'Phrixos met a princess there: Chalkiope, daughter of the king Aetes. She saw him and loved him, the fair hero, and she lay with him and bore him four sons. But the king disliked these boys, having no son of his own, and when Phrixos died, he did not adopt them - or so they say.
'That king holds the Golden Fleece without right. Zeus punished him by taking his queen, though they say he took another woman. She only bore him another daughter, Medea, before she died too. The hand of the gods is heavy on blasphemers. That is the tale of Phrixos, cousin of Aison - your father, and Pelias - your uncle. Remember it when you come into your own.'
Jason was alight with the tale; he told it to me over and over again as we lay down in the goatskins, and as I drifted into sleep I heard him whispering in the darkness over the snores of the centaurs.
'Rightful property - the Golden Fleece is the rightful property of the descendants of Phrixos, who rode on the golden ram from Mount Laphystios to Colchis.'
With my last conscious thought, I still considered that sacrificing it at all, and especially to the wrong god, was very unfair on the ram.
--- II ---
MEDEA
I could read and write - and how inkstained I got, and how Chalkiope scolded me for the black blotches on the clean white tunic worn by all princesses of the royal house! - so I must have been nine years old when Trioda summoned me one hot morning.
It was sizzling as I crossed the white marble pavement. The sun had heated the stone, so that even my hard bare feet were uncomfortably warm. I wondered where I had left my sandals when I went fishing with my half-brother Aefialeus and my sister Chalkiope's sons: Cytisoros, the eldest and leader; Argeos, the bully; Phrontis, the trickster; and Melanion, my friend.
My sister was fifteen when I was born. She had lain with the foreigner, borne his children and wept over his grave while I was growing up. I remembered him, a tall man with a loud voice. He had died eight years ago and the stems of the ivy around his grave were as thick as hawsers. I thought my sister old, of course, old and stern. And she disapproved of me, though we could have been close. Both of our mothers had died at our births - and she certainly interfered in my life as much as any mother could have done. Trioda said that there was a curse on all women associated with my father, Aetes.
Chalkiope had been pretty, I vaguely remembered, though now her brow was furrowed and her lips pinched. She did not like my friendship with her children, though the youngest was the same age as me. Melanion had smooth skin and eyes like the most expensive Kriti honey, and I was another boy to him, a playmate, not a princess.
I could not marry. I knew that the priestesses of Hekate are always maidens. I did not see, however, that I could not be friends with Melanion because of that. He was my nephew. No one could object to amity amongst close kin, surely. Possibly, however, it might have been a good idea not to get quite so dirty while demonstrating this.
Trioda eyed me. She stood in her black garments like a crow in the brightness of the strong sunlight, her arm raised against the light. I surveyed myself.
I had skinned one knee on the edge of the landing stage, and I had fallen in - once my mistake and the second time because I was already wet and going to be scolded, and I liked the feel of the water. The shallow river-pond where we harvest shellfish had been as warm as blood, and I had already dried on my run from the banks. My tunic was crumpled and stained with tar and altogether I was a spectacle - an object lesson in what a princess of the royal house of Colchis should not look like.
I raised my chin and waited for a slap, but she did not hit me, or even seem to notice my disheveled condition. Instead, she gave me a potion and watched as I choked it down. It was bitter. Then she took my hand and led me into the grove.
I had been feeling defiant; now all my courage drained away. There was something in that grove - something new. The wind in the cypresses sang loud and shrill, though the day outside was as still as death. My mud-stiff hair stirred at the back of my neck. I could smell, suddenly, a reek of strong perfume, rank and fascinating, like a mixture of incense and rotting flesh, and I coughed, pulling against Trioda's hand, not to retreat but to run into the scent, into whatever was forming in the darkness under the trees. Something was pulling me. Trioda grabbed me by the shoulders.
'Speak,' she ordered. 'Pray. Listen!'
'Lady of Darkness,' I began. My words were blown away in the rising wind. 'Lady of Forests, Protector of the Newborn, Lady of the Three Ways, hear me.' Then I was guided or prodded to add, 'I am Medea. You called me. I am here.'
All utterances directed to the lady Hekate must be tripartite, or she will not hear them. The wind rose to a howl and we stood in the calm centre of it, untouched, though the pine-needles whipped past, hissing.
'Child,' said a voice. I fell to my knees, my mistress beside me. Trioda covered her face, but I stared into the pine needles, green and brown, as they began to form into… something.
A woman, ten cubits high, wreathed in snakes, flanked by two black hounds. Owls flew about her head. Her face was forming, dark eyes, black hair which fell below her waist and writhed and curled. The vegetable hands were open, she held out her arms, and an irresistible yearning drowsiness took me, folded me close and warm and safe.
She said 'Daughter,' and I fell asleep on her breast.
I woke in the dark. She was gone. The world was hollow, comfortless. I wept inconsolably. I cried for hours, refusing all attempts at reassurance by a shaken Trioda, until at the flux of the night, when Trioda says that the goddess Hekate is strongest, when the tide is ebbing and old men die, I heard it again.
A sweet voice, saying, 'Daughter.' It vibrated through my bones and I shivered with fear and delight.
I slept then, and did not weep. I was the daughter of the great goddess, and the next day two black hound bitches were beside my bed when I woke, and Trioda said that I was to be taught the lesser mysteries of Hekate.
They did not, at first, seem to be very intriguing. We searched through the beech woods for a certain fungus, scrabbled through endless grasses for a certain dark-leafed herb, and plucked little purple berries from a tall, fronded, meadow plant. These three things, fungus, leaf and berry, Trioda gathered into a basket made of ferns, which had taken me a whole day and considerable damage to my fingers and patience to construct. We did all this in silence. I was scratched and bored.
'Mistress,' I ventured, following her erect back along the path toward the palace. 'Mistress, what are we doing?'
'Tell me, Medea, what do you see in that basket?' she asked, her voice quite even, but with a strange undercurrent which I could not identify.
'Berries, Mistress, a flat red mushroom and a handful of dark green leaves.'
'That is what you see, is it, acolyte?'
There was some trick to the question, and I considered the things again. I strained my eyes, hoping for another vision, but all I could see was a badly made fern basket - my next one would be much better - and some wilting herbage.
'That is all I can see, Mistress,' I said crossly.
She knelt down so that she could look into my eyes. I will never be tall. I saw inside the hood she always wears in daylight. Trioda with her pale boney face, her beaked nose, her bright eyes and a straggle of coarse white hair. She was almost smiling. She smiled very seldom.
'Medea,' she said softly, 'these are the mysteries of Hekate, queen of phantoms. What you cannot see in that basket, my daughter, is death. You hold death in your hands. With what you carry, you could kill twenty strong men, even if they be heroes in the first flush of their manhood and strength. What you cannot see in that basket, little Princess, is power.'
I stared. Her face was soft, like a woman looking down at a newborn against her breast.
'It is like this, little daughter.' She motioned me to sit down, and I folded into the beechmast, smelling the sharp scent, appreciating the springy softness. 'Men rule the world, as was not the case in