Chapter 31
Atalanta
The novelty of it intrigued me—someone else doing my hair, when usually I groomed myself. I seated myself on the ground in
front of Medea, resting my back against her belly as she began to untwine my braids and comb my hair with her fingers.
It didn’t hurt, as it had when the hunters raked my hair into order in my childhood. In fact, the sensation was quite pleasant.
Medea’s fingers were small but clever, working out tangles without tugging too harshly. Had Procris ever done this for me?
If so, I could not recall. Usually, I was the one doing things for her.
Medea began to separate my hair into sections, her fingers massaging my scalp to catch all the strays. By now I was nearly
purring in contentment; I finally understood why the bear liked it so much when I stroked her head. Human hands were exceptional
for the quality of caresses they could give.
As Medea worked, I leaned my head against the softness of her, surrendering to the moment. If she’d grabbed my hair, I would
have gone as limp as a kitten snatched by the scruff. But I did not feel in danger; instead, I was lost in the pleasure of
another person’s touch. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized how much I craved it.
Medea’s gold bangles clanked near my ear, and I cracked an eye lazily. “Why do you wear so much jewelry?” I asked, something I’d wondered since she’d joined the voyage. “Surely you aren’t trying to impress anyone out here.”
Medea glanced down at her hands, turning them over to consider the bracelets and rings. “It’s not just jewelry, it’s my dowry,
so I don’t go empty-handed into my new life. Just one of these bracelets is enough to feed a family for a month.”
Clever. Medea’s adornment wasn’t evidence of vanity, I realized, but pragmatism. And I saw what I had not seen before: that
I’d misjudged this woman, just as the men of the Calydonian boar hunt had once misjudged me. Though I still did not understand
the human obsession with glittering metal and shiny rocks.
Closing my eyes again, I leaned back as Medea bound my hair back up again in a loose single plait, suitable for sleep. Her
clever fingers parted small tangles and wove up each wisp of hair.
When she was finished, Medea sat up and stretched. “I should let you sleep now,” she said. I reeled into the sudden gap between
us.
“Why not sleep here?” I said quickly, not wanting her to go. “It’s a cold night; doubling up will keep us warmer. And you
already have my best blanket.”
“I suppose that would be sensible,” Medea said thoughtfully, touching the gray blanket.
“Unless you’d rather sleep next to Jason,” I added, unable to resist teasing her a little.
“No!” Medea replied, scandalized. “It’s not proper. We aren’t married yet.”
My astonishment was such that I drew myself up on one elbow to stare at her. “Let me see if I understand. You betrayed your
father, stole the Golden Fleece, ran off with a ship of strangers, and cut up a corpse to distract a pursuing enemy, and now
you dither about what is proper?”
“Well,” Medea replied primly, tucking herself beneath the blankets, “just because I have magic doesn’t mean I don’t have manners.”
This sent me into gales of laughter. Artemis Far-Shooter, I hadn’t laughed like this since before Meleager’s death. Medea
huffed and rolled her eyes, which did nothing to dim my amusement.
We bedded down together, pressed back-to-back, our combined warmth keeping the cold at bay. It put me in mind of Meleager,
how he and I used to sleep curled together like puppies. I missed my friend keenly and was thankful for the animal warmth
of the woman next to me.
I drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep, the best I’d had since leaving my forests.
When I woke, it was near sunrise. The blue night had given way to striated bands of pink and gold, and the whole world seemed
to hold its breath as the fiery orb of the sun peered over the horizon.
I became aware of a gap in the blankets where cold seeped in. Medea was sitting up, watching the sunrise along with me. The
other Argonauts were still asleep. We might have been the only two living creatures in the world.
“Sometimes I regret leaving home,” Medea said softly. “But then I see something like this, and I feel justified that I abandoned
all the gold of Aeetes’s kingdom for the beauty of these sunrises.”
Her gaze was focused on the horizon, her noble profile silhouetted against the wild colors of the morning sky. She turned
to me, her golden eyes holding a little of the sunrise’s glory.
“I am afraid there is another favor I must ask of you,” Medea said. “When we arrive at Circe’s island, will you come ashore
with me? I dare not bring any of the men.”
“I made a vow to help you get your magic back, and will not stint in fulfilling it,” I replied. “Besides, perhaps we will find some time for spear throwing there.”
Medea smiled at that, which made my heart leap, then she turned back to look at the rising sun. Meanwhile, I looked at her.
The muted roses of Medea’s cheeks were apparent in profile, crowned by her strong nose. Black tendrils of hair whipped around
her ears, blown by the sea wind. She evoked the silvery image of Artemis in my dream long ago, the sharpness of divinity softened
by incarnation in human flesh. Something more divine than human, both terrifying and beautiful.
I had to admit, I found her very beautiful indeed.
“You asked before about my childhood,” I said, finding myself oddly eager to share my past. “It is not a very complex story.
I was abandoned by my parents on a mountaintop and suckled by a mother bear before a pair of hunters found me. My earliest
memories are of fur and milk, then the packed earth floor of the hunters’ hut . . .”
As I told Medea the story of my life, the birds began to sing and the world gradually filled with light.