Honour's Dawn

Honour's dawn is breaking for woman's sex; no more shall the foul tongue of slander fix upon us.
—Euripides, Medea

She finished her notes and set the jug aside. It was really a particularly fine example of its period, with only a few hairline cracks and a missing handle, and exceptionally good decoration. The dig had produced quite a few truly remarkable items, more than had been expected; the site must have been of more importance, or wealthier, than they had previously assumed.

She looked at the gold necklace she meant to catalogue next; it had been discovered in an ivory box in a cavity in an interior wall, and had possibly once been wrapped in fabric. It was quite odd, really, because there had been jewelry that had been much less carefully hidden, including a few pieces with precious and semi-precious stones. It must have had some non-monetary importance. Most curiously, it was of a considerably older style than anything else found at this site; three beaten wires of gold supported five enamelled gold pendants, two of which were decorated with snakes, the remaining three with a woman’s profile. She amended her notes; the three women were different people, or different goddesses. The piece had perhaps been some sort of family heirloom, or a ritual item, or the mistress of the house had simply been fond of antique styles.

She shook her head at her musings, thinking it was time for a rest after cataloguing this artifact, and picked up the necklace. The shock when the sun-warmed gold settled into her palm was unexpected but familiar; it was like diving into cold water on a hot day, goosebumps and shivering and sudden transformation of the light into something cool and blue-tinged. Laughter and music and the sound of fire beat at the edges of her awareness, and the vision burst into her brain with the same disorientation and sudden claustrophobia of the first few seconds underwater.

It is night, and the feasting hall shines with candles and lamps, for the great celebration of the marriage of Jason of the Argonauts to the King of Corinth’s daughter Glauce. Food and drink are passed around most generously, the men brag of their skills and tell stories of their battles, and the women laugh at them, trading stories of their own. Jason accepts his accolades merrily, pouring wine with a flourish, and Glauce beside him is as gracious as the King of Corinth’s daughter should be. And then the doors blast open with a sound like waves smashing into rock.

Silence falls as Medea storms into the room, her hair wild, her face haggard, her clothes torn. She carries a blanket-wrapped burden in her arms, and no one moves as she strides across the hall, as if the celebrants had been frozen in time. Her eyes never leave Jason, and he stares at her in growing dread.

She drops her burden at Jason's feet, and the blanket falls open to reveal the blank staring eyes of their sons. Glauce looks at the dead children, then her husband, and turns her eyes to Medea's face. The pendants gleaming on her fine necklace seem to tarnish in Medea’s shadow.

"Did you think you would escape unscathed, Jason?" Medea cries, tearing at her hair. "Here is the reward of your betrayal!"

"Medea!" He has not looked at his sons' bodies nor Glauce, has not taken his eyes from Medea since she entered the hall.

"This is my wedding gift to you, Jason! Your sons dead at your feet, your gains tainted, blood and bitter gall yours to drink!" She tears at her face, blood spilling from the marks of her nails.

"Murderer!" Jason shouts, and the words fall flat against the storm of her fury.

Medea laughs, a wild less-than-human sound. "Let the Furies follow me! To me they are the Kindly Ones, I have nothing left to lose!"

The women in the hall, including Glauce, begin to keen, a low soft sound at first, but rising steadily. Medea turns and stalks from the hall, raising her own voice in a wild unearthly wail that soars over and around the other women's voices. The keening builds until the men fall to their knees, heads buried in their hands.

Glauce has never taken her eyes from Medea.

Medea slams the door behind her and every light in the hall is extinguished. The other women’s voices fall into silence, but Medea and Glauce's voices blend into a single bitter cry and break into silence on a final shattering note.

The necklace slithered out of her trembling hand, falling to the table with a solemn clanking, and shone warmly in the failing light. She gasped for air like a drowning woman, never sure when the visions ended whether she was waking or going to sleep. There were no tears for this, no words, only a terrible burning ache in her chest and the echoes of the keening in her ears. She propped her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, seeing the images of Medea’s dead sons in their pitiful shroud. They had such innocent faces, wide staring eyes only a little confused, skin not quite corpse-pale yet. Those boys, flung vengefully at their father’s feet, had been barely older than her own sons.

Her breathing steadied, and she looked up, expecting to see Medea’s raging face before her; but there were only the tent walls, and the artifacts she had been cataloguing throughout the dig, and her colleagues were still out in the field working since there was still light. She reached unsteadily for the family photograph adorning her makeshift desk, ran her fingers over the images of her sons, and put it down with shaking hands. She wished she did not understand what kind of rage could drive a woman to such vengeance.

She reached for her canteen and took a deep drink, surprised irrationally by the water; she had expected wine, though she had never liked wine. It was always hard, after a vision, to stop looking for things that had never been there. The necklace gleamed in front of her; she finished her cataloguing with faintly trembling hands, and put it away wrapped in a silk scarf she had bought in a market on another dig.

Her sons did not understand the startlingly affectionate email they received that night.