dead of night she would rise and leave

our bed

and, passing silent as a ghost beyond the outer walls, hooded, a dark scarf hiding her face, she would search

the lanes

and gulleys of Argos for medicinal herbs—mecop and

marigold,

the coriander of incantation, purifying hyssop, hellebore, nightshade, the fennel that serpents use to

clear

their sight, and the queer plant borametz, that eats the

grass

surrounding it, and gale, and knotgrass … I began to

hear

reports of strange goings-on—a slain black calf in a

barrow

high in the hills; a grave molested; a visitation of frogs in the temple of Persephone. I kept my peace, watching and waiting. At times when I heard her

footfall, quiet

as a feather dropping, and a moment later the closing

of a door,

a whisper of wind, I would rise up quickly and follow

her.

She led me through fields—a dark, hunched spectre

in the moonless night—

led me down banks of creeks that she dared not cross,

through groves

of sacred willows as ancient and quiet as the stones of

abandoned

towns, then up to the hills, old mountains of the turtle

people

who cowered under backs of bone as they watched her

pass. She came

to a wide circle of stone, an ancient table of Hekate.

There she would slaughter a rat, a toad, a stolen goat, singing to the goddess in a strange modality,

older than Kolchis' endless steppes,

and dropping her robe, her pale face lit by pain, she

would dance,

squeezing the blood of the beast on her breasts and

belly and thighs,

and her feet on the table of stone would slide on the

warm new blood

till the last undulation of the writhing dance. Then

she'd lie still,

like a bloodstained corpse, till the first frail haze of

dawn. Then flee

for home. She'd find me waiting in the bed. She

suspected nothing.

Little as I'd slept, I'd awaken refreshed,

would plunge into work as I did in the days when the

Argo's
beams

groaned at the hammering of waves or shuddered at the

blow of sunken

rocks. Pelias, weeping on the pillow, would stutter the

fruit

of his senility, clinging to my hand. “Beware of

puh-pride, my son.

My suh-son, beware of offending the g-g-g-gods.' His

daughters'

heads hung pale as cornflowers; their pastel scarves fluttered in the flimsy wind of their love and awe. I

could bow

and smile, unoffended, as alive in the stink of his

sickness as I was

in the field of Aietes' bulls.

   “On other occasions, when she left to haunt the wilderness in search of some cure for her

malady,

I rose up, silent, and walked to the chamber of a certain

Slave

and slipped into bed beside her, my hand on her mouth.

I did not

love her, make no mistake, a cowering, mouse-shy

creature

as repulsive to me as Pelias was in his feeblest moods.

But I'd lie beside her, exploring the curves of her body

with my hands,

caressing her soft, damp fur, and at last would mount

and pierce her,

twist and stab till she cried out in pain and fright. Again and again, through the long still night I'd use her,

driving like a horse;

she'd weep—once dared like a fool to strike me. I

laughed. When dawn

crept near, I'd return to my own room, and when

Medeia came,

slyly I would make love to her. We'd awaken refreshed, rejuvenated. The slave soon came to expect my visits, came to take pleasure in my violent lust. Though

cowardly as ever—

hang-dog, feather-voiced, as stooped of shoulder as

Pelias at his most

obsequious—she began to throw me sidelong glances, for all the world like a litter-runt bitch in heat. When

she found me

alone in a room, she would come to me softly,

seductively touch

my arm, impose her scent on me. Sometimes even when Medeia was near, whose eyes missed nothing,

the wretched slave

would call to me down the room with her foxy eyes.

I gave

her warning. I was not eager to lose her—those great

fat breasts

dangling above me, glowing in the moonless night. She

refused

to hear. I gave commands; she vanished. I waited for

remorse;

it failed to arrive. I felt, if anything, nobler, more alive than before. I soon took other women,

choosing—from slaves, from noblemen's wives—more

carefully,

women of taste and discretion. Even so, Medeia learned; flashed like a dragon, an electric storm. I pretended to

end

such pleasures. But I'd grown addicted, in fact. I'd

learned the secret

of godhood. In lust alone is mankind limitless, as vast as Zeus. Who hasn't hungered to live all lives, pierce the secrets of the swan, the bull, the king, the

captive,

close all infinite space in his arms? Such was my desire, my absolute of hunger. I remembered the Sirens' song.

   “Meanwhile, word got abroad that Medeia had curious

powers.

I'd known, of course, it was only a matter of time.

Who learned

her secret first, I have no idea. She had visitors, impotent old men, young women with barren wombs.

They'd arrive

at the palace on flimsy pretexts, would tour, do the

honors to Pelias,

and eventually vanish with Medeia. I did not comment

on it,

though I knew in my bones we were moving toward

dangerous waters.

   “I had at this time troubles more immediate. Our land

has been

divided since time began by the sacred Anauros River. In certain seasons a man or a team of oxen could ford it, but whenever the river was in spate, the kingdom

became, in effect,

twin kingdoms: if the people were starving on one side,

and corn and cattle

were plentiful over the opposite bank, the starving died while the oversupply of their immediate neighbors

corrupted. Old Argus,

at a word from me, had solved that problem, and in

the same stroke

transformed the very idea of the river. He would cut

a wide channel

where ships could pass, carrying the crops of the

midland to the sea

and foreign goods inland. So that men could cross it,

in any season,

he'd devised, with the help of Athena, the plan of an

ingenious bridge

that could span the torrent yet swing, by the force of

enormous sails

and waterwheels, so that even the loftiest vessel

might pass.

I had no doubt the assembly would quickly agree.

   “By some cruel warp of fate, Pelias appeared at the assembly on the day the plan was first introduced. Who can say what

crackpot fears

assailed the man? Mixed-up memories of the oracle, which involved the river, or his well-known grudge

against all things daring—

the fear that had driven him to tear down Hera's

images once,

his coward's terror of acts of will … Whatever

the reason,

he opposed me. He shook like a tree in high wind.

He cajoled, whined, whimpered.

Now ashen, now scarlet, he appealed to the gods, the

fitness of things,

to tradition, to unborn generations, to all-hallowed

patriotism.

I was stunned, furious. I came close to telling him the

truth: he ruled

by my sufferance. When he tipped his head at me,

pitiful, appealing for tolerance

of an old man's harmless whim, my rage grew

dangerous

I could feel the muscles of my cheek jerking. I hid them.

behind

my hands, pretending to consider his words, and by

force of will

as great as I'd used when I talked with Aietes, Lord

of the Bulls,

I closed the assembly for the day. We would speak of

the matter again.

   “That night, standing by the balustrade, I thought

about murder,

my heart bubbling like a cauldron. My wrath was

absurd, of course.

I would win. I had no doubt of that. But the wrath was

there.

I did not hide it—least of all from Medeia. I half resolved in my mind to depose the old man at once,

without talk

or ritual. But in the end, I fought him on the floor of

the assembly,

as usual, polite, eternally reasonable, revealing my anger to no one, or no one but Medeia.

That was

my error, of course. The lady of spells had schemes

afoot.

   “It seems the old man's daughters had learned

of Medeia's skill

and had come to her. Pitifully, timid heads hanging,

eyes streaming,

their long white fingers interlaced in lament, they

begged for her help.

They spoke of the figure their father cut once—how all

Akhaia

had honored him—and how, now, crushed by tragic

senescence,

he was less than a shadow of his former self. The eldest

wept,

grovelling, reaching to Medeia's knees. ‘O Queen,' she

wailed,

‘child of Helios, to whom all the secrets of death and

life

are plain as the seasons to the rest of us, have mercy on

Pelias!

We have heard it said that by your command old trees

that bear

no fruit can be given such vigor of youth that their

boughs are weighted

to the ground again. If there's any syllable of truth in

that,

and if what you do for trees you can do for a man, then

think

of the shame and sorrow of Pelias, once so noble!

Whatever

you ask for this great kindness we'll gladly pay. Though

not

as wealthy as those you may once have known in

gold-rich Kolchis,

with its floors of mirroring brass, we three are

princesses

as rich as any in Akhaia, and gladly we'll pay all we

have

for love of our heart's first treasure.' Medeia was pale

and trembling.

They could hardly guess, if they saw, her reason. She

rose without a word

and crossed to the window and the night. They waited.

The thing they asked

was not beyond her power. Nor was it beyond the

power

of another talented witch, should she refuse. She

breathed

with difficulty. The daughters of Pelias stretched their

arms

beseeching her mercy. The youngest ran to her and

kneeled beside her

clasping her knees. ‘Have pity, Medeia.' The queen stood

rigid.

Her head was on fire; familiar pain groped upward

from her knees.

At last she whispered,' I must think. Return to me

tomorrow night.'

And so they left her. She threw herself on the bed

headlong,

blinded, tied up in knots of pain. She wept for Apsyrtus, for Kolchis, for her long-lost handmaidens. She wept

for the child

betrayed by the goddess of love to a land of foreigners. She slept, and an evil dream reached her.

   “The following night when the daughters of Pelias returned to her, she

promised to help them.

They'd need great courage, she said, for the remedy was

dire. They promised.

She gave them herbs and secret incantations. When

the foolish princesses

left her room, she crept, violently ill, from the palace and fled to the mountains, her teeth chattering, her

muscles convulsing.

Vomiting, moaning, breathing in loud and painful

gasps,

she crawled to the old stone table of Hekate and danced

the spell

of expiation for betrayal of the witch's art.

   “On the night of Pelias' birthday, the palace was a-glitter with

torches, and all

the noblest lords of Argos were present for the annual

feast.

The old man kept himself hidden—some senile whim,

we thought,

and thought no more about it, believing he'd appear, in

time.

There were whispers of a great surprise in the offing.

We laughed and waited.

We gathered in the gleaming, broad-beamed hall, lords and ladies in glittering attire, Medeia beside me, wan, shuddering with chills, yet strangely beautiful. I

remembered

the glory of Aietes as first I saw him, and the dangerous

beauty

of Circe, with her green-gold eyes. Then a nimble of

kettledrums,

the jangle of klaxons and warbling pipes, and like lions

tumbling

from their wooden chutes, in came the slaveboys bearing

trays—

great boats of boar, huge platters of duckling and

pheasant and swan—

a magnificent tribute to Pelias' glory and the love of

his people.

Trays came loaded with stews and sauces, white with

steamclouds,

and trays filled with ambled meat. Then came—the

princesses rose—

the crowning dish, a silver pancheon containing, we

found

when we tasted it, a meat so exotic no man in the

palace,

whatever his learning or travels, would dare put a

name on it.

We dined and drank new wine till the first light of