Tamer of Horses

by Amalia Carosella

  “She’s been this way all day,” Hylonome said, laughter in her voice. “And if you had only seen the way she brightened when King Pirithous came at last to the stables…”

  “Eurytion will be mad with jealousy,” Cyllarus teased. “He was so certain you would be abused by the king, and here you walk beside us too distracted to even tell us properly of the Horse Lord’s son.”

  “And why should I tell you when you will see him yourself at the evening meal?” Hippodamia vaulted up onto Podarkes, kicking him into a trot. “Unless you plan to dawdle the whole way down the mountain, of course.”

  It was enough of a challenge to send the two centaurs into a gallop, and Hippodamia had only to give Podarkes his head, for he knew his way home. Sure-footed and powerful, Podarkes broke away from the two centaurs, cutting through the trees and down a narrow path Pirithous must have used more often than the proper trail. Hippodamia leaned low over his neck to keep from being caught by branches, laughing wildly at the shouts of her friends. They burst out of the forest much lower down the mountain, Podarkes leaping the brush to rejoin the road, and Hippodamia glanced back to see Hylonome and Cyllarus left far behind.

  She grinned, urging the stallion on. Down the road with the wind in her face and the beat of Podarkes’s hooves in her ears, the horse’s breathing as steady as his stride. She threw her arms up, lifting her face to the sun, and laughed again, giving up the joy in her heart to Poseidon Horse Lord, with a silent prayer.

  Let it last!

  Podarkes charged through the palace gate and Hippodamia drew her legs up, her bare toes finding purchase above his hips. She stood upon his back, steadying herself against the rhythm of his movements.

  “For you, Lord Poseidon!”

  She leapt backwards, throwing herself into the air and arching her back. The ground raced up to meet her but she completed the roll, her feet finding the earth without hesitation, and when she lifted her head, Pirithous himself stood with Podarkes, stroking the horse’s neck and watching her with bright gray eyes, his lips curving.

  Heat burned her cheeks and she dropped her gaze. “My lord Pirithous.”

  “My lady Mia.” He murmured something else she did not catch, followed by the soft thud of hooves on grass, and then his sandaled feet appeared before her. A gentle finger touched her chin, lifting her face. “You will make an astonishing queen.”

  The centaurs’ hooves clopped on the stonework of the road leading from the palace gate through the courtyard to the wide porch of the megaron. Pirithous let his hand fall away as he looked up over her head and smiled warmly.

  “Welcome, Hylonome, Cyllarus. You must forgive me for not greeting you properly before now, but I had no wish to interrupt so intimate a reunion between friends.”

  “Any offense I might have taken is lost in my gratitude for the invitation you have extended to my mate,” Hylonome said, bowing low.

  “I would be remiss if I did not thank you, also, for your willingness to be parted from your mate so soon after your marriage. It cannot have been easy for you to make such a choice, and I would not make it harder. Cyllarus is more than welcome to remain with you for as long as you are my lady’s guest. Will you honor us with your presence at the evening meal? Now we are at peace, I would have my people become used to the sight of centaurs within the palace walls.”

  “The honor is ours, of course,” Cyllarus answered. “All the better to have them familiar with our presence before the solstice. You will have herds of us here for the wedding feast soon enough.”

  “Indeed. And it is my greatest hope that the gods will bless us with sun and clear skies, for I am not certain the palace will be large enough to feast so great a number, even spilled into the courtyard.” Pirithous extended his arm toward the megaron in invitation. “Perhaps you can judge the truth of it for yourself?”

  Cyllarus and Pirithous fell in step with one another, and Pirithous glanced just once at Hippodamia, his eyes brilliant with promise, before they continued on. She followed behind with Hylonome, who leaned down, speaking low enough that the words would not carry.

  “I thought you were forbidden from joining with him until the solstice?”

  She flushed, dropping her gaze from Pirithous’s well-muscled back and broad shoulders. Surely it was not so obvious as that. “We are.”

  “And yet he looks at you as if he has already tasted delight and hungers for more.”

  “King Pirithous has every reason to hope for a fruitful marriage,” she said, but the words came out more sharply than she had intended, and the reassurance only hollowed her own heart. Even if he kept no other woman in his bed until she had given him a son, she had only offered him another reason not to disobey the priest. No doubt he hoped it would be no more than a year lost before he might return to the arms of his palace women, to say nothing of the prizes he might take abroad in the meantime.

  “Forgive me,” Hylonome murmured, drawing back. “I did not mean to imply anything other.”

  She mumbled something appropriate, but clouds had darkened the sun of her earlier joy. Pirithous had offered her the smallest of tokens, and she would be a fool to refuse it, even so. But their future, with all its heartache, remained unchanged.

  Once their son was born, Pirithous would have his palace women, while she would spend her nights alone, lonely and cold, for she did not doubt he would forbid her from bringing any other to her bed, even while he took his pleasure elsewhere.

  Unless, of course, he could not wait for the solstice after all.

  Hippodamia excused herself from the evening meal before the final course of honeyed fruits had been served, and paced anxiously in the corridor until Antiope joined her. When Theseus’s queen had risen with her own excuses, Pirithous had begun to scowl, his searching gaze nearly falling upon Hippodamia where she waited just beyond the doorway. She removed herself to her rooms before he attempted to follow.

  “I had thought you would have no more need of me now that your companions have arrived,” Antiope said, once they had reached the privacy of Hippodamia’s room and the door was shut and barred behind them. “But I have never been more pleased to be wrong.”

  “It is not the same, speaking with Hylonome. It is too different for her with Cyllarus.” Hippodamia forced herself to calm, clasping her hands together to keep from tugging at the loose thread she’d found on her girdle. Sitting calmly throughout the meal, her mind spinning with her plan, had been a greater challenge than she’d anticipated. “I would not have her know what marriage is to Pirithous—the centaurs would take it poorly, considering it some slight against me, against all of us. And there are some who are not so pleased with Dia’s peace if it means I am taken from them.”

  Antiope’s eyes narrowed. “Displeased enough to break it?”

  She shook her head, impatient. “Centaurus would never allow such open rebellion. It is only—it is only that I would not give reason to anyone, or what good is any of it? And Pirithous does not mean to slight me. If it were otherwise, that would be something else entirely, but he wants this peace, Antiope. And…” She hesitated. To say it and be proved wrong would only make it all the more painful. The way he looked at her, though… the way he smiled at her, his eyes warm as the summer sun on her skin. Surely he would never have agreed to keep only her in his bed, even for a year, if he did not want her, too. “Pirithous has promised me a place in his bed until I give him a son. But if the priest speaks truly, the marriage will bear fruit, and then what will become of us?”

  Antiope took her hands, squeezing tightly. “By then it will not matter. You will be his bedded wife, the one he has learned to share his life with, day and night, night and day. It will be his habit to turn to you, to choose you over any other.”

  “For a year! What is a year to the lifetime he has spent in the arms of others? All those women he keeps, a daily reminder of what he once had. A feast of pleasure, and I the woman who demanded he fast. But he has not even sworn not to have any other—onl
y that he will keep me satisfied, that I will not stray!”

  “The moment he has gone off to raid, you can see his favorites settled elsewhere.” Antiope released her hands, guiding her to the bed. “If you cannot find husbands for them, send them to me and I will see what Athens can provide. But it will not matter, Hippodamia, I promise you. Already Pirithous is fixed upon you, determined to win your favor if not your love. He does not understand yet what it will mean, that is all. And a year from now, all you need do is speak of me. I will come for the birth, and you will see how he responds.”

  “And if I spoke of you now?”

  She stilled, her eyes gold in the firelight. “I have sworn to Pirithous I will make no further offers. I would not break my word—for Theseus’s sake, I cannot.”

  “But did you swear to refuse me, if I came to you?” She clutched the Amazon’s hands, but Antiope was already shaking her head, pulling away. “It would drive him wild to think it, even if we exchanged nothing but these words. Wild enough to claim me before the solstice, even if it risked our son.”

  “Then your marriage will be for nothing, all your father’s wishes, Dia’s wishes, left unfulfilled.” Antiope freed herself and rose, stepping back toward the door. “Is keeping yourself in Pirithous’s bed worth betraying the peace you were sent to forge?”

  Her blood ran cold with the thought, the realization striking her deep as an arrow to her breast. She turned her face away, hiding the tears which stung her eyes, and swallowed the answer, bitter and strangled in her throat.

  Because she wanted so much to say yes.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Pirithous

  Pirithous paced his room, his gaze going from one door to the next. She was to come to him, and instead she had slunk from the megaron with Antiope on her heels. But Antiope had left her room long before the moon had risen, and still Hippodamia did not come through his door, did not so much as knock upon it or stand beyond with hesitation in her heart. From her room, all that came was sorrow, betrayal, pain—enough to make his own heart ache in sympathy, heaping grief upon the rejection she had given him by her refusal.

  She should never have refused. How could she have when he had given her such a promise of pleasure? A gesture in good faith for a future they might make their own, and she had gone to Antiope instead, and spurned him!

  He growled at the thought. But he dared not go to Theseus now, in the dead of night. He would not go to them and be laughed at, though it was clear Antiope had not kept her word, no doubt seeking to shame him. What else but some seduction of hers could have kept Hippodamia from his bed this night? No. He would not give Antiope the satisfaction of knowing she had succeeded. Even if Hippodamia refused him openly, Antiope would not hear it from him, would not know he had been affected at all by her choice.

  Pirithous threw open the door to their shared bathing room, kicking a stray towel from his path as he crossed the room, and pounded upon Hippodamia’s door.

  A strangled cry sounded from the other side, followed by a hiccupping sob, smothering the fire of his anger as quickly as it had flared. He cleared his throat, swallowing the accusations he had readied on his tongue.

  “Mia?” he called gently.

  “Go away!” But her words were unsteady, gulped, and the wash of guilt and self-loathing that followed rooted him to the floor.

  He pushed on the door, testing the bar which held it shut. If she refused him again with so tender a cry, he would break it down if he must. “If it is Antiope who has upset you, I will send her away. Theseus as well. You must only tell me what’s happened, and I will give you any comfort you desire, anything at all, truly.”

  She made a soft sound, half-despair and half-need. “Go, please. I beg of you.”

  A deft thrust of his elbow against the door snapped the bar. There was not a one in the palace that could stand against the strength of a demigod, barred or otherwise, and he had broken down many a door while raiding to reach the prizes inside. To use such a skill upon his bride—he had never thought it would be needful, even in his worst moments.

  “You will not be rid of me so easily, Princess.”

  Hippodamia moaned, hiding her face in the linens of the bed where she lay. “Why could you not simply call another to your bed?”

  He narrowed his eyes but kept firm hold of his temper. Now was not the time to let her goad him. “Is that what you wished? That I would turn from you so easily, give up so quickly?”

  She let out a long, shuddering breath, finished with a sob, whatever answer she gave lost in the linens. Her guilt lashed at him, but he did not understand where it could have grown from. Unless she and Antiope—but he could not think of that without his anger rising, and he dared not lose control.

  Pirithous crossed to the bed, caught between frustration and concern. To leave her this way would be unforgivable, and more than that, he needed to know… “I thought we had come to some understanding.”

  Her hands turned to fists upon her pillow, her only answer another soft sob. He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out, working her fingers free from the fabric, slow and gentle, and sliding his fingers through hers when he had finished. Her hand clutched his with a need he had not expected, as if she might steal some comfort from his touch.

  The frenzy of her emotions whirled through his mind, but there was no anger there, no mistrust for him; only want, desire quickly stifled and buried deep, and something else, softer and more fragile beneath her pain. He nursed it with a kiss upon the back of her hand, fed it with his own strength. Her breathing hitched and her grasp upon his hand eased as the gentle glow washed against her fears, her guilt. He did not dare sweep it all away, only tried to calm her.

  “Tell me now,” he murmured. “Whatever has upset you, I would help.”

  She shook her head, her face still hidden from him, and pulled her hand away. “You can’t.”

  He lay beside her in the bed, propped upon one elbow, watching the rise and fall of her shoulders with each breath, steady now, and even. Now was not the time to admit what he had already done to soothe her, and he feared to meddle any further. There was a guardedness to her maelstrom which had not been there before, as if in calming, she had remembered her mistrust. Perhaps he should have let her weep if this was how she would repay him.

  Bitterness filled his mouth, nor could he clear it from his mind with the thought of Antiope and what conversation they might have had which would cause Hippodamia to weep.

  “When I asked Antiope not to seduce you, I had not thought you would pursue the matter. Not after I had made my feelings so clear.”

  She sniffed, a flash of anger drowning out the soft light. “And what attention should I pay to your feelings when you care so little for mine?”

  He bared his teeth. “So little that I offered you a place in my bed!”

  Hippodamia lifted her head, tear-streaked face and damp eyes cutting through him. Her hands were fists again. “You offer me a taste of love without even the courtesy of true marriage, and the promise that you will take even that much away the moment you have what you desire. And I should be grateful for it? Have you even the slightest understanding of what my people would think of such an arrangement? If Hylonome knew, or Cyllarus, they would not spend another night beneath your roof! They would take me from you, enraged by the insult to my honor, and Dia’s peace would be trampled beneath their hooves.”

  “And if you truly believed I meant to slight you, they would know already,” he growled. “I have tried, Princess, to be honest with you, nor did I ever mislead you as to what this future we share will hold. Would you have me lie? Make promises to you that I cannot keep?”

  “No!”

  “But you reject me all the same.”

  Her eyes had filled with tears again. “That isn’t—”

  “All you had to do was come to me. If you had not wished me to touch you, I would have held myself away! Instead you turned to Antiope, knowing how the thought twists me with
madness.”

  “Because I thought if you believed I had given myself to her, you would claim me for yourself, once and for all!”

  He stared at her, tears spilling down her flushed cheeks, unsure of how to respond. Unsure, even, of his own feelings, his own understanding. Hippodamia rolled to her back, hiccupping with something half-sob, half-laughter, bitter and wild.

  “All I could think was if you took me now, before the solstice, perhaps I would have that much longer in your bed. Perhaps by the time our son was born, you would be so used to me, you would not care to be rid of me in the night. Or if there was no son at all, I would still have at least the small comfort of sleeping at your side, if nothing else…”

  She raked her fingers through her hair, her eyes closed against the guilt and pain that swirled inside her, so much and so thick he could barely breathe. And that glow, that fragile, soft glow, throbbing in her mind.

  “And then I feared that if I went to you tonight, I would have my way. I would have my way, and everything would be ruined before it had begun. Both our peoples betrayed. For what? My own pride? After I had made so much of yours! Foolish, foolish, foolish girl!” Her voice broke, but she did not stop. “What worth is there in that? In love so spoiled by deceit, by jealousy? And for so little in exchange!”

  “Shh.” The last word had been more sob than anything, and his heart ached with it. Perhaps he should have been angry, insulted somehow, but it would have served nothing. To shout at her when she felt such self-loathing, such disgust, would be as worthless as the marriage they might have shared if she had acted so selfishly. But she had done nothing wrong. The gods had tested her, tried them both, but she had not given in. She had not given up.