Voyage With Jason: Part 5

By KEN CATRAN, Illustrator NICK STATHOPOULOS

'Does Shipwright Argus know this?' I asked.

Argus was a tall thin-faced man with a bitter-twisting mouth. A good shipwright, crawling over our wood-boned fish every day, though he never noticed me. Thegus shrugged, his voice still mild.

'That is not your concern. Finish the pegs and you will have a good meal tonight in my shelter. Salt fish, olives and carrots, even some wine, eh?'

Nothing would get me near his shelter. And I was sick of this. I was Greek, freeborn, even though he treated me like a slave, this sweat-smelling pig of a Thracian. I threw down my chisel.

'I will not make pegs to sink a ship!'

Thegus leaned his face close to me. Close enough for me to see the mixed sweat and oil on his face, the pitch-spots in his thick matted beard. His long bronze dagger creaked a little in its leather scabbard. His eyes were black as charcoal.

'Yes, Pylos. You will.'

Publisher: Lothian

Price: $17.95

Age group: 11 years plus