For the Winner

by Emily Hauser

  ‘Why did you come to Pagasae?’ Myrtessa asked, trailing her fingertips along the side of the wall.

  I was caught off guard. ‘I – I wanted to see the city.’

  She turned aside, eyebrows raised. ‘Ah. I see. And it was to see the city that you demanded entry at arrow point, was it?’

  I wondered how much to tell her. I finished the rest of my apricot and threw away the stone to give myself a moment’s pause. It flew through the air and disappeared into a clump of bushes on the other side of the wall.

  ‘I was abandoned upon Mount Pelion as a child,’ I said at last. It felt strange to say it aloud – to acknowledge that I had not been wanted.

  She sucked in a short, sharp breath and, for a moment, her face twisted in an expression of pain. I blinked, and it was gone. She stopped and placed a hand upon the rampart to steady herself, and when she spoke, her voice was even. ‘On Mount Pelion,’ she said. ‘And you came to Pagasae …?’

  Instinctively, I reached out a hand to her, my voice filled with concern. ‘Myrtessa, are you well?’

  She shrugged me off and glanced away. ‘You came to Pagasae?’ she repeated, her tone firm and unyielding. It was clear she would talk no further.

  ‘I came for my family,’ I said, and untucked the medallion on its leather cord from the neck of my tunic as I spoke. ‘I came to find out – to find out who I am, to be recognized for who I am.’ I could not hide the yearning in my voice. All those years on the mountain, searching for more … And now … what?

  She reached out for it, holding it in her fingertips and shifting it from side to side so that it glinted in the sunlight. Then she looked up at me. ‘It is well made, and worth a good amount, I should think – but I do not know it,’ she said. ‘There are at least a dozen families in this city wealthy enough to commission such finery, and each has its own private sign upon its seal-rings. It could have come from anywhere. But,’ she said, beginning to walk again, ‘I am sure I can ask the master tonight.’ There was an odd tightness in her voice. ‘He is certain to know which family it belongs to when I describe it, for he does business with almost all the nobles and merchants of the town.’

  ‘You would do that?’

  She laughed. ‘It requires little effort, Atalanta. You need not look so surprised. Now, see over there,’ she said, directing my attention through a gap between the high crenellations. We had reached the upper city now, past the second, inner circle of wall, which surrounded the citadel, and were climbing up steps as the hill rose higher. I peered through the embrasure, my fingers gripping the rough stone.

  I was looking down upon a city in miniature. Below, a temple loomed up towards the walls, its flat roof jutting against the ramparts, lined with red-painted columns thick as tree trunks and gilded along the frieze, two budding oaks – sacred to Zeus, father of the gods – planted either side of the temple entrance ahead. The precinct was thronged with brightly dressed people just as I had seen in the streets below, and in front of the temple, on a square stone altar, a young slave was pressing gilt onto the curving horns of an enormous snorting bull, chained to a ring set in the stone flags of the precinct. Nearby, a priest was sharpening the sacrificial knife upon a whetting stone. The cloying incense streaming up from the bronze braziers made my eyes smart, and my ears rang with the sounds of deep bells clanging and the chanting of hymns as choirs of girls, dressed all in white with gilded oak leaves on their heads, circled the altar, singing to the god.

  ‘The festival?’ I guessed, and Myrtessa nodded.

  ‘And that – over there – that’s the palace,’ she said, pointing.

  We climbed up the steps two at a time until we reached the highest point of the wall. There was a ledge protruding from the ramparts, and we sat, gazing down at the palace. It was larger than any building I had ever seen, with the same red-painted columns as the temple, rising three, four storeys high, coloured curtains billowing from the windows, and a paved courtyard in the centre filled with trees and sparkling fountains.

  ‘The king lives there, with his son, Prince Lycon,’ she gestured to the highest tower of the palace, crowned with battlements, ‘but they say Lycon will never be king of Pagasae.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, crossing my legs beneath me and taking the apricot Myrtessa was offering.

  She picked up another for herself and bit into it. ‘The king desires an heir worthy of succeeding him,’ she said, her mouth full. She wiped her lips on her sleeve, and continued, ‘They say Prince Lycon is not the heir the king would have hoped for … He writes poetry,’ she said, in answer to my unspoken question. ‘Composes lyric love songs. Faints at the sight of blood, and would prefer to be in the palace library, reading clay tablets about wars long gone, than fighting and hunting as his father wishes. Which is why Prince Jason’s return to Iolcos was so well timed.’

  ‘Iolcos? What does Iolcos have to do with it?’

  She laughed. ‘You don’t get much news in the country, do you? Though in truth it is a long tale, and much of it not worth the telling.’ She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  ‘Still, I should like to hear it, if you can tell me,’ I prompted her.

  She finished the fruit, then tossed the stone aside. ‘I know only half of it,’ she began, ‘and what little I know comes from the rumours that blow around the markets and taverns.’ She sighed. ‘It starts, I suppose, with three sons, born to King Cretheus, sovereign of all Thessaly – our own king, Pelias and Aeson, father of Jason.

  ‘When Cretheus died, he wished to divide his lands between his three heirs. To our king, the eldest of his sons, he gave the city of Pagasae, close to the sea and with a calm harbour, good for trading. To Aeson, the youngest, he gave Iolcos, a fortress further inland where the fertile slopes of Mount Pelion meet the plain. But there was no third city to give to Pelias, the middle child, so the king granted to him the pastures and fields of Thessaly, rich in wheat. Yet Pelias desired more. He longed for a city over which to exercise his rule. And so, when Jason was barely more than a child, Pelias overran his younger brother Aeson’s city, taking back what he felt was rightfully his. He killed Aeson, took Jason’s mother as his consort and threw the rest of the family in chains.

  ‘Somehow, Jason managed to escape, fleeing to the woods and caves of the mountain. What he did there, how he lived, no one knows. But many years later – a few weeks ago – Jason reappeared from the mountain slopes at the palace of Iolcos, a man grown, with the beard upon his chin, demanding that he be restored to the throne as its rightful heir and in reparation for his father’s death.’

  I was staring at Myrtessa, absorbed in her tale. ‘What did Pelias do?’

  She snorted. ‘Sent an armed guard to welcome him and threw him from the city, with the promise that he would be king as soon as he recovered the Golden Fleece of the gods from the ends of the earth,’ she said. ‘Or, in other words, never. The prince fled here, to Pagasae, to his other uncle, looking for sanctuary. And, perhaps …’ she lowered her voice ‘… they say that, perhaps, in his determination to win Iolcos’ throne, he is taking Pelias at his word. That he is, indeed, planning a quest for the Golden Fleece of legend.’

  ‘A quest?’ I repeated, my breath catching in my throat, my pulse quickening. A quest … Just as I always imagined – like the quests of the heroes Hercules, Bellerophon and Perseus … ‘But the Golden Fleece?’

  Myrtessa’s eyes were alight with excitement. ‘The mythical fleece of the golden ram that flew across the sea to the ends of the earth.’ She spread her hands before her, like a poet telling his tale. ‘The bards, and those few who have travelled beyond the Bosphorus to the open sea, say that it lies in the lands of Colchis, at the very edge of the world, that it is guarded by bulls with hoofs of bronze and breath of fire, and a serpent that never sleeps. It would be no journey for the faint of heart.’

  I frowned. ‘But what has this to do with Pagasae or Prince Lycon? Surely, whether Jason recovers his kingdom or dies in the attempt, it will have no e
ffect upon the king of Pagasae, and his succession.’

  She waved a hand. ‘Except that Jason may not only be proving his worth for Iolcos alone. Jason is the king’s nephew, after all, as well as Pelias’.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And he knows about the prophecy.’

  ‘Prophecy?’

  ‘Two years ago, the king journeyed to the sacred oracle of Hera at Perachora, near Argos, to ask for the goddess’s counsel upon the succession to his throne. The oracle of the goddess gave him a prophecy, and everything changed.’

  ‘What did the prophecy say?’ I asked, my voice hushed.

  Myrtessa took a deep breath and recited:

  ‘Bring back the treasure gold in legends twin,

  That’s at the black earth’s furthest ends concealed;

  Or else hope not the city’s crown to win,

  And see your city to destruction yield.’

  She pointed towards a column of stone I had not noticed before, rising up in the very centre of the temple forecourt in the city below, engraved with words I could not read. ‘The king inscribed the words of the oracle upon a pillar for all to see. It tells of a golden treasure, spoken of in myth, lying at the ends of the earth.’

  She stood and began to pace. ‘The heralds declared it in the market and meeting places of the city on the day the king returned from Argos. They say there are only two treasures of legend to which the prophecy could refer – the Golden Fleece of Colchis, in the lands furthest to the east where the sun rises, or the apples of the Hesperides, at the very edge of the world where the summer sun never sets.’

  The Golden Fleece …

  ‘Jason wishes to fulfil the prophecy,’ I said. ‘He wants to succeed in retrieving the Fleece, as Pelias ordered, so that he can rule Iolcos and Pagasae together – the heir to both thrones.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Myrtessa said, seating herself again beside me. ‘I have heard more than one rumour speculating that, if Jason is successful in recovering the Fleece, he will be offered the crown as heir to Pagasae instead of Prince Lycon. They say that Jason hopes to unite the kingdoms of Pagasae and Iolcos as one, so that Thessaly is once more joined beneath a single ruler. There are even whispers that he will move the crown and the palace to Iolcos, and leave Pagasae a backwater, needed by none, subservient to the Iolcian king.’ She spat an apricot stone into her hand, stood up and threw it over the wall.

  There was a long silence as I thought of all she had said, in which the sounds of the bells and choral hymns to Zeus floated up from the city below. Pagasae and Iolcos … the three kings of Thessaly … the death of King Aeson, and Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece … the prophecy from the gods … I rubbed my forehead. It seemed a wholly different and far more complicated world after the quiet, steady rhythms of Kaladrosos.

  I turned to look at my companion beside me – her pale skin, her rich dark hair, the fine lines of her brow and cheekbones. It seemed strange to me that someone who could speak so eloquently, who knew so much about the affairs of the city, could have been born a slave. Then I thought back to her reaction earlier, when I had talked of my abandonment upon the mountain. ‘Myrtessa,’ I said, into the silence, ‘how – how is it that you came to be a slave?’

  A shadow flitted over Myrtessa’s face, but only for a moment. ‘Shall we go down to the gardens?’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘They’re beautiful at this time of year.’

  A week passed in Corythus’ house without incident. As Corythus had sworn he did not recognize the symbol on my medallion when Myrtessa had described it to him, she had invited me to remain disguised as a slave within the kitchen quarters where I could plan my next step unnoticed. There were so many slaves in Corythus’ house, she told me, most of them unknown to their lord, that my presence was certain not to be remarked upon. I did not mention Myrtessa’s enslavement again. Indeed, there was so much to do in the kitchens with their constant hustle – the clanking of bronze cauldrons, the shouts of slaves preparing the master’s meals, heating the water for his bath, pounding herbs, gutting fish, kneading bread – that I barely had time even to think of my search for the family who had abandoned me all those years ago, let alone to ask questions of Myrtessa. She was in the thick of it as always, all energy and business.

  ‘Where’s the fruit knife, Philoetius?’ she asked, over her shoulder, one afternoon. We had just returned from the market, where she had bargained hard and filled her basket with chicory leaves and leeks in return for a jar of honey from the beehives in the master’s gardens. Philoetius handed her the knife, his face shiny with sweat from the heat of the ovens.

  ‘Did the master send for me while I was out?’ Myrtessa called to Neda, who was peeling and chopping onions opposite her, pervading the air with their sharp, tangy scent.

  Neda shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, briefly brushing an arm across her smarting eyes, then sweeping aside a pile of prepared onions. ‘He asked for Opis.’

  Myrtessa let out a long breath. She pulled a leek towards her and started slicing it. ‘Another day’s reprieve,’ was all she said, and she tipped the chopped vegetable into a bowl.

  Neda rolled up the sleeves of her tunic and began to skin a haunch of venison with a knife, pulling the skin from the meat in swift strokes. ‘Atalanta, pass me the salt, will you?’

  I leant across the table for the jar. As I did so, the medallion fell from between my breasts, the leather thong tightening around my neck, the disc clattering on the table.

  I straightened up, fumbling to push it back beneath my tunic, but Neda, quicker than me, tossed her knife onto the table, and snatched me by the wrist. ‘What are you doing?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘What’s that?’ Neda’s eyes were wide, her tone urgent. She shook my arm. ‘What is it?’

  Slowly, the clatter and talk in the kitchen died as, one by one, the slaves turned to stare at Neda, her hand tight around my forearm, and at me, my fingers clutched around the leather thong at my neck. I saw a couple lean together and whisper something, their eyes upon me.

  Slowly, I opened my fist from around the medallion, and it tumbled into view, glinting gold.

  Without invitation, Neda took the medallion between two fingers and peered at it closely. Then she dropped it and looked up at me. ‘Do you have any idea what you have here?’ she said, her low voice carrying across the sudden hush.

  I shook my head, feeling mounting apprehension. ‘Why? Do you know what it is?’

  Neda said nothing.

  A slave at the other end of the room called, ‘What is it, Neda?’

  Neda was staring at me, and I felt my heart beat faster under the intensity of her gaze. What does she know that I do not?

  ‘Out with it!’ Myrtessa said, wiping her hands on her tunic.

  ‘Yes, come, Neda,’ Philoetius interjected, from where he was standing by the bread ovens. ‘It’s not like you to have nothing to say.’

  Neda cleared her throat, and when she spoke it was in no more than a whisper. ‘That emblem,’ she said, her eyes still on me, ‘is the personal seal of the king.’

  Loved by the Gods

  Mount Olympus

  Somewhere, on the very highest peak of Olympus, there is a small pool surrounded by lilies and lotus blossoms, its waters clear as crystal and the rocks around its edges touching the clouds. It is turning towards evening, and the sun is sinking behind the mountains to the west, creating a warm orange glow on the horizon. A nightingale pours music into the air, heralding the night, and cicadas are humming in the cypress trees. It’s very beautiful, the mortal poets say, but then, they can only imagine what it looks like. No mortal has ever seen it.

  Because this pool belongs to the gods.

  ‘This was never meant to happen!’

  Hera’s cry rends the evening air, like a stone dropped into still water. She is storming up and down the pool’s banks, her white robes billowing behind her, the gold oak circlet on her hair slipping down over her forehead, her eyes flashing and her cheeks pink with temper. She pulls t
he wreath up and rams it back into place. ‘The sheer audacity of it!’

  ‘What’s happened now?’ Aphrodite’s voice floats up from below. She is seated on a rock submerged within the water, eyes closed, a faint smile upon her lips, twirling a lock of golden hair around one finger and sinking deeper into the depths so that the waters swirl about her shoulders.

  ‘She shouldn’t be alive!’ Hera explodes. ‘She was meant to have died eighteen years ago – under your direction, Iris, I might add!’

  Iris, Hera’s messenger, does not reply. She is sitting by the pool’s edge, dipping her toes in, apparently lost in thought.

  ‘It’s enough to make me want to destroy the mortals once and for all,’ Hera goes on, striding back and forth. ‘I prepared everything, made things easy for the Fates. The child was left on the peak of Mount Pelion in a storm in the dead of winter, for Zeus’ sake! How, by all the gods, did she survive?’

  ‘You did not see that she was alive?’ Artemis, goddess of the hunt, asks, with a frown, from the brink of the pool beside Aphrodite, her pale ankles dangling demurely in the water. ‘I thought we were all-seeing?’

  Hera snorts. ‘All-seeing, yes, but it depends on where we’re looking, doesn’t it? I was busy watching the kingdoms of Pagasae and Iolcos. I never thought to look at a carpenter’s shack on the slopes of Mount Pelion.’

  Aphrodite unties a band from around her hair and lets both fall into the water, shrugging. ‘Perhaps the Fates intervened to save her.’ She glances over her shoulder, shivering a little in the evening breeze. ‘It’s getting cold. I wish I had my shawl.’ She pouts, thinking of the gorgeous golden cloak the cupids had made her, with its thousand shimmering threads. ‘You’re sure you haven’t seen it anywhere, Iris?’

  As Iris shakes her head for the hundredth time, Artemis shoots Aphrodite a quizzical look. ‘I’ve never heard of the Fates troubling themselves for a woman before. The prophecies have always concerned men, have they not? Who will get the kingdom next. Who will kill the king …’ Artemis counts them off on her fingers. ‘Who will destroy the kingdom—’