LITMIR.BIZ

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      On the day that we at last came down from the mountain, I lost Jason.

      Dressed in our best tunics, with plaited horsehair bands confining our hair and supple sandals of sacred horsehide on our feet, we walked down through the flower-bearing bushes onto the ridge which led down to the city of Pelias the Usurper.

      Then a mist bloomed, it seemed, out of the earth. It blanketed sight and damped sound. Jason, who had been ten paces ahead of me, vanished in the time it takes to blink an eye. I stood still, as I had been instructed. These sudden mists are not unknown on the heights, though they were not usually met with so far down the mountain and at the beginning of spring. A truism of mountain ways is that one does not walk where one cannot see. I crouched down, pulling my cloak over my head, and called, 'My lord?' but heard no reply.

      There was nothing I could do and it might be fatal to wander. I could not see any path. So I sat still, picking flowers and weaving a garland. It was not cold, and I knew the mist would pass as soon as the sun rose higher. And I knew my way down the mountain to Iolkos, for had I not come that way so many years ago?

      But I had lost Jason. When the rays of Apollo burned off the haze, he was nowhere in sight. I donned my garland and walked, feeling free for the first time. Free of the centaurs' domination, free of teaching or command, free to wander whither I would, although my feet were taking me ever downward, downward, and when I reached the ridge and saw the bright gleam and smelt salt, I sat down and burst into tears.

      For sea-water is in the blood of Dictys' sons, the net-men of Iolkos. In all my time with Cheiron I had never forgotten the sea.

      'Thalassa, thalassa!' I called, stretching out my arms to the immensity of the salt river Ocean, which spans the watery globe of the world. Horizons, constrained among the mountains by the next ridge or valley, had been abolished. There was only the arc of the sky and the sea, Poseidon's kingdom, azure, pellucid, and I swore never to leave it again, reckless of my lord and my teaching.

      I ran and leapt, taking no care, from out-thrust rock to boulder to grass, down a path which only a goat might enjoy traversing, and I never stumbled. There in front of me was the immensity of Ocean, eager to embrace me. Down a sheer side I climbed like a squirrel. I reached the edge, stripped off my tunic, cloak and sandals, ran for the water, and dived full length into the arms of the Nereids.

      The water was cool and salt and Poseidon bore me up on his bosom. I ducked my garlanded head and left the circle of flowers floating in homage to the Earth-shaker. My salt tears blended with the salt wave, and I surfaced and laughed and turned over on my back to float, secure as a babe in his mother's arms. The Master of Horses had forgiven me, most faithless of Oceanos' children, for leaving him for so long.

      Then I was recalled to my duty. A long wave lifted me and deposited me in the shallows, and I rose from the sand and reclothed myself, for something was happening in the city of Iolkos, just across the bay. A crowd was gathering, and voices were raised.

      It seemed that Jason had arrived.

      As I walked around the rocky edge and climbed up the steps from the sand to the landing stage, I heard raised voices.

      Iolkos was in festival. It was the most solemn day of the year. With the centaurs I had forgotten the calendar of life amongst the Achaeans. We had come - perhaps by chance, perhaps guided by a god - to Iolkos on the feast of Poseidon, when a bull was sacrificed to the Earth-shaker. All the neighbouring kings and princes would be there. I could see them, a gleam of gold and bronze, a glint of light off bracer and necklace and helmet.

      A crowd of common people were gathered on the sea side of the market-place. I whispered to an old woman who was standing in front of me, leaning on a creel, 'Mother, tell me what is happening in Iolkos?'

      'Young stranger, it is a prodigy,' she replied in a cracked undertone. Her garments and her hair smelt of fish, once a familiar smell.

      'Surely the omen has been fulfilled,' she said. 'Here is come one with only one sandal - the one-sandalled man is come! See, there is Pelias, the Usurper,' she began pointing out each noble.

      Pelias was staring in horror at someone I could not see. He was a tall man, carrying a considerable belly, dressed in the purple gown of a king. He was hung with jewellery and crowned with a golden crown, figured with bulls.

      'There is Pheres, king of Pherae, a prosperous place, they say; him, in the rose-coloured tunic,' said my informant, stabbing the air with her kelp-brown finger. Pheres was big, with a beard like a brown bush. He reminded me strongly of a bear.

      'The slender one is Amathaon, a young man for the kingship of Pylus, but a good king, they say. He fought off the Corinthian pirates, wading into the sea to board their vessel. Killed them all, and took the ship.' Amathaon was slim and young, wearing very little ornament, and had long dark hair tied back under a plaited gold band. His legs and arms were bare and sinewy, and his expression was guarded, giving nothing away.

      'Mother, what are they all staring at?' I asked.

      'You look lithe, young man. Climb to a height and you'll see. But I tell you, it's the omen. He's the monosandalos. They don't make prophecies without meaning, you know.'

      I scaled the landing stage, perched on a pile of fish-smelling baskets and saw what Pelias was staring at.

      In the market-place of Iolkos stood my lord Jason, son of Aison. He was still dressed in tunic and cloak, but one sandal was indeed missing. His brown foot was bare on the well-laid stone, and he was muddy to the hips. He was looking at Pelias, straight in the eyes, and the older man shifted uneasily under his blue-green gaze.

      'Who are you, foreigner?' he demanded roughly.

      'I am Jason, son of Aison,' said my lord evenly. 'I am come to claim my father's right.'

      The commonality shifted and muttered. Such nobility and beauty was revealed in Jason, that Pelias made a gesture which sent back his household warriors. They retreated, sheathing their half-drawn swords. The kings looked at each other, but did not speak at once.

      'If you are indeed the son of Aison, then you are unwelcome to me,' said Pelias. Perhaps he had once had a deep voice, but age had thinned it, and it was high and tremulous. 'Why have you come to this city?'

      'I have told you why I have come,' said Jason, faintly puzzled.

      'And what do you claim is your father's right?'

      Jason had been well rehearsed in this matter and answered easily. 'You my lord are the son of Poseidon, and Tyro the queen. My father Aison was the son of Kreutheus the king, and Queen Tyro. Your father was not the king of Iolkos but the god, and therefore, my lord Pelias, I claim my kingdom in my father's right, as the only son of the king of this city.'

      There was a stunned silence. Jason spoke gently, as he had been instructed. 'I ask only what is mine, my lord.'

      Pelias did not reply. His son Akastos, standing by his father's side, stared at the stranger. There was a tense silence. I bit my fingernails.

      'How did you lose your sandal?' asked Amathaon. Jason shook himself like a dog, flinging drops across the hot stone. He put back his golder hair.

      'I lost my companion in the mist,' he replied civilly. 'Then as I came to the Enipeus River, an old woman asked me to help her to the other side. I picked her up - she seemed a light burden, being old and bent - but as I crossed her weight increased at every step, and I could hardly carry her. I turned my foot on a slippery stone and wrenched off my sandal - a pity, for it was made by the centaurs from sacred horsehide - but I staggered to the brink and put her down safely. Then I turned to search for my sandal, but it had been swept away. The stream is in spate. When I looked again for the crone, she was gone.'

      At this the crowd shifted, enough to knock my baskets out of true. I jumped down and shoved through the crowd, hearing them mutter 'a prodigy!' and 'the omen,' as I elbowed my way through to the accompaniment of abstracted curses from the people whose feet were trodden or ribs bruised. I finally managed to thrust myself into the space between Jason and Pelias.

      Intercepting

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