Medea - Kerry Greenwood The Delphic Women

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and the scroll 'Medea' would join the others to be read by a new priestess in a hundred years' time, who might use my compound of feverfew, foxglove and willow bark to save another king's life.

      Trioda was looking at me quizzically. I collected my wits and repeated, 'But?'

      'But the union which can bring this about is not to be considered.'

      I puzzled the sentence out. 'You mean that brothers and sisters cannot marry.'

      'In the Black Land, this was the case,' Trioda said, stirring the cauldron. I dropped into it my now very well-mashed foxglove. The decoction was green, for we had added willow bark for the pain.

      'Brothers and sisters marry?'

      'They do. The king marries his daughter, sometimes, and frequently Pharaoh marries his sister. They are matrilineal, daughter, as we are. The possession of the princess confers the kingship.'

      'But the marriage confers no power on the princess,' I reasoned. She gave me the spoon and I took over the stirring. One stirs a decoction for good in a sunwise direction, a poison widdershens, against the sun. This was a healing brew, so I made sure that the spoon always moved to the right.

      'No, daughter, that is true. Since the advent of men we have lost all power but knowledge. You have seen the way the people defer to the priestesses of Hekate. They fear us, and fear is the beginning of power. But kingship we have not; nor will we have it again until the world changes. Now, as to your half-brother, avoid him. If he pursues you, daughter, remember your power. How many poisons do you know, Medea?'

      'Fifty-three, Mistress,' I said proudly.

      'And rituals?'

      'The seven blessing and the seven cursing, Mistress. And you promised to teach me the Grove Path.'

      'So I did. We will go there after this potion is completed, daughter. Make your heart hard, Medea. I fear some stroke of Ate. Even Hekate cannot always control Fate. We will go and ask the question of the serpent. It is time, in any case, that you met her. You will take over her care when Hekate gathers me to her bosom. I would not leave you unprovided, acolyte. Women have no place in the men's world, ruled by Ammon and the Sun. But in the dark, in secret places, we are more powerful.'

      She tasted the brew, nodded, and we poured it into a pottery jar marked with the three-legged cross, the sign of Hekate. Then she collected a series of flasks and a jug of milk mingled with honey, and we left the temple.

      Eidyia, the queen, caught us as we came into the women's quarters. She was slim and beautiful, the wife of my father. Her hair was a rich chestnut, for she came from the mountains towards the west, where women are fair and, unafraid of prophecy, men gather gold from the icy streams. Her father had given her to Aetes, the youngest daughter in a house of daughters, even though he knew of the oracle. He had many daughters and could afford to lose one to cement an alliance with Aetes of Colchis. We knew that she had lain with him, but she had not yet conceived.

      My father treated her well, if distantly. She was dressed in the finest woven wool, dyed bright red, and she was hung about with gold; a ram's head torc at her throat, a crown, bracelets, rings and an embossed belt. The queen of Colchis wore enough gold to ransom a prince. But her lower lip was caught between her teeth and her smooth brow was furrowed. She held Trioda's sleeve in her soft, perfumed hand. I smelt a waft of summer flowers from her garments and her hair.

      'Hekate's maiden, he calls for me again,' she whispered.

      Trioda hefted her burden on one bony hip and said, 'Does he so? And are you still resolved, daughter?'

      'I want to live,' said the queen almost under her breath. Trioda smiled, rummaged in the basket and produced a tiny flask, like the one which Achaeans put on graves to hold tears. It was sealed with the double seal, which meant that it was poisonous. No priestess wants to put her hands on the wrong flask in the dark. Really lethal concoctions, snake venom or hemlock, have three seals. The queen snatched it and hid it in her cloak, so fast that only a really dedicated watcher would have seen the transaction.

      'How is the king?' asked Trioda, easily.

      'He is recovering,' replied Eidyia. 'The medicines are working. And, of course, the prayers of the temple of Ammon,' she added hastily.

      'They are eating well while the king's illness continues,' said Trioda dryly. 'They sacrifice a bull daily and feast on beef after the god has eaten his portion. When he recovers, they will chafe at their diet of pulse and grain. Do not allow them to give him any potions, daughter and lady.'

      The queen nodded. Her silky hair fell forward over her face. I think she was afraid of Trioda. I bent my head for her blessing, and gave it quickly, then was gone into the women's quarters in a swirl of scarlet.

      I was pleased with that cloak. It had been my first attempt at dyeing a fine colour. One finds the galls on oak trees in which the insects are working, and sprinkles them with new wine to prevent the emergence of the moth - though one out of five must be marked for the goddess, or the tribe of worms will die out. Then one steeps the galls in boiling water, and extracts the dye. It is concentrated, and I coloured my hands red for half a moon before it wore off. But the cloak had held up well through washing, even though Trioda said I had used too much salt to fix it. Salt comes from Poti and is very expensive. What decoction, I asked myself, was the queen requiring of Hekate, and why? Was she poisoning my father?

      I could not ask Trioda while we were in the palace. We went to the king's chamber, but were denied - the attendant said he was asleep. The slave had a black bruise across half his face, indicating that the king's temper had not improved. Trioda sat him down and applied all-heal ointment to the hot swollen skin. I noticed how the boy relaxed under her hands - deft, sure, and drinking in his pain. When she let him rise again, he was relieved but wary, as though, perhaps, her treatment had stolen something from him.

      We left our potion in the hands of the king's counsellor, Eupolis, an old man and trusted. It is the ancient law in Colchis that if the king dies in circumstances which could indicate poison or assassination, all his counsellors are executed by being stitched alive into an oxhide and hung in the willows. Eupolis would not dare meddle with the medicine, and would make sure that it was administered correctly.

      Then we left the palace and came into the city, walking down the street which led us to Rivergate and the Grove of The Serpent, outside the walls.

      I was apprehensive. Trioda spoke of the serpent as she, meaning that the creature was an avatar of Hekate, as were Kore and Scylla. But although my hounds were sacred, they were also dogs, prone to snap if startled and provided with strong teeth and haughty tempers. The serpent of the grove would also bear her original snaky nature when she was not possessed by Hekate. And women whispered that the serpent was as long as a riverboat and as wide as a door, that even to smell her breath was death, the guardian of the grove where hung the greatest treasure of Colchis, the Golden Fleece.

      We took the path which wound through dripping marshes, where the dead men of Colchis hung in their oxhides. This was an eerie place, haunted by the piping of little unseen birds which, they said, were the voices of the dead, diminishing as the bodies rotted, until they were little but a squeaking in the reeds, which were once men and had men's voices.

      It was also the haunt of midges and mosquitoes, eager to feast on human blood, and leeches as long as my finger, black with red stripes, which dropped from the willows and fastened in an eyeblink, plumping out on their stolen harvest in seconds.

      They did not, of course, harm us. We were redolent of an essence of white summer daisies, sun-flowers dedicated to Ammon, and another oil derived from a certain fungus which belongs to the Dark Mother alone. If any insect were bold enough to ignore the repelling power of Ammon and bite us, it would instantly die.

      'What was the potion, Mistress?' I asked Trioda, as we waded through the black water in the rising mist.

      'Potion, daughter?'

      'The queen required it of you,' I reminded her. 'Is she poisoning my father?'

      'No,' said Trioda.

      We walked a few

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