commoners,
or warm without it! A statue, golden ornament indifferent to the climb and fall of the sun and moon,
the endless,
murderous draw of tides. And still the days drag on.” So he spoke, removed by cruel misfortunes from all
who once
listened in a spell to his oratory, or observed with
slightly narrowed eyes
the twists and turns of his ingenious wit. No great wit now, I thought. But I hadn’t yet seen how
well
he still worked words when attending some purpose
more worthy of his skill
than private, dreary complaint. I was struck by a curious
thing:
The hero famous for his golden tongue had difficulty
speaking—
some slight stiffness of throat, his tongue unsure. If once his words came flowing like water down a weir, it was
true no longer:
as Jason was imprisoned by fate in Corinth — useless,
searching—
so Jason’s words seemed prisoned in his chest,
hammering to be free.
A moment after he spoke, Medeia’s voice came up to the window, soft as a fern; and then the children’s
voices,
softer than hers, blending in the strains of an ancient
canon
telling of blood-stained ikons, isles grown still. He
listened.
The voices rising from the garden were light as spirit
voices
freed from the crawl of change like summer in a
painted tree.
When the three finished, they clapped as though the
lyric were
some sweet thing safe as the garden, warm as leaves.
Medeia
rose, took the children’s hands, and saying a word too
faint
to hear in the room above, moved down an alleyway pressed close on either side by blue-green boughs. Jason turned his back on the window. He suddenly laughed.
His face
went grim. “You should see your Jason now, brave
Argonauts!
Living like a king, and without the drag of a king’s
dull work.
Grapes, pomegranates piled up in every bowl like the
gods’
own harvest! Ah, most happy Jason!” His eyes grew
fierce.
In the street below, the three small boys who watched, in
hiding,
hunched like cunning astrologers spying on the stars,
exchanged
sharp glances, hearing that laugh, and a visitor standing
at the gate,
Aigeus, father of Theseus — so I would later find out, a man in Medeia’s cure — looked down at the
cobblestones,
changed his mind, departed. In the garden, Medeia
looked back
at the house, or through it. It seemed her mind was far
away.
“Mother?” the children called. She gave them a nod.
“I’m coming.”
They ran ahead once more. She followed with thoughtful
eyes.
Her feet moved, hushed and white, past crumbling grave
markers.
A shadow darkened the sky, then passed. At Jason’s
gate
a mist shaped like a man took on solidity: Ipnolebes, Kreon’s slave. The three boys watching fled. With a palsy-shaken hand, a crumpled lizard’s claw, he reached to the dangling rod, made the black bronze
gate-ring clang.
A slave peeked out, then opened the gate, admitting
him.
Jason met him at the door with a smile, an extended
hand,
his eyes hooded, covering more than they told. The bent-backed slave spoke a few hoarse words, leering, his
square gray teeth
like a mule’s. Lord Jason bowed, took the old man’s arm,
and led him
gently, slowly, to the upstairs room. The old man’s
sandals
hissed on the wooden steps.
When he’d reached his seat at last,
Ipnolebes spoke: “Ah! — ah! — I thank you, Jason, thank you! Forgive an old man’s—” He paused to catch
his breath.
“Forgive an old man’s mysteries. It’s all we have left at my age — he he!” He grabbed awkwardly for Jason’s
hand
and patted it, fatherly, fingers like restless wood. The son of Aison drew up a chair, sat down. At last, his voice detached though friendly, Jason asked, “You have some
message
from the king, Ipnolebes?” The old man bowed. “I do,
I do.”
His skull was a death’s head. Jason waited. “It’s been
some time,”
Ipnolebes said, a sing-song — old age harkening back— “It’s been some time since you visited, up at the palace.
Between
the two of us, old Kreon’s a bit out of sorts about it. He’s done a good deal for you — if you can forgive an
old fool’s
mentioning it. A privilege of age, I hope. He he! Old men are dolts, as they say. Poor innocent children
again.”
Jason pressed his fingertips to his eyelids, said nothing. “Well, so,” Ipnolebes said. It seemed that his mind had
wandered,
slipped from its track not wearily but in sudden
impatience.
He frowned, then brightened. “Yes, of course. Old
Kreon’s quite put out.
“Miffed,” you might say. He was a happy man when
you came, Jason—
the greatest traveller in the world and the greatest
talker, too.
You know how it is with a man like Kreon, whole life
spent
on bookkeeping, so to speak — no more extended views than windows give. It was a great stroke of luck, we
thought,
when you arrived, driven from home on an angry wind through no fault of your own.” He nodded and clasped
his hands.
His eyes moved, darting. The son of Aison studied him. That’s Kreon’s message?” Ipnolebes laughed. “No, no,
not at all!
I spoke no thoughts but my own there. Ha ha! Mere
chaff!”
The old man’s voice took on a whine. “He asks you to
supper.
I told him I’d bring the message myself. I’m a stubborn
man,
when I like, I told him. A hard devil to refuse.” Again he laughed, a stirring of shadows, Ipnolebes leaned
toward him.
“Pyripta, his daughter — I think you remember her,
perhaps?—
she too is eager that you come. A lovely girl, you know. She’ll be marrying soon, no doubt. How the years do
fly!” He grinned.
Jason watched him with still eyes. Ipnolebes wagged his head. “He’ll be a lucky man, the man that snags Pyripta. Also a wealthy man — and powerful, of course.” Jason stood up, moved off. He leaned on the window
frame.
“Between just the two of us,” the old man said,
“you could
do worse than pass a free hour or so with Pyripta.
You never
know. The world—”
Jason turned to him, frowning. “Old friend,
I have a wife.” Ipnolebes bowed. “Yes, yes. So you do. So you feel, anyway. Forgive a poor old bungling fool. In the eyes of the law, of course … but perhaps our
laws are wrong;
we never know.” His glance fled left. “ ‘Our laws,’
I say.
A slave. My care for Kreon carries me farther than
my wits!
And yet it’s a point, perhaps. Am I wrong? In the
strictly legal
sense—” He paused. He tapped the ends of his fingers
together
and squinted as if it were hard indeed to make his
old mind
concentrate. Then after a moment: “In the strictly legal sense, you have no wife — a Northern barbarian, a lady whose barbarous mind has proved its way—