And then he sent Antiope to gather the unwed girls and young wives yet without children, allowed her to organize them for their own games, with their own prizes. He gave them bows and arrows and sticks for swords, and he watched them as they learned to use them. It would not be much, and when it came time, they would learn quickly that playing at war was not the same as killing, but at least they would have some small hope of defense.
“It will not work,” Hippodamia said, appearing at his shoulder on the second day, while he watched the girls, smiling and laughing and following Antiope’s every move. He ought to have realized his wife would hear of it, with Antiope in charge. “You teach them to fight against men, not centaurs. Men attack with a sword or spear or fists, but centaurs have all those things and their hooves besides.”
He glanced at her sidelong, but her face was impassive, and all he could sense of her was resignation and pain. “I pray it is only men they must defend against. If the centaurs reach this far, we will have lost one war and invited another.”
“If the centaurs reach this far, and these women do not know how to defend themselves, they will be worse than dead. It will not be clean, Pirithous, or painless. They will be raped and planted, and if their wombs quicken, they will not survive the result.” She pressed her lips together. “Put Antiope atop a horse, the steadiest you have, and I will show them where to strike.”
His heart constricted even at the thought. She should not have to teach his people how to kill her own. Already she did too much for them, gave too much of herself. “I will not ask it of you.”
She met his eyes, her own dark with grief. “You haven’t, but it is only right, Pirithous. Whatever has happened, whatever will happen, the women and children of the Lapiths are innocent.” A smile ghosted across her lips, more sorrowful than anything else. “If it were the men, perhaps I might feel otherwise.”
“If it were the men, I would forbid it,” he promised her. “No matter how angry it made you, I would not let you take the stain of more blood upon your hands.”
Her hand found his, shy at first, and then holding tightly. So tightly. “You cannot protect me from this, Pirithous. Just as I cannot protect you.”
He brought her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “But you are determined to try, all the same.”
“No more and no less than you would do, in my place.”
“I am no hero,” he said. “And I am not so selfless, no matter what you might think.”
She shook her head. “You do not give yourself enough credit. Everything you have done has been for your people, even for mine, at no small cost to yourself. If that is not selflessness, what is?”
“Is it so selfless, when much of what I have done these last days has been for you? To keep you here, at my side?”
“Perhaps that is what you tell yourself, but I do not believe it is wholly true. It is not only for me. Not only for yourself and your interests that you’ve acted. War with the centaurs will do more harm than good, for both our peoples. You know that as well as I.”
“It is convenience, that is all,” he said. “For I think of little else but you. It keeps me awake at night, even when you are in my arms, sleeping soundly. You’ve promised me you will stay, but I fear the moment my eyes close, you will slip between my fingers and disappear into the night. I worry you will go to them, all the same, leaving me behind. Because you know the cost of war. Because you think it will spare me some greater pain. But I promise you, Hippodamia, it will only amplify my grief, my sorrow. It will only make every suffering that much more difficult to bear if you are not with me. If you are lost to me, and there is war, still.”
“Do you think I would throw away our marriage so easily?” she asked, her eyes going liquid. “That I would destroy what we have built for so little?”
“I think you will do what you must, mouse. That your loyalty to your people is greater, perhaps, than your love for me.” He sighed, brushing a tear from her cheek. He had not meant to make her cry, but surely she must realize how difficult this was for him, as well. “Perhaps it should be. Perhaps it is only right that it is so, when they have raised you from infancy, and I have guarded you for little more than a sevenday. Why should you remain with me, with my people, at all, but for duty? But for the desire to honor your father’s dream? Your father’s hope for peace? And if peace can only be found by leaving…”
She closed her eyes, turning her face away, and another tear slipped from beneath her lashes. But she did not deny it. She did not argue his reasoning, did not fight against his words. Her silence hurt his heart all the more.
“I will have the horse brought,” he said, loosening his hold upon her hand. “And then I’ll return to the men.”
“Please.” Her fingers tightened around his, her gaze skittering away. His little mouse, once again. “Please stay.”
“Mia—”
“You promised me you would live, Pirithous. That you will return whole and unbloodied, unbroken. Wherever I am, I would have it so. Let me do this small thing. For you. Just for you.”
He searched her face, smoothed the frantic, worried lines from her brow. He hadn’t expected her to remember his vow, drunk as she’d been. And he was not certain, even with her help, that he could keep it. He was not so sure he wanted to, if she meant to leave him. And if the centaurs fought through them, reached the palace—it would not be long before Peleus followed and took everything that was left. He would be a king without a people before this was over. But if she stayed…
He had to believe she would not leave him.
“Are you certain?”
She nodded, her mouth a firm line.
“Then I will stay and watch, and learn. For you. Just for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Hippodamia
“The centaur’s heart is here,” Hippodamia said, touching the breast of the horse. Pirithous’s Fire, steadied by age and experience, she supposed. She did not so much as blink when Hippodamia placed the tip of the wooden sword to her hide, showing the best angle for a strike. “Encased by the ribs. Difficult to pierce, but not impossible. Particularly when he rears.”
She could not look at Pirithous. Would not look at him, though she knew he watched, as she’d asked. That she might show him how to live, she told herself. It was not the same as showing him how to kill.
“But if you fear you do not have the strength or the aim, keep to his flanks,” she said, stepping back behind Fire’s withers. “A centaur’s torso does not twist so easily as a man’s, too thick with muscle to support the sharp bend of the back. But you must be careful, still, of the hind legs and the hooves. A kick will kill you as surely as a sword or the blow of a club. Perhaps even more easily.”
The girls watched her with wide eyes, following her around the horse. She could not bring herself to smile, or even to meet their eager gazes. The women stood farther back, wary and whispering. She did not know what else she could do to convince them of her loyalty, her determination to keep them safe. Was teaching them how to defend themselves not proof enough that she bore them no malice?
“And if a centaur should catch hold of you,” she went on, stroking Fire’s neck as she ducked under her head, “his forehooves are just as dangerous as the rear, sharp enough to cut a snake in half. He will trample you, if you fall beneath him. He will strike with them, if you are near enough and he has no other weapon to hand.”
“Then we will practice attacks from the side,” Antiope said, sitting atop Fire. “Since that is safest and most deadly. A blade through the intestines will bleed out, if it does not poison them as well.”
“Here,” Hippodamia agreed, patting Fire’s barrel. “A sword could be buried deep, and the centaur would likely be maddened by the pain. Perhaps enough to distract him from whatever lust burns in his veins.”
Antiope swung down from Fire’s back, passing Hippodamia the reins. “Lyco, you begin. Aim for his flanks.”
The woman lifted
her bow, fitting an arrow and drawing it back. Pirithous had brought a straw-stuffed target from the men’s games for their use, and Antiope had been more than pleased to have Hippodamia’s guidance and help in teaching the girls where to aim.
She pressed her face into the horse’s neck, unable to watch the arrow sink into the straw, knowing that they imagined her people in the target’s place. Centaurus’s people, whom she had promised to protect. Poseidon Horse-Lord, forgive me. Forgive my people. Forgive us all. Save us from this war.
But she knew in her heart the gods had forsaken the centaurs. If Poseidon had still blessed them, Centaurus never could have died. Cyllarus would not be intent upon war. Eurytion had ruined everything—Eurytion and Peleus, together, if Pirithous was not wrong.
“Well done, Lyco,” Antiope said, after the arrow struck with a meaty thump. “Now you, Eritha. The rest of you will have to rely upon your blades, for you have no hope of hitting anything with an arrow, and it will take more than seven days of games to teach you any skill with a spear.”
“But you will teach us, Lady, will you not?” Lyco asked. “After the games have ended?”
“Antiope must return to Athens with King Theseus,” Pirithous said, though when he had moved to join them rather than only stand upon the edge of the field, Hippodamia was not certain. She turned her head, peeking through Fire’s mane to find him beside her, his hand upon Fire’s flank. “But I have heard that our queen has some skill with a bow. Perhaps she will teach you, instead.”
She straightened, giving Pirithous a narrowed glance. “I know how to hunt with a bow, of course, but little more.”
“That is more than most of these women know,” Antiope said, scowling at Pirithous. “And if they are willing, they should be taught. Hunting a man is not so different from hunting a deer or a rabbit, after all.”
“I—” But what was the point in refusing? Either the centaurs would come and the women would be left to their own defense, or Pirithous and his men would win, and they might still face Peleus. And if she remained… If she remained, there was no reason why she should not teach them all that she knew, that in the next war, whenever it came, they might protect themselves.
Hippodamia swallowed, giving Lyco a nod. “I will teach you everything I know. And when next the Lapiths see battle against their walls, you will guard your men and yourselves from their height, with bow and arrow.”
Antiope clasped her arm, as the warriors greeted one another, and smiled fiercely. “I will hold you to that promise, Queen Hippodamia.”
She met the Amazon’s eyes. This promise was what Antiope had wanted from the start, why she had befriended her. To see the Lapith women made equal to their men, granted the power to protect themselves and their children. To see that Dia’s legacy was not lost. But even knowing, it still stung. “One way or another, they will learn.”
“Let it be the more peaceful way, if there is a choice,” Antiope said, her gaze shifting to Pirithous, over her shoulder. “You will see this is done? Your word as a king. Sworn upon the Styx.”
“If it is my queen’s will, it is mine as well,” Pirithous said. “By the Styx, I will give them bows and arrows, and let Hippodamia teach them to hunt and shoot.”
Antiope’s mouth thinned, her gaze falcon-hard, and Hippodamia was not so foolish that she did not know why. Pirithous did not make promises carelessly, always aware of his own interests, his own desires, and turning the needs and wishes of others to his own cause. It was his gift, to make others believe they shared in his vision. To force others to share in it, with careful promises.
He would give Antiope what she wanted, Hippodamia knew, but only if she and Antiope served him in return.
Only if she stayed to teach them herself.
Only if she remained his queen.
Hippodamia’s fingers curled tightly into Fire’s mane, and she was glad for the horse, for her steadiness and her warmth. Horses made truer friends than men and Amazons, no matter how insistently she prayed otherwise.
Thank the gods it was Theseus who would ride out at her side to meet the centaurs, and not his wife.
“Tell me, Mia,” Antiope said later, as they walked Fire back to the stables together. “Do you mean to leave him?”
The girls and women had been sent back to their homes to prepare for the feasting, and Pirithous had left some time earlier to watch the men and grant them their prizes. If Hippodamia had been given her way, she’d have walked alone.
“I do not mean to do anything but speak to my people,” she said, keeping the old mare between them. “But if there is some way I might secure a peace between us, of course I will see it done. And surely the lives saved are more valuable than a girl’s skill with a bow, even to you.”
Antiope caught Fire’s bridle, pulling them both to a stop. “You still mistrust me.”
Hippodamia did not look at her, staring ahead at the barn instead. “If your people came to Athens, intent upon war, and the only way to bring peace was to leave Theseus, would you not go? To save the lives of Amazons and Athenians alike?”
“It is not a fair question, Mia,” Antiope said. “Theseus and I married for love, knowing the risks. Knowing we courted war. We weighed those risks together.”
“And I married for peace,” she said. “I married to keep our peoples both safe. Not for love at all, though perhaps—perhaps I am fortunate enough to find some small taste of it, however flawed. But that does not change my purpose. I cannot let it.”
“You can,” Antiope insisted. “And perhaps you should. If Centaurus loved you as a daughter, truly, he must have wanted more than to use you. He must have wanted you to have some opportunity of happiness, no matter how small. Do you honestly believe you could have any kind of life among the centaurs now? Any kind of love? Or children?”
She flinched, tugging Fire forward again. There was nothing Antiope would not say to convince her to remain, Hippodamia reminded herself. For Theseus’s sake. For Pirithous’s. For the girls and women of the Lapiths. For herself. The friendship they had forged had only ever been secondary to all the rest. That much had been made clear long before now.
“Mia, you cannot tell me it is not true,” Antiope said, skipping to catch up again. “You cannot tell me your father would have wanted you to die alone in misery!”
“You know nothing of what my father wanted. Nothing of my father at all.”
“I know love,” Antiope said. “I know that when Centaurus put your hand in Pirithous’s, he gave you up with pride and pleasure to something better. And now you would throw it all away. His last gift to you.”
She shook her head, her throat thick with tears and grief. “He never believed Pirithous could love me. Perhaps if he had, if his last words to me had not been a warning, I would be persuaded now. But I am not a fool, Antiope. And I will not forget my duty so easily just because it does not match the desire of my heart. Or yours, for that matter.”
“This isn’t about me, Mia,” Antiope said. “It has never been about me, no matter what you tell yourself. I only care for you and your happiness. For Pirithous’s, too. You were meant for one another, and you will find nothing but misery apart. Do you think I left my people so easily? Betrayed my vows to the gods upon a whim? When we find our match, we owe it to ourselves, even to the gods, to join with them and become whole. Is that not what your people believe as well? You said yourself that centaurs mate for life, and I cannot imagine that Hylonome would ever abandon Cyllarus.”
“Perhaps not,” she agreed. “But she would sacrifice herself for him. She would throw herself between his body and an arrow aimed at his heart. She would die for him, as he would for her.”
“Is that what you think you’re doing?” Antiope asked. “Giving up your life for Pirithous’s?”
“He would do the same for me. He will do the same for me, if the centaurs come. He will march out with his sword drawn, to protect me. To protect all of us. And I have no right to do any less.”
; Antiope fell silent, keeping pace on the other side of Fire, and Hippodamia tried not to think of what Cyllarus would do if Hylonome died. What any centaur as well-matched would do, if they lost their mate. But whether Pirithous loved her or not, she could not imagine he would drive a blade into his own heart, nor did she think he would be so easily convinced that his life was not worth living in her absence.
Men were not so devoted to their wives. Not even Theseus, no matter what Antiope told herself.
And not Pirithous.
Pirithous knew only how to live.
She spent the evening in the stable, grooming Podarkes carefully as an excuse to avoid the funeral pyres. Too often the men and women, even the children, looked on her with accusation and anger in their eyes, reminded by the flames of what they had lost when Pirithous had taken her as his bride. After spending all day teaching them to fight, she could not bear to see it. It was as if the Lapiths could not believe she meant them well—as if, as Theseus had said, they were determined to blame her, no matter what she did to prove herself. No doubt they would find just as much offense in her presence at the pyres as they did in her absence, regardless.
Podarkes nuzzled her, his soft nose tickling the curve of her neck, and she closed her eyes, hiding her face against his cheek. “If only your people were as kind-hearted as you,” she murmured.
The horse whickered, then drew suddenly away, tossing his head and sidling back. She turned to see what had startled him, and found Pirithous leaning against the post of the stall. “Do you think all of us are so lacking, or just the grieving widows standing too near the flames?”
She flushed. “I do not mean to begrudge them their grief. Only the way they look upon me, as if their husbands had died at my hands. Eurytion killed my father, too, and not only his body, but his hopes and dreams as well. His and mine. He destroyed everything I had worked toward, trampling our peace under his careless hooves. I share in their grief, their sorrows, their pain, but they cannot see it. Will not see me.”
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