I grabbed Procris’s hand and pressed it to my lips. “Stay with me,” I whispered. “Forget this Cephalus. Stay with me in this world we have made and become my wife instead.”
“Oh, Atalanta.” Procris laughed lightly, withdrawing her hand. “How earnest you can be. But I’m only one man’s wife.”
A role I could never fill, in other words. I snarled in frustration, storming out of the tent. Lailaps tried to follow me, but I pushed him away.
I left for my cave with a buzzing in my ears like a hive full of bees and spent a restless night’s sleep alone. In the morning, I considered going to visit Procris, but my pride and anger kept me away. After all we had done together, after all we had seen, did Procris really count me less than the brute she’d married? What made him so special?
For three days and nights, I kept away from Procris, despite the magnetic pull to her side. But on the dawn of the fourth day, my anger relented. We had never been away from each other so long, and I missed her terribly.
I came to her campsite, only to find it deserted.
Nothing remained but the charred ruins of the firepit. A strong wind cast the ash into the air. It was as though my heart had torn itself from my chest and walked away, leaving behind a bleeding wound. I was suddenly gasping for breath. Tears ran down my cheeks, warm as blood.
There was a piece of papyrus pinned under a small rock, where it fluttered like a small bird trying to pull free of a trap. I picked it up and looked at the little black marks that covered it, uncomprehending. Then I tossed the papyrus over my shoulder into the breeze, letting it wing away into the mountains. Procris should have remembered that I’d never learned how to read.
Procris left a trail through the forest, and I followed it, passing beyond the valleys and mountains where I had grown up. The only world I knew. Fear tickled my liver, but a burning impetus spurredme on. I needed to find Procris and apologize to her for my foolish outburst, so that she would come back with me and we could resume our life together. It was a need that drove out all thought of hunger or thirst or even sleep.
For a day and a night, I followed her trail. Then I crested a hill, and the shining ribbon of a river unfurled below.
The little ford stationed at the river’s edge was a hive of human activity. Workers hauled travelers across the current, and boats left chevron patterns in their wake. A man made his way across the water with an elderly woman on his back, like a bear with a clinging cub.
My heart fell. I would never be able to track Procris across these roiling waters. Her trail was lost to me.
But I would not be dissuaded so easily. For weeks, I searched. I went to the forests around Athens, her home, but could find no sign of her there. Then Brauron, though this proved fruitless too. In the course of those adventures, I’d encountered Meleager and been drawn into the Calydonian boar hunt.
When Meleager brought back news of theArgoto the cave where we were hiding, I sat up at once, rigid with interest. The mention of a ship departing for Colchis tickled something in my memory. Procris, telling me about her mother’s goddess, Hekate ofColchis.
A long shot, certainly, but there were no short ones. Colchis was her mother’s land, and perhaps Procris had gone back to her ancestral home. In any case, it was the only lead I had.
And so I found myself here, on the deck of theArgo, wrapped in a tattered blanket to keep off the sea spray. Meleager was already snoring. I leaned my back against his, snuggling close for warmth, and fell into an uneasy sleep filled with dreams of Procris.
9
Jason
The morning of theArgo’s departure, Jason surveys the heroes who have joined his cause, glowing with pride. His Argonauts, his crew.
His gaze rests on each man, picking him out of the milling crowd near the boat. There is Peleus, first among the Argonauts, whom Jason met on his recent visit to Mount Pelion. Peleus came to Chiron with his infant son, Achilles, seeking sanctuary from some threat he would not name. When he heard of Jason’s quest, Peleus pledged himself at once as a member of the crew, though Jason still isn’t sure if this was a gambit to avoid infant care.
Peleus. The name gave Jason an uneasy lurch at first, being so similar to that of his wicked uncle. A chance cognate. But this handsome young man is as different from the usurping Pelias as it is possible to be, with his high cheekbones and coppery hair that shines in the sun.
There is Orpheus the singer, who can soothe wild beasts with his lyre. And near him is Heracles, the great hero. Heracles is not the glorious figure Jason expected from the stories; rather, the old hero is like a ruined temple, his great shoulders folded in and his beard unkempt. Only the lion skin slung across his shoulders marks him as the legend he is. It gives off a musky odor, unwashed and badly tanned to begin with. Next to Heracles is his young companion, Hylas, who tends his every need with both utterdedication and sharp rebukes. It was Hylas who convinced Heracles to go on this voyage in the first place.
I’m too old for things like that,Heracles said.
You’re too old to live like this!Hylas retorted.
So Heracles joined Jason’s cause, and after that all the rest were like stalks of ripe wheat falling into Jason’s hands. Castor and Polydeuces, sons of the Spartan queen Leda and (it is said) the god Zeus himself. Calais and Zetes, sons of the north wind, who inherited from their father the remarkable ability to fly through the air like fish through water. Tiphys the helmsman, adept at the Phoenician method of navigating by the fixed stars.
And others, so many others. Ancaeus with his great axe, and hot-tempered Idas, and Mopsus the Lapith, famous for his battles against the centaurs. Autolycus, a shape-shifter and son of Hermes, who first came upon Jason in the shape of a black wolf, knocking him to the ground. Autolycus laughed at Jason’s terror but joined his crew nonetheless.
Now there is brave Meleager, and Atalanta too, but the less said about her, the better. Even the unpleasant circumstances of Atalanta’s arrival cannot bring down Jason’s high spirits. Nothing can, not today, when everyone from the city has come to gasp and admire the heroes and the ship that the goddess gave him. They are about to depart for Colchis, and nothing can make Jason feel small.
Until he sees his mother.
The milling mass of Iolcan townspeople part, and standing there is Alcimede. Jason has not spoken to her for many months. When he returned with news of his divine quest, but regrettably without the head of Pelias, his mother resolutely refused to speak to him, turning her face aside whenever he tried to address her. This continued for the long weeks that Jason spent gathering hiscrew. But now Alcimede approaches him, taking his hands in hers. The years have carved deep lines in her face and whitened her hair, though determination still burns brightly in her eyes. Jason wonders when he grew to be so much taller than her; she still looms so large in his mind.
Alcimede reaches up to cup Jason’s cheek. “You are my only son. I will never have another.” Her head tilts. “You look so much like your father sometimes.”
