From my post in the shadows, I watched two small figures slip out of the palace and disappear into the streets.Yes!A silent shout of triumph echoed in my skull. Good. Mermerus and Pheres had delivered the items to the princess and the king, and now the boys would be on their way to the temple of Hera to wait for me. We had long ago chosen the temple as our meeting spot in case our family became separated by some disaster, and it would serve that purpose now.
Walking around the outer perimeter of the palace, I splashed the contents of the amphora against the walls. The potion hissed and steamed where it fell. When I’d completed a full circuit, I retreated into the shadows at the edge of the plaza and paused to catch my breath.
A moment of hesitation; I hovered at the edge of a precipice. What I was about to do could not be undone. Strangely, Atalanta’s face rose in my mind. If she were here, she would urge restraint, as she had in the case of Pelias’s daughters. She’d tell me that there were better ways, thatIwas better.
But Atalanta was not here. And there was nothing to hold me back.
Raising a hand, I whispered the words of power. And the potion at the base of the palace burst into flame.
The warmth on my skin echoed the glow of triumph within me. No one would pursue my sons and me as we fled. The fire wouldtake care of them all: the sleeping princess, the drowsing king. The palace of Corinth burned, flames licking up the stone walls.
Shouts rent the air as the denizens of the palace poured from the flung-open doors and the residents of nearby houses woke to the scent of smoke. Some people came running with jugs of water, while others simply stared slack-jawed at the scene.
No one noticed a lone woman watching the conflagration from the shadows. No one noticed me.
I stayed there until the ashes of the palace glowed with red coals, then went to the temple of Hera to collect my sons.
71
Medea
Corinth in the hours before dawn was almost preternaturally still, the sky an unearthly pale blue in the east. A cat crept across the street, but otherwise nothing stirred.
How strange it was, I thought as the temple of Hera drew into view, that I should have no great attachment to this goddess. As a married woman I should have been one of her natural devotees, but Hera had always belonged to Jason. It was strange that my husband had such a fanatical devotion to the wife of Zeus when he possessed so little regard for his own.
The temple compound was quiet, the priestesses still asleep. As I made my way through the courtyard and into the eerily empty sanctuary, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. It was quiet, too quiet. An absolute silence reigned, one that any mother would recognize. An ominous silence, like a yawning mouth.
And somewhere, the sound of weeping.
I began to run.
When I turned the corner and looked into the sanctuary, I was confronted with a scene out of a nightmare. There were my sons Mermerus and Pheres, wrapped in their cloaks and snuggled together on the floor. They’d tried to snatch some sleep in the early hours of the morning, but it was clear they would never wake again.
Blood pooled on the floor around them, and their limbs wereheld at unnatural angles. A scream tore from my throat, rending the uncanny quiet, and I ran to them.
Nonono.My beautiful sons, my boys. There are times when the mind peels away from the existing world, like an injured fingernail from its bed. Someone had taken a sharp edge to them, perhaps an axe or a knife, and hacked. A moan emerged from my throat as I held my sons’ bodies to my chest, careless of the blood staining my dress.
A sound caught my attention.
A woman was sitting nearby, her back against the wall. Her knees were pulled up against her chest, her face buried in her arms. Her clothing was finely made but scorched by flames, and it took me a moment to place her. This was Glauke, Creon’s wife.
On the ground next to her was a sword, coated in blood.
Glauke lifted her head. When she saw me, her face changed, contorting into a gorgon rictus of hate. “You,” she spat. “Witch, you killed them. My daughter, my husband. I know you set the fire, because it licked up the stone and behaved like no natural thing.” There was no trace of the mousy woman who’d been like a shadow by her husband’s side on the palace steps. Now, she seemed more like a tigress.
Glauke kicked the sword, sending it spinning toward me in a smear of red. “There it is, Medea. A son for a daughter, a son for a husband. You have wiped out my line, and I have destroyed yours. Now do what you have come to do.”
I could not bring my sons back to life, not with all my witchcraft. But I could snatch up the sword and advance on Glauke, intent on my revenge. To her credit, she did not cringe and hide like a coward but faced death head-on, teeth bared—how I myself would face my death, had our roles been reversed.
My thoughts spiraled outward. Of all the creatures that think and breathe, truly women are the most unfortunate. Hard-pressedinto marriage and forced to submit to it utterly, even offering the indignity of a dowry for the privilege. Afterward there is no freedom, because while a husband can escape into his public duties, his wife is confined to the house. Next is childbirth, and truly, I’d still rather stand in the line of battle three times than undergo the ordeal of the birthing stool once.
And then this: the loss of a child, and the ruin left after a husband’s death or desertion.
Glauke stared up at me, her face smeared with ash. She too had once been a young bride in a new city, fearful and alone. Perhaps she had come from a faraway land like me and had to learn the customs of a foreign place. Certainly she’d given birth to her daughter in agonizing labor just as I had delivered my sons. The difference between us shrunk and disappeared.
We were mirrors of each other, Glauke and I, both of us having lost everything. The arm holding the sword slowly lowered.
Besides, as Atalanta would have said herself, killing Glauke would not bring my sons back.
