Chapter 4
Jason
Jason stands one-sandaled before the king who killed his father.
The usurping Pelias sits on the throne overlooking the megaron. The skin on his face sags, painting hollows beneath burning
eyes. He blanches when he sees Jason, as though the ghost of the murdered Aeson has come up from Hades to confront him.
But oddly, Pelias is not looking at Jason’s face when he makes this expression. Instead, he is looking at Jason’s feet.
It isn’t Jason’s fault. The missing sandal, that is. It was lost when Jason carried an old woman across the river on his way
here. He couldn’t just leave her there on the shore, but then he slipped in the water and the sandal unhooked itself, spiraling into the current. There
was no retrieving it, so he continued on.
Jason is keenly aware of the river smell on his clothes and the cold floor against his bare foot. He knows that he looks a
bit silly. But when he begins to speak, the watching nobles and even the king are so charmed that they forget his awkward
appearance.
Jason claims his birthright with eloquence and assurance. He is the exiled prince returned to his kingdom, the rightful ruler
claiming his inheritance. The assembly in the megaron murmurs and nods—young Jason, handsome and bright, makes a much more
appealing ruler than withered Pelias.
Jason knows how to weave his words into a glittering cloak and settle them upon his shoulders, taking on the mantle of a king’s authority.
After his father’s death, Jason was sent to foster on Mount Pelion with Chiron himself, the son of ancient Kronos and the instructor of heroes.
It was from Chiron that he learned the skills of speechmaking and rhetoric.
Strategy is just as vital as spears, and speeches even more so, Chiron told him once. The art of persuasion is a dangerous one, but you may be suited for no other. I would make you a bloodless hero who reaches
heights untold.
By the time Jason finishes speaking, Pelias has recovered from his initial shock. His eyes move over Jason’s form, assessing,
calculating. Jason doesn’t carry a weapon; he won’t be able to defend himself if Pelias orders one of the guards nearby to
run him through with a spear. Jason finally allows the terror he’s kept at bay to wash over him. The idea that he will die
here, half barefoot, is almost too much to bear.
“Very well, Jason,” Pelias says. “I will give you the throne of Iolcus . . .”
A stunned silence.
“. . . if you bring me the Golden Fleece of King Aeetes of Colchis,” King Aeetes finishes with a twisted smile.
Ah. There it is. Colchis is the land of witches and dragons, located beyond the edges of the known world. Its king, Aeetes,
is said to be neither human nor animal, and renowned for his cruelty. The journey will be long, every part filled with danger.
It is a fool’s errand at best, a suicide quest at worst.
“To show that you are worthy of the throne, of course,” Pelias adds, smug as a cat with cream, knowing it will be a show of
the utmost cowardice for Jason to refuse.
The crowd in the megaron stares at Jason, waiting to see what he will do. A beast of many eyes, each burning like a brand into Jason’s flesh. They will not forget this day and will never accept Jason as a legitimate king without the fulfillment of this challenge.
Jason has no choice but to agree to this absurd quest, and thereby ensure his own doom.
That night, safe behind a locked door at an inn, Jason stares at the ceiling.
His mind spins around and around. He needs the Golden Fleece to get the throne, but he has no idea how to get the Fleece.
He doesn’t even have a ship to cross the treacherous seas to Colchis. Yet he must do this for the sake of his father, Aeson,
murdered by Pelias so long ago. And for his mother, Alcimede, who lives in a shepherd’s hut at the bottom of Mount Pelion.
Jason remembers what she said before sending him off to his apprenticeship with Chiron so many years ago.
In the memory, his mother kneels so that they are eye to eye. Jason, my son, she begins. Three times have I given you life. The first was when I birthed you in blood and agony. The second was when I hid you from assassins sent by the man who
killed your father, and stood with my women around your bed wailing so that the murderer would think you were already dead. The third time was when
I fled from the palace and brought you here to safety. Three times I have given you life, and here is what you must do with that life: Avenge your father and take back Iolcus!
Jason recalls a cold foreboding. He was only seven years old at the time, small and skinny, with less interest in battles
and more in the poems sung about them. How was he supposed to take on a king and seize a kingdom, even if it rightfully belonged
to him?
You will be a hero, his mother says in the memory. And I will be the mother of a hero, with shrines and devotees who bring offerings to her, like Danae, the mother of Perseus.
She looks dreamy for a moment, then snaps back to attention. As if sensing Jason’s hesitation, Alcimede grabs his chin, holding
it firmly and forcing him to look at her. You will avenge your father, killed at the hands of Pelias, and gain fame as a hero. You will do your duty, and if you forget,
then I will make sure that you remember.
Young Jason nods obediently. He does not forget his duty during his long apprenticeship with Chiron, even when he proves useless
with sword and spear and instead must take training in rhetoric, so unbecoming of a man. But throughout the ten years Jason
spends with Chiron, a question nibbles at the back of his mind like an insistent mouse:
If his mother wants to avenge his father and take back Iolcus so badly, why doesn’t she do it herself?
There is no use asking such things. Jason rolls over in his bed at the inn, squeezing his eyes shut. To soothe himself, he
summons up the only memory he can recall of his father.
It is a clear evening many years ago, before the exile, before his training with Chiron. Jason’s father is sitting in the
garden as the day winds to a close and shepherds come down from their high pastures. Jason runs as fast as his small legs
can take him, and a smile comes over his father’s face when he sees the boy. Aeson lifts Jason up, whirling him around and
around until the sky becomes like the earth, and they are both laughing, laughing, laughing.
Then Pelias kills Aeson, making exiles of both Jason and his mother.
If Jason had been born another man’s son, perhaps he could have become a rhetorician or a sophist, taking students for pay.
Or the keeper of a ford, ferrying people to a distant shore where he himself cannot go. But as it is, he is his father’s only
heir and he must take back his father’s throne.
Jason must find a way to go to Colchis and get the Fleece, even if it kills him.
In the morning, Jason wakes to a knock on the door.
A robed figure stands there. “I come with a message,” a voice says from beneath the cloak. A woman’s voice. This surprises
Jason, since women rarely serve as messengers. “Your inheritance is almost finished. Follow me.”
Jason is puzzled; his mother never made mention of any inheritance Aeson left him, except for debts and duties. Against his
better judgment, Jason trails the hooded figure through the teeming streets of Iolcus, toward the smell of salt in the air.
If his father left him one final message, if there was something he wanted his son to have, Jason needs to know.
Soon they reach the shipyards, full of vessels carrying treasures from far away. Jason and the stranger walk past legions
of men toiling in the blazing sun, sweat glistening on their rippling muscles, and head toward an area where the sound of
hammers echoes in the air. Light glitters on the water.
Then Jason rounds a corner and sees it.
A marvel among ships, larger than anything else in the harbor, with curved sides reaching far above Jason’s head. The planks
of the hull are fitted so tightly together that not a drop of seawater can get in, and an array of oars bristles at its sides
like the limbs of a multilegged insect. Jason cranes his head back and notices the multiple decks: one beneath the sky and
another to shelter the rowers, a remarkable innovation at a time when most boats are little more than rickety fishing rafts.
Eyes painted on the hull allow the ship to see its way. Above, huge sails snap in the wind.
“This,” the stranger says, “is the Argo. And it is yours.”
When Jason turns toward her, the hooded figure has changed.
A woman stands there, or something that looks like a woman, her beauty seemingly carved from stone.
She brings to mind an empress dowager; though not young, she makes the loveliness of youth appear garish.
She is clearly someone who is used to being in command, and it is equally clear that she is not mortal.
A goddess. The rest of the world seems to recede around them as her peplos robe rustles in the wind of another world.
Jason falls to his knees, forehead pressed against the sun-bleached wood of the dock. He trembles with terror, knowing how
quickly divine favor can shift, but even so he cannot quite resist the temptation of peering up at her. She has the dark eyes
of a cow, long-lashed and luminous. They are strangely familiar.
“The old woman from the ford,” Jason whispers. The one he carried over the river. She had eyes like that, beautiful in her
withered face.
The goddess laughs. “Just so,” she says. “I hope you will forgive the disguise, but I needed to judge what sort of person
you were, Jason of Iolcus. And I must say, I find myself pleasantly surprised. Carrying me across the river on your back,
what kindness! You are a different sort of man, and you will become a different sort of hero—if you live long enough. And
I will make certain that you do.”
“Why, my lady?” he asks hoarsely. “Why did you come to judge me?”
“Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the goddess says. “You hate Pelias as much as I do. A horrible man—he once slaughtered
an innocent woman in my temple, I’ll have you know. An awful mess and an unforgivable insult. But now you are here. And the prophecy about Pelias’s defeat by a man wearing only one sandal will at last come to fruition.”
Forehead still pressed against the dock, Jason blinks. Now he knows why Pelias stared at his feet in the megaron. Though Jason can’t help thinking it’s not a very good prophecy, since a man might lose a sandal for all sorts of reasons. But he doesn’t say this to the goddess.
Jason feels a cool hand on his head. “I give you the Argo so that you may get the Golden Fleece, Jason of Iolcus,” the goddess says. “Now gather your crew, and know that you travel
under the protection of Hera, Queen of Heaven.”