Small citadel, and all the rest of the world blind to what has happened. They won’t hear until later, and by then, they will imagine something else. Cleite will have urged Cyzicus to attack, making a fatal error, or she will have been the one to first see smoke that evening along the coast, or Cyzicus will have turned back but then changed his mind again and continued on. Some moment that would have changed everything.

And what will they imagine when they hear of Medea’s story? It won’t be the same as with Cyzicus and Cleite. Every woman will want to imagine herself Cleite, making that sacrifice, honored and lamented by her people. But who will want to stand on the stern of the Argo with her own brother chopped to pieces at her feet? Who will want to be an outcast or betrayer? It will be a different kind of story, tale of a monster, a story of what is not human. Every king has bathed in blood, but that is told differently. Cyzicus won’t be remembered for those he slaughtered. He’ll be remembered for the wedding night he didn’t have, for the love of Cleite, for his friendship with Jason, for his youth and bravery. Every story born in pattern and wrought by the telling into another pattern again.

Medea seemingly invisible in this crowd, but then she is summoned, and the crowd parts to let her through. Daughter of a greater king. She will be used to mark this occasion.

Up the stone stairs to the home of Cyzicus and Cleite, and Jason takes her arm at the threshold, as if his touch could be only kindness. Not convenient at the moment to grind her into the dirt.

The room larger than she had imagined, higher ceilinged, but no rope dangling. Then she sees it, at a rafter by a window. Cleite jumped out the window for a greater fall.

She lies now in his arms, arranged on the bed. On their sides, turned and holding each other, snake-necked Cleite staring into that empty borehole of the spear shaft.

Trick of the dead, always, to seem alive still. Cleite’s head ducked low and brought against his chest seems to be moving, tucking in closer, the most basic and beautiful affection. His hand on her back pulling her near. Hint of a smile on his dead lips, some contentment. Medea would not be surprised to see him kiss her forehead.

All in this room are silent and have knelt, pulled downward and falling endlessly within themselves, the dead some enormous weight that tumbles without resistance into nowhere, anchored to the living. An entire city might sink yet there would be no sound and all would seem not to have moved. Worlds within worlds. Anyone still for long enough can lose hold.