“Lovely, isn’t she?” he said to me, speaking of the sea. “Look there!” He pointed at a scattering of dark shapes on the horizon. “Those are the first ships besides ours that I’ve seen since we left Thrace. They must be merchant craft. I wonder where they’re bound? Even when I was a boy, not a day went by without ships from at least twenty kingdoms sailing into port at Aea.”
“Are we almost there?” I asked.
“You won’t be sleeping on the beach tonight,” he replied. “Not unless you’re fool enough to insist on it.”
“I don’t mind sleeping under the stars.”
“Well, isn’t that what a legendary huntress always does?” He winked at me. “Or have you become someone else already?” He kept his teasing to a whisper.
“Very funny.”
“Put your quills down, little hedgehog, I’m not your enemy,” Argus replied. “I owe you plenty for what you’ve brought to this voyage. Thanks to you, I only felt like throttling Jason every second day. I wish I knew your true name so when I die, I can tell Hades, ‘See that girl? She’s sharp as a shark’s tooth, brave enough to battle the worst storm Poseidon could throw at her, and one of these days she’ll be as beautiful as a sunrise on a summer sea. So you tell the Fates to spin the thread of her life good and long, or you’ll have Argus to answer to!’” He chuckled.
I placed my hand over his on the prow. “I hope the Pythia was wrong,” I told him. “Not because I like you, but so Hades doesn’t have to put up with you too soon.”
“Land! Aea!” Argus was still at the ship’s prow when we came into sight of the Colchian royal city. He even beat keen-eyed Lynceus to the announcement. “There she is! By the gods, she’s as magnificent as I remember her.” A loud cheer went up from the crew. The men shipped their oars and raced to the rails, avid for their first look at the city of the Fleece.
Milo and I were aft, near the steering oar. We hadn’t had the chance to speak more than ten words to one another since the moment I’d swapped “Glaucus” for “Atalanta.” I was hoping to amend that, but once Aea was on the horizon, the opportunity fled. The Argo’s helmsman was as excited as the rest of the crew. He barked a command at Milo, and my friend suddenly found himself holding on to the steering oar while Tiphys hurried forward to gape at the great port.
“You must’ve left your weak stomach on the shore at Iolkos. Look at you!” I told Milo proudly. “You’re a born sailor. You should become a seagoing merchant’s apprentice when we go home again. You could even have your own ship someday.”
“If I do, will you sail in her?” Milo asked.
“If you set her course, I will.”
He grinned. “You’ll have to run away again. Once you return to Sparta and your parents find out what you’ve been doing, they’ll lock you up.”
“And draw attention to the whole scandalous business?” I responded, pretending to be shocked at the very thought. “How would they manage to find any man willing to marry me then?”
“The man who won’t marry you because you chose this adventure doesn’t deserve you,” Milo said. “A man who truly loves you will understand why you ran away. He’ll know who you really are.” His smile was gone. “And if you can’t love him as much as he loves you, he’ll understand that, too.”
“Milo…” I reached out to touch his arm, but just then Tiphys came running up to take back the steering oar. Argus was hot on his tail, calling him and all his ancestors so many foul names that I didn’t know whether to duck out of sight or start memorizing the most impressive ones.
“Is this how you treat my beautiful ship?” Argus yelled, bright red in the face. “Trusting her to an inexperienced boy is bad enough, but at this time?” He gestured to the west, where the sun was already beginning to dip below the sea. “Count yourself lucky that I don’t give you a fine view of Aea from the bottom of her harbor!”
“Gods above, calm yourself,” Tiphys muttered. “It was only for a moment. No harm was done.”
“Why don’t I take you to the roof of the Sun Temple, once we’re ashore, and push you off? You can keep repeating, ‘No harm done, no harm done,’ up to the instant you hit the ground! Of all the miserable, ignorant—!” Argus choked on his own fury. I don’t know how long he would have gone on if a call from the prow hadn’t distracted him.
The port of Aea was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Even in the fading daylight, it was a splendid spectacle. The waterfront teemed with gaily painted buildings, all dwarfed by the high citadel with its thick stone walls, red as old blood. As our vessel came closer, I saw bustling hordes of people, most of them richly dressed in the brightest hues, skin and hair also in a stunning variety of colors. Ships of all sizes crowded the shore, and the shore itself was strangely formed, with many narrow stone fingers stretching out into the water. Argus smirked to see the whole ship’s crew so dumbfounded by our first sight of his homeland.
“What’s wrong, lads?” he demanded. “Never seen a dock before? Trust me, you’ll come to love it. No need to break your backs hauling the ship onto dry land, and she’ll be happier too, left cradled on the water.” He gave orders to everyone manning the oars, the helm, and the sail. Soon the Argo was safely berthed at the very end of the dock farthest from the citadel, tied to several of the pillars bristling from the stone.
The crewmen were used to dropping over the sides of the Argo into shallow water. Leaping from the gently bobbing ship to the dock was a new experience, even more difficult to master in the dusk. Many of them stumbled and fell to hoots of delighted laughter from their comrades. I watched closely to learn from the mistakes that others made, then jumped and landed firmly on my feet. The men cheered, and I even saw my brothers smiling their approval.