Jane Yolen - Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

Hippolyta touched him gently on the shoulder, and he glanced up with moist eyes, pathetically glad to see her. “What have you been doing?” he asked. “What’s happened to that old woman?”

“She’s gone. She was—” Hippolyta checked herself. It would do no good explaining that she’d just been talking to a goddess without sounding as if she’d lost her wits. Besides, she didn’t want to explain everything the goddess had told her. Certainly not about the sacrifice at Arimaspa.

“We’re leaving the city, Tithonus,” she said. “Right now.”

“Thank the gods!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back out and that I’d have to stay here till I died.”

Why does he have to talk of dying now? she thought. Her fingers clenched the handle of the ax.

“I told you I’d come back for you,” Hippolyta retorted in a brittle voice. “You have to believe what I tell you.

“I do,” he answered quickly. “I really do. Only when you’re afraid … it’s hard to remember promises.” He gulped.

“Well, remember this: We’re both going to do something to save our mother.”

“Mother!” He turned and looked over at Otrere, who was still standing on the top step, looking at the sky. “Can I tell her good-bye?”

“Yes,” Hippolyta said. “That’s exactly what you should do. And then we’ll go.”

Tithonus ran back and embraced the standing woman. She was so utterly absorbed in her nameless grief, she was completely unaware of his farewell.

As they rode away from Themiscyra, the boy behind holding on around her waist, Hippolyta thought about sacrifice. Easier to do it before you know the person’s name, she thought. Before his face is burned into your heart.

Then she remembered what Artemis had said. Mercy was a warrior’s undoing. If she opened her heart to mercy, it could mean the end of the Amazon race.

“Where are we going?” Tithonus asked.

“To the city where the Amazons began.”

“But I should really go back to Troy,” Tithonus said. “I have to face Father sometime.”

Hippolyta took a deep breath and steeled herself for what she needed to say. She half turned in the saddle to speak to him directly. She owed him that. “Tithonus, I can’t make this journey by myself. And Artemis—Artemis’ priestess said that it would take both of us to stop the madness in Themiscyra. Both of us to lift the curse that has befallen my people.”

Tithonus’ face brightened. “Really? You really need me?”

Hippolyta nodded. “It’s for your mother’s— our mother’s—sake.”

Tithonus chewed his lip. “But after we finish at Arimaspa, then I can go home?”

“Yes,” said Hippolyta, hating herself for the half lie, for she would only be bringing his body back. “After Arimaspa, I’ll take you home to Troy.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AN ENEMY SOLDIER

HIPPOLYTA URGED THE horse eastward as fast as it would go. As the animal galloped along, both she and Tithonus fell into the steady, hypnotic rhythm. The sound of the hooves thudding on the grass, the wind in their ears, made conversation difficult.

Tithonus went for whole minutes at a time without saying anything. Mostly when he did speak, he simply asked questions, which he framed in three or four different ways. “Where are we going?” he would say. “Are we going far?” And then: “Will it take long where we’re going? What is the name again of the place where we’re going?” Then he’d lapse back into a long silence.

Hippolyta ignored him, trying to focus instead on the tasks ahead. Arimaspa! she thought, trying to remember all that she knew of it.

She knew it was the place where the first Amazon queens had lived. Where a pair of arrogant princes had stolen gold belonging to the gods. She knew the women had left that cursed place and wandered for many years till settling at last in Themiscyra and the other Amazon towns.

But it had been foretold by Apollo that a second son grown to manhood would summon the Amazons to their deaths.

Well, Tithonus was the first son, not the second, and he was not yet full grown.

Artemis had also said that in Arimaspa the first blood pact had been made, and there Hippolyta would make that pact anew.

We can do it, she thought with fierce determination.

We.

Tithonus and I.

Suddenly she felt as if she had a bronze dagger in her heart.

Would Tithonus understand when the time came for him to be killed? The Trojans had been willing enough to sacrifice her for their own city’s sake.

Whatever we face in Arimaspa, she concluded, will be worth it to save my people. Worth it to me, at least.

She did not want to think about what it was worth to the boy.

Hippolyta decided the best route was to go directly to the southern coast of the Euxine Sea and follow the coastline until they reached the border of Colchis. There they would swing south, skirting the actual country, for the Colchians were a suspicious people. It was said they jealously guarded some great treasure gifted to them by the gods. She smiled crookedly. Rather like the Trojans and their precious statue of Athena.

Two mornings farther along, as they were washing their hands and faces in a cold stream, Hippolyta worked up the nerve to ask Tithonus about sacrifice. Not naming names, of course. Not mentioning the actual ritual to come. Just enough to sound him out.

“Tithonus,” she said. His name came out as a croak, and she had to clear her throat to speak properly. “Tithonus, do you think a warrior should be ready to give his life for his city?”

He thought a minute. “Father says so,” he replied, shaking droplets of water from his hair. “He’s sent a lot of soldiers to do that already.” He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know what the soldiers thought about it, though.”

Hippolyta stood and spoke without looking at him. “Suppose Troy was in some terrible danger,” she said, “and you were the only one who could save it, but you’d have to sacrifice your life to do so.” As they talked, they walked back to the horse, and Hippolyta busied herself untethering the beast and making it ready for riding.

Tithonus wrinkled his nose. “How could my life save the whole city?”

“Well, suppose an enemy army is approaching Troy because you’ve made their king very angry.” She spoke to the horse, not Tithonus.

“How did I do that?”

“ You wouldn’t find it hard. Trust me.” Hippolyta sighed.

He nodded as if he suddenly understood. “Yes, kings get angry very fast. I expect it’s because they’ve a lot on their minds. Wars, taxes, sea monsters.”

“Well,” said Hippolyta impatiently, “you’ve made this king angry by—by setting fire to his beard.”

Tithonus laughed and slapped his leg. “That would be funny.”

“Not to the king with the singed beard,” Hippolyta said.

“True.”

“The point is,” Hippolyta persisted, “would you give yourself up to the king to save the city?”

“To save the whole city? My sisters and my friends?” Tithonus stared off into the distance as though he were recalling their faces. “And my father and Dares and—”

“Everyone,” Hippolyta said firmly. She mounted the horse in one quick, flawless motion, then reached down a hand and pulled Tithonus up behind her.

“Yes, I would,” he said at last, into her ear. “If I didn’t, it would be like living under a curse for the rest of my life.”

Absentmindedly stroking the horse’s mane, Hippolyta murmured, “Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?”