the blood-red light
trapped inside fell away and away into nothingness like magnitude endlessly eating its shadow, consuming
all space.
“He speaks with feeling,” Koprophoros said, then
suddenly cackled.
“A man without interest in the throne of busy Corinth
and all
her wealth! Pray god we may all be as wise when we’re
all as poor
as Paidoboron!” He beamed, unable to hide his pleasure in his own sly play. The princess laughed too, the
innocent peal
of a child, and then all the great hall laughed till it
seemed that the very
walls would tumble from weakness. Paidoboron, grave,
said nothing.
His eyes were fierce. Yet his fury, it seemed to me
again, rang false.
I glanced at the goddesses, reclining at ease near Jason,
on the dais.
If the two kings were engaged in some treachery,
the goddesses too
were fooled by it.
The chief of the Argonauts watched the Northerner as though he had scarcely noticed Koprophoros’ trick.
He said
when the laughter in the hall died down, “Tell me,
Paidoboron,
why have you come? I knew you long ago, and I know your gloomy land. Koprophoros has his joke, but perhaps his nimble wits have betrayed him, this once. What
wealth can a man
bring down from a land like yours? And what can
Corinth offer
that you’d take even as a gift? I know you better,
I think,
than Koprophoros does. There’s no duplicity in you,
no greed
for anything Kreon can give. Yet there you stand.”
Paidoboron
bowed. “That’s true. Even so, I may have suitable gifts for a king.” He said no more, but smiled.
Jason laughed,
then checked himself, musing. “You’ve seen something
in the stars, I think,”
he said at last. Paidoboron gave him no answer. “I think the stars sent you — or so you imagine — sent you for
something
you’ve no great interest in, yourself.” He tapped his
chin,
thinking it through. Suddenly I saw in his eyes that his
thought
had darkened. He said: “If Zodiac-watchers were always
right,
we’d all be wise to abandon this hall at once.” He
smiled.
Kreon looked flustered. “What do you mean?” When
Jason was silent,
he turned to Ipnolebes. “What does he mean?” The
slave said nothing.
The old king pursed his lips, then puffed his cheeks
out, troubled.
“Fiddlesticks!” he said. Then, brightening: “Wine! Give
everyone here
more wine!” The slaves hurried in the aisles, obeying.
But Jason
pondered on, and the sea-kings watched him as Kreon
did,
Time suspended by Jason’s frown. The game was ended, I thought, incredulous. He’d understood that the fates
themselves
opposed him, through Paidoboron.
Then one of the shadowy
forms beside him vanished — Hera, goddess of will, and the same instant a man with a great red beard
stood up,
and a chill went through my veins. His eyes were like
smoke. The man
with the red beard snapped, “One thing here’s sure.
We’re all engaged,
whatever our reasons, in a test. It’s ungenteel, no doubt, to mention it. But I never was long on gentility. These kings don’t loll here, day after day, some showing
off
their wares by the walls, some flashing their wits at
the dinnertable,
for nothing. I say we get on with it.” He glared from
table
to table, red-faced, his short, thick body charged with
wrath.
Kreon looked startled and glanced in alarm at Ipnolebes. “Jason,” the red-bearded man said fiercely, pointing a
finger
that shook with indignation, “if you mean to play,
then play.
If not, pack off! Make room for men that are serious!” Jason smiled, but his eyes were as bright as nails.
“I assure you,
I had no Idea there were stakes involved, and I’ve no
intention
of playing for them, whatever they are. I am, as you
know,
a beggar here. I leave the game to you, my dissilient friend, whatever it is.”
The man with the red beard scoffed,
tense lips trembling like the wires of a harp, his eyes
like a dog’s.
“We’re to understand that Jason, known far and wide
for his cunning,
has no idea of what every other lout here, drunk or sober, has seen by plain signs: Pyripta’s for sale, and we’re bidding.” He pointed as he spoke, his face
bright red with rage,
whether at Pyripta for her calfy innocence, or at Kreon
for his guile,
or at devious Jason, no one could tell. Like a mad dog, a misanthrope out of the woods, he turned on all of
them, pointing
at the girl, scorning the elegant forms of their civility. Pyripta gasped and hid her face, and the blood
rushed up
till even her forehead burned red. Like one fierce man,
the crowd,
half-rising, roared their anger. He glared at them,
trembling all over,
his head lowered, pulled inward like a bull’s. “Get him
out of here!”
Kreon shouted. “He’s drunk!” But when men moved
toward him
he batted them off like a bear. Men jerked out daggers
and began
to circle him. He drew his own and, hunched tight, guarding with one arm, rolled his small eyes, watching
them all.
Then Jason rose and called out twice in a loud voice, “Wait!” The crowd, the circle of men with their daggers
drawn,
looked up at him. “No need for this,” he said. “A man in a rage is often enough a man who thinks he’s right though the whole world’s against him. I know this
wildman Kompsis.
Dog-eyed, fierce as he is, he tells you the truth as he
sees it—
sparing no feelings. He may be a rough, impatient man, a truculent fool, but he means less evil than you
think. He’s been
a friend to me. Let him be.” The men encircling
Kompsis
hesitated, then put their weapons away. Red Kompsis glowered at Jason, angry but humbled. Then he too
sheathed
his knife. Men talked, at the tables, leaning toward
each other,
and the sound soon filled the hall.
Jason sat down. As if
to himself, he said, “How quickly and easily it always
comes, this
violence! It’s a strange thing. Poor mad mankind!” “God knows!” said Kreon, his voice shaky. The
princess, her face
still hidden behind her hands, was weeping. It was
not cunning—
not Jason’s famous capacity for transforming all evils to advantages — that showed on his face. The son of Aison, whatever else, was a man sensitive to pain. It was that, past
anything else,
that set him apart, made a stranger of Jason wherever
he went.
He suffered too fiercely the troubles of people around
him. It made him
cool, intellectual. Nietzsche would have understood. If
he was
proud, usurped the prerogatives of gods … Never
mind.
I was moved, watching from the shadows. He was a
man much wronged
by history, by classics professors. Jason leaned forward, speaking to Kreon now, but speaking so Pyripta would
hear: