Medea. Kerry Greenwood

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СКАЧАТЬ born, teach me thy mystery.

      I began not to burn, as the stories of lovers told grudgingly by Cheiron described - he did not approve of the Achaean fascination with love - but to thirst, as though there was something inside me parching for lack of water. I could not imagine where I would find a human woman to lie with me. Jason, doubtless, would be provided with a bride after he had achieved his destiny. Perhaps she might have a slave or a maiden sent with her who would be given to me.

      I wondered what she would be like as I lay in my cold wrappings, apart from my bedmate. Not beautiful, that would be too much to expect. Old, perhaps, even crippled - Nauplios, the net-man Dictys' son, could command no beauty of face or body - but possessed of those parts which could enfold me, take me into her body, give me joy. Her arms would wrap me close, hold me to her breast - ah, her soft breast! - and I would lie in her arms all night.

      Such musings usually ended with me turning my body into the soft earth. She always accepted my libation graciously.

      That night I slept intermittently around the fire. I was afraid of the dawn. I was even more afraid of my own fear. I must not fail at this hunt.

      As soon as the goddess whom we call Eos trailed a pink garment over the horizon we were awake. I had polished and oiled the stone head of the boar spear, had tended my feet, too, which were as hard as hoofs, and tightened the belt and loincloth which held my shrinking genitals in some kind of safety. For a cornered boar strikes for the fork of the biped which assails it, tusks and tears for the belly and the sex, to bring the insolent attacker to his knees to be savaged. From my belt hung a bronze knife, one of a pair which Jason had brought with him. It was as sharp as I could make it. I tied up my hair and joined my friend, who was leaning against the corner of a hut and looking irritatingly relaxed.

      'Which way are we going?' I asked, not wanting to trust my tongue overmuch.

      He pointed and touched his ear, hunter's talk for 'Listen!'

      I listened. Far up the mountain I heard the baying of the hounds. They had found prey. The boar was moving, from the sound, down the valley between Centaurs' Mountain and the next, which they called Axe Head because of its shape. That was bad. That valley was thickly wooded, with deep undergrowth. Jason and I had penetrated there in search of a lost goat once, and it had taken hours to find our way out again - with the burden of a new kid and a very affronted mother, who had chosen, she thought, the safest place in the world for her delivery.

      The thorned red vines which the centaurs call wolf's fruit, because of a resemblance to the berries of blood dripping from a predator's jaws, were high enough to cut off the sky. I had drawn a deep breath of relief as we had paused on Centaurs' Mountain as the goat suckled her kid and I sucked my scratches, under the benign gaze of heaven again.

      But there was no fighting the dictates of Fate, so I hefted my spear and we joined the soft-footed hunters.

      In twos and threes we drifted down the slope, over the grass and the flowers of Adonis, stepped across the stream at the bottom and began climbing the other side.

      I was lost in the space of time in which a man drinks a cup of wine. Jason at my side was fighting his way through the scrub, and I could not speak to remind him that we were supposed to stand still, unwind the vine, and slide through the bushes, making little sound. This slowed the progress but reduced the damage to human skin. I stopped for the thousandth time to unwrap my thigh from the cruel embrace of thorns as sharp as daggers, and then I saw him.

      The hounds bayed, higher up. The hunters whistled, calling in the dogs, and I heard a crash and a short bitten-off scream on the slope above my head. They were seeking him on their own level.

      But out of the coiled tangle of undergrowth, the head was emerging. A high-shouldered king boar - tall as a colt, wide as a doorway, scarred with many encounters, ten years old and cunning as a serpent. His eyes were red with rage and dark with calculation.

      I froze. I could not move or speak.

      He shook himself, tossing his head. His tusks dripped with blood. He was hideous and proud, lord of his world, and we mere humans could not dent his arrogance. The stench of him encompassed me. Almost human, the scent of a boar. An unwashed human who reeks with maleness and blood - that is the smell.

      Then Jason screamed a challenge aloud, and thrust a spear into the creature's side.

      The boar turned quicker than sight; I heard his jaw snap closed on the boar spear, and the splinter of breaking wood. Jason was shaken as the boar shook his heavy head and then, as the spear broke, my lord was thrown to one side.

      I had to distract the attacker. I grounded my spear, braced it with my foot, and whistled. The boar spun again, moving like a snake, and pawed the ground, grunting with fury. I saw the red wound in his side, bleeding fresh red in gouts, not slowing his advance. I cried to Jason, who was caught in the thorns, 'Help!' and he felt for his knife, shaking his head.

      Everything was moving very slowly. The boar gouged great furrows in the leaf-mould with his front feet, challenging me. I braced the spear and myself for his rush, knowing that if I did not hold him he would run along the spear, that even spitted through the whole length of his gullet he could still tear me to pieces before he died. I needed Jason to cut the boar's throat, and he was still lying in the bushes, looking dazed.

      'Jason! Help me!' I screamed, and the boar charged.

      The spear entered his mouth, a wet red cavern, and the shock of his attack knocked me to the ground. I was lying on my back, the spear grounded deep in the earth, and the boar was between my legs.

      I was so afraid that I ceased to be afraid. I thought how we must look, the huge beast and the boy, the fragile limbs vainly wrapping the barred sides as the tusks sank into the belly, tore and destroyed, the toss of the head as he flung up loops of guts like a domestic pig roosting in beechmast. I was dead, I was floating. I heard some noises as something tore through the thorns, and then someone cut the string which tied my soul to my body, and I floated away like a butterfly.

      --- III ---

      MEDEA

      I was still pondering the nature of the relations between men and women when I went into Colchis for the autumn festival.

      My two black bitches, Scylla and Kore, were well trained, silent mouthed, and watchful. They were sometimes just hounds, of course, but they had the ability to receive the goddess; they could become avatars of She Who Meets, and speak with her voice. They never left me. The priestess of Hekate is known by her black garments, her pale skin, her dangerous gaze and her fanged escorts. I was eleven years old, still unwomaned, but the crowds made way as I walked through the streets, and men and boys avoided my eyes. Women gazed hopefully on me, presenting me with their squealing offspring to bless, and although I disliked their sour, milky smell, I always kissed them with Hekate's kiss, She of the Newborn. I had duties now, and power. I had seen the goddess and felt her influence.

      And alone in my bed I still yearned for that safety, rocked in the arms of the Dark Mother, cradled against her cloudy breast.

      Colchis was crowded with foreigners. It is a small but rich city, Colchis Phasinos. When they came from Egypt, our ancestors brought with them seeds, tinctures and skills, and they used them, making a small island of civilisation in an ocean of barbarians. Colchis was built in a square, protected against strong winds and assault by high walls of dark local stone in which there are four gates. Scythgate looks towards the south and the plains. Eastgate towards the curve of the river which embraces the town at Rivergate, and west СКАЧАТЬ