Читать книгу Medea - Kerry Greenwood - Страница 19

My father was ill for many weeks. There was no immediate opportunity to inform him that his suspicions as to who was conspiring to take over his throne were directed entirely the wrong quarter. Besides, he would not hear a word against Aegialeus, his only son.

When Aetes became king, the oracle of Ammon - the Achaeans call him Apollo - had spoken. Thus I had been told as a child, to explain why my father never came to see me or my sister. A bronze horn had blown without human breath and a great voice had said from the sanctuary:

Thanatos selects from Colchis' herd; his calves or his cows.

'It is hard to love something which must die,' said Trioda in explanation. I had stored both the oracle and the clarification for future reference, for Trioda seldom answered further questions. Now I understood. Although I had seen the queen's care for my father, although he lay in her arms, he could not afford to love her because he had understood the oracle: if his children should live then his wives would die; as Chalkiope's mother had died, as mine had died, bearing us. He could not love us, for we had killed his wives. The anniversaries of our births were days of mourning for our father.

'The seed of Aetes is black,' said Trioda, 'death-bearing'.

I felt fortunate that I was a dedicated maiden, never to bear fruit, for the seed of Aetes was in me. Then again, my sister's children were strong and fine. Perhaps the seed of Phrixos the stranger, was strong enough to overcome the dark. I said as much to Trioda as we compounded yet another combination of heart-strengthening herbs. My father was responding to the medicines, although he flatly refused to allow us to sacrifice to Hekate on his behalf. The shaven, white-robed priests of Ammon visited every day and had interceded for Aetes of Colchis, slaying the bull who is the avatar of their god. I could smell burning flesh from the temple of the Sun as I ground foxglove in a mortar.

'The sons of Phrixos are healthy,' Trioda said, pouring one decoction into another. 'But death is everywhere."

'Surely,' I agreed. This was a ritual statement.

'Closer than you might think, Princess,' she added. I stopped grinding.

'Mistress, do you mean that my father's illness is induced, and that the sons of Phrixos are plotting to take over, as he thinks?'

'Tssh, daughter, do not speak so plainly! I mean, maiden, that death is everywhere. Consider the situation, Medea.' She lowered her voice and I moved closer so that I could hear her. The scent of the herbs was making me giddy.

'There are only two daughters of Colchis who could be married to provide the right to the kingship. There is you, daughter, but you are a priestess of Hekate and maiden and She Who Meets would lay a powerful curse on any who took you to wife, willing or unwilling.'

I resumed pounding the herb so I did not have to look at her. It was time to tell Trioda of Aegialeus' plans, but I was hot with shame that I had endured his hands on my maiden body.

'I would never be willing. It is my half-brother who wants this, he touched me, Trioda, when I went to the king. He wishes for Aetes' death, Mistress.'

'Yes, yes, it is against all nature,' she said dismissively, unshocked, as though she already knew of my brother's assault on me and his revolting proposal. 'The seed of Aetes is death to women, and his son is Thanatos' own cousin.

'But listen, Medea. There is your sister, Chalkiope. She is proved fertile, she is a widow, and she had four strong sons. A man who took her would be assured of heirs even if she bore no more children. He would have kinship and kingdom, according to the laws. But…'

'But?' The sun was streaming through the window of the little temple. It was a bare building, wooden, with a tree leaning on either side and leaf litter on the floor for the serpents of the mother. Kore and Scylla lay asleep on the broad steps in the autumn sunshine, twitching occasionally. Trioda and I were working at the big table. Bunches of herbs hung from the roof and baskets contained other ingredients. The big bronze cauldron was simmering on a brazier, beside the copper pot in which we seethe the infusions which cause women to miscarry. No woman in Hekate's kingdom carries a child to term unwilling. Unlike Achaea, a child of rape will not live in Colchis, to give legitimacy to an unholy act.

Along the wall were shelves of scrolls, the accumulated wisdom of the priestesses. I hoped that one day I would write one myself, and the scroll 'Medea' would join the others to be read by a new priestess in a hundred years' time, who might use my compound of feverfew, foxglove and willow bark to save another king's life.

Trioda was looking at me quizzically. I collected my wits and repeated, 'But?'

'But the union which can bring this about is not to be considered.'

I puzzled the sentence out. 'You mean that brothers and sisters cannot marry.'

'In the Black Land, this was the case,' Trioda said, stirring the cauldron. I dropped into it my now very well-mashed foxglove. The decoction was green, for we had added willow bark for the pain.

'Brothers and sisters marry?'

'They do. The king marries his daughter, sometimes, and frequently Pharaoh marries his sister. They are matrilineal, daughter, as we are. The possession of the princess confers the kingship.'

'But the marriage confers no power on the princess,' I reasoned. She gave me the spoon and I took over the stirring. One stirs a decoction for good in a sunwise direction, a poison widdershens, against the sun. This was a healing brew, so I made sure that the spoon always moved to the right.

'No, daughter, that is true. Since the advent of men we have lost all power but knowledge. You have seen the way the people defer to the priestesses of Hekate. They fear us, and fear is the beginning of power. But kingship we have not; nor will we have it again until the world changes. Now, as to your half-brother, avoid him. If he pursues you, daughter, remember your power. How many poisons do you know, Medea?'

'Fifty-three, Mistress,' I said proudly.

'And rituals?'

'The seven blessing and the seven cursing, Mistress. And you promised to teach me the Grove Path.'

'So I did. We will go there after this potion is completed, daughter. Make your heart hard, Medea. I fear some stroke of Ate. Even Hekate cannot always control Fate. We will go and ask the question of the serpent. It is time, in any case, that you met her. You will take over her care when Hekate gathers me to her bosom. I would not leave you unprovided, acolyte. Women have no place in the men's world, ruled by Ammon and the Sun. But in the dark, in secret places, we are more powerful.'

She tasted the brew, nodded, and we poured it into a pottery jar marked with the three-legged cross, the sign of Hekate. Then she collected a series of flasks and a jug of milk mingled with honey, and we left the temple.

Eidyia, the queen, caught us as we came into the women's quarters. She was slim and beautiful, the wife of my father. Her hair was a rich chestnut, for she came from the mountains towards the west, where women are fair and, unafraid of prophecy, men gather gold from the icy streams. Her father had given her to Aetes, the youngest daughter in a house of daughters, even though he knew of the oracle. He had many daughters and could afford to lose one to cement an alliance with Aetes of Colchis. We knew that she had lain with him, but she had not yet conceived.

My father treated her well, if distantly. She was dressed in the finest woven wool, dyed bright red, and she was hung about with gold; a ram's head torc at her throat, a crown, bracelets, rings and an embossed belt. The queen of Colchis wore enough gold to ransom a prince. But her lower lip was caught between her teeth and her smooth brow was furrowed. She held Trioda's sleeve in her soft, perfumed hand. I smelt a waft of summer flowers from her garments and her hair.

'Hekate's maiden, he calls for me again,' she whispered.

Trioda hefted her burden on one bony hip and said, 'Does he so? And are you still resolved, daughter?'

'I want to live,' said the queen almost under her breath. Trioda smiled, rummaged in the basket and produced a tiny flask, like the one which Achaeans put on graves to hold tears. It was sealed with the double seal, which meant that it was poisonous. No priestess wants to put her hands on the wrong flask in the dark. Really lethal concoctions, snake venom or hemlock, have three seals. The queen snatched it and hid it in her cloak, so fast that only a really dedicated watcher would have seen the transaction.

'How is the king?' asked Trioda, easily.

'He is recovering,' replied Eidyia. 'The medicines are working. And, of course, the prayers of the temple of Ammon,' she added hastily.

'They are eating well while the king's illness continues,' said Trioda dryly. 'They sacrifice a bull daily and feast on beef after the god has eaten his portion. When he recovers, they will chafe at their diet of pulse and grain. Do not allow them to give him any potions, daughter and lady.'

The queen nodded. Her silky hair fell forward over her face. I think she was afraid of Trioda. I bent my head for her blessing, and gave it quickly, then was gone into the women's quarters in a swirl of scarlet.

I was pleased with that cloak. It had been my first attempt at dyeing a fine colour. One finds the galls on oak trees in which the insects are working, and sprinkles them with new wine to prevent the emergence of the moth - though one out of five must be marked for the goddess, or the tribe of worms will die out. Then one steeps the galls in boiling water, and extracts the dye. It is concentrated, and I coloured my hands red for half a moon before it wore off. But the cloak had held up well through washing, even though Trioda said I had used too much salt to fix it. Salt comes from Poti and is very expensive. What decoction, I asked myself, was the queen requiring of Hekate, and why? Was she poisoning my father?

I could not ask Trioda while we were in the palace. We went to the king's chamber, but were denied - the attendant said he was asleep. The slave had a black bruise across half his face, indicating that the king's temper had not improved. Trioda sat him down and applied all-heal ointment to the hot swollen skin. I noticed how the boy relaxed under her hands - deft, sure, and drinking in his pain. When she let him rise again, he was relieved but wary, as though, perhaps, her treatment had stolen something from him.

We left our potion in the hands of the king's counsellor, Eupolis, an old man and trusted. It is the ancient law in Colchis that if the king dies in circumstances which could indicate poison or assassination, all his counsellors are executed by being stitched alive into an oxhide and hung in the willows. Eupolis would not dare meddle with the medicine, and would make sure that it was administered correctly.

Then we left the palace and came into the city, walking down the street which led us to Rivergate and the Grove of The Serpent, outside the walls.

I was apprehensive. Trioda spoke of the serpent as she, meaning that the creature was an avatar of Hekate, as were Kore and Scylla. But although my hounds were sacred, they were also dogs, prone to snap if startled and provided with strong teeth and haughty tempers. The serpent of the grove would also bear her original snaky nature when she was not possessed by Hekate. And women whispered that the serpent was as long as a riverboat and as wide as a door, that even to smell her breath was death, the guardian of the grove where hung the greatest treasure of Colchis, the Golden Fleece.

We took the path which wound through dripping marshes, where the dead men of Colchis hung in their oxhides. This was an eerie place, haunted by the piping of little unseen birds which, they said, were the voices of the dead, diminishing as the bodies rotted, until they were little but a squeaking in the reeds, which were once men and had men's voices.

It was also the haunt of midges and mosquitoes, eager to feast on human blood, and leeches as long as my finger, black with red stripes, which dropped from the willows and fastened in an eyeblink, plumping out on their stolen harvest in seconds.

They did not, of course, harm us. We were redolent of an essence of white summer daisies, sun-flowers dedicated to Ammon, and another oil derived from a certain fungus which belongs to the Dark Mother alone. If any insect were bold enough to ignore the repelling power of Ammon and bite us, it would instantly die.

'What was the potion, Mistress?' I asked Trioda, as we waded through the black water in the rising mist.

'Potion, daughter?'

'The queen required it of you,' I reminded her. 'Is she poisoning my father?'

'No,' said Trioda.

We walked a few paces. A year before I might not have persisted, but now I had more courage. I had saved my father's life and I was a woman of knowledge, about to meet the guardian of the serpent grove. Also I needed some words to break the silence as we walked amongst the bobbing dead in the stench of rotting flesh and marsh-water, the mist flowing around us.

'Then what is the medicine, Mistress? Does the queen suffer from some shameful ailment?'

Women's illnesses are indications of the disfavour of the Triple Goddess, and to placate the goddess it is essential to examine the state of mind of the woman. If she cannot conceive, for instance, she may have desired her stepson or a priest of Ammon, may have lusted to follow her own appetite - although there may be other reasons. A woman whose womb will not hold the quickening child may have blasphemed the goddess, cursing by Hekate at some domestic misfortune. Sacrifice and fasting will usually mend the fault, and the medicines of the skilled women of the temple. However, no woman would admit to illness before a man, lest she be shamed.

'Not precisely,' said Trioda. She held a bush aside for me as we took the winding path, almost invisible to the eye, towards the ilex grove.

'I am your acolyte, Mistress, your daughter. Tell me.'

'The queen of Colchis wants to live,' said Trioda after a long pause. 'If she bears a child, she will die. She cannot disobey the commands of the king your father to lie down under him and receive his seed, the black seed of Aetes. Therefore Eidyia, every month when the moon is gone, takes one drop of a certain potion.'

'What potion?' I watched a leech curl dead from my forearm and plop into the dark water.

'It is compounded in copper of fireweed and fungus of rye,' she said. I thought about it. The purple fungus which infects rye which has been wet too often in growing, produces gangrene and mania, a dancing madness. A pregnant woman who tastes of it…

"She aborts the child,' I said, astonished at the queen's cunning.

'There may not be a child. That compound causes the womb to contract, loosing the tide of blood that follows the moon. Thus Eidyia risks all - discovery and disgrace - to avoid death in childbirth. And thus, child, Eidyia endangers her husband, who needs another daughter, so that the sons of Phrixos, through their mother, shall not rule his kingdom after he is dead.'

'Mistress, you have told me that dead men die and rot, that their spirits fly to the land of Ammon to dwell in the sun, as the spirits of women are carried in Hekate's arms to sleep in her bosom. What should the king care that some other man will take his kingdom after he is gone?'

'It is the duty of a king to care for his kingdom, to leave it in safe hands. And that is as strong as the duty laid on women to endure the man, suck in his seed, feed his children with her blood, bear them in agony and nurture them, though she suckles the sons who enslave her sisters and breeds her own captors. That is all I will say to you, Medea.'

She waded onto the path again, and I followed her in silence.