CHAPTER FIVE
Hippodamia
It took all her will not to turn her face away. Every part of her mind screamed for her to free herself and slip from his grasp. But though she had braced herself for his imposition, Pirithous’s kiss had been gentle, the merest whisper of his lips across hers. Nothing more than a chaste token of their betrothal. It would have been easier if it had been more. Easier to remember how he had shamed her at the shrine just to satisfy his pride.
Pirithous turned away, lifting their clasped hands for all his nobles to see, and looking quite pleased with himself as he did so. The Lapiths cheered their king, but Hippodamia barely heard their shouts. Behind her, her father had turned, hooves thudding against the earth as the centaurs took their leave. She closed her eyes, listening to the cadence of their strides, straining to hear every step even as the sounds faded. Her heart ached with loss, but she dared not look back. She must be strong now, if ever, and meet her fate.
“Come, my lady.” Hippodamia opened her eyes. A tall woman, her arms and legs marked in strange tattoos, with warm, golden eyes and hair as dark as midnight, stood before her, hands outstretched. “Dia’s own rooms have been made ready for you, and we’ve time to bathe and dress before the banquet.”
Antiope, she realized, for Theseus stood beside her, his hand resting on her back and adoration in his eyes. What would it be like to have Pirithous look on her in the same way? But if Pirithous were capable of love, of a true bond of marriage, she had yet to see any sign of it. So preoccupied with his pride, he even seemed pleased to know she could not love him.
Hippodamia took the queen’s hands and returned her smile. “Thank you, my lady.”
“We will both be queens soon enough, my dear, and we will see much of one another in the coming years. Pirithous and Theseus behave like brothers, always traipsing back and forth from Thessaly to Athens. You must call me Antiope, and it will be my honor to know the woman so brave even wild stallions do not give her pause.”
“Compared to the daughters of Ares, I am but a foolish girl, undeserving of the blessing given by the Earth Shaker.”
“We shall see,” Antiope said, drawing her away from Pirithous’s side. “But whether or not you are deserving of the gift you have been given, it is a talent that will serve you well among the Lapiths. They will look on you with awe and wonder, and kneel before you, begging for your blessing upon their beasts. Only wait, Hippodamia. Before long, you will be queen in your own right among these people, and they will see you as a true daughter of Dia, fit to rule in her place.”
“I am not certain Dia’s son will be pleased if that is so.” As they passed beneath the palace gate, she glanced back at Pirithous, distracted by some exchange with Theseus. Even he had said Dia would not have chosen her without some greater purpose in mind than giving her son an heir, but surely he had not meant she was to take his mother’s place so completely.
Antiope squeezed her hand. “His pleasure is easy enough to ensure once you are in his bed. True son of Zeus or not, he will kneel before you along with all the others, tamed as easily as any other rutting stallion. And you will have my help to see it is so.”
Antiope herself helped her bathe, shooing away the maids who would have washed and oiled her hair and skin. The Amazon’s fingers plucked each leaf and twig from her curls, then combed and pinned them carefully.
“My sisters and I used to serve one another this way,” Antiope said softly, replacing the wreath of wildflowers on Hippodamia’s head. “None of the women in Athens are worthy of such attention, and the nobles are too afraid I will poison their wives and daughters with my strange ways to allow me their company, besides.” Her lips curved in a satisfied smile. “I cannot promise Theseus I will not, of course, and so he has despaired of finding me any fit companion.”
“Does King Pirithous not fear the same?” She had promised to oil Antiope’s dark hair in return, but centaurs did not bother with pins and combs. She stared at the long, crimped tresses and frowned, unsure of what Antiope might expect.
“A simple braid will serve me,” Antiope said, as if she knew her thoughts. “Theseus does not have much patience for pulling pins from my hair, and one is always forgotten no matter how carefully we try to find them.”
Braids she knew well, for the centaurs favored them to keep manes and tails from being caught by branches in the forest. Hippodamia began the style at the crown of Antiope’s head, weaving delicate white flowers into her hair as she went. If one was forgotten when she undressed, at least it would not cause her any discomfort.
“As for Pirithous—and you need not always refer to him by his title, Hippodamia, when he is arrogant enough without the reminder of his power—he is accustomed to me by now, and doubtless he believes there is nothing I might say that he should fear. He is too confident by half, but that is as much to do with his blood as anything, and he believes himself capable of winning any challenge. Including the affections of a most reluctant bride.” She laughed, and Hippodamia had no trouble imagining her sly smile, though she could not see her face. “He thinks because Theseus tamed an Amazon, he will have no trouble with the daughter of Centaurus.”
“As long as he sees me as only a challenge, another woman to seduce into his bed, he has no hope of winning anything of mine,” she said, her tone much sharper than she had intended. She sighed, finishing the braid and tying it off with a bit of string. “But I fear his confidence is not completely misplaced. For this peace to last, I must give him a son, and until that is done, there is no helping the rest. Nor would I do him harm. I am as bound by Dia’s peace as my people, and if he were betrayed by my hand, it would mean a terrible war.”
Antiope tilted her head, turning to look at her. “Do you hate him so much that you would consider it? Why did you not simply refuse to marry him if that is so? You must know it would not have stopped this peace.”
“I do not wish to hate him,” she said, then pressed her lips together in remembered irritation. “But he does not make it easy to feel anything kinder. I had barely given him my name when he accused me of taking Eurytion as my lover and insisted I renounce him before everyone in the shrine. As if Centaurus would offer him such an insult. As if any affection I had for another mattered at all! I have been promised to him for years, though he could not be bothered to take me to wife before now.”
Tears burned behind her eyes, and she blinked them back. For one blinding moment in the megaron, she had seen a future she might love, with a man worthy of her affection. She had seen Pirithous upon his throne, proud and kingly and laughing, with their son upon his knee. If they could never truly love one another, at least he might have offered her some kindness, even consideration. Like a stumbling foal, she had hoped he would look upon her with pleasure, impressed with her manner and her courtesy, and declare her his queen. Instead he had treated her as if she were some foolish, faithless country girl, willing to betray even her king. All because he thought Eurytion looked on her with lust.
Antiope rose, opening her arms, and Hippodamia was not too proud to take what comfort she offered. “He is only a man, my dear. You cannot expect him to think reasonably in matters such as these. But if there is one thing you can always trust in Pirithous, it is that he cannot stand to take a woman unwilling. It is a matter of honor in his mind. Had your affections belonged to another, he could not be certain you would ever want him—and that is near enough to force to hurt his pride.”
“And what of my honor? My pride? Am I to sacrifice it all to him?” she demanded, her eyes blurring again. She turned her face against the soft wool of Antiope’s tunic, hiding her tears. Perhaps she was a fool after all, to think Pirithous was anything more than any other man—the same men who had hunted her people for sport, who raped women in the forest and left them lost and dazed to find their own way home. More often than not, the centaurs were blamed. “Is it not enough he will have my body, my children, my life bound to his, but he must have that too?”
/> Antiope sighed, her arms tightening. “It is the nature of men to take what they have no right to hold, but Pirithous is not so great a fool as most. I do not think he will overreach so boldly again, and if there is some sliver of your honor he has stolen, we will take it back, Hippodamia. On that, you have my oath.”
“My lady,” Pirithous said, rising at once from his place at the long table. The megaron fell silent, and Hippodamia hesitated at the entrance to the hall. Every head had turned to look at the woman who had captured their king’s attention. Her face, already flushed from the tears she had only just wiped away, went hot.
Antiope had offered her a choice of gowns and tunics, long and short, with girdles in gold, silver, and bronze, and armbands in every style to match. She had chosen a simple gown in purple, the square cut of the bodice barely covering her breasts, and a wide girdle embroidered with silver horses, racing against the wind.
Horses were everywhere in the palace, drawn upon the floor and painted upon the walls, reflecting their importance to the Lapiths. And where there were not horses alone, there were images of men upon them, riding to the hunt or into war. Even the tables in the megaron were set in the shape of a horse’s hoof around the large central hearth. She should not have been surprised to find horses upon her gowns as well, for they had come from Dia’s things in part, and from Antiope’s belongings brought from Athens, where the son of the Horse Lord ruled as king, but somehow she had expected eagles and lightning bolts, storm clouds and great white bulls. Perhaps it was only that Pirithous had not long been king, and he had not yet ordered the palace repainted with symbols of his father.
Whatever the reason, the imagery gave her some small comfort, and as she stood before Pirithous and his nobles, she touched one of the silver horses at her waist, reminding herself of what Antiope said: Pirithous was nothing more than another wild stallion to be tamed by her hand. And why should she not think him so, when he saw her the same way?
She lifted her chin and stepped forward into the hall, taking in the large room with one sweeping glance. Even the realization that more men and women stood above the hearth, peering down at her from an open gallery, did not break her stride. She passed the servants refilling pitchers from the kraters set in the corners of the room, and at least ten men at another table. Pirithous held out his hand to her, and she took it, determined to meet his eyes unflinching.
But when their gazes locked, her breath caught. His eyes were gray-blue and warm, like sunlight breaking through clouds, and in his expression there was no laughter, no mockery. He looked on her with appreciation. His fingers tightened around hers and he lifted her hand, brushing his lips against her knuckles without so much as glancing away from her face.
She shivered, her thoughts going at once to his kiss and the warmth of his breath against her lips. Hippodamia swallowed against the rising thickness in her throat, for when he looked at her that way, she saw the king she had once imagined. The man who would honor her above all others as his bride.
Of course her father had told her it was different among men. Kings kept women as prizes to take their pleasure, and though they married, they did not limit themselves to a single mate. But Hippodamia had dreamed of love, once. And as she had grown older, she had dreamed of children of her own, when the females foaled.
Among her people, she might have found love. But time and again, she had faced another truth. The same truth which had driven Centaurus to offer her hand in marriage to Pirithous when Dia had negotiated her peace. The same truth which had prompted the dream of a man who might hold her child in his arms, and look on her with love—a dream Pirithous had shattered with his pride.
Centaurus knew as well as she did that no woman mated with a centaur, no matter how in love, had ever survived the birth of a foal.
CHAPTER SIX
Pirithous
He would have to thank Antiope later. Bathed and dressed and no longer smeared with dirt and mud, Hippodamia was as glorious as Aphrodite. Her hair, he could be certain now, shone a brilliant dark chestnut in the firelight, and her skin, smooth and oiled, gleamed a deep bronze from too much sun, paling only slightly just above her breasts where her body had been covered by her tunic.
“Your beauty leaves me speechless, Princess.”
“Yet your lips still move,” she replied, the beginning of a smile in her eyes.
More than anything, he wanted to caress the softness of her skin, tangle his fingers in her curls, but he dared not do more than kiss her hand. And when she stiffened after a moment, her eyes darkening with a swell of some remembered pain, he released her carefully, and helped her take her seat beside him.
Seven days before they were wedded, and if he wished for a fruitful marriage, he could not risk her maidenhead before the solstice. But there were other ways to find pleasure, and if the rest of her mouth was as clever as her tongue, she would take to the arts of love and lust as easily as a fish swam through water. He smiled at the thought. No doubt she would surprise him, and he was eager to learn what precisely the centaurs taught their women.
Antiope had joined them as well, taking her place beside Theseus. When Pirithous dragged his gaze away from Hippodamia, the Amazon was already murmuring in her husband’s ear. As ever, Theseus’s brow furrowed, his expression growing grimmer with every word spoken. How Theseus could frown with such frequency without headache, Pirithous did not understand, but the King of Athens had always tended toward excessive concern—all the more so in matters Pirithous refused to consider seriously.
To distract himself from Theseus’s poor mood, Pirithous served Hippodamia the choicest portions of roast boar from his own plate, and filled her cup to the brim.
Her eyes widened slightly after her first sip. “But this is wine!”
“Attican wine from the King of Athens, to honor Dia. Theseus always brought it for her when he came, knowing she preferred it.”
She frowned into her cup before taking another cautious sip. “I am not certain I care for it overmuch.”
He laughed. “Do not let Theseus hear you say so. He takes great pride in his wines.”
“I meant no insult to King Theseus, only that I do not care for wine at all, if it all tastes this way.” Her nose wrinkled. “It smells so sour, and the flavor is too thick upon my tongue.”
Pirithous put down his cup, studying her face. “You cannot mean to say you have never tasted it before now?”
“The centaurs do not grow grapes upon the mountain, and there is little for us to trade that your people desire. When the opportunity arises, we ask for pottery, for the most part, and finely woven cloth for the few of your women who live among us. Our own wool is harsh on bare skin.”
“Did Dia know this?” he asked, wondering at his own ignorance. “What do your people drink if not wine?”
“Water, my lord, and milk at times.” She was looking at him as though he had two heads. “What else is there?”
What else, indeed. He poured half the wine from her cup into his, and though it was already mixed with water, he gestured for one of the servants to bring more.
“I feared you were young before we met, but never did I think I would need to cut your wine as I would for a child.” He smiled to let her know he was only teasing and filled her cup to the brim with water. “Perhaps that will be more to your liking.”
She sipped it again, carefully, a wrinkle appearing between her brows, but it relaxed almost at once after she had tasted the new mixture in her cup. “It is much better this way, but I do not know that I will ever wish to drink it plain. Will it truly make me a child in the eyes of your people?”
“They’ll hardly notice, if at all,” he assured her, smiling again. “We shall keep it a secret between us, besides, and before long I am certain you will be drinking stronger wine. But tell me, what libations do the centaurs offer to the gods, if they do not have wine to pour?”
“Blood, of course.” She had gone back to frowning, at her plate now, and began picking
through a relish of greens. “Your people have such an odd way of preparing food. Do you not eat the vegetables raw? They would taste much better. With a bit of olive oil and some vinegar.”
Blood. Of course. He was not certain he wished to know more. It was not that the Lapiths did not offer blood as well, but it was one thing to offer it with the sacrifice of a goat or a bull at the shrine, and another to keep a rhyton full of it to spill upon the ground before each meal. Perhaps they did not give libations at all except before their feasts? The thought reassured him. Centaurs would not want to be plagued by the swarms of flies a pitcher of blood would attract. For all that their hides were covered with fur, he had seen them shuddering enough in irritation with the things, and whipping their tails to shed them.
He cleared his throat. “As queen you may order the food prepared to your liking. As long as there is bread and meat enough, the rest will matter little.”
She lifted her head, meeting his eyes again for the first time since he had seated her. They were bright and dark and rich, and he could not help but wonder how much darker they would appear when she lay naked in his bed beneath him, on the edge of release.
“Must I wait until the solstice?”
He laughed, for she voiced his own thoughts, if upon a different matter. “I do not believe letting you loose upon the kitchens will affect the outcome of our marriage. You may begin tomorrow if you wish, though I have never met a woman so eager to take up the task. Are you certain you would not rather begin with your rooms? Surely you will want to repaint at least one wall.”
“I had not considered…” She stared blankly at one long wall, painted with a bull hunt, and he realized suddenly how much she did not know about living among men. Even the needs of a simple household would be new to her. The centaurs lived in caves.
“Whatever you desire, Hippodamia, you need only name it,” he said gently. “The palace is yours now, and no doubt you will spend the greater number of days within its walls. My mother’s steward will help you learn the way of managing it, though in truth he does not need much oversight. Tell him what you wish done and he will see it finished. Certainly there is gold enough, and any spent in trade will be replenished by a summer’s raiding.”
Tamer of Horses Page 4