Medea (45 page)

'They are stored with enough seed to make their own husbands in future,' I commented, filling my wine cup again.

'And how are matters in Corinth?' he asked.

'Jason is king and the lady Medea queen,' I said carefully. 'Most of the business of the kingdom is done by Creon, the king's adviser. It is by his order that interpreters should attend the docks to translate for the traders, and I am one of them. Teach me some of that strange language, Philammon. I never heard it before, and I thought I had heard all the tongues of men in Ocean.'

'There you ask me a difficult favour, for that tongue took me a ship-wrecked year to learn, and even now I speak it very imperfectly,' grinned the bard. He looked older. There were faint strands of grey in his coppery hair, and more lines on his face. But he was alert, alive; Philammon was always more alive than other people. He was drinking in the dockside scene with delight - the arguments of the merchants; a sailor asleep on a prow; a trio of small boys racing the length of the quay, attended by barking dogs; the fishermen coming ashore with the catch and loading it into the baskets of the strong, flat-footed women. I had never lost my love of waterfronts, and now I saw it afresh as the bard saw it: exotic and fascinating, smelling of salt and fish and essence of roses.

The trader had filled his little boat with huge bronze pots and ingots of gold and silver. He had almost vanished under the necklaces, arm bands, rings and belts which the merchants of Corinth had loaded onto him. He grinned at Philammon and waved a jingling, blue-tattooed arm.

Then he leapt into his boat, heaved in after him three water-skins and a basket of bread, dried fish and honeycomb, and set the small sail. It was scarcely larger than a tunic. I was envious and admiring. He had travelled from beyond the north wind to find this port, and now he was going home. I came back to what Philammon was saying.

'And Herakles is married.'

I sat up straight, spilling my wine. 'Herakles? Where is he?'

'In Athens, of course. You know, Athens, little town up from the Isthmus. He has taken the maiden Deianeira to wife. He promised her uncle, they say, when he met him in the underworld. He is cured of battle fury by the Princess Medea's potion, or so he says.'

'Herakles alive?' I wondered.

'Certainly alive, though ageing. Even heroes age. I do not like that wife, Nauplios. She has no more sense than would incommode a dormouse. The wife of Herakles needs her wits about her, and Deianeira has no wits whatsoever. What is it?'

I had sprung to my feet. I had sat in this port too long, getting soft, longing and yearning for something I could never have. I had not touched an oar in years and my hands were unmarked.
Argo
was pulled up on the beach. Jason had sent for her and set her there as a monument to his voyage. But I would not need her. My own father's boat,
Good Catch
, was well cared for - out of filial duty, I always told myself.

'I'm leaving,' I told the bard. He did not seem disconcerted, nor even surprised, but it is very hard to surprise a bard.

'Where?'

'Athens, perhaps,' I said. 'But in any case, away from Corinth.'

 

I had survived the birth of my first child, my little son. Jason had been pleased with him. The training of Hekate's priestess held during my long travail. The revenge of the goddess, I was sure, made my agony protracted.

Clytie stayed with me, her husband Sisyphos resigning her to the care of the palace, though she went home to him occasionally. She was fiercely devoted to me and to my children, and I had not deserved her. Every time I heard her harsh voice comforting a child or felt her roughened hand take mine as I was confined again, I blessed whichever god had sent her to me.

I saw Jason infrequently. He did not sleep in my bed after the first year. But he seemed pleased with me. I had abandoned home and lordship and goddess to follow this beautiful Achaean; and he was still beautiful to me.

I sacrificed to Aphrodite with him and he pleased me, but it seemed that every time I lay with him I conceived. Then I was always sick, though my body had to some extent become used to pregnancy. And I was trapped. By my body, by my children, by my own choice. And life went on. I had made my choice. I tried not to regret it.

The routine of the palace was as set as any religious ritual. At dawn we roused, washed, and ate a light meal of bread and fruit. Then all the children were woken and washed - although few of the children showed any signs of wanting to sleep through until someone came to wake them, except Eiropis and Alcimedes, the twins. They clung to Morpheus as though he was their father; while Mermerus, my other son, was always awake, not noisy or demanding, but open-eyed on a world he found endlessly interesting. He was always bringing me small discoveries. That water flowed downhill, for instance, or that Kore had two teeth longer than the others, or, memorably, that the bright red coals in a brazier bit the questing finger.

My first-born, Polyxenos, was gone, given away to the centaurs. I dreamed of him sometimes, wondering if he was cold or lost, wondering if he missed his nurse or me. He had been a strong child. The Nubian had complained that he clamped onto her nipple as though they were edible, and she named him 'little Herakles' in memory of the hero, who had bitten the breast of the queen of the gods. When he would have been three, they told me he had died; and I wept, as women weep.

Then we wove or spun, talking as women do. Clytie had no skill at spinning. She had, however, a fund of scandalous stories about Corinth. I think she derived a lot of information from her friends among the kitchen slaves, who had a healthy respect for her. No one crossed Clytie. She was not afraid of anyone, not even Creon.

Meroe, Creon's wife, visited every day and we sat giggling at Clytie's mimicry of him, the rolling seaman's walk, the shrug of the bear-like shoulders, the growl of his deep voice saying, 'Trade is the life-blood of Corinth.'

Meroe was content in her servitude, but I never was. I could not stop remembering the world. Achaean women are secluded, which means that they are imprisoned. I could not walk down to the dockside and talk to the mariners, not even in company with Clytie. I could not move out of my own palace without a veil lest men should lust after my beauty and steal me.

I could go to the temple of the Mother and pray for fertility, but only with an escort of women and guards. I was seen in public only as consort of the king and only at the four ceremonies of the year, in which I had no part but to stand and drop a pinch of incense into the flame on the Akrocorinth, representing the prayers of the women and children and slaves; the powerless of Corinth.

I owned nothing except at the gift of my lord. I breathed by his permission. The jewellery which weighted my neck and wrists and fingers was his. My service was his, and my children were his.

 

This had been made clear to me when they came to take Polyxenos to the centaurs. I was sitting by a brazier, listening to a slave sing to the lyre the tale of Kadmon and Omonia, when Jason entered and all my women scattered like sparks before a gale. Only Clytie stayed, standing by the wall. Jason did not notice her.

'Lady, I would see my son,' he said, and Clytie went to fetch him, carrying him back screaming under her arm. He had been put down to play in the courtyard, and his face was dirty. I wiped it with a cloth, brushing his tunic down. He screwed up his face as I tried to remove mud from his cheek.

'Lady, my son goes this night to Cheiron, to be taught by the centaurs.'

'But my lord,' I said, surprised, 'He is too young! He has just left the breast. He can't speak yet, and he's only just walking. You cannot take him away from me yet.'

'Lady,' said Jason. 'He is my son, and I say he will go to Cheiron. The bearers wait, and his nurse will travel with him until he is settled on the mountain.'

'Jason, please,' I said, a sense of my own powerlessness washing over me. 'Not yet. He is too small.'

Polyxenos, divining that something was amiss, threw both arms around my neck and started to cry. I can still feel that strong clasp, the child collapsing into sobs and the heave of his small ribs, and the despair which embittered my heart as Jason coldly undid the fingers of his son and handed him to the Nubian.

'This is Creon's idea, is it not?' I cried, stroking the child's head. 'There, my son, there, be brave.' He was too young to understand words, but he knew that something was wrong and cried harder, his face streaked with tears. The black woman looked at me sympathetically, but she had no choice and neither did I.

Jason was offended. 'It is my idea,' he emphasised. 'And you will do as I say, wife.'

They took my little son away, and I did nothing. I stood in the middle of the room, tearing the handkerchief to pieces, until Clytie made me sit down.

'Men,' she spat into the fire. 'The gods must have been drunk when they gave men the ruling of the world.'

 

We slept in the hot afternoon, then dined at night. Then we were called, perhaps, to our lords to serve their pleasure, and then we were free to sleep. Life fell into seasonal rhythms. Only the food changed, fruit in autumn and dried meat in winter, and each year there was a new child.

I had never been fond of children, but my own were marvellous to me. I bore them in great pain, but when the small, red-faced creature was laid on my breast I felt such a gush of love for this new little animal born into the world, that I did not really notice that my lord's heart was turning from me.

It was clear to me that the real ruler of Corinth was Creon, the bear. Jason had no real power. The women said he had given a few orders in his first week, which were studiously not obeyed, and after that he had been careful not to ask for anything which might be refused. He had respect and the trappings of lordship; he had the title of king of Corinth, and that was all.

But he seemed happy with that, and compared to the lot of most women, I was fortunate. My lord did not beat me, though whenever we argued he taunted me with being a foreigner, a barbarian, a witch of Colchis and a murderer. It always ended with him flinging off into the palace to seek better company amongst the slaves; while I lay with tears soaking my pillow, though what he said was utterly true. I was a witch, a foreigner, a barbarian and a murderer. Pelias was dead, and my brother Aegialeus, and Korinthos' funeral pyre was long in ashes. But I was also the faithful mother of his children, and they were strong and fine.

The nurse brought them to me every morning. The twins, whose birth had so nearly been fatal that Clytie had ordered my lord to give me a year's respite from his potency, were rising two and curious and bold. There was nothing which had not been examined when they found that a terracotta cup would not endure being dropped to a tiled floor, and had howled over the shards, trying to put them together again.

Mermerus, leaning on my knee, had announced in a superior tone, 'You can't heal a wine cup, it isn't alive. Only live things can heal.'

He was correct, my small son. Only live things can heal. Dead things - lost worship, lost faith, lost lives - cannot be amended.

Eiropis and Alcimedes were inseparable. They screamed when a nurse tried to lay them apart when they were so newborn that the grease and blood were still slicking their bodies, and no one had ever succeeded in parting them. There would be trouble, I envisaged, when they grew up, for Eiropis was destined for the life of an Achaean maiden, and Alcimedes would have to go out in the world. I felt pity for my daughter every time I looked at her. She was so brave - when Scylla, teased beyond endurance, nipped her, she did not even cry - and her courage would be required to live her mother's life. But it would be easier on her, because she had known no other.

Her mother had sailed far seas and walked as Hekate's maiden through free streets, talked with kings, sat unafraid in the dark caverns under the earth. I had looked into the face of death and knew her as a sister. But I needed all my hard-won discipline to reconcile myself to being shut inside all the time.

Sometimes I forgot that I was queen of Corinth and woke thinking that I would walk down to the market-place or into the woods. I could have wept when I came back to knowledge of my position. Sometimes I dreamed, vivid dreams, of Ophis and the grove, of Trioda and Tyche and the Scyths. One night I was convinced that I lay again in Anemone's wagon, listening to the noises of the camp, and Clytie caught me weeping as I dragged myself out of bed.

'You fret, Lady,' she observed.

'I fret,' I admitted. 'I feel like a caged bird. I would cry to the market-place, "I cannot get out". But I have made my choice,' I sighed, donning my purple gown.

She did not reply, but patted my shoulder.

The women of the Corinthian court were no companions for me, and I scared them. They were continuously, endlessly concerned with gossip, small doings in kitchen and yard. They were envious of each other, not sisterly; one's good fortune made the others attack her mercilessly when she was not there. What they said about me I could guess: barbarian and witch. But I used no skills or spells, though there was a constant demand for love-potions and poisons. Some of them had a devotion to my own goddess, Hekate, but they knew little of her, using the Dark Mother only to attempt curses on a rival in love.

But I had seen things which they could not imagine. Once I spoke of the wide sea, and the Argonauts rowing, and the island of the bronze giant, and they gaped, then commented that it must have been terrible to be looked at by so many men. One coyly asked me how many of the Argonauts I had lain with, and whether my lord measured well against such legendary lovers as Oileus and Telamon. I did not tell them any more about the outside world after that. They did not want to know about it, and I tired of their chatter just as quickly as they tired of my stories.

But my children loved me, and I loved them. Meroe's daughter, Creusa, cared for them also. She was a pretty, polite girl, though always reserved with me. She avoided my gaze, and I had heard her calling me 'sorceress', which did not endear her. Clytie disliked her. 'Sly one' she called Creusa. Clytie suspected her of using magic to damage me, delaying my deliveries. But I could stay away from the presence of Meroe and her children and enjoy my own.