Chapter 30
Medea
“Are you really going to marry Jason?”
I turned around to see Atalanta standing behind me. It was the morning after Lemnos, and none of us had slept particularly
well.
“Yes,” I said, thinking back to my conversation with him last night. The memory warmed me against the chill of the sea spray.
“Hmm.” Atalanta jerked her chin, indicating the low smudge of a landmass on the horizon. “That is the island of the Doliones,
where Jason killed the king and queen. They welcomed us as guests, but he killed them anyway.”
I blinked. “He never said anything about that to me.”
“That’s Jason for you. He doesn’t share details that present him in a bad light.”
I was about to ask Atalanta what exactly Jason had done to earn her dislike, when a call came from the lookout. “Six armed
men!” Tiphys cried from his perch on the mast.
The rest of us looked up, puzzled. We were drifting near the shore, a necessity in this place where the cruel deep-sea currents
threatened to pull us in unknown directions. An isthmus extended out into the water, and we hugged its curves.
“Why should we care about an armed force of only six?” Peleus shouted back.
“No, you don’t understand,” Tiphys said. “Six-armed men! Giants, with six arms!”
A thunder of feet, and all of us hung off the landward side of the ship.
A man was standing on the shore, and another a little behind him, remarkable mainly for their lack of attire; a loincloth
around each man’s hips was all that separated him from nakedness. I averted my gaze as a flush sprang to my cheeks.
Atalanta was next to me, her attention focused sharply on the men. “But that’s not right,” she whispered. “He’s too far away.”
I looked again and saw that I’d had the perspective all wrong. The man was actually standing on the cliff, as was his friend,
an illusion that made them seem like men of ordinary size. In truth, both must have been twice the size of any man aboard
the Argo. Giants indeed.
As we watched, the man raised his arms . . . and kept raising them, sprouting more as he went, two additional arms unfurling
from each side. Shaking all six arms, he shouted in an unintelligible language. His friend soon joined in, waving a spear
in his uppermost right hand.
We of the Argo glanced around at one another, amazed. The six-armed men were too far away to do any damage, and our ship sailed safely past.
What wonders this world contained.
We made camp that evening on an island mercifully free from all human habitation, six-armed or otherwise. It was a relief
to spread out along the beach after so long on the cramped quarters of the ship. I stretched out my legs and dug my toes into
the cool sand.
The sun was setting, turning the sky gold and fire red.
Castor and Polydeuces splashed in the water, throwing drops of sea spray that turned the dying light into rainbows, while Peleus and Tiphys engaged in a bout of arm wrestling.
Heracles, his great bulk lying horizontal, pillowed his head in the lap of his youthful companion, Hylas.
Clouds drifted across the sky, and seabirds skimmed the water.
When dusk fell, fires were kindled and food passed around, such as it was: gruel and salted meat, which made me long for the
delicacies of home. I tried to catch Jason’s eye, but he was engaged in an animated conversation with Peleus and did not notice
me.
Orpheus began to play a wordless tune on his lyre. The melody rose up like sparks from the fire, summoning the distant stars
to join us. The stars began to dance to the music, drifting down from their high abodes. Pinpricks of light, no larger than
fireflies, moved over our heads in procession as Orpheus played. The stars became a crown over the head of Calais, and I remembered
what I’d seen my first night on the Argo: a glimpse of Calais and Orpheus, the lovers.
Abruptly, the music stopped. When I looked up, the stars were restored to their rightful positions in the sky. I rubbed my
eyes and, around me, saw the other Argonauts doing the same.
A powerful illusion. Once, I had been able to accomplish similar marvels with my witchcraft. Now I was useless.
The events of the past few days struck me with the force of a tidal wave. I was far from home and without my magic. Suddenly
the laughing and joking of these men—these strangers—was intolerable. Leaving the light of the fires, I walked to the darkness
at the edge of camp to gather my thoughts in peace.
A shape moved in the shadows, and I cried out in alarm.
“Why are you making so much noise?” the familiar voice of Atalanta asked. Her tall, wiry form emerged from the night.
“Because you startled me,” I snapped. “What are you doing out here, creeping around?”
“Praying to Artemis Far-Shooter.”
Every hair on my body lifted, and a shiver ran over my skin. I felt like I had been struck by an arrow myself, because in
Greek the name she said was Artemis Hekate.
Oh, I knew well enough that it meant “far-shooter” or “worker from afar.” And I’d heard of Artemis before, a Greek goddess.
But it felt as though my mother had reached through the mists of eternity to grab me by the shoulders and say, Listen. Listen to this woman.
“There is another goddess of that name,” I said, sitting heavily on a piece of driftwood. “Hekate. Have you heard of her?
I was her priestess back in Colchis. And . . . and I am her natural daughter.” The revelation spilled from my lips like water
from a spring before I had the time to debate the wisdom of sharing it.
Atalanta nodded, unperturbed, seating herself next to me on the driftwood log. “I knew a woman whose mother was also a priestess
of Hekate. I think Hekate is a little like my Artemis, a goddess of the moon and dark places.”
“You don’t seem surprised to hear that I’m a descendant of a goddess,” I remarked. Jason had been far more taken aback by
this revelation.
“You’re not the first divine descendant I’ve met, and you won’t be the last,” Atalanta replied. “That boat is full of them.
Just the other night I watched a demigod get too drunk and throw up all over himself. Besides, why wouldn’t I believe you
had a goddess for a mother when I myself was raised by bears?”
“This is the second time you have mentioned being raised by bears. Someday you must tell me the full story.”
“Someday,” Atalanta agreed, and immediately changed the subject.
“Now I understand why you are so attached to your witchcraft, daughter of Hekate. You said before we left Lemnos that you understood why you had lost your magic and what you must do to get it back.” She slapped her thighs and leaned forward.
“So, what is the reason, and what the remedy?”
“Miasma,” I said simply, hugging my knees. “That is the cause.”
Miasma. Impurity, pollution, the dark cloud that hung over ill deeds. Certain acts had a shape and weight, and marked the
doer in the same way that plunging one’s hands into a vat of dye will stain them. I’d seen the stain of miasma on the walls
of the Lemnos palace, where the women murdered their own kin. Then I’d looked down and seen it on my own hands as well.
I hadn’t confided this to Jason, not wishing to worry him. But I found myself speaking freely to Atalanta.
“I realized what happened when Polyxo said Hypsipyle threw her father into the sea,” I continued. “It’s the same thing Aeetes
did to the sons of Phrixus, sending them out in a boat with no oars, so that he would not stain his hands with their blood.”
I chewed my lip. “The miasma, it’s because of what I did to Absyrtos.”
An axe, winking in the sun. Blood, sticky on my hands.
“We will go visit my aunt Circe,” I added, banishing the memories. “And she will purify me.” If she didn’t kill me on sight,
that was. I didn’t know my aunt, had never even met her. All I had was a name, whispered in a darkened room.
Atalanta grunted in acknowledgment. We were silent for a time, until she spoke.
“We have left Lemnos,” Atalanta said, her head tilting up to look at the sky, “but Lemnos has not left my thoughts. I understand Hypsipyle, though I cannot forgive her.” Atalanta shook her head.
“Polyxo’s story breaks my heart. It would be one thing to kill the men responsible for the raids in Thrace, but this was something else.
The Thracian women were blameless, and they were slaughtered all the same.
I once asked Jason if the ideal world he strove to make was really a place for everyone or only those like him.
It’s clear which one Hypsipyle’s island is. ”
“An ‘ideal world’ with no men!” I snorted, choosing to ignore the gibe at Jason. “Hardly enviable at all.”
“Sounds rather pleasant to me.”
“You’d live on an island with no men?!” I looked at Atalanta in shock. “Who would do the hard work and the fighting?”
“I seem quite capable of both myself.”
“Don’t you want a husband? Or children?” To me, the world was shaped by the bounds of these expectations. I could not envision
a life without them.
“Not particularly,” Atalanta replied. “I’ve spent enough time at the temple of Artemis to see the dangers that childbirth
entails. I’d rather stand on a battlefield three times than give birth once.”
“Childbirth is a woman’s battlefield,” I said, recalling an old saying.
“I’d rather a battlefield be a woman’s battlefield,” Atalanta replied dryly.
I was irate. “That’s fine for you, Atalanta, but what about the rest of us? Not every woman has the chance to run barefoot
through the forest and frolic with bears and learn to throw spears. Some of us had other things to do. Why do you get to do
whatever you like? Why should you, out of all women on earth, have such freedom?”
With sudden clarity, I saw why Atalanta irritated me so much—because she could do all the things I was never allowed to, unconstrained
by the narrow scope of a princess’s life.
Atalanta went still, her expression unreadable in the moonlight. “Would you like to learn?” she asked.
“What?”
“Would you like to learn how to throw a spear?”
Now it was my turn to stare blankly at Atalanta. At first I thought she must be mocking me, but her tone was utterly without
guile.
Would you like to learn how to throw a spear? Such an obvious question, but somehow one I had never considered.
“I can’t do anything about frolicking with bears or running barefoot in the forest,” Atalanta continued, “but I can teach
you how to throw a spear, if you like. I would not have us be divided like the Lemnian women and the Thracian ones.”
Yes. I understood what she meant: Solidarity must be chosen. We were both women, but that meant little unless we used it as
a bridge to a deeper commonality.
A choice lay before me, a crossroads of a kind. I could maintain my dislike of Atalanta, as a part of me had always disliked
myself, or dismiss her as Hypsipyle had, or keep her at arm’s length.
Or I could try something new and accept her offer of friendship.
“Yes,” I said with a laugh, feeling suddenly giddy. “I would like for you to teach me how to throw a spear. And once I get
my magic back, I’ll help you find your Procris.”
We shook hands on it under the light of the half-moon, then walked back to camp together. The Argonauts were sleeping and
the fires had burned low, but I was not tired in the slightest. Moreover, I found myself reluctant to part from Atalanta.
“You have offered me a kindness. I would offer one in return,” I said. “Let me do your hair.”
Atalanta reached up to touch her tawny mane, suspicious. “What do you want to do to it?”
I laughed again. It seemed that I laughed often around Atalanta.
“I’m just going to brush and braid it for you,” I explained.
“Has no one ever done anything like that for you? My sister, Chalciope, used to do my hair every day when I was little. Come here.” I patted the earth in front of me, painted with the warm light of the dying fire.