“Perhaps,” Jason replies, a shiver running down his spine. He doesn’t like hearing Medea talk like this and quickly changes the topic. “What was it that made your father prize the Fleece so highly? It has no special powers, as I mentioned before. It is... a very ordinary thing.”
“I’ve never known for sure,” Medea says. “Aeetes didn’t share his private thoughts with me. But there’s something I once heard him say to himself when he didn’t know I was listening. It was a cold day, and he pulled the Fleece around his shoulders and muttered, ‘At last I have something of his.’ I think he was talking about his father, Helios, the sun god.”
Jason feels an odd burst of sympathy for the brutal king. After all, he knows what it is like to reach vainly for the love of a vanished father.
“The Fleece came from one of Helios’s sheep, after all,” Medea adds. “But never once did I see Helios pay any mind to Aeetes, and never did he visit or give gifts. Perhaps Helios was too busy making the day dawn or the sun move, or other godly tasks. Or maybe Aeetes grasped vainly for his father’s favor and went rotten withthe striving. But I don’t doubt my father is descended from the sun. As for my mother, she is the goddess of magic and witchcraft, Hekate,” Medea finishes rather awkwardly.
Jason isn’t quite sure what to do with the knowledge that his future wife is of divine descent on both sides.
Sometimes Medea frightens Jason. Sometimes she seems closer to the gods than humanity, possessed of their power and strength, like when she took the axe to her brother. But at other times she seems so small and sweet, a precious creature he wants to protect. Jason thinks again of the feel of her hand in his as they ran through the Colchian palace, his only anchor in the chaos. He is suddenly aware of how close he is to her, closer than he has been to anyone in a long time.
For a moment, Jason wonders if he will kiss her.
No, that would be indecent; they are not married yet. It would cast aspersions on Medea’s virtue, kissing one man on a boat full of them. Abruptly, something else occurs to Jason.
“You’ve been sleeping out on the deck,” he says, slapping a hand to his forehead. Jason hadn’t thought of this before, caught up in his own misgivings and unused to considering the needs of a girl. “Out on the deck, in the elements, in the cold. How horrible of me! Take the quarters belowdecks that I sleep in, please.”
Medea shrugs. “The cold does not bother me. And Atalanta’s given me all the blankets I need. I’d take a bed if you had one, but as things are, I am well.”
At least the hunter girl has been doing what she was told. Jason is looking forward to returning to his quarters—though he would have given them up if Medea asked. But he finds himself wanting to stay with her.
“Did you know,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, “Hypsipyle made me an offer of marriage and proposed to make me king of Lemnos. I cannot think I would have survived long if I’d accepted.”
Medea looks at him in astonishment. “Well, that explains why Hypsipyle acted so strangely when I said I was betrothed to you. I wouldn’t have lived much longer than you if we’d stayed.”
A bleak thought, but for some reason it makes both of them laugh.
They continue talking through the night. They discuss many things, such as what they saw on Lemnos and their observations of life aboard the ship. Gradually, the pressure under Jason’s skin dissipates, and his exhaustion lightens just a bit. How wonderful it is, to speak and have someone listen. He can charm a crowd, but Jason is not used to this, to the simple warm presence of another person by his side. He finds he enjoys it very much.
Medea
As Jason nodded off to sleep, I took the Golden Fleece from my shoulders and wrapped it around him. The cold of the night could not touch me, because I felt warmed by a fire within.
Long ago in a moonlit garden, I’d bent the primordial powers to my will and demanded they bring me someone who loved me unconditionally. That hope had died years ago, but now it rose again with the appearance of Jason.
Jason was so kind, promising to take me to Circe’s island and offering me every comfort. He hadn’t even been angry that I lost my magic, which astonished me. I’d become accustomed to being discarded or pushed aside when I was not useful, and sometimes even when I was. Certainly Aeetes and Absyrtos had prized me only for what I could give to them.
How different Jason was from the men I’d known. He was solicitous and sweet, and he would become my husband. The thought made my belly flutter oddly.
Jason had been my escape and I had been his salvation, but perhaps we could become even more to each other in time. I remembered the affection in Chalciope’s voice when she spoke of Phrixus, and as I brushed the hair back from Jason’s sleeping face, I wondered if we might find that too. Already there was something about him that felt like home.
A shadow moved at the corner of my vision. I recognized it as the tall form of Atalanta, stalking away into the darkness.
30
Medea
“Are you really going to marry Jason?”
I turned around to see Atalanta standing behind me. It was the morning after Lemnos, and none of us had slept particularly well.
“Yes,” I said, thinking back to my conversation with him last night. The memory warmed me against the chill of the sea spray.
“Hmm.” Atalanta jerked her chin, indicating the low smudge of a landmass on the horizon. “That is the island of the Doliones, where Jason killed the king and queen. They welcomed us as guests, but he killed them anyway.”
I blinked. “He never said anything about that to me.”
“That’s Jason for you. He doesn’t share details that present him in a bad light.”
