It was three days before the score of Colchian galleys drove in about us like dogs baying about a wallowing stag. We had watched them lying back for hours, waiting for the moment to strike. They were so swift, so low in the water, so well-manned, that they could have taken us before we had got three miles out of harbour—but they had not chosen to do this. I wondered why, and asked Medea, who now sat like a queen above my rowers, her pride and confidence restored, although she was still dressed in rags.
She answered, ‘Apsyrtus has a snake’s mind. I should know of such things. He is not content with a simple killing but wishes to gain glory by it, too. Far from shore and other eyes, he means to put an end to us all and then to return with your body and mine as trophies, and marks upon his own flesh as though the battle had been a bloody one. Besides, like a cat, he takes pleasure in prolonging the terror of his victim. We are his mouse.’
I said, ‘That seems to be a family tradition of the House of Colchis.’
Medea allowed her set lips to smile faintly and said, ‘Each man is entitled to his opinion, in a world of reason, though he has only rags on his back and black bread in his belly. But Apsyrtus will kill us all within the next hour, if he has his way.’
Then she turned away from me and watched her brother’s galleys cutting the white foam, as though she were at a horse race, almost idly, not like a gambler who has much at stake on any of the horses. Her fortitude impressed both my men and me; say what one might, she had great courage, even in the depths of defeat and humiliation, and an undying spirit which I have encountered in no other woman and in hardly another man. My Spartans, though they had once hated her, now regarded her as their queen and addressed her with an enormous respect. Nor, throughout the voyage, did I ever hear a man speak lewdly in her hearing.
To tell truth, Medea, in rags or gold brocade, was my match and perhaps more than my match. She, of all creatures under the sun, had broken me down to nothing that night in the audience chamber, and before her eyes I could never be a full man again, boast as I might, shout as I would. Even in my armour, my javelins steaming, my beard frothed with battle-spittle, I have stood before her as she sat calmly in a chair with her embroidery, quaking like a young lad. Yes, I know I was big enough and strong enough to put a sword through her, but in cases like this there is a strength beyond steel, beyond powerful hands and arms. She was the sort of woman a man looked to as his leader, however strong he was.
And now as the galleys set their sharp prows at us, I touched her on the arm and said, ‘To be practical, Medea, how are we to avoid letting your brother kill us, then?’
She smiled, showing her white cat’s teeth, and let her heavy lids sink so that I could not see the expression of her eyes.
‘If you always trust me so, Jason,’ she said, ‘our marriage will be a happy one and we shall enjoy great fame.’
A buffet on the cheek from Polydeuces could not have shaken me more. I had forgotten that she and I were betrothed, given to each other.
She went on before I could speak and said, ‘To our starboard bow where the waves are breaking against a wall of sea-mist, lies an island. It is only a small island, but big enough for our purposes.’
I was puzzled by her words, but just then Castor began to shout out in warning and the air was full of the buzzing of arrows. Some of them overshot us and hissed into the sea; others stood vibrating like a string of Orpheus’ lyre in our gunwales. None of them found a mark, this time.
‘They mean this,’ Medea said, still in full view of her brother’s archers, as though she sat in her own room and safe. ‘We must act quickly before the next flight. Give me the speaking-trumpet.’
Ancaeus handed her the megaphone of cow-hide and, setting it to her fine mouth, she stood near the prow and called out, ‘I, Medea, Princess of Colchis and wife of Apsyrtus, speak to you. Pay heed and pass my words to my dear husband, for he is among you somewhere.’
Her full voice carried over the rough waters, and I observed that the oarsmen in the galleys rowed at a slower pace, as though to listen, such was the magic of that voice. Even the skimming sea-birds seemed to sheer away from our mast-head as the voice boomed, leaving us still and wrapped about with dignity.
Castor whispered, ‘I would follow her to the pit, brother.’
Polydeuces nodded, but did not speak. I think that he was weeping for some reason or other.
Then Medea spoke again, like Athene calling up all warriors who had died in battle among the arrows and the hooves.
‘I, Medea, daughter of the Eagle King, Goddess, priestess of Persephone, speak to you. Tell my husband that I know why he follows this ship. Tell him that I know he wishes to regain me, to carry me back in disgrace to Colchis. My daimones have told me so, and they are not to be questioned. This is my fate, my Moira, my Ananke, and I accept it at the Mother’s command. You are the avengers, my friends, the Erinnyes; and I know you all. So does the Mother know you all, and will be waiting to speak with you about this day’s work some time—tomorrow, next year, in ten years’ time, in battle, on the still waters, in a deep valley. But let that pass, as we all shall pass. I speak of other things.’
She waited so long then that the rowers ceased their rowing, both those in Argo and those in the galleys. And a heavy silence settled on the waves.
Medea glanced down at me and smiled, her elf-locks twisting in the wind like living snakes. Then she put the trumpet to her lips again and called out, ‘I accept my fate, tell the King. But I will surrender myself to no one but him. Only kingly hands shall make me captive. Beyond us lies a little island. There, Jason will set me down and wait off shore in his ship. And there, on the beach which is shaped like the Mother’s moon, shall my husband take possession of me, for good or ill. And that shall be at the sun’s rising tomorrow. Is that agreed?’
I gazed up at her in bewilderment. She saw this and smiled down at me, mischievously like a young girl. And then I looked away, unable to meet her eyes again.
Across the broad and greying sea the trumpets spoke from one galley to another, each time repeating the words of the smiling Goddess. And at last other words came back, in answer, passing from ship to ship, like a growing wind, or like bulls bellowing to each other across the broad plains.
The captain of the nearest galley called through his trumpet, ‘Hail, Goddess and Princess of Colchis. Your husband accepts you as a hostage. He will take possession of you, mind and body, on the beach shaped like the Mother’s moon, at dawn. See that you meet him there unarmed and unattended. If all goes well, great Apsyrtus promises that he may let Jason sail freely back to Iolcos. Those are the king’s words, the words of a god!’
Medea spat on the fore-deck and said, ‘A god! A painted boy!’
Then she flung the speaking-horn away from her and went back to her chair, beckoning me to follow. I did so like a whipped dog and stood before her as she spoke to me in a voice charged with quiet fury.
‘My brother is either an idiot or the most wily man I have met,’ she said. ‘We must make a test and find out which it is, Jason-husband.’
I said, ‘I am your servant, Medea.’ I could think of no other words, I regret. It was as though she put the words into my mouth; I cannot explain it. But Castor told me that it was like this with him; he would start to say something and then hear himself saying the other thing, when he was with Medea.
She said, ‘Tonight when they lie off shore and cannot see what goes on, I want you to swim to the island and to conceal yourself close to the little beach. See that you hide above the beach, so that you can come down with speed, the slope to aid you. Watch him with care, Jason. And when the moment comes, take him. With their king as our hostage, the galleys must let us sail on freely. Is that clear in your mind?’
I said, ‘But what if Apsyrtus kills you before I can get to you, Medea? Or what if I choose, suddenly, to let him put the dagger into you?’
I meant the last as a grim joke; the cold smile in her dark eyes froze my lips and I wished that I had not said such words.
Medea answered, ‘If I die on the Mother’s moon-shaped beach, then I assure you that Argo will never reach harbour again. So much is revealed to me, Jason. I speak only what I know. If Apsyrtus kills me there, his ever-growing pride will force him to sink you, too. Is that understood?’
I nodded and went away. When the moon went down, I stripped off my clothes, all except for a hide-thong about my waist, into which I put a bronze dirk. Then I slipped over the side and swam silently towards the island.
The water was bitterly chill, though the Spring was well forward; and I thought that my heart might stop and that I might sink into the darkness below and make a meal for the great fishes.
But Poseidon once more put his strong hand under me and bore me towards the shore.
I landed, unseen, and crawled up a little gully where the stream still flowed, and lay down behind a thick sage-bush, not ten paces from the moon-shaped beach of the Mother.