Do you think a spear won’t go through Kreon? Kings are the same as any other meat.

Enough.

No. Not enough at all. I am owed.

I owe you nothing.

Medea raises the hands of Aeson and Promachus. Do you see these, your sons?

Yes. Gifts I gave to you. Fortunate woman, risen above her kind. And now they will have royal brothers.

Medea would laugh if she didn’t know this was the end. Consequence, she says. There is always consequence. You won’t spurn me and see nothing happen. You know that’s true. Search somewhere in that tiny heart of yours and remember. You’ve known me for long enough. Did Pelias escape consequence? I don’t want what will happen next, and neither do you. Stop it here. Come back to me and to these sons named after your father and brother. Leave Glauce.

Be grateful, Jason says. A woman is never grateful but always wants more.

He leaves her trapped at spear point against a wall with their sons. She would scream, but there’s no one to hear. An entire city deaf to her.

The guards back away slowly, leave a thin corridor for her to pass. She is to return to her cage.

Dark bronze tied to sticks. Don’t sleep, she says. Hekate in your dreams. You’ll grab your own spear and impale yourself. And his new wife. If Glauce gives birth to a son, it will have two heads, reminder from Hekate that this is a second marriage.

11

11

Kreon at her door almost immediately. Surrounded by guards. Coward-king.

Medea, he says. You are banished. You and your sons. Leave now and never return.

His voice too high, strained. He’s afraid of her. No Pelias. No belief in his power, no will to torture and break and rule. Graybeard lamb put on a throne long ago by a father. But she must play her part.

Please, she says, and drops to her knees. What have I done? Jason leaves me for your daughter, and now you banish me and my children, send us away into nothing?

You’ve made threats. Against me, against my daughter, against Jason. I know the monster you are, someone who would cut up her own brother. You will leave now or be killed.

Do you care so little for the gods? What of Jason’s vows?

Yours was no marriage. Glauce will be his first wife.

First wife, Medea says. She falls forward in prostration, her hands and forehead to stone. This is the only way she can keep from grabbing a spear. She must control herself. She needs time.