by Emily Hauser
Myrtessa batted away the idea as if it were an irritating fly. ‘Impossible,’ she said. ‘The Fleece is said to lie at the very ends of the earth. Do you think you can sail the most dangerous waters of the Ocean alone? Do you have sufficient gold to charter a ship from a merchant?’ she continued, ignoring my attempts to interrupt her. ‘No. You will join Jason’s voyage – though how you will wrest the Fleece from him the gods only know. I can say with some certainty that there will be two conditions for getting aboard his ship. One, being a warrior, good with a weapon, which you are; and two, being a man, which you are not.’
‘Very well,’ I said, half irritated, half amused. ‘So what would you have me do, then?’
Myrtessa gave me a sidelong smile. ‘I think I know just the thing.’
An hour later, we were standing, breathless, in front of a pair of cedar double doors, Myrtessa fumbling with an ornate bronze key in the lock.
‘Quick!’ I hissed. The corridor was deserted, yet still I took each flickering shadow cast by the torches upon the walls for the silhouette of an approaching slave or, worse, Myrtessa’s master. My shoulders were taut, every muscle tensed at the risk Myrtessa was taking.
What will he do to her if he discovers she has stolen the keys to his storeroom? What will he do to her, a slave, when he finds that she knows where they are hidden, concealed in a chest beneath the bed within his very chamber?
‘Quick!’ I muttered again.
‘I’m trying!’ Myrtessa shot back, pulling out the key and trying a smaller one, its handle inlaid with ivory, shaking it in the lock with both hands so that the leather thong tying the keys together flapped against her skin, like a whip. ‘It just – won’t—’
She took another key at random and pushed all her weight against the lock. With a sudden clunk it sprang back and the doors swung silently inwards, revealing a dark, cavernous room that smelt strongly of cedar oil and lavender.
‘In!’
Myrtessa slid in behind me, pulling the key from the lock and closing the doors after her. We were plunged instantly into darkness, and I could hear her kneeling and fumbling beside me to light the small terracotta oil-lamp she had brought, striking a flint against the rough stones of the wall. ‘There.’ She was holding a glimmering taper, which she placed at the lamp’s wick. The light flared, glowing orange-gold in the engulfing darkness, like a firefly in the olive groves of Kaladrosos at night.
I looked around, my mouth slightly open. Corythus’ storeroom was built high with a vaulted ceiling, strips of polished oak laid upon the floor. Precious objects lay piled around the walls, some in chests, others leaning against the stone. The lamp’s light flashed from vases fashioned from clay, painted with delicate patterns; bronze shields and spears; curved bows the size of a grown man; many-coloured tapestries, draped across the shelves; cedarwood chests with large bronze locks. I took a deep breath. Here was more wealth than I could ever have imagined, more than I could ever have dreamt one person owned.
Myrtessa crept over towards a chest at the back of the room, its lock fogged with cobwebs but just visible, shimmering palely in the lamplight. ‘Here!’ she whispered, and pointed at the chest. ‘They’re in here!’
She pulled out the collection of keys she had stolen from Corythus’ chambers, took the ivory-handled key and pushed it into the lock, which clicked and then released. She lifted the lid.
A waft of lavender, crushed rose petals and sage gusted into the air. Several tunics lay inside, folded neatly, one upon another, embroidered with red, gold and blue threads. I picked one up and let it fall out of its folded shape, a little creased from the years. It was a boy’s tunic, about my size, and I held it up to my body, the soft wool warm against my thighs. There was a pattern of golden laurel leaves stitched on a red border along the neckline and down the long sleeves, while tasselled fringes lined the front and back of the hem. A belt, also embroidered in gold, lay rolled neatly beneath it, along with a dark-brown cloak and a pair of leather greaves.
‘It’s perfect,’ I breathed.
Myrtessa nodded. ‘It was Corythus’ own, when he was a boy,’ she whispered, picking up the belt, cloak and greaves, pressing the lid of the chest down again and locking it, making a faint rattling noise as bronze tapped against bronze in the echoing silence. ‘He kept them all, in case—’ Her voice faltered.
‘In case?’ I prompted her.
But she shook her head. ‘We don’t have time, and you need a sword,’ she said. She pressed past me and reached for a long slim weapon of hammered bronze, with an embossed golden hilt, decorated with a scene of a bull-leaping contest spiralling around the grip.
I hesitated. ‘It has to be one no one will recognize.’
She nodded once and brushed her fingers along the swords stacked against the wall, finally selecting a sturdy mid-length blade with a plain wooden hilt. ‘Now give me the tunic,’ she whispered, swiftly bundling the woollen cloak and belt around the sword blade and folding them into a rough blanket she had brought up from the slaves’ quarters. ‘Take this,’ she thrust the lamp into my hand, ‘and go! If we’re caught the lord will flay me alive.’
We slipped back through the doors, Myrtessa closing and locking them behind us, trying hard not to let the soles of our sandals flap against the stone-flagged floors as we ran, hearts thudding, along the corridor. I followed her down the steps, along a series of passages and back to the slaves’ quarters, which lay just behind the kitchens; a large, low-roofed room with straw pallets lined in rows on the floor. A slave girl was in there with a young man – whether noble or a slave I could not tell – and as we pushed our way in she leapt up from one of the pallets, panting, her tunic slipping from her shoulders, her face eloquent with guilt. She was trying to shield the man, who was still lying prone on the pallet, the thin woollen blankets tumbled over his legs.
‘Oh, it’s just you, Myrtessa,’ she said, letting out a sigh of relief. ‘I thought it might be Hora …’
Myrtessa tossed the bundle she was holding upon a nearby bed, sending the sweet scent of hay wafting up into the air. The girl grinned, bent in one swift motion to help her lover to his feet, wrapped them both in the blankets from the bed, then pulled him away from the slaves’ quarters to a more private spot.
As she left, Neda and Philoetius pushed their way in from the kitchen, Neda still holding a wooden bread-peel in one hand. ‘Did you do it?’ she asked, her face pale.
Myrtessa nodded, breathing hard. Philoetius’ jaw was set, and he seemed to be struggling to stop himself speaking.
‘You have my gratitude, Myrtessa,’ I said, clasping her hand in mine. ‘I know the risks you took for me. If there is ever anything I can do for you—’
Myrtessa cut me short. ‘That is all very well, Atalanta, but we do not have time. If we are found with these,’ she gestured to the bundle lying upon the pallet bed, ‘it will be both our necks upon the line. You need to transform yourself into a lord of standing,’ she gave me a wry smile, ‘and I need to return these keys to Lord Corythus’ chamber before he notices they are gone. Come.’
She gathered up the tunic and sword, plucked my bow and quiver from where they lay beside my pallet, and led Neda, Philoetius and me through a doorway in the back wall, across a small dust-covered yard filled with chickens, and to a wooden shed at the opposite side, where the barley for the hens and the firewood were stored. An open window in the hayloft above let in the last rays of the setting sun. As Myrtessa closed the door and drew the bolt behind us, she seemed to breathe easy again.
‘Very well,’ she said, unrolling the blanket upon the straw-covered earthen floor. ‘Tunic,’ she held it up, ‘cloak, belt, sword.’
I reached for the sword, but another hand grasped it – a broad hand with short, square-tipped fingers. I looked up, startled, to see Philoetius holding it, his face tight, his eyes slightly narrowed.
‘You will get yourself killed.’
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘I—What?’
‘No woman can wield a sword as well as a man,’ he went on, in a tone which suggested that what he was saying was a well-acknowledged truth. ‘It’s unnatural. It’s against the laws of the gods. You should be ashamed of yourself, Myrtessa, for encouraging her.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Does anyone else believe this?’ I asked at last, my voice bitter.
Neda hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders, avoiding my eye. ‘The Fleece is said to be guarded by a fire-breathing bull and a hundred deathless warriors. A woman cannot – that is to say,’ she said, colouring, ‘can you not stay here in Pagasae, and tell the king that you are his?’
‘Well,’ I said, my temper rising, ‘I, for one, do not give credence to myths and legends composed by bards too deep in their cups. A fleece of gold, shorn from a flying ram? Bulls with hoofs of bronze?’ I was so infuriated by their caution that I ignored Neda as she opened her mouth to speak, and carried on: ‘There is something in it, no doubt, but more likely it is a store of treasure in Colchis’ palace that lords and princes had been trying to steal until the king of Colchis spread such stories to scare them from his shores.’ Neda bit her lip. ‘And what do you think would happen to me if I went to the king who left me on the mountain to die as a girl? Will he welcome me back with open arms, now that I am a woman grown?’
I took a deep breath, calming myself, then continued steadily: ‘The gods know I hate a boastful person as much as any other, but trust me when I say: I can handle myself with a bow and arrow.’ I looked Philoetius in the eye, willing him to believe me. ‘I can wield a sword with skill. I am fleet of foot, the fastest runner of all those I have met, and I can hit a moving target with an arrow at a hundred paces. As a warrior, Jason will, I am sure, have no objections to my joining him. And as a woman?’ I pushed the hair back from my brow with my forearm. ‘He will not have to know.’
Philoetius was silent for a long while. Then, at last, his face still registering doubt, he handed the sword back to me, hilt first. ‘If you wish to be killed,’ was all he said.
Myrtessa clapped her hands together, breaking the tension between us. ‘Now that that’s resolved,’ she said, ‘come.’ She led me behind a partition in the store-shed where the firewood was piled and moved around me to help me out of my clothes. I laid the sword upon the ground and lifted my arms as she slipped the slave’s tunic over my head, then pulled on Corythus’. The soft threads brushed against my bare skin, and I felt strange in its odd cut, with broad shoulders and sleeves so long they went past my wrists. I plucked at the neckline so it lay properly, rolled the sleeves back a little, then took the war-belt from Myrtessa and tied it loosely around my waist.
As I stepped out to show Neda and Philoetius, turning from side to side so that my empty sword sheath tapped against my thighs, Myrtessa followed me, carrying the sword balanced upon her palms. ‘We should thank the gods you have a flat chest,’ she said, with a half-smile. ‘You look like a man, Atalanta. I’m sorry to say it but …’ She took the sword by the hilt and lifted it, holding the blade to my throat.
‘What?’ I stared at her in confusion, my pulse racing.
Surely she wouldn’t. I scanned the ground, saw my bow and arrows lying several feet away. ‘Myrtessa, what are you doing?’
With a single swift movement she bunched my hair into her fist and twisted it around her palm, then sliced through it with the blade. I winced at the curious sensation, then reached up to feel the coarse ends, newly cut. I turned my head, and my hair grazed the tops of my shoulders, as the nobles of the city wore it. It felt oddly light.
‘There,’ Myrtessa said. I glared at her, and she grinned defiantly back. ‘She looks the part now, does she not, Philoetius?’
Philoetius grunted and said nothing.
I bent down to pick up my bow and arrows from the pile Myrtessa had set upon the dusty floor, squatting to check that my dagger and the rest of my effects were still secure in my quiver, then stood and turned. ‘Myrtessa! What have you done?’
Myrtessa’s glossy locks were lying on the floor beside mine. The sword was still in her hand.
‘You – your hair!’
She had cut hers at her ears, a little rough, perhaps, but unmistakably the style in which all the male slaves had their hair – short, like a barbarian’s. Neda gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Philoetius started forwards. ‘What are you doing?’ he shot at her.
‘I’m going with her,’ she said.
‘Myrtessa, no!’ I exclaimed. ‘You cannot leave—’
She raised her hands to the roof, to the gaps between the rafters that opened on to the darkening sky, the bird droppings upon the crossbeams. ‘Leave what, Atalanta? What do I have that I cannot leave behind?’ she said, and I noticed a hard glint in her eyes I had not seen before.
‘Do you have any idea what this means?’ I hissed. ‘You cannot defend yourself! You will be killed the very instant you step outside the gates of Pagasae!’
She bent down and unrolled the blanket a little further. Hidden inside it was a second tunic – a male slave’s, short around the thighs with a plain cloth belt. ‘I will be your slave,’ she said, and as she spoke she slipped out of her tunic, tore a panel from the front and started to bind her breasts with the strip of linen, occasionally wincing. ‘No one ever notices a slave – I know that much at least.’
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Philoetius said angrily, stepping forwards and placing a hand upon her arm.
‘Yes, I do,’ she replied, shaking him off, gasping as she twisted the material round a last time, then knotted it at the back. She looked up at me, her eyes gleaming with tears. ‘I have nothing to lose. I am a slave.’ She slipped the rough-spun tunic over her head and fastened the belt at the back. It was a little large for her, but, as she straightened and stood beside Philoetius, imitating his stance – legs slightly apart, arms crossed over his chest – I had the strange sensation that I was gazing at a beautiful young man with dark eyes and soft skin, just about to ripen into the brawn of manhood. ‘And, besides,’ she added, ‘you swore to me that I could have whatever I wished from you. Well, this is it. This is what I want.’
She was staring me out, challenging me, though her eyes were still glistening with tears.
I made a last effort. ‘But when you come back to Pagasae, Corythus will have you killed for deserting him.’
She turned away, but not before I had seen a shadow flicker across her eyes. ‘There are worse things than death. And Neda will ensure that Corythus does not find out I am gone for as long as she can. I know it will not be for ever.’
I looked at Philoetius, who scowled, then to Neda, who nodded at Myrtessa’s words and, I felt, was avoiding my eye.
‘Then I suppose – you may come,’ I said, giving up, and Myrtessa’s face glowed; yet for some reason I could not explain, I felt a twinge of unease in the pit of my belly.
Myrtessa and I spent the next week in the city, staying in a tavern paid for with a few of the coins my mother had given me, where our windows were shaded by cypress trees and clean linen coverlets were spread upon our beds – for I would not hear of Myrtessa sleeping in the slaves’ quarters. During the days we sat hidden in the small garden behind the house, rehearsing my name, birthplace and upbringing as a man – Myrtessa had embellished it from a tale she had heard a Cretan visitor relate to Corythus – until I had memorized it. More difficult was the effort to adopt the bearing and demeanour of a nobleman. We practised over and over again, observing the men who visited the tavern, following and imitating the lords who walked the streets, often beginning before the sky lightened and ending long after the sun had set. Some days we laughed together till we cried. On others Myrtessa became so frustrated with my slow progress she would hardly speak to me. As the days went on, though, there was no doubting that my voice, my mannerisms, even my walk, were beginning to pass adequately for those of a man.
The freedom we had as men was more liberating than I could have imagined. As I grew more confi
dent in my disguise, I began to talk politics and gamble at dice with the blacksmiths, bakers and merchants passing through the tavern while Myrtessa – now a male slave by the name of Dolius – poured us honeyed wine, staying up late into the night until the lamps guttered and went out with no one to reprove us. I heard many things during my time in the city. I heard of King Iasus’ dislike of Prince Lycon. I heard of his hopes that Jason might one day become the heir of Pagasae, uniting the two cities of the bay. And I heard much of the Golden Fleece, hidden far away in the kingdom of Colchis past the empire of the Hittites, far beyond the wealthy city of Troy. I heard how a winged ram with a fleece of gold, offspring of the god Poseidon, was said to have appeared to the children of the king of Orchomenos in Greece, Helle and Phrixus, when their stepmother Ino was plotting their deaths. It was flying them to safety across the sea – or so it was told – when Helle fell and drowned in the strait that later was given her name; but Phrixus came to Colchis at the very furthest lands on the edge of the circling Ocean. He sacrificed the ram, they told me, and placed the mythical fleece there, guarded by the bronze-hoofed bulls and serpent of legend.
Most importantly of all, however, we learnt that Jason was still with his uncle in the palace – and that he had gathered there twelve of the finest heroes in the land to join him in his quest. I still thrilled with excitement at the thought of it – the greatest heroes of Greece, all gathered in the palace not a thousand paces distant!
And soon, if the gods are looking favourably upon me, I might even be among them …
‘Are you certain this will work, Atalanta?’ Myrtessa asked, for the hundredth time, that evening as we climbed the steps to the gate in the walls of the upper city, seven nights after we had left Corythus’ house. The torches in the walls flared orange in the darkness to either side of us, as her fingers brushed the rough edges of her short hair. She turned, her anxious face outlined sharply in the light thrown by the flickering flames. ‘I am not one to be cautious, but I know some of the slaves at the palace. They may recognize me. And Lord Corythus – if my lord is there he may know me, and even if he does not, he may know the clothing you have on, his tunic, his sword.’