by Mary Renault
I cursed both men and dogs; we beat off the pack before they could tear us piecemeal, and wounded some, so that they bayed us from a distance, jumping to and fro. Over their noise I heard the music stop in a broken jangle; and then the war-horn.
That sound made me myself again. I shouted to the men, “Take care! They are Moon Maids of Artemis. I saw the shrine. Let no one fight who can hide or run. Don’t force them; it is death-cursed. The Queen …” But there was no more time. The dancers came skimming over the edge, as swift as stooping falcons, bare to the waist, with their weapons of the dance. They seemed to be dancing still; their eyes fixed in the sacred ecstasy.
I cried out to them I don’t know what, as one might to the sea when it bursts the sea-wall. Then the girl with the two daggers was upon me. I tried to hurl her off with my shield; but she squirmed under it like a mountain cat, her fists reaching their blades at me like claws. The love of life we are born with did its work for me; I shortened my spear and thrust. She died pinned through the heart; but there was scarcely a trickle from her death-wound, and her face set in a smile.
The fight was scattered on the hillside, lost in the twilight among the rocks. The dogs fought too. It was like a fever-dream one cannot wake from. Then I heard horse-hoofs clatter, and saw her come.
These were the Amazons who had heard the call with waking ears. They rode, or ran with the mounts of the riders. On their arms were their crescent shields, in their hands their war-spears.
In the dimming west a last cloud burned; a deep russet tinged the mountain. Through this glimmer she rode, her red clothes deepened to crimson, her pale hood of hair loosened and free, her throat bare, as she had made ready for the dance. In her hands was the sacred ax, with the crescent blade of the Moon Maids. Its silver inlay glittered as she swung its slender shaft above her head. Her cold pure young voice sang out the war-call.
I thought, “If this is my death a god has sent it.” But even then, I could not forget that my fate was my people’s and their gods’. “Very well, then,” I thought, “I will live. But I will have her. With my whole life I will it. This I will do.”
As I offered myself to the daimon of my fate, my soul grew steady; my mind was a clear stream, full of quick-darting fish. I stepped forth, and in the speech of the Shore Folk gave the herald’s cry. It is sacred all the known world over; and even at the ends of the earth it was worth trying.
She reined her horse. Her head tilted back against the sky was a thing to stop your heart. With a motion of her shield-arm she halted the troop behind her. In the pause, I heard the yammer of a furious dog choked with a spear-thrust, and the sound of a man’s death-grunt. Then there was quiet on the mountain.
I came towards her. She was delicate and strong as the creatures of the wilderness, the panther, the hawk, the roe. She looked at the fallen dancer gravely and proudly; she had seen such sights before. My heart said to me, “No sighs, no pleading. She is not for cowards.”
She spoke, slowly, in the tongue of the Shore Folk. “We have no herald.”
“Nor we,” I said. “Let Herald Hermes stand between us. I am Theseus the Athenian, son of Aigeus son of Pandion. I am the King.”
She looked again then. It seemed my name had come even here. Harpers will hear of harpers, and so do warriors of their peers. She spoke over her shoulder to the troop, telling them the news it seemed; for they craned to see, and chattered together. But she turned back to me, knitting her clear brows as she felt for words. She knew the language less well than I, and pieced it together slowly. “No men here, no man-gods.” She swept her arm, and spoke a strange-sounding name, as if that told everything. Then she thought, and said, “This is Maiden Crag.”
I said, “And you?”
She touched her own breast and answered, “Hippolyta of the Maidens.” Her head went up. “The King.”
My heart leaped out to her. But I said only, “Good. Then we can speak, we two. I come in peace here.”
She shook her head with an angry jerk. What she meant was “Liar!” I saw her fingers snap impatiently, because she had not the word. She pointed to us and said, “Pirates!” and the troop behind her shouted it in their own tongue. Yes, I thought, and she remembers me.
“In peace,” I said. “While I live I shall never lie to you.” I tried to speak to her eyes. “We are pirates, yes; but it is my pleasure, not my trade. I am King of Athens, and of Eleusis, and of Megara to the Isthmus’ end; and Crete pays me tribute. I am sorry we were insolent by the shore; we are strangers, and the men have been long at sea. But you have taken blood-price enough. Make it peace now, and friendship.”
“Friend—ship?” she said, drawing it out, as if asking was I a madman. One of the girls laughed wildly in the troop behind. She rested her ax on her horse’s shoulder while she got the foreign speech together, and pushed at her shining hair, which fell down over her fingers. “This place,” she said, putting down word on word, “is holy.” Her hand made the word greater. “No man must come. And you—you have seen the Mystery. For that—death, always. We kill you, the Maidens of the Maiden. That is our law.” Her eyes met mine; gray water, gray clouds; yet there was speech in them, beyond the words. “We must die too, maybe.” She turned on her horse, pointing to the shrine. “We are all in Her hand.”
She drew her breath for the war-call. I cried out, “Stay!”
“No! She is angry.” But she stilled her horse with her hand, and paused.
“Hippolyta.” It tasted of wine and honey. “My men, there, have not angered Her. It was I who saw; I, alone, up there. They were beyond. They did nothing.” I spoke slowly, watching that she took my meaning. “So, I will answer for myself. Do you understand me? It is you and I; hand to hand, king to king. I call you to single combat, King of the Maidens. That is our debt to the folk who honor us.”
She had understood. It was king to king, indeed. It had touched her soul, even though, as I guessed, they had no such custom. There was no fear in her face, only strangeness and doubt. Her mount tossed its head, and the silver disks clinked softly. I thought, “She hears the voice of her fate.”
A girl came up the hillside holding a sword. It was the one she had saved, the swimmer Molpadia; tall and strong, with blue sullen eyes still clouded from the trance which must have lifted now, for a wound in her arm was bleeding. Hippolyta leaned down and looked at it, and they spoke together. The tall girl frowned.
“Meet me, Hippolyta,” I said, “and let the gods decide. A king cannot refuse a king.”
The dusk was deepening; but I saw her face by its own light. She was young, with a young warrior’s pride and honor. Honor called to her, and pride, and she knew not what. “If I die,” she said, “you will spare the holy place, the Maidens? You will go away?”
My heart raced in my breast. “I swear it. So will my warriors.” They had come up to listen, the wounded leaning on the whole; but some were missing. They growled the assent; they had had enough. “No vengeance,” I said, “whichever falls. Our peoples shall part in peace. If I die, bury me on this mountain, by the path you take to the sea. And if I win—you are mine.”
She stared, and said slowly, “What is that? Yours?”
I nodded; and, to be sure she understood me, chose out the simplest words. “If I win, and you live, you shall take me for king, and follow me. Your word for mine. By my life I swear it, by the Sacred River, the vow the gods dare not break, I will never shame you, nor force you against your will. You shall be my friend, my guest. May your Goddess eat my heart, if I am false to this. Do you accept my terms?”
She frowned in a kind of wonder. Then she made a wide sweep with her hand, which meant, “All this is nothing.” She touched the blade of her ax, with the silver signs inlaid on it. “I fight to the death,” she said.
“Life and death are with the gods. Do you agree, then?”
The girl beside her broke in, in their own tongue. I saw she was against it, and said quickly, “The choice of weapon is yours.”
/> The girl grasped at her arm. She turned and seemed to tell her something; then dismounting put into her hands the sacred ax, and kissed her, and spoke her name to the troop behind. They assented grievingly; I guessed she had named her heir. Then she stepped forward; her eyes looked wide, as they had when the new moon rose. A fear came to me, that she could fall into the sacred trance at will, and turn into a fighting maenad, wild as a leopard, who knows no law but to kill or die. But the Mystery had been broken; her face was only grave. I thought, “She is offering herself in sacrifice. She looks for a royal death.”
“Theseus, I will fight,” she said. “With javelins, and then the sword.”
The name was hard to her tongue, and she stumbled on it. But the sound was sweet to me. “Agreed,” I said. “Let us stretch out our hands to the gods, to witness our given word.”
She paused a moment; then slowly her hand came out. It seemed it would have been a little thing, as we stood so, for me to reach out and take it. So may the other shore look near, before you swim the strait.
I armed myself with two sharp throwers from the men behind me. She did the same, then looked about her. “It gets dark,” she said. “I know this ground. We need torches. I will fight you equal.”
I said in my heart, “This love may be death but it is not folly. I have seldom met a man with such pride as that.”
“There is light enough,” I said. I walked to a level place, and motioned my men to clear the field. They fell back and I said, “It will do as it is. I could see you without my eyes.”
We were alone now, no one within two spear-casts of us. It is the time when warriors whip up their blood by hurling insults to and fro. I saw her frown, as if she were angry with herself, and blamed the lack of language. “Say nothing,” I said. “That is not for you and me.”
She raised her brows. She had put on her cap of Phrygian leather lined with bronze. The scarlet flaps fell on her neck and cheeks, bright as a pheasant, but left her face clear to see. I said to her, “This is all—I love you. You are my life’s love. I came here for you, to win you or to die. Do as you must, as your law commands you; I will not have you disgraced for me. If I die it was my fate, and I ran to meet it. Be free of my blood. May sorrow never come near you. My shade will love you, even in the house of Hades under the earth.”
She stood with gleaming arms under the fading sky and the little moon, straight, slight and strong; and I saw in the eyes of the king and warrior a startled maiden, who since childhood had not spoken with a man. She looked at me dumbly. Then grasping at the thing she knew, she cried, “I must kill you! You saw the Mystery!”
“Yes, you must try. Come to me with your honor, for in yours is mine now. Come, begin.”
We drew apart, and began to circle each other, crouching behind our shields. I wished she had not chosen javelins; I had hoped it would be hand to hand at once, with the ax or spear. Now I had two sharp throwers to get rid of without hurting anyone; also two to avoid. The sooner done the better.
I twisted the throwing-thong, watching her do the same. She was so quick and light-footed, any throw was chancy. I aimed slowly, to show her where it was coming; but as I would have done myself, she took it for a feint, and jumped towards it, away from where she thought the real throw would be. I was only just in time to miss her. I have never been so frightened in any battle; and it spoilt my eye. Next moment there was a smart on my thigh that set my teeth on edge. Her javelin-side had glanced it; the gash was not deep, but wide open, and I felt warm blood on me in the evening cool. The leg was sound, and would not hurt much till it stiffened; but I made a limping step as I cast my second javelin, to fool her and bungle the throw. It fell flat halfway between us. She still had one more. I turned my shield side to her, and drew my sword.
The Amazons had cheered the hit, and called her to throw again. She stood balanced like a dancer. It was too dark to see the weapon’s path. I could only watch her aim. I caught the javelin on my shield, and it was no mean cast, for it pierced the hide, just missing my arm and jarring it to the shoulder. I sprang back, watching her while I trod on the haft and wrenched free my shield. Then I stepped forward sword in hand, and she came to meet me.
It was deep dusk now, but one could just see one’s foothold. So far so good. I had risked the javelin-duel in the bad light, to have its advantage later. I did not want her to see what I was about. Wrestling was born in Egypt and taught in Crete. I had brought it myself to the Isle of Pelops, and then to Attica. It was still hearsay in Thessaly, barely rumored in Thrace. And this was Pontos. When she had thought I could not take her alive, it had told me all I needed.
She prowled around me, as little and quiet as a leopard. Through the inner curve of the crescent shield came her curving sword-blade, slicing the air like silk as she watched my point. It was a weapon I had not dealt with much, and I did not like it. Once under a Hellene long-sword, and you are in; but this looked fit anywhere to take your hand off. Both my arm and blade were longer; it would have been simple, if I had been out to kill my man. I thought, “I am glad I have not this to do every day,” and it made me laugh. She laughed back at me, her white teeth flashing in the twilight. She was a warrior, and the battle-light was coming into her eyes. She took my laughter for defiance, and it freed her from the trouble my love had laid on her. She would fight better now. And yet, as we thrust and foined, we felt one another’s mind as dancers do who dance often together, or lovers who can speak with a touch of their fingertips. “Surely,” I thought, “she must know it now as I do.” But she had been given in childhood to the Goddess, and kept from men. How should she know? If she felt a strangeness in the blood, a wildness she could not name, she took it for the call of glory. She could kill me in this innocence, and wither after, not understanding her grief.
Most of this time I was simply parrying, or taking her cuts on my shield; but now and again I would thrust or feint, to deceive her while I watched my chance. For she had felt I was up to some trick or other; that I could tell. I wanted to get the sword off her, before I went in. She knew that much, and was too good for me.
“Well, then!” I said to myself. “Did I think she would be got for nothing?” With a quick jump backwards, I threw my shield away; I had made it look as if the sling had broken, helped by the darkness. She had never thought of that, and it took her in. So then I did what is natural in a man who has lost his shield: made a reckless lunge at her. When I missed, she was inside my guard. I had to be quick then. As she lifted her sword for a down-cut, I let mine go and grabbed her arm, spinning her round as I pulled it over my shoulder. She was so astonished that as she flew up, I got her fingers off the sword. It was too late to check the throw; so over she went, in a perfect flying mare, and fell clean but hard with all the breath knocked out of her. I threw myself down by her on the mountain grass.
Her arm was still in her shield. I lay upon it, and reached over to pin the other. She lay half stunned, face upwards to the sky, all stilled. I was still too, dizzy with the fight and with being all at once so near to her, her mountain-scented pale hair beside my mouth, feeling under my arm the embroidered leather and the tender breasts.
The warrior in my head, still wakeful, warned me she was quick as a whip, and had not yielded yet. I turned my mouth to her ear, and said, “Hippolyta.”
Her head turned, and her eyes met mine, as wild as a netted deer’s. I did not dare let go of her. So I talked awhile. What I said I don’t remember; it is no matter, for I spoke in Greek. I only wanted to let her know, as she came to herself, that she was not with an enemy. She began to look around her; then I said in the tongue she knew, “The fight is over, Hippolyta, and you are not dead. Will you keep your vow?”
It was much darker. But I saw her eyes seeking the sky, as if for counsel. None came; a cloud had come down from the mountain crest, and the new moon’s sickle was gone behind it. The warriors muttered together; quick whispers came from the Amazons, and long silences. Suddenly she started up; not in a
nger, but as if she might find it was all a dream. I pressed her back and said, “Well?”
She said, under her breath, “So be it.” Then I let her go, and stood up and leaned to raise her, slipping the shield from her arm. When she was on her feet, she swayed from dizziness; so I gathered her up, my arm under her knees and her head upon my shoulder. She lay quiet, as I carried her off the field, fitting my arms as if they had been made for her, feeling her fate and her home.
II
THEY GAVE ME HER horse to set her on, and to bring her down the mountain. As I walked at its bridle, I heard behind me on Maiden Crag the sound of wailing, with flutes and muffled drums. It was the lament for the fallen, and the lost King. I looked at her face; but she stared straight before her, still-eyed, into the night.
We came to the hamlet we had passed before, and found it empty. All the folk had fled at the sound of the battle, to some fastness in the hills. So we rested there till daybreak, to save our necks on the mountain track. I told the men to take enough for their meal, no more; we were not Isthmus bandits, to rob the poor. Even the headman’s house had only one room and bed. I sat her down there, and lit the lamp. She looked dead tired, and dark under the eyes; small wonder, after the swim, and the hunt, and the fight.
I brought her what supper I could find: some rough wine and cheese, and barley bread with honey. She looked at the food like an untamed colt at a piece of salt, watching for the halter in the other hand. But I stood there quietly, as one does in the corral; and presently she took it with a nod of thanks. She had not spoken since we left the sanctuary.
She could not eat much, but she drank the wine. Meantime I had looked at the servant’s lean-to, and found a bed of straw which I dragged inside. I did not want my men to see it; they would think me bewitched, or laugh at me. When I had thrown it down by the door, I looked round and saw her watchful eyes. I felt her mind, as I had in battle. For her it was life at stake. She would never outlive dishonor; she would find some way. And yet, I could feel her judging me for the truth’s sake, not just from fear, concerned with the man I was, the good and the evil. A king, truly, lived in this white-haired girl.