Medea (3 page)

The best thing about the centaurs was their stories. They were of short stature, clannish and uncleanly, compared to the wide-talking, frequently washed men of my childhood. Cheiron's people oiled their skin rather than washed it, and the smell of a centaur settlement was noticeable at first - wood smoke, flesh, horses - but the nose quickly grew accustomed. The food was basic and not very pleasant - how I longed for my mother's honey-cakes! I have seen a centaur plunge both hands into a steaming carcass, drag out the liver, and eat it raw.

I did the cooking for myself and the son Aison. I never learned to relish raw flesh, or raw fish, and I was not allowed to drink the fermented milk which made the old men drunk. In view of the way they all groaned in pain the next morning, this might have been a mercy.

We were sitting around the smoking dung fire one night when Cheiron took Jason's hand in his own. This was uncommon. They were not touching people, the centaurs. He lifted a brand from the fire and quite deliberately burned the hand he held, so that Jason winced and cried out.

'Why?'

'So that you will remember what I am about to tell you.'

I could never read those wrinkled faces. He was concentrating, intent, his shaggy brows shading the bright brown eyes.

'Whenever you see this scar, you will recall the tale of Phrixos and the Golden Fleece.'

'Master,' said Jason. I watched a red weal rise on the smooth surface of his wrist and winced in sympathy.

'It was a woman's doing, of course,' said the centaur, slowly, spitting into the fire. 'A wicked woman - a woman's lies. All women lie. Remember that.

'Phrixos, grandson of Minyas - that is why your kin are called Minyans, boy - and his sister Helle lived happily until their father married again,' Cheiron began.

A tall young man he was, this Phrixos, dark and beautiful, and the woman desired him. The woman wanted him for his curly hair and his hands - she watched him with the horses, saw how skilfully he touched them, imagined her own flesh so gentled and smoothed, and burned with lust.

Perhaps it was Ishtar, whom you call Aphrodite, who possessed her - I do not know. But she came to him in the stable, calling his name, offering him wine, then slipped close to him so that he could smell the scent of her femaleness, like a mare in season, and she said, 'I love thee, Phrixos. Lie with me here in the straw and thy father shall never know'.

He was shocked, and pushed her away. Then she tore her garment - deceitful bitch!- and ran from the stable, crying that the king's son had attempted violence on her honour.

The air was cold. I drew my goatskin cloak closer, and rubbed my hands over my face. The hatred in the old man's voice stung my ears. I knew no harm of women - how could I? My mother was a woman. But Jason was drinking in the voice, mouth open. The stars were blazing, close as lanterns.

They bound him and carried him up the mountain to the high altar - Phrixos, the king's son, betrayed by a cruel woman. His sister Helle followed him, keening him as though he was already dead, tearing her hair. She was fair, they say, and she scattered strands of bright gold along the stone, and the priest took a bronze knife.

It was noon, hot and still. Even the birds were silent. It seemed that the world was holding its breath. The priest raised the knife over the defenceless throat, stretched like a beast's for sacrifice. Then…

He stopped speaking to swig from a wineskin. Jason and I held our breath, like the world. I could almost feel the heat of the midday sun, scent the crushed grass under the feet of the witnesses to this sacrifice. The pause lengthened, so that I could hardly bear it, but it was not my place to speak.

'Master?' asked Jason in a strained whisper.

Cheiron grinned and resumed the story.

There was a crunching in the scrub, something coming towards them along the mountain path. Something heavy and strong and determined. The knife poised in the air. Phrixos had not made a sound. Helle stilled her weeping, wild with sudden hope. The creature came to the brow of the hill.

It was a man. Not tall, but very strong; wearing a lion's skin and carrying a club. A young man he was then; ah, I remember, Herakles the Hero, when the world was young as well. He can't have been more than seventeen. His hair was tangled back from a broad brow, a wide nose, a generous mouth, now shut like a trap. There were burrs in his beard, and grass in his hair. But his shoulders later bore the weight of the whole earth, and even then he was scarred with many adventures.

'You woke me,' he complained. 'I thought at least the top of the mountain would be secluded. What do you here, men of Minyas, at this altar, with this most unholy of victims?'

'This is Phrixos, the king's son, who is guilty of rape, and we will sacrifice him to Zeus,' said the priest.

Herakles yawned, scratched his chest and then shook his head.

'No,' he said patiently. 'No, you won't do that. Zeus does not accept human sacrifices. You cannot elevate your own killing of this boy to a religious rite, Minyans. If you kill him, you kill him on your own, and on your own consciences must your deed lie.

'You do see that I can't allow you to do this, don't you? Such blasphemy will bring a curse on innocent ones, women and children, not just on you alone.'

He never boasted, that hero. His voice was even and gentle. But he was tapping a club made of the best part of an olive tree against his broad calloused palm as he spoke. And he wiped his brow. Battle fury came on that hero with a wave of heat.

'Remember that,' Cheiron warned. 'If you meet Herakles. Beware of him when he speaks gently and you see sweat break on his skin. Once his anger is loosed, no man or god can call it back - not even Herakles himself.' The centaur returned to his story.

The Minyans quailed - for they had heard of Herakles, of his strength and his battle-madness - but they had orders from their own king. They gathered, spears raised. Helle threw herself at her brother and untied his bonds, hoping for escape.

Then the gods, who are just and weigh all actions in the scale of Themis, sent a winged golden ram from heaven. Hera sent it, she who is the protector of Herakles and guardian of families. Hermes made it, who is the messenger of the gods. Phrixos and Helle climbed onto its back and flew away into the air, above the astonished faces of the wicked Minyans. Phrixos was saved.

I couldn't stop myself from asking, 'Master, Master, what about Herakles? Didn't the Minyans attack him?'

'He had great presence, even newly woken and dusty,' said the centaur.

There were only twenty Minyans there, and they knew that he might overcome them. For Herakles could leap like a goat and run like the wind; his eye was keen as a lance and his hands were stronger than tree roots that can rip through stone. He stared at them, and they at him, after they had watched the golden ram bear the king's son away. Then, they say, he gave a sigh, nodded to the heavens, hefted his club and walked away, quite slowly, down the mountain. They did not dare to follow or assail him. He was Herakles the hero.

'Remember that, son Aison. Authority is a great shield.'

Jason nodded impatiently. 'And Phrixos?' he prompted.

The old man's voice was flat with displeasure - though he allowed Jason to interrupt him more than he did me - but he continued.

As to Phrixos, he flew on the golden ram across Thrace, even in the sky as no one but birds, gods and Daedalus, the architect, and his sons have flown before. When passing over the strait, his sister Helle lost her grip on his waist and fell. They call that water the Hellespont now.

Women are weak, and she was a tender maid, too young to leave her mother's house. Phrixos cried after her as she fell, but the blue closed over her and she was gone.

The ram flew on to Colchis, the white city on the River Phasis, which flows into the Euxine Sea, and there landed, safely, the royal son of Minyas. He immediately showed his piety by sacrificing the ram to Zeus, his deliverer.

'Hera sent it, not Zeus All-Father,' I interrupted, 'and why kill the ram? It would be wonderful to be able to fly.'

'The actions of heroes are not to be questioned by boys,' snarled Cheiron, and I closed my mouth.

'That is the Golden Fleece, Jason, which rests in the sacred grove at Colchis, guarded by a serpent. It is a holy treasure beyond price, the rightful property of the rightful king of Iolkos.

'Phrixos met a princess there: Chalkiope, daughter of the king Aetes. She saw him and loved him, the fair hero, and she lay with him and bore him four sons. But the king disliked these boys, having no son of his own, and when Phrixos died, he did not adopt them - or so they say.

'That king holds the Golden Fleece without right. Zeus punished him by taking his queen, though they say he took another woman. She only bore him another daughter, Medea, before she died too. The hand of the gods is heavy on blasphemers. That is the tale of Phrixos, cousin of Aison - your father, and Pelias - your uncle. Remember it when you come into your own.'

Jason was alight with the tale; he told it to me over and over again as we lay down in the goatskins, and as I drifted into sleep I heard him whispering in the darkness over the snores of the centaurs.

'Rightful property - the Golden Fleece is the rightful property of the descendants of Phrixos, who rode on the golden ram from Mount Laphystios to Colchis.'

With my last conscious thought, I still considered that sacrificing it at all, and especially to the wrong god, was very unfair on the ram.

 

I could read and write - and how inkstained I got, and how Chalkiope scolded me for the black blotches on the clean white tunic worn by all princesses of the royal house! - so I must have been nine years old when Trioda summoned me one hot morning.

It was sizzling as I crossed the white marble pavement. The sun had heated the stone, so that even my hard bare feet were uncomfortably warm. I wondered where I had left my sandals when I went fishing with my half-brother Aefialeus and my sister Chalkiope's sons: Cytisoros, the eldest and leader; Argeos, the bully; Phrontis, the trickster; and Melanion, my friend.

My sister was fifteen when I was born. She had lain with the foreigner, borne his children and wept over his grave while I was growing up. I remembered him, a tall man with a loud voice. He had died eight years ago and the stems of the ivy around his grave were as thick as hawsers. I thought my sister old, of course, old and stern. And she disapproved of me, though we could have been close. Both of our mothers had died at our births - and she certainly interfered in my life as much as any mother could have done. Trioda said that there was a curse on all women associated with my father, Aetes.

Chalkiope had been pretty, I vaguely remembered, though now her brow was furrowed and her lips pinched. She did not like my friendship with her children, though the youngest was the same age as me. Melanion had smooth skin and eyes like the most expensive Kriti honey, and I was another boy to him, a playmate, not a princess.

I could not marry. I knew that the priestesses of Hekate are always maidens. I did not see, however, that I could not be friends with Melanion because of that. He was my nephew. No one could object to amity amongst close kin, surely. Possibly, however, it might have been a good idea not to get quite so dirty while demonstrating this.

Trioda eyed me. She stood in her black garments like a crow in the brightness of the strong sunlight, her arm raised against the light. I surveyed myself.

I had skinned one knee on the edge of the landing stage, and I had fallen in - once my mistake and the second time because I was already wet and going to be scolded, and I liked the feel of the water. The shallow river-pond where we harvest shellfish had been as warm as blood, and I had already dried on my run from the banks. My tunic was crumpled and stained with tar and altogether I was a spectacle - an object lesson in what a princess of the royal house of Colchis should not look like.

I raised my chin and waited for a slap, but she did not hit me, or even seem to notice my disheveled condition. Instead, she gave me a potion and watched as I choked it down. It was bitter. Then she took my hand and led me into the grove.

I had been feeling defiant; now all my courage drained away. There was something in that grove - something new. The wind in the cypresses sang loud and shrill, though the day outside was as still as death. My mud-stiff hair stirred at the back of my neck. I could smell, suddenly, a reek of strong perfume, rank and fascinating, like a mixture of incense and rotting flesh, and I coughed, pulling against Trioda's hand, not to retreat but to run into the scent, into whatever was forming in the darkness under the trees. Something was pulling me. Trioda grabbed me by the shoulders.

'Speak,' she ordered. 'Pray. Listen!'

'Lady of Darkness,' I began. My words were blown away in the rising wind. 'Lady of Forests, Protector of the Newborn, Lady of the Three Ways, hear me.' Then I was guided or prodded to add, 'I am Medea. You called me. I am here.'

All utterances directed to the lady Hekate must be tripartite, or she will not hear them. The wind rose to a howl and we stood in the calm centre of it, untouched, though the pine-needles whipped past, hissing.

'Child,' said a voice. I fell to my knees, my mistress beside me. Trioda covered her face, but I stared into the pine needles, green and brown, as they began to form into… something.

A woman, ten cubits high, wreathed in snakes, flanked by two black hounds. Owls flew about her head. Her face was forming, dark eyes, black hair which fell below her waist and writhed and curled. The vegetable hands were open, she held out her arms, and an irresistible yearning drowsiness took me, folded me close and warm and safe.

She said 'Daughter,' and I fell asleep on her breast.

I woke in the dark. She was gone. The world was hollow, comfortless. I wept inconsolably. I cried for hours, refusing all attempts at reassurance by a shaken Trioda, until at the flux of the night, when Trioda says that the goddess Hekate is strongest, when the tide is ebbing and old men die, I heard it again.