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pirate robbed of his legs?” Jason was silent. The
    black seer
    nodded, frowning, face turned earthward. “There will
    be sorrow.
    I give you the word of a specialist in pains of the soul
    and heart,
    as you will be, soon. Let proud men scoff—as you scoff
    now—
    at the idea of the unalterable. There are, between the world and the mind, conjunctions whose violent
    issue’s more sure
    than sun and rain. So every age of man begins: an idea striking a recalcitrant world as steel strikes flint, each an absolute, intransigent. The collision sparks an uncontrollable, accelerating shock that must arc
    through life
    from end to end until nothing is left but light, and
    silence,
    loveless and calm as the eyes of the sphinx—pure
    knowledge, pure beast.
    Good night, son of Aison.” And so at last Lord Jason
    released
    the black man’s hand and, troubled, turned again to
    the city.
    The white stars hung in the branches above Medeia’s
    room
    like dewdrops trapped in a spiderweb. The garden,
    below,
    was vague, obscured by mist, the leaves and flowers
    so heavy
    it seemed that the night was drugged. Asleep, Medeia
    stirred,
    restless in her bed, and whispered something, her mind
    alarmed
    by dreams. She sucked in breath and turned her face on the pillow. The stars shone full on it: a
    face so soft,
    so gentle and innocent, I caught my breath. She opened
    her eyes
    and stared straight at me, as though she had some faint
    sense of my presence.
    Then she looked off, dismissing me, a harmless
    apparition
    in spectacles, black hat, a queer black overcoat…
    She came to understand, slowly, that she lay alone, and she frowned, thinking—whether of Jason or of her
    recent dream
    I couldn’t guess. She pushed back the cover gently and
    reached
    with beautiful legs to the floor. As if walking in her
    sleep, she moved
    to the window, drawing her robe around her, and
    leaned on the sill,
    gazing, troubled, at the thickening sky. Her lips framed
    words.
    â€œRaven, raven, come to me:
Raven, tell me what you see!”
    There was a flutter in the darkness, and then, on the
    sill by her white hand,
    stood a raven with eyes like a mad child’s. He walked
    past her arm
    to peek at me, head cocked, suspicious. And then he too dismissed me. She touched his head with moon-white
    fingertips;
    he opened his blue-black wings. They glinted like coal.
    â€œRaven,
    speak,” she whispered, touching him softly, brushing
    his crown
    with her lips. He moved away three steps, glanced at
    the moon,
    then at her. He walked on the sill, head tipped, his
    shining wings
    opened a little, like a creature of two minds. Then, in a madhouse voice, his eyes like silver pins, he said:
    â€œThe old wheel wobbles, reels about;
One lady’s in, one lady’s out.”
    He laughed and would say no more. Medeia’s fists closed. The raven’s wings stretched wide in alarm, and he
    vanished in the night.
    On bare feet then, no candle or torch to light her
    way—
    her eyes on fire, streaming, clutching old violence— Medeia moved like a cold, slow draught from room to
    room,
    fingertips brushing the damp stone walls, her white
    robe trailing,
    light as the touch of a snowflake on dark-tiled floors.
    She came
    to the room where her children slept, In one bed, side
    by side,
    and there she paused. She knelt by the bed and looked
    at them,
    and after a time she reached out gently to touch their
    cheeks,
    first one, then the other, too lightly to change their
    sleep. Her hair
    fell soft, glowing, as soft as the children’s hair. Then—
    tears
    on her cheeks, no sigh, no sound escaping her lips—
    she rose
    and swiftly returned to her room. The two old slaves
    in the house—
    the man and a woman—stirred restlessly.
    There Jason found her,
    lying silent and pale in the moonlight. He kissed her
    brow,
    too lightly to change her sleep, then quietly undressed
    himself
    and crawled into bed