Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THEMISCYRA

HIPPOLYTA DISMISSED THE OLD man from her mind and started ripping open the pack. Inside were loaves of bread, cheeses, strips of dried meat, fruits and berries, and a skinful of wine.

“He must have quite an appetite for someone so skinny,” she mused, biting into a handful of figs.

“I don’t like it,” said Tithonus. “He gave all this up too easily.”

“Easy for you,” said Hippolyta, rubbing her bruises. “I paid quite a price.”

She tossed Tithonus a loaf of bread, and his hunger immediately overcame his curiosity. Having silenced him as she intended, Hippolyta examined the horse and discovered something tucked under the pack, a double-headed ax. She pulled it out and saw that it was identical in every way to the kind used by the Amazons.

“That’ll come in handy,” said Tithonus. “We can chop wood for a campfire tonight.”

“It’s handy for a lot more than that,” Hippolyta said.

She turned the ax over in her hand, examining it from every angle. If not for the fact that it was impossible, she could have sworn this was the very same ax she had taken with her from Themiscyra.

Once they had eaten their fill, Hippolyta vaulted onto the horse’s back and took hold of the reins. Tithonus gaped at her as if she had just turned a somersault and landed feetfirst on top of a tree.

“Come on,” she said, waving him forward. “You’re not planning to walk all the way, are you?”

“You mean, we’re going to sit up there? But we’ll just fall off.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve been riding on horseback since I was younger than you.”

“Well, that’s all very well for a barbarian, but civilized people ride in chariots.”

“I know one civilized person who’s going to be trampled under these hooves if he doesn’t get over here,” Hippolyta said.

Tithonus came forward reluctantly and took Hippolyta’s hand. She pulled him up with a grunt. It was like dragging up a sackful of vegetables.

“And this is safe?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly. She wasn’t certain if he was shaking from fear, cold, or the fact that the horse had started to prance about with an uncertain rider on its back.

“Yes, it’s safe. Just put your arms around my waist.”

Tithonus threw both arms around her and held on so tightly, she could hardly breathe.

“Try to relax a bit,” Hippolyta said. “We aren’t exactly galloping. Yet.”

Tithonus slowly loosened his hold, but every time the horse made an unexpected movement, he squeezed Hippolyta so hard she gasped out loud.

“This is going to be an awfully long trip,” Hippolyta muttered.

Behind her, his head resting on her back, Tithonus nodded.

Remembering what the old man said about going home, she turned the horse’s nose east and north. If it got her home sooner, she’d say a prayer for the old man’s safety.

It turned out that Tithonus was more trouble than baby Podarces had been.

Yes, he could feed himself.

And wash himself.

And he didn’t need to be changed.

But he wouldn’t shut up.

All day long he asked endless questions. Hippolyta gave him as many answers as she could stand, all the while avoiding the full story of why she had come to Troy.

“What does Queen Otrere look like?”

“She has copper-colored hair and large amber eyes. Like you.”

“Not like you, though.”

“No, I probably look like my father.”

“I don’t look like my father,” Tithonus said. “That’s why he hates me.”

“He hates you?”

“Well, he doesn’t exactly hate me. But he doesn’t like me, either. Do you think she’ll like me?”

“I don’t know. I expect she’ll like you as much as I do.”

He chewed on that for a while. Then he started up again.

“What are the Amazons really like?”

“Like warriors.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Then who does the washing?”

“We have servants. We have slaves.”

“Is my mother a warrior?”

“She’s a queen. But not the warrior queen. The peace queen.”

Another one to chew over.

When he finally stopped asking questions, Hippolyta was relieved.

But only for a moment.

Then he began talking endlessly about Troy: about his father, his sisters, his old nurse, Dares, the stories he’d heard the bards sing at the palace.

Hippolyta tried to keep a rein on her temper, but when he started talking about how soft his bed was in Troy and how many servants he had, it was more than she could take.

“Tithonus,” she said through gritted teeth, “if you don’t close your mouth, a woodpecker will fly in and make its nest there.” It was something her mother often said to Antiope.

“That’s silly,” Tithonus answered. “There are no woodpeckers around here. There are no trees.”

“Then if you don’t shut up, I’ll find some other bird and stuff it in there!” Hippolyta threatened.

The boy fell silent for a full three seconds, then said, “I think we should stop and rest for a while, Hippolyta. All this riding is making you cranky. I knew we’d have been better off with a chariot. A person doesn’t get cranky in a chariot.”

“A person does who’s tied up and carted off to be a monster’s dinner,” she said in a tight voice.

That quieted him.

Hippolyta had to fight hard to stifle her desire to shove him off the horse and leave him lying in the dust. Let him try to find his way back to Troy without being eaten by a bear, she thought. Let him try to get there without being taken by brigands!

But each time she felt that way she reminded herself that she needed him as much as he needed her.

“It’s getting dark,” she said finally. “We might as well stop for the night.”

She showed him how to gather kindling for the fire, and he took to the task eagerly, as if it were some sort of game. He did such a good job she even let him strike a spark from the two pieces of flint she found in the old man’s pack.

“Stay here,” she commanded. “Watch the fire and the horse.”

She was so relieved to be away from him for a little while she almost missed the trio of pigeons with the makeshift bow she’d fashioned for herself. In fact she only got two of them.

But two, she thought, are enough.

Once they’d eaten, Hippolyta lay back on the brown grass. It was the most relaxed she’d felt in days.

“I think food tastes even better out-of-doors,” said Tithonus. “When I get back to Troy, I think I’ll go outside to eat instead of having my meals in the banqueting halls.”

Let him dream about his banquets, Hippolyta thought. He’s never going to see Troy again.

“My father likes having huge banquets,” Tithonus recalled, “with six or seven courses. And music. And dancing girls.”

“Yes, I’m sure he has plenty of dancing girls,” Hippolyta remarked disdainfully

“You don’t like my father, do you?” Tithonus said.

“Do I have any reason to?”

“I suppose not.” He said it carefully. Then burst out with “But what about your own father? The one you look like.”

“Amazons don’t care about their fathers,” Hippolyta replied brusquely. “In fact I don’t even know who he is.”

“Then how do you know you look like him?”

“I don’t. I just know I’m the only one of Mother’s daughters who doesn’t look like her.”

“Don’t you want to find out who your father is?” Tithonus’ voice fell to a whisper, as if afraid to even ask the question.

“Well, I know it isn’t Laomedon,” Hippolyta replied tightly. “Because he said he’d met my mother only twice. That’s once for you and once for baby Podarces.”

But Tithonus wouldn’t let the matter rest there. “Do you think your father might be a king, though?”

She sighed and turned over onto her stomach. “What does it matter if he’s a king or a commoner? He’s just a man—and all of them are alike.”

“That’s not true,” Tithonus said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’m anything like my father. He likes ordering people around and fighting wars. I’d rather stay home and listen to the storytellers. I don’t think I want to be king if it means fighting.”

Hippolyta thought: I should just tell him he needn’t worry about becoming king. That would shut him up.

“It’s late, Tithonus.” She yawned. “Get some sleep. You can start talking again in the morning.” She flipped over on her back, and before he could think of an answer, she was fast asleep.

Two weeks’ travel brought them into the land of the Amazons, a lot more quickly than the trip to Troy.

“My country,” Hippolyta said, expansively waving her right arm and thinking about the old man’s promise. Go easily and go well, old warrior, she thought.

“What’s that?” Tithonus asked, pointing to the gleaming river winding its way north.

“We call it the River Thermodon,” Hippolyta said. But even as she spoke, something troubled her.

“This land of yours is very quiet,” Tithonus commented.

“We’re a quiet people,” she told him.

But he’d put his finger on what had been bothering her. They’d encountered no Amazon scouting parties, no Amazon hunters, no Amazon travelers for mile upon mile.

The lack of anyone’s trailing them or questioning them or greeting them bothered Hippolyta. It was like a sliver of broken nail on a finger: raw and worrying but not actually deadly. She thought about it on and off until they got closer to the city.

When they saw Themiscyra in the distance, there was no one working in the fields.

“It shouldn’t be this quiet,” Hippolyta murmured. She could feel the hairs standing up on the back of her neck, a sure sign of danger in the road ahead. Her fingers stroked the edge of the ax at her side. She wondered: Could some enemy have swept across our land while I’ve been gone? Then she looked again at the countryside but this time carefully.

Unlikely, she thought. There was no sign of a battle. There was no sign of any destruction.

“Maybe there’s a festival going on and everybody’s stopped working for the day,” Tithonus suggested.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Hippolyta. Strange how she suddenly, desperately wanted Tithonus to be right. “A festival.”

But it was not First Planting nor was it Harvesttime. It was not the solstice, either, when the days grew shorter or longer. It could not be a celebration of a new daughter, for when she’d left, no one who was carrying a child had been near term. The Festival of Founding, in which they celebrated Themiscyra’s beginnings, was not for many passages of the moon yet.

What other festivals are there? she wondered.

“That would be fun, arriving during a festival,” Tithonus enthused.

“Be quiet!” Hippolyta suddenly told him. “Listen.”

She thought at first she was hearing the wind keening through the trees. But the trees were still, and there was no wind.

“That’s a funny noise,” said Tithonus. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Hippolyta replied.

But she did. It was the sound of weeping voices. And they were coming from Themiscyra.

“Well,” the boy said, “what do you think it is?”

She was afraid to think. She could only act. She urged the horse forward with her heels.

They followed the dirt road until they came to the wall around the city. Surprisingly, there were no sentries at the gate, no one patrolling the palisade.

It’s as if the gods had reached down and plucked every Amazon but me from the earth, she thought.

The keening noise from inside the city was louder now and even more unsettling. It was like a wild mourning cry after battle.

The horse began to grow nervous, whinnying and stamping and trying to veer away from the town.

“We’d better get off before he throws us,” said Hippolyta, skinning one foot over the horse’s back and dropping down. She turned to help Tithonus dismount. Then she tethered the animal to a post and patted it gently to calm it.

Tithonus shivered. “I don’t think it’s a festival,” he muttered.

Hippolyta didn’t respond.

They passed through the gateway and onto the empty, narrow streets. All at once a woman came stumbling out of one of the houses and ran up the street toward them. Her cheeks were streaked with tear tracks; her face was pale and haggard. She was pulling at her hair in a frenzy of anguish as she ran. She’d actually torn out hunks of it, for there were clumps in her hand.

Tithonus darted behind Hippolyta and hid there.

Hippolyta was hardly less afraid than he, but she stood her ground. She thought the woman looked familiar, though she couldn’t put a name to her. Perhaps a servant in the palace or some woodworker who’d fashioned a new table for the temple recently.

“Dead, oh, all of them dead!” the disheveled woman wailed, and seized Hippolyta by the shoulders. “What will become of us now?” The woman stared into her face with wide, bloodshot eyes. Her voice shriveled to a husky sob. “Dead. Dead. All of them dead.”

Releasing her hold, the woman sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

Hippolyta was torn between the impulse to comfort this madwoman and the impulse to run away before the madness took a dangerous turn.

“Who’s dead?” she asked. “Is Queen Otrere safe?”

The woman gave no answer but wept into her hands.

“What’s wrong?” Tithonus asked in a small voice.

“I don’t know,” Hippolyta replied. “Stay close to me, and we’ll find out.”

“I think we should go back,” Tithonus said. “While we still can. Listen, Hippolyta.”

They both listened. The great keening filled the city and threatened to overwhelm them.

“This is a place full of ghosts,” Tithonus cried.

“This is Themiscyra, not Tartarus,” Hippolyta said, turning to face him. “Not the land of the dead. Come on, boy. Don’t you want to be a brave warrior like your father?”

Tithonus looked down at the ground. “No,” he said in a near whisper.

“Then be a brave warrior like your sister,” she said, taking his hand. “Like me.”

She led him down the street toward the center of Themiscyra. As soon as they entered the main avenue, she felt his fingers tighten convulsively around hers.

Here was where the sound was coming from. Along the road, slumping in doorways, leaning against walls, draped over the fountain unheeding the water in their faces, were scores of Amazons. Like the deranged woman by the gate, these Amazons were wailing, hair unbound, garments disordered and torn.

Again and again the same words recurred like a dirge: “They are dead, all of them dead. What is to become of us now?”

Hippolyta recognized most of the faces, and that only made things worse. Women she had seen dressed for battle or riding boldly off on the hunt were now weak and helpless, their spirits broken by some dreadful calamity.

Was this the promised curse, she wondered, the result of her mother’s refusal to kill her infant son?

“Let’s get out of here,” Tithonus pleaded. “This is an awful place.”

“No,” Hippolyta insisted. “Not until we understand what’s going on. These are my people, but at the same time, they aren’t. True Amazons would never act like this. We have to find the queen. My mother. Your mother. She’ll tell us what’s happening here.”