I was very confident that was exactly how things would work out. I was so eager to see it all unscroll smoothly that after breakfast I danced around our smothered fire, urging the fisherman to launch his boat. I wanted to be in Iolkos now.
The winds were with us. The sun wasn’t even a hand-span above the horizon by the time we beached on the strand at the foot of the great city on the Wavy Sea. I reached into the leather belt-pouch I carried and pulled out a little golden disk as big as my thumbnail. My best skirts from home were trimmed with a fortune in such charms, dresses fit for a princess. Before we left Delphi, I’d harvested the gold, silver, and gemmed ornaments to trade for necessities. I tried to give this one to the fisherman, but he refused it.
“Pay me back by coming back,” he said. “My daughter’s life is in your hands. That’s worth more to me than a fistful of gold.” He threw his wiry arms around Milo and me in a quick hug, and walked away.
Milo turned to me with a Now what? look in his eyes.
“Now we go up there,” I said, pointing to where the citadel walls of Iolkos shone in the early morning sunshine. “We’ll find a pair of warriors who’ve come to Iolkos to sail with Prince Jason but who haven’t got weapons bearers to serve them. This quest may fetch more men than the Calydonian hunt. We’ll get to pick and choose from a whole mob of masters.”
Milo and I had to hike a fair distance along the shore before we reached that part of the waterfront where the great ships and their crews waited. Once again I felt my heart beat faster as I looked from one grand vessel to the next.
“Glaucus, put on your shoes,” Milo said. I ignored him. Men scurried here and there on a hundred unknown errands, or grunted under the burden of massive clay amphorae and wooden chests. Some sat mending nets, others untangling lengths of rope. The reeks of fresh pine pitch, salt, and sweat fought each other, no one winning.
“Glaucus…” Milo’s hand fell on my shoulder and gave me a little shake.
“Oh! Sorry. Were you talking to me?”
“Were you listening?” he countered. “If you won’t answer to ‘Glaucus,’ why insist I call you by that name? I said, put on your shoes.” He gestured at the pair of sandals I was carrying slung around my neck. On the fisherman’s boat, I’d gone shoeless for better footing.
Now I was ashore, and it was pure luck that I hadn’t stepped in something disgusting or rammed a chunk of broken wood or baked clay into my foot. I knew from painful past experience how long such wounds took to heal. What warrior would hire a lame weapons bearer? I leaned against a building and put on my sandals, then announced, “Let’s get started. If the gods are with us, we’ll be serving good masters before the sun’s overhead.”
“The gods grant it,” Milo said. “How do we find good masters?”
“First, by finding the Argo,” I replied.
“And how are we going to do that?”
I waved away his question. “Easily.” I set off with a light step, arms swinging, heart full of confidence.
It didn’t last. I can’t tell you how many ships, great and small, we passed. The longer we walked along the water, the less certain I felt. I began to stare at every vessel, struggling to find a clue that would tell me beyond any doubt that it was the one we sought. All I knew was that the Argo would have to be big. Before my brothers went off with Prince Jason, all they’d talked about was how their ship would sail crewed by fifty heroes. I thought it would be easy to find a single vessel large enough to carry so many.
There were many big ships at Iolkos, all pulled up onto the shore to keep them safe. Their sails and masts were down to keep any sudden strong winds from carrying them away.
Then Milo said the unthinkable: “What if the Argo’s already sailed?”
My heart went cold. Could he be right? It was possible. It could’ve happened the day before we arrived, for all I knew.
Lord Poseidon, help me, I prayed, fighting back the ghost of bitter disappointment. Grant that the Argo hasn’t sailed without us. Master of the seas, send me a sign and I’ll make a rich thanksgiving sacrifice to you as soon as I have something worthy to offer.
Suddenly Milo tapped my arm and pointed farther down the strand. “Look there, Glaucus,” he said. My false name no longer sounded forced on his lips. I shaded my eyes and let out a yelp of joy when I spotted what he’d already seen: the ram.
It was painted in mid-leap on a green sail edged with blue. Its fleece wasn’t golden, but the next best thing, a crocus yellow brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes. You could tell that sail was still waiting to see its first voyage. When the wind blew toward me, I swear that I could smell the newness of the cloth, the tang of the dyes.
The ship itself was the largest craft in the harbor. The only reason I’d missed seeing it before was that it lay beached between other vessels, around a curve in the shoreline that disguised its length. The shallow black hull was as newly made as the sail unfurled from the single mast, the gleaming prow freshly painted with a long blue-and-red-rimmed eye for luck, to watch over the waves ahead. The prow itself curved up like a beckoning arm, and was decorated with carvings from base to tip. I was standing too far away to see whether they meant anything or were just for decoration, but I was positive that I’d get a close enough look at them soon.
“That’s it, Milo,” I said as we walked a little closer. “That’s got to be the Argo. I thought those other ships harbored here were big, but this…” I couldn’t help counting the short wooden poles sticking up in pairs along the side rails. I’d overheard enough sailors’ talk on the few voyages I’d made to learn those were called thole pins, and that they were used to hold the oars steady when the crew rowed. “Enough of them on this side to hold twenty-five oars steady, so there must be the same on the other. Fifty oars, fifty men, just as my brothers said. And the picture on the sail—”