Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons Read online

  “You should thank people when they’re kind to you.”

  She moved forward again and leaned right up against the bars. “Kind would be a soft bed and a clean bath. Kind would be somewhere away from here. I’ll thank you when you set me free.”

  He backed away a step, then moved forward again. “Our father won’t allow it.”

  She shivered. “Your father, not mine.” But she wondered.

  Tithonus was silent.

  “Your father doesn’t care if our mother lives or dies,” Hippolyta said. “I asked him to help her, and he laughed. Then he threw me in here.”

  “He’s—it’s … hard work being king. He doesn’t have time for everybody.” Tithonus’ face got a pinched, closed look.

  Hippolyta laughed. “Ha! Not even time for his son’s mother.” Then she realized that he had sounded sad, almost apologetic. Suddenly she understood. In a quieter voice she added, “So he’s got no time for you, either, eh?”

  “That’s not true!” Even in the flickering torchlight she could see him flush. His chest was heaving. “Dares—Dares says that things are hard. We’re surrounded by enemies and—” He shut his lips together as if he’d admitted too much. “I just wanted to know about her. About Queen Otrere.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  The boy leaned forward, whispered eagerly, “What does she look like?”

  Hippolyta backed away for a moment, thinking. The father was out of her reach, but not the son. She smiled grimly and went back to the grille. “She’s ten feet tall with big purple eyes. She has snakes for hair, and she eats little boys for breakfast!”

  Tithonus’ lower lip quivered, and he disappeared into the blackness. She could hear him trying to stifle his sobs.

  Serves him right, Hippolyta thought. But she felt bad. He’d been such an easy target. And he had brought her a pastry.

  She called out, “Pssst. Prince. I’m sorry for saying that. Come back tomorrow and bring me two pastries, and I promise I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  He came back into the light, looking a bit whey-faced. “Tomorrow? But tomorrow will be too late.”

  She felt a stone in her stomach. “Too late for what?”

  “Too late for you,” he whispered.

  “What do you mean?” The stone in her stomach got heavier.

  But he was gone, running off down the corridor as though in fear of his life.

  Hippolyta went back to the little pile of straw and sank down onto it. Any impulse to sleep was now gone. She was suddenly and awfully wide awake.

  What has Laomedon planned for me? she wondered, remembering the guard’s words: “Scarcely a bite.” Remembering the king saying that he was cursed. Remembering that she had lashed out at him. At a king. In his own country.

  I guess I’m going to find out, she thought miserably. And soon.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CONDEMNED

  SHE HADN’T MEANT TO FALL asleep again. She thought she was wide awake. But suddenly the shouts and screams of the other prisoners woke her.

  The door to her cell opened slowly, and in came the stiff-legged jailer with a sour look on his face. Behind him a guard stood at the door watching while the jailer thrust a dry crust of bread and a cup of brackish water at Hippolyta.

  “Why they even bother …” he began.

  She grabbed the bread and water and downed them. “Fattening me up, I suppose,” she said, thinking to get information from him.

  He looked startled. “You know?”

  She nodded, hoping he would continue.

  “Poor girl,” he said solemnly, and took the cup from her.

  “Aye,” said the guard, “a waste of a good-looking woman, if you ask me.”

  “If you ask me,” the jailer said as he went through the door, “she’s too young by half for what you’re thinking.”

  “Too young for what the king’s thinking, too,” the guard replied, shutting the door and locking it.

  Well, Hippolyta thought, that was a lot of help.

  She now knew enough to be thoroughly frightened without knowing anything at all. But if I must die, I’ll die bravely. Like an Amazon. With that resolve, she sat down again on the dirty straw to calm herself.

  She tried to remember the death chant she’d been taught. The one Queen Andromache had composed before the battle in which she’d been slain.

  “I come to you, Artemis, with a clean heart,

  I come, Ares, ax in my strong right hand.

  My bow is strung. It sings my death song.

  My arrows are ready for flight.

  I come over the mountains, capped with snow,

  Past the eagles in their aeries,

  Past the far streamers of clouds. …”

  But in fact, she was bowless and axless and without her quiver of arrows. What good was singing a warrior’s death song when it was clear that she was going to die badly, eaten by some awful … thing? And without being given the chance to fight.

  Besides, she had failed her mother, failed her people.

  Ashamed, Hippolyta began to weep.

  By midmorning, when Laomedon’s soldiers came for her, Hippolyta had recovered herself. She had even scrubbed her face clean of tears—or at least as clean as she could with the back of her hand—and she was standing up, waiting for the guards.

  She’d heard them coming. A Phrygian could have heard them coming! They marched noisily along the corridor, the other prisoners taunting them, and that had given her time to stand tall, shoulders straight, head high. Like an Amazon.

  The jailer opened the door, and the soldiers marched in. There were eight of them.

  Eight men to one Amazon, she thought. Just about right. They pushed her out of the cell, binding her wrists before her. She walked—no, she strode—ahead of them.

  Let them see how an Amazon dies, she thought.

  But instead of being taken immediately to a place of execution, she was brought into a courtyard. There a gallery of courtiers had been assembled. All men, she noted with growing anger.

  At all the exits bronze-armored soldiers stood guard.

  Surely Laomedon doesn’t think I’m that dangerous! she thought with a bitter smile.

  Horses had been led from the stables and were even now being hitched to four chariots. Hippolyta recognized hawk-nosed Dares, who was supervising the operation. He glanced over, nodded, and for a moment looked as if he wanted to say something. But then he turned his back and finished the work he was set to do.

  Just then there was a stir among the assembled courtiers, a kind of hushed buzz like a hive of honeybees, and the king came through a great door. He was accompanied by an armed escort. Dressed in a luxurious purple robe, he wore a golden crown and enough jewelry around his neck to hang himself. He was handsome and arrogant, every inch the king. Climbing five steps to a wooden throne, he surveyed the scene with languid ease.

  The courtiers all clapped, and one man sang out, “The king! The king!”

  Hippolyta’s guards dragged her forward until she was directly in front of the throne. The king was seated high enough that she had to look up at an uncomfortable angle in order to look him in the face. She did it despite the discomfort. She didn’t want to give him the pleasure of seeing her bow her head.

  A stout, gray-bearded man came from the gallery and cleared his throat.

  “Announce the charges, Argeas,” Laomedon commanded.

  Argeas cleared his throat again, before saying, “The barbarian girl Hippolyta—”

  Hippolyta interrupted. “I’m no barbarian. I’m an Amazon, daughter of Otrere, queen of Themiscyra.”

  The gray beard began again. “The Amazon girl Hippolyta is accused of laying hands upon the royal person, threatening the king, and thereby assaulting the safety of Troy.”

  “I will show you my bruises, old man,” Hippolyta interrupted, “and then you can decide who has assaulted whom.”

  “Silence, girl,” Argeas said. “You don’t have l
eave to speak. The first time you interrupted I said nothing, for you do not know our customs. The second time I instruct you. Let there be no third time, or woe befall you.

  Hippolyta snorted. “More woe than being eaten?”

  Old Argeas looked startled and turned to his king. “There can’t be a sentence before the trial, Your Majesty.”

  Laomedon leaned forward. “I was the one assaulted, and I am the sole witness, and I am the judge. The girl is guilty. Trial over. Now we’ll sentence her. Does that satisfy you, Argeas?”

  The old man looked down. “Death is the sole penalty prescribed for such a crime, Sire.”

  “Then take her away and see that the sentence is carried out,” Laomedon said. “Now let’s move on to more important business.”

  The soldiers took Hippolyta by the arms and led her toward the chariots. She twisted around and shouted back at Laomedon. “False king,” she cried. “May the gods all curse you. May the Amazons come and lay waste to your city. May your walls be thrown down and the stones used to plug up your harbor. May Ares and Artemis loose the hounds of Hades to gnaw on your bones.”

  “Shut her up,” Laomedon commanded, and one of the soldiers clapped a broad hand over her mouth.

  But Dares stepped forward. “My lord,” he said, “no one in Troy questions your justice. But mightn’t we show this girl mercy? She’s little more than a child. A barbarian. She hasn’t been taught how to behave in a civilized society.”

  “Then this will serve as a sharp lesson to her. And for any little barbarian girls who come after,” Laomedon said. “And I must wonder, my loyal Dares, why you should take her part.” He dismissed Dares with a wave of his hand.

  Dares sighed and mounted the front chariot. Hippolyta was pushed up beside him, and her wrists were tethered to the chariot rail. Then Dares flicked the reins, and the horses began to pull. The chariot bounced and jounced along the rutted road, and it was all Hippolyta could do to stay on her feet.

  Behind them, in the other three chariots, an escort of soldiers followed.

  Hippolyta looked back.

  At the soldiers.

  At the high walls like stone scabs over suppurating wounds.

  At Troy.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MONSTER FROM THE SEA

  “WHERE ARE WE going?” Hippolyta asked in a hoarse whisper, not trusting her voice otherwise. Her wrists were already beginning to ache and her fingers to go numb.

  Dares didn’t turn to look at her. Instead he stared ahead at the road. At last he spoke, his voice held tight as if he were afraid it might break. “To a headland a few miles north of the city.”

  “A headland?” She tried to think. Would they try to drown her? She could swim a bit. A little bit. But she’d only paddled in slow rivers amid quiet pools, never in the sea. She pulled against the restraints, but they held fast.

  “I warned you, girl,” Dares said, still staring straight ahead. “I warned you to be careful in the presence of the king.”

  “May he be torn apart by harpies!” Hippolyta cried.

  Dares ignored her outburst. “I told you to read the character of the king by the height of his walls, but you didn’t listen. We Trojans have paid dearly for those walls.” He snapped the reins against the horses’ backs, and the horses leaped forward. “You will pay dearer yet.”

  “What have the walls of Troy—” Hippolyta started to say, but her teeth clattered together because of the rough ride, and she couldn’t continue.

  Used to the chariot’s bounce, Dares had no trouble speaking. “Many years ago the gods Apollo and Poseidon plotted against their father, great Zeus. When he found them out, Zeus exiled them to earth to serve King Laomedon for a year as laborers. Laomedon had them haul those great stones all one hot summer. When their task was done, they demanded payment, but Laomedon refused.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Hippolyta said, leaning forward to ease the ache in her wrists.

  Dares’ face was grim, his lips like a scar. “The gods were not amused, child. Poseidon sent a huge sea monster to terrorize our land. It is still here, regularly smashing the outlying farms and devouring anyone who dares live outside the walls of Troy.”

  “So, I suppose, then, that I am to be a tribute to that monster,” Hippolyta said, her voice strangely calm. Now that she knew, she was no longer afraid.

  Dares nodded, unsmiling. “The headland is where the monster comes ashore to feed,” he said. “As long as it eats its fill there, it goes no farther inland. Anyone the king condemns is chained out there on the rocks.”

  “Can you leave me my battle-ax, my bow?” Hippolyta said. “Chain me if you must, but let me die fighting. Please, Dares.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot, child. I cannot. But your death will be swift. That I can promise you.” Never looking her way, he slashed the reins once again against the horses’ backs, as if the sooner they got there, the sooner she would be at peace.

  Suddenly she remembered her dream: the sacrificial altar, the jagged knife slicing down. “Oh, Artemis, dread goddess,” she cried out loud, “I rescued a child from your altar. Now it seems I am to be the one sacrificed in his stead.”

  They entered a stretch of country that was barren and abandoned. As the chariot rumbled over the ill-kept road, Hippolyta noticed the smashed ruins of buildings, ripped-up trees, the skeletons of sheep and cattle.

  “No one ventures here anymore,” Dares told her.

  “Unless they’re bringing sacrifices,” she added.

  He nodded.

  The headland ended in a rugged outcropping of rock from which a gray ledge jutted out over a small shingle and the sea.

  Obeying Dares’ reluctant command, the soldiers climbed out of their chariots and dragged Hippolyta out onto the ledge. There they stood her between two gnarled pillars of stone and lashed one of her wrists to each pillar. The rocky slope dropped away to where waves rasped over a narrow stretch of shingle, making it difficult to stand upright.

  Once the soldiers had secured Hippolyta, Dares sent them away. He drew his sword and spoke softly. “If you’d like, child, I can end this quickly for you now. The king will never know. It’s all the gift I can give you.”

  Hippolyta stared for a moment at the blade. That would not be a hero’s death, not the death of an Amazon princess. And though only Dares and she would know, she could not bring herself to ask for the quick, easy sword thrust. She shook her head.

  Dares sheathed his sword and glanced at the sea. “The monster won’t appear till dusk. The wait will not be easy. Pray to your gods, child.” For a half breath it seemed as if he wanted to say more, but instead he shook his head and abruptly left.

  Hippolyta tugged at her bonds, but her hands were securely fastened and in such a way that she had no strength with which to pull. After a furious struggle, trying to saw the leather thongs against the stone, she realized that she couldn’t free herself that way.

  She looked down at the lapping waters. How peaceful the sea seemed. One part of her refused to believe the story of the monster coming out of that undisturbed water.

  “Perhaps,” she whispered to herself, “perhaps Laomedon just wants to frighten me into submission.” She gave a little barking laugh. “That would be just like him.”

  But the ruined buildings, the bones of cattle and sheep, had told a different story. Deep inside she knew that this was no stupid game.

  The hours dragged by. When Hippolyta tried to relax against her bonds, the pressure on her shoulders was agonizing. She had to keep her legs straight, even though they ached with stiffness.

  “Artemis,” she said at last, “if you won’t free me, at least give me the courage to face the end like an Amazon.”

  There was no answer to that prayer.

  Hippolyta licked her dry lips and studied the waves, waiting for some sign of movement. That was when the sun plunged down in front of her, casting the sea in crimson, like a great puddle of blood.

  Perhaps, she th
ought, I will grow tired enough to fall into a swoon. Which was about as much mercy as she could hope to get from the gods. It was certainly more than Laomedon would have granted her.

  Laomedon. Suddenly she knew how to pray.

  “Poseidon, Apollo,” she cried aloud, “you whom Laomedon has offended, grant me a means of escape, and I will see that he suffers for what he’s done.”

  Barely finishing her desperate prayer, she heard a scuffling sound to her left, and she tried to turn to face the noise. Better to see my death than be surprised by it, she thought. But she couldn’t twist her head around enough.

  Something was coming down the path, scrabbling and sliding without fear of being heard.

  But the monster was to come from the sea!

  Is there more than one serpent? she thought. More than one killer?

  “Who’s there?” she cried out. “Don’t come closer. I’m armed. I’ll hurt you.”

  But the scrabbling continued for a long minute, and then suddenly a small figure stood in front of her, smiling wanly.

  “Tithonus!” Hippolyta cried. “What are you doing here?”

  The prince’s fine clothes were covered with dust, and his face was gray with fatigue. It looked as if he’d come all the way from Troy on foot.

  “I had to see you,” he said. “So I sneaked out of the palace. I had to walk. I—I don’t know how to hitch up a chariot.”

  “See me—for what?” Hippolyta licked her dry lips again. “To mock me?”

  “No, no, not to mock you.” His face screwed up. “You look awful.”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked, offering the goatskin that hung from the leather strap across his shoulder. He pulled the stopper and held it toward her.

  Hippolyta pulled at the thong fastening her right hand. “I can’t take it by myself.”

  He moved closer and raised the skin to her lips, clumsily pouring some water into her mouth. It trickled down her chin and neck.

  “Trying to drown me before the monster comes?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “If you really want to help me, untie these knots.”