“No!” Thetis replies. “I don’t want you, I never did. Zeus bound me to you because of the prophecy that any son I borewould be greater than his father. My only solace was that the marriage would be short, since you were mortal. But I was still afraid. Do you remember when you took hold of me on our wedding night and would not let go, even as I flickered between the shapes of birds and wild beasts? I don’t want to share any more of eternity with you than I already have. Be on your way, and look after our son. He will be greater than his father, but that is not such a distinction when the father is you.”
Thetis disappears into the water without a ripple. There is silence on the deck of theArgo, broken only by the slap of waves and the call of the seabirds.
“Well,” Atalanta says, “if that’s marriage, then I’d rather be an alley cat.”
That afternoon, Jason sits next to Peleus for a long time, their shoulders touching companionably. Peleus’s face is buried in his folded arms.
TheArgoskims over the waves, and bright sunlight drenches the deck. Eventually, Peleus speaks, though he does not lift his head. The words are muffled, but Jason can still make them out.
“It was a mistake, that marriage,” Peleus says. “Men are above women and the gods are above men, but what do you do when you’re married to a goddess? Still, she gave me Achilles. So it wasn’t all bad.
“The son will surpass his father,the prophecy goes.” Peleus gives a bitter chuckle. “Isn’t that every father’s most cherished hope and deepest fear? That’s why I’m here on theArgo, so that I might become more than I once was. I must achieve great things so that Achilles will accomplish even greater ones.”
These are the statements of an aching heart and a wandering mind, and Jason senses they do not require answers, only expression. He thinks of his own father, whose memory is the bright star that guides him.
Jason is undertaking this journey for the sake of his father, Peleus for his son. They are like uneasy mirrors of each other.
Peleus sits up and rests a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Don’t make the same mistakes I did,” he says, then walks away.
Jason watches him go, puzzling at his words, then stirs. There is someone he wants to talk to.
He finds Medea deep in conversation with Atalanta. When she sees him, Atalanta slinks off, muttering something about a shift at the oars. Jason seats himself next to Medea, careful not to touch her; casual contact between a man and woman would be unseemly.
The two of them sit in silence, only their shadows touching. After some time, Medea speaks. “I do not want to marry that baby.”
She must be talking about Achilles. “I do not think Peleus wants his baby to marry you,” Jason replies.
“So who will I marry, if the one I want has closed himself off from me?”
Jason freezes. The one she wants—is this someone back in Colchis? “If you don’t want to marry me,” he says slowly, “I’ll arrange a match with anyone you like. On this ship or beyond.”
Medea’s face falls. “You would set me aside so easily?”
“No, no,” Jason says, instantly regretting his words. “It’s just... I know you haven’t chosen me, and I won’t keep you trapped as Thetis was. If the one you want is closed off from you, I will help you back to him.”
“The one I want...?” Medea looks at him in astonishment. “The one I want isyou, Jason. But you shut me out and would not talk to me after the Bebrycians.”
Jason had been so sick at what he witnessed that he can scarcely remember Medea speaking to him at all. The indiscriminate slaughter of the Bebrycians was even worse than the incidentwith the Doliones; at least the latter was an honest mistake. Jason leaves a trail of blood wherever he goes, it seems, whether he wills it or no. The knowledge makes him feel ill.
Perhaps he shouldn’t judge Medea too harshly for what she did to her brother, he muses, when his own Argonauts have done so much worse.
“Share your cares and worries with me,” Medea says, “the way I share mine with you. You were so sweet after you found out I lost my magic. Please, let me have the chance to do the same. You need to be the good captain with your men, but, Jason, I’m yourwife. Or I will be,” she adds awkwardly. “You don’t need to pretend with me.”
Jason agrees, though he scarcely understands what she is asking of him. “I’m not the son of a god,” he confesses. “I don’t have unusual strength or speed or anything like that. But I will try, as best I can, to be a good husband to you. I swear it by the Styx.”
The binding oath, the same invoked by Thetis. The enormity of it settles over Jason’s shoulders like a yoke, but Medea smiles so brightly that he almost forgets his own disquiet.
Almost.
Some corner of Jason’s mind recalls that Thetis said Medea was prophesized to marry her son, Achilles. To take the destined wife of a demigod for his own would be an insult beyond bearing. Jason can picture Thetis coming for him, her eyes glowing above the water and her teeth long and sharp. He will have to navigate many treacherous seas before returning home, and it would not be wise for him to antagonize the goddess of that domain.
But Jason has made his choice. And he has come to quite like the idea of Medea beside him as he retakes Iolcus. Still, perhaps it’s best to wait until their homecoming to officially marry her.
“I never want to be like that,” Medea says with a shudder, hugging her knees. “Like Peleus and Thetis, hurling insults at each other in front of everyone.”
Jason agrees. He also does not wish for his domestic life to become a spectacle for a crowd.
“I don’t like Peleus,” Medea adds. “And I certainly don’t want him as a father-in-law. He stares like he wants to undress me, and Atalanta told me he touched her once. Also, I don’t like the way he treated Thetis. I think you should dismiss him.”
