Jason and Medeia

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Jason and Medeia Page 38

by John Gardner


  friends,

  whatever your theories.’ We laughed. That much was true, no doubt. Medeia smiled and glanced at me.

  “But now, standing at the balustrade and gazing

  wearily

  seaward, I saw all that more darkly. The Keltic king was lighter than I’d guessed. I’d achieved the ideal of

  government

  I dreamed of then: equal justice for all free citizens, peace in the city. Yet my beast heart yearned, past all

  denying,

  for violence. I envied Akastos, balanced, alive, on the balls of his feet, riding in that rattling chariot of

  war

  with the army of Kastor, repelling a wave of invaders

  on the plains

  of Sparta. In the silence of the star-calm night, I could

  hear their shouts,

  piercing the hundreds of miles—the snorting and

  neighing of horses,

  the swish of a javelin hungrily leaping, the tumble of

  weighed-down

  limbs.

  “Medeia said, ‘Jason?’ I turned to her. ‘Tell me your

  thought.’

  ‘No thought,’ I said grimly. She said no more. I saw mad

  Idas

  dancing with a corpse by the light of the burning gates

  of the palace

  of Kyzikos. Saw Idmon writhing, his belly ripped open. Saw the great eagle, with pinions like banks of silvery

  oars,

  sailing to the mountain of Prometheus.

  “Hard times those were for Medeia. She tended to the children, kept track of

  the household slaves

  and hid from me her mysterious illness, or struggled to. I glimpsed it at times: a tightness of mouth, an

  abstracted look;

  and I remembered her sickness on the Argo. For all her

  skill with drugs,

  she couldn’t encompass her body’s revolt—now

  menstrual cramps,

  sharp as the banging of Herakles’ club, and indifferent

  to the moon,

  now unknown organs rebelling in their dens, now

  flashes of fire

  in her brains. I would find her standing alone,

  white-faced with agony,

  her corpse-pale fingers locked and her green eyes

  glittering, ferocious.

  At times in the dead of night she would rise and leave

  our bed

  and, passing silent as a ghost beyond the outer walls, hooded, a dark scarf hiding her face, she would search

  the lanes

  and gulleys of Argos for medicinal herbs—mecop and

  marigold,

  the coriander of incantation, purifying hyssop, hellebore, nightshade, the fennel that serpents use to

  clear

  their sight, and the queer plant borametz, that eats the

  grass

  surrounding it, and gale, and knotgrass … I began to

  hear

  reports of strange goings-on—a slain black calf in a

  barrow

  high in the hills; a grave molested; a visitation of frogs in the temple of Persephone. I kept my peace, watching and waiting. At times when I heard her

  footfall, quiet

  as a feather dropping, and a moment later the closing

  of a door,

  a whisper of wind, I would rise up quickly and follow

  her.

  She led me through fields—a dark, hunched spectre

  in the moonless night—

  led me down banks of creeks that she dared not cross,

  through groves

  of sacred willows as ancient and quiet as the stones of

  abandoned

  towns, then up to the hills, old mountains of the turtle

  people

  who cowered under backs of bone as they watched her

  pass. She came

  to a wide circle of stone, an ancient table of Hekate.

  There she would slaughter a rat, a toad, a stolen goat, singing to the goddess in a strange modality,

  older than Kolchis’ endless steppes,

  and dropping her robe, her pale face lit by pain, she

  would dance,

  squeezing the blood of the beast on her breasts and

  belly and thighs,

  and her feet on the table of stone would slide on the

  warm new blood

  till the last undulation of the writhing dance. Then

  she’d lie still,

  like a bloodstained corpse, till the first frail haze of

  dawn. Then flee

  for home. She’d find me waiting in the bed. She

  suspected nothing.

  Little as I’d slept, I’d awaken refreshed,

  would plunge into work as I did in the days when the

  Argo’s beams

  groaned at the hammering of waves or shuddered at the

  blow of sunken

  rocks. Pelias, weeping on the pillow, would stutter the

  fruit

  of his senility, clinging to my hand. “Beware of

  puh-pride, my son.

  My suh-son, beware of offending the g-g-g-gods.’ His

  daughters’

  heads hung pale as cornflowers; their pastel scarves fluttered in the flimsy wind of their love and awe. I

  could bow

  and smile, unoffended, as alive in the stink of his

  sickness as I was

  in the field of Aietes’ bulls.

  “On other occasions, when she left to haunt the wilderness in search of some cure for her

  malady,

  I rose up, silent, and walked to the chamber of a certain

  Slave

  and slipped into bed beside her, my hand on her mouth.

  I did not

  love her, make no mistake, a cowering, mouse-shy

  creature

  as repulsive to me as Pelias was in his feeblest moods.

  But I’d lie beside her, exploring the curves of her body

  with my hands,

  caressing her soft, damp fur, and at last would mount

  and pierce her,

  twist and stab till she cried out in pain and fright. Again and again, through the long still night I’d use her,

  driving like a horse;

  she’d weep—once dared like a fool to strike me. I

  laughed. When dawn

  crept near, I’d return to my own room, and when

  Medeia came,

  slyly I would make love to her. We’d awaken refreshed, rejuvenated. The slave soon came to expect my visits, came to take pleasure in my violent lust. Though

  cowardly as ever—

  hang-dog, feather-voiced, as stooped of shoulder as

  Pelias at his most

  obsequious—she began to throw me sidelong glances, for all the world like a litter-runt bitch in heat. When

  she found me

  alone in a room, she would come to me softly,

  seductively touch

  my arm, impose her scent on me. Sometimes even when Medeia was near, whose eyes missed nothing,

  the wretched slave

  would call to me down the room with her foxy eyes.

  I gave

  her warning. I was not eager to lose her—those great

  fat breasts

  dangling above me, glowing in the moonless night. She

  refused

  to hear. I gave commands; she vanished. I waited for

  remorse;

  it failed to arrive. I felt, if anything, nobler, more alive than before. I soon took other women,

  choosing—from slaves, from noblemen’s wives—more

  carefully,

  women of taste and discretion. Even so, Medeia learned; flashed like a dragon, an electric storm. I pretended to

  end

  such pleasures. But I’d grown addicted, in fact. I’d

  learned the secret

  of g
odhood. In lust alone is mankind limitless, as vast as Zeus. Who hasn’t hungered to live all lives, pierce the secrets of the swan, the bull, the king, the

  captive,

  close all infinite space in his arms? Such was my desire, my absolute of hunger. I remembered the Sirens’ song.

  “Meanwhile, word got abroad that Medeia had curious

  powers.

  I’d known, of course, it was only a matter of time.

  Who learned

  her secret first, I have no idea. She had visitors, impotent old men, young women with barren wombs.

  They’d arrive

  at the palace on flimsy pretexts, would tour, do the

  honors to Pelias,

  and eventually vanish with Medeia. I did not comment

  on it,

  though I knew in my bones we were moving toward

  dangerous waters.

  “I had at this time troubles more immediate. Our land

  has been

  divided since time began by the sacred Anauros River. In certain seasons a man or a team of oxen could ford it, but whenever the river was in spate, the kingdom

  became, in effect,

  twin kingdoms: if the people were starving on one side,

  and corn and cattle

  were plentiful over the opposite bank, the starving died while the oversupply of their immediate neighbors

  corrupted. Old Argus,

  at a word from me, had solved that problem, and in

  the same stroke

  transformed the very idea of the river. He would cut

  a wide channel

  where ships could pass, carrying the crops of the

  midland to the sea

  and foreign goods inland. So that men could cross it,

  in any season,

  he’d devised, with the help of Athena, the plan of an

  ingenious bridge

  that could span the torrent yet swing, by the force of

  enormous sails

  and waterwheels, so that even the loftiest vessel

  might pass.

  I had no doubt the assembly would quickly agree.

  “By some cruel warp of fate, Pelias appeared at the assembly on the day the plan was first introduced. Who can say what

  crackpot fears

  assailed the man? Mixed-up memories of the oracle, which involved the river, or his well-known grudge

  against all things daring—

  the fear that had driven him to tear down Hera’s

  images once,

  his coward’s terror of acts of will … Whatever

  the reason,

  he opposed me. He shook like a tree in high wind.

  He cajoled, whined, whimpered.

  Now ashen, now scarlet, he appealed to the gods, the

  fitness of things,

  to tradition, to unborn generations, to all-hallowed

  patriotism.

  I was stunned, furious. I came close to telling him the

  truth: he ruled

  by my sufferance. When he tipped his head at me,

  pitiful, appealing for tolerance

  of an old man’s harmless whim, my rage grew

  dangerous

  I could feel the muscles of my cheek jerking. I hid them.

  behind

  my hands, pretending to consider his words, and by

  force of will

  as great as I’d used when I talked with Aietes, Lord

  of the Bulls,

  I closed the assembly for the day. We would speak of

  the matter again.

  “That night, standing by the balustrade, I thought

  about murder,

  my heart bubbling like a cauldron. My wrath was

  absurd, of course.

  I would win. I had no doubt of that. But the wrath was

  there.

  I did not hide it—least of all from Medeia. I half resolved in my mind to depose the old man at once,

  without talk

  or ritual. But in the end, I fought him on the floor of

  the assembly,

  as usual, polite, eternally reasonable, revealing my anger to no one, or no one but Medeia.

  That was

  my error, of course. The lady of spells had schemes

  afoot.

  “It seems the old man’s daughters had learned

  of Medeia’s skill

  and had come to her. Pitifully, timid heads hanging,

  eyes streaming,

  their long white fingers interlaced in lament, they

  begged for her help.

  They spoke of the figure their father cut once—how all

  Akhaia

  had honored him—and how, now, crushed by tragic

  senescence,

  he was less than a shadow of his former self. The eldest

  wept,

  grovelling, reaching to Medeia’s knees. ‘O Queen,’ she

  wailed,

  ‘child of Helios, to whom all the secrets of death and

  life

  are plain as the seasons to the rest of us, have mercy on

  Pelias!

  We have heard it said that by your command old trees

  that bear

  no fruit can be given such vigor of youth that their

  boughs are weighted

  to the ground again. If there’s any syllable of truth in

  that,

  and if what you do for trees you can do for a man, then

  think

  of the shame and sorrow of Pelias, once so noble!

  Whatever

  you ask for this great kindness we’ll gladly pay. Though

  not

  as wealthy as those you may once have known in

  gold-rich Kolchis,

  with its floors of mirroring brass, we three are

  princesses

  as rich as any in Akhaia, and gladly we’ll pay all we

  have

  for love of our heart’s first treasure.’ Medeia was pale

  and trembling.

  They could hardly guess, if they saw, her reason. She

  rose without a word

  and crossed to the window and the night. They waited.

  The thing they asked

  was not beyond her power. Nor was it beyond the

  power

  of another talented witch, should she refuse. She

  breathed

  with difficulty. The daughters of Pelias stretched their

  arms

  beseeching her mercy. The youngest ran to her and

  kneeled beside her

  clasping her knees. ‘Have pity, Medeia.’ The queen stood

  rigid.

  Her head was on fire; familiar pain groped upward

  from her knees.

  At last she whispered,’ I must think. Return to me

  tomorrow night.’

  And so they left her. She threw herself on the bed

  headlong,

  blinded, tied up in knots of pain. She wept for Apsyrtus, for Kolchis, for her long-lost handmaidens. She wept

  for the child

  betrayed by the goddess of love to a land of foreigners. She slept, and an evil dream reached her.

  “The following night when the daughters of Pelias returned to her, she

  promised to help them.

  They’d need great courage, she said, for the remedy was

  dire. They promised.

  She gave them herbs and secret incantations. When

  the foolish princesses

  left her room, she crept, violently ill, from the palace and fled to the mountains, her teeth chattering, her

  muscles convulsing.

  Vomiting, moaning, breathing in loud and painful

  gasps,

  she crawled to the old stone table of Hekate and danced

  the spell

  of expiation for betrayal of the witch’s art.

  “On the night of Pelias’ birthday, the palace was a-glit
ter with

  torches, and all

  the noblest lords of Argos were present for the annual

  feast.

  The old man kept himself hidden—some senile whim,

  we thought,

  and thought no more about it, believing he’d appear, in

  time.

  There were whispers of a great surprise in the offing.

  We laughed and waited.

  We gathered in the gleaming, broad-beamed hall, lords and ladies in glittering attire, Medeia beside me, wan, shuddering with chills, yet strangely beautiful. I

  remembered

  the glory of Aietes as first I saw him, and the dangerous

  beauty

  of Circe, with her green-gold eyes. Then a nimble of

  kettledrums,

  the jangle of klaxons and warbling pipes, and like lions

  tumbling

  from their wooden chutes, in came the slaveboys bearing

  trays—

  great boats of boar, huge platters of duckling and

  pheasant and swan—

  a magnificent tribute to Pelias’ glory and the love of

  his people.

  Trays came loaded with stews and sauces, white with

  steamclouds,

  and trays filled with ambled meat. Then came—the

  princesses rose—

  the crowning dish, a silver pancheon containing, we

  found

  when we tasted it, a meat so exotic no man in the

  palace,

  whatever his learning or travels, would dare put a

  name on it.

  We dined and drank new wine till the first light of

  dawn. And still

  no sign of Pelias. The princesses, strangely excited,

  their ox-eyes

  lighted by more than wine, I thought, assured us he was

  well.

  And so, at the hour when shepherds settle on pastures

  become

  invulnerable to predators, shielded by Helios, the guests turned homeward, and we of the palace

  moved, heavy-limbed,

  to bed. We slept all day, Medeia on my arm, trembling. When the cool-eyed moon rose white in the trees, I

  awakened, thinking,

  aware of some evil in the house. I went to the room of

  the children.

  They were sleeping soundly, the slave Agapetika

  beside them. I turned back,

  troubled and restless, molested by the whisper of a

  fretful god.

  The moment I returned to our room, the princesses’

  screams began.

  Medeia lay gazing at the moon, calm-eyed. I stared at

  her.

  They’ve learned that Pelias is dead,’ she said. The same

  instant

  the door burst open, and a man with a naked sword

  leaped in,

  howling crazily, and hurtled at Medeia. I caught him

 

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