Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons Read online

  “Like you,” Hippolyta said, still angry at the boy, “the Lydians need to watch where they’re going.”

  The boy turned to her, and this time he stared without any disguise. “Are you a barbarian?”

  “An Amazon, my prince,” Dares said quickly.

  The boy wrinkled his nose and announced loudly, “She’s dirty. Someone should give her a bath.”

  “And someone should teach you manners,” Hippolyta said.

  Dares gave her a warning frown, but the boy wasn’t at all put off.

  “Do your men let you talk like that?” he asked. “I thought barbarians beat their women and kept them in cages.”

  “We have no men,” Hippolyta answered, “and no need of them, either.”

  “You’re very savage for a girl.” He considered her carefully. “Better not talk to my father that way.”

  “I will if he talks to me the way you do,” Hippolyta declared. The baby in her arms began to fuss, for the sound of argument frightened him.

  “Calm yourself, girl,” Dares advised. “For the baby’s sake, if not your own.”

  Hippolyta shrugged him off and walked down the hall. Dares followed after her.

  “How can you bow and scrape to that spoiled brat?” Hippolyta asked.

  “He’s a prince,” said Dares. “You’d best remember that.”

  “Well, I’m a princess,” she replied. “You’d best remember that?”

  “She’s going to get in trouble, isn’t she?” Tithonus called, running after them. “I’d like to see that.”

  Dares turned. “Prince Tithonus, please return to your quarters.” His voice was low and respectful, but there was no arguing with it. “Your father will want to see this girl alone.”

  The boy raised his eyebrows. “Will he? I wouldn’t. She smells.”

  “I don’t smell,” Hippolyta protested.

  “She smells no more than any of us who’ve been out for days sleeping rough,” Dares said, keeping himself between the two. “And less than most.” He gave the boy a gentle pat on the shoulder to speed him on his way.

  The prince kept glancing back as he walked away, but Dares let out a sigh of relief when the boy was finally out of sight.

  Around the next corner was a pair of great doors guarded by two men carrying long and cruel-looking spears. They glowered at Hippolyta but gave way at Dares’ command, turning to push open the heavy wooden doors.

  This room was even more elegant than the rest. The ceiling seemed supported by the slenderest of carved pillars. A series of mosaic tiles, arranged in patterns, made up the floor.

  In the center of the room was a pool of bright blue water. There two pretty young women in delicate silken robes were dabbling their feet.

  On the far side of the pool a man as golden and maned as a lion reclined on a couch. He looked up languidly, like a great beast roused from sleep, his gaze settling on Hippolyta.

  “Prisoner of war, Dares?” He sounded both self-assured and amused.

  “No, my king,” Dares answered, keeping his eyes firmly lowered.

  The king looked searchingly at Hippolyta and the baby. Then he said, “People usually bow when they come before me.” He said it softly, but even to Hippolyta it sounded like a threat.

  “I am a princess of the Amazons. I bow before no man,” she replied.

  The king’s head went back, and he roared with laughter. When he laughed, the rough planes of his face resolved into something resembling beauty.

  Then he stopped laughing as suddenly as he’d begun and looked at Hippolyta again, his eyes narrowing. “I know what you are, little Amazon. I have seen many of your sisters. Even loved a few. What I don’t know is why you’ve brought your little bundle here.”

  He stood and walked over to Hippolyta. He was tall and wide-shouldered. His golden beard poured down his chest like a glittering wave. His long white robe was trimmed in purple and cinched in by a silver belt studded with red and green stones.

  In spite of herself, Hippolyta was impressed. Surely Zeus himself looks no more kingly.

  “She’s here because of the baby,” Dares said.

  The king leaned over and looked at the child, who reached out for his beard. “Why should this child concern me?”

  “I must speak privately with you, King of Troy,” Hippolyta said. “My mother, Otrere, commands it of me.”

  At her mother’s name, King Laomedon looked up, for a moment startled. Then he snapped his fingers to summon one of the girls.

  “Take the child, Artemesia. Treat it well till I ask for it again,” he commanded.

  “It’s a boy,” Hippolyta said, handing the baby to the girl. “His name is Podarces.” Strange, she thought, how reluctant I am to give up this little burden now.

  “All of you but this little barbarian leave me,” commanded Laomedon.

  “Your Majesty, are you certain—” Dares began.

  Hippolyta wondered whether he wanted to stay for her protection—or the king’s. She was about to say she could handle herself when Laomedon interrupted.

  “Check the defenses on the north wall, Dares.” He waved his hand. “I need no help from you here.”

  Dares bowed low and, with a final warning glance at Hippolyta, left the chamber.

  CHAPTER NINE

  KING LAOMEDON

  THE KING WALKED OVER to a table and poured himself a cup of wine. He did it with deliberate slowness, like a great beast deciding its next move.

  When at last he looked up, he asked, “What is your name, daughter of Otrere?”

  “Hippolyta,” she answered. “Princess of the Amazons.”

  “But not the oldest of Otrere’s brats,” he said.

  “Second oldest,” she admitted.

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment but drained the cup of wine halfway. Hippolyta felt every bit of the time stretching out, like a leash around her neck.

  “Otrere,” Laomedon mused. “Lovely copper hair. Amber eyes. Nice smile. We spent some time together. Twice.” He grinned, and the wine glistened on his lips.

  Hippolyta hated the way he spoke of her mother, as if she were a broodmare he’d owned.

  “We last met some months ago, on the Phrygian border by Aphrodite’s grotto.” The smile grew broader as he remembered. “I asked her to stay longer, for she matches me in spirit. I like that. But she would not. You Amazons are a restless lot.” Now the smile was incandescent, like a candle before it burns down a house. “Take her my warmest regards when you go.”

  “She needs more than your”—Hippolyta spit out the next two words as if they were some filth in her mouth—“warmest regards.” Drawing in a deep breath, she said, “She needs more because of that child of yours.”

  “The child you brought?”

  He’s toying with me, Hippolyta thought. He knows very well the child is his. But she couldn’t think why he should be doing so.

  “Yes,” she said, “your son. Do you deny that he is yours, King Laomedon?”

  He shrugged, finished the wine, and set the cup back on the table. “I saw a resemblance to her. Not to me. Still, she has no reason to lie about such a thing. So, you’ve brought him to his father’s house, as is your custom. Very well, princess, you’ve done your duty. If you go to the kitchens, they will feed you before you leave.”

  He reached across the table to a bowl of grapes and plucked several, ready to pop them into his mouth.

  Hippolyta walked over and almost put her hand on his arm, before thinking better of it. “My mother needs your help,” she pressed. “The mother of your son, Podarces, needs your help.”

  He paused, a grape halfway to his lips. “My help? Amazons never ask for help from men. They just use them to beget children and leave.” There was an undertone of anger in his voice, as if some anger with Otrere’s refusal to stay with him lingered.

  “Because Mother wouldn’t sacrifice the boy on Artemis’ altar but sent him here instead, she’s been cast in prison,” Hippolyta told him
.

  This time the king looked at her with great interest. “But when she sent me Tithonus, there was no such trouble,” he said.

  Tithonus! That little … brat? The other brother? Hippolyta could not believe it. But she had to answer quickly and not show her surprise.

  “It’s against our laws for a queen to bear more than one live son,” Hippolyta said, her voice barely a whisper. She would not tell him why.

  A mocking smile lit Laomedon’s handsome face and changed it horribly. “Now we come to it! You Amazons thrive on superstitions, like crows feeding on dead flesh. Ha!”

  Why, he’s just as brutish and selfish as any man, only with a prettier face. Oh, Mother, how could you have let that face seduce you? Hippolyta thought. But then she realized she was being unfair. Her mother had sought out a king to her queen, power to her power, beauty to her beauty. Her only interest had been to bring forth a strong, handsome child. She had not expected a boy.

  But Laomedon was still Hippolyta’s only hope. She would have to put aside her disgust for him and beg for her mother’s life. “Queen Otrere has been stripped of her throne and will be tried for sacrilege.”

  He popped a grape in his mouth. For a moment he savored the grape. “It is of no interest to me.” He glanced down, savoring the look of astonishment on her face. “And what would you have me do, little princess? Lead an army into Amazon country and set Otrere back on her throne? Leave my own city unguarded, my people unprotected, to march my troops through our enemies and into a barbaric country to settle a quarrel between savage women? Do you think I’m mad?”

  “My mother has given you a child,” Hippolyta cried. “No, she has given you two children.”

  “So have many women. I will not go to war for them.”

  “So she means nothing to you?”

  Raising an eyebrow, he said with slow deliberateness, “My horse means something to me. When he dies, I will get another. I value my sword, my shield, my guard.”

  Hippolyta couldn’t contain her anger any longer. The man had mocked her, her mother, her people. She lashed out an arm and knocked the bowl of fruit from the table. Grapes flew in all directions.

  “You’re no king!” Hippolyta raged. “The lowest beggar in the streets has more honor than you.”

  “Guards!” he thundered. But even before the doors could be flung open, he grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor. “I am the king, and I will decide what is honorable here in Troy.”

  She looked up, more surprised than hurt. “May the gods curse you, King Laomedon.”

  His face darkened. “They already have.”

  Just then the guards burst in.

  Laomedon ran a hand down his tunic, smoothing it. “Take her to the cells.”

  The guards seized Hippolyta by the arms and yanked her to her feet. She struggled against them, but they were too strong.

  “You needn’t be gentle,” the king said as the men bundled her out of the door. “She’s an Amazon, which means she has no tender female sensibilities to injure.”

  They hauled her out of a back entrance and across a bare yard where soldiers were practicing with their spears. She tried to kick at the men who held her, but they were used to such tactics.

  One of the spear handlers yelled out, “Leave her with us for an hour, Caracus, we’ll show her how to behave.”

  But the guards didn’t reply, merely dragged her to a large stone building standing on the other side of the courtyard. There they hauled her through a thick wooden gate and on inside.

  A stiff-legged jailer led them past a long row of locked cells from which hooting and cursing voices called out.

  “Let her go!”

  “Bring her here!”

  “May your wounds never heal, jailer!”

  “The gods look down on your injustice, Laomedon!”

  They stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, which the jailer opened with a large bronze key. Then the two soldiers threw her inside.

  Stumbling forward, she remembered at the very last minute to tuck in her head and roll. She fetched up against the far wall, humiliated but unhurt. She heard the soldiers laugh uproariously as they slammed the door shut.

  Struggling to her feet, Hippolyta felt a twinge in her shoulder, where it had struck the wall. The roots of her hair stung where Laomedon had grabbed her. She must have twisted her ankle slightly when she tumbled into the cell. But what hurt most was her pride.

  She limped over to the cell door, glad no one could see her, and looked out of the small grille. She could see neither soldiers nor jailers.

  Which doesn’t mean there’s no one there, she reminded herself. Only that I cannot see farther.

  Wrenching herself away from the grille and the light, she began to pace the confines of the cell. It was a much bigger place than the one her mother lay in, back in Themiscyra. But that cell at least had been clean. This one was disgusting. The walls were dank, the floor scattered with a thin layer of dirty straw.

  Hippolyta tested the door with its small barred window.

  Thick, sturdy, unmovable.

  She felt along every inch of the walls.

  Even thicker, sturdier.

  She sat down on the floor to think. But every thought led back to one: I have no friends here, no allies. I am at the mercy of a heartless king.

  In the evening—she knew the time only because the jailer told her so—she was given a bowl of thin, cold gruel. An armed guard stood by her as she ate, to prevent any trouble.

  “Eat up,” sniggered the jailer. “We want meat on you for tomorrow.”

  She dashed the empty bowl at him, but it missed, and the guard struck her in the chest with the butt of his spear. She fell backward, managing to miss hitting her head on the wall. But she lay there, pretending to be knocked out. That way she could avoid more of a beating, and quite possibly she might hear something to her advantage.

  The sniggering jailer said, “Spirited all right.”

  The guard grunted. “Not that it’ll do her any good. She’s scarcely a bite as it is.”

  They left, locking the door behind them, and darkness seeped into the cell.

  Scarcely a bite! What did they mean? She’d heard of kingdoms where prisoners were thrown to wild animals. Or maybe Laomedon was that vilest of creatures, one that devoured his own kind.

  She shivered and started to whimper. Then she stopped herself. “Amazons do not cry,” she whispered.

  But she was cold, hurt, lonely, scared, and a long way from home.

  She didn’t cry. But in her sleep, something wet ran down her face from her eyes. She wiped it away without ever waking.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A BROTHERLY VISIT

  SHE WOKE FROM A deep sleep when someone tapped on her door. Flinching back, she rubbed sleep from her eyes. Then curiosity overcame her, and she went to the door.

  Standing there was the horrid little prince, Tithonus.

  “Shh,” he said.

  She thought: If I can get him in here, I could take him hostage. Then they’d have to release me and—

  “Shh,” he said again, finger to his lips. “Don’t wake the others.”

  Her plans for escape gave way to curiosity. “How did you get in?”

  He looked puzzled at her question. “Why, I told the jailer to let me in. I’m the prince, after all. I said I’d have him thrown in the sea if he didn’t do as I commanded.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what your father would have said,” Hippolyta noted sourly. Suddenly she couldn’t bear the sight of him. He was just a stupid, boastful, overindulged little boy playing a prank. “Go away,” she said sullenly, moving back from the door.

  “What?” He seemed genuinely shocked.

  “I said—” and she spoke slowly over her shoulder as if talking to a tiny child—“go … a … way.”

  There was a pause. Then Tithonus said, “You’re really not very nice, are you?”

  Hippolyta sighed. “No, I’m not. I’m not ni
ce. I’m a barbarian—remember? And I need my sleep. So go away.” She found the small pile of dirty straw that served as her bed and sat down.

  “No. I don’t want to. I want to ask you a question,” the boy said. “About my mother.” He no longer sounded so pleased with himself. In fact he sounded as if he were on the edge of pleading. “The queen of the Amazons.”

  Hippolyta looked up sharply. She could not see his face at the grille. He was too short for that. “How do you know—”

  “Father told me. Tonight. I’d always wondered …” His voice was now a small boy’s, light, uncertain.

  Sighing, Hippolyta stood and went back to the door and stared through the grille. For a long moment she looked down at him. In the torchlight, his hair was darker, almost brown. There was a shadowy smudge under one eye.

  “Her name is Queen Otrere,” she said at last. “She’s my mother too.”

  “Then,” he said slowly, “we’re family.”

  She shook her head. “No, we’re not. I left my family back in Themiscyra. My mother and sisters. Your family is here.”

  “But we share—”

  “Blood. We share blood. That’s all. Now go away. Or get me out of here.” There, she’d said it. Without whining or pleading.

  “I brought you a pastry,” he said. His skinny arm reached up and into the grille. There was a dark circular something in his hand.

  Hippolyta hesitated to take anything from a son of Laomedon, but it was too tempting. She snatched the honeyed pastry from his fingers before he had a chance of pulling it away.

  “You must be very hungry, sister,” he said.

  “I’ve been hungrier,” she replied. “And don’t call me sister!” She ran a finger across her lips to wipe up the rest of the honey, then sucked greedily on the finger like baby Podarces on the wineskin teat.

  “Don’t bother to thank me,” he said, now sullen. The shadows only deepened the pout on his face.

  “You came here to ask a favor of me, boy. I’ve asked you for nothing.” Hippolyta drew back a bit from the grille. Except, she thought, to get me out of here or go away. Neither of which he’s done.