by David Vann
Nute without heartbeat, without pulse. There should be some slow and heavy surge, rhythmic and reassuring, some giant heart hung far away above and worshipped like the sun, every ear listening in that direction, a way of measuring distance. All travelers swallowed and approaching, shaken as they come alongside, receding until just as the beat becomes indistinguishable from one’s own heart the new day is born and the sun worshipped instead. Each day Nute forgotten, and each night remembered.
But Nute is never heard. There is no pulse, nothing to follow, no way of measuring distance or where one might be in that long passage. Nute refusing human form. We can imagine a woman’s body, but this is only imagining.
Our own shape tries to form in darkness, something more of threat than promise but desired anyway. Something just beyond the limits of our skin, trying to solidify in the air but still shifting. Something that might fold into another and form in unison, some belief in night that we are not so separate, not held to the outlines of our own bodies.
Dream that cools as the sky blues and the first outlines become rigid, of mast and yards and water and men. Emerging from Nute, but no sense ever of the final part of that passage, because the moment day is noticed, it’s already arrived. The barest hint of light, and night is over. Nute vanished before we know we’ve left her.
The water seeming brighter than the sky, as if it were the source of light. Wide channel, widening still into the greater sea. Calm and mirroring, long thin tracks of seabirds. No sign of her father’s ship, and now she’ll never know what became of him. She had expected to meet him here or at Ilium. The Argo will vanish into these islands and a larger world, unreachable.
They must have passed him in darkness. It’s the only explanation, because he would have pursued, and they were delayed so long with Cyzicus he must have gone ahead. He wasn’t waiting at Ilium, so he had to have been anchored somewhere else in the channel, not expecting them to row through the night.
Medea searches the waters behind, keeps expecting to see a mast or wake, but all is calm. Hekate, she calls out, loud enough for the men to hear. You have protected us in night. Medea chants to Hekate, low and soft, claiming safe passage so the men will know, but she thinks only of Nute.
The men rowing for home now. Iolcus not far, perhaps no more than a few days’ sail. Wives and children and land and whatever it is they do when not on a reckless voyage. Telling lies. This is what Medea imagines, each of the Argonauts sitting by a fire at night with all his kinsmen and every other man within a day’s walk, every last shepherd, telling tales of great giants made of stone ripping trees from the earth and using them as clubs. Each Argonaut at the center, his shipmates no more than shadow as he throws a giant to the ground, plunges his fist and pulls a heart of blood from stone.
Each Argonaut will have been the personal guest of kings, feasted and offered land and women and goats, but each will have chosen to return, a loyalty enough to have every kinsman kissing native soil.
No one will question one hide with a bit of gold dust. No one will ask where the other gifts are from these kings, rare objects from foreign lands. In truth, only Medea has been brought back. She is the only prize. But she might say anything, so she will not be brought to these fires. She will be hoarded away in Jason’s home, if he has any sort of home at all. A would-be king denied his patrimony, and to think this one golden fleece is going to change that seems like only a wish. Pelias will not go so easily.
Medea is Jason’s best weapon. Alliance through her with another kingdom. That might be worth something. Heirs royal on both sides, even if Aeetes is betrayed and filled with rage now. Someday Aeetes will be gone, and when the heirs are old enough, someone else will rule Colchis, related by blood.
They row on as the day brightens and shores fall away. A few small fishing boats disappearing along the margins and otherwise alone. Wind rising as the sun passes overhead, bringing small waves from the side. The men gather at the stern and haul two heavy lines to raise the upper yard. Tilting and swinging as it goes up, slim trunk of a pine, tapered at the ends, banging, low thuds. The bronze head with its many eyes at the top of the mast is straight, and the sail hangs out to the side, so the lines are twisted and difficult to pull through. More men join, ten at each rope. Sail fat and heavy, tipping the boat and refusing to be pulled tight, so finally they give up and leave it that way, tie off the halyards.
They sleep almost instantly. They haven’t eaten, but they’re so exhausted from rowing through the night they don’t care.
No one relieves the helmsmen. They fight against this baggy sail and track toward where the sun will set. Smaller men, both of them, not big enough for the oars. A position of shame, perhaps, on any boat. And yet every man here is a king and a demigod. That’s what they claim. So there must be at least two smaller peoples somewhere, ruled by these runts.
Runt-kings, Medea says aloud.
They ignore her, of course, if they understand.
Living close to the ground, she says, hiding in the rocks. Waiting with short little spears for some shorter deer.
One of them glances back at her, unmasked hatred. So they do understand, but of course they do nothing except what they’ve been told, steering endlessly while the larger men sleep.
Slaves, Medea says. Runt-slaves.
The day burning, and no amount of goading will provoke a response from the little kings, so she crawls to the hatch and realizes this is what their people must do. Anyone taller than the king must crawl everywhere. An entire people on hand and knee, going out to the fields to work, dragging wine and food through mud streets, all looking down. At least two kingdoms ruled this way. Children allowed to run only until they reach a certain height. Every temple shortened, every doorway, even the day. Everyone going to sleep before the sun has fallen. Medea laughs and crawls below into shade, to her coiled rope, checks above to see if their legs come down through, not shorter but only submerged.
Sleep after a long night, a heaviness she falls into, gentle rocking of the ship. When she wakes, the anchor line is running over the side, a sound like some great snake thrashing, pinned by its head, chaotic and wild. She can see it black and thick, the snake she feared as a child and fears still, not slack and flat like others but solid, a rough sound through grass, a low growl she heard once when she almost stepped on one. Voice of a god.
Medea rises from the hatch into the last light of day, sun burning down into water. Extinguished in the sea, another sign that the sea is Nute, or a part of Nute. Flattened and darker yellow, almost orange, distorted, compressed, as if Helios is resisting, trying to remain in the sky, pulled down against his will.
The men busy in this last light, taking wine and meat to shore. Some celebration on the island they call Lemnos. Her father lost far behind, and they’re free now, in no rush to return home.
24
No one lives on Lemnos. No goats, even. No shepherd’s hut. Strange that it has a name and that anyone would know it. Not far from the Thracian shore, but they haven’t bothered to settle here. Steep island, barren and dry. Rocks sharp enough to cut your feet. Very few trees, hidden away in canyons and smaller folds.
The Argonauts build a great bonfire on the shore using every spare bit of wood. Open to the sunset but hidden from her father by a small point that forms this cove.
Water shallow and a startling bright blue even as the light fades. Milky white rock cut into a thousand sharp pieces. The men bathe and heckle, splash each other and laugh. They say outrageous things about parts of their bodies.
The evening warm, a pleasant breeze, no need for a fire, but the fire is lit anyway, and large hunks of meat hung, meat turning dark, beginning to rot. Then they oil each other, great slicks in firelight, broad backs and thighs. They’ve already begun on the wine.
Medea sits apart along the shore, forgotten by Jason. He’s swaying already from the drink, spreading oil and shouting over all the other voices shouting. Like a flock of seabirds, some rookery distorted,
grown large and held to the ground.
They’ve made a sort of throne for Jason, a shelf cut naturally into the rock and lined now with hides. And they’ve brought a red mantle from the stores below deck, thick linen dyed somehow this bright shade beyond blood, edged with purple, richer and befitting a king among kings.
They buckle it around his shoulders and drape it along his arms, admire the intricate patterns, the tales of arms and men woven into the red. Medea goes over to see. Giants with one eye, hammers forging a thunderbolt, surrounded in flame. Garish works, ludicrous. A man lifting a mountain with his bare hands, while another man sings a mountain into movement. A woman carrying a shield but all the focus on her breast. Groups of men fighting among oxen, unintelligible, all history lost, and a boy throwing a spear at a large man dragging away his mother. Stories out of time, out of sequence, remnants unattached, yet the Argonauts pretend understanding. Medea backs away and lets them squabble over what nothing means.
Then a voice, high-pitched, a man pretending to be a woman, coming from a small copse of trees, a fold in the mountain just behind. The men are silenced, and out steps one of the helmsmen.
I am Hypsipyle, he says in his high voice. Queen of this island, and I have a tale you must hear.
The men shout encouragement. Hypsipyle is escorted to Jason, to kneel before him on his throne.
We are without men, she says.
The Argonauts slap at each other, naked and oiled, laughing and offering to provide men.
Our men raided the Thracians and took many things, including foreign women, and they soon forgot us. They left us to plow our fields alone.
Jason laughs, and all the Argonauts, staggering around and slipping against each other.
Come make this your land, Hypsipyle says. We have many women for every man, and you’ll find that our island is deep soiled beyond any other in this sea.
A roar from the men, and now some of them are the women of this island, puckering their mouths and walking with their asses in the air.
Hypsipyle moves in closer to Jason with hands and mouth, and Jason leans back against the stone, allowing this. So Medea must watch as this runt-king Hypsipyle swallows Jason, and he knows she is watching. The helmsman gazes at her as he moves his head up and down, a perfect revenge, Medea standing alone as the women of Lemnos meet the Argonauts.
She could have her own revenge, on Jason at least. She could bend over and let every man plow, all of them oiled and ready. She could be all the women of Lemnos. But she can’t imagine doing this.
So she sits at the edge along the shore and watches, feels helpless. A ritual that does not include her, and when the story is told, she’ll be erased. They’ll tell of Lemnos and the most beautiful city, with carved doors opened wide, and the beautiful queen Hypsipyle, distraught over Jason’s leaving. After endless banquets and young girls dancing in countless numbers, all femininity will rush to the shore, begging the Argonauts not to leave.
What surprises Medea is how much it hurts to watch Jason with another. This terrible void inside her, a coldness and desolation, more than she would have guessed.
She can watch no longer, walks away along the shore into darkness with all this moaning and laughing at her back and keeps walking until she hears only the sea, small waves, reassuring, finds trees with pine straw beneath and lies down, curls on her side to sleep and forget and feel nothing.
25
They sail on, and Medea worries they will never reach Iolcus. She sees now that these men have no desire to return to their lives. They would take rivers into colder lands, find the far edge, circle back and visit Egypt, then continue along that desert shore. They would claim the founding of every land and people, make the world small and attach it to themselves. Tell stories of giants felled and mountains formed, rivers and springs, the shape of the land itself recording where they’ve been. Denying all who came before, the long dark past, and claiming origin. The end become the beginning. This voyage setting the limits of the world.
What she fears is that there’s nothing for them after this. The gathering of the kings, and what will be left to do next? Only the recounting, the memory of each of these maidens detailed, sound of her voice, scent of her neck, her eyes in late sun, depth without end. Some longing for more.
As long as they voyage, they can delay desire and also death, and who they are remains. They won’t see themselves shrunken. So why would they ever return?
The Argo a kind of slug, oozing along in movement so slow you wouldn’t notice. The far shores of other islands not shifting perceptibly. Only if you look away and wait long enough can you glance again and notice a change. The thought of doing this for years unbearable.
Jason hiding at the bow, as far away from her as possible, but she goes to him now, demands to know where Iolcus is.
He points straight ahead. Sleepy, exhausted from his night, still wearing this ridiculous red-and-purple mantle. Oil no longer bright on his thighs but slack looking, like the side of a fish that’s been in the sun, flattening, drawn inward.
How far?
Three days.
You could use the oars.
Jason looks at his men, all lying on deck, spent. The sail barely holding its shape. These men are not slaves, he finally says.
Close enough, Medea says.
No, Jason says, angry now. You don’t understand anything. And I don’t have to talk with you. You are a woman.
Medea laughs.
Women don’t decide what we do.
Remember the scorpion? she asks. Remember our fire on the shore under the Hieros mountains?
He doesn’t respond.
Can you remember the shape of things that night? Can you remember the world bending? Can you say that you know what happened to you or to your men?
Jason clearly afraid now, the anger gone.
That scorpion is still inside you. Inside your chest. If you disobey me, it will awake.
Jason puts a hand to his chest, and she smiles. You are here to obey me, she tells him quietly, so the other men won’t hear. That is your role.
His hand gripping at skin under the mantle, as if he might find a claw protruding.
I won’t tell you what is inside your men, she whispers.
Please, Jason says.
You can’t beg the gods, she says. And you can’t beg me. You do what’s required. You honor the gods. And you will always be bound. You are never free.
Medea rolls her eyes back and chants to Hekate in her own tongue, sees nothing but hears Jason command his men to the oars, hears their complaints and his urgency and wood on wood, the first splashes, creaking of rope and hide in the oar loops.
She remains at the bow, guiding them, lifting her arms high and chanting. She will shorten this sea and bring Iolcus near, and whoever awaits in Iolcus she will master too. All these men at the oars, rushing though no one chases. Panic on a calm sea.
They row through the rest of that day, anchor in the lee of an island without going ashore. No bonfire on the beach.
The fisherman casts his net from the stern. Last light on smooth remnants of waves, every facet become a soft round momentary eye, blue with an orange center and then gone. Thousands of eyes appearing and vanishing, all held on the surface, nothing below, yet he pulls fish from nothing, guts them and throws back this offering.
The fish different here in this sea, longer and smaller mouthed, slim fins and tails. Oily tasting. Cooked directly over a small fire on deck, no talking among the men.
The sun and fire gone, night passing quickly from exhaustion. They raise the anchor stone early, at first light, and row again. Medea remaining on the bow, Jason back now with the helmsmen.
This sea with endless islands. She didn’t know there could be so many in the world, each individual in shape and presence, waiting. You would have to visit each one. There wouldn’t be any choice. If you look at something in the distance long enough, you eventually have to go there.
The mood of each
island changing through the day, flattened at first, erased in white, not set in the water or air but consumed by both. Settling later, gaining shape and weight, shadow, then reflecting last light on ridgelines.
The Argo, too, shifting throughout the day, at times fat and hot, unthinking wood, at other times responsive, slim, eager through the water, light as a spear, a kind of quivering excitement as if its timbers are alive and can take in breath. The sea slipping beneath them, islands passing quickly.
They anchor two more nights. Late the next day the men begin pointing. A peninsula, and tucked inside the bay, a very small city, Iolcus. At first, Medea thinks she must be looking in the wrong place, seeing only a village somewhere near Iolcus. So much smaller than her father’s city or Ilium or Hattusa, and she wonders whether all these kings rule similar settlements. Kings of nothing. This overwhelming feeling that she’s made a terrible mistake, given up everything to come rule a few shepherds and fishermen. What can possibly rise from a people so small? No other city within sight. Isolated outposts, a gathering of heads of families more than a gathering of kings. She’s amazed now they were able to build the Argo. She sees no navy, no other ships, nothing here for her father to fear. There is this one great ship and one only. The rest are fishing boats.
What she realizes is that they haven’t built the Argo. This is an Egyptian ship, somehow captured or given or bought. The Argo not something these people could have built.
She looks again carefully at the wood worn smooth at the locks, walks back to the mast to see how the deck has chewed into its sides, walks back farther to see the rudder posts worn and infirm, loose. An old ship, not new. The bow and stern platforms gone, the heavy rope that runs the length of the deck, held up by forks, gone. Crude short benches added along the sides for the oarsmen to sit. But otherwise this is the same as Egyptian ships that have come to Colchis. She has given up everything to live with scavengers.
A dry place, hillsides rocky and burned white, reddish clay showing where it’s been tilled, small gardens and groves etched into the hardscrabble. Olives and figs. Stone houses clustered on the steepest slopes, a citadel above, not large. Walls close to the harbor.