Iolcans all waiting, no one moving. Only Pelias eats. Slow fall of the sun, sound of his chewing close beside Medea. She doesn’t dare look at him.

Fishing boats appearing in the bay, small at this distance, rowing quickly in shadow, unable to know when the sun will touch, fanning out over the waters, scattering to many lands. Rushing to tell the tale of how they fled from Pelias after running his errands.

The sun darkening, wavering as it falls, and all are watching when it first touches. Pelias raises his arm and his guards at the stairs fall away from sight.

Acastus, Pelias says, loud for all to hear. My son. He places his hand on the shoulder of his son sitting beside him, young Argonaut, the only of the Argonauts remaining. Medea hadn’t noticed him during the voyage, hadn’t known he was the son of Pelias. Thin face, dark but not pitted like his father’s. Tell us all, did the Argonauts intend to help Jason take my throne?

Yes.

And is this fleece the golden fleece?

No.

Iolcans, Pelias says. Jason and Medea came here to deceive and destroy. They would make us all slaves. They brought an army from every land around. So what do we do with them now?

He waits, but of course no one speaks.

Acastus will be your king one day, when I am gone. Perhaps we should ask him.

Acastus stands, thin youth unlike a king, quiet in every gesture as if to compensate for his father. Medea is a priestess, he says, in his faint voice. Priestess of Hekate and of the Egyptian goddess Nute. She can fly and travel beneath the sea. Her voice can come from any direction, and she can see into another world and bend this world that we know. She is aided by a scorpion and by some other creature I cannot name, something from deep in the earth. She can also bring wind, and raise the seas. So we should cut out her tongue and her eyes and chop off her feet and hands and keep her in a room of stone, away from the ground and without any windows, unable to touch the wind or the sea or the night. We have to be careful not to touch her blood. I think she is something left over from an earlier time.

Pelias laughs. Sit, Acastus, sit. Only a boy. Medea is nothing. Pelias rises and grabs Medea by the hair, pulls her up and yanks her head back. Call on Hekate now, Medea. Call on her, bring your hellhounds, bend the world, raise the seas. Do something.

No, we will not cut out her tongue and eyes and lock her away as something to be feared. She is nothing, and so she will be a slave. A simple house slave to my daughters and nothing more, and we will forget her.