Again? I wanted to ask what she meant, but with Medea, perhaps there were some riddles better left unanswered. I assured her that I would do whatever I could to help her. She gave me a ferocious hug, then ran to the doorway and shouted for her servants.
I was given a small room in Medea’s apartments and soon I settled comfortably into the thickest, most sweetly perfumed bed I’d ever known. I should have fallen asleep at once, but my thoughts kept me awake. I was haunted by the memory of the harsh, critical way her father had treated her before us all.
Is there anything about her that pleases him? He praised her skill with herbs and potions, but otherwise he made it plain that she’s a disappointment. I recalled the immeasurable affection my own father had always given me and felt deeply sorry for Medea. I’d heard stories of famine years, and how starvation could deform the body. If you starve the heart, do you deform the mind? That might explain why she’d attached herself to Jason with such an intense, all-devouring passion, but suspecting the cause behind Medea’s behavior didn’t make it any less alarming.
I’d better try to get some sleep, I thought. I’ve got the feeling that I’ll want to stay alert as long as I’m anywhere near Medea.
I shifted onto my side, facing the wall, and was just beginning to drift off when I got the abrupt, startling sensation that I wasn’t alone. I turned over quickly just in time to catch sight of a shape clinging to the doorpost. It fled with a gasp when I started up from my bed. It might have been no more than one of the servants, but I had the disturbing feeling it was their royal mistress. I wasn’t able to fall asleep again until just before dawn.
9
THE GIFT OF HECATE
I had barely dozed off when Medea shook me awake much too early the next morning. Her face was drawn, her eyes feverish. “Can you fetch him now? Now, before my father finds out? I’ll show you where I’ll be waiting, then you can bring him to me.”
I sat up, rubbing my weary eyes. “I don’t know where to look for Jason,” I replied.
She ground her teeth so hard that I could hear it. “Don’t lie to me. You’re wasting my time with your excuses. Come!” She dug her fingers into my wrist and would have yanked me from the bed onto the floor if I hadn’t braced myself.
“Stop that!” I ordered her, pulling my hand away. “What’s the matter with you? One moment I’m your sacred guest, your beloved sister, and the next you’re acting like I’m one of your slaves. I won’t let you treat me like this.” I was too sleepy to worry if my bluntness might send her into a rage.
I was lucky. Instead of storming at me, Medea was immediately sorry, though I knew her heartfelt apology might turn into a fresh spate of false accusations at any moment. I got up and dressed as fast as I could. She’d done everything but grovel, yet I’d caught an icy glimpse of malice in her eyes. The less I thwart this girl, the healthier I’ll stay, I thought. How does she manage to make my heart break and my skin crawl at the same time? O gods, grant me some way to escape her “hospitality”! She took me out of the palace and past humble outbuildings protected by the citadel enclosure. The smell of cookfires was already on the fresh morning air. Slaves and servants trotted busily to and fro as Lord Aetes’ stronghold stirred itself from sleep. None of them seemed to regard it as strange to see their princess roaming the grounds outside the palace. The building she sought looked like a potter’s shed, with the oven for baking the clay pots beside it. There was a scattering of broken crockery in front of the doorsill. Medea stooped and examined it keenly, then stood up and smiled at me as if I understood all her secrets. “No one has been here. We can enter.”
She opened the door and urged me to follow her. I did so, and soon found myself deep in stench-haunted shadows. I groped behind my back and was reassured to feel the door. Just then, a spark flared in the darkness. Medea had kindled a fat wick stuck into a cup of tallow. It burned with more smoke and stink than lamps fed with olive oil, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“You will bring him here,” she said. “Hecate herself will stand witness to all we say to one another. But not yet. First I must worship the goddess who has answered my prayers.”
She gestured with the flame and I saw a waist-high block of stone at the rear of the little hut. The image resting on it was made from rock so black it seemed to gulp down any light that fell on it. It was a carving of a three-headed goddess, though only one head was human. The other two were those of a wild horse and a viciously snarling dog. A serpent encircled the goddess’s waist. One of Hecate’s hands held a torch, the other a sword.
I knew Hecate’s name. I’d known it long before Argus mentioned her to me when speaking about his stepmother. Even if we didn’t worship the goddess willingly in Sparta, my parents still made the occasional sacrifice at her shrine to protect us from her anger. Some believed she was only another side of Artemis, who changed her appearance and entered the underworld on nights when the moon was dark and dead. Others said she was a goddess in her own right, the ruler of wild and haunted places. Even Zeus feared her powers, for she was the mistress of magic strong enough to undo the normal order of the world. As I gazed at the image, Medea placed the burning cup at its feet and took a small, covered pot from among dozens crowding the top of a table propped against the sidewall. A knife lay there as well, its leaf-shaped blade mottled with stains. I tried not to think about what might have made them.