The words make Jason feel as though a boulder has landed on his chest. Jason wonders if Alcimede will say she loves him. He cannot remember, in all his years, his mother saying something like that to him. He finds he craves it like air in his lungs.
“Come back with the Golden Fleece, or else wrapped in it as your funeral shroud,” Alcimede finishes. Then she leaves, cutting her way through the crowd. None of the onlookers have heard a word of what she said, and they smile indulgently at what looks like a tender farewell between mother and son.
As theArgopushes off into the water, Jason finds himself occupied by his mother’s parting words. He stares blankly at the glittering expanse of the water. When he turns back, he sees that the entire crew of theArgohas gathered, and that they are looking at him.
Of course. He is their leader, and they will be wanting guidance.
Jason’s hands open and close like the mouths of the bivalves clustered along the shore, and his courage vanishes like dawn. His mouth has gone dry, and suddenly the divine blessing of Hera, the Queen of Heaven, feels very far away. Jason understands that it is necessary for him to establish his authority; already he has noticed the crew looking to Heracles for guidance, and this cannot stand. The humiliation with the spear girl, Atalanta of Arcadia,did not help matters. She glares at him from her perch on the rail, and it is clear that she has not forgiven Jason for the crime of trying to spare her the hazards of the voyage.
What can he say? What words will unite this fractious assembly?
Jason looks at his Argonauts, and for the first time he really sees them. They are, with a few notable exceptions, the untried and the second sons, with talents too large for the tiny kingdoms in which they found themselves. Some of them might be demigods, but a demigod is only another type of bastard.
There’s a reason they’ve undertaken a dangerous journey for uncertain gain and great personal risk. They are hungry for glory, his men, and they have staked their hopes on him. Jason must give them something to believe in. He must show them that heunderstands.
“Oh, my Argonauts,” Jason begins, his voice ringing from the mast. “It is not my greatness that fuels this journey—it is yours. I do this not for myself alone but to show that an exile can rise. I have a vision of a world in which every voice will be heard and justice prevails. When I take the Golden Fleece and ascend to the throne, I will make this world a reality.
“The way will not be easy, for we sail to dark and dangerous lands. Fear dwells in your hearts. I understand this, because I am afraid as well.”
Murmurings from the crowd; men are not supposed to talk like this, to admit to fear. Yet Jason’s words compel the Argonauts’ attention, and they lean forward, listening keenly.
“Every night I am afraid,” Jason continues, “spending wretched hours obsessing over these worries. However great your fear is, mine is greater still, multiplied fiftyfold. Because where each of you worries for himself alone, I worry for every one of you. I don’t care a whit about my own life but only for yours. Here iswhat I want, even more than the Fleece: to bring each one of you safely home to Greece.”
Cheers ring out through the air, and Jason allows himself a little smile. He gambled on candor and idealism, and his wager paid off. The speech is good, the cadence pleasing, the rhetorical flourishes well received. The crew is transformed, their faces glowing with the light of purpose—for the most part.
Here and there are pockets of dissent. Like Idas, whom Jason has overheard referring to him jokingly as Jason Amechanos—Jason the Helpless. And Atalanta, who sits with her chin on her hand and watches him with the cold light of contempt in her eyes.
10
Atalanta
“Next time the ship comes to shore, let’s flee,” I said to Meleager the next morning. The sun glittered on the water with deceptive calm, but I did not wish to stay in this rocking little boat a moment longer than I had to.
“After all you did to convince Jason to let you join the crew?” Meleager asked, drowsing in the sun next to me. One of the biggest surprises of the voyage had been the dullness, with long hours spent on deck with little to do until one’s shift at the oars. Mostly, we napped like great cats. “Why leave now?”
“I wanted to prove a point,” I said, remembering Jason’s oily false concern about myvirtue, of all things.
Meleager shrugged. “Be that as it may, I can’t leave. I cannot risk going home to Calydon while Mother might still be angry about what I did to her brothers. She is not a woman to be trifled with, my mother, Althaea. When I was little, Mother had a dream from the Fates that my life was linked to a log in the fireplace. When my cries woke her, Mother reached in with her bare hands and yanked it out, just like that! She’s indominable. I just hope she and my wife aren’t fighting too much,” Meleager added wistfully.
“Hold on,” I said, combing through the current of his words. “Did you say that those were your mother’s own brothers, the ones you killed?”
After the Calydonian boar hunt, when Meleager declared thatmine was the champion’s portion, argument rose up from the men who’d questioned my inclusion since the beginning. Mindful of the dissenting voices, I dedicated the boar pelt to Artemis, lying it over the low branches of a tree in time to greet the rising half-moon. No sooner had I done this than a hand reached out and jerked it down. One of the men, his face so red with anger that he looked ill, drew his sword. In a flash, a different blade cut through his chest, and I saw the face of Meleager, pale but determined. Another man charged in screaming with a spear at the ready, only to meet with the same fate. Meleager’s voice was in my ear, telling me to run, and we had. We hid in a cave for a week or so before catching wind of theArgo’s journey to Colchis.
Squinting at the sun, Meleager nodded. “Yeah, those were my uncles, not that we were ever very close. I guess miasma might be a problem, but we’ll visit a temple and get that sorted out in no time.”
I was stunned. His mother’s brothers! Even I, unschooled in the finer distinctions of human customs, understood that such a blood tie was significant. “Why?” I asked.Why did you kill them for my sake, for a stranger?
Meleager shrugged. “It was the right thing to do. You saved my life with that boar, and they were trying to kill you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
I studied his face and saw that, for Meleager, it really was that simple. He had seen wrongdoing, and he corrected it. Blood debt and loyalty, for him, paled in comparison to doing what wasright. He’d never been as susceptible as other men to bias about women, which he credited to his five older sisters, his mother, and his fierce wife. But for the first time I saw just how much Meleager had done for me.
It made me feel trapped like a rabbit in a snare. Meleager’s simple gesture of kindness represented a debt I could never repay, orperhaps an overture I could not read. Whatever the case, I was frightened enough to rise to my feet and take my shift at the oars early. The goddess herself had warned me about things like this in the dream she sent long ago.
Still, I would not abandon theArgowithout Meleager. Once my time on the rowing deck was finished and my heart was beating normally once again, I would return to his side. Meleager had become, over the short duration of our time together, a cherished friend.
That afternoon, as theArgofloated on the swells, I gradually became aware of eyes upon me. The rest of the crew generally gave me a wide berth, but that did not stop them from staring when they thought I wasn’t looking.
The twins Castor and Polydeuces, along with Idas, were watching me. Tiphys the navigator was there too, leaning against the mast and drinking a foul-smelling substance. Meleager was serving his shift at the oars down below, and inwardly I mourned his absence. Meleager’s mere presence was a helpful buffer against the worst of male attention, but it seemed I would have to take a more direct approach today.
