Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CONDEMNED

SHE HADN’T MEANT TO FALL asleep again. She thought she was wide awake. But suddenly the shouts and screams of the other prisoners woke her.

The door to her cell opened slowly, and in came the stiff-legged jailer with a sour look on his face. Behind him a guard stood at the door watching while the jailer thrust a dry crust of bread and a cup of brackish water at Hippolyta.

“Why they even bother …” he began.

She grabbed the bread and water and downed them. “Fattening me up, I suppose,” she said, thinking to get information from him.

He looked startled. “You know?”

She nodded, hoping he would continue.

“Poor girl,” he said solemnly, and took the cup from her.

“Aye,” said the guard, “a waste of a good-looking woman, if you ask me.”

“If you ask me,” the jailer said as he went through the door, “she’s too young by half for what you’re thinking.”

“Too young for what the king’s thinking, too,” the guard replied, shutting the door and locking it.

Well, Hippolyta thought, that was a lot of help.

She now knew enough to be thoroughly frightened without knowing anything at all. But if I must die, I’ll die bravely. Like an Amazon. With that resolve, she sat down again on the dirty straw to calm herself.

She tried to remember the death chant she’d been taught. The one Queen Andromache had composed before the battle in which she’d been slain.

“I come to you, Artemis, with a clean heart,

I come, Ares, ax in my strong right hand.

My bow is strung. It sings my death song.

My arrows are ready for flight.

I come over the mountains, capped with snow,

Past the eagles in their aeries,

Past the far streamers of clouds. …”

But in fact, she was bowless and axless and without her quiver of arrows. What good was singing a warrior’s death song when it was clear that she was going to die badly, eaten by some awful … thing? And without being given the chance to fight.

Besides, she had failed her mother, failed her people.

Ashamed, Hippolyta began to weep.

By midmorning, when Laomedon’s soldiers came for her, Hippolyta had recovered herself. She had even scrubbed her face clean of tears—or at least as clean as she could with the back of her hand—and she was standing up, waiting for the guards.

She’d heard them coming. A Phrygian could have heard them coming! They marched noisily along the corridor, the other prisoners taunting them, and that had given her time to stand tall, shoulders straight, head high. Like an Amazon.

The jailer opened the door, and the soldiers marched in. There were eight of them.

Eight men to one Amazon, she thought. Just about right. They pushed her out of the cell, binding her wrists before her. She walked—no, she strode—ahead of them.

Let them see how an Amazon dies, she thought.

But instead of being taken immediately to a place of execution, she was brought into a courtyard. There a gallery of courtiers had been assembled. All men, she noted with growing anger.

At all the exits bronze-armored soldiers stood guard.

Surely Laomedon doesn’t think I’m that dangerous! she thought with a bitter smile.

Horses had been led from the stables and were even now being hitched to four chariots. Hippolyta recognized hawk-nosed Dares, who was supervising the operation. He glanced over, nodded, and for a moment looked as if he wanted to say something. But then he turned his back and finished the work he was set to do.

Just then there was a stir among the assembled courtiers, a kind of hushed buzz like a hive of honeybees, and the king came through a great door. He was accompanied by an armed escort. Dressed in a luxurious purple robe, he wore a golden crown and enough jewelry around his neck to hang himself. He was handsome and arrogant, every inch the king. Climbing five steps to a wooden throne, he surveyed the scene with languid ease.

The courtiers all clapped, and one man sang out, “The king! The king!”

Hippolyta’s guards dragged her forward until she was directly in front of the throne. The king was seated high enough that she had to look up at an uncomfortable angle in order to look him in the face. She did it despite the discomfort. She didn’t want to give him the pleasure of seeing her bow her head.

A stout, gray-bearded man came from the gallery and cleared his throat.

“Announce the charges, Argeas,” Laomedon commanded.

Argeas cleared his throat again, before saying, “The barbarian girl Hippolyta—”

Hippolyta interrupted. “I’m no barbarian. I’m an Amazon, daughter of Otrere, queen of Themiscyra.”

The gray beard began again. “The Amazon girl Hippolyta is accused of laying hands upon the royal person, threatening the king, and thereby assaulting the safety of Troy.”

“I will show you my bruises, old man,” Hippolyta interrupted, “and then you can decide who has assaulted whom.”

“Silence, girl,” Argeas said. “You don’t have leave to speak. The first time you interrupted I said nothing, for you do not know our customs. The second time I instruct you. Let there be no third time, or woe befall you.

Hippolyta snorted. “More woe than being eaten?”

Old Argeas looked startled and turned to his king. “There can’t be a sentence before the trial, Your Majesty.”

Laomedon leaned forward. “I was the one assaulted, and I am the sole witness, and I am the judge. The girl is guilty. Trial over. Now we’ll sentence her. Does that satisfy you, Argeas?”

The old man looked down. “Death is the sole penalty prescribed for such a crime, Sire.”

“Then take her away and see that the sentence is carried out,” Laomedon said. “Now let’s move on to more important business.”

The soldiers took Hippolyta by the arms and led her toward the chariots. She twisted around and shouted back at Laomedon. “False king,” she cried. “May the gods all curse you. May the Amazons come and lay waste to your city. May your walls be thrown down and the stones used to plug up your harbor. May Ares and Artemis loose the hounds of Hades to gnaw on your bones.”

“Shut her up,” Laomedon commanded, and one of the soldiers clapped a broad hand over her mouth.

But Dares stepped forward. “My lord,” he said, “no one in Troy questions your justice. But mightn’t we show this girl mercy? She’s little more than a child. A barbarian. She hasn’t been taught how to behave in a civilized society.”

“Then this will serve as a sharp lesson to her. And for any little barbarian girls who come after,” Laomedon said. “And I must wonder, my loyal Dares, why you should take her part.” He dismissed Dares with a wave of his hand.

Dares sighed and mounted the front chariot. Hippolyta was pushed up beside him, and her wrists were tethered to the chariot rail. Then Dares flicked the reins, and the horses began to pull. The chariot bounced and jounced along the rutted road, and it was all Hippolyta could do to stay on her feet.

Behind them, in the other three chariots, an escort of soldiers followed.

Hippolyta looked back.

At the soldiers.

At the high walls like stone scabs over suppurating wounds.

At Troy.