The men have learned how to wait through day after day at sea. They go into a kind of waking sleep, unmoving, not talking, their eyes open but not seeing her. Even Jason has no recognition. She could be made of air.

Not a single word spoken the rest of that long day, Helios hidden behind cloud and slowed in his passing, a day that could be a hundred days, then night which seems only an extension of the same day. Medea can no longer bear it, so she crawls below over rocks and tools blind until she reaches the coil of rope, feels the flex and creaking of the rudder posts on either side, a comfort, return to a kind of womb, a darkness held by a greater darkness, substitute for a mother never known, and is able to sleep.

13

13

Not far from shore now, searching for the entrance to another sea, slim passage difficult to believe, something from myth. How such a great sea could have only one small stream leading to another sea and then to an even greater sea beyond, as if the world could open itself larger again and again, unfolding without end. Jason and his Argonauts claiming to be the first ever to have passed through safely. The Symplegades rocks grinding every other ship to dust for centuries, but the Argo’s passing fixed them in place forever, safe now. The stories these men tell about themselves absurd.

The forest thinned, drier, smaller trunks. Then the white curve of a beach, rare along this shore. A small hut at the edge of the sand, and then another, but no people, hiding perhaps.

The men alert, all awake now, ready to drop the sail, ready to take up oars, their spears and shields lying on deck beside them. Thracians at Lygos, on the far side of the passage, not to be trusted. They somehow must have allowed passage before, but apparently that doesn’t mean they’ll allow passage again.

Jason standing near her, between the helmsmen. The great bear-man at the bow holding his war hammer and shield, a warning to Thracians and anyone else.

Sail pulled to the side as they turn, the ship rolling in small waves. Enough breeze still. Every man hoping it will remain, wanting a fast passage.

Headlands and another small point, low and forested. The passage must be just beyond. She can see now the point on the other side and the settlement of Lygos, low walls and rounded dwellings on a hill, the land stripped and brown. Mud dwellers. Larger but less grand than Colchis. Her father’s city the greatest on this sea.