Medea (47 page)

'She Who Meets, Three-Faced One, Black Bitch, hear me,' I said. I smelt blood, my own blood, shed this time in expiation of the murders I had committed and the ones I was intending to commit.

'Lady of Silence, Queen of Phantoms, Blood-Drinker, hear me.'

Nothing existed but the darkness, the heavy velvet blackness which blanketed all sense. I heard nothing from the upper temple now, nothing from the outside world at all. I might have imagined it all: the
Argo
and the palace and the traitorous prince.

'Lady of Battles, Lady of the Triple Way, Protector of the Newborn, hear me,' I concluded, and listened.

'Delphi,' said the goddess. A wing touched my mouth, and I felt not anger but pity in the serpent's gaze. I could see her now. Ophis Megale, the sacred snake, guardian of the grove where the Golden Fleece had once hung, before a faithless priestess stole it to win the love of a faithless Achaean.

The vision went, and the next thing I felt was a bandage being tied tightly around my wrist.

'She has sent you to Pythia, the great pythoness in the temple of Apollo,' snapped Hekate's maiden. 'Go, Medea. You have no place here yet.'

I was halfway up the steps when I heard the noise.

I had heard it before. It was the howling of a mob, a deep-throated hunting howl of men's voices, with the shrill shriek of women over the top. Music for pursuit of some wretched fugitive.

It did not occur to me that they might be hunting me until I came out of the temple into the sacred ground of the mother goddess and saw blood on scattered paving stones and on bundles of cloth lying against the stone wall, under the cool gaze of the caryatids.

Then I ran, though there was no urgency. They were dead. Clytie had tried to protect them with her own body, but a great rock had crushed her head. She was slumped over Mermerus, who must have died last, for his body was still flexible and warm, and I fancied that I felt him respond as I lifted his body into my arms, though the heart in the shattered ribcage did not beat. The twins were broken like dolls, Eiropis still clutching Pallas. Mermerus' neck was broken. He lolled in my embrace.

Scylla and Kore nosed the bodies, howling with distress, but I could not howl.

While I was in the temple, the citizens of Corinth had come and stoned my children to death. And my dearest and most faithful Clytie. How could they have thrown missiles to crush these small bodies, these delicate bones? Why could they not have waited to kill me?

They were screaming at me now, and I managed to decipher some sentences. 'Creon dead,' they were yelling. 'Creon snatched the crown from his daughter's head, and pricked his finger on the poisoned thorns. Die, witch, like your spawn!' they shrieked.

I carried Mermerus to the wall, and they fell silent. I could not put his body down, yet, although he was quite dead.

'Your work,' I said to the suddenly frightened faces. 'The goddess will strike you with plagues for this. She is not lightly defied - I know, who have defied her and been destroyed for my presumption. Will you kill me here, Corinthians, or wait until I come into the street?'

'Lady,' said Clytie's husband Sisyphos. 'I came to prevent this, but I could not.'

'Clytie is murdered,' I said to him. 'Could they not have waited for me?'

'Princess, you have the gift of Corinth,' he said. 'I will take you to the quay and give you a boat. The city will suffer for this slaughter, but we will not kill you.'

'I had not thought you cruel,' I said. 'To take away my only desire.'

'Lady, you must appoint a new king,' he said.

His face was ravaged with grief for his wife. I laid down the body of my dead son and stretched out my right hand, red with my own and my children's blood. I marked Sisyphos the fisherman on the forehead and the breast and declared, 'You are king of Corinth.'

There was a pause. I saw him fill with divine authority. His face shone. He bowed to me, then turned to the mob, shoving them away with his hands as they pressed close, already a little abashed at what they had done.

'Begone,' bellowed Sisyphos to the crowd, his voice loud and harsh. 'To your homes! Pray to the gods against blasphemy, Corinthians, for you will be punished for these blasphemous crimes.' Such was his force of character that they obeyed him, slinking away, dropping the stones which they had retained for me.

'We must bury the children and Clytie my wife,' said the new king of Corinth.

 

No one touched me or spoke to me as I walked with my hounds down the steep streets to the harbour, as the night came on. I never even thought of Jason, or what might happen to him. I climbed tearlessly onto a Corinthian fishing boat and was borne away on water as dark as death, to Delphi and the Pythoness.

 

Sitting at a tavern table in Khirra, I heard the news from an excited fisherman, who had heard it from a sailor. Medea of Corinth, the sorceress, had slain both Creon the merchant and his daughter Creusa, whom King Jason the Argonaut was intending to marry. Even of Jason, who was always easily influenced, I found this hard to believe, but they said it was true. He had been cast down from his kingship, which had devolved on Medea's choice, to a fisherman called Sisyphos. I bought the fisherman another cup of wine. I was now related to the king of Corinth.

But his voice lowered as he confessed the dreadful sequel to these murders. The people of Corinth, outraged, had flocked to the temple of the Mother, and unable to reach Medea, who was inside with Hekate, they had slaughtered her children and their nurse, a woman called Clytie.

'What happened to the lady Medea?' I asked, horrified.

'Nothing. She has gone to Delphi. She and Sisyphos buried the bodies in the sacred precinct, and then Sisyphos sent the witch away. But the priestesses emerged to denounce the city. They say that all goddesses are outraged, all of them - the Maiden and the Mother and the Crone. Even the gentle women of Aphrodite have prophesied doom, as children are the fruit of love. They say that a terrible plague will fall on Corinth because of these most sacrilegious killings, the murder of children in the temple of the Mother. Corinth trembles.'

'Corinth should tremble,' I said, aghast. 'They killed her children in the temple? And my cousin's wife, Clytie? May all the pestilences in the universe fall on Corinth! May the Earth-shaker topple the town into the sea!' I leapt to my feet.

'Where are you going?' asked the fisherman, hoping for more wine.

'Nowhere,' I realised. 'I am already in the place where I can be of some use. How long ago, friend, did you hear that the witch left Corinth?'

'Day before yesterday, maybe. The weather has been too dangerous for sailing, but she would not mind that, perhaps. No one has come in from Corinth, if that's what you mean. I've been sitting here all day, waiting for the weather to settle, and it's been dry work.'

I gave him my flask of sour new wine, but I could not sit still. Especially after he asked eagerly, 'Shall we see her, then, this blood-drenched woman? I wonder what erotic spells she used to entrap the son of Aison? Is she beautiful?'

'No spell; she relied on his oaths,' I snarled, and walked the length of the beach and back again, as noon passed and the sun declined.

I was about to return to the tavern and find myself a bed for the night when I saw a fishing boat lurch unsteadily through the heads and sail straight for the beach. There seemed to be only one person on board, and that was unusual; such boats mostly had a crew of three. Someone was steering with one hand and dragging the rope which tautened the sail with the other. They were making a fairly good job of keeping the boat's head into the wind, and I watched, wondering who was out so late and alone.

The boat ran aground broadside - those shore currents are fierce at Khirra. I ran with some other idle men to secure her before the ebb could drag her out to sea again. I reached for the cloaked mariner, saying, 'Heart up, friend! You have reached harbour at last. What misfortune stranded you alone? Shall we search for swimmers?'

Two black dogs climbed over the thwarts and dropped heavily to the sand. I understood, and bid the other helpers away with a sweep of my arm, telling them that I would care for my kinsman. They drifted back to the tavern, and I lifted the lady Medea out of the foundering boat.

She had a heavy bundle with her which she would not release, so I carried both her and the burden up the strand and into the house of a pleasant widow who sold shining shells. I had lain with her sometimes, to ease her loneliness and my own.

'I have a friend,' I said to her. 'She is the witch Medea, so if you do not wish to care for her, I will do so myself. I require your fire and some bedding.'

She replied, 'I dare not touch her, Nauplios, but I would not leave her unattended, so you may have what you require.'

Then she left me the house to myself, and I laid my lady down on the warm floor and stripped off her soaking cloak and sopping gown, hanging the garments to dry, so that the room was quickly full of steam.

I broke bread into fish-broth to feed the dogs and they lapped gratefully. Kore and Scylla remembered me, though they were old for hounds, getting stiff, and no longer as enthusiastic as they had been about travel.

The bundle was also wet. It was wrapped in a fine piece of gold-encrusted embroidery, but I did not touch it. The princess, by the time I had finished with the dogs, was sitting up and combing her hair with her fingers.

'Nauplios,' she said wonderingly. 'Nauplios, how came you here? They killed my children."

'I was on my way to Athens, but I took a side journey to see Idas and Lynkeos,' I replied. 'What happened to your crew?'

'They stayed for a little while, but they were so terrified of travelling with Medea the Witch that they jumped overboard and swam to shore. The goddess has sent me to consult Pythia and therefore I must go to Delphi, so I sailed the boat alone.'

'You will make a mariner yet,' I said. There was a silence. I looked at her. She was still beautiful enough to blur my eyes, but there was a strange distance in her, as though only a small part of her was there, as though a whole chunk of Medea had been broken or destroyed. She ate and drank without further conversation and lay down to sleep, tired out by the journey, which would have tested a grown man in the fullness of his strength.

I lay down before the threshold, so that no one could come in, and looked at her. She seemed very young when she was asleep, scarcely older than the maiden priestess who had stolen the Golden Fleece and saved all of our lives, mine as well. Her hair was still as black as soot, and the hounds lay on either side of her, noses on paws. Under her drying tunic, I could see that her breasts were heavy now and the slim lines of her body blurred with childbearing; those children who had been shamefully murdered by Corinth.

I wished blights and plagues upon them, for I could not see how my lady Medea could ever recover from this wound. The priestesses of Aphrodite, who hear everything, had told me that she loved her children, and loved them even more when her lord had turned away from her.

I could not forgive Jason, once my own lord, for putting such a dreadful insult upon her, but consigned him to the gods, who would arrange some suitable punishment for his cruelty.

I did not care that she had killed Creon, a man whom I had never liked, or his simpering daughter. I had not cared that she had killed Pelias either, or the usurper, Korinthos.

But I cared dearly for my lady, the Colchian princess, and it seemed to me that she was anxious to reach Delphi because she was hoping that the Pythia would demand that she leap from the
Phaedriades
, the shining cliffs, and go back to Hekate.

She did not demur when I appeared the next morning with two horses, bought ironically with one of Jason's gifts to his comrade Nauplios. They were good, for they had cost me a pair of silver earrings. She mounted without comment and sat quietly while I bound her bundle onto the saddle and lifted Kore up before her and the great dog lay across the horse's neck. I took Scylla on my saddle, for the hounds were too old to follow horses up the hills, and the hills on the road to Delphi were steep. The lady's hand reached for the reins automatically, and we moved through the fishing village of Khirra onto the road.

It was spring. The crocus bloomed in the verges. Sweet scents wafted about us, but the lady Medea did not notice them. She rode, I observed, like a Scyth, sitting high on the horses' shoulders, with Kore lolling before her. Scylla sat up on my saddle, all four feet together like a cat, and watched the landscape alertly, occasionally turning her head to give my face a quick, reassuring lick. Apparently Scylla thought that it would be all right. I did not think so.

Medea did not speak as we threaded the mountain paths. The road is ever rising or falling on the way to Delphi, perhaps to discourage pilgrims who are faint of heart. Another thing which discourages them is the prevalence of bandits, who are numerous and cruel. We turned a corner into a little clearing and were abruptly surrounded.

There were too many of them to fight. I jumped off my horse and stood next to the lady, ready to kill her if we could not talk or buy our way out. I would not see her outraged and sold into slavery.

'Pilgrims, it is time to offer sacrifice,' gloated the captain of the robbers. His men laughed. He had presumably delivered this line before.

'What sacrifice do you require?' I asked.

'Everything you have,' said the captain, drawing out the words. 'You are the first to pass the road since last autumn, and it has been a hard winter and we are hungry and poor. Therefore we will have your offerings, your clothes, your horses, and your lives.'

'That leaves us nothing to bargain with,' I said, drawing my sword. A bow was bent, and they began to close in on us. One slashed at the bundle and a shower of possessions fell out, including a battered sheepskin toy in the shape of a bear. The bandit picked it up, sneered, and threw it down.

Without warning, the lady Medea came to ferocious life. She leapt down, threw off her cloak and cried in a low, dangerous voice, 'I am Medea the Witch, Sorceress, Murderess. If you wish to die, you will touch me or my escort. First your blood will boil,' she said, approaching the knot of frightened men.