Asteropeia is quartering the back. Two arms, two legs, head, heart, hams, groin, guts, and quartered back, ribs protruding. Thirteen pieces. The daughters heave together for the larger chunks, heavy plunge into the stew, spilling over the sides to hiss in the fire. A few remains must be searched for in the ash, the last of the entrails, daughters on their hands and knees, and then they are ready.

Throw in his head, Asteropeia yells. Quickly.

Acastus hesitates. He warned his father about Medea. He would have kept her from the earth and air and fire and blood and sea, all that she might travel through or summon, and he must wonder now where she might take his father once he gives over the head. Medea smiles. Acastus will be next in the stew, and then his sisters, all but Asteropeia. All who were close to Pelias, all but her, will be going into the pot.

Our father must emerge whole, Acastus tells Medea. Young and in one piece.

Peisidike is the favored one. She is the one who brought the old ram back.

Do not make a monster. You have sons, Medea.

I will do nothing for your father unless you agree that I am no longer a slave, and my sons, and Jason. We are all free now or you can stir this mess yourself and invoke whatever god you please. But I am only helping Peisidike. She is the one who must make your father young. She came from his seed and has released his seed.

Acastus raises his father’s head, looks on that terrible face one last time, and flings him into the cauldron. You have your freedom, he says. Make my father whole.

Hekate, Medea chants in barbarian tongue. Hekate, first among gods, let all remain separate, let no pieces join unless his shattered balls become his eyes and he wears his skeleton on the outside, encased in bone. No legs and no arms. Let his throat be lined with the old ram’s hide, and his mouth be the ram’s anus. Let him hear only his inner workings, ears buried deep inside. And let him live a thousand years, slowly growing, filling with blood. Let him make new blood and never release it.

4

4

The daughters of Pelias worship Hekate and the moon, hold their firebrands to the sky. All people of Iolcus on their knees before that bright falling orb, begging the god of Medea. Terrible waste of years, but all is coming to pass.

In her room alone with fire and steam, stirring the pieces of Pelias and the ram, making stew and nothing more, old meat cooking through. Poseidon quiet. All the world quiet, the great peace of a king slaughtered. What would the world be like if men never ruled again?