Jason and the Argonauts (4 page)

I watched for him to surface. Finally he did—closer to shore. He waded in. I knew he had to be Jason. My father had wrung my heart, describing his beauty.

“Greetings,” he said.

“Greetings, Jason. I am Ekion, a herald by trade. May I know why you choose such a dreadful patch of sea?”

“Best place for diving.”

“With those rocks?”

“You see, this is the highest cliff. The farther I fall, the more it is like flying.”

“Speaking of that, where’s your flying nursemaid? I heard tales of a hag on a snake?”

“She doesn’t actually fly herself, you see, but astride an anaconda. Well, he’s as greedy as she is and ate a goat without peeling it. So she’s off to Libya to get another.”

“Choked on a horn, did he?”

“Yes, poor thing. I couldn’t pull it out. But, you know, it’s ridiculous that we can’t fly. Don’t you agree? The stupidest birds can. And ugly old witches. All sorts of bugs. But not us.”

“My father can.”

He stared at me silently.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Does he have wings?”

“Ankle wings.
Talaria,
they’re called.”

“Where did he get them?”

“Always had them. He’s a god. Hermes.”

“Does he wear a pot-shaped hat?”

“He does.”

“Carry a staff like yours?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I was in a fight and got knocked on the head. And as I lay there, it seemed that this silvery god lifted me into the air and flew me to the other side of the island. Does he take you flying?”

“All the time.” I had to hate him. My father never took me flying.

“Tell more lies,” he said.

“I won’t tell you anything if you call me a liar.”

“Prove it’s the truth. Make your father lend you his ankle wings, then lend them to me.” He put his hand on my shoulder. His touch burned down to the bone. He smiled into my face. His eyes were like molten silver. His whole face became a blur of brightness. The bronze shield of his chest was burnished with light. I moved away. “Well,” he said. “Shall we journey to Olympus and visit your lord father, and ask him to lend us his wings? Or will he come to us if you call?”

“He has taught me a few things,” I said. “I can cast you into a sleep and make you dream you’re flying. A vivid dream, almost like the real thing.”

“I don’t like almosts. I like more thans.”

“Don’t belittle what you have not known. It is of the gods, this visionary flight. Perhaps it is their way of teaching.”

He stared at me. Oh, it was painful to meet the fierce purity of that gaze.

“Come, little herald,” he said softly. “Do your trick.”

I made a fire of twigs and sat him beside it. I dropped my handful of slumberous herbs into the flame and fanned the thin smoke toward him. His eyes closed.

I took the shavings of ram’s horn from my pouch and dropped them on the fire. The pale flames turned gold and twisted themselves into horns. Jason muttered, uttered a strangled laugh. He was smiling as he slept.

After a bit, I took the sprigs of withered barley and threw them on the fire. The horns of flame dwindled, turned red, and burned sullenly. Jason moaned and trembled. I let him stew in the bitter lees of the vision, then emptied my pouch on the fire, dropping in the six bristles from the beard of Pelius.

The sleeper was angry now. His brows were knotted, his fingers scrabbling at the earth. He shouted something. I saw his eyelids quivering. I dipped water from the stream and doused the fire.

He opened his eyes, blinked, rubbed his head, spat. Then he flowed to his feet and crossed the clearing to the stream. He knelt and drank huge gulps. He plunged his head in, pulled it out, dripping. He glared at me.

“Who are you?”

“Still me. Ekion.”

“Why have you come?”

“To plant a dream.”

“It was a vision of horror. There was a drought on the land. Nothing green anywhere. People dying of thirst. And children and animals. Why did you make me dream that?”

“To show you what is to be. A drought is coming. The land shall sicken, its juices dry. Animals shall parch and die, wild animals and herds of cattle. And so people shall starve.”

“When is this to happen?”

“That depends on you.”

“On me?”

“You are a healer; you push back the hour of death.”

“I can’t cure a drought.”

“Your dream showed you to yourself as rainmaker also.”

“Who are you?”

“Perhaps I’m part of your dream?”

“No, I’m awake. You’re real.”

“The threat of drought is real, too. And it is your own kingdom that shall be worst stricken.”

“My kingdom?”

“You know, do you not, that you are the rightful king of Iolcus?”

“So I have been told.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Kings rule. Do I?”

“Hearken, Prince, your life is about to change. I have been sent to you. You are to come back to the mainland. You shall save your land from drought and your people from starvation. You shall overcome your enemies and reclaim your throne.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea how to do any of these things.”

“All you have to do is the first thing; the rest will follow.”

“What is the first thing?”

“To make rain.”

“That’s all, eh?”

“Rainmaking on a royal scale, cousin. Not just whistling up a few showers, or clacking the thunder bones for a season’s moisture. I mean possessing yourself of a powerful magic that will bind the moon and swing the tides and roll up thirsty clouds to suck up the sea and spew it out as sweet abundant rain. I mean that you shall sit upon the throne of Iolcus wearing the pelt of the great golden ram—in whose fleece abides the strength to overturn the fountains of heaven and make the parched earth turn green, year after year after year.”

“You did manipulate my vision. I rode a great golden ram. He had no wings but galloped through the air. The sky was purple-black, and there was lightning and thunder.”

“That vision is a message from the gods and a call to action.”

“Do you speak for the gods?”

“I have been sent to make their will known. You must come to Iolcus.”

“How did you get here?” asked Jason. “Waist-deep in squid. I hired a fishing smack.”

“Send it back for me in three days.”

E
KION

T
HE KING WADDLED
into the council chamber, brimming with glee. He informed us that a young stranger had been captured on the northern shore and had calmly introduced himself to the spearmen as Diomedes III, otherwise known as Jason, their rightful king. Then Pelius told us what he meant to do with the prisoner.

Now, Pelius had simplified his penal system by abolishing trials. Accusation meant guilt; guilt meant death. Some few escaped beheading—those whom the king especially disliked and whom he wished to use for demonstrating the consequences of royal disfavor. These unlucky ones were locked in a wheeled cage that was dragged from village to village. Spectators were encouraged to prod the caged wretches with long poles, throw lighted torches through the bars, and otherwise torment them. But the ordeal didn’t last long; no one survived more than a few days in a cage.

And it was into a cage that Jason was to go, the king informed us. If he happened to last more than a week, he was to be beheaded, his head stuck on a pole and paraded through the villages he had not visited.

The courtiers cheered and applauded. The king dismissed the council, bidding me stay. I stood before him as he overflowed the massive wooden throne that was his council seat.

“You were silent while the others were cheering,” he said. “Do you dare to disapprove?”

“Zeal in your service, O King, outweighs any thought of risk.”

“Bah—just what do you disapprove of?”

“You mean to exhibit this prince to the populace, which may well excite the very ideas you seek to discourage.”

“How so?”

“This youth is some hundred pounds lighter than the ideal king should be, perhaps, and altogether lacks the majestic presence exhibited by Your Majesty. Nevertheless, we must never underestimate popular taste. There may be those who will be moved by the sight of him.”

“What are you saying—they’ll think he’s good-looking?”

“Possibly … particularly women, who are more prone to frivolous judgment in such matters, and who are more passionate troublemakers when aroused.”

“Will you stop talking in that serpentine way, and tell me straight. You are saying it’s a bad idea to cart him around in a cage because he may stir up sympathy?”

“A masterful conclusion, my lord.”

“So what shall I do with him—just lop off his head?”

“If I may venture to suggest, I would do nothing until tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow? Why not today?”

“The gods who test a king with difficult choices also invest him with the wit to choose. Very often the gods reveal their will to the kings of earth by sending those night visions called dreams. As a son of Hermes, I have been given special insight into these matters and hereby predict that this very night you will be sent such a dream.”

“Till tomorrow, then, and it may be your last morrow if you’re as wrong as I think you are.”

“Sleep soft, Your Majesty.”

That night I slithered into the king’s chamber.

A torch burned in a sconce on the wall, for the king feared assassins. I merged with the shadows. I dusted dry herbs into the torch flame and fanned the aromatic smoke toward the bed. His huge bulk quivered. He flung out an arm, gritted his teeth, mumbled wetly.

I slipped out and went to my own bed.

In the morning, a page summoned me to the royal garden. The king sat on a bench looking unusually yellow; his eyes were pouched in sagging flesh.

He said, “I had a dream all right, but I don’t know its meaning.”

“Shall I try to find one?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That would make interpretation difficult.”

“It’s too disgusting.”

“In these readings, my lord, every detail is significant. And since royal dreams are sent by the high gods themselves, we cannot risk misinterpretation. I think that, once you begin, you will find the terror and disgust ebbing. And when we have unraveled this message from the gods, you will be able to take the bold, decisive action that has become the hallmark of your reign.”

“You’re an eloquent little viper, aren’t you?”

And he told me his dream exactly as I had planted it in his lardy skull.

I listened intently as he told me what I knew. I watched his face growing yellower. I was fascinated by the way the sweat was channeled in the creases between his chins.

“Well,” he growled, “stop staring at me like an idiot and answer me.”

I said, “This dream is undoubtedly a message from the gods and is one of warning.”

“That much I know. What am I being warned about?”

“The young prisoner, of course. It is the will of the gods that his life be spared. You are not to put him in a cage, nor cut his head off, nor harm him in any way.”

“What do these gods of yours suggest that I do—put my crown on his head with my own hands, then make him really comfortable by slitting my own throat?”

“They would have you contrive his death in a way that will show you as a savior rather than a tyrant.”

“How is that possible?”

“You dreamed of drought, did you not? You saw the sky burning, rivers dry, crops scorched, cattle dying.”

“Yes.”

“That drought is coming. It will strike all the lands of the Middle Sea; they will lie helpless under its burning whip. Only one king in this part of the world shall be given the power to make rain and turn the parched fields green again. That king will be you, if you obey the gods. You have heard of the Golden Fleece?”

“That relic the priests are always yapping about?”

“You speak of it slightingly, sire, but it was the King of Heaven’s own garment and enables its wearer to call rain out of a dry sky. It comes from here, from Iolcus, you know. It adorned the statue of thunder-wielding Zeus in the Temple on the Hill—until some three hundred years ago, when it was stolen by a raiding party from Colchis, where it has been kept ever since.”

“And we haven’t lacked rain in all those three hundred years.”

“The weather is about to change, Your Majesty. God-time is not our time; things ripen slowly in the heavens. Now the High Ones decree drought but have promised the power of the Ram to whoever wears its pelt, and that is the power to make rain.”

“You speak as if all this were something new. But for six generations now, one crew after another of ne’er-do-wells and criminals on the run have been tapping the treasuries of gullible kings—fitting out ships and sailing away to retake the Fleece. And none of them ever did. They got themselves killed in various ways, or turned pirate or something, but the famous Fleece stayed where it was.”

“Yes, sire. And what you are being promised is that Jason also will perish on this quest.”

“I can arrange for him to perish right here today and spare myself the expense of ship and crew.”

“You ignore the meaning of your dream, O King. The gods want you to send Jason for the Fleece. They promise he will not return, but the Fleece will. And you shall wear it and end the drought—and be so idolized by your people that you will be able to mistreat them to your heart’s content and arouse no whisper of complaint.”

“I’ll give in on one point,” he said. “I won’t put him in a cage. His presumptuous head shall be quietly separated from his shoulders and flung on the dung heap. That will end the legend of the lost prince.”

I spoke silently to my father. “Oh, Hermes, the king is stubborn. Send him a sign, I pray.”

I heard the king clapping for a page boy. The lad came running. “Fetch wine,” said the king. Then he turned to me. “All this theology makes me thirsty.”

The page appeared with two crystal flagons of wine. The king seized his goblet and raised it to his mouth. I was amazed to see the wine shrink away from his lips. He stared into his goblet in disbelief.

“Did you see that?” he muttered. “How’s yours, still full?”

I sipped a bit. “Seems all right,” I said.