Nobody's Prize (8 page)

Behind the altar, a company of armed guards stood around an old man whose richly ornamented robes and heavy gold collar, rings, and diadem marked him for a king. He held his head unnaturally high, and kept jerking it from side to side in quick, birdlike movements. “What’s happening?” he cried fearfully. “Have they gone? Am I safe? Will they come back? I order you, tell me what’s going on!” His eyes were as white as his hair. He was blind.

Jason pushed his way to the king’s side. “Greetings, Lord,” he said. “I am Prince Jason of Iolkos. I’ve seen to it that you’re safe from those marauding horsemen.” He looked as proud as if he’d won the fight single-handed.

The king burst into cackling laughter. “Don’t you Iolkans take trophies from your fallen enemies?”

“‘Trophies’—?” Jason was confused.

“My grandfather told me that we Thracians used to take heads.” The king’s grin revealed half a mouthful of darkly yellowed teeth. “Now we just take helmets.”

Frowning, Jason signaled one of the crew to fetch a helmet from among the fallen raiders. The man raced off to obey. His cry of utter shock made the old man laugh until he wheezed. “You didn’t fight marauding horse
men,
Jason of Iolkos. You didn’t fight men at all.”

That night, the fortified citadel above the harbor rang with the sound of celebration as blind Lord Phineas gave us a feast so lavish that even Herakles was satisfied. The great formal chamber in the center of his palace was a sorry, dark, smoky place compared with those I knew, but the food was good. While we ate and drank, the old Thracian king told us all about the women warriors we’d battled.

“Unnatural creatures,” he said, holding his silver goblet with both hands. “They live far north of here, on the shores of the Unfriendly Sea, but they come south on raiding parties whenever it suits them. Wild as she-wolves, and their men are worse for not making those mad females behave like proper women. They don’t let their daughters marry until after they’ve drawn a man’s blood in battle. After that, they marry anyone they like, as if they didn’t have fathers or brothers to find husbands for them! Well, at least you men saw to it that there’d be a few less of them to breed the next generation of Harpies!”

“‘Harpies’?” I whispered the unfamiliar word to Orpheus. He was seated next to me in the most shadowy part of the hall, far from my brothers. The Thracians didn’t waste time seating guests according to their rank or how much the king wanted to honor them. Lord Phineas had commanded Jason to sit to his right, Herakles to his left, and allowed the rest of us to find places that suited us.

“It means someone who snatches things away,” he replied. “The way a falcon snatches a rabbit.”

Later on, Orpheus stood beside the hearth fire in the center of the hall and sang about the day’s adventure. On his lips, the northern raiders were transformed from swift, deadly riders to winged and taloned monsters, part hawk, part woman. Because they could fly so high that spears and arrows couldn’t reach them, only men with the blood of the gods in their veins could end the havoc they caused. Luckily, a ship of heroes came ashore to rid the land of the hideous creatures. Zetes and Kalais, the sons of Boreas, had inherited the North Wind’s ability to fly and soon defeated the Harpies. They would trouble good Lord Phineas no more.

Orpheus finished his song, and the men cheered and banged their fists on the tables so loudly that it seemed like they’d bring the roof down in pieces. As for me, I kept my mouth shut and my arms folded. Orpheus noticed my frosty look when he sat back down. “You didn’t like it,” he murmured.

“They deserved better,” I replied stiffly. “They were brave fighters.”

“I thought I made that clear. Just look at Zetes over there, grinning ear to ear in spite of a nasty arrow wound that probably still burns like Hephaestus’s own forge-fires. It might leave him half lame for life, but he won’t mind, because in my song, he owns the sky.”

“You didn’t see the way he fought today,” I shot back. “He’s not worthy to own a mud puddle.
They
fought well, those women. They were as skilled and courageous as any man, so you turned them into monsters!”

Orpheus was silent for a little while. Then he took a sip of wine and said, “They attacked without warning, they destroyed good ships for the sake of destruction, they violated the sanctity of a sacrifice to the gods, and they would have cut down a blind old man, king or not, if we hadn’t come ashore when we did. I won’t argue with you about their valor or their mastery of weapons and horses, but see them for what they are, lad. You say I’ve made them monsters, yet you’d make them gods. They’re women, human women, as praiseworthy and as flawed as any fighting men I’ve ever known, but plain truth makes a poor song.”

         
5
         

THE CLASHING ROCKS

We sailed the next morning, after tending to the dead. Lord Phineas was a pious man who saw no reason to carry a grudge against fallen enemies. He gave full funeral honors to the northern women who’d died in the fighting. We should have stayed at least one more day to pay fitting tribute to our lost comrades at the funeral games, but Jason was itching to raise sail and be gone. As I hung back in Iolaus’s shadow, watching Herakles fulfill the rite of setting the torch to the pyre, I heard our leader telling the king he’d made a vow to Hera never to see more than one sunset from any harbor until we reached Colchis.
Well, that’s news to me,
I thought.
Maybe liars do wear only one sandal after all.

Lord Phineas looked as doubtful of Jason as I felt, but all he said was “And will your vow permit you to accept a few gifts from a grateful king?” Of course it did.

One of the “gifts” came in the form of a captive, a young girl with black braids and dark blue eyes who returned every man’s glance with a hate-filled stare hot enough to peel skin from flesh. She wore the ragged remnants of a dress too big for her. Her hands were bound and there was a rope collar and leash around her neck. One of the Thracian guards put the tether’s end into the king’s hands.

One girl given over to a ship of so many men?
I was appalled by Lord Phineas’s cruelty. Even if the king meant her to be Jason’s possession alone, what guarantee was there that our captain wouldn’t tire of her, or just toss her to the crew as a reward someday?

“You are too generous, Lord Phineas,” Jason said, his voice flat. “I couldn’t possibly accept this—” He waved one hand at the girl. “Not after everything else you’ve already given us.”

The king cackled. “Aren’t you the tactful one? Don’t be afraid, young man, I’m not asking you to take this little viper into your bed. By Poseidon, I swear that
I
never did. I wouldn’t have survived the night! If she was a virgin when I got her, she’s a virgin still, and you’d be wise to see that she stays that way. She’s the daughter of one of those northern tribes, kin to the raiders your men fought yesterday. One of my soldiers made the mistake of capturing her alive about a year ago. Her people command both sides of the narrow passage you must take to reach the Unfriendly Sea. Hereabouts we call that place the Clashing Rocks, because of how few ships escape without being crushed one way or another. Those savages cling to the cliffs like gulls and watch for prey on the waters below. If you’ve got a rich cargo, they’ll squeeze you for more than half of your trade goods. And if you don’t have a bribe big enough to please them, they attack with spears, arrows, even boulders rolled down from above. I’ve just given you the best bribe of all.” He turned his sightless eyes vaguely in the girl’s direction and gave her leash a playful twirl. “Haven’t I, my pretty dove?”

We sailed away with the pyre still blazing and our ship laden with gifts from the blind king, including his “dove.” Orpheus knew a little of the girl’s barbaric language. He assured her that no man would lay a hand on her, but her actions made it obvious that she didn’t believe him. The Thracian singer made the mistake of removing her leash, as a kindness and a gesture of good faith. She responded by dashing for the ship’s rail whenever he turned his back. I would have done the same, in her position. Orpheus literally had his hands full, holding on to her while she struggled to break away from him and plunge into the water, time after time. How the other Argonauts laughed!

Jason was exasperated. He needed Orpheus to keep the rowers working together and he was short by three men since the battle. He couldn’t spare anyone else from the crew to keep the girl from killing herself. When he ordered Herakles to grab her and tie her to the mast, our “dove” showed us that she spoke our language well enough to spew blistering curses and threats.

“Listen to that!” Herakles exclaimed with an exaggerated shudder. “She’s a witch’s daughter, sure enough. She’ll put a spell on me if I offend her.”

“Stop that nonsense and control the brat,” Jason snapped.

“Alas, beloved prince, I can’t.” Herakles sighed and hung his head with such a pathetic air that Milo, Hylas, and I stuffed our knuckles into our mouths to stifle snickers. “I made a vow to Hera not to touch a woman until we come to Colchis.”

That was too much for Hylas. He burst into hoots of laughter, and Milo and I joined in, until we had to clutch one another to keep from falling over.

I was still trying to catch my breath when Jason’s foot shot out and dealt me an undeniable kick in the behind. “You think this is funny?
You
watch her!” he barked at me. “If anything happens to the scrawny little bitch, we’ll stick
you
in a dress, hand you over to her flea-bitten relatives, and be halfway to Colchis before they figure out they’ve been duped. If you’re lucky, they’ll kill you quickly. If not, they might decide to use their knives to turn you into the daughter they lost. See if you can laugh your way out of
that,
boy!” He showed his teeth in a satisfied smirk and didn’t understand why I kept on laughing at his threat, even while I walked off to assume my new job as the girl’s keeper.

She greeted my approach with wide, fearful eyes, then she spit at me and missed. “Don’t do that again,” I said calmly. “I know you understand me, so I’m asking you nicely.” For her answer, she worked up a fresh mouthful and let it fly. She missed again, but I didn’t. She wiped her face, slack-jawed with amazement. “Can we talk now?” I asked.

“What we talk?” she demanded sulkily. Her speech was heavily accented and awkward, but we could communicate well enough. “Of how you use me? How I die?”

“How about how to spit?” I suggested.

She lifted her chin and declared, “You are crazy boy.”

“I am Glaucus,” I replied. “I’m not crazy, and I’m not a liar either. You’re going home. Believe it.”

The girl looked away, twisting her fingers together fretfully. “The blind king said that, yes. I heard him. Why should I believe?”

“Not him,” I told her, patting her shoulder gently. She didn’t pull away. “Me.” I felt foolish, asking her to put her faith in me like that. We were strangers. I doubted that I’d do the same if our places were reversed. But it was all I could do.

I was genuinely surprised when she looked up at me again and said, “All right. The good gods are all beautiful, and their words are truth. You are beautiful too, like the young lord who brings springtime, so I will believe you speak the truth, too. But if you lie, the Dark God will take you and the rocks will have your bones.”

“Well, that’s fair enough,” I said. “Now how about something to eat?”

It turned out that Lord Phineas enjoyed making jests. He called the girl his little “dove,” and that turned out to be her name, though not her disposition. I made such a mess of trying to pronounce it in her tongue that she finally laughed and told me to just call her “Dove” in my own language. She and I only had a day’s voyage together before we reached the Clashing Rocks, but we were friends when we parted.

Jason had Dove and me stand together at the
Argo
’s prow as we approached the narrow waterway. I was ill at ease the whole time, because it put me too close to my brothers. Luckily, Castor and Polydeuces’ side of the ship passed closest to a tricky stretch of coast, where every wavelet seemed to reveal the jagged teeth of half-hidden rocks. They paid strict attention to their rowing, not to me.

Just as the blind king had told us, the heights to either side of the narrows swarmed with wild tribesmen. As we sailed into the shadow of the Clashing Rocks, we heard a shout from the left: their leader calling out a challenge in several different tongues. No doubt he’d mastered just enough words in the most common trade languages of the Middle Sea to conduct his people’s ill-famed business. All of his demands stopped the instant that Dove shouted back, identifying herself.

Within moments, a group of tribesmen from the leader’s side of the narrows had scrambled down the rock face. Those manning the right-hand cliffs vanished from sight, though we knew better than to believe they were really gone. The Argonauts shipped oars and sent a pair of anchor rocks over the side to help hold the ship steady while the manner of Dove’s homecoming was settled. Tribesmen still visible on the heights lowered a young tree trunk, shorn of branches, to their kinfolk. Their leader made signs to let us know that they wanted to use the sapling as a bridge to fetch Dove from our ship. When Jason hesitated, Dove rolled her eyes and exclaimed, “What you fear? That my people attack? The tree is narrow. Only one at a time crosses, unarmed! A child could defend that.”

“All right,” Jason said at last. “But only two of them can set foot on the
Argo.
” He held up two fingers for the bandits to see.

They accepted his terms, and laid the stripped tree trunk from the shore to the prow. I heard a murmur of disappointment from the oarsmen on the right-hand side of the ship, which included my brothers. They wanted a closer look at the marauders of the Clashing Rocks, but they had to stay put, to help steady the ship.

Two nimble bandits crossed the slender span and greeted Dove as joyfully as if she’d come back from the dead. Because I stood beside her, they babbled what must have been thanks to me, embraced me, kissed me, and dropped three of their own necklaces over my head before whisking her away. She raced ahead of them across the sapling and scrambled up the rocks like a young goat. Her waiting kin atop the cliffs disappeared as soon as she and her escorts reached them, and the
Argo
entered the black waters of the Unfriendly Sea.

We sailed on, always keeping the southern shore of the Unfriendly Sea in sight. Those dark waters had a bad reputation for spewing up storms out of nowhere. The farther we traveled from Thrace, the more attention and favor Jason gave to one particular man, strong-limbed and silent, whose few remaining strands of hair were sea-foam white. I’d noticed him many times, both when the ship sailed and when it was beached for the night. He was the one who’d slept aboard that first night out while the rest of the men made camp on the shore. He’d done the same thing from time to time in the course of our voyage, as if he found the ship better company than her crew. He seemed to be forever prowling up and down, examining every part of the
Argo
he could touch. His bench might have been far forward, where I never went, but I never saw him take a turn at the rowing oars, and I never saw him smile.

Beyond the Clashing Rocks, my curiosity finally got the better of me. “Who is that?” I asked Orpheus. The unknown crewman was at the steering oar again, shouting at Jason about how he had no business giving any orders concerning the ship’s course. Jason accepted the scolding without a word of argument.

“That’s our treasure,” Orpheus replied. “If not for him, this voyage never could have happened. Not only does he know the way to Colchis, he saw to it that we’ve got a ship fit to survive these waters. He designed it, he watched over every step of its birth, and he’d sacrifice his own life sooner than let anything happen to it.” The Thracian leaned closer to me and grinned. “Haven’t you ever asked yourself why this ship is called ‘the
Argo
’? That’s Argus, son of Phrixus, the same Phrixus who rode the flying gold-fleeced ram. Nobody knows why Argus left Colchis, nobody knows why he agreed to return, and nobody asks.”

“Not even Jason?”

“As long as Argus gives him what he wants—the quickest route to the Golden Fleece and a swift, safe passage back to the throne of Iolkos—Jason doesn’t care if the man slit his mother’s throat. His own mother’s, or Jason’s, or both,” Orpheus clarified.

The next day, I waited until Argus came aft on his never-ending inspection tour of the ship. As he headed forward again, I stepped into his path and held out a clay cup filled with water. “The sun’s strong today,” I said pleasantly. “You look thirsty.”

His brow furrowed. “What do
you
want? And if you say you only want to give me a drink, save your breath for other lies. I can get my own water when I want it.”