Atalanta

by Jennifer Saint

When I was born, they left me on a hillside. The king had given his decree – if it’s a girl, expose her on the mountain – and so some unfortunate soul was dispatched from the palace with this unwanted scrap of humanity: a baby girl instead of the glorious heir the king desired.

The cubs knew it before I did. They made themselves scarce before he appeared, the huge male in search of a mate. They hid themselves in the trees when he came shambling out of the mountains, from some faraway cave where the scent of the mother bear had carried on the fresh spring breeze. An irresistible summons to this monster, who seemed to rear up to the height of the trees themselves. The rumbling in his throat sounded like the thunder that had shaken the branches while I’d lain safe among the sleeping cubs all winter. She sensed it too. In the space of a moment, the time it took for the wind to turn, she changed; swift, abrupt and inevitable. Her loving caresses turned to snarls and swipes; if any of her young looked back longingly before they scattered to the safety of their high branches, she leapt to chase them away. I trembled from behind a boulder, feeling the hot blast of air as she roared her warning. The only mother I had known in my short life was gone, replaced with something terrible. She let him follow her. From where I hid, I saw his great head butting against her neck, and her answering nuzzle.

It was Artemis who had come for me, I would discover, and it was to her sacred grove that she had taken me. Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, to whom the forest and all its inhabitants belonged. We all fell under her silvery gaze, we all bowed to her might, from the worms slithering in the earth to the howling wolves. The forest of Arcadia shimmered with her power.

The stag broke through the trees, panicked by the hounds. It was a majestic creature, the antlers spreading wide and tall from its broad forehead, perhaps the most magnificent one I’d seen. Her arrow pierced its throat in an instant, before its liquid brown eyes could register the danger it had run into, and it slumped down, a trickle of red sliding down below the slender wooden shaft of her weapon. She caught my admiring glance and smiled. The next time, she showed me how to hold the bow, its weight seeming to thrum in my hands, quivering with power. From then, I lived for the days that Artemis would arrive in the grove, when she would beckon me out into the stillness of dawn with the bow in her hand. Her voice, low and urgent in my ear as she breathed her instructions: how to watch for the movement of the deer hidden deep among the ferns, how to render myself motionless, invisible, eyes fixed on the target, the bow strung taut in my hands until there was nothing left in the world but me and my quarry. I’d exhale as the arrow flew straight for its throat, just as she’d shown me. Under her tutelage, I shaped a bow of my own and never went anywhere in the forest without it. There was nothing sweeter to me in the world than the sound of her delighted laughter when I hit the mark.

As well as the thrill of success and the satisfaction of the kill, I wanted to please her. As the nymphs had told me, it was under the protection of Artemis that I had the chance to grow free and joyous. She didn’t live as the other gods did, and my life was like no other human’s either. Artemis shunned the golden halls of Mount Olympus, the grand cloud-cloaked palace where the other immortals lived. She chose a life in the forest instead, preferring to bathe in the pools by silver moonlight and run through the trees by day, swift and graceful, a quiver of arrows slung across her body and her bow always ready. I saw that it pleased her to have a mortal grow up in her image, and I was glad of it too, even if I didn’t quite understand just how much gratitude I truly owed her. I had never known a human hearth; I had no conception of how rare a thing it was to be the protégée of a goddess, to spend my childhood in the wild simplicity and raw magic of the woods.

Phiale took up the tale. ‘He tried to get away, he scrambled back towards the trees, but I could see where his hair dripped with water that there was something forming on his head, something that made no sense. I stared, not able to believe what I was seeing, but as he screamed, I saw it taking shape – two antlers twisting out of his skull.’ ‘Antlers?’ I gasped. ‘But how . . .?’ ‘He fell, and all across his body, fur was growing. He was convulsing, over and over, his screams ringing into the sky, and then he rolled over on to four legs – no longer a man but a stag.’ ‘The dogs . . .’ Callisto said, and she swallowed. ‘He tried to flee, his legs tangling underneath him. They leapt on him at once, and the whole grove rang with the sound of their snarls.’ ‘I couldn’t watch,’ Callisto said.

She was my sister, mother, guide and teacher all in one, and just like her, I wanted to fear nothing.

Across the water, Callisto had leapt out too, seeing my panic, and our eyes met. The nymphs on the other side sat up, puzzled but wary in the shattered peace of the gathering twilight. And then Arethusa screamed. Arethusa, who had leaned too far over the river that all at once seemed composed of a dozen watery hands, all of them slithering over her flesh. She twisted away, squirming free on to the slippery mud, screaming again as we heard his voice gurgling from the depth, a thick growl of rushing water shaping the words, ‘I am Alpheus, god of this river.’ A shudder ran down my spine. Artemis was the goddess of our forest, but these minor gods sprang up at every brook or pool. Most would not dare to incur her wrath, but some were brasher and bolder. Arethusa dragged herself to her feet and ran, but as I watched, a flurry of bubbles broke the surface and a shimmering, dripping form began to rise. Without thinking, I plunged back into the water, swimming to the other bank, where I yanked myself up on the muddy edge and tore after her. But he was following her too, his footsteps squelching at her back. If I fired my arrows, they’d slice right through his waters into her flesh. My breath was sharp and ragged in my lungs, but I called out to Artemis as he reared up over Arethusa like a wave, the emerging moon reflecting in his glistening crest.

‘Those innocent days on Sicily were ended.’ The bleakness in Callisto’s tone forbade any further reply. ‘Persephone’s vow was broken. Everything changed.’ I knew her meaning for certain when the crocuses peeped up outside my cave again, when buds sprouted and swelled on the trees, when the trilling of birds greeted the dawn and the starkness of winter was swallowed up in the profusion of life that accompanied Persephone’s annual ascension. The nymphs shrugged off their thick furs, returned to the bathing pools. Only Callisto hung back, reluctant, still swathed in a heavy dress, until Artemis grew impatient and commanded her to join. I saw it in Callisto’s face, the resignation, the defeat as she pulled away the draped fabric that hid her shape. The stunned silence in the grove as she stood before us all and we saw it at last, the rounded curve of her belly. I cast my eyes around the circle of nymphs and back to Callisto, pinned in the centre of their horrified gaze. I didn’t dare look at Artemis.

Omg

The goddess strode towards her, spear flashing at her side. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Her voice was cold. Callisto lifted her chin. I felt a pang of sympathy for her, but more powerful was the churning dread at what would happen next. ‘The storm, last summer,’ she said, and the final piece fell into place in my mind. ‘Zeus, the wielder of thunderbolts. You didn’t hear his approach, you didn’t know he came here, concealed in the chaos.’ Artemis snorted. ‘So you welcomed him here, in our forest?’ ‘I thought he was you. He took your shape, your form. In your voice, he called to me, urging me to follow, to take shelter from the rain. Thinking it was you, I went where he told me, and when he took hold of me and I saw who he truly was, there was no way I could escape.’ I swallowed, remembering the dazed, panic-stricken girl that had scrambled down the banks to my cave. The bruises on her arms, her torn dress, the blankness in her eyes. ‘All who follow me must abide by one condition,’ Artemis said. ‘I had no choice.’ But we all knew there was nothing to be gained by pleading. Callisto knew it as well as any of us. Tears sprang up in her eyes, her arms wrapped around her swollen body as she sank to her knees, weeping bitterly.

Omg

Artemis laid her hand on the girl’s head. Her expression was hard, unmoving, as she stood for an agonising moment, then stepped away. And, before all of our eyes, Callisto’s shuddering shoulders seemed to cave in, her body contorting. I saw her hands fly up to her face, but her fingernails were lengthening into curved claws. Her arms bristled with dark fur and her sobs became growls, any words she could have grasped at to defend herself lost to her forever. Where there had been a desperate girl, there was now an animal, a beast of the forest, a bear like the one who had taken pity on me when I was a newborn, but there was no pity in our goddess for Callisto. Only a harsh determination as she watched the desperate creature take in its transformation, look at us from one to the other, and then turn and flee the grove.

‘All that sail with him will earn fame and glory along the way.’ Her eyes looked steadily into mine and she smiled. ‘I want my share.’ ‘How?’ I breathed. ‘You go, in my name. You are stronger than them, you are fearless, and there is nothing that any one of them can do that you cannot. I want you to show them all who you are, what you have become.’ I hesitated. ‘I’ve never been to sea. I’ve never been outside this forest. I don’t know where Iolcus is, or Pagasae either.’ The unfamiliar names felt pleasing to say. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘No one learns more quickly than you.’ I could feel a response to her challenge creeping in. A straightening in my spine, a wash of energy. ‘Go, Atalanta.’ Her stare burned into me. ‘Board the Argo as my champion. Be the best of them all.’ I let the seductive promise of it fill my mind, sweeping aside any doubt or uncertainty. She’d put a name to the tiny glimmer of yearning I’d felt before, and now it yawned open into a desire more urgent than any I’d ever known. ‘I’ll do as you command,’ I answered. Her eyes shone with satisfaction.

‘Tell me about Calydon,’ I asked Meleager as we set off. I found myself interested to know what it was like, the place where he had been born and lived his life. Now that I knew a tiny piece of the world beyond the edges of my forest, I wanted to be able to picture more of it. ‘It’s ruled by my father, King Oeneus,’ he said. ‘Rich in vines, which thrive in our soil. My father says they’re a gift from Dionysus, that he came to Calydon and, in thanks for my father’s hospitality, gave them to us so we would always have plentiful wine.’ ‘Dionysus stayed in your father’s palace?’ ‘He did.’ ‘And?’ I could tell there was more to this story. He sighed. ‘My mother is very beautiful. She has borne my father many children . . . but when Dionysus honoured my father with his presence, it was obvious that he was very taken with my mother’s beauty. When my father realised this, he went away for a night, claiming that he had to perform some sacred rites, leaving the god with his wife.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘My sister, Deianira, was born nine moons later.’

Oh my

‘Really, they believe they have no need to fear for my life,’ he said. ‘Why not?’ ‘After I was born, my mother had a dream,’ he said. ‘She heard the Moirai talking – the three Fates who spin and cut the thread of every human life. They said her baby would live only until a log in the fire burned to ash. She woke, terrified, and saw the log from her dream burning in the hearth. She pulled it out, not caring about the burns or the blisters on her hands. She flung a woollen blanket over it to smother the flames and she has kept what’s left of the log locked away in a box. She believes I won’t die unless it’s set alight again.’ ‘Do you believe it, too?’ ‘It’s tempting. I wish I did, but – I can’t help thinking it might have only been the dream of an anxious mother.’ ‘So it doesn’t make you yearn to put it to the test?’

Omg franks ancestorrrr

He laughed again. ‘Not necessarily, no. But you were chosen by Artemis to join this voyage; do you feel safe knowing that she watches over you?’ ‘It’s not like that – not completely, anyway,’ I said. I saw what he meant, that he had no more guarantee of safety than I did. ‘She rescued me as a baby. I was left on the side of Mount Parthenion to die.’ I glanced at him to see how he reacted. His eyes were warm with sympathy, inviting me to go on. ‘She has her sacred animals in the forest and they do as she commands. It pleased her to have me taken up by a mother bear and raised with her cubs for a time. When I was no longer a baby, her nymphs took charge of my education. The bears never harmed me, and when they left me, she made sure I was cared for by the nymphs. But I learned to defend myself. In the forest, it’s the only way to survive.’ I thought of Arethusa, and Callisto. ‘If you make a mistake there, you bear the consequences. It’s the natural order of things.’ Even if that mistake was simply to trail your fingers in a river or stay out in the woods after dark, I didn’t add.

‘Look, Jason is there,’ he said, pointing to the furthest bench, one that sat higher than all of the others at the end of the hall. While the other benches were grouped together, a cluster of Argonauts and Lemnian women at each, Jason sat alone – with Hypsipyle. She was leaning in close to him, a curtain of hair obscuring her face from where I stood, but I could see his. He gazed at her, enrapt, utterly intent on whatever she was saying to him. He looked more comfortable and content than I had ever seen him. He’d struck me so far as unremarkable, but now, his easy smile and relaxed demeanour made him seem more handsome, more appealing than I’d considered him before. I sighed, frustrated. ‘I’m going in,’ Meleager said. ‘What?’ The horror I felt must have rung clear in my tone because he rushed to reassure me. ‘Not to join them – though they’ll think that’s why I’m here. I’m going to get Jason, make him come out here so we can talk to him together.’ It made sense. If I went in, I was sure it would alert Hypsipyle’s suspicion, but Meleager could easily be one of them. I watched him go, sure and confident as he greeted the crew, brushing off their roars of welcome and the drunken shouting, making his way directly to the leader. At the swell of noise, Jason tore himself away from the queen, looking around to see what the disturbance was. I watched Meleager lean in, Jason listening and Hypsipyle turning away, her displeasure at the interruption clear. I wondered if she would try...

He rested his forehead against mine; for a moment, we were suspended, standing still together before he spoke again. ‘Where did you go?’ I hesitated. ‘Just – after the rocks, I was . . .’ I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. What had I needed? Silence. Solitude. These were familiar to me. I’d never been afraid like I was when we were being tossed about in those churning waters, the unforgiving rocks ready to crush our bones to dust. I’d sought safety in a return to what I knew. The quiet peace of the empty woods, with only myself for company. ‘I looked for you,’ he said and I felt a swooping sensation, like tumbling from a precipice. I stepped back from him. ‘We should return. Idmon, we need to be there to bury him.’ ‘Not just that,’ Meleager said. I’d thought his face was so grave because of Idmon’s death, but there was more to come. ‘It’s Tiphys,’ he said. ‘He has a fever.’

Tiphys was worse than Meleager had described. He was ashen, moaning and delirious. Jason was at his side, frustration wrought across his face. ‘There’s nothing we can do but pray to the gods,’ Orpheus murmured beside me as we drew near. I saw Idas’ face, hollow with grief, as he knelt beside Idmon’s body. The gods had been far from the woods today. I looked up at the clouds, searching for the stars. We clustered together on that lonely beach, waiting for the hours of the night to pass. Tiphys’ life ebbed away before dawn. We buried them both at sunrise.

‘Impressive,’ he said. He smiled. ‘Is there nothing you can’t do better than anyone else?’ I laughed. ‘Maybe not.’ Peleus hauled himself to his feet and marched away. His friends followed him, tight-lipped and frowning, but others clustered around me, generous with their praise: Orpheus, Euphemus and Idas most sincerely so. I basked in their celebration. I wondered briefly where Meleager had gone, but I was too elated to think more about it. I felt like my cheeks would split from smiling. I had spent so much of the past few weeks hoping that Artemis couldn’t see me, that her eyes wouldn’t fall upon me, that she might have forgotten she had sent me and turned her attention to other matters. But this, this I wished she could see. I had done this on my own, and I had done it for every nymph I’d shared the forest with.

had shown me that the gods could be as ruthless to their favourites as they were to their enemies. Jason thought that Hera’s blessing was the same as her protection. He didn’t see that she had merely given him the chance to succeed. If he failed her, it would be better he die than survive long enough to face her disappointment. But he knew nothing of the gods. Jason thought the world was built for heroes. I knew we had to build it ourselves.

I had left my forest for this quest, convinced it would be a feat of heroic glory. But the bulls, the earthborn warriors, the monstrous snake – none of it had been our battle. Somehow, we had been spectators to Medea’s victory instead.

It was their rage, I thought, the anger for their stolen girl that made them punish every man they saw.

‘What happened here?’ Medea asked. ‘A man, a trespasser here in the Garden of Hesperides, intent upon the Golden Apples,’ the dryad whispered. ‘It was our task to tend them, but his to steal them. He slew the serpent with his poisoned arrows, beating its head with his giant club as it died. He was ferocious, unstoppable.’ My eyes widened. ‘What did he look like?’ She shrank in on herself. ‘Huge. Bearded. He wore a lion skin draped over his shoulders.’ ‘Heracles!’ The shout went up around our circle, the noise startling her, and she darted away, lost between the trees as though she had never been there at all. The serpent was newly slain, and we searched for our lost companion, but it seemed he had made away already. It heartened the crew, though, to know that he was travelling still, that he must be once more engaged upon his own quests. This task was so similar to ours: a golden treasure, guarded by a monstrous snake. It made me wonder what Heracles would have made of the way in which Jason had won the trials in Colchis. The same thought might have occurred to Jason; he merely scowled as the others cheered.

Gasp

‘Tomorrow, at sunrise then,’ he said. ‘At the city gates.’ And with that, he turned and slipped away through the streets, his cloak swinging behind him. I made my way back to the palace alone. Although my body betrayed me, yearning to invite him back to my chamber again, I felt released too. Behind the safety of the bolted door, I would let myself feel pity for both of us, just for tonight. But tomorrow would be the start of something new.

‘I should have let the fire burn that log to ashes when you were a baby. I should never have tried to cheat the Fates. I should have let you die.’ Her dress flared out behind her as she swung around and fled between the columns. I feared to look at Meleager’s face. The king bowed his head. ‘You cannot return here.’

Tears were falling down Oeneus’ cheeks now. ‘If the gods will pardon you—’ he began and for a moment, I felt hopeful. But Meleager staggered backwards, his face contorted all at once in agony. His body doubled over and he fell to his knees. I heard his wife screaming, shrieking to know what was happening. He was writhing on the ground, and she threw herself down, trying to hold him still, but he jerked back and forth, a stream of words flooding from his mouth. Burning, I heard, I’m burning, and I could see it, how he desperately fought to escape the flames that weren’t there, how he was consumed from the inside out, rolling over on the ground, trying to extinguish the inferno that no one could see, until at last he was motionless, limp and silent, his eyes rolled backwards into his head. His wife seized his shoulders, pleading with him to wake, but it was no use. The queen had had her vengeance. Meleager was dead.

GASP

There was a sizzle in her eyes, a surge of contempt. ‘When I heard the Argo had returned victorious, I awaited your return to the forest at once,’ she said. ‘That you flouted me to go after the boar I had sent to Calydon, that was my first inkling of your disobedience. I watched the hunt. I saw what happened.’ I felt the sear of her disappointment, the only moment when I thought I might break apart. ‘Why didn’t you come to me then?’ I whispered. I pictured her cold stare, watching me flee Calydon. How broken and alone I had been. And she was there, all along. ‘I let you make your own way back,’ she answered. There was no mercy in her; I’d learned that long ago. ‘To see that you would return to me. Perhaps I would have shown myself to you on your journey – except that I saw before you did the unmistakeable signs of what else it was you had done.’ She dropped her gaze to my swollen middle, her meaning clear. I braced myself for what was coming, for whatever she was to inflict on me. ‘The nymphs can never know what you have done,’ she said, and I didn’t close my eyes or plead or tremble. The mountains behind her were silent, the night dark and uncaring. There was no circle of anguished women around us to watch how she punished me. I breathed in the familiar green scent of the air I loved. I was thankful she had not sprung upon me as I made my way home, that at least I had made it back here once again. ‘Stay hidden, Atalanta,’ she said. I stared, uncomprehending.

‘Let everyone think you perished after the boar hunt.’ Her face was tight with determination. ‘You cannot bring a baby into the forest, I cannot allow it. My nymphs must keep their vow. They cannot see you go unpunished for breaking it.’ She turned her face, as though listening for something in the forest, and my heart jumped at the reprieve I’d never expected and the fierce beauty of her profile in the moonlight. ‘But you won the Fleece, and for that, I’ll let you go free.’ The earth felt unsteady beneath my feet as she glanced back at me one more time. ‘You can live as you are, Atalanta. But you have lost your place among my nymphs.’ She paused, and everything was still as though the forest around her quieted itself to listen. Her face was devoid of any trace of pity as she uttered her final words to me. ‘You can never come home again.’

Omg...

The day that he was born, I felt an unfamiliar terror, a deep and primal horror opening up inside me as I looked out towards the trees beyond our shack. Artemis came to help women in childbirth; I feared to see her shape materialise, to see her running gracefully from the cover of the woods to come to the aid of a desperate mother, only to see my face. But the trees remained still and silent, only the gentle breath of the wind ruffling their leaves. I gritted my teeth through the surging pains, the floor rough against my knees as I kept my eyes fixed on the dark, distant forest interior where the branches twined together, wishing I could feel that cool, damp air on my face, the moss-tinged green freshness. She never came. I told myself she had no need to, that I didn’t struggle in labour. That I could do it without her guidance or her help, even if she had been willing to offer it. He was born and I watched the huntsman’s wife lift him in her arms, her face shining with delight. She pressed his warm, round cheek against her rough, wrinkled one. I saw that his eyes were like Meleager’s and, too exhausted to cry, I turned away from them both and slept.

I saw the tracks of the other hunter immediately. Aura and I usually had the mountainside to ourselves. I’d chosen the least hospitable slopes, those with the most perilous faces, the most dense and prickly shrubs, where shade was hardest to find. Where we wouldn’t be disturbed by anyone else. Whoever it was hadn’t left many traces, but enough for me to recognise at once. I slowed my pace, coming to a halt and turning slowly, checking every direction for where he might be. Aura sat poised on her haunches, nose to the air. She whined a little at something, some remnant of a scent maybe. I held out my hand to her, a silent command to stay still. Then I nodded and she slunk forwards, both of us treading as silently as we could. I was curious to know who had made it up here, who else would venture so far when the lower reaches of the forest were home to a wealth of scampering animals, ripe fruits and cool water. Up here, you were more likely to encounter a prowling lion than a deer. I wasn’t afraid – whoever it was, it didn’t matter. But I could feel something poised in the air, a moment suspended, the last breath before everything would be different. I’d felt this before, before I joined the Argonauts. It gave me misgivings. I didn’t trust in the future the same way I had back then.

I drew it in, a deep inhalation, steadying myself as I came to a rocky outcrop just below the highest peak. This wasn’t somewhere you would stumble upon by mistake. Whoever it was must know me, might even have been tracking me, and there was virtually no one alive and mortal I could think of who could do such a thing. I breathed out, braced my shoulders and stepped around the jutting rocks. My eyes widened in surprise. ‘It’s you,’ I said.

I worried he was about to wail in protest, so I walked him back to the path I had just come from, keeping up a stream of nonsensical chatter to divert him from his grievance, pacing this way and that. The sun was dipping behind the mountains in a blaze of crimson; I pointed it out to him and he turned his face to look at it, the fiery glow illuminating his stern expression. And then I heard it: the flight of footsteps coming down from between the trees, the shape detaching itself from the darkness and his voice ringing out in surprise. ‘Atalanta?’ I closed my eyes for a moment, fervently wishing him gone. Then I turned, the child in my arms now clearly visible to him, and I saw the shock in his eyes, his mouth gaping around the words that had deserted him as he stared at Parthenopaios.

‘I went back to my friends after I saw you today. They told me that news was spreading of a message from King Iasus. Your father. He’s put out word that he wants to find you.’ I spluttered. ‘My father? Doesn’t he think I’m dead?’ ‘He must have heard differently. Even if the Argonauts are all telling their own versions of the voyage, there are people who saw you sail from Iolcus, who are sure they caught a glimpse of a woman with braided hair and a short tunic on board the ship. Together with the rumours there have always been about a huntress in these forests, the stories have trickled back to him. He’s heard that his daughter survived, and that she accompanied Jason. Whether he believes it’s really true or not, I don’t know, but he’s sent out heralds to spread the message that he wants you to come home.’ ‘Home? He cast me out to die. I had no home with him; I only had the home that Artemis gave me. Why does he think I’d go back?’ I turned away from the sympathy in Hippomenes’ eyes, looking out into the dark trees.

I stepped into the light so they could see me clearly, as tall as any man but with braids wrapped around my head. I saw their eyes widen and I spoke, my voice clear and ringing. ‘Tell the king that his daughter has returned.’ I saw the surprise flooding across each of their faces. I smiled. ‘He has sent out word for my return, so tell him I am here. Tell him I am Atalanta, the huntress of Arcadia and heroine of the Argo.’

‘Whoever marries my daughter will inherit my kingdom,’ he said. And with these words, I began to realise how badly I had miscalculated. ‘Send out the heralds with the news: I seek a husband for the bold and beautiful Atalanta.’ I wrenched my wrist from his grasp, more forcefully than I intended, and he stumbled a little. My chest was still heaving from the elation I had felt only moments before, the thrill of my own strength, the rush of my own fearlessness. ‘I’ve sworn I’ll never marry,’ I said, my voice carrying loud and clear to all the assembled listeners. ‘There is no man that can ever match me.’ I could see Iasus gathering his composure. ‘In the forest, maybe, you could live like that. But you’ve come back here, wanting to claim your birthright. As the daughter of a king, that birthright is marriage. We will have to comb the length and breadth of Greece to find a suitor worthy of you’ – he sneered – ‘but be assured that we will.’ It felt as though everyone watching held their breath, the silence between us as sharp as a blade.

I made myself just as composed as him, a taunt lacing the edge of my words as I spoke. ‘Find a man that can outrun me – that’s the only man I’ll marry.’ And he smiled. He turned to the crowd, held his arms out in an expansive gesture. ‘Let that be the message you take from here,’ he commanded. ‘We will hold a footrace – the man that can run faster than Atalanta will win her.’ He lingered over the next words almost lovingly. ‘Any man who loses the race will lose his life. Let that be the challenge. This is how we’ll find a husband deserving of my daughter.’ There was a buzz of excited chatter. Iasus strode away from me, but I stood frozen, staring at Hippomenes, wondering what I should do now.

I needed to remember who I was, who I had always been. A woman who was unafraid.

challenge Atalanta too! Let me run as well.’ The voice was familiar, but it was impossible that it could be so. Dread kept me from turning around to confirm it. There was a ripple of laughter in Iasus’ voice as he spoke. ‘Hippomenes? You put yourself forward as a potential husband?’ ‘I do.’ I closed my eyes, willing him to stop with every sinew in my body. ‘I’m a worthy suitor for your daughter,’ Hippomenes said. ‘I’m the son of a king. I was part of the famed Calydonian boar hunt.’ ‘And can you run?’ There were sniggers from the spectators. ‘I can.’ But I knew, and so did he, that I’d outrun him countless times. ‘And if I win,’ he went on, ‘I demand that you let the other suitors go unharmed.’ ‘I accept your challenge, Hippomenes. Maybe the gods are smiling down on you today.’ Iasus’ voice was smooth as honey. And to my disbelieving horror, Hippomenes came forwards to crouch at my side. The shout came before I had a chance to do anything. ‘Competitors, ready!’

Iasus was staring at me expectantly. Whatever he’d said, I hadn’t heard it over my racing thoughts. ‘What?’ I asked. There were hands on my shoulders, a cool weight placed on my collarbones. I looked down to see a string of polished stones that someone was fastening around my neck. ‘The marriage will take place at once,’ Iasus was saying. Hippomenes was shaking his head. ‘But, the rituals – nothing has been observed, there hasn’t been any preparation, any sacrifice. How can a marriage take place like this – a royal marriage, at that? Surely we should wait, make proper arrangements.’ He was babbling desperately. Trying to save me again. I put my hand on his arm. ‘What preparations do we need?’ I said, and his mouth dropped open, his bewilderment almost comical. A laugh rose up in my chest, a sudden swoop of merriment. I turned to the king. ‘Nothing about this situation is usual. I made a bargain with you, and I’ll honour it. We’ll get married here.’ I took a long breath. The air was quiet and still. No divine wrath, no signs of Artemis’ fury descended in the wake of my revelation. I cleared my throat. ‘Now.’

I didn’t have to be an obedient follower of Artemis, jumping to serve her every command; I didn’t have to be a hero in the mould of Jason or Heracles or the angry boar-hunters at Calydon. I wasn’t going to try to shape myself to be like one of them, a ruthless, self-serving, glory-seeking man. I was something different to them all.

The clouds gathered above our heads as we hurried back along the road that had brought us into the town, past the palace, from where rhythmic drumbeats accompanied the loose scatter of notes falling from a lyre, shouts of laughter, bursts of song, voices lifted up to celebrate a wedding feast with no bride or groom. I wondered how long it would take Iasus to realise that his prize had slipped away, that he had no daughter to boast of anymore. Whatever he might have given us – treasure or ships or quests – anything I did with his resources would have been in his name, and I would never let that happen. It was nothing to me if my name was forgotten in halls like his, left unspoken by men like him, if it faded away from the songs and memories of men whose opinions were worthless to me. It had taken the sight of the Golden Apples for me to realise, but I knew it now. We ran on through the rain, beyond the limits of the town, into the wilderness together.

we tossed into the mud. But I couldn’t hold the thoughts clearly enough, they were too slippery, arching free from my grasp like the fish I tried to pluck from the river as the bears did all those years ago. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Hippomenes’ eyes were dreamy and unfocused, succumbing to the same trance as me. Aphrodite’s trance, Aphrodite’s bewitchment, that she cast on us now in punishment for the Apples we had disdained. Somewhere in my mind, the lucid part of me screamed in warning, but I couldn’t fight against it, and neither could he. ‘Rhea,’ he said, gesturing at a carving on the wall, dragging his thumb over the shapes standing out in relief. I peered at them through the shifting shadows. Rhea, the goddess that Artemis had told me of once. Rhea who had ruled this forest before anyone else. Rhea, the mother of gods, mother of mountains, mother of the world. She was outlined in gold, glinting in the dim light, her high crown and flowing dress, stone lions prowling at her feet. So, this had been her temple, her sacred place of worship. It seemed right that it was so nearly swallowed up by nature, that the vines and plants had taken it back, working between the stones, claiming it back to the earth again, making it wild.

‘We have to get away,’ I mumbled. ‘Hide in here.’ And he nodded, dazed. The heavy fragrance of the roses receded as we made our way further inside. Now I breathed in Hippomenes again, the fresh mountain-scent, the earthiness of the temple interior, moss and stone. I barely thought of where we were, of the wooden carvings of ancient deities standing like guards around the ruined walls, Rhea taller than any of them, her painted eyes on us. I kissed him right in front of her, lightning sparking behind my eyes, an eager intensity that burned away any other thoughts in my head. The thought I’d tried to hold on to, the worry that a vengeful Aphrodite was leading us into a trap, it didn’t matter now. That fear drifted away like a wisp of cloud as I pulled him closer to me, his hands sliding down my back, his hair tangled in my fingers, nothing else existing in the world but the two of us. The flames roared through me, an inferno obliterating any coherent deliberation, anything that could have held me back from him. If it was Aphrodite’s spell that had us ensnared, our wits clouded by her magic, we were caught in it together. The night beyond the temple’s walls was still poised and watchful, but within its dark sanctuary, we were all that mattered.

Again, a swell of air surged through the temple, and I sat up, my hair blowing back behind me as another gust whistled past and I heard her voice. Low and primal, a voice as ancient as the universe. Rhea. ‘Animals,’ she rasped, and the words layered one over another, like waves crashing and receding. ‘Like animals . . . my temple . . . in my sanctuary . . . so brazen.’

Hippomenes grasped my arm, his hand tight around me. The enchantment had dropped away; I saw it now and so did he. Aphrodite had led us in here, into Rhea’s temple, and let passion overwhelm us. Artemis had told me that Rhea had left these woods, but she was here and she had seen what we did. We stared at each other, wordless, as the wind roused again, a discordant shriek that grew louder and louder until we pressed our hands over our ears and I clamped my eyes shut, trying to drive it out. The leaves were whirling, flying around us as she raged, and then, abruptly, they dropped. Everything was motionless, the goddess herself holding her breath for an instant. I felt it on the back of my neck first: a scratching sensation, something tiny twisting its way out of me, through my skin, a thousand little pinpricks. Then a ripple that shuddered through my whole body, that seized it in a powerful convulsion. I thought that the goddess had me in her grip, that she was tossing me from side to side, but the movement was coming from my own body – a body that didn’t feel like mine anymore, the shape of my limbs unfamiliar, a pressure building to an unbearable intensity, the sudden hideous conviction that I was bursting out of my own flesh, that I couldn’t be contained. A howl tried to force its way out of my throat, but it was a grumbling, thunderous sound, guttural and raw, unrecognisable. I was not what I had been. And as I lifted my head, the weight of it different now, the arching...

But the terror of a moment ago was melting away. A flood of new sensations was rushing in. My legs, always strong and muscled before, now tensed, ready to spring with a new kind of force. Power, thrumming through every part of my body, greater than anything I’d ever felt before. I felt the goddess strike my head, her palm reverberating against the golden fur that cloaked me now. I saw her fingers twisting in the tawny mane of the lion at my side, my lover, but it was joy that pulsed ...

The oracle warned that I would lose myself, but the opposite is true. I am more myself than I have ever been. I am wild, I am free. I am Atalanta.