For the Winner

by Emily Hauser

  Zeus swirls the contents of the goblet. ‘I think she may be my offspring.’

  Now it is Hera’s turn to look stunned. She stares at her husband, mouth opening and closing. After a while, however, she seems to regain control of herself. ‘And why exactly,’ her voice takes on a tone of menace, ‘would you think that?’

  ‘Because I lay with her mother Clymene, nineteen years ago.’

  Hera looks set to explode with anger. Her eyes are flashing like twin fires of black flame. ‘You lay with —’

  ‘Yes, Hera dear, I lay with her – nineteen years ago,’ Zeus repeats, a little impatiently. ‘Can we put things in perspective, please? If you must know, I was as surprised as you when I found out she was still alive. I never intended to favour the child. But as she has survived, perhaps the Fates wished it … And she is mine, after all.’

  There is a pause as the two gods survey each other across the chamber, and the curtains at the window billow softly.

  ‘So,’ Hera says, exhaling, trying to force herself to focus on the matter at hand. ‘So. She is your daughter. That changes things, I suppose. And the boy? Lycon?’

  ‘Not mine,’ Zeus says. ‘Fathered by the king on the same night. I mean, look at him – he’s a poet. Hardly the son of a god, I’m sure you agree.’

  She nods. ‘And the storm?’ She tosses the next question at him, like a huntsman throwing a dart – precise, targeted, arrow-sharp.

  Zeus’ expression registers his surprise. ‘I thought that was you.’

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘Why would I set a storm upon the Argo?’

  ‘Well,’ Zeus says, setting down his goblet and spreading his hands wide, ‘to hazard a guess, you seem to have been favouring Jason lately. Perhaps you were trying to get rid of Atalanta … Am I close?’

  Her tone is distinctly cold as she says, ‘If by that you mean to suggest that I have any desires for the mortal …’

  Zeus shrugs. ‘You said it, not me.’

  Hera glares at him. ‘I feel protective of him. That is all.’

  ‘And you are not, by any chance, attempting to sway him to your side and to claim the cities of Iolcos and Pagasae as your own?’

  ‘Now, why would I do that?’ she asks, her eyes widening in a look of wounded innocence. ‘You know I respect your rule over your cities, as my husband and my lord.’

  ‘Why indeed?’ Zeus replies.

  He moves to the four-poster bed, carved from four oaks and laden with soft woollen blankets. He seats himself upon the edge and stretches. The piles of cushions and blankets sag a little beneath his weight. ‘Well, I can put your mind at rest. I did not set the storm.’

  ‘And I assure you I did not either.’ Hera taps her fingers against her thighs in irritation.

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  She moves over to sit beside him upon the bed, chin on her hands, thinking.

  There is a pause, each god wondering who will break the silence first, where to turn next in the stalemate between them.

  ‘Very well,’ Zeus says at last, twisting to face her and steepling his fingers. ‘I take it that you have come here tonight for my word that Atalanta will not get her kingdom.’

  Hera is caught off guard. ‘Well – yes.’

  Zeus presses his fingertips together, then looks up at his wife. ‘Agreed.’ He holds a hand out, palm up, towards her. ‘You have my word.’

  She looks at him for a moment, measuring him, as if uncertain how to respond to this unexpected move.

  Zeus slides over towards her, puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses her neck. ‘Oh, come to bed, Hera,’ he says, fumbling through her hair and drawing out the ivory pins that hold it, one by one, so that it falls lock by dark lock over her shoulders. ‘You look so beautiful when you’re angry,’ he says, planting a kiss on her wrist. ‘And I love it when your hair’s down.’

  She lets herself be pulled slightly towards him, though her body is still stiff and her lips pursed. ‘I have your word?’

  Zeus is tugging down the shoulder of Hera’s robe with his teeth. ‘Absolutely,’ he croons, into the soft skin of her arm.

  She doesn’t relent. ‘And you promise you will stop favouring the girl?’

  ‘Promise,’ he says, unfastening the golden brooch holding her robe together.

  ‘And that, in future, you’ll listen to what I tell you, and not go off favouring mortals behind my back?’

  Zeus has managed to draw her onto her back and is slowly pulling her towards him across the blankets, his lips pressing upon her cheeks, her neck, her collarbone. ‘I always listen,’ he says. ‘But now, wife, it is time for bed.’

  And with that, he pulls Hera under the covers.

  An hour or so later, Hera is easing herself from where she is lying entangled in her husband’s arms and climbs softly out of the bed, her bare feet making no noise as she stands, dresses herself, then begins to walk, her robes whispering around her ankles. The lamps on their golden stands have guttered to a dim, flickering light, and there is no movement from the bed as she looks back over her shoulder, opens the doors and slips outside.

  Now that Zeus is taken care of, she is turning her attention to his brother.

  Iris is waiting outside the chambers as she bade her, leaning against one of the columns, tossing a glimmering golden apple up into the air and catching it. As Hera appears she straightens and swiftly pockets the apple. ‘He’s in the library,’ she says, without preamble. ‘With Hermes.’

  Hera raises her eyebrows. ‘The library? He never took an interest in reading before.’

  ‘I imagine he is searching for Jason’s fate among the scrolls.’

  ‘Then we have not a moment to lose.’

  The two goddesses hurry along the colonnades that lead onto the path, bathed in moonlight, away from Zeus’ palace, lit by stars on either side, like clusters of shining lamps – the ones that mortals call the Milky Way. The Library of the Muses is not far, and soon the goddesses are entering the gardens, skirting the edge of the oblong pool, the blackness of the sky reflected in its still surface, the whispering of the pines upon the slight breeze and the sweet scent of the trees welcoming them into a still, silent world. They ascend the marble steps swiftly and pass through the doors into the small entrance chamber, its walls glinting with inlaid gold and the green marble tiles upon the floor cool beneath their feet. Hera crosses it in a few steps, Iris following, then hurries across the inner courtyard and through the bronze double doors opposite.

  A vast room opens before them, the ceiling so high that it is shrouded in darkness, the walls lined with endless shelves of papyrus scrolls, tables loaded, with more scattered across the marble floor. Here and there, the white-robed, slender figures of the Muses move between the shelves holding flickering lamps or are seated on chairs, copying out the fates of mortals with reed brushes dipped in ink. Iris peers at the laden shelves curiously, her eyes darting over the records.

  Hera spots Poseidon at the other end of the vast hall, bending over a table lit by a single clay lamp and reading avidly, Hermes at his shoulder. She sweeps towards him, barely glancing at Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, who is currently sorting a pile of scrolls that have just come in from the Fates, as she passes.

  ‘And what do you think you are doing, Poseidon, here in the library at this hour?’

  Poseidon gives a jolt of surprise. The papyrus snaps up from his hands and springs back into a roll. He attempts to seize it, but Hera is too quick for him.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ she says, snatching it and spreading it open to read the name inscribed upon it. ‘Jason, son of Aeson. What were you hoping to find here, Poseidon?’

  Poseidon glances over his shoulder for Hermes, as if hoping he would help, but Hermes is staring at Iris with an expression of intense dislike.

  ‘I – well, I – I don’t see why I should have to tell you.’

  ‘Let’s get to the matter at hand,’ Iris says, turning from Herm
es to Poseidon. ‘Did you, or did you not, set that storm upon Jason and his crew?’

  ‘And if I did? I’m the god of the sea, aren’t I?’

  As Iris grimaces in acknowledgement, Hera puts in, ‘Jason always sacrifices plenty of oxen in your honour but, still, you thought—’

  ‘It’s not Jason,’ Poseidon says. ‘It’s his mother. Alcimede.’

  Hera is taken aback. ‘His mother?’ Her eyes narrow as she thinks back to Atalanta’s mother, Clymene, and Zeus’ admission of his seduction eighteen years before. ‘It seems that the queens of Mount Pelion draw the gods of Olympus to them, like fish to bait.’

  Poseidon is scowling so it is hard to see his eyes under the lowering eyebrows. ‘She chose Zeus instead of me. Me!’ He looks at Hermes, who shrugs and gives a noncommittal look of sympathy. ‘There we were, in Pelias’ bedchamber, not two days ago, and we told her we both wanted her and that she’d have to choose between us – and the fool chose Zeus!’

  ‘I see,’ Hera says. Her voice is so even that anyone who knows her will be in no doubt that she is in one of her deadliest, most dangerous furies. ‘I see,’ she says again, breathing deeply. ‘So you decided to punish Jason for your stupidity in forcing his mother to choose between the two of you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Poseidon. ‘And now I want to know what’s in store for Alcimede’s brat. I want to punish her so that she knows she made the wrong decision. The death of her only son ought to do it, don’t you think?’

  Iris makes a small noise of disgust, but says nothing.

  There is an awkward silence, in which nothing but the whispering of the Muses’ robes across the floor and the sweeping of reed brushes can be heard.

  ‘Well,’ Hermes says, into the silence, ‘this has all been very nice, Hera, but Poseidon and I should be going. If you had come with me and Apollo to Pieria straight away,’ he adds to Poseidon in an undertone, ‘and hadn’t insisted on stopping here first, we wouldn’t have had any of this in the first place.’

  Poseidon opens his mouth to retort, and neither he nor Hermes notices as Iris slips a small crystal phial from her cloak and divides the contents – a black liquid – between two of the several goblets filled with nectar that are standing on a table, a few feet away from Poseidon.

  ‘Very well, then, Poseidon,’ Hera says, as Iris slips the phial back into the folds of her robes. ‘I can see you will not be moved.’

  Poseidon turns from Hermes, his mouth still slightly open, clearly pleased and somewhat surprised at his victory.

  ‘Will you join Iris and me in a drink, at least? Before you go? And what is it you are planning to do, anyway?’ she asks Hermes, with a pleasant smile.

  ‘Nymphs,’ Hermes says, through a mouthful of ambrosia.

  Iris raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, then, to nymphs, I suppose,’ Hera says, passing Hermes and Poseidon a goblet each, then handing one to Iris.

  ‘Nymphs,’ Poseidon repeats, chuckling into his goblet as he drinks, splashing nectar down the front of his robes.

  There is a moment in which they all sip in silence. Hermes sets his goblet upon the table where, moments earlier, the scroll of Jason’s fate had been laid, and glances towards it, then up at Iris with a flash of suspicion and alarm. He lifts it to his nose and sniffs, his eyes widening.

  ‘Poseidon—’

  ‘Very … very good,’ Poseidon says, setting down his goblet beside Hermes’, his speech a little slurred. ‘But I think … I think before we … I think I’m feeling—’

  And with that, he and Hermes collapse together to the floor and begin to snore.

  Betrayal

  Colchis

  The Hour of Prayer

  The Seventh Day of the Month of the Grape Harvest

  Later they would make epics of our travels. They would say that we met with Amazons, fought with terrible monsters and were abducted by nymphs. They would tell of Harpies that snatched the food of a blind man, and birds clothed in metal whose beaks were like darts.

  Yet the harshest enemies we encountered on our voyage over the sea were our empty bellies, and I, who had always had plenty of stews and breads and sweet apples for the taking at home, learnt for the first time how hard an adversary hunger can be. Food supplies were running low, and our meals of stale bread and pickled olives were eaten now almost in silence. Spirits aboard the Argo were even lower, although at least, now that Myrtessa and I had come upon the plan to try to take the Fleece and protect the cities of Pelion from Jason, my old nightmares had abated and I was sleeping soundly again. Our legs were cramped from hours spent at the benches pulling against the adverse winds blowing into the prow, our arms and backs aching, the folds of our skin encrusted with salt from the sea air, our swords and arrows, which we had piled in the storage with such high hopes of adventure, sharpened and unused: for where were the enemies to fight atop the white surf of the waves?

  We had left Kytoros many weeks before and had been skirting the edge of the ocean beyond the Bosphorus, keeping the land to our right and following the course of the stars due east. Hantawa had told us that the merchant sailors and travellers from the empire of the Hittites, whom he had questioned in Kytoros, had spoken of the land of Colchis, where the Golden Fleece was kept, and said it was reached by sailing towards the rising sun until the land curved back to meet the ship’s prow. Others of the lords had heard this story also, and Theseus himself claimed he had sailed the northern reaches of the sea as a younger man. But as we rowed on and on and the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months and, though the sea-weather was unusually calm and the skies clear, no land appeared before us upon the horizon, and I began to fear we might never reach Colchis. We would row until we reached the very edge of the Ocean, and then …

  ‘Land! I see land ahead!’

  Laertes was leaning out over the prow, his hand held over his eyes. The words seemed strangely surreal after so many weeks spent imagining the phantom of land before us, telling ourselves that we were nearly there, closing our eyes at night with the thought, Tomorrow … tomorrow we will sight land …

  At first none of us moved. I exchanged a look with Peleus, who was sitting beside me at the bench, his cheeks sallow from weeks of poor diet. His eyes darted up to the prow, then back to me. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Can it be possible?’

  As one, we banked our oars and jumped to our feet. I saw Hippomenes, Meleager, Theseus, Nestor, Jason – all the other lords – crowding forwards over the thwarts to where Laertes was standing. I felt my stomach flip with excitement and nerves. After all the risks Myrtessa and I had taken, after weeks spent upon the sea, voyaging towards the Fleece, could I be here at last?

  My throat constricted.

  And what happens now?

  ‘Can you be sure, Laertes?’ Jason called, over the slapping of the waves against the ship’s hull. ‘I want no mistakes.’

  ‘See for yourself!’ Laertes pointed to the north-east, a little to the left of the prow.

  I narrowed my eyes and, with a thrill of anticipation, saw a dim grey outline upon the horizon, faint but growing ever clearer. I looked behind me, searching, and spotted the dark-haired figure of Myrtessa at the back of the crowd of slaves. She nodded to me, once, her eyes shining with excitement. We are here, she mouthed to me. We have made it.

  After several hours more at the oars there was no mistaking the silhouette of land growing larger and larger, mountains soaring up to the sky in ridged and forested peaks topped with white snow, quite different from the rolling slopes of Pelion. As we drew nearer I saw the river the merchants had said was the Phasis, gushing out into the ocean, its wide mouth surrounded by lush, uncultivated meadows of reeds and grasses.

  We navigated the currents of the river’s mouth and rowed inland, the mountains towering at either side of us, throwing us into shadow. We were silent now, all of us, and the wind had quietened so that there were no sounds except for the splash of oars dipping into the clear water and the cries of birds of p
rey, circling overhead, their sharp beaks outlined against the bright sky.

  ‘How much further?’ Theseus asked, from two thwarts before mine, as we followed the meandering course of the river.

  ‘I cannot be sure,’ Argus called from the steering oar. ‘There are few travellers who have made it as far even from the lands of Anatolia as this. Those Hantawa spoke with talked of a city on the slopes of the mountains, reached by a long and winding river, but I do not know how far inland it lies.’

  We rowed on. Meleager was seated beside me at the bench now. He looked pale and wary, and we moved together in silence. He had not approached me since the gift of the cup in Kytoros, and I had not encouraged him. After Myrtessa’s warnings I had attempted to put as much distance between him and myself as I could, and this was only the second time he had been my companion upon the thwart since we had departed Kytoros’ harbour. I looked at him, wondering what he was thinking. His eyes were darting over the shore, perhaps searching for ambushes as his oar stroked the silent waters of the river.

  Hippomenes voiced the same thought. ‘It is too quiet. I do not like it.’

  ‘You fear a surprise attack?’

  He pulled another stroke at the oar. ‘It would be an easy place to hide, upon those mountains,’ he said, and directed his gaze up at the dense forests covering the darkened slopes. ‘It is what I would do.’

  The sun had slid behind the soaring peaks of the mountains and we were plunged into chilly shadow, our oars dripping upon the water, then splashing faintly as we dipped them into the river. The eagles were silent, no doubt sheltering for the night within their nests on the crags, and the water was turned a deep jet in the darkness, no longer clear and welcoming.

  ‘Perhaps we should rest for the night.’ Argus’ voice broke into the silence from the stern. ‘And continue tomorrow.’

  Jason, seated upon the bench before me, shook his head. ‘We go on,’ he said. ‘We can rest once we reach the city and know its position.’