“My lady,” I began, “have you by any chance encountered a woman named Procris? She is of an age with you and I, and carries a spear, and travels in the company of a yellow dog. She might have passed through these lands.”
Cleite stared at me blankly, though I spoke in Greek, which we both understood. For an interminable moment, we stared at each other across the abyss of our manifold differences.
My eyes ran over Cleite’s skin, untouched by the sun and impossibly smooth. Her slender form was wreathed in colorful fabric. Jewels glittered at her neck, wrists, and ears, catching the light. She seemed equally fascinated by me, taking in my salt-stained clothing and bare, muscled arms. We were like creatures from different worlds, united by the simple fact of being the only two women in this room full of men.
Despite my better instincts, I thought of Procris, and my heart ached with longing.
“I—I am afraid I have never made the acquaintance of this Procris,” Cleite replied, tightening her fingers over her veil but seemingly unable to look away from me. “Though if there is anything I can do to make your stay here more comfortable...”
“Thank you for the bath,” I said awkwardly, not bothering to disguise my disappointment, and fled from the feasting hall into the silence outside.
TheArgodeparted the isle of the Doliones the following day, taking advantage of the fair winds and the gentle sea. But by late afternoon, the sunlight darkened as storm clouds rolled in. The ship began to pitch like a bucking bull, and rain fell hard.
A storm at sea is a horrible thing: Ocean and sky fused together in one horrible morass of cold and wet. To make matters worse, night had fallen and everything was dark. I scrabbled over the salt-slick deck as Tiphys shrieked directions to draw in the sails. A wave struck the ship, and I spat out a mouthful of seawater, only to be knocked from my feet once again.
Eventually, the hull of theArgoscraped against solid earth; we had made our way to land again, a blessed relief. The rain had tapered off, but now it was dark as only a moonless night can be.
We were not yet safe. I lifted my head; over the roar of the sea, I heard the sound of running feet and the clatter of armor. This was the only warning we had before they were upon us.
Armed warriors, here to drive out those they saw as intruders.The air was filled with the clang of bronze and grunts of pain. I felt my spear pierce flesh and heard Meleager’s grunt as he parried a blow beside me.
A call of retreat, and the crash of armor leading off into the distance. We stood panting, soaked with blood and seawater. Then gray dawn came and, with it, horror.
The enemy corpses were wearing the royal emblem of the Doliones—the same people who had welcomed us the night before. It seemed the Doliones had moved to defend their homeland when a strange crew washed up in the darkness, all in ignorance. Cries rose up among the Argonauts, and Meleager pressed a hand to his forehead. I drew closer to one of the corpses and saw it was our former host Cyzicus.
The king was dead, his blank face looking up at the sky. A spear shaft protruded from his chest, one that I recognized. I’d carved it myself before giving it as a consolation prize to Jason.
Our leader had been the one to kill our host and honored friend.
Pale-faced and nervously rubbing the back of his head, Jason insisted on personally delivering the news of Cyzicus’s death to Queen Cleite. It was only later that we learned she killed herself in her grief.
13
Jason
He hadn’t meant to kill Cyzicus, that is the simple truth. The night was so dark, and the storm had thrown off his bearings. It was all a terrible mistake, an accident.
He didn’t mean to. And it doesn’t matter.
A bloodless hero,Chiron called him once. But now Jason’s hands are drenched in blood. Worse still, it is the blood of an honored host, a violation of xenia and the laws of guest-friendship. Jason could not bring himself to kill Pelias, the king who murdered his father, having neither the strength nor the stomach for it. But he has killed a friend, all unknowing, and shamed his father’s memory and disgraced his mother’s name.
He will always be Jason the Helpless, it seems, standing one-sandaled before the king.
Jason can still see the way Cyzicus’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. To know that he is responsible for the man’s death is a burden beyond bearing.
And yet Jason must bear it. He must make nice with the Doliones and preside over the funeral sacrifices, or else bring down the wrath of the gods upon them all.
Only after all the proper rites have been observed does theArgofinally depart.
The next day, Jason shields his eyes from the brightness of the afternoon sun. The shell-like dome of the firmament is punctuated only by the tiny, dark forms of drifting seabirds, but high cliffs loom on the horizon.
TheArgohas arrived at the Hellespont, a narrow neck of water between two outcrops of rock, separating the Greek islands from the barbarous nations clustered around the Euxine Sea.
The infinity of the ocean narrows to a single point between soaring walls of stone. The Hellespont takes its name from Helle, a young girl who died there. Jason knows the story: Helle fell off a flying ram sent by her mother, Nephele, to save her children from their cruel stepmother. This same ram was the source of the Golden Fleece, the object of Jason’s quest.
As the ship slides into the shadow of the high rocks, the deck goes silent. Normally there is constant noise on theArgo—laughing, singing, cursing. But now the crew is silenced by the immensity of these walls of stone, knowing that they are passing beyond a boundary that cannot be crossed again.
Jason can see layers of different sediment in the great walls that rise up around him, like the growth rings of a tree. Embedded in the stone are the bones of ancient sea creatures, appearing in spirals and fragments. He is suddenly afraid that the rocks might clash together like two clapping hands, leaving theArgoa smashed insect between them.
