Circe

“Yes,” she said softly. “I come to it. My father was enraged. He set out after us, his witchcraft drawing the winds to his sail, and by morning he was very close. I knew my spells were no match for his. Our ship, however blessed, could not outrun him. One hope only I had: my younger brother, whom I had taken with us. He was my father’s heir, and I had thought to exchange him as a hostage for our safety. But when I saw my father at his prow, shouting curses across the water, I knew it would not work. The killing rage was plain on his face. He would be satisfied with nothing but our ruin. He spoke spells in the air, he lifted his staff to bring them down upon our heads. I felt a great fear run through me. Not for myself, but for blameless Jason and his crew.”

She looked at Jason, but his face was turned to the fire.

“At that moment—I cannot describe it. A madness came over me. I seized Jason and commanded him to kill my brother. Then I cut the body into pieces and threw them into the waves. Wild as my father was, I knew he must stop to give him proper burial. When I woke from my fit the seas were empty. I thought it had been a dream until I saw my hands covered in my brother’s blood.”

She held them out to me, as if in proof. They were clean. I had cleaned them.

Jason’s skin had gone gray as raw lead.

“Husband,” she said. He started, though she had not spoken loudly. “Your wine cup is dry. May I fill it for you?” She rose, moving with the goblet to the brimming bowl. Jason did not watch, and I would not have noticed if I were not witch myself: the pinch of powder that she dropped into the wine, the whispered word.

“Here, my love,” she said.

Her tone was coaxing as a mother’s. He took the wine and drank. When his head rolled back, and the cup would have fallen from his hands, she caught it. Carefully, she set it upon the table, and took her seat again.

“You understand,” she said. “It is too difficult for him. He blames himself.”

“There was no madness,” I said.

“No.” Her golden eyes pierced mine. “Yet some call lovers mad.”

“If I had known I would not have done the rite.”

She nodded. “You and most others. Perhaps that is why suppliants may not be questioned. How many of us would be granted pardon if our true hearts were known?”

She took off her black cloak and laid it over the chair beside her. Her dress beneath was lapis blue, bound with a thin silver belt.

“Do you feel no remorse?”

“I suppose I could weep and rub my eyes to please you, but I choose not to live so falsely. My father would have destroyed the whole ship if I had not acted. My brother was a soldier. He sacrificed himself to win the war.”

“Except he did not sacrifice himself. You murdered him.”

“I gave him a draught so he would not suffer. It is better than most men get.”

“He was your blood.”

Her eyes burned, bright as a comet in the night’s sky. “Is one life worth more than another? I have never thought so.”

“He did not have to die. You could have turned yourself in with the fleece. Gone back to your father.”

The look that passed over her face. Like a comet indeed, when it veers to earth and turns the fields to ash.

“I would have been made to watch while my father tore Jason and his crew limb from limb, then been tormented myself. You will pardon me if I do not call that a choice.”

She saw the look on my face.

“You do not believe me?”

“You have said many things of my brother that I do not recognize.”

“Let me introduce you then. Do you know what my father’s favorite sport is? Men come often to our isle, looking to prove themselves against a wicked sorcerer. My father likes to set the captains of those ships loose among his dragons and watch them run. The crew he enslaves, stealing away their minds so they have no more will than stones. To entertain his guests, I have seen my father light a brand and hold it to one of those men’s arms. The slave will stand there burning until my father releases him. I have wondered if they are merely empty shells, or if they understand what is being done to them and scream inside. If my father catches me, I will find out, for that is what he will do to me.”

It was not the voice she had used with Jason, that cloying sweetness. It was not her gleaming self-assurance either. Each word was dark as an axe-head, heavy and unrelenting, and my blood drained at every blow.

“Surely he would not hurt his own child.”

She scoffed. “I am no child to him. I was his to dispose of, like his seed-warriors or his fire-breathing bulls. Like my mother, whom he dispatched as soon as she bore him an heir. Perhaps it might have been different if I’d had no witchcraft. But by the time I was ten I could tame the adders from their nests, I could kill lambs with a word and bring them back with another. He punished me for it. He said it made me unmarketable, but in truth, he did not want me taking his secrets to my husband.”

I heard Pasiphaë as if she whispered in my ear: Aeëtes has never liked a woman in his life.