For the Winner

by Emily Hauser

  ‘No,’ he said. He reached out towards me and traced the line of my jaw from my chin to my ear, down the side of my neck and to the bandage over my wound. He pressed it, just a little, and I gasped. ‘No, my Ganymede. There is more. Much, much more.’ He continued tracing down my arm, past the crook of my elbow and over the soft skin of my forearm, making my skin tingle with pleasure, and he laughed, knowing the effect he was having.

  ‘You fought bravely today, young Telamon.’ He circled my palm with his fingertip, and I stared mesmerized at his lips in the lamplight, the fullness of them, the flickering depths of his hazel eyes. ‘What is it the poets say?

  ‘Don’t caress me with words, your mind elsewhere,

  If you love me and your heart is true.

  Love me with a pure heart or renounce me,

  Start a fight, hate me openly.

  ‘Tell me you want it too, Telamon,’ he said, his voice barely a thread of sound, his eyes fixed upon mine. ‘Tell me you want me as much as I want you for, truly, I feel as if I will burn up for desiring you, for hating you, for needing you.’

  I felt my desire rise in response to his, the tingling in my thighs and the pit of my belly. He moved towards me, very slowly, his eyes never leaving my face.

  I made up my mind. As he came close to me, so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath upon my neck, and reached towards me to lift up my tunic, I struck out. Swift as I could and ignoring the pain in my shoulder I gripped his wrist with one hand, his elbow with another and twisted, pushing against him so that he fell, grimacing, face down upon the sand, then pinned him with one knee, still turning his wrist back behind him. He gave a moan of pain, then smiled up at me, panting, his pupils dilated in the darkness.

  ‘I do desire you,’ I said. ‘But there is something you must know first,’ and though my pulse was throbbing hard at my neck I held firm. I caught his gaze and held it. ‘You must swear to me never to reveal it to anyone, upon the name of the sacred goddess Artemis. I must know I can trust you.’

  ‘Trust …’ he repeated. For the first time his voice slurred a little, and I realized he was even drunker than I had thought.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, pushing harder against his wrist so that he winced and his eyes smarted with tears.

  There was a pause as he breathed, slow and ragged.

  ‘You must swear to me,’ I repeated, ‘that you will not reveal what I shall tell you – that, if I ask you to, you will aid me, as you have aided Jason. Do you swear it, Meleager?’ I twisted his wrist back further. He was flat against the sand now, trying to avoid the stabbing pain in the joint, eyes watering, face pale. ‘Meleager?’

  ‘I—’

  He stopped mid-sentence. His head lolled slightly, as if he were about to pass out, and instinctively I let him go and bent forwards, pushed the hair back from his forehead.

  ‘Meleager! Meleager, are you—’

  With sudden swiftness he grabbed the shoulder of my tunic and tore it, fingers ripping at the material, revealing the bare skin of my shoulder and chest. I cried out, but he pushed me roughly onto my back upon the ground in the half-darkness, knocking the breath from my lungs, hands greedily groping at my hips, my belly, and though I writhed and twisted I could not move against the drink-emboldened strength of him. I could feel his arousal pressing hard against me – he was pinning me down against the sand, his hands pressing roughly upon my shoulders and making me cry out as my wound seared with pain, his hips bearing down upon mine, and then he bent to kiss me, forcing his tongue into my mouth, exploring me with rude familiarity, the stench of wine foul upon his breath …

  A deep revulsion welled inside me. Mustering all my strength I wrenched my mouth from his and brought my head up, hard as I could, slamming my skull against his, trusting in the force of the drink to double the blow. He staggered backwards, and I took the only opportunity I had. Pushing myself to stand I thrust my knee, hard as I could, into his groin. His eyes bulged, his lips quivered, then he sank to the ground, coughing and spluttering, his face a nasty puce. I slapped him full across the face for good measure.

  ‘How dare you?’ I shouted at him, my voice trembling. ‘You foul – you—’

  He turned his face up towards me as I stood before him, his bloodshot eyes resting upon my bare breasts, and it was in that moment – that awful, heart-stopping moment – that I saw my tunic was hanging open, ripped from shoulder to belly, and, until that instant, blinded by drink and in the half-dark of the tent, he had not known.

  But he did now.

  His face was slowly, terribly, registering his comprehension.

  ‘A – a woman,’ he choked. He raised a shaking finger towards me, his eyes wide. ‘You are – you are a woman?’

  The blood drained from my face. ‘Meleager,’ I said, dropping to my knees beside him and laying a hand upon his arm. ‘Meleager, please, you don’t understand—’

  But he was shaking his head from side to side. ‘Do not touch me,’ he spat, and he struggled to his feet. ‘Don’t even come near me!’

  ‘No – please—’

  He picked up the oil-lamp and dashed it upon the ground. The flame went out at once, extinguished in the wet sand. I groped around in the darkness for him, trying to feel my way, tears streaming down my face.

  ‘Meleager—’

  There was a breath of wind, then silence. He was gone.

  In Exile

  The River Phasis

  The Hour of Daybreak

  The Ninth Day of the Month of the Grape Harvest

  I stood upon the shore next morning wearing a thin tunic, my shoulders hunched, chin trembling, feeling nothing but overwhelming shame and fear, and a vague dizziness from the shooting pain in my wounded shoulder. A faint mist from the rising dew still hung over the beach, and the sun was hidden behind the faceless, shadowed expanses of the cut-rock mountains, the sky pale overhead, the river colourless as it lapped against the beach. I shivered, feeling the hairs on my arms prickle against the chill. Myrtessa stood beside me, her whole body shaking, though whether from the cold or terror I could not tell. I reached out and clasped her hand, tight, though there was little comfort I could give. We had infringed every law of Greece – Myrtessa twice, since she was both a woman and a slave.

  The best we could hope for was a clean death at Jason’s sword.

  And we knew it.

  The lords were standing in a circle around us, all of them wearing cloaks fastened at the throat with silver clasps, their swords sheathed in leather belts at the waist. I felt the hostile stares of them all – Jason, Peleus, Laertes, Hippomenes, Pollux and Meleager – upon me; all the men with whom I had fought, slept and eaten for so many weeks as an equal.

  And now I was nothing to them but a woman, and a liar.

  I looked at the ground, my hands clenched at my sides, my eyes burning.

  ‘In the name of Zeus, king of the gods and men, protector of the Greeks, I call this council of the nobles of Greece to bring to judgement the impostor Atalanta and her slave, Myrtessa, upon the testimony of the lord Meleager.’ Jason’s voice rang out clearly in the still, calm air of dawn.

  The words broke through my shame and despair, registering slowly, my mind taking longer to process them in the faintness from my wound. Impostor? He calls me an impostor? I felt a small, defiant part of me rise up to his insult. I may be shamed, but my courage is not all lost.

  ‘Do you deny that you intentionally deceived us?’ Jason asked, his voice boring into me, like a sword slicing through rope.

  I felt Myrtessa move slightly beside me and gripped her hand more tightly.

  ‘I do not,’ I said, taking a deep breath. I met his narrowed gaze, saw the features chiselled like pale marble and his cheeks flushed, refusing to take my eyes from his, ‘but—’

  ‘Do you deny,’ he continued, his voice overriding mine, ‘that, as Meleager has informed us, you impersonated a man, wearing the clothes and the armour of a lord of Greece, for which the penalty in the land
s of the Greeks is death?’

  ‘I do not,’ I said, ‘but—’

  ‘And do you deny,’ Jason finished, a vein pulsing at his temple, his lips thin, ‘that you forced yourself upon this quest, knowing full well that the gods consider it ill luck to allow a woman to row at the oar – that you, in short, put my claim to the thrones of Iolcos and Pagasae in danger by your wilful spite?’

  ‘I do not,’ I said, and then, before he could say anything else, ‘but you accepted me on the quest by my own merit, did you not? You saw me hunt, and fight, and row alongside the other lords, and you did not find me wanting! You trusted Telamon – why should Atalanta be any different?’

  ‘Because you are a woman,’ Jason said, his voice as icy as the snow cap of Mount Pelion in winter, ‘a spawn of Pandora, and because all the laws of gods and men dictate that it is neither your place nor your right to fight, to sail or even to speak among us. I should have had you killed for your first disobedience, when you forced your way onto my ship, and again on the Propontis when you disobeyed my orders. You have lived too long upon my mercy.’

  He jerked his thumb at Myrtessa, who was shivering and weeping silent tears. ‘Atalanta, she said your name was – “the equal of all others”.’ There was a smattering of laughter from the lords, though there was no mirth in it. My nostrils were flaring with anger, and I longed to start forwards and slap him hard across the face, but I restrained myself. ‘You were a fool to think you could ever be our equal. You will go down to the Underworld, proclaiming to all the spirits of the dead the folly of a woman who thought that she could be the equal of a man.’

  In a single movement he unsheathed his sword and brought it up into the air, then sliced the point down, ripping through the front of the tunic I had stitched up the night before in the half-darkness, tearing through it and exposing my breasts. I gasped, horrified, and clutched my arms across my chest as Jason’s sword flashed once more towards Myrtessa, tearing her tunic, too, from neck to navel, leaving us standing together, pale-skinned and bare-breasted before the ring of men surrounding us. Myrtessa screamed and tried desperately to cover herself, pulling the shreds of fabric back over herself. Jason let out a short, derisive laugh.

  A rage such as I had never felt before boiled up inside me, heat flushing through my body, my fingers itching for my bow, and I reached instinctively behind me for an arrow, then remembered that they had taken my bow and quiver from me earlier, two tall slaves pinning my arms back as I had kicked and struggled. Jason had cleared the tent of my belongings before they dragged me out to the shore. As one, the lords drew their swords with a sharp scrape of metal and pointed them at Myrtessa and me, and Myrtessa whimpered with fear.

  ‘Do not dare to challenge us, woman,’ Jason said, and the lords nodded, their jaws set, faces grim. There was a glint of malice in Meleager’s eyes, and I knew as he stared at me and tossed his sword slowly from hand to hand that he was thinking of the night before. Hippomenes’ eyes were cast down to the ground and his brow was furrowed deeply; Peleus was looking away, his expression filled with disappointment. I thought fleetingly, for a moment, of dropping to my knees and begging Jason for mercy, in the name of the king. But then I recalled myself.

  I will not beg. I will not weep. I had done nothing but use my skill, and if I had deceived them, why, it was just as much their folly for not recognizing it as it was my error for having done so. I felt my courage return a little, and raised my head higher.

  The swords levelled at us glimmered palely, an encircling snare of death. I shifted slowly on the sand, my eyes upon the sharpened tips of the bronze, and took Myrtessa’s hand again in mine.

  ‘I propose we kill her for her insubordination, and the slave too,’ Jason said. ‘All those who favour disposing of the treacherous slatterns,’ he extended his sword forward a little, so that the tip caught on the hem of my tunic and lifted it very slightly – some of the men jeered, Meleager among them – ‘nod your agreement, and I will do away with them both myself this very moment.’

  The heads of the lords bowed, and I felt a wave of panic, nauseating, unstoppable.

  This is the end, then.

  I am going to die here, at the very edge of the world, far from my family and my home.

  Bitter tears welled in my eyes and overflowed down my cheeks as I thought of how I had failed them, at the very last – and I squeezed Myrtessa’s hand as hard as I could, closing my eyelids, unable to watch my death approach on Jason’s sword.

  There was a swish of a blade through the air.

  I felt nothing.

  I opened my eyes, my whole body shaking. Hippomenes had lowered his sword.

  ‘I ask for her life, my lord Jason,’ he said. I was taking deep, steadying breaths, half gasps, half sobs, and Myrtessa was trembling at my side, like a leaf in a storm, but he looked directly past me, towards Jason. ‘Not out of pity for her, but as an act of justice. She saved my life, my lords, and the gods punish anyone who disregards the repayment of a debt.’

  ‘You would save her?’ Jason’s expression was incredulous. ‘Though she wove her web of woman’s lies about you, you would rescue her from death?’

  ‘She did so for me, my lord,’ he said, and he turned to me at last, and there was nothing but disappointment in his eyes. I looked away, unable to bear the shame, tears still spilling down my cheeks. ‘My life for her life. She can live out the rest of her days in the wilderness of Colchis, far from the lands of the Greeks. Is that not punishment enough?’

  Myrtessa was sobbing openly beside me, and though my tears would not cease, I felt my breathing become more even, the feeling returning to my hands and legs.

  ‘But,’ Nestor interjected, frowning slightly, ‘if we ever see you or your slave again, we will kill you, and instantly, without remorse. You have broken the laws of Greece. You have transgressed against the gods. It is only the debt Hippomenes owes you that saves you now.’

  There was a pause as Jason considered this. Then—

  ‘Very well,’ he said, though his irritation was plain in the twist of his mouth. He sheathed his sword. The other lords did so too, first Hippomenes, then Theseus and Bellerophon, Laertes and the rest, the bronze scraping against the scabbards and making the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Myrtessa was gasping and shuddering beside me, one arm still clutched over her chest. ‘You are exiled. You are banished from Greece for ever more. You will wander the forests and hills of Colchis, and if you do not survive it, then so much the better. May the bears and the wolves do for us the work that should have been done here today.’

  ‘No!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Atalanta,’ Myrtessa gasped under her breath, ‘you have been given your freedom. You should take—’

  ‘No, I shall not!’ I turned to Jason. The defiance in me was growing stronger, sharper, a blazing fire in my chest that would not be dampened. ‘You say I have acted against the will of the gods, but tell me this: if the gods had not wanted a woman to have the skills of a man, then why would they have given them to me? You have seen my skill with the bow, you have watched me fight, you have seen me run faster than any man. Tell me, is it I who should be blamed if I can do these things?’

  ‘That is blasphemy,’ Nestor muttered. ‘Will you take the gods down with you, too, though you have already shamed yourself with your deceit?’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘That is enough,’ Jason said, and his gaze was as sharp and chilling as the blade of a sword. ‘If you argue more, we will kill you. My lords? Do you agree?’

  I looked around at the other lords and saw each man nod, one by one, slowly and deliberately, making sure that I could see.

  I hesitated. Even Hippomenes had agreed – Hippomenes, who had invited me to eat with him upon the deck, who had walked with me through the streets of Kytoros and told me of his life in the country in Boeotia.

  ‘Myrtessa, then,’ I said, faltering, my throat constricting, ‘may I at least take Myrtessa with me?’

 
Jason shrugged, then kicked Myrtessa in the small of her back so that she stumbled forwards and fell upon her knees. ‘If you want another life upon your hands,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘for she will surely be killed in the wilds of this land, and here we should have done it for you.’

  He stepped aside so there was a gap in the circle, and I saw the lords move around behind us, felt the pointed tips of their swords digging into the skin at my back, forcing me away into the wilderness of the mountains. They were consigning us to death. I would die, here, in these bleak mountains …

  ‘Wait.’ Hippomenes’ voice rang out. ‘We should give her something to hunt with, at the very least.’

  ‘Hand her a weapon?’ Jason scoffed. ‘Have you lost your wits, Hippomenes?’

  Hippomenes continued, his voice steady: ‘To let her loose in the forests of this savage land without a weapon is not to save her life: it is merely to postpone her death.’

  Silence fell. I held my breath, every muscle tensed, waiting, waiting for them to reply …

  When no one said anything, I looked up to the skies overhead, my voice shaking slightly. ‘My lords, I swear by all the great gods of Olympus, if you give me back my bow, I will not return here to harm you. I give you my most sacred oath.’ I paused, and a single tear rolled down my cheek and fell upon the sand. ‘Please, I beg of you. Give me back my bow.’

  Hippomenes hesitated, then I heard him walk forwards, sandals crunching on the sand, and pick up my quiver from the ground. I felt a sudden dart of pain through my shoulder as he slung the strap roughly over my neck. A weak sense of relief flickered through me as I felt it upon my back, the wood of the bow’s stave behind my head.

  ‘You are not to touch it till you are out of our sight, or I shall not rest until I have sliced you limb from limb,’ Jason said, his voice grating, and I felt the sword tips at my back press harder, cutting through the wool of the tunic and grazing my skin so that small beads of blood gathered there. ‘Now go.’