Chapter 10
Atalanta
“Next time the ship comes to shore, let’s flee,” I said to Meleager the next morning. The sun glittered on the water with
deceptive calm, but I did not wish to stay in this rocking little boat a moment longer than I had to.
“After all you did to convince Jason to let you join the crew?” Meleager asked, drowsing in the sun next to me. One of the
biggest surprises of the voyage had been the dullness, with long hours spent on deck with little to do until one’s shift at
the oars. Mostly, we napped like great cats. “Why leave now?”
“I wanted to prove a point,” I said, remembering Jason’s oily false concern about my virtue, of all things.
Meleager shrugged. “Be that as it may, I can’t leave. I cannot risk going home to Calydon while Mother might still be angry
about what I did to her brothers. She is not a woman to be trifled with, my mother, Althaea. When I was little, Mother had
a dream from the Fates that my life was linked to a log in the fireplace. When my cries woke her, Mother reached in with her
bare hands and yanked it out, just like that! She’s indominable. I just hope she and my wife aren’t fighting too much,” Meleager
added wistfully.
“Hold on,” I said, combing through the current of his words. “Did you say that those were your mother’s own brothers, the
ones you killed?”
After the Calydonian boar hunt, when Meleager declared that mine was the champion’s portion, argument rose up from the men who’d questioned my inclusion since the beginning.
Mindful of the dissenting voices, I dedicated the boar pelt to Artemis, lying it over the low branches of a tree in time to greet the rising half-moon.
No sooner had I done this than a hand reached out and jerked it down.
One of the men, his face so red with anger that he looked ill, drew his sword.
In a flash, a different blade cut through his chest, and I saw the face of Meleager, pale but determined.
Another man charged in screaming with a spear at the ready, only to meet with the same fate.
Meleager’s voice was in my ear, telling me to run, and we had.
We hid in a cave for a week or so before catching wind of the Argo’s journey to Colchis.
Squinting at the sun, Meleager nodded. “Yeah, those were my uncles, not that we were ever very close. I guess miasma might
be a problem, but we’ll visit a temple and get that sorted out in no time.”
I was stunned. His mother’s brothers! Even I, unschooled in the finer distinctions of human customs, understood that such
a blood tie was significant. “Why?” I asked. Why did you kill them for my sake, for a stranger?
Meleager shrugged. “It was the right thing to do. You saved my life with that boar, and they were trying to kill you. I couldn’t
let that happen.”
I studied his face and saw that, for Meleager, it really was that simple. He had seen wrongdoing, and he corrected it. Blood
debt and loyalty, for him, paled in comparison to doing what was right. He’d never been as susceptible as other men to bias about women, which he credited to his five older sisters, his mother,
and his fierce wife. But for the first time I saw just how much Meleager had done for me.
It made me feel trapped like a rabbit in a snare.
Meleager’s simple gesture of kindness represented a debt I could never repay, or perhaps an overture I could not read.
Whatever the case, I was frightened enough to rise to my feet and take my shift at the oars early.
The goddess herself had warned me about things like this in the dream she sent long ago.
Still, I would not abandon the Argo without Meleager. Once my time on the rowing deck was finished and my heart was beating normally once again, I would return
to his side. Meleager had become, over the short duration of our time together, a cherished friend.
That afternoon, as the Argo floated on the swells, I gradually became aware of eyes upon me. The rest of the crew generally gave me a wide berth, but
that did not stop them from staring when they thought I wasn’t looking.
The twins Castor and Polydeuces, along with Idas, were watching me. Tiphys the navigator was there too, leaning against the
mast and drinking a foul-smelling substance. Meleager was serving his shift at the oars down below, and inwardly I mourned
his absence. Meleager’s mere presence was a helpful buffer against the worst of male attention, but it seemed I would have
to take a more direct approach today.
“What are you looking at?” I demanded.
The men exchanged uneasy glances. “It’s just that we’ve never traveled with a lady before,” Polydeuces said.
“By Artemis Far-Shooter, I’m not a lady,” I said, bristling. “Just Atalanta. An Argonaut like any one of you.”
The tension in the air dissipated as they pondered this. They had a way to categorize me now—an Argonaut like any one of you, bound to the mission we had undertaken. I was only one of the many strange things they would encounter on this journey,
and in general they seemed to be pleased that I was on their side.
Most of them, anyway. “Women are unlucky on ships,” Tiphys muttered, lounging in the shadow of the mast.
My tart reply was cut off by a rumble. “I have no concern about a woman on board.” We all looked over at Heracles, who was
reclining on a rolled-up sail. “I spent a year living as a woman in the court of Queen Omphale, and no one says my presence
on any crew is unlucky.”
At the time, I did not know the story of how Heracles had pledged himself to Queen Omphale of Lydia in atonement for past
wrongdoing, wearing her clothing and spinning her wool. There was a certain wistfulness to Heracles’s voice when he spoke
of Omphale, and I had the sense that this must have been a peaceful time in a tumultuous life.
“What’s unlucky is that stinking lion skin,” Tiphys slurred, staggering to his feet. I was indeed aware of a musky odor rising
from the pelt draped over Heracles’s shoulder. “I don’t care if you’re a living legend, wash it!”
But the issue of my place on the Argo was not so easily resolved. The next day, I encountered Peleus in the darkened stairway leading from the rowing benches to
the open-air deck.
I’d just finished my latest shift at the oars, and my back ached. I was looking forward to catching an afternoon nap, perhaps
with a blanket draped over my head to keep off the blazing rays of the sun. There were no broad-leafed trees to provide shade
here on the open water, and my skin had a tendency to redden and peel if I stayed in direct sunlight too long.
A shadow blocked my way up the stairs. Peleus, the prince from Phthia, Jason’s friend.
Quarters were always tight on the ship, but that did not explain why he veered so close.
The rough wood of the wall rasped against my arm when I tried to draw away.
Still, I did not escape the clammy touch of one of Peleus’s hands, skimming across the roundness of my buttocks.
In a flash, my knife was at his throat. Its tip was sharp, and a few drops of blood began to trickle down Peleus’s neck.
“If you lay a hand on me again,” I said, “I will cut that hand off. Do you understand?”
Peleus, caught off guard, nodded frantically. His wide mouth and goggling eyes were almost comical.
I removed my knife from his throat, and he scrambled away into the dark below.
That evening when we made landfall, I gazed at the moon while the other Argonauts tried to find the most comfortable patches
of dirt to roll out their blankets. The moon was full and glowing in a cloudless sky; reflected on the waters, her illumination
made the night seem almost as bright as dawn. The moon was the symbol of Artemis, my patroness, and I always thought of Procris
when I looked at her.
When Meleager wandered away toward the latrine, Jason swooped in.
He was all false smiles and hollow pleasantries, putting my teeth on edge. Jason walked with me to the edge of the encampment,
away from listening ears, spouting meaningless small talk all the while. It was only then, as he rubbed the back of his head
awkwardly, that Jason finally shared his true reason for speaking to me.
“Peleus bears the mark of your assault,” Jason said, his brow creased in concern—not for me, but for the mannerless cur who’d
touched me. “I cannot tolerate violence inflicted on one of the crew by another.”
“Peleus assaulted me first,” I snapped, my temper beginning to rise. “He grabbed my ass like I was nothing but a piece of fruit. Why not chastise Peleus for treating one of your Argonauts so disgracefully?”
“There’s no proof of what he did to you, only your word, which contradicts his. But Peleus’s throat still bears the mark of
your knife.” Jason sighed heavily, as though I was being difficult. “This is precisely the sort of trouble I meant when I warned that your presence might prove divisive among the crew.”
Rage struck me like a dark wave. I could not believe what I was hearing, after winning my place on board and serving my turn
at the oars like any other member of the crew.
“Coward,” I hissed. “What kind of leader are you, ignoring justice? If you refuse to see the truth of this, what else are
you missing?”
Jason drew back, stunned.
“You claim you wish to return us safely to Greece,” I continued. “Yet you are the one putting us in danger in the first place.
And when you imagine your world of justice, will it be a place for everyone, or only those who look like you?”
Jason stared at me, mouth slightly open. Without another word, he turned and walked away.