He lets his arm drop to his side. Argonauts, he says. Kings in your own lands. Do any of you have brothers or nephews? He walks out among the tables. Would you like me to come to your home and stand at the side of your nephew as he asks for your throne? As he hands over a sheepskin sprinkled with a bit of gold dust and tries to call himself king?

Pelias raises both arms in the air, and his guards step closer on all sides, their spears lowered. The Argonauts remain seated. They are without shield or spear or helmet. They’ve already feasted and had too much wine. Pigs brought to slaughter.

A spear through each of you now. It would be easy. Or I can wait. Your lands are not far away. I can sail there on the Argo with my men whenever I hear of this nephew or brother or even some commoner who would challenge you. No son of a god but only a goatherd or a potter who would be king, and I can help him take your throne. Why can’t any common fuck be king?

Pelias waves his arm and his men step away, spears upright.

Jason had a common birth. Aeson, his father, also had a common birth. We share a mother. But my father is Poseidon, weather god of the sea, ancient god. A god who shaped the world. And he shapes it still. He wants there to be a king. So he fucked my mother and made me to be king. Not Aeson, my common half brother, who has since proved his birth and his lack even of a will to live, by drinking poison along with another of his weak sons. And not Jason, who tries to trick his way onto my throne.

Pelias points to the sea. If I am killed, waves will form so great that each of your cities and peoples will be torn away, destroyed, vanished as if you had never been. That is my birthright. The return of the great flood if I’m slain. The anger of Poseidon come again. You don’t want to anger my father, and you don’t want to anger me.

He walks back around the table to his throne. Argonauts, he says. You see the sun beside us, over the far hills, low. You have until it sets. Get in your small fishing boats and go back to your huts. If you’re still here when the sun touches, you’re dead.

Pelias sits and takes a drink of wine, returns to eating. Some momentary disbelief in his guests, but then they rise and, seeing the sun low, begin to run. Great warriors in full flight, demigod kings not looking back, unsteady from the drink. Only the fisherman gives a backward glance at Medea. Then all are vanished down the steps.