by Emily Hauser
‘We need to be invited on the quest for the Golden Fleece. For that, we need Jason. And for Jason, we need—’
‘The palace,’ she finished. ‘I know. But there are worse punishments awaiting me than for you, if I am caught.’
‘If you want to go back now, you may,’ I said. ‘Remember, it was not I who forced you to come.’
She shook her head. ‘No, no, I’m staying. And, besides, if you attempt to enter the palace without a slave, how will they ever take you for a true-born noble?’
We passed through the gates by two guards standing sentry either side, who nodded at me, clearly thinking I was a well-born lord come to pay his respects to the king. I shivered a little and, taking in my surroundings, tried to remember to stand straight and tall, to look as if I bowed to no one, as if I were indeed a lord who owned a hundred slaves and thought nobody but a noble was his equal. At the palace entrance, a squire with a short, pointed beard stood to attention by the doorpost and bent low as we approached.
‘Your name, my lord?’ he asked, looking past Myrtessa at me, taking in my embroidered belted tunic and the long sword that hung at my waist.
A wave of sickness washed over me, and I was overtaken by an overwhelming urge to flee. How did I ever imagine I might do this? I thought frantically. I will be recognized for who I am, I am sure of it. He must know I am a woman …
‘Your name?’ he repeated, a slight crease appearing between his fine eyebrows.
I forced myself to square my shoulders, as Myrtessa and I had practised, my heart pounding in my chest. ‘Of course,’ I said, realizing at once that in my fear my voice was far too high. I cleared my throat and lowered it as deep as it would go. ‘Of – of course,’ I spluttered. ‘I am Lord Telamon of Crete, son of the lord Deucalion.’
The squire paused, then bowed again.
‘Follow me, my lord,’ he said. He glanced at Myrtessa, and his nose wrinkled a little as he surveyed her threadbare tunic. ‘He may go to the servants’ quarters.’ He snapped his fingers and a second slave stepped out of the shadows. ‘Take the slave to the kitchens. Make sure he has something to eat, and find him a pallet to sleep on.’
‘Yes, Phocus.’
I caught Myrtessa’s eye as she moved to follow him, and I could almost hear her thoughts, a mixture of excitement and barely concealed panic: there is no turning back now.
‘This way, Lord Telamon,’ the squire said, and marched off down a corridor, its tiled floors gleaming in the light of lamps burning on the walls. I could hear men talking and laughing, the smell of roasting ox wafting towards me on the breeze as we walked through room after room, all darkened, with the soft, whispering quality of a busy chamber deserted for the night, until we reached a pair of double doors, which the squire pushed open ahead of me.
‘The Lord Telamon,’ he bellowed, bowing me through.
Apprehensive, I looked around as I entered, trying my hardest not to stare. I had never seen anything so magnificent. This hall was four, five times larger than the one in Corythus’ house, with several large, red-painted pillars carved like tree trunks with palm fronds at the top set around a circular hearth, where an entire ox was roasting on a spit. Slave-girls walked to and fro with silver platters in their hands, loaded with bread and slices of dark meat decorated with sprigs of rosemary, or carrying golden ewers filled with wine. Wooden chairs covered with cushions and fleeces were scattered about the hall, and everywhere men dressed in embroidered tunics were talking to each other in low voices or laughing at some shared joke, double-handled golden cups in their hands. I could feel the eyes of all upon me, a stranger to the king’s court. How very much I stand to lose if I am caught, I thought, and felt my legs weaken and tremble so that I could barely go on. Then I spotted Meleager, a long cloak of dark-blue wool draped over him, whispering in the ear of a slave-girl, who laughed, throwing her head back so that her dark curls rippled.
‘Lord Telamon,’ I heard a voice say. ‘You are welcome to our halls.’
I turned. King Iasus was sitting on a painted throne, a brown cloak falling from his shoulders. His face was sharply outlined, as if the gods had drawn it with a stylus upon clay, the nose defined, his eyes piercing, the stubble of a greying beard traced upon his chin.
My father.
I felt a curious sensation of panic, and a rush of unexpected anger tighten around my chest, like a girdle, and I stared at him, unable to think of anything to say. He leant forwards.
‘Telamon,’ he said, and narrowed his eyes. ‘You cannot be Telamon of Aegina, for he must be older than you – why, he has two infant sons, and you look as if the down has barely begun growing upon your chin.’
I recovered myself. ‘I – I am Telamon of Crete,’ I said, my voice wavering slightly. ‘My family comes from—’
He waved his hand and leant back on his throne with a thin smile. ‘That is enough. Why, you will think we have no manners here in Pagasae, asking our guests to reveal themselves before they have had a slice of meat and a draught of good wine.’ He gestured to one of the empty chairs near him. ‘Please, sit. I will ask of your family once you have eaten, though I hardly think I need to,’ he swept his eyes over my richly embroidered tunic and the bow hanging on my back, ‘since your father’s lineage is evident in you.’ He looked around at the gathered lords. ‘You are clearly of the race of sceptred kings favoured by Zeus.’
I bowed, trying not to show a flicker of expression, aware that the eyes of all those within the hall were upon me. He does not know the extent of the truth he speaks.
‘You are very gracious, my king,’ I said aloud, avoiding his eye, and I moved to sit on the chair he had indicated.
King Iasus waved his hand to one of the cupbearers, who stepped forwards, dipped a golden cup into a large vase filled with wine and handed it to me, his head bowed.
‘Stranger,’ the king said, ‘pray to Lord Zeus, whose feast you have happened upon in our halls. When you have poured libations and prayed to the deathless gods, as is right, pass the cup of honeyed wine to the man beside you so that he may do the same.’
I accepted the vessel with both hands and tilted it forwards slightly, so that a few drops of sweet wine fell to the tiled floor, as we used to do with our clay cups in Kaladrosos before every meal.
‘Wait,’ King Iasus said, holding out his arm as I opened my mouth to make a prayer. ‘I presume the guards at my gates told you to go to the spring at Makronita to purify yourself before you came?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you went?’
‘Yes, indeed, my king.’
He looked at me for a long time, and I held his gaze. ‘Good, good,’ he said, and he smiled slowly. ‘We could not do with angering the gods, could we?’
I bowed my head. ‘Indeed not. Lord Zeus,’ I said, holding the cup to the sky and trying to stop my hands trembling as I recited the words Myrtessa and I had practised, ‘I pray you fulfil what I ask: may you grant fame to King Iasus and all his heirs, and grant that I accomplish the task that has brought me to this city, then let me reach my home again.’
The tension in the air had increased at the mention of Iasus’ heirs, and I saw a few of the lords glancing at a thin, sallow-faced young man with straw-blond hair on the king’s left side.
That must be Lycon – my brother, I realized with a jolt.
‘A good prayer,’ the king said, turning deliberately away from his son and towards a young man who sat to his right. I immediately recognized Jason, the noble I had seen in the hunting procession, with his grey eyes and sloping build. He was wearing the same blue-and-green cloak I had seen before, draped over one shoulder in a careless gesture of self-assurance. I noticed the small red stain upon the hem. ‘What say you, Jason?’
‘May the gods fulfil our friend Telamon’s words,’ Jason said, bowing, though his grey eyes never left mine as he, too, tipped a little of the wine from his goblet onto the floor. I felt uneasy under his clear, sharp, calculating gaze – as though he were l
ooking directly through me. I glanced away, biting my lip.
The tension in the hall broke at Jason’s words, and he stood up and knelt by the hearth to carve the roasted ox himself, as a formal mark of honour. He placed the choicest cuts from the inner, tender part of the ox’s chine on a plate and handed it to me. ‘For our guest,’ he said. I accepted it, my head inclined, and a slave came with a woven basket piled high with bread and placed two round rolls, still warm from the oven, upon my platter.
I barely ate, looking around me as the rest laughed and drank and crammed their mouths with meat, going over and over in my mind the story Myrtessa and I had rehearsed – the names of my ancestors, the palace in which I had been born, the journey I had made to reach Pagasae …
When all had eaten and drunk their fill, the king leant back in his throne. ‘So. Telamon.’
The hall went quiet, and I felt my stomach clench in anticipation. Even the bard ceased strumming upon his lyre and laid it across his lap.
‘Tell us, who are your parents?’
Everyone in the hall turned to me and the king’s dark eyes bored into mine.
What if he knows?
What if he finds out who I am?
I forced myself to think back to the many nights Myrtessa and I had spent in the tavern in the city, and felt a little calmer. We had chosen the story of a Cretan lord since Crete was far enough from Pagasae that – we hoped – no one would know Telamon and recognize me for an impostor.
I cleared my throat. ‘I will tell you who I am, my king, and proudly. I am the son of a wealthy man, Deucalion, whose father was the great Minos who ruled over mighty Knossos in Crete’s rich and fertile land. Deucalion had two sons, Idomeneus and I. I killed Orsilochus, son of Aethon, with my arrows when I heard he was plotting to steal my great bow from my treasure-room. Then, having killed him and fearing the wrath of brave Aethon, I fled in a ship bound for Athens. The winds blew us off course round Cape Sounion, where Poseidon’s temple gleams out from the clifftop to sea, and I landed here, troubled at heart, to beg your hospitality.’
The king leant forwards. ‘Deucalion,’ he said, his tone thoughtful. ‘We exchanged gifts twenty years ago, I believe, when I visited Crete on my return from Sparta.’ I touched my thumb and forefinger briefly together in the sign of luck as the king turned to his squire, my heart beating rather fast.
‘As I recall, he gave your lordship a golden vase inlaid with silver in return for a sword from our forges, encased in the finest bronze sheath,’ the squire said, bowing.
King Iasus turned back to me. ‘You will pass on my prayers to the gods for your father’s health, whenever you return. In the meantime, you are welcome to stay within our halls for as long as you require.’
‘My thanks to you, my king,’ I said, and inclined my head, feeling the tension in my belly slowly release. Around the hall, the conversation began again, lords turning to each other to talk or calling to slaves who ran across the tiled floor, sandals slapping, to serve their masters.
‘Polycaste,’ the king said, snapping his fingers, and a slave came up to his side, her long black hair braided down her back and her eyes lined with black kohl, in the Hittite style. ‘You will bathe the Lord Telamon, anoint him with scented oil and do anything else he asks of you.’ He gave me a wry smile. ‘He must be fatigued from his journey. I am sure some company will be welcome in his bed tonight.’
I felt my cheeks grow warm. ‘No indeed, my king,’ I said quickly, then reddened further, realizing my mistake. ‘I – I prefer not to bathe this night, for I fear I am too tired. I have travelled long and far these past days.’
‘Too tired to bed a slave?’ the king said, and raised one thin eyebrow. ‘The lords of Crete are very different from the lords of Pagasae. Very well, Polycaste – make him up a bed in the colonnade, by the fountain. You will find it pleasantly cool there at night.’
‘I thank you,’ I said, my shoulders relaxing as I bowed to the king, and then to Jason at his side. I stood to leave, but as I did so I felt a hand upon my arm, and flinched instinctively.
‘You have a fine weapon,’ Jason said, his eyes upon the curved bow on my back. His fingers ran lightly over the smooth wood and the strong sinew bindings, and I had a sudden, strong urge to knock his hand away from it. ‘You can handle it well?’
‘Better than any other man in the land, I’ll wager.’
He considered me, his expression revealing nothing, and I felt again that he was testing me, like an eagle eyeing its prey. ‘I am leading a hunt in three days’ time, once the festival is over,’ he said. ‘I would be honoured if you would join me there.’
I bowed my head. ‘It would be my pleasure to accompany you, my lord.’
‘Very well. We meet in three days by the gates of the palace at dawn.’
The Killing of the Boar
Mount Pelion
The Hour of Daybreak
The Thirtieth Day of the Month of Sailing
Three days later I was climbing the western flanks of Mount Pelion as the first rays of the sun glowed in the sky, the birds twittering on the branches, the tips of the trees still clinging to the last shreds of the night’s mist. I had left Myrtessa – or Dolius, as I now had to remind myself to call her – with the palace slaves, and had met Prince Jason as he had asked by the gates. I was greeted there by the other nobles whom he had chosen to accompany him on the hunt, all carrying polished shields, short stabbing spears and thick-shafted javelins with saw-toothed, viciously pointed blades. They bowed to me, one by one, and murmured their names: Jason, prince of Iolcos, and Lycon, prince of Pagasae; Nestor, lord of Pylos; Castor and Pollux, twin sons of Tyndareus of Sparta; Laertes of Ithaca; Meleager of Calydon; Orpheus of Thrace; Bellerophon of Corinth; Theseus of Athens; Peleus of Phthia; and Hippomenes, son of Megareus of Onchestos. Twelve heroes in all.
I had felt a quiver in the pit of my stomach as I recognized many from the tales my father had told me during the winter nights in Kaladrosos. Theseus, king of Athens, who was now striding ahead up the forest slopes with his hand upon his sword-hilt, had slain the Minotaur in Crete. Bellerophon, munching on wild berries and laughing with Meleager, his bare arms criss-crossed with the scars of battle, had killed the legendary Chimera, part-lion, part-snake. Nestor, who walked only a few paces distant, grey-bearded and with lowering eyebrows, had defeated the centaurs many years ago in the fabled battle with the Lapiths.
What by all the gods am I doing in their midst?
My legs weakened and I stopped to lean against a tree, breathing hard.
‘You have hunted boar before, Telamon?’ Meleager asked, moving back beside me, his footsteps crunching on the dried leaves of the forest floor, breaking into my reverie.
I began to walk, pretending to look away over my shoulder and search the darkened undergrowth lest he recognize me from the day the hunt returned to Pagasae. ‘Many times.’
‘I did not know you had wild boar on Crete.’ Hippomenes was frowning at me, a broad-shouldered man who carried his six-foot cornel-wood javelin as if it were light as a walking stick.
‘We do not,’ I said quickly, my throat drying as I searched for something to say. ‘I – I hunted boar when I visited my cousins, in the mountains near Parnassus.’
Laertes nodded to my left. ‘I have hunted there myself,’ he said, rubbing at the bristles on his chin. ‘With my wife’s father, Autolycus. They have good game there. Where exactly—’
But Jason held up a hand to silence him, his eyes darting left and right. ‘Quiet!’
I tensed, my hand upon my sword. One of the dogs, a lean hound with sand-coloured fur, had halted, ears pricked, its nose quivering a few finger-lengths above the forest floor. Then, tail beating at the air, it moved forwards swiftly, tracking an unseen trace over the earth.
‘That way,’ Jason ordered, pointing after the hound through the dense wood. We followed, beating our way through low-hanging branches and treading aside prickly brambles and woodberries. I fitted an ar
row to my bowstring, all thoughts of doubt stifled in the thrill of the chase, and the others drew their swords or held their spears by their sides as the rest of the hounds ran ahead, sniffing the ground. My heart was lighter than it had been in days at being back upon the mountain, surrounded by my familiar oaks, maples and pines, the scent of damp earth and the sound of trickling springs I knew so well. Soon I was spotting the marks of the boar’s passage: broad hoofprints upon the black earth, thick-trunked saplings crushed to the ground by the weight of our quarry as it moved through the forest.
‘This is a wide trail, my prince,’ I said, in a low voice, as I moved to walk beside him at the head of the group, marking the width of the path trodden by the animal. ‘The nets,’ I gestured towards the coils of rope carried by two slaves, ‘may not be the wisest way to capture such a large animal. He may be strong enough to break them.’
Jason considered me with a curious veiled expression – as if he were attempting to mask some irritation.
‘Hippomenes,’ he said at last, over his shoulder, ‘what do you think?’
There was a pause as Hippomenes thought it over, and our sandals crunched upon the twigs and last year’s leaves as we walked.
‘The nets should keep him,’ he said at last. ‘We should abide by the plans we made before we set out from Pagasae. And if the nets do not hold, we still have our javelins and spears.’
‘Laertes?’ Jason turned to him. The sun caught his angular face and accented the slope of his jaw and straight nose.
‘I am inclined to agree with Telamon,’ Laertes said, gesturing towards the swathe of the path ahead. ‘I would counsel ambushing the beast and bringing him down with our spears as he charges, rather than risk losing the advantage of surprise.’
The early-morning light filtered down through the trees and dappled the rocks protruding from amid the ferns of the forest floor, and set the coats of the hounds ahead shining russet and gold. Jason glanced at the nets, then at the sharp point of the ash-handled spear he was weighing in his hand, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he ruled. ‘We set the nets. As Hippomenes said – we have our spears.’