Chapter 69
Medea
It surprised me when Jason said he wanted to talk, since we spoke so little these days. Perhaps he wished to discuss a new
tutor for our sons or announce that the king had ordered him on a long journey.
Instead, Jason linked his fingers together in an arch and said, “There is no easy way to put this. I am taking a new wife.”
The earth dropped away beneath me and turned to sky. For a moment I was certain that I’d ceased to understand Greek. I was
going mad, hearing things, because I thought I’d just heard my husband say he was taking a new wife.
“So I am to have a co-wife?” I asked through lips numb with shock.
Jason looked away and rubbed the back of his head. It was a familiar gesture, and it betrayed him. He did this when he had
to deliver news that he knew would not please the hearer. He had done it often over the long years of our marriage.
“No, you are sending me away,” I said, incredulous. “You are divorcing me. Why, Jason? I could understand if I was barren
or a bad wife, but I’ve done my duty. We have three sons.” My voice turned shrill at the end, and my hands began to shake.
So much had I given up for him. So painfully long had been the years of dishes, diapers, and darkness.
Jason sighed. It was a separation, yes, but he insisted it didn’t have to be an ugly one. He would set me up with a house and gold and anything else I could ever want, and make sure I lived like a queen in any city I desired. As long as it was not Corinth.
“Who is she?” I demanded. “Your new wife.”
King Creon’s daughter, as it transpired. Oh, what a fine thing that was, I thought, a teenager marrying a man of nearly forty!
And very tidy too, since it would make Jason king eventually.
Bile choked me, and my vision swam. But it was what Jason said next that truly destroyed me.
“What an opportunity this is for our boys!” Jason said, his voice just a little too loud. The whites of his eyes shone with
false enthusiasm. “Creon has offered to adopt them. Imagine it, Pheres and Mermerus will grow up as princes!”
I stared at Jason slack-jawed, wondering if he truly believed the falsehoods that fell from his lips.
“Our sons are in horrible danger,” I said, stunned that he could not see it. “Do you not remember the story of the Golden
Fleece you once came seeking? Why the ram came to Phrixus and Helle in the first place? Their mother, Nephele, sent it to
save them from their cruel stepmother, who hated the children from her husband’s previous marriage. She sought their deaths,
since they would always be in competition with her own children for the throne. Do you really think Creon will allow our sons
to live once his daughter has her own?”
“Creon isn’t like that. He’d never hurt a child.” Jason looked offended.
I laughed hollowly. “So Creon suddenly has morals, after telling my husband to abandon his wife?”
Jason sighed again, as though I were being difficult.
“Don’t,” I whispered, sliding from the bed and taking to my knees before him. “Send me away, yes, but don’t take my children, please. Whatever you think of me as a wife, do not insult me as a mother.” I tried to take Jason’s hands, but they slipped out of my grasp.
“Well,” Jason began, stroking his chin, “some of the natural philosophers say it’s the man who’s the true parent, since he
provides the vital essence, like a seed in the damp earth . . . but no matter,” he finished, seeing my darkening expression.
“I’d like to reach an understanding, Medea. I’d rather not involve the courts.”
I felt again the eyes that burned into me as Pelias’s daughters took the stand in Iolcus. The humiliation of it. No, a foreign
woman like me would not do well at all in a Greek court of law.
Jason was still talking, his words blurring together like the buzzing of bees, but I could not hear him over my growing anger.
I had left my home for this man, killed for him, sacrificed my magic for him, and this was how he rewarded me? All those years
of dishes and diapers and darkness, of filing down my sharp edges and breaking my bones to fit his expectations, and this
was how it ended? I’d been a model wife, only to have my children stolen from me and given unto their deadliest enemies. I
had chosen Jason over Atalanta, and this was the result?
Bitterer than the betrayal was this: Jason was leaving me for another woman, after I had left mine for him.
Before I could say anything, Mermerus came into the room crying, begging for comfort after a bad dream. I had to play the
good mother and soothe him, all while silently planning how to burn Jason’s world to the ground.
Jason
All in all, he thinks, the conversation with Medea goes remarkably well.
There is some shock, of course, and a barrage of questions.
But by the end she is calm, wiping away her tears.
The clenched knot within Jason eases; at least their parting will be an easy one.
He is stalwartly determined to see Medea comfortably settled in whatever city she chooses.
As long as it is not Corinth, of course.
What surprises Jason most is Medea’s reaction to the boys staying behind. Jason assumed that she would be glad to get rid
of them, especially since Eirene does most of the childcare anyway. He didn’t expect she would be so emotional about it all.
Eventually, though, Medea sees reason. When she returns from comforting Mermerus, she tells Jason that she has thought about
it and will accept his offer of a villa in the country and copious gold.
“Just, please, let me stay here a few more nights,” she begs.
Later, Jason will think that he should have seen through her. He should have known better than to trust this false calm, like
the surface of a lake where water snakes hide.
Instead, Jason says, “Stay as long as you like.”