Chapter 33
Revelations
“You’re a pathetic excuse for a captain, Jason!” Telamon’s face was redder than his hair. “You’re a parasite, a leech, a maggot on a steaming pile of shit! I wouldn’t piss on you if you were burning to death!”
Atalanta sat in silence bedside him, her glower more cutting than any of Telamon’s insults. Both were bound by the ankles and wrists, tied to iron rings in the wall of the stern deck. In the end, it had taken five men to restrain them.
The land of the Doliones was far behind them, but Telamon was still going strong. Danae was amazed he still had breath in his lungs. And that no one had gagged him.
Jason was rowing with the men. The captain didn’t have much choice.
After fighting the Earthborn the Argonauts were down to fourteen crew, two of whom were currently tied up.
Danae’s position as seer saved her joining the rowers, and with Tiphys at the tiller, there were only ten men spread across the benches.
Danae sat on the stern deck, staring unfocused at the waves. She was grateful she’d been left alone. She felt brittle as glass after conjuring the wind. No matter where she looked, she saw Hylas’s face as the Earthborn dragged him away.
She told herself she was too weak, that she wouldn’t have had the strength to swim back to the shore. But no matter how fervently she rallied her excuses, the truth stood like a colossus against her. She could have followed Dolos, but she chose to remain on the ship.
How strange that a lump of obsidian rock knew her nature better than she did. Three pairs of handprints; Hylas, Dolos and Heracles.
“King of Iolcos?” spat Telamon. “What a fucking joke. Heracles was our real leader. You just cost the Argonauts our best man. He was a true hero. He went back for Hylas, he’d have done that for any of us, and what do you do? You abandon them! Heracles is a living legend, and you are nothing!”
“Stop rowing!”
The men hauled in their oars as Jason climbed over his bench to face the crew.
“The time has come for the truth.” His chest was heaving, and his palms bled. He hadn’t built up calluses like the rest of them. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But you all deserve to know. We have endured more than bad luck on this voyage.”
Danae’s head snapped toward the rowing benches.
“The storm, Lemnos, the mist, all in defiance of the omens. The gods have been punishing us, because of one of the Argonauts.”
Her stomach dropped through the deck. How did he know?
Jason took a breath. “Heracles is not the man you think he is.”
She froze.
“He has committed a blood crime—”
“No!” Atalanta writhed against her bonds. “I’ll kill you, Jason. I’ll kill you!”
The captain ignored her outburst. “He was ordered, by the sacred oracle at Delphi, to cleanse his soul by performing twelve labors for King Eurystheus of Mycenae.”
“Jason, I swear on the Styx—”
Jason’s voice rose above Atalanta’s cries.
“His heroic deeds are nothing but ordered penance and by joining this mission he is in violation of his agreement with King Eurystheus, and therefore the decree of the gods as passed down by the oracle. I believe we are being punished for his actions.” His words sounded rehearsed.
“I had hoped I would never have to reveal this. I thought he would be an asset to our cause, but he has brought nothing but death and destruction upon this ship.”
“You bastard,” growled Telamon.
“What crime did he commit?” whispered Orpheus.
“Jason, please. Don’t do this.”
Stunned, Danae looked at Atalanta. She’d never heard the warrior speak so softly. She must be desperate.
The captain’s handsome face was a mask of regret, but he couldn’t quite hide the glint of satisfaction in his eye. “Heracles murdered his wife and children.”
The ship swayed in silence. Danae wanted to scream at Jason, call him a liar, but the truth was written on Atalanta’s and Telamon’s faces.
I have done terrible things, all of them my fault.
Jason must have known all along and held the information back until he needed to sway the loyalty of the men.
She thought of her little nephews, of her brothers who as children wrapped themselves in goat hides pretending to be the hero, of all the people who listened to the tales of mighty Heracles and believed anything was possible.
By toppling their idol, Jason may have won back the crew’s allegiance, but he must be able to see what was plain to her. By killing the hero in Heracles, he had killed the dream of what they could become.
Danae sat down next to Atalanta and proffered a skin of wine she’d pinched from the store cabin.
The warrior snatched the vessel between her bound hands, pulled the cork with her teeth, and drank like her life depended on it.
Beside her, Telamon’s head was slumped on his chest. “We should have abandoned ship with Dolos,” he murmured.
Atalanta offered him the wine. He shook his head.
“Tell me what happened,” said Danae.
Atalanta glared at her.
“I don’t want to judge him until I’ve heard the truth.”
“Just tell her,” said Telamon. “What’s the point in hiding it now?”
Atalanta sighed heavily through her nose. Danae waited.
“Heracles lived in Thebes as a lad. Even before he had hair on his balls, he’d made a name for himself.
So, King Creon decided to put him in charge of the army.
Long story short, a neighbouring city tried to invade, and Heracles defeated them.
As a reward, Creon gave him his daughter, Megara, as a bride. ”
Pressure was building in Danae’s chest. That explained Heracles’s unsettled behavior when they passed close to the city. No wonder he’d been so keen to leave that place.
“He’s not to blame for what happened. It’s important you know that.”
She could hear the reluctance in Atalanta’s voice, the discomfort of edging closer to words she did not want to say.
“Go on.”
“One night, someone drugged him. He went mad. Took a club to his wife and the three boys while they slept. When he came to his senses and saw what he’d done, he tried to kill himself. Dolos stopped him.”
Danae imagined the horror of it. Heracles’s wife, his children. The fear on their little faces when they woke and saw their father standing over them wielding a club. All that blood.
“Jason’s right. We’ve had more than bad luck on this voyage.”
Atalanta turned her acid stare on Telamon. “You can’t seriously agree with that prick?”
“It’s because of Hera.”
Zeus’s wife. Danae’s stomach hollowed. “Why do you think that?”
“I’ve never told you this.” Telamon shot Atalanta a guilty glance. “A couple of years ago, I got Dolos really drunk—”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were in some woman’s bed.”
Atalanta grunted.
“Anyway,” Telamon continued, “he became morose and went on about how the gods had ruined Heracles.” He glanced at the sky and lowered his voice.
“Dolos said that it was Hera who drove Heracles mad the night he killed his family, out of spite for being her husband’s favorite bastard.
And she’s had it in for him ever since.”
“So, you think the Queen of Heaven has been attacking the Argonauts to get at Heracles?” Atalanta shook her head. “Why now? She could have taken him down so many times on his labors. I don’t buy it.”
“The gods work in mysterious ways.”
“Fuck that. Something else is at play here.”
Danae should have been worried. But she was pierced through with white-hot rage. Heracles’s children were innocents, just like Arius. The gods weren’t careless, they were cruel.
You can make them pay, said the voice. You are the reckoning.
“How did Jason find out?” The glower Atalanta reserved especially for him returned as she stared at the captain’s back. “I thought Creon hushed it up, and we were the only ones who knew the truth.”
Danae remembered what Jason had said on the beach at Iolcos. Hera told him of his true parentage and set him on the path to reclaim his throne. Perhaps she’d revealed other things too.
They were interrupted by a crash from the rowing benches.
“Hold the oars!” shouted Jason.
Peleus lay crumpled in the footwell.
“Peleus!” Telamon yanked against his bindings. “Untie me! For the love of the gods, he’s my brother!”
A trickle of blood ran out from behind the bench.
“Where’s the healer?” Jason looked around. “Dolos...” The name died before it had fully left his lips.
Danae paced across the deck and clambered over the benches. Jason pulled apart the side of Peleus’s tunic to reveal two deep gashes across his stomach. His skin was drained of color, brow beaded with cold sweat.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” said Jason.
“Didn’t want any bother.” A thin smile twitched Peleus’s pale lips. “It’s not that bad.”
Jason looked at Danae. They were all looking at her.
“We need to stop the bleeding.” She racked her memory for anything that might help, and recalled what her mother had done when, as a boy, Calix had torn his thigh open climbing.
“I need cloth.”
She wasn’t going to let another Argonaut die. Not if she could help it.
Orpheus ripped the top section from his tunic and handed it to Danae. She balled it between her fists and pressed it against Peleus’s wounds. He groaned. Already, the muscles in her arms were spasming with the effort. Curse her weakness.
She replaced her hands with Jason’s. “Put pressure on it.” Then she rose to her feet and ran toward the store cabin.
“What’s happening?” called Telamon. “Is he going to be all right?”
She glanced back at him as she ducked into the cabin. “I’m not Dolos, but I’ll do my best.”
Once inside, she leaned against the door, head spinning.
She took a deep breath, then scoured the room, shoving aside boxes of biscuits, weapons and packs of furs.
Her eyes lingered on a skin of the pirate wine.
She picked it up and took a swig to calm her nerves, then continued her search.
Dolos had a collection of fine needles and thin gut string designed specifically for stitching flesh.
She had neither, but perhaps she could improvise.