Hippodamia cursed, and before he realized her intent, she leapt from the tabletop.
“Mia! Come back!”
But she ignored him, landing squarely upon the hindquarters of a roan-backed centaur, before launching herself again, from his backside to Cyllarus’s own. The centaur reared, and Pirithous lurched, only to be caught by Antiope.
“Trust her!” the Amazon hissed. “She is no sheltered maiden! These are her people.”
Before Pirithous could break free of Antiope’s hold, Hippodamia had grasped the centaur’s hair with one hand to balance herself, and caught his wrist with the other. What trick she used to snatch the table leg from his hand, he did not see, but a moment later, Cyllarus was back upon his hooves, bucking and spinning in place, trying to reach the woman upon his back.
“Listen to me, you fool!” Hippodamia shouted, and then lifted her head. “All of you! Listen! Centaurus would not have wanted this, and you will not win! If death is all you desire, run yourselves off the mountain’s cliff, but stop this!”
“You protect him, after what he’s done?” Hylonome called. “Has he truly bewitched you so completely that you would turn your back upon the most sacred of laws? Your father is dead!”
“And so is his murderer,” Hippodamia snapped. She leapt from Cyllarus’s back, allowing his own bucking to propel her, and landed lightly in the ashes of the hearth, cooling and clumped with the splash of blood and wine.
The centaurs hesitated then, at the sight of their princess so near the flames, and Pirithous leaned out to reach for her, hauling her back to the height and safety of the tabletop—and this time, he kept her hand in his.
“Centaurus’s vengeance is taken, and mine as well!” Hippodamia called out. “Leave now and you will not be followed. Remain, and the Lapiths will have no choice but to fight, to defend themselves and their women! You cannot win a battle against the Horse Lord’s son!”
Theseus pushed through the other guests surrounding their makeshift dais, blood smeared across his cheek and nose, and Antiope clasped him by the arm, pulling him up beside her. The centaurs shifted, Cyllarus and Hylonome exchanging a glance, and Pirithous would have sworn it was alarm he felt from them.
“Already you risk Poseidon’s curse!” Hippodamia continued, her head held high and proud. If he had thought for a moment she lacked the strength to rule as queen, she proved her mettle now. Let Peleus note it well. “And what then? No other god will show us mercy or grant us aid. But if you leave now, there is still hope. Go to your caves and burn offerings to the Earth Shaker. Beg his forgiveness, his blessing!”
“And are we to leave you here?” Cyllarus called back. “Trust that no harm will come to you, after what your husband has done today?”
“What I have done?” Pirithous stiffened, his eyes burning with the insult. He had warned them! He had warned them of Eurytion this very day, and what had they done to stop him? Joined him in his slaughter, in his violence, and now they blamed him for that beast’s madness? For all of this? “How dare you—”
Hippodamia squeezed his hand, stopping him with a glance. He could feel her determination, her resolve. “I will remain among the Lapiths as hostage, and I will speak with the king and his councilors on behalf of our people.” She lifted her chin, staring down the centaurs who shuffled and grumbled amongst themselves. “Is that not half the reason Centaurus gave me to King Pirithous? That we might have a voice within these halls? I will not dishonor my father by abandoning my place so easily.”
He had not realized how much it would mean to him to hear the words. She would stay. If not forever, at least for a time. But it was his people who shuffled and murmured to one another now, casting sidelong glances at their queen as if she were some witch. A curse of the gods meant to bring them ruin.
“We accept,” Pirithous said firmly. And they were fools, all of them, if they thought for a minute she spoke anything but the truth. Oh, they dressed it up in words like alliance and peace, but the politics did not change. Hippodamia had been meant to be her father’s voice, perhaps even his spy. Not that it should have concerned them. Centaurus had been honorable, though his people did not always live up to his example. “And We give Our solemn vow that Hippodamia will be treated with all honor and respect as Our queen.”
Cyllarus snorted, hoof scraping against the plastered floor. “As you warned me, King Pirithous, now I warn you. Hippodamia may be human in form, but she is centaur in spirit. If she is harmed while in your keeping, you will pay in blood.”
Pirithous bared his teeth. “Just remember who meant her harm this day, Cyllarus. For it was not me, nor any of mine. My men did not seek to defile your women!”
“Go,” Hippodamia said, and though Hylonome gave them a long look, hesitation clear in the centaur’s eyes, she turned to leave with the last of the others. Hippodamia watched them, her expression carefully blank, for all that Pirithous could feel too clearly the ache of grief and sorrow in her heart.
“It was the wine,” he said quietly, hoping it might reassure her. “Eurytion and those who attacked with him were drunk on it.”
“And all of them are dead, now. Incapable of making such a mistake a second time,” Hippodamia replied, her gaze falling to the bodies littered throughout the megaron. “But I suppose that will not satisfy your people, will it?”
“Had it been your people who were attacked without provocation, would they be satisfied?” Pirithous struggled to keep his words gentle. There was so much bitterness in her voice, in her mind, and when she lifted her eyes to his, there was no warmth there to greet him.
“My people have lost more today than you will ever understand,” she said.
“We both lost.”
She shook her head. “Your people did not lose their king. They did not lose the favor of their gods. Some died, yes, and more were hurt. But your people will survive this day. Seeing what they have done, this savagery, I cannot say the same for mine.”
She jumped down from the table then, all the pride of her bearing gone.
“Mia—”
“Let her go,” Theseus said, his voice low. “There is nothing you can say that will bring her any comfort, and much you might that will only cause more pain. To say nothing of what your people will think, should you go running after your wife after everything they have suffered for her sake this day.”
He tore his gaze from her slumped shoulders to the men and women who surrounded them. In that moment, he hated them all. “Peleus is gone.”
Theseus grunted. “He and his men slipped away the moment he’d goaded the rest of the centaurs into battle with that nonsense about Centaurus’s death. You may yet have two wars to wage.”
“May the gods smite him.” Pirithous tossed his sword away and vaulted down from the table. “For if they do not, I will. Sacred laws be damned.”
“He drank from your cup, but he did not accept it for a gift,” Antiope said. “And I cannot think the gods will find offense after what he has done today. The laws of hearth and hospitality are already broken by his betrayal in spirit, if not in deed.”
“Would that he had not come at all,” he growled. “No wonder he left his wife at home, if this was what he planned. I should have realized then that he meant trouble.”
“Perhaps he only took advantage of the opportunity presented,” Theseus said. “How could he have known of Eurytion’s discontent beforehand?”
Pirithous nudged the corpse of a silver-white centaur and frowned. “How indeed.”
For that question, he would find an answer.
Antiope tended to the women, for Pirithous did not think they would find any comfort from Hippodamia’s aid, even if she might be persuaded to offer it. He and Theseus moved among the men, dead and alive.
For the dead, there was little to be done beyond offering gifts and sympathy to their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, removing the bodies with all proper ceremony and respect, and preparing a funeral pyre. With so many dead, and by suc
h a violent end, they could not afford to take the time to entomb them all, nor risk the malevolence of their shades. Tomorrow would be another feast, more somber than today’s, with games to honor the fallen. The prizes would come from his own treasury, but even so, he wished he might do more.
He wished he had listened to the priest. Put off this wedding for one more day. It could not have had a worse result. Eurytion would have taken insult and raged, but Centaurus would have ignored him. And when Pirithous married Hippodamia the following day, the centaur would have looked the fool for his unfounded fury.
Or perhaps Peleus would have goaded him, still. But how many others would he have been able to convince? Fewer innocents would have been lost, to be certain, and fewer women taken. It was their bodies which haunted him most of all, for he could not look on them without seeing Hippodamia’s face, her lean form abused and broken. And this would not be the end of it. Those women who had survived the centaurs’ lusts might yet be burdened with unwelcome fruit, and from what he had gathered, if the midwives’ potions did not act as they should, the women faced death when it came time to birth.
But for the strength Zeus had given him, and the power of Antiope’s bow, it might be Hippodamia’s stomach budding in three months’ time, her death he feared. If Hippodamia had not fought against her captor, had not done what she must to save herself…
“You can’t mean to let them live on so near to us,” one of his councilors, Plouteus, said, after Pirithous had clasped his hand and praised him for his courage. “You can’t mean to give them peace again. Perhaps it’s true they share Ixion’s blood, my lord, but they’re nothing more than beasts. Surely you see that now.”
Pirithous murmured something reassuring, promised to post guards upon the palace walls, and distracted the man from the realization that his king had not answered him at all. Just as he had done with all the others who had asked the same questions, growing grimmer and grimmer each time.
“Even with a head start, we can find them. Hunt them down and let their shades fly to Hades. Won’t rest easy until every last one’s gone,” another man said, closing his wife’s eyes. “Queen’s kin or not.”
Pirithous grunted and moved on.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Nestor said when Pirithous finally reached him. No question, he was relieved to know the old king lived, though he would have a new scar or two to show for his adventure.
“And what am I thinking?” Pirithous asked, slumping down the wall to a seat on the filthy floor beside his guest. A true friend, Nestor, and truth be told, he could use some of his wisdom just now.
“You’re thinking that perhaps your people will be satisfied if you only drive the centaurs from the mountain. Perhaps you might even make them Peleus’s problem. Force them into his lands, and let the Myrmidons bloody their hands while you take your new wife to bed, conscience clear.”
Pirithous snorted. If only Hippodamia were so easily deceived. “The first part, perhaps, but not the last. I would not send the centaurs to Peleus. Too great a risk that they might forge some alliance between them.”
“Your people want blood, Pirithous. A chance to prove themselves, after this. To take back their honor and their courage, and know they need never fear this threat again.”
“If there are no centaurs upon the mountain, there is no threat at all.”
Nestor sighed. “If only the centaurs had not betrayed their trust. If this had all happened before the peace was struck, you might have convinced your people of that. But they can hardly take such an agreement on faith now, can they? After the centaurs have proven themselves false friends? The Lapiths will always wonder if they are there, hiding, waiting for the opportunity to strike again, to steal their women and murder them in their beds.”
“And what comfort is that to my wife?” But he was uncomfortably aware that if not for Hippodamia, he would likely have agreed. Before he had met and married her, he would not have hesitated even for a moment to go to war, nor declared peace again until every last centaur was dead.
“Kings do not always have the luxury of pleasing their wives, Pirithous. Most especially when those wives are the result of failed accords. And after all, it is not as though you married for love.”
No, he had not married for love. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the plaster wall behind him. But the way his heart twisted at the thought of telling her this, of seeing her face fall and her eyes fill with tears as he explained that the centaurs must die, he was not far from such a regard for her, all the same. Certainly he cared for her. Wanted her to be happy. And he had no wish to disappoint her love for him so soon, nor lose it altogether.
But after this, how could she love him at all?
If he had only waited another day to marry her.
If he had only listened to the priest.
If he had only forbidden Eurytion from the feast altogether, or slit his throat instead of trying to reason with him.
It was a good thing that Dia was dead, for she would never have forgiven him for the mess he had made of all this.
Nestor clapped him on the shoulder as he rose. “Be of good cheer, Pirithous. If you succeed in this war, men will sing of your name for ages to come. I’ll teach them the song of it myself.”
It was not much of a consolation.
In fact, he would have traded it all if he could only find a way to satisfy his people and still keep Hippodamia’s love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hippodamia
After the maid had filled the tub with hot water, Hippodamia dismissed her. She bolted the door to her chamber behind the girl, and stripped the ruined gown from her body. Beautiful yellow silk. She could not even stand the sight of it, stained with Eurytion’s blood. Tainted by the screams of the Lapith women, as her people had turned to brutes. Her people. The gods had truly forsaken them, to make them capable of this. Hippodamia threw the gown into the hearth fire, watching it burn until her eyes blurred from the flames and the scent of charred meat filled her nose.
Her bath was getting cold, and gooseflesh had risen on her arms as she stood naked before the fire. The blood hadn’t limited itself to the fabric, and she shifted her gaze to her hands, staring at the rusted stains upon her skin, beneath her nails. She saw Eurytion’s eyes, widening with shock and betrayal after she tore the arrow from his shoulder.
Hippodamia shook her head, blinking back tears, and took herself to the bathing room. There was no purpose in barring those doors, even if her own had been repaired, for Pirithous had already proven he would not be stopped from reaching her if he felt it needed. Whether he believed it needed or not this night, she was not certain. She was not certain even of her own feelings on the matter, yet.
The water was still warm when she slipped beneath it, but she made no move to wash the blood from her hands, only watched as it leached from her skin. Eurytion’s blood. Eurytion’s death. She wrapped her arms about her knees and pulled them to her chest. Easier to think of him than to think of her father, lost forever, and remember how wrongly she had spoken to him in the stables.
He had only wanted to warn her. To protect her from heartbreak. And why had she been so offended, so hurt? He had only spoken again the same words she had grown up hearing, the same warnings and the same concerns. But she had been so full of Pirithous’s kindnesses, so determined to prove his affections. And who had she been trying to convince so desperately? Centaurus? Or herself?
She raked damp fingers through her hair, tearing it from its braid and wishing she could tear it from her scalp altogether. What a fool she was. So eager for her new husband, for all he had promised and all they might accomplish together, she had disregarded even her father’s love. And now all her dreams were nothing more than ruined silk, burned to strange black ash, and blood.
Hippodamia shivered, a chill settling into her bones where the warmth of the water could never reach. She should have been in the megaron still. As queen, her place was at Piritho
us’s side. But what comfort could she give his people? She had none to offer her own. None for herself. And why should they trust her, besides? All their marriage had brought was death and pain, horror and war. She had no trouble imagining how his people responded now, their pleas to their king for vengeance and blood. And even in her own mind, she could not deny them some right to the call for war.
But it would not be enough. Could never be enough for this breach of trust, all because Eurytion had refused to abide by Centaurus’s decision. Refused even to respect her own. Because the centaurs had turned to beasts before her eyes. And he thought Pirithous undeserving? Pirithous, who had sworn never to take her unwilling?
To think she had descended the mountain so joyfully. Had it only been that morning when they had made love? It felt as if a full year had passed, so much had changed so quickly, and all the strength she had summoned to send the centaurs away had abandoned her now. If she had not stood in witness to their vileness—she wondered now, if the stories the Lapith women had told all these years, of being raped by centaurs and left in the woods, were true. Had she been so blind as that? Or was it only the betrayal of this day? The curse of the gods for Eurytion’s treachery, when by all rights he ought to have been bound by the laws of hospitality and friendship.
The Lapiths would never trust her as their queen, no matter what came next. And she could not help but wonder…
What good would it do her, or anyone, if she stayed?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Pirithous
Pirithous pushed open the door to his room long after moonrise, exhausted and heartsick. He had seen all his people settled, sent them all to their beds with full stomachs and bandaged pride. The guests, too, he had found rooms for, and set guards upon the palace walls, as he had promised his councilors. “Hippodamia?”
She was not in his room. He snorted at his own foolishness. After what had happened, he would be fortunate if she was willing to speak to him, never mind share his bed.
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