They seemed
to think me, dressed so strangely, some new
entertainment. None
addressed me. On the dais, the goddess of love had
vanished. I searched
the room, my heart in a whir, to discover what form
she’d taken.
I saw no trace of her.
Then we were standing in a shadowy chamber, plain as a cavern, where slaves moved silently to and fro with sullen, burning eyes. There Ipnolebes stood, alone, quietly issuing commands. Since the time I’d seen him
last
he was a man profoundly changed. His skin was ashen,
his eyes
remote, indifferent as a murdered man’s. When Jason
approached him,
the black-robed slave gazed past him as though he were
a stranger. Old Kreon
rubbed his jaw, looked thoughtful, keeping his distance.
In his shadow
Kompsis stood, the violent red-headed man who’d
attacked
them all when the goddess Hera was in him. By the
calm of his eyes,
I thought she had entered him again, but I was wrong.
It was
another goddess — as deadly as Hera when the mood
was on her.
The son of Aison bowed to the slave and touched his
shoulder
as he would the shoulder of an equal he wished to
console. For all
his cunning, for all the magic of that golden tongue,
he could find
no words. It was thus the slave who broke the silence.
He said,
“You knew him, I think — Amekhenos, Northern
barbarian
who thought himself a prince in spite of the plain
evidence
of welts and chains.”
“I knew him, yes.”
“You could have prevented, if it suited you …”
But Aison’s son shook his head. “No.” His voice was heavy, as weary as the voice of an old,
old man.
Ipnolebes sighed and still did not swing his eyes to
Jason’s.
“No. It was not, after all, as if you’d sworn him some
vow.
There are laws and laws, limitless seas of extenuation eating our acts. Otherwise no man alive would grow old maintaining, in his own opinion, at least, the shreds
and tatters
of his dignity.” He forced out a ghastly laugh. “Who
am I
to judge? And even if you had, so to speak, let slip some
vow,
many years ago—” He paused, wrinkling his brow,
having lost
the thread. There are vows and vows,” he mumbled.
“I merely say …
I merely say …”He broke off with a shudder and
turned
his face. “I find no fault in you,” he said. “Good night.”
Lips stretched taut in a violent grin, he stared at Jason.
They spoke no further, and finally Jason withdrew. Old
Kreon
followed him, Kompsis at his side. I hurried behind
them. In the hall
that opened on the great front door with its thickly
figured panels,
its hinges the length and breadth of a man, the old
king bowed,
without a word, and they parted. The short, red-bearded
man
accompanied Jason, walking out into the night. I kept to the shadows, following behind.
At the foot of the palace steps red Kompsis paused, and Jason reluctantly waited for
him.
“You amaze me, Jason.” He folded his beefy hands and
smiled,
malevolent. ‘The hanged boy was a friend of yours.” Jason said nothing. “He was, I think, the son of a king who defended the Argo from ruin by northern
barbarians.
He was a mighty chieftain, at that time.
But later, his luck abandoned him.
His palace fell to marauders from the South. He himself,
though old
and cunning as a dragon, was driven to the hills and
there surrounded
by Danaans and slain, still clinging to his two-hand
sword. His head
they hacked from his shoulders and threw in the river,
and all his animals,
horses and dogs, they slaughtered, in scorn of the habit
of the Kelts;
and his son in scorn they christened Amekhenos.
Shackled as a slave,
for all his angry pride, they brought him to Corinth.
Here Kreon
bought him, believing he could tame that wolfish heart.”
To all this
Jason listened in silence, his eyes on the ground. Red
Kompsis
laughed, but his voice was violent, his body hunched.
He said:
“He recognized you at once, of course. At the first
chance,
he spoke with you. I saw your look of bewilderment
You’d heard that voice before somewhere, but you couldn’t recall it. Faces, voices, they don’t last
long
in the snatching brain of Jason.” He laughed again.
“You would
have remembered him soon enough, I think, if you’d
needed his aid.
But the shoe was on the other foot. He was not a man
to press
for favors owed to his house. Though a single word
from you
to Kreon — fond as he is of his mighty adventurer—
would have freed that prince in the same instant, you
kept your peace.
Because of bad memory.” He leaned toward Jason
fiercely. “—Because of
shallowness of heart. I name it its name! Your every
word
reveals your devilish secret!
“—Very well, you forgot his name. He must seek his freedom by other means. And so
escaped,
slipped — incredible! — even past sleepless Ipnolebes’
eyes.
We know better, of course. You saw his rage. For once
in his life
the old man chose to blink. — But whatever his
barbarous courage,
whatever the cunning of his savage Keltic brain, no
slave
escapes from the gyves of Kreon. And so he was missed,
and hunted,
and eventually found in — incredible again …”
“I know. That’s enough!” Jason broke in without meaning to. He stood
tight-lipped,
saying no more. Red Kompsis laughed,
swollen with righteous indignation, godlike scorn.
“—was found in the chief ship of the Arenians, in command of a
man
you once knew well — mad Idas, son of Aphareos.
Surely it did not escape the wily Jason’s mind that something, somewhere, was amiss! Why would
Idas, for all his famed
insanity, give help to a perfect stranger, a dangerous
Kelt? All the crew was arrested, the runaway slave
was hanged,
and still from Jason not a syllable. Though all the
harbor
churned up seething in fury at Kreon’s tyranny— grizzly, base-born seadogs with no more nobility of
blood
than jackals — still the golden tongue was silent. You
can
explain, no doubt. The golden tongue can explain away the moon, the sun, the firmament, explain away birth and death, not to mention marriage — leave all this
universe pale
as mist.” So he spoke, lips trembling with anger, and
while he spoke,
the sky grew darker, glowering and oppressive. I
understood
it was no mere mortal whose anger charged the night,
but the wrath
of a goddess whose power was rising. The Father of
Gods had withdrawn