In a single stroke, I’d lost it all. The life I’d spent the past twenty years building, my sweet sons. I’d known many sorrows in my life, but nothing so all-consuming as this. It crashed over me in waves, wringing me out until I was a mere scrap of myself. And yet the gentle presence never left my side, buoying me up through the worst of the pain.
One day at some point after my arrival—I cannot say when, because by then time had ceased to matter—I became aware of a cramp in my left calf. The pain grew until it was like a siren, and I was at last persuaded to vacate my bedroll to stretch, lest I perish from the discomfort.
For the first time, I had the presence of mind to truly take in my surroundings. I was in a small wattle-and-daub hut, barely large enough to fit my bedroll and its twin, along with a few supplies. Folded blankets lay nearby, along with a cup of water evidently placed there by a loving hand.
I drained the cup and went to the door. It was late afternoon, golden sunlight falling across the fields. The sun chariot stood not far away, and the two dragons tussled with each other in the grass like puppies. Unperturbed by their antics, Kastana the mare grazed nearby. How strange it was that the world carried on as usual in the face of unimaginable loss. And yet what a comfort also.
A path wound from the camp into the forest, disappearinginto the tree line that stood all around like a protective sentinel. There was a figure on that path. Drawing closer, I saw that it was Atalanta.
She was standing with her hands braced on her knees, panting for breath. A water jug sat beside her, carried from the stream below. Her legs were trembling with exertion, the tendons on her neck and arms standing out. Perhaps an old injury aggravated, or a muscle strained.
The sight struck me like an arrow, propelling my feet forward. I understood that the bright presence that had led me through the worst of my grief was Atalanta, and that she had tended to things like blankets and water and food when I’d been incapacitated by my loss. Now it was my turn to look after her.
In that moment, I saw what I had not seen before: that love is an action, not a resource to summon up or compel. This was why my working in the moonlit garden so long ago failed, not because of insufficient skill or scope, but because you cannot beckon love like a servant. You can only feel it and let it rise through you into the world, and seek to become a person worthy of love in return.
Which does not mean, as I’d always thought, carving off chunks of yourself to serve on a silver platter to others. No, love was more like taking a heavy amphora from weary hands and hefting it onto my own hip, then walking with Atalanta back to the hut, all the while commenting on the weather, the birdsong, anything but the sudden weakness that had come over her on the path and her clear embarrassment about it. Her honor was as dear to her as life, but dearer still she was to me.
Together, we walked home.
75
Medea
Eventually, when I could bear to, I told Atalanta what happened in Corinth. About Jason’s cruel betrayal and his attempt to take our sons, and my revenge. About the dress and the crown, the flames licking up the sides of the palace, and the horror waiting for me in the temple of Hera.
When I finished speaking, I felt scrubbed clean and raw but lighter. Letting my story out into the world, into the listening ear of another person, meant it had the chance to live outside me.
Atalanta remained quiet, pondering what I told her. It was late afternoon, the lazy hour when the sun has just begun to slant toward the western horizon, and even the landscape seems to be dozing in the heat. She and I sat outside the hut, close but not touching.
“I want to ask you something,” Atalanta said, her attention focused on sharpening a knife. “Why did you vent your rage on the girl instead of Jason?”
It took me a moment to understand her meaning. I’d been so focused on what had been done to me that I scarcely considered whatIhad done. When I did, it was like being hit in the face by a bucket of cold water.
By the Styx, I’d killed a girl and her father, cursing them with sleep before setting their home aflame. Creusa had committed nocrime save for catching the eye of an inconstant man, and I’d killed her for it.
There was no easy answer to Atalanta’s question, and excuses bubbled from my lips. “Jason was my husband,” I said. “I didn’t want to risk miasma. And besides, it would hurt more if I burned down his life around him.”
Atalanta said nothing, only arched an eyebrow and gave me a long, slow look as if to suggest that I knew better than that. I had no choice but to leave subterfuge and lies behind, gazing into the truth like the eye of the burning sun.
The simple fact was that the girl, the princess Creusa, had been an easier target for my rage than Jason. She was faceless, abstract, a blank canvas on which to paint out my worst fears. She was the beloved daughter, the happy wife. A symbol of all that I once dreamed of being and would never become.
And she was dead because of me.
The shame was overwhelming. “What have I done?” I said, burying my face in my hands. “This is worse than the daughters of Pelias.”
“What’s done is done.” Atalanta’s lips were pressed together in a tight line. “In our world, violence is sometimes necessary, but it must not be senseless. When my father held me prisoner, I was forced to kill the men who raced against me, whether they cursed me or begged for their lives. I hated it. If I’d been able to kill Schoenus—and more than once I tried—I would have saved many other lives, not least my own. Much trouble could have been prevented if only you’d taken out your rage on the one who actually deserved it. Tell me, was Creon a good king?”
An abrupt switch in topic, but I was used to this from Atalanta. The question forced me to consider something I never had, to piece together bits of memories and snatches of overheardconversation. “No. Jason was always getting called in to meetings about the royal treasury and overspending on building projects around the city. I cannot think the king was anything but profligate. But what has that to do with our discussion?”
“Do you think Glauke will be a better queen?”
The question caught me off guard. “Maybe. I don’t know. She’s ruthless but has courage, I suppose. And she will know how to listen to the voices of the small because she was once small herself.” My hands tightened on my knees. “But she killed my sons. I should have avenged them. I was weak.”
“Rather, I think you are stronger than you know.”
I looked up into the eyes of Atalanta, luminous as the sky. “You put an end to the cycle of a life for a life,” she said.
Her words recalled something Circe told me once:There will never be an end to it until you make one and become more than Aeetes’s daughter.
