by Emily Hauser
How can this have happened?
But then, as I turned aside, I caught sight of one of the corpses littering the red-streaked grass, turned on her side, dark hair muddied and eyes white in death, the eagle tamga bared on her shoulder …
‘Orithyia!’ I shrieked, and without thought for anything except to reach my sister I leapt forwards, drawing my sword. Figures whirled before my dazed vision and I pushed them aside, thoughtless, my blade flashing, my thoughts screaming. And then a figure sprang into my path – and I recognized through the blur that it was Theseus, though his thigh was slashed and bleeding and his tunic was ripped off the shoulder.
‘And here – the queen!’ he snarled, hatred in his eyes. ‘Shall I cut the war-belt from you, then?’ He drew his sword, cutting and slashing, and I parried him with such swiftness that I saw the sneer on his face slide away, to be replaced by rage as I blocked him once, twice, streaking the air with the bite of metal—
‘You dare to attack my people!’ I shouted, as he raised his blade again, and I drew my battle-axe in my other hand and swung it, whirling round and round, then brought it down over his head with the force to split a horse’s skull. ‘You dare to offend the gods! You traitor, foe of all honour!’
‘Honour!’ he screamed, bringing his sword up against the axe-shaft so that my blow glanced aside, but the force sent his sword slipping from his hand. ‘You have no honour – or if you do,’ he said, grasping the sword from the soil and raising it to block me as I struck out at him again, his eyes savage, ‘it is that of a barbarian.’
At that moment there was a scream from my right, ‘Oiorpata!’. I turned to see Melanippe running through the fighting crowd towards us, her cheeks streaked with blood and dirt, her battle-axe raised, her eyes wide and horrified.
‘Melanippe, no!’
She charged at Theseus, her plait swinging, her axe slicing like fire. I shifted my sagaris, ready to bring him down as he turned towards her, but another Greek blundered across my path, sword swinging. I wielded mine left-handed to deal with him – slice, slice – and it was done. Then, in my fury at their treachery and what they had done to Orithyia, I turned back to Theseus, the blood singing in my veins, ready to send him to the world of the dead with the rest of the Greeks, ready to destroy all he had for taking from me my sister, my—
And then I stopped, swaying.
The battle-axe had fallen from Melanippe’s hands. Theseus was grasping her by the hair, panting hard, pulling her round to face me. Sweat shone on his face and forearms, and his teeth were white against his dirt-smeared skin as he bared a grin at me. He lifted his sword-blade to her throat, and Melanippe, though she struggled and kicked, could not free herself from the hand that was wrapped around her plait, pulling her head. My heart froze within me. Not her. Not her as well.
‘What is it you choose, Queen Hippolyta?’ he hurled at me, over the clashing of weapons and shrieks surrounding us. ‘Your sister – or your war-belt?’
Melanippe’s chest rose and fell as she called, ‘No, Hippolyta!’
Theseus tore at her hair and she winced, biting her lip so she did not cry aloud.
‘Stop!’ I commanded him, my voice shrill, unable to see her captive, like an eagle caught in a hunter’s net. ‘You already have her prisoner!’
I lifted my sword so he could see it, then dropped it to the ground. I reached to my waist and started to fumble at the buckles of my belt, uncoiling it, then holding it out to him, fingers shaking so that the eagle amulet hanging on its strap shivered, as if it knew its own downfall. ‘Please – let her go.’
His eyes glittered, and I knew that this humiliation was his vengeance for the hunt. He took the belt and tossed it to Hercules, who had pushed his way through from the fight nearby and slung it over his shoulder, as if it were nothing but a garment, not the most prized possession of the Amazon queens. ‘For this alone?’ Theseus said. ‘You think that is sufficient payment?’
‘What is it you want?’ I asked, my voice trembling. Not Melanippe. I cannot lose Melanippe too. ‘You may have anything. Gold cups, beads of glass, bracelets of silver and bronze – I will fetch them myself from our treasure-store.’
Theseus shook his head, and his eyes slid to where Hercules stood. Behind him Aella was fighting hand to hand with Timiades, making him dance over the blood-spattered grass, swinging the battle-axe back and forth to match the flicking of his sword-blade. ‘I want you.’
The din of the battle around me seemed to grow hushed, as if I were muffled in fog once more.
Theseus’ eyes grew harder. ‘I want you as my captive,’ he said. ‘An Amazon queen for a hero of the Greeks: a fitting trophy. You give Hercules your war-belt, you give yourself to me, to return to Greece with me. Then your sister will go free.’
I clenched my jaw. ‘And if not?’
‘Then,’ his lips thinned, almost into a smile, ‘we will ravage this camp until there is no man, woman or child left alive to remember the name of the Amazons.’
‘No! Hippolyta, you cannot – don’t – remember—’ Melanippe’s words cut off as Theseus tugged harder at the hair wound around his fingers. Her dark eyes smarted, and I knew, as she blinked at me, that she was trying to warn me against the pain of another Greek, another rending from my homeland, another agony.
‘Your captive, by the laws of the gods?’
He inclined his head, his eyes shadowed.
‘You will obey the customs for a captive of royal blood, and take me as your wife?’
Again, he bowed.
‘No!’ Melanippe was kicking and struggling against his hold, shrieking my name, but I ignored her.
‘You will treat me with the respect I deserve as a queen?’
He nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’
I paused, staring at him, his dark eyes lingering on me, my freedom hanging on the wind.
‘Then – I give myself up.’
To protect my people. That was what I had said, what I had sworn. I stood tall, my chin raised and my heart thundering, though my stomach twisted at the disgrace; and all the while, my mother’s war-belt hung on Hercules, dangling before me on the shoulder of a paralati. Theseus grunted and freed Melanippe.
‘What are you doing?’ she cried, throwing herself to the ground before me and taking my knees in both her arms, turning her face up towards me. ‘You cannot, Hippolyta, you cannot go!’
I gazed down into her terrified eyes. ‘I had no choice.’
‘I would have died!’ she screamed at me, her cheeks smeared with soil and blood and the tracks of her tears. ‘I would have died, rather than see you sold to a Greek once more!’
I shook my head, my throat tight. ‘I could not lose you, Melanippe,’ I said, looking away. ‘And I cannot put my people at risk. I have sworn to protect them.’ I swallowed, shaking with emotion. ‘There is no choice.’
The Greeks made their preparations to leave. All was a blur of colour and noise. I felt as if I were separated from my body, floating as if in sleep, and as I waded through the brown waters of the Silis and stepped up the rope-ladder onto Theseus’ ship it was with a shiver distant from myself that I thought, I will never see my home again.
Melanippe, sobbing, had clung to me and sworn by all the gods that she would not let me go. I allowed myself to clasp Cayster once, near to breaking all self-control, almost allowing myself to clutch him to me, refusing to let him go. Yet to the world I looked strong as an Amazon queen, and for that – always for that – I could say nothing to my child. I had to unclasp my arms from him, turn and walk out of the tent, though every nerve in my body screamed at me to stay. Now my people stood on the banks – Aella, Xanthippe, Agar – watching, as I slipped away from them, their eyes filled with reproach, their sword-sheaths empty, for I had forbidden them to fight. My stomach turned as I slid onto the planks of the ship’s hull and made my way to the stern, nearest the shore. I seemed to be taking quick breaths, my gaze darting over the tribe gathered on the sand, sliding away from me, to th
e outlines of the tents scattered over the plain, now the stage of death. Survivors picked their way among the bodies of the fallen, and the dark earth was churned up by the feet of the warriors, smearing the camp black.
Oh, gods, my people, my people.
Dread at what was to come flooded through me in a sickening wave – how can I leave them? – at the same time as the conviction, bold, bright, that I had had to do so for my people: the same tumult of emotions as before a battle. Except that now you will never fight in battle again.
I pushed the thought from my mind with the force of my will. As if by instinct, I reached to the tamga of the eagle hanging at my waist, searching for its comfort and certainty – and felt only the threads of my tunic. I looked down, thrown. And then, with a jolt of realization, it came over me again, the pain arrowing sharp through my side, like the blow of a pointed sagaris.
Of course. I have no war-belt.
I am a queen no more.
I repressed the ache of it, as if I were wounded in battle: one more parry, one more attack and slice and thrust, blind to the stinging pain, thinking always and only of my people. As the steering oar swung to turn the ship downstream, I looked to the river’s mouth ahead, towards the sea – the one we called Temarunda, the Mother Sea. It opened vast before us, pooling over the world’s edge in a mist of blue.
I swayed and clutched at the ship’s side, knuckles whitening. And it was only thus, by digging my nails into the wood and driving my mind through the pain, that I could force myself to look ahead. Not to look back to the camp of the Amazons, knowing that I would never see my sisters, my tribe, again.
Knowing, I thought, my heart tearing within me, my eyes burning, that I will never again see my son.
Ἀδμήτη
Admete
Amazons, Scythia
The Sixteenth Day of the Month of the Harvest, 1265 BC
It was like a nightmare: my dream of the Amazons had turned, like a shifting shadow in the night, into a terrifying vision. I had remained during the battle sheltered in Ioxeia’s tent, hidden by the herb stacks, holding my cloak over my head like a shield, trying to drown the shrieks of the wounded and the screaming clash of weapons that assailed me on all sides. This was nothing like the battle of which the bard had sung in the court of Lycus, with its measured lines of duels, flashing bronze and great-hearted heroes. This was a tumult, this was chaos, and there was no heroism to it but only the rending screams of metal on flesh and a sweeping, desperate fear.
I had spent the day of the battle and the next running feverishly from tent to tent, ministering to Greeks and Amazons alike – the Amazons tried to push me away, but when I spoke to them and showed them my tamga they let me care for their wounded. My hands were sore from pounding herbs, chopping cyclamen and a kind of sweet root I had found at the borders of the sea, mixing it with honey to fashion a poultice for skin wounds, making a paste of bitter wort for head-bruises, and a mixture of burnt resin, cassia, cinnamon and myrrh against inflammation. Then there was the care of the dead. The washing and anointing of a corpse, the closing of the eyes and mouth, the clothing of the body, the laying-out and lamentation, and the burning on the pyre till my linen skirt was black with ash, my hair filled with the smell of smoke, and my skin gleaming with the anointing oils.
While I cared for the living and the dead, and laid Solois to rest with shaking hands, Alcides, Theseus and the other Greeks prepared to depart. I watched with disgust as Alcides commandeered several horses at spear-point. The Amazons informed me that the queen – even as she left – had forbidden them to fight; and so they had to watch the source of their livelihood and their existence on the plains taken from them without protest. The silence between Amazons and Greeks was bitter, bred of fear and mistrust at the broken truce, and I worked quickly, keeping my head down. The other Greeks seemed to sense it too, carrying their weapons and looted supplies of food and mare’s milk back to the ship: some were to set out ahead for Greece in an attempt to outpace the autumn storms, and to return to kingdoms they had neglected. The Amazons watched them work with sullen expressions of hatred.
On the second morning after the battle, Alcides declared that it was time for us to leave, as Theseus’ ship had already departed, along with the captive queen. I felt sickened by Hippolyta’s surrender to Theseus, against which my every instinct revolted. That he should think to take her from her homeland! That he should force the queen of the Amazons into submission! It was worse than dishonourable: it was barbarous. And to have broken the truce, when Hippolyta had extended to us the hand of peace and welcomed us with such generosity into her home … It was more than I could bear, and I felt a twist of dread at the thought that the Amazon queen who had shown me such kindness might now hate me with the rest of the Greeks. And meanwhile, as we prepared to ride out on our stolen steeds, the Amazons skulked out of sight, restrained by Hippolyta’s last order.
I stood in Alcides’ tent, alone, dressing myself in Amazon clothes borrowed from Ioxeia, for how else would I ride on horseback? I slipped into the trousers she had given me, plucking out my tunic so it lay over my thighs, pulled on the boots, then twisted around, trying to see myself. The trouser-legs were over-wide, and my plain Greek under-tunic went oddly with the patterned material. But I would be comfortable, and that was all that mattered.
I looked around me, heartsick with sadness, taking in the tent-walls hung across with slivers of drying meat, the fleeces and cushions littered over the grass, the hearth at which Alcides, Solois, Euneos, Perses and I had shared meals – some with the Amazons, and some alone. I had not thought to leave like this, hidden, dragging with us our stolen prize, slouching away in the mists of morning instead of riding out with the cries and good wishes of the Amazons behind us on the wind.
As I stepped out, I saw that someone had led up a horse for me among the others that Alcides and the rest had chosen for themselves. He tossed his head against the slave’s hand on the reins, his coat black and silken with a white mark on his forehead, and I recognized the steed of Melanippe, sister of Hippolyta.
‘This is not right,’ I said, walking up to Alcides where he stood among the gathered Greeks speaking with Telemus, placing my hand on the horse’s nose, feeling the warmth and softness as he nuzzled against my palm. Hippolyta’s war-belt was slung around Alcides’ waist, and a wave of nausea overtook me, at the remembrance of what it had cost, of the queen who had worn it so proudly. ‘This horse belongs to the queen’s sister.’
Alcides ignored me and continued his conversation with Telemus, as if there had been no interruption. Indeed, he and I had not spoken since the battle: he had been busy with preparations for departure, and I ministering to the sick and the dead.
I bit my lip. ‘I do not want this horse,’ I said, more loudly.
Alcides broke off and turned to me. ‘Gods,’ he exclaimed, lowering his eyes from my trousers to my boots, ‘who did that to you?’
‘I did,’ I said, my voice shaking, but I steadied myself. ‘And I do not wish to ride a stolen horse.’
He stared at me, then gave a half-glance to Telemus beside him, who made a curt nod.
‘You will ride it,’ Alcides said, puffing out his chest and making sure that all of the Greeks gathered nearby could hear him, ‘whether you like it or no. I have had enough of your insurrection.’ He placed his hands around my waist and almost threw me onto the horse’s back. I clutched at its mane to stop myself falling and gripped with my thighs, pulling myself to sit.
‘What?’ I rounded on him.
But Alcides gave a slap to the horse’s hindquarters and it bolted. I snatched at the mane and pinned my eyes to the horizon as the camp flashed past me, then the long grass.
‘Follow her!’ I heard Alcides shout, and as I twisted my head, I saw the Greeks trotting out of the camp, their mounts weighed down with leather panniers. The tents of the camp already looked small, the earth-brown felt and fleeces dull against the endless grass, and I felt a hollow ache of
anger at Alcides and pain in my chest that this was how I would say farewell to the Amazons, of whom I had so often dreamt. I had come with such hope, and now …
I tried to tug at the reins to slow my horse, but he was tossing his head and kicking at the earth beneath him like an animal possessed, his dark-lashed eyes wide. Instead I tightened my grip, and tried to lose myself – as my mother must once have done – in the rise and fall of the beast beneath me and the air on my cheeks.
And ahead the plains stretched endlessly towards the north.
Hippolyta
River Silis, Land of the Saka
The Forty-fifth Day after the Day of Earth in the Season of Apia, 1265 BC
A southerly wind blew strong over the next days, filling the sail and sending me further and further from the land of the Saka. I passed the hours gazing into the waves, watching one after another form and break against the hull, my eyes trained away from the coast, from the camps of other Saka tribes I knew were scattered along the shore of Temarunda – people with whom I had traded as a queen, ridden out with against the Budini in armed force, and shared the marriages of our young.
We put in for the night at a spur of land that pointed, like a finger, out into the water, shallow with sandy beaches where the Greeks could drive the ship’s keel ashore. There Theseus had the slaves build a fire, and, as the sun blazed golden towards the sea in the west, he pronounced that we would be joined in marriage – so that he could proclaim to the world that he had taken his captive Amazon bride.
