A guard flipped back the trapdoor on the bronze bull’s back, and Jason climbed obligingly inside, pausing at the last moment to raise a hand to the crowd in greeting, like a king stepping into hischariot. Then he was enclosed in the darkness of the hollow bull, and my heart went with him.
Servants kindled a fire below the bull’s belly and raised it to a roaring inferno. I could feel its heat on my face, threatening to singe my eyebrows.
Minutes ticked by. Sweat beaded on my back and trickled down the length of my spine. I’d worn my most comfortable dress in anticipation of what was to come, as well as copious jewelry. Necklaces of amber sat over my collarbones, silver and gold bangles tinkled at my wrists, and rings adorned my fingers. Wealth of my own would come in handy once I escaped.
When no song emerged from the bronze bull, the crowd began to grow restive. Aeetes scowled, kicking the bull’s belly. This prompted a loud yelp from the inside, distorted by the bronze.
Out of the bull rose Jason, soot stained but alive, bestowing a winning grin on the crowd.
The assembly exploded into whispers. Aeetes swung his hateful gaze toward me, singling me out.
I know this was you,he seemed to say.I know you had a hand in this. And no power on earth can save you from the punishment that is coming.
Fearlessly, I met Aeetes’s gaze.One day, no one will speak of you,I thought.Your name will be like your corpse, dry dust on the wind. No one will remember the name of Aeetes the way they will remember Medea’s.
Aeetes opened his mouth to speak, but another voice cut through the silence.
“Seize him!” Chalciope cried. And a group of soldiers descended upon Aeetes, swords drawn.
Screams filled the courtyard. Chalciope’s eyes met mine, burning with an unspoken command:Run!
I picked up my skirts and raced to the bronze bull, bracelets clattering, trying very hard not to be trampled by the panickingcrowd. Jason was climbing down from the bull, glistening with sweat and covered in soot.
“Medea,” he panted, gesturing at Chalciope and her guards. “Did you—”
“No time,” I replied. Above the shrieks of the crowd, I heard the clamor of bronze armor. More guards, reinforcements. Whether they had come to assist Aeetes or execute him, I did not know. The only certainty was that Chalciope’s coup was now in motion.
I grabbed Jason’s hand and ran into the palace.
Jason
Down twisting corridors and flights of stairs into the depths of the earth they run, until Jason is so disoriented that he wouldn’t be able to find his way back to sunlight even if he tried. The princess leads him, the one named Medea. The clatter of the jewelry she wears is the only sound other than the gasping of their breath and the slap of their feet on the flagstones.
She stops at an unmarked door in an empty hallway, whispering a few words that Jason cannot hear. The door swings open, and a hiss emerges from inside.
The hallway torches illuminate a roiling mass of serpentine coils. The dragon raises its head, fluffing out its red crest in a display of aggression. Jason staggers back, regretting that he left Heracles behind with the ship. He cannot slay this beast himself.
But it seems he won’t have to. Medea is moving forward, confronting the dragon. Before Jason can shout a warning, she is stroking the creature’s long snout.
To Jason’s utter astonishment, the dragon gives a chirp of greeting and nuzzles her like an affectionate hound. Medea murmurs to the creature in the barbarian tongue of Qulha, and its ironcollar comes off in her hands. But Jason has stopped watching Medea with the dragon, because he’s finally noticed the thing hanging on the wall, the treasure the creature has been guarding.
The Golden Fleece.
It is more tattered than he imagined, its glow dimmer than sunlight, but to Jason it is the most beautiful object he has ever seen. The fulfillment of his quest, the culmination of his journey’s aim. Here, at last, is the key to the throne of Iolcus.
How proud his father would be, how delighted his mother. Like a man in a dream, Jason drifts forward and lifts the Fleece from its wall hook, throwing it around his shoulders. He glances back to see how handsomely it hangs upon him and looks up to meet the eyes of Medea over the head of the dragon.
They smile at each other. Medea has kept her promise, bringing him a peerless dowry. Now, she just needs to get them both out of this place alive.
From the hallway comes the distant echo of clattering armor. The guards will be looking for them, the stranger and the runaway princess. The sound comes steadily closer.
At a word from Medea, the dragon turns and rushes out the door like a cresting wave, claws skittering on stone. In the same way a seed knows how to shoot down roots into the soil, it seems the dragon knows its way to the sky. Jason can track the creature’s progress by the distant reverberation of screams.
Medea takes his hand again. Clutching the Golden Fleece, his prize, Jason follows her into the hall.
Medea
It was only when we made it to the women’s quarters that I finally allowed myself to hope.
