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—
forgive me—
more than just once, to your sorrow. The law no
more allows
such marriages into barbarian races than it does
between Greeks
and horses, say. If you hope to make your Medeia a
home,
and leave something to your sons, it can hardly be as
a line
of Greeks. If you hope to gain back a pittance of all
she’s wrecked—
it can never be, if I understand Greek law, as Medeia’s husband, father of her sons. — But I’m out of my
depth, of course.”
His laugh was a whimper. “I snatch what appearance
of sense I can
for Kreon’s good.”
Jason said nothing, staring out.
So he remained for a long time, saying nothing.
The slave
chuckled. “It’s a rare thing, such loyalty as yours,
dear man.
She’s beautiful, of course. Heaven knows! And yet a
mind … a mind
like a wolf’s. So it seems from the outside, anyway—
seems to those
who hear the tales. A strange creature to have on
the leash—
or be leashed to, whichever.” His chuckle roused
the dark
in the corners of the room again, a sound like spiders
waking,
the stir of uncoiling sea-beasts dreaming from the
deeps toward land.
“Well, no part of the message, of course. I shouldn’t
have spoken.
Marriage is holy, as they say. What a horror this world
would become
if solemn vows were nothing — whether just or foolish
vows!
Even if there are no gods, or the gods are mad—
as they seem,
and as some of our learned philosophers claim — a
vow’s a vow,
even if we grant that it’s grounded on no more than
human agreement.
Indeed, what would happen to positive law itself
without vows?—
even if vowing is a metaphysical absurdity as it may well be, of course.” The old man grinned,
shook his head.
“—And yet for a man to be locked in a vow his whole
life long—
a marriage vow illegal from the strictly human point
of view,
sworn in the ignorant passion of youth, in defiance
of reason,
and proved disastrous! — ” Ipnolebes closed his
heavy-knuckled
hands on the arm of the chair and, with a rasping sigh, labored up unsteadily out of his seat. Slowly, inches at a time, he eased his way to the stairs.
“Well, so,”
he said. “I’ve delivered the message. Do come,
tomorrow night,
if it seems to you you can do it without impiety. Oh yes — one more thing.” His head swung round.
“There are friends of yours
at the palace, I think. Men from the weirdest corners
of the world.
Merchants, sea-kings.” The old man chuckled, dark as
the well
the stairs went down. “All telling travellers’ tales — he he! Monstrous adventures to light up a princess’ eyes and
awe
a poor old landlubber king. It’ll be like old times!” He peered, smiling, at Jason’s back. “You’ll come,
I hope?”
Jason turned from the window, eyes fixed on Ipnolebes’
Читать дальше