I’m sorry, Medea tells her, and she opens a cut on her other arm and bleeds over both sides of the bow then walks back between the oarsmen with her arms raised, bleeding over each of them and finally over the helmsmen, who try to duck away. Fools, she says. You don’t know who has saved you.

Her father spinning, too far from land to anchor, being blown all the way back to where he began.

Let this blow all night, if you favor us, Hekate. Let the wind only grow.

The Argonauts pull hard for this harbor, already in less wind and much smaller waves, making way again. Impossible to believe the fury of only a few moments before. The waves following, curving around the point, but softened. Wind confused, indirect, blown back from every direction in isolated puffs.

Calmer water ahead, protected pool, the slope rising steeply above, and Helios hidden behind, falling. The light on the Hieros mountains golden. All lost and then nothing lost. The ship capable again, gliding easily, and Medea can see small goatherds’ huts along the shore, sticks piled against stone, a large fig tree planted close, and pathways leading into forest. A chance to leave the ship, a respite and shelter, though her father may have sent riders down the coast. They’re too close to be safe from him.

The Argo built supposedly with the help of the goddess Athena, who watches over Jason, but it sags to the left, lopsided, and this is perhaps what saved it, turning the bow toward shore instead of to sea. Hobbled and fortunate. Ship of brute thieves trying their luck.

Four of them at the bow now, struggling with a great anchor stone, heaving it over the side and hopping out of the way as the line runs. Ripping over the bulwark. And what if the stone does not find bottom? They have no idea how far it must fall. Everything they do a blind faith flung into the void. Coming to Colchis knowing nothing, and if not for Medea, they’d already be strung in the trees.

Jason has promised to make her his queen when they return to Iolcus, and if he does not, she will destroy every last one of them.

The stone hits bottom, their luck holding, and the line is made fast. The ship rocks gently in the leftover curve of waves and spins slowly in the breeze.

Jason raises his arms to Athena, thanks the goddess for safe passage, and his men do the same, and no one thanks Hekate. No one thanks Medea.

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