Jason and the Argonauts (10 page)

He had been flying over the Middle Sea when he spotted the
Argo
and saw the beautiful naiad frisking about it and had fallen in love with her with all the desperate strength of his nature, which was fire under ice. He did not swoop down. He flew high, watching her. With a sure jealous instinct he guessed that she was following the ship for the sake of one of its crew, and he wanted to know which one. He vowed to himself that once he found out he would simply whisk his rival off the deck and hurl him to the bottom of the sea.

Boreas kept watching. He studied the big blond Twins especially. He studied redheaded Rufus swinging his sledge at his deck anvil; and Autolycus, who walked like a cat and might attract a cat-faced nymph; and iron-fanged Idas, fierce-looking enough to fascinate someone who liked to be frightened. But he took no special notice of Jason, who was one of the youngest aboard and among the smallest.

Then he saw Jason riding atop the mast, saw Lethe flash out of the water and float briefly on her back, hair floating. And he knew whom she wanted.

His gusty roar filled the sky. His black cape spread over the sky as he dived. He no longer wished to drown Jason. He wanted the pleasure of killing him with his hands. He meant to snap the mast in two, then impale him on the splintered end.

But even as he swooped, watching the crew scurry about to drop sail before the approaching squall, he realized that if he killed the boy before the nymph’s eyes, she would never forgive him and never love him. That thought made him postpone the pleasures of murder—but not for long, he vowed. He slowed his dive, leveled off, and swooped away, leaving the sky clear. But he kept following the ship, trying to think of a way to kill Jason without appearing to.

He was still hovering invisibly as the ship moored off a small island and the crew rowed ashore. They filled their water kegs quickly, but couldn’t bear to go aboard so soon. They enjoyed the feeling of land beneath their feet.

They began to play. The Twins sparred. Autolycus tussled with Rufus. Idas stuck a chock of wood on his spike to blunt it, and fenced with Jason, who used a short sword. Ekion walked along the beach with Daphnis. Argos, who never left the ship, was still aboard.

They raced. Autolycus won easily, Jason was second. They unslung their bows and shot at a mark. Jason won, shooting left-handed. They threw spears. Castor and Pollux each won twice. Rufus delighted himself by winning once. Then he produced a discus he had forged. The discus then was a weapon, a solid polished disk of metal with an edge so sharp it could shear through a medium-sized tree. It could slice through the breast armor of a chariot horse and kill the animal in full stride. Because of its sharp circular edge, you had to wear a glove made of oxhide, sewn with linked metal.

As the young men sported in the sunlight, they had an audience of two, though they didn’t know it. Lethe had swum ashore and was hiding in the pure-water stream, watching Jason. But she was aware of the others. It was richly satisfying to see this lithe youth moving among his magnificent shipmates. She could barely stop herself from rushing out of the water to embrace him.

But, Boreas, also, was watching—and growing angrier and more jealous as he watched, feeling himself fill with such gusty spite that he had to clutch the tops of the towering cedars to stop himself from diving upon the island and blowing them all into the sea. When they began throwing the discus, his eyes kindled and an evil smile twisted his lips.

He watched Castor crouching and spinning and uncoiling—his torso gleaming as the heavy discus whirled away from his hand and flew and sheared through a pine tree. Pollux put on the glove, retrieved the discus, crouched and spun, and hurled it exactly as far as his twin had, slicing through a tree exactly as thick.

Rufus put on the glove. All the contestants stood behind the thrower. But Boreas was watching only Jason. An idea had flared suddenly in the cavern of his mind. He studied the forest below until he found a hollow tree and blew softly into its bole, making a moaning sound.

Daphnis looked up, startled. Jason turned completely and searched the forest, trying to see where the sound had come from. Boreas blew again, softly. Again that moaning call. And Boreas didn’t breathe again until he saw Jason, obeying the impulse of leadership, move off from the others and walk across the clearing toward the woods just as Rufus whirled and sent the discus flying through the air.

Boreas, who had been holding his breath, spat it out in a great spiteful gust, catching the discus as it sailed, holding it in a grip of air, and hurling it back straight at Jason’s head.

Lethe screamed, unheard. Everyone stood frozen, watching the glittering death whirl toward the boy—all except Pollux. He leaped into the air, arms outstretched, hands cupped—and fell to earth, spouting blood as the spinning blade passed through flesh and bone and sinew, cutting off both hands at the wrist. For a moment, all froze.

Then it was Jason who became a blur of action, plastering mud on Pollux’s stumps, and tying them off to stop the bleeding. Lethe, watching from the stream, saw how war and war games had honed these young men to move in a cool ballet of efficiency though their hearts were breaking. They brought Pollux gently and swiftly into the skiff, slid it into the surf, and made it fly over the water toward the
Argo.

Lethe floated near, watching. She saw Rufus light the forge fire and heat a sword blade red hot. Jason led Pollux to the anvil. The Spartan, pale and tottering now, but trying to hold himself erect, and clenching his jaws so that he wouldn’t moan, placed his stumps on the anvil. Rufus laid the flat of the red-hot blade on the torn flesh. Boreas, hovering invisibly, snuffed up the smoke as if it were the savor of dinner cooking. For he hated all the crew now, especially this one who had thwarted his attempt to kill Jason. “I’ll get him next time,” he muttered.

Jason was watching Pollux very closely. The stumps had been sealed by fire. But now, the hours after, was the critical time when he might die from shock and blood loss. Castor sat on the deck, pillowing his twin’s head on his lap, stroking his brow. Pollux’s face was white as bone.

Suddenly he spoke—not in his usual rumble but in a small voice, very clear, as if the thoughts were drifting in their purity out of his mouth.

“Lucky day,” he said.

His friends looked at one another swiftly. They thought he was raving. He spoke again: “Idas, Idas, ugly Idas, now I know, meat must go. Spike hands, brass choppers, you’ve shown me something, man. Amputation is opportunity. I’m ready, ready, for retooling. Rufus, my friend, make me a pair of iron hands I can close into iron fists—and do a few other things with.”

Lethe wept as she listened, feeling very odd. Naiads, whose faces are always wet, rarely weep because they can’t taste the tears.

Jason spoke one word: “Rufus.”

Rufus leaped to the top of the anvil. He was naked to the waist and streaked with soot. He had grown since coming to sea. Shoulders and chest bulged massively now under a pelt of red hair. He raised his arms to the sky, and cried, “Great Hephaestus, I call to you! Lend me a spark of your divine fire. Rich you are among the gods, snatching fat marrow from the very bones of earth—copper and tin and good brown iron. Lavish are the gifts you make: magic mirror for your mother, Hera; bracelets and necklaces for beautiful Thetis; a flying ax for Ares. Here today we have seen one mortal more generous than god has ever dared: a man who lives by his hands giving both of them to save his friend—rewarded with agonizing pain, helplessness, perhaps death. You heard what he asks, my lord. Now guide my tools. Teach me to make metal hands, hard for combat, gentle for love.”

Thunder rumbled from a cloudless sky—like sledges pounding a far anvil. Lightning forked, stabbing into the deck hearth, kindling the piled charcoal.

Rufus shouted with joy. He sprang at his heap of metal, plucked out an iron bar, and plunged it into the flame. For the next twelve days and nights he worked ceaselessly at his anvil, needing no sleep, scarcely stopping to eat. A spark of the smith-god’s vital fire had indeed lighted the tinder of his loyal heart, and he was laboring to save his friend. He produced a pair of metal hands. So cunningly did he fashion them, with nerve and ligature and sinew spun from the finest of platinum wire, that they would be able to perform the most delicate of manual tasks as well as the most brutal. When Pollux balled his iron hands into iron fists, there could be no man or demigod to stand against him—for Hercules was dead.

L
ETHE, WHO WAS TOLD
so many secrets because she would immediately forget them, was a favorite at Aphrodite’s court. Most secrets are love secrets and Aphrodite was always bursting with the latest one. So she was glad to greet Lethe.

“How nice to see you, my darling. But you’re not your usual smiling self.”

“I have a question, Queen of the Night.”

“Yes, dear.”

“It’s about Jason the Argonaut. You used to fancy him.”

“Still do.”

“But you want him to marry Medea, it is said.”

“Not to love her, though.”

“Why must they marry, then?”

“To save his life. Unless he comes as Medea’s husband, the king of Colchis will kill him. That’s why I thought of this match. Anyway, it won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“My son Eros, the Archer of Love, refuses to go to Colchis and shoot his arrow as I direct. And Medea simply won’t feel a thing for Jason unless Eros pierces her untried heart with one of his darts.”

“And why won’t he?”

“He’s getting very bratty. Everyone spoils him. He won’t do anything for me unless I bribe him. And I’ve run out of bribes.”

“Shall I try to persuade him? In my own way.”

“But why? What’s your interest in the matter?”

“I’ve glimpsed the
Argo
as I’ve swum the sea. Some of those boys are gorgeous.”

“What! You’ve fallen for Jason, too?”

“Oh no!” cried Lethe, knowing it was better to lie. “Not Jason. But if he’s killed in Colchis, the rest of the crew are doomed. And there’s a pair of twins aboard—”

“Ah yes, the Twins! Which one do you fancy?”

“I don’t know. I’d never be able to remember which is which, anyway. So I’d like to save them both to make sure. Which means saving Jason first. Which means Eros will have to go shoot Medea.”

“Is this my giddy, forgetful Lethe? You’re being so logical.”

“Well, in an emergency. Actually, I like to think now and then. But it’s hard to start. May I go work on your son?”

“Any way you like. And if you get him to do this, I shall be eternally grateful.”

“I may have occasion to remind you of that one day. Farewell.”

She ran off. Aphrodite watched her admiringly. Lethe had long legs and ran very swiftly, yellow hair floating. She was running because she had seen Eros playing in the meadow as she came, and she wanted to catch him.

She found him in the meadow, playing with the latest toy his mother had bribed him with—a round polished sapphire, large as a tennis ball. When tossed in the air, it left a trail of fire, as if it were a piece of broken star. He tossed the sapphire and watched in delight as it branded the air with blue fire, then fell.

It never reached his hand. Another hand, at the end of a long arm, had snatched the gem from the air. Eros looked up and saw a nymph towering above him, pinning his sapphire into her yellow hair.

“Give me that!”

“Hello, Eros.”

“Oh, Lethe, give me my sapphire. I don’t like anyone else playing with it.”

“But it looks so nice in my hair.” She plucked an arrow from his quiver, held it by its point, and swished it through the air.

“What are you doing? Give that back.”

“Oh, you’ll be getting it, never fear.”

Lethe reached her long arm and lifted him like an infant, tucking him under her arm back to front. She struck him a whistling blow with the arrow. He shrieked.

“Stop! Stop! Put me down.”

She sat on a log and stood him on the ground between her knees. “Do you know what I’m probably going to do now?”

“Don’t! Please.”

“Oh, but I probably will. What’s going to happen, most likely, is that I’m going to turn you over my knee and give you the spanking of your life with your own arrow. What you got before was just a taste.”

“No … no …”

“But you deserve it. You’ve been very naughty—disobeying your mother, neglecting your chores. You’re sadly in need of correction.”

“Please let me go, Lethe.”

“Why should I?”

“I’m not to be made to suffer pain, not ever. It’s cosmically incorrect.”

“It is, now?”

“Please … somebody may see us.”

“Everyone will. I’ll call the dryads from the trees and whistle the naiads out of the fountain, and they’ll all come to watch. They’ll enjoy it.”

“Won’t you let me go? What do you want me to do?”

“Obey your mother. Go to Colchis and shoot Medea with one of your arrows, making her fall in love with Jason the Argonaut.”

“All right, I will. Now let me go.”

“Not quite yet. Hold still. I want you to explain something to me. There seem to be two kinds of arrows in your quiver, one kind with golden points, the other with silver.”

“Not silver, that’s lead. They’re the arrows of indifference. Let me go. You’re squeezing the breath out of me.”

“Tell me about the arrows. Slowly and clearly. I’m getting impatient.”

“Well, you know about the golden ones: whoever I shoot with one of those falls in love with someone standing near. But another venom spreads when I pierce someone with the leaden arrow. What fills the heart then is not love, but icy indifference.”

“But you do have different kinds of love arrows for different kinds of love? There is a love that lasts a lifetime, and beyond. There is love that lasts only till dawn. And there is love that changes to hate.”

“All done with the same arrows. But I have different ways of shooting.”

“Aha, I thought so. What I want you to do is this: shoot Medea with a golden arrow and make her love Jason, but with a love that will not last.”