Jane Yolen - Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

“Thank you, Artemis,” she whispered.

“I’m freezing,” Tithonus said. Indeed his teeth were chattering.

“Just a few minutes more, till we’re sure that monster’s gone,” Hippolyta said. “Then we’ll climb the rope out of here.” She looked at Tithonus, who was now shivering uncontrollably. “You can climb a rope, can’t you?”

He nodded.

She wondered, though. Exhausted, frightened, cold, even she was going to have trouble climbing.

“You’d better go first,” she said. “I’ll be behind you all the way.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COMPANIONS

THEY CREPT OUT OF the farmyard under the light of a full moon, thankful to find the sea monster no longer around.

“Gone to find easier prey,” Hippolyta said to the shaking boy.

His teeth were clattering so hard he couldn’t answer, though he nodded silently.

“Good boy,” she told him. “Now let’s find some rocks where we can hide out. Our clothes will dry as we walk.”

He nodded again.

“And perhaps the serpent, satisfied with what it finds elsewhere, will go back to the sea for a while.”

He smiled briefly.

She smiled back.

Neither of them gave a thought to the monster’s other prey but stole quickly and gratefully away from the farm.

When Hippolyta awoke in their nest of rocks, morning sun blazing overhead, Tithonus was gone.

She was immediately seized by a sense of alarm and reached for her weapon. Then she remembered she had none.

“Tithonus!” she hissed in an urgent whisper, then listened hard for an answer.

She was greeted by silence.

Cautiously she eased her way out of the small cave into the full glare of the morning sun. There, on the plain below the rocks, was a small figure kicking disconsolately at a stone.

Hippolyta checked all around. There was no sign of anyone. And no sound of any monster. She sighed with relief. Then she clambered out of the rocks.

The noise she made surprised her. Even more surprising was that Tithonus had gotten out earlier and she’d heard nothing.

A warrior, she reminded herself, never sleeps.

She bit her lip. She had not acquitted herself well. The monster hadn’t been slain. Her prisoner had escaped. Well, at least he hadn’t gone far.

She hurried down the rocky slope, calling his name.

This time he heard her and looked up with a faint smile.

“What are you doing out here?”

He shrugged. “Looking for food.” Then he paused. “I haven’t found anything. And I was … afraid to go too far. In case … you know.”

She did know but didn’t want to comfort him. “Well, you won’t find loaves of bread and joints of mutton lying around on the ground.”

“I’d settle for an apple,” Tithonus said. “Even the peel would be something.”

“Well, there’s a bramble bush over there,” Hippolyta said. “We can pick some berries.” And , she thought, looking around at the scrub and brush, there’s always nettle soup.

The bush was small, and the berries were mostly unripe. Neither of them felt any less hungry after their meager breakfast. The waterskin had been lost back where Hippolyta had been staked out. She didn’t suggest they return to look for it.

“I’d be having milk and freshly baked bread for breakfast if I were in Troy,” Tithonus whimpered.

“I’d be breakfast if you were in Troy,” Hippolyta said. Not that she was thanking him. He hadn’t meant to help her escape.

“I’m starving!” said Tithonus, paying no attention to her reply.

“Well, why don’t you run off home?” she said, adding quickly, “Of course I wouldn’t risk it in your place.”

That got his attention. He looked at her with wide-open eyes. “You wouldn’t?”

“Surely your father knows by now that you set me free with the monster stomping about the countryside.”

His lower lip turned down. “That was an accident.”

“I know that. You know that. Who else would believe it?”

He looked at his feet, the sandals scuffed and filthy. “My father wouldn’t.” The stuck-out lower lip now began to tremble.

“I mean,” Hippolyta went on, hoping she wasn’t slathering it on too thickly, “ I only ruffled his tunic, and he had me trussed up for monster food.”

“But I’m the heir to the throne,” Tithonus whispered.

“Don’t forget he has another heir now,” Hippolyta said. “Little Podarces. The baby I delivered to him. That makes you as expendable as I am.”

He looked so stunned and lost that for a moment Hippolyta felt sorry for him. Then she reminded herself what a spoiled brat he was and how she meant to make him suffer. And his father.

“So you have no choice, really,” she added.

“What do you mean?”

She smiled and held out her hand. “You have to come with me. To my home. To Themiscyra.”

His lower lip snapped back, thinned out. His mouth was like a sharp, hard line. He looked just like his father. “I thought Amazons didn’t let men into their country.”

“You’d have to come as my slave, of course,” Hippolyta said, furrowing her brow as if in thought. “That way you’d be safe.”

“I’m nobody’s slave,” Tithonus said. “I’m a Trojan prince.”

She shook her head. “Not in your father’s eyes. In his eyes you’re a traitor. And”—she raised her hand, palm out—“I saved your life.” Her voice was as stern as any Amazonian teacher. “By the laws of the gods, your life now belongs to me.”

He groaned. “Is that true?”

“Absolutely,” Hippolyta said. “Why should I lie to you?”

He couldn’t think of an answer. She let him try.

At last Tithonus whimpered. “But my mother will set me free, won’t she?”

“I expect so,” Hippolyta agreed, thinking that with any luck their mother would never set eyes on him. A dagger will set you free on Artemis’ altar, she thought, and I will save the Amazon nation with your Trojan blood.

They trekked northward, away from Troy, and around midday came to a stream, where they drank the clear water gratefully

Hunger was a hard knot in Hippolyta’s belly. But she’d been hungrier. Amazons trained for such long, foodless treks.

Tithonus had been complaining about thirst for hours. But suddenly he grabbed on to Hippolyta’s arm, spilling the water from her cupped hands, and pointed.

About thirty yards upstream an old man had emerged from the trees to water his horse. Apart from a few scraggly gray hairs near the nape of his neck, he was completely bald. His beard was cut so close to his face it was just a dark stubble. He wore a crude smock of ragged sacking tied at the waist with a length of rope.

“Do you think it’s one of my father’s men searching for me?” Tithonus whispered.

“Do you think your father cares enough to look for you?” Hippolyta answered, annoyed not to have seen the old man first. “Besides, that old man doesn’t look like a Trojan soldier.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and strode off in the stranger’s direction.

Tithonus trailed slightly behind.

The old man was leaning on a wooden staff and chewing on a length of dried meat. When he saw them approach, he didn’t seem alarmed in the least. Up close he seemed an ancient version of a warrior. Old battle scars ran down both his bony arms, and on the left arm he wore a bronze armlet decorated with the image of a dragon. It hung loosely, as if it belonged to a brawnier arm than his.

Hippolyta halted a few feet from the old man and raised a hand in greeting. “Goddess’s blessings, old one.”

“Blessings to you, strangers,” he replied in a creaking voice.