“
What are you saying, Argus?” Jason came out of the darkness like a murdered man’s ghost. “I heard you mention my name.”
“Only telling Atalanta here about your own exploits as a hunter,” Argus said as naturally as if it were true. “You ought to show her that leopard-skin trophy of yours. It’s a beauty.”
“There’ll be time enough to show her that later.” Jason tried to look annoyed, but I could tell that Argus’s smooth talk had flattered him. “When I choose to do it, not when you try to send me off on an errand. I still lead this venture, not you.”
I hated his arrogant attitude toward Argus, to whom he owed so much, but there was little I could do about it. The best I could manage was a ruse to divert him. “A leopard skin?” I put the proper note of awe into my voice. “You should wear it when Lord Aetes summons us to his hall. One look at such a prize and he’ll know who our leader is without asking!”
“You think that will be necessary?” Jason growled, giving Argus a hard, resentful stare.
I pretended I hadn’t heard that. “A leopard! Not even Herakles could boast such a kill. He wore a lion’s pelt, but brute strength’s all you need to slay one of those beasts. You need strength and brains to overcome a leopard.”
“Would you really like to see the pelt?” Jason asked eagerly. I nodded. “For you, then, honored huntress,” he said in a low, honeyed voice. He leaped back aboard the Argo with so much vigor that Argus had to bite his lips to hold back the laughter.
“I’ll never call you ‘girl’ again,” Argus said to me. “A woman twice your age would envy your cunning!”
“If I were still ‘Glaucus,’ you’d say I was smart or clever, not cunning,” I chided him.
“Pfff! What does one little word matter?”
“So you won’t mind if I call the Argo a ferryboat?” I replied sweetly.
”
”
Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Prize (Nobody's Princess, #2))