“So, this women’s business of yours—” He sounded ill at ease, speaking about what had just happened to me. “Your new friends here seem to think it’s the first time it’s happened to you. Are they right?” I nodded. “Ah. Seems like it’s something special to them, a great honor to share. This hut you’re in, it’s the women’s shrine, and that crone’s a priestess. The only reason they’re letting me come this close and talk to you is so I can translate what she’s got to say.”
“Argus, please tell me what’s happening outside,” I said. “I know my brothers saw, but the others—?”
“It doesn’t matter who saw what, by now everyone’s heard all about it. If I were you, lass, I’d stay inside that hut until I had grandchildren.”
The old woman said something and thrust the bowl into my hands. I looked to Argus. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You had a mind of your own last time we talked. What do you think you’re supposed to do?” he countered.
“You’re helpful.” My words were bitter with sarcasm, but nothing on earth was half as bitter as that bowl of herbal brew. The first sip I took made my tongue shrivel. I would have set it aside then and there, but I saw how closely the two women in the hut were watching me, so I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and gulped the rest of it down. I handed the empty bowl back to the old woman and was rubbing bits of crushed leaves and stems off my teeth when she tilted her head back and burst into wailing song.
“Well, well, isn’t that interesting,” Argus remarked from the doorway.
“What?” I asked, watching her warily.
“Apparently, our priestess is also the local Pythia. She foretells the future, but only for girls who’ve just become women.”
“Is that what she’s doing now?” I asked. “Telling my future?” The old woman was still making noises like those of a hired mourner. I hoped that her woeful tune didn’t mean that my life was going to be one long tragedy. “What’s she saying?”
“Oh, it’s mostly babble. You’re brave, you’re strong, you’re quick-witted, you’ll marry a king, find your true love, have lots of babies, kill whole armies with your beauty, and your fame will live forever, yap, yap, yap. If you were one of the local girls, she’d probably say that you attract fish. Don’t take any of it seriously, lass. It’s just an old woman’s way of giving you something to look forward to. That crone knows how hard a woman’s life can be, so she’s giving you a few dreams to distract you. Hope costs nothing, right?” For once, Argus’s smile looked natural.
The old woman ended her song and looked at me expectantly. I wondered how much of it really had been just “babble.” Argus was the one to belittle her prophecy, not I. Just because she spoke of the future from a humble village hut instead of from a rich, impressive city shrine didn’t mean her gift wasn’t genuine. I wished that I could have heard her vision of my future for myself, word for word, without my skeptical friend standing between us. I raised my hands and bowed to the old woman, thanking her even though she didn’t speak my language. Argus translated and she smiled. I stood up and took a deep breath. “Time to meet the lion,” I said. I started for the door, and the trouble waiting for me beyond the threshold.
The priestess called after me and the young woman attending her laid hold of my arm. “Not so fast, girl,” Argus said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “She’s got something for you.”
I squatted across the fire from the old woman and watched as she took the bowl from which I’d drunk and smashed it on the stones ringing the little hearth. She chose a small shard, wiped it dry on her skirt, and, from the shadows behind her, produced a palm-sized dish of black paint and a tiny brush. In a few flowing strokes, she drew a design on the shard, then handed it to me. It was a picture of a hunter on horseback, armed with the big spear used to hunt boar. She’d taken care to draw the rider stripped to the waist so that there could be no doubt: The hunter was a woman.
What god had inspired her to give me this image? Had her visions shown her my past as well as my future? In such a small number of lines she’d let me see a woman who looked strong and brave, one who rode out to confront the perils of the hunt with confidence and pride, a huntress who chose her own prey and her own weapons.
A huntress… The word struck a spark of memory. Suddenly I realized that I had the means to turn the old woman’s gift into the perfect weapon. With it at my command, I would face the battle awaiting me outside and come through it victorious. I smiled.
“Argus,” I said. “Argus, will you help me?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, suspicious. We spoke together so softly that the only people who could overhear our conversation were the two women in the hut with me, and they couldn’t understand one word we said.
“Everyone knows I’m a girl now,” I replied. “Jason will be afraid to let me back on the ship in case I cause trouble among the men.”
“You’ve got that right,” Argus said. “I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same, in his place.”
“You wouldn’t,” I told him. “You’re not like Jason. You’re only hard on the outside.”
“You make me sound like a beetle, and you still haven’t said what you want this old bug to do for you.”
“I want you to tell the crew my name.”
I waited inside the village women’s shrine with the painted shard in my hands. Beyond the door curtain, I heard Argus calling out for the crew’s attention. “Men of the Argo, you know what you saw!” he cried. “Your eyes didn’t lie. The weapons bearer called ‘Glaucus’ is no lad.”
Someone in the crowd made a crude jest. Another man shouted something even worse at Iolaus. I heard the sound of a scuffle and twitched the curtain aside in time to see Iolaus standing over the fallen jokester, cradling the fist he’d bruised on the man’s jaw.