Chapter 23
The days at sea had transformed him into a demi-god deserving of the name, although it had not come without hard work and sweat. Athena had placed among his crew two warriors from Sparta; one slight man, whose feet moved more nimbly than those of a cat; the other, almost double the size, who could throw a man like Perseus with one hand. For hours each morning, while his crew tended to the ship, Perseus would spar with them. Day after day, through storms and blistering sun, he endured blow after blow as he sought the skills that had taken them years to possess. Each morning, they would be up before Perseus had risen, ready to administer their lessons. His skin would split again and again. His legs, his shoulders; no part of his body was immune to their weapons. His knuckles grew hard and strong, and his palms calloused and scarred as, time and again, he was disarmed and forced to battle with his hands alone. His nose, he feared, would never know its birth-given shape again. He went to bed with limbs aching, purpled with bruises, and brown with dried blood, and he woke each morning ready to train harder still.
It did not take long before he decided on the xiphos as his weapon of choice. The sound of the double-edged sword slicing through the air became to him as rhythmic as the oars against the sea. The dull thud as it struck his opponent’s armour – more and more frequent with every day that passed – as melodic as the mistle thrush. He grew faster, stronger, more agile. He learned to read his two opponents’ moves, a twitch of the thigh, a flick of the finger. Soon, he was asking other members of the crew to join with them. To even the field. Three, four, five on one. Soon, Perseus could take all of them on.
Time spent away from training, he spent learning.
‘Which island is that?’ he would ask the men when a new smudge appeared on the horizon. They would tell him, and he would make a note, not only of the location but of the landscapes, the ports and villages visible from the sea. Populations. Temples. Kings and the gods which favoured them. He studied the maps, marking the places he knew to be treacherous from tales which Dictys had told them around the dinner table and, adding to it, the knowledge of the men, each of whom had far more experience than he. Occasionally, when the chance occurred, he cast a net from the side of the boat and gathered fish for his men.
‘All those muscles to gut a fish,’ one man said as Perseus took his knife to the belly of a Palamida that he had caught in his net. The feel of the blade against the scales was a tender reminder of home. ‘Perhaps Athena would prefer to bestow her patronage to one of us instead.’
‘Perhaps I can see how well the skill of gutting transfers onto a man?’ Perseus replied, lifting his knife out of the fish. ‘Would you be volunteering for the post?’ Laughter rippled through the men. After they ate, they talked about wives and families and women who were not their wives, but by whom their families had been extended.
The night Perseus’ second sibling paid him a visit, he had been feeling the pull of Seriphos stronger than ever before. The lack of cicadas or children shouting created an unease that he found impossible to displace, while the men’s laughter from the other side of the boat only added to his feeling of isolation. Through time, he had earned their respect and their friendship, but their bonds had, as yet, experienced no adversity. Their shared stories spanned a length of months, not years or decades. If he were to leave that night, there would be no gaping hole in their lives; perhaps just a moderate hint of dolefulness for an hour or so. That night, the homesickness had struck painfully within his gut, the enormity and absurdity of what he had undertaken swilling through him like the sour drinks he wished to drown his sorrows in.
He had removed himself from the crew and was alone in his quarters, a full goblet of wine resting on the table. Since boarding the boat, he had barely drunk a sip, mindful to keep his wits sharp for the journey, but that evening the oppressive heat and burgeoning anguish had driven him to pour himself a fresher taste. One sip had been enough, though, and now his drink waited unattended, like all the other chores he had set for himself that night.
They had travelled far less that day than he had hoped. For the first time on his voyage, the winds had dropped, and the men were forced to use more and more of their own strength to keep them on course and drive them forwards. With it came once again the realisation that even with Pallas Athena on his side, the journey was not an easy one. Pursing his lips, he stared at his reflection. His hair had turned blonder from the salt and sun, his shoulders broader from the training, and the stubble that adorned his cheeks was now more akin to that of a man than a child. Pushing himself out of his seat, he passed his table and removed the mirrored item from the wall. This was it, Athena’s gift. His single weapon against Medusa. A shield, polished to a perfect mirror.
‘This way, you may see where the Gorgon sleeps, without risking her looking at you directly,’ Athena had told him.
‘I am to kill her in her sleep?’ Perseus
