The Amazon and the Warrior Read online

  “What are you thinking of?”

  “The Amazon. Actually, of her mother. Had I not … had her mother not attacked me, with such bad results, Derinoe would not have left me.”

  “You really think so?”

  Achilles sensed the sarcasm and because of their friendship, dismissed it. Patroklos still did not know Achilles’ thoughts on the matter of Amazons, something frequently on Achilles’ mind of late. “Derinoe was the most exciting woman I’ve ever known. Fiery. Independent. I’ve never had another like her. I’ve been thinking about the Amazons. They do have the most beautiful women. And indisputably the world’s best horses. Better than the Trojans’. What an enormous profit they could bring us!”

  “True. But aren’t they unreachable? Going that far overland in that mountainous terrain would be quite hazardous. Just to get there would take the better part of a month. And I’d say, a steady supply line would be impossible.”

  “If we could take ships through the Hellespont, we could reach Themiskyra in two days.”

  “Getting through requires oarsmen in good condition. Actually, they have to be in exceptional condition. And even if you have enough fit oarsmen, you have to have a pilot, and the Thracians won’t pilot Achean ships.”

  “Perhaps no one’s offered a big enough bribe.”

  Patroklos sat up, giving him a hard stare. “Surely you are not seriously considering an attempt to raid Themiskyra.”

  Achilles rose and donned a sleeping robe. Into golden goblets, he poured wine for the two of them. Patroklos also threw on a robe, and then accepted the offered wine. Achilles continued. “Maybe it would take something more than a bribe. But the prize would be worth it. And I’ve heard rumors. Some say it’s the Amazons who have the secret of iron, not the Hittites, who only trade with them for finished articles. Think of it. The secret of making iron!”

  “What is this obsession you have for Amazons? Don’t we have enough on our hands with the Trojans and their allies. Would you also bring down Amazons on us?”

  Clearly Patroklos wasn’t in sympathy with his plans. Not yet. He needed more information. He would need to assure Patroklos that such a raid was not only warranted, but that success was possible.

  He grasped Patroklos by the arm, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “I won’t do anything without your agreement. You know that.”

  They sat to finish the wine, their talk of Amazons and their horses and what a strange, and ludicrously womanish notion it was to ride into battle on a beast. Heroes came to the field in a chariot and met each other man-to-man, face-to-face, on the ground. It was said that even the Warrior Queen, Penthesilea, rode horseback into battle.

  7

  ON THE FINAL DAY OF THEIR HUNT, PENTHA AND Hippolyta added several hares to their catch. At the top of the last hill before home, Pentha knee-signaled Valor to halt. To Hippolyta she said, “The horses could use a rest.”

  Stretched out below Pentha lay the plain of Themiskyra, a rare strip of flatland on this otherwise rugged and rocky southern coast of the Euxine Sea. The length of a day’s walk, this narrow band of welcoming terrain provided quite adequate room for breeding and training the horses. Green fields with grazing mares rested closest to her, the horses looking like children’s toys. Farther on she could see the Amazon compound, with its training fields, corrals, barns, and barracks. Beyond it, the fenced men’s compound with its three, high-walled, secure areas for the forges. And in the far distance, the city of Themiskyra, home of the People of Artemis, with the river Thermodon, a thin silver ribbon, running through it to the sea.

  In Themiskyra, she had found a safe place. Keeping it safe was her purpose in life.

  “This view is always beautiful,” she said, stroking Valor’s withers. She leaned down and smelled his hair, a delicious animal scent of strength. She sat up again and sighed. “From here all the world seems so peaceful.”

  “I’m sorry you had the nightmare.”

  “It’s been over a year since the last one.”

  “Will you ever tell it to me?”

  Guilt tightened her throat, and the tears that had overtaken her last night threatened again. Never! Her failure, her shame, would remain her secret. “It’s from when I lived on Tenedos. Talking to Damon about my life there probably brought it on.”

  “Maybe telling me would help make it go away.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, dear heart. I can’t.”

  “Nothing?”

  “It involves Acheans. I hate them, Hippolyta. Especially one man.” Lord Achilles, the soldiers in the street had called him, and in the years that followed, the giant Achean warrior’s fame had reached even distant Themiskyra. “If I could have one dream come true, it would be to kill him”

  “Do you know—”

  “Let’s not talk about this.”

  Hippolyta grinned. “Then let’s talk about Phemios. I want to stop by the men’s compound and invite him to spend the night with me.”

  “How many times have you invited him?”

  “I may someday marry Phemios.”

  “Marry!”

  “He is quite handsome. And an excellent smithy. He would make good children.”

  “Hippolyta, we are only twenty and four years old. It’s another eight years before we can even think of marrying. And you’re letting your heart settle on one man?”

  “Oh fuss. Of course, you’re right. But still. He is sooo handsome. Look, Gale and Valor are rested. I’ll race you to the gate of the men’s compound.”

  “Gale can never beat Valor.”

  Hippolyta grinned and shook her head. “I don’t care. I love to race.”

  With that she touched her mare’s side with the cue to gallop, leaned forward, and Gale took off down the hill, running like quicksilver.

  “Run,” Pentha said to Valor, a horse so intelligent he responded to spoken as well as touched commands.

  She felt him gather himself. He shot down the hill, unwilling, she was certain from years of living and working with him, to let any horse, let alone a mare, beat him in any contest.

  Pentha hugged his bare back close with her knees and thighs, felt her camp pack and quiver hitting her back and sides, felt through her legs the pull and release of his muscles, felt the wind whipping her hair. Felt freedom!

  She and Valor passed Hippolyta and Gale midway to the gate. At a place not too distant from it, Pentha signaled the stallion to slow down. She and Hippolyta arrived more or less together. Still filled with the joy of the race, she thanked Artemis again for Hippolyta.

  They let the horses trot a ways, to settle their hearts gradually, and when they slowed to a walk, she brought Valor close to Gale and reached out her hand. Hippolyta took it and they rode that way until they reached the rustic gate. Made from massive birch logs laid horizontally, it stood open during the day.

  Pentha said, “I just hope we don’t run into Trusis. Such an arrogant ass.”

  Hippolyta grinned. “A headman needs confidence.”

  “Confidence, not self-importance: ’

  They rode inside. Only rarely did women come here. At night, husbands went to their wives’ homes in the city, so married women had little reason to visit. During the day, the men returned to work, and unmarried men and young boys above the age of eight slept here.

  Unmarried women came mostly to invite a man to spend the night. Pentha thought of Damon’s comment, that in the outer world he’d learned that he liked to live with a woman all the time. Her own mother had left to be always with a man. The idea must appeal to some people, but she thought it exceedingly odd.

  But then, she had not yet settled her heart on any man. Perhaps that might make a difference.

  At this time of day, Phemios would be working iron. The furnace and forges hunkered in the center of the camp, well guarded. Equally well guarded was the secret of extracting this astonishing, hard metal from the dark stone that lay in their mountains to the south. Iron, along with fine horses, was the heart of Ama
zon wealth.

  They knew, too, how to shape it, with brutal heat, into small implements—usable tools and weapons. Iron tipped every Amazon arrow. Iron is our strength with the Hittites, and also our weakness.

  The Themiskyran Hearth Queen three generations removed had made a compact with the king of their notoriously aggressive southern neighbor. The Amazons would trade this precious commodity only with the Hittites. To the present, that compact held, and moreover, the mighty Hittites let the outside world believe that they held the secret of the metal. But for over a generation now the Hittites had been raiding the People of Artemis. Their present king, Hattusilis, evidently preferred to take by force what he now could have only by trading.

  Hattusilis claimed the raiders were outliers, not under his control. No one in Themiskyra believed his claims, but no one could prove he lied. So from their high central plateau, the Hittites made yearly, but so far unsuccessful, attempts to take Themiskyra by force. The raids tested Themiskyran strength and determination, but were not an invasion. And fortunately, the mountains on the Themiskyran southern border loomed as a formidable barrier. Only two narrow passes led from Hittite into Themiskyran territory. If well defended, Themiskyra would never be easy to take from the south.

  Nor would her people even think of breaking the agreement to trade with none save the Hittites. Losing control of iron would be so devastating to Hattusilis that, no matter how harassed he was on his other borders, especially by the Egyptians and Assyrians, he would turn his full ire on Themiskyra. Even an Amazon force guarding the narrow passes would not be able to defeat the full weight of Hittite power. But as things stood, the people of Artemis could handle the Hittites and, at the same time, the more dangerous raiding Kaskans to the west. Pentha’s life here was secure. And Themiskyra would continue to trade iron for luxuries like ivory, silk, fine linen, spices, and fruits which gave life in this isolated place its elegance.

  She and Hippolyta passed the men’s community house. In front of it, a pack of twenty or more yelling boys with sticks raced after a stuffed leather ball the size of a cooking pot. Each scrambled to hit the ball into a pit not much larger than the ball at one end of the open ground. They lived here with their fathers. None who were playing were over thirteen, when a boy began to learn a trade—perhaps breeding the horses, perhaps digging ore, or hunting, or working iron like Phemios.

  As she and Hippolyta approached the ironworks, a pack train of fifteen horses stood ready to leave. Unfortunately she saw Trusis. She also heard him. Yelling. Something he did far too often. Apparently he was inspecting the train.

  “The packs are arranged entirely wrong!” This he screamed into the face of a befuddled and blushing man. “The animal is likely to tip over the edge of a cliff at the first big wind.”

  Hearing the sound of their horses, Trusis turned. Seeing her and Hippolyta dismount, his almost purple face shifted into a smile.

  Hippolyta said, “I’ll only take a short time, I promise.” She passed Pentha a look of sympathy, then headed toward the forge.

  8

  TRUSIS QUICKLY APPROACHED PENTHA. “IT IS SO difficult to get them to pack correctly,” he said. Like a nervous child, he broadened his smile still more, obviously embarrassed that she caught him indulging in such a display of temper. “But I do my best.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “What brings you here?” He smoothed the front of his tunic, recovering his usual stiff composure. “It’s so good to see you. Our Warrior Queen graces this place of men.”

  “Hippolyta wanted to speak to Phemios.” And I certainly hope she keeps her promise to be quick about it.

  He patted the stallion’s nose, never taking his dark gaze from her. He was slender and pleasant enough to look at. A little taller than she. A few streaks of gray were beginning to show at the temples through the dark, black hair. Because he was the leader of the Themiskyran men, she presumed he was reasonably fit, and when she occasionally watched him at games, he seemed remarkably good with a sword. But she never liked the way he looked at her.

  Trusis stepped closer, eyeing the score of skins slung across Valor’s rump. “I see you’ve been hunting. It looks as though you were successful. As you always are.”

  She thought about hanging upside down in a simple loop trap, and smiled. He quickly smiled back. He’d mistaken her smile, thinking it was for him.

  Hippolyta hurried up to them. Goddess bless her.

  They swung onto their mounts’ leopard-skin riding blankets.

  “Come again, Penthesilea,” Trusis said, as she wheeled Valor. “Perhaps I will see you at the games at the next full moon.”

  At the gate, they put the horses into a trot. She felt eager, now, to get to the barracks, to bathe and change.

  They passed the visiting house, built conveniently on the perimeter of the Amazon compound that bordered the men’s compound, an easy walk between them. Here there were rooms for entertaining lovers at night. She thought of Damon. She envisioned herself in one of those rooms in his arms. A smile touched her lips. Perhaps it wouldn’t be impossible to coax him down to the plain.

  A few moments more and they reached the Amazon compound entry. No visible boundary marked it. The entire area simply occupied most of the western portion of the flat land along this stretch of shoreline. No one other than Amazons could enter. No children came here, at any age.

  A cool breeze swept in from the sea, freshened with essence of seaweed and salt. By midday it would be quite warm. In the distance, fifty or sixty women on horseback practiced mounted javelin throwing. A line of similar number stood at the archery range.

  She and Hippolyta rode toward the stable. The women she passed nodded to her, an informal salute. A few, close friends or her top commanders, called her name. Their greetings she returned with a nod, smile, or wave.

  After dismounting, she and Hippolyta handed their halter reins to the horses’ grooms. She stepped to Valor’s head and pressed her cheek to his neck. To his groom she said, “Give them both an especially long rub down and brushing. We raced them. And plenty of water.”

  Hippolyta linked their arms as they headed for the barracks dormitory. “You should probably invite Trusis to spend at least one night,” she said.

  Pentha could muster only a faint smile.

  “He is terribly fond of you.”

  “There is something about Trusis. So pompous. I can’t imagine him as a lover.”

  “Making love to a man can often show his better side.”

  Pentha laughed. “You think Trusis has a better side?”

  “Everyone has a better side.”

  She squeezed the hand resting on her arm. “You have a tender heart.”

  “Well, it’s best for peace that the women sleep with as many of the men as possible. And I don’t think you’ll keep peace with Trusis if you put him off forever.”

  “I can try.”

  “Seriously, Pentha, putting him off too long will cause trouble. Besides, I am so looking forward to this night with Phemios. Do you intend to be alone?”

  “If I had wanted to make love, I should have stayed with our host of last night. Now Damon is someone I could easily bed.

  “But he is sooo strange, don’t you think? At least Trusis doesn’t live like a wild man.”

  Halfway to the Amazon barracks with Hippolyta, and still in conversation about their strange rescuer, Bremusa, first commander of the Amazon cavalry, caught up to them. “Gryn sent a message for you,” Bremusa said to Pentha. “She’s with Harmonia. They ask that as soon as you return, you come to them. It’s urgent.”

  9

  PENTHA NODDED A DISMISSAL TO BREMUSA WHO strode off toward the nearest corral.

  Hippolyta said, “I haven’t seen mother for over a week. I’ll come too.”

  Bremusa had said urgent. “I’m going without changing,” Pentha said.

  Hippolyta grinned. “Mother has kissed me many times when I was dirty and smelling of horse.”

 
; They picked fresh mounts, Pentha’s Dawn and Hippolyta’s Winter, then made for town at a trot. Riding past garden plots and villas, inns and shrines, Pentha felt a renewed love for her beautiful, un-walled city. She thought of Damon, and how he never entered it or participated in its life. He should be very lonely, but he hadn’t seemed so.

  They passed a pavilion with the statues of Themiskyra’s founders. This peaceful refuge on the Euxine Sea had been created in a time lost in the misty past by others who had also suffered at the hand of Acheans. The Queen of Crete, when she fled from Achean invaders, came to the Thermodon accompanied by her lover, Alektrion, and her great teacher, the Nubian, Zuliya. As a young man, Zuliya had served as a horse trainer with the king of the Mittani. He taught the women of Themiskyra to ride. The Queen of Crete, Leesandra, instilled in the People the will to take up arms so that women should not fall prey to enslavement by Acheans, or anyone else. And Alektrion planned Themiskyra’s spacious paved streets and squares, fountains, and main buildings. All had lived long and happy lives here.

  An odd thought struck her. Would her life here also be long and equally happy? Surely it would. There was no reason it should not be.

  All horses and weapons must be left at the city’s entry, and so they left theirs. They hurried toward the main square and the Great Hall, the residence of their current Hearth Queen, Harmonia. Beside the Great Hall stood the imposing temple to Artemis. Harmonia, chosen by the People when she was forty, also served as High Priestess.

  Twice they had to stop briefly to chat because Hippolyta had lived here all her life, knew practically everyone, and was dearly loved. Children of people close to her were encouraged by their parents to “show the grace of Hippolyta.”

  In the main square, a throng of young boys and girls galloped back and forth on stick horses, playing horse stickball around a statue of Artemis, who stood straight, with drawn arrow, a stag at her side. Suddenly a boy shouted, “It’s Penthesilea!”