Читать книгу Medea - Kerry Greenwood - Страница 20

I thought often of the young centaur woman in the next year, though I did not see her. I might have gone wandering to the other side of the mountain, where the women lived, despite the danger of death if I was caught, for my heart was greatly inclined toward her, but I had no leisure. Jason and I were worked hard by our master.

Cheiron kept us at his side, trying to instil precepts of government and all his wisdom into our heads, so that we would not forget when we left.

For when Jason, son of Aison, was fifteen, he would descend the mountain and try and regain his kingdom.

'Pelias, brother of your father, is a proud and cunning man,' he instructed as we sat close around a horse-dung fire, shivering in the chill winds. 'You are too honest, young prince of Iolkos.'

'How can I be too honest, Master?' asked my lord. His eyes looked blue in the cooling darkness.

'Is not Herakles the greatest hero? Yet he has cunning. You must try to acquire it, Jason, and not die untimely, your quest unaccomplished. Men cling to power, so will Pelia. Men cling more closely to power which is stolen and majesty which is usurped. Use great formality with your uncle, boy. Show me your obeisance.'

Jason got up and made a graceful, sweeping bow, flourishing his goatskin rug like a cloak. Cheiron grunted in approval.

'And the words you will say?'

'Master, I can't remember,' confessed Jason. Cheiron swatted at his ears and repeated, 'I am Jason, son of Aison, and I am come to reclaim my father's right.'

Jason repeated it, again and again, under the centaur's patient teaching, and eventually both of us knew it by heart.

Time passed, as time does. The festival came and went again, but neither of us were allowed to take part. Philos, who had offered us his captive, had been sent to another mountain in disgrace for defiling the ceremony. I asked the old man about their custom. Would they not rather have wives to live with, as my father lived with my mother?

I could remember my parents talking quietly by the fire, while my brothers and I were lying almost asleep in our sheepskins. Their voices had soothed me, though they said no words of love, just commonplace matters - the health of the flock, the fishing, the mending of nets, the rising or setting of the Pleiades which ruled the seasons. I sometimes recalled little vivid pictures from my past before I had climbed the centaurs' mountain, and that was one of them. The quiet voices discussing the likely value of the clip, and the unaccountable ways of Poseidon's folk, the fish. And I remember waking early one morning and hearing them sacrificing to Aphrodite, goddess of love. My mother had moaned, her arms were around my father's neck and she was kissing him. She had seemed to enjoy his embrace. She was not pinned and hurt like the centaur maiden. And afterwards they had slept companionably together, her head on his shoulder.

'Indeed, Master,' Jason joined in. 'Is there not true love between man and woman?'

'There is not, however many sentimental Achaean songs say there is. There cannot be. For, tell me, young men' - his old brow furrowed and his voice dropped to an impressive whisper - 'Tell me, Prince of Iolkos, what true allegiance can you give to a weak king?'

'None, Master,' answered Jason. His hair was long and he wound a lock around his hand as he listened.

'Then there can be no true love between a woman and a man. True love is for equals, or inferior and superior when there is proper respect. Women are foolish, powerless, enslaved for their good, for they are flighty and weak and there is no integrity in them. They cannot be trusted. One sniff of a man and they are gone, leaving heart, home and honour, and they will move from man to man and husband to husband without grief, for they are lacking in courage and bold only in their vices. If you find a woman who looks up to you as little less than a god, Jason, then you may feel safe with her, for woman is also religious and superstitious. But marry a woman who is learned, as far as such witless things can have learning, and has her own will, then beware, for she will destroy you.'

'But,' began Jason, and the old man cut him off with a fierce gesture.

'We centaurs know this. We keep our women as we keep our horses; with gentleness and discipline, but knowing that they are brute beasts, without understanding. They live apart and manage their own affairs, except for the four festivals, when we have connection with them to breed new men. Women are only the vessel for the seed, and as unreliable as the earth herself. In them lies no trust, and thinking of them can only weaken a man's spirit, and his body.

'The Aechaeans are a strong people, but think how strong they would be if they did not accept these creatures into their houses, allow them to take over their lives, complaining and caressing and filling their heads - even the king's head - with domestic concerns, with children and petty matters. The breeding of children is their business, and they do it well enough. But they must have no place in government or even in consideration. Do not think overmuch of women, young men. They are a necessary evil.'

'But do you need to hurt them, Master Cheiron?' I asked. 'I saw the maiden weep under the phallus - surely that bodes badly for conception.'

'If once our women tasted the joys of making love as your Aphrodite would instruct, Nauplios - ah yes, I have travelled, and I know of such things, and they are sweet, sweet and foul - they would be forever corrupted, and so would our young men. We are a pure people, and have no taste for sensuality. We need to breed, so let us mate as horses mate, who leap the mares. Our maidens conceive readily enough, for once they have conceived they may not go to the sire again for three years - four, if they produce a boy.'

'But I am an Achaean and a prince and will need to marry, Master,' said Jason. "Or am I to mate as the centaurs do?'

'It would be better for you if you did,' snarled Cheiron.

He would say nothing further on the matter. It was cold, down by his little fire. He told us stories of heroes and battles, and strange centaur stories about the striga, the seductive phantom, a woman with white skin and hair like fire, who came in the night and lay with young men, sucking their seed from them, weakening them, so that they grew pale and trembled, useless for hunting or herding, longing for the night. And when they died of exhaustion, she would steal their souls, so that they in turn became spirits who overlay and penetrated young women, sapping their energy from their household tasks, depriving their master of their labour, finally to conceive and bear monsters.

I lay and dreamed, and Jason dreamed the same dream. It was the last night on the mountain with the centaurs. The next day my lord and I would venture into Iolkos and claim his kingdom.

A woman of fascination, a woman with dark hair, not red, a striga with dusky skin and warm breath, dressed in black, came and kissed us and stroked us, her clever hands caressing and sliding, her breasts in our face, her mouth on ours, until we woke clasped together, wet with seed, still shuddering.

We said nothing about it. It was dawn, and we washed and dressed in our finest tunics. We were, at last, returning to the sea. We were going down from the mountain to claim Jason's kingdom.