by Emily Hauser
I peered out from the archway to look more closely towards the looming wooden gates at the street’s end. I could hear the faint sound of the guards talking to each other up above and the clanking of their bronze armour, audible over the snuffling and snoring of the horses in their sleep. The gates stretched fifteen cubits high into the night sky, solidly built and secured by a heavy wooden bolt, just visible through the darkness, which I judged would require the strength of more than five men to lift. The battlements soaring above were topped with the same stone crenellations I had seen before, gently curving stone protrusions from which archers would aim their arrows upon attackers, if the city ever had to defend itself. And then I noticed something I had not seen before: a small side door beside the gate, barely a man’s height and hidden in the shadows, closed with a plank slotted through a couple of sockets.
Pray the gods it is not locked.
It was our only chance.
I took Myrtessa’s hand and slipped out onto the street. I glanced up to the walls: two guards had just walked past the fortifications above the gates, their figures dark against the moonlit sky. The next pair could not be far away. We did not have much time.
I ran down the street, keeping to the darkness beneath the eaves of the houses, treading softly and skirting dogs lying sleeping on the paving stones and merchants’ stalls standing empty before the shops. I could hear Myrtessa behind me, her breath coming short and fast with fear; my whole being was alert, every stone upon the street sharp in my vision, every flickering shadow drawing my attention. As we reached the walls we were enveloped in darkness, and I blinked, my eyes adjusting. I stretched my hands before me and let my fingertips graze the rough stone of the walls, feeling along the blocks of limestone until—
‘Here,’ I hissed at Myrtessa, as my fingers slid onto grainy wood and followed the veins of the door down until I reached the bolt. I pulled it sideways, trying to slide it noiselessly through the sockets while Myrtessa held her breath. As I urged it through the last there was a soft scrape of wood on wood, and a dog nearby, sheltering in a shop doorway, raised its head, eyes gleaming in the darkness.
Hermes, god of travellers and mischief, let it not give us away, I thought, standing motionless, holding the bolt in both hands, eyes fixed upon the animal. Myrtessa clutched at my tunic, her breathing shallow.
Please, gods – let it be silent!
There was a moment, in which the dog blinked at us. Then it laid its head down again upon its paws.
I let out a shaking breath and bent to prop the bolt against the wall. I pulled at the door’s handle, hoping against hope it was not locked as well, but it swung silently open at my touch, sending a stream of silvery moonlight pooling over the flagstones at my feet.
‘Quick!’
Myrtessa slipped through, and I followed her, pulling the door closed behind me. I could hear the voices of the next pair of sentries on the wall above us now, their words growing ever clearer. They could be no more than a few paces away. I moved swiftly aside and pressed myself flat against the rough stones beside Myrtessa, trying to silence my ragged breath.
‘Stay where you are,’ I mouthed to her.
We stood side by side, hearts thudding, waiting. Artemis’ moon shone brightly in the sky before us in a curving sickle, vanishing the stars.
It seemed like an eternity before the guards passed. Quick as I could, I nodded to Myrtessa, then began to run across the plain over the silver-tipped grass towards a large maple tree that stood a hundred paces from the walls.
I turned and held out a hand to Myrtessa as she arrived behind me to pull her into the shadows of the tree.
‘That was well done,’ she said, panting hard, her eyes bright. ‘Now – to the harbour?’
I looked over to the wooded olive groves that lined the cliffs above the shore, the sparkling sea two hundred paces distant.
‘Yes. To the harbour.’
I woke a few hours later, hidden in the boughs of an olive tree, my neck aching, joints stiff from the cold. Myrtessa was still asleep, her forehead resting against the tree’s trunk. It was just after dawn, and the rays of a young sun were skimming the horizon to the east, tinging the sky with pink and gold. Sounds were coming from the bay below.
Voices.
I sat upright, trying not to set the tree’s branches quivering, and peered through the slim, grey-green leaves. Now that it was light, I could see at least twenty ships moored in the bay, the waves slapping against their hulls mingling in my ears with the piping songs of the birds in the trees around me. Most were tethered to posts along a pier that stretched out to the sea, floating on the waves stirred by the early-morning breeze. Some were small fishing skiffs, others heavy merchants’ galleys with deep rounded hulls, but it was clear at once which was Jason’s ship. I took a deep breath, marvelling at its beauty and splendour. It must have been at least forty-five paces from prow to stern and was drawn up directly upon the shore nearest to where we lay hidden, held up on wooden props. Its keel cut into the fine white sand of the beach, its long narrow hull tarred black. I could make out the figures of twenty or thirty slaves already bustling around it along the shore, the sounds of the commotion floating towards me on the air as they climbed the landing plank and loaded supplies into the storage holds at stern and bow. Here and there I caught sight of some lords from the hunt: Laertes, with his dark-stubbled beard; grey-haired Nestor leaning upon his staff; Theseus, with his barrel chest and rolling gait. I let my eyes rove from the small raised platform at the stern, with two black-painted steering oars, to the prow in front, where a golden figurine of an eagle crouched, symbol of Zeus, its wings gathered in by its sides, its beak curved. The sail was furled along the lowered yardarm beneath a mast planted at the ship’s centre, secured by tight forestays tied to the bow. Twenty-five pinewood thwarts, six or seven cubits long, crossed it: rowing benches wide enough to seat two men, each matched by oars tied to the ship’s sides with leather thongs. Polished wooden railings surrounded the raised decks at bow and stern, and the glittering letters, Argo, shimmered gold on the hull in the sun. Though I had often sailed the waters of the open sea with the fishermen of Kaladrosos, and knew my way around the skiffs that had moored in our harbour – the rigging and brails to reef the sail, the loops on the masthead for attaching the sheet, the steering oar and the pole for punting in shallow water – I could not have imagined such a glorious ship, as graceful and slender as a bird.
I elbowed Myrtessa awake. She grunted, started, then squinted in the light.
‘You have to join the slaves,’ I whispered, a raw excitement tingling in my belly as I pointed down to them. Their arms were filled with weaponry as they approached the ship – beaten bronze shields, breastplates, helmets, greaves; others carried fat leather pouches, large orange-red clay pots brimming with grain, nuts, olives, and meat wrapped in linen. I spotted Jason striding among them, his cloak swirling as he shouted orders and sent goods in all directions. ‘They’ll never notice another slave join them,’ I continued, ‘and if you bear yourself with enough confidence I’m sure they’ll not question you. Mingle among them; carry what you can up into the ship, as if you are another of their slaves.’
Myrtessa yawned and stretched. I saw her eyes sweep the harbour, then narrow as she caught sight of the Argo and remembered why we had come, what we were about to do.
‘And you?’ she murmured, straightening herself on the bough with a small grimace. ‘What will you do?’
I tapped my fingers upon the bark beside me. ‘Jason at least is sure to recognize me before I have a chance to board the ship. I’ll have to find another way.’ I bit my lip, thinking hard. I had to make sure that he did not simply turn me away … that I did something daring enough to impress them with my worth …
Myrtessa grinned. ‘Then I shall see you on the Argo.’ She hoisted up her tunic and prepared to slip to the ground, then turned and laid a hand upon my arm. ‘This plan of yours, make sure it works. I don’t want to find mys
elf sailing to the ends of the earth without you.’
As Myrtessa leapt down and pushed her way quietly through the olive trees that lined the slope towards the harbour, I turned my attention towards the group of lords upon the beach. They were there, all twelve of them. I sat for a while, wondering again, with a shiver of fear, at the sheer strangeness of it, that I, Atalanta, should be attempting to join the warriors of Greece – Bellerophon, Castor and Pollux, Peleus – of whom I had only heard tell in stories … That there, just before me, busying themselves on the shore below with their preparations for the voyage, walked the greatest heroes of the age – perhaps the greatest there had ever been …
Then I shook my head, trying to bring myself back to my senses. There will be time for that later, I told myself. For now, you still have the hardest part to do.
Jason was still pacing up and down the beach, ordering the slaves to work faster, shouting more commands. I thought I could make out Lycon, too, standing close by the ship’s keel, deep in conversation with the lord Orpheus, and Argus, the ship-builder and steersman, at the stern leaning over the railings and directing the storage of grain to the hold below the steering deck. Hippomenes and Meleager were standing upon the beach beside a pile of weapons, weighing spears in their hands before the slaves carried them to the ship, testing them for balance. I smiled slightly, remembering how it had felt to stand between them at the hunt, side by side, their spear-arms beside mine. The desire to join them burnt within me, like a kindled flame, more fiercely than I had ever felt it before. I adjusted my position so that I could see more of the bay, careful not to let the leaves rustle or the branches crack as I moved.
I cannot afford to be seen.
Yet.
I watched as, one by one, the slaves, including Myrtessa now, carrying sacks of grain, began to climb up the plank onto the ship. Once all the slaves had boarded, followed by the lords’ stewards, then the nobles themselves, I saw Jason step back to let Prince Lycon climb on, then turn and scan the olive trees around the edge of the harbour and the city walls, as if to say farewell. For a single moment my breath caught in the back of my throat. I thought he had seen me, that his gaze was resting directly upon me; but then he turned and followed Lycon onto the ship. My stomach contracted.
It was nearly time.
Almost all, lords and slaves alike, were now seated at the thwarts, two to a bench with an oar drawn across their laps – though I noticed the lords were clustered at the stern, where the wind would blow freshest on the open sea. A group of broad-shouldered slaves were left upon the shore, and as I watched, I saw them set their shoulders to the hull of the ship; then they leant forwards and pushed, heels digging into the sand. At first nothing happened. Then, slowly, very slowly, with a creaking sound that rent the still morning air and set several gulls flapping from the calm surface of the sea, the boat began to move from its props, wood scraping against the sand as it shuddered down the beach. The men were leaning close to the ground now, pushing, like oxen guiding a plough across the dark furrows of a field. The ship was gathering speed, slipping slowly but surely into the shallows. There were only moments before it was entirely seaborne.
As the first wave lapped around the prow and the rowers banked their oars, I made my decision. Jumping from the olive tree I landed on the rocks below, my bow and quiver rattling at my back, and was running as soon as I hit the ground. I sprinted towards the sea and across the bay, every muscle of my body alive with excitement, my entire mind charged with a single thought: get aboard the ship.
In one leap I knocked aside two fishermen who were gathering their nets around a fishing boat upon the shore, then continued on, racing faster than I ever had before, towards the pier jutting out to sea. I scaled the steps in three leaps and then I was on the wooden landing stage, running full tilt across the planks towards the open ocean. I knocked aside a merchant carrying a crate and he dropped it in a cloud of colour, cursing me as red, gold and brown spices filled the air. Still I ran on, leaping over nets and the unloaded cargo of a trader’s galley. The Argo was already floating on the water, and the slaves who had pushed it offshore were splashing through the shallows, then climbing a rope up the rounded sides onto the thwarts. The sail was flapping in the breeze as the yardarm was hoisted to catch the wind, like the huge white wing of a bird. The rowers dipped their oars into the shallows, moving slowly as I had guessed they would as they navigated past the ships clustered at the jetty. I could hear the sound of the drum beat, keeping time for the rowers, and the oars splashing the water in response – they were already beginning to move more quickly. There were only moments left. With a last burst of speed, I flew across the wooden planks, vaulting the posts jutting out from the pier’s end, and then I was flying through the air, over the sparkling blue waters of the sea and—
I hit the side of the Argo with a loud smack of bone on wood that knocked the air from my lungs and sent a bruising shock of pain shooting through my ribs. At once, I firmed my grip, trying to get a purchase with my fingers on the thick ridged beam that topped the ship’s side, clinging to the edge of the hull, my sandalled feet dangling over the two-fathom drop to the sea where weed swayed and silver fish glittered. I took a deep breath, summoning my strength, and clung tighter as the ship rocked and swayed to the beat of the oars.
‘What was that?’
I heard the voice from the deck above, then feet coming towards me over the drummer’s beat. I pulled with one hand and raised one elbow, then another flat against the beam of the ship’s side, gasping for breath, sweat trickling down the sides of my forehead. Pushing down into the palms of my hands I straightened my arms, pulling myself up, one knee onto the side, then swinging the other around and over to jump down into the boat.
I was standing face to face with Hippomenes.
The Quest Begins
Mount Olympus
Iris is seated on a jutting crag just below Olympus’ peak. She is surrounded by pale wild flowers and swifts that spiral through the clear air, away from the palaces, the gardens and the fountains of the gods. Her chin rests on her hand.
She has just come from Hera’s chambers, the room filled with the peach light of dawn from the east, the white curtains at the windows rippling in the breeze. Hera – as she always does, as if Iris were her servant, not an immortal goddess born of an old sea god – has ordered her, with a chilly half-smile and a patronizing pat on the shoulder, upon a task to which Hera has been building up for days, weeks even: the granting of the favour of the gods to the sailors of the Argo, or Argonauts, as generations to come will know them.
She looks towards the distant outline of the citadel of Pagasae far to the south, and a memory flits into her mind, distracting her from her task. She almost smiles as she remembers Hera’s rage a few days before when she discovered that Atalanta was still alive. How she would have loved to tell Hera then that it was she, Iris, who was responsible for Atalanta’s continued existence – she, who had flown ahead of the mortal Eurymedon eighteen years before in the guise of a snow falcon and led him to the place where the child had been left to die. But it is in her disguise as Hera’s loyal messenger, the self-sufficient, constant goddess, that Iris’s freedom lies. That, she thinks, is the privilege of the messenger: to watch from the sidelines as the rest of the world meddles in its own affairs, then to deliver the message that changes everything.
Although Hermes, she has noticed, seems to use it mainly to find mortal women to seduce.
She stands up, stretching her arms to the sky. Her iridescent robes billow behind her, glowing pink, green and blue in the morning light, fluttering like a butterfly’s wings. She feels purposeful, powerful: like a dark, slim-feathered hawk eyeing its prey. In a single, graceful gesture she dives from the rocky outcrop, her robes feathering the air behind her into strips of crimson, gold, emerald and aquamarine. She soars down the side of the mountain, following the ridges of the sun-sharpened hills, barely brushing the tips of the feathery pines. She passes Moun
t Ossa on her left, a lump of a mountain that the giants once tried to heap upon Mount Pelion to reach the sky. She flies over the strong walls of Meliboea, and the glittering line of the coast curving out towards the island of Skiathos. There is Thessaly, with its broad plains full of wheat, and Iolcos, the kingdom of Pelias, set like a golden jewel in the crown of Thessaly’s cornfields, its turreted palace shimmering pale pink in the light of dawn. She follows the distant glimmer of the sea, the small villages dotting the bay, until at last she sees it: the rocky, wooded promontory of Mount Pelion and, on the bay’s other side, Pagasae, perched above its harbour, its walls ringed with ramparts like a coronet.
She lands on the tip of Mount Pelion as effortlessly as an eagle returning to its nest, and gazes down at the curving white sickle of Pagasae’s harbour, then turns to see the creamy furrow upon the sea that marks the passage of the Argo, a black-hulled ship bearing a white sail as frail as the petal of a flower.
It is time to give the favour of the gods to the greatest crew that has ever sailed the Ocean.
Or the favour of Hera, at least, she thinks wryly. Which often amounts to the same thing.
‘Jason,’ she says. As she does so, she touches the trunk of an old oak nearby, and a single golden leaf floats off the branches and drifts on the wind towards the ship and the glittering dark-blue sea beneath the mountain.
‘Theseus.’ A larger leaf falls from the tree and spirals towards the ocean.
‘Meleager. Peleus. Lycon.’
For each hero she names, another golden leaf makes its way slowly on the breeze towards the ocean waves, binding the heroes to the quest for the Golden Fleece.
Iris pauses, as she thinks what each hero Hera has chosen will bring to the quest. For command, Jason, and for skill in arms, Theseus and Bellerophon, of course. For counsel, Nestor and Laertes. For strength, Pollux, and for insight, Castor. For courage, Hippomenes. And Orpheus, the lyre-player, for music. The gods know as well as mortals that a long voyage needs music to lighten the heart.