He thinks briefly of Medea, but reasons that what his wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
After supper is finished, Creusa and her mother retire to bed. Jason watches the king’s daughter go, his gaze clinging to her wistfully as she leaves the men to stay up late over wine and the talk of politics.
Jason planned to use this occasion to discuss his interest in King Agamemnon’s planned expedition to Troy, but the king interrupts him.
“You know,” Creon begins in a deceptively light tone, “I am looking for a husband for Creusa. He must be accomplished and trustworthy, and attractive to her as well. I wouldn’t want to marry my daughter to some repulsive old man!”
Creon throws his head back in a laugh, but he is still looking at Jason, studying his reaction.
“Creusa liked you very much, you know,” Creon adds.
The brief silence between them stretches and grows.
The meaning of the king’s words comes into focus slowly, like the totality of a mosaic. An offer that Jason cannot take, not with the oaths that bind him; and cannot refuse, lest he jeopardize the goodwill of the king and betray his own weary heart.
Atalanta is wrong. Jason appreciates everything he has been given; he’s worked hard to deserve it. Bled for it, suffered for it. When he makes his excuses to Creon and leaves, Jason knows exactly how much he has to lose.
66
Medea
Over the next week, Atalanta and I fell into an easy rhythm. Shameful desire did not rear its head again, to my great relief. In the morning, in the gray light before dawn, I would go to the courtyard, where she could be found smoking some Scythian hempflower for the pain in her bones. She’d thrust out her chin in greeting when she saw me, and we would start the day as we ended the previous one, sitting together in the garden, and watching the brilliant colors of sunrise paint themselves across the sky.
During the daylight hours, she and I walked around the city with the children. I cast a simple glamour over the four of us so that the eyes of passersby slid away like water, since I wanted nothing to interrupt this time with her, certainly not unwanted attention from anyone who might recognize her from the now-famous story of theArgo.
The twins loved Atalanta. “That’s the agora!” Pheres yelled. “And that’s where I saw a dead bird once.”
I spread my hands across my reddened cheeks, horrified at their behavior, but Atalanta only chuckled. She bonded with Mermerus and Pheres easily, the three of them wrestling like puppies. Atalanta spoke to them solemnly, like one adult to another, and they straightened up to match her.
Seeing Atalanta so gentle with my children made my hearttwist. She never wanted children, yet here she was, tender with my boys as if they were her own.
As we walked around Corinth, I realized how little I had seen of my own city. I’d spent most of my time indoors, managing the household and taking care of first Thessalus and then the twins. Now, as we walked from the agora to the temple of Hera, I saw how gleaming Corinth was, all white walls and red roofs. And beautiful women everywhere. I’d heard Corinth called the city of Aphrodite, city of love, but I’d never before had the chance to see it for myself.
Atalanta had never liked cities. I puzzled that she tolerated this one.
In the evening, when Eirene took charge of the children, I sat with Atalanta in the courtyard as the stars appeared in the sky like fireflies. Servants brought out braziers to light the garden and keep us warm, and I was reminded of the fires along the beaches during theArgo’s journey. Sometimes I braided Atalanta’s hair as I’d done long ago, relishing the excuse to touch her, only to startle like a child sneaking treats when Eirene entered the courtyard to ask a question. Atalanta and I laughed like young girls and talked at length about the things we had seen.
“And do you remember those six-armed men?”
“Yes! And the Harpies who tormented Phineus, poor old man.”
How gilded it all seemed now in memory. How easy to forget the seasickness and oppressive heat, and remember only the grand adventures.
There were things we did not speak of, swirling vortexes that we danced around. She did not ask much about Jason, for example, and I did not speak of the impulsive feelings that had come over me the night she arrived. Neither of us wanted to risk this unlikely peace. So we spoke of other things, like the past and thepeople we had known. Such as Peleus, whose son, Achilles, had distinguished himself in swiftness and strength.
“And did I tell you that Psyche met Achilles?” Atalanta asked. “He had some snotty things to say about me, it seems. Oh, how Psyche laughed when I told her I beat Achilles’s sorry father in a wrestling match!”
I laughed at this, glad that I’d at least avoided the fate of being married to Achilles, a man so much younger than me and a boor to boot.
We spoke of Orpheus too. He’d died, Atalanta told me, torn apart by maenads in the mountains. His head was still singing when they cast it into a stream that ran out to the sea. I pressed a hand to my heart in sorrow, thinking of his beloved Calais, left to live on without him. And Eurydice, welcoming back her wandering husband in the cold fields of the Underworld.
Orpheus. I had not forgotten his cryptic advice about running after love, even if I had not followed it.
We spoke of Heracles, who had died (so many of our companions from theArgowere dead now, it seemed) from a curse unwittingly inflicted by his new wife. “Hylas would never have allowed such a thing to happen,” I remarked, and Atalanta agreed.
But before he died, Heracles wrestled Death to a standstill to save a woman who had traded her life for her husband’s.
“Her husband was fated to die, and she volunteered to take his place,” Atalanta told me, having heard the tale from a visiting bard during her time in Mycenae. “I don’t know why she did that, laying down her life for her husband’s. I did not know it was possible.” A shadow flickered across Atalanta’s features, then quickly vanished. “When Death came to take her, Heracles drew him into a headlock. He beat Death so thoroughly that Death fled back along the path of cypresses. The woman’s name was Alcestis, I think,” she added as an afterthought.
