Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons (8 page)

Why, he’s just as brutish and selfish as any man, only
w
ith 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.

S
HE 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 nice. 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.

“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.

S
HE 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. …”