Chapter 54
Jason
As Jason walks through the little rented house, gathering up their sparse belongings, he recalls a summer day long ago when
he played together with the daughters of Pelias.
Alcestis, Pelopia, Evadne, and Antinoe, those are their names. They danced in a green meadow, and Alcestis wove a flower crown
and placed it on Jason’s head. He remembers enjoying their company. If his mother had her way, he might even have married
one of them.
Instead, the daughters of Pelias are murderers, and Jason is an exile.
To Jason’s surprise, it doesn’t displease him that Pelias has met such a horrible end, killed by his own daughters like Actaeon
torn apart by his dogs after rendering insult to the goddess Artemis. Blood soaks the world, and that is the price of its
turning. Jason sees this now. Chiron called him a bloodless hero, but what is that? Nothing more than a fool.
Jason once carried an old woman across a river in flood and thereby earned the favor of the Queen of Heaven. How far he has
fallen since then.
Hera chose him to humiliate Pelias, but it is not Jason who has given the goddess her final revenge—it is Medea. And it is
Medea, also, who finally avenged Jason’s father by killing his murderer, a task that Jason never had the stomach or skill
to do himself.
Medea has taken his vengeance from him, just as she has taken his throne. Jason thought he was bringing home a kitten, but instead he discovers he has taken a lioness as a wife.
He wonders if his mother will be pleased to learn that she was right after all.
Jason staggers, catching himself on the wall. He sags against it, then slides down to the floor. Free from prying eyes, he
finally allows himself to weep.
Gone, gone forever from the city of his forefathers. Never again to walk the soil of his native land or join his ancestors
in the family tomb. Never to ascend to the throne of Iolcus that is his patrimony.
It is all her fault. Medea’s. Her plan was a cunning one, he has to admit, ending the old king’s life but placing the murder
weapon in the hands of another. But he cannot forgive her for the oversight that has ruined them both.
Jason is crushed between the insatiable urge to get away from Medea and the knowledge that he can never let her go. In that
moment, however, he abandons any idea of ever coming to love her.
They must leave the city of Iolcus at dawn, according to the terms of their exile, and will head to Corinth, where his maternal
uncle has friends. Perhaps Jason can find some way to eke out a living there. He considers writing to Peleus, but he doesn’t
want the scattered Argonauts to get wind of this scandal. Better they should remember him as their glorious leader, not as
Jason Amechanos, Jason the Helpless.
As the dawn light creeps through the shutters, Jason goes to wake Medea for the journey. He will honor his wedding vows and
provide for his wife as they begin a new life in a new city.
But for the rest of his days, he will never sleep soundly next to her.