Tamer of Horses

by Amalia Carosella

  “There is no shame in caring for the people you have no choice but to leave behind, my queen. And those who would tell you otherwise—they are blind fools who cannot see beyond their own pain. If you did not ache for the loss, it would be stranger. King Pirithous would say the same, himself, were he able.”

  “Maybe so.” She turned her face to the window, staring out at the mountain without seeing it. How she wished Pirithous were able to say anything at all. That this choice had been his instead of hers. But giving up her people made her all the more determined. She would do what she must, whatever the gods asked, if only he would live. All her sacrifice, all her people’s suffering, would not be for nothing.

  “Thank you, Glaukos.”

  She did not have to look to know he touched his fist to his forehead before he left the room, closing the door with a soft thump behind him.

  She did not join Antiope upon the wall, but stayed at Pirithous’s bedside while the sun sank lower and lower, thickening the shadows between the trees on the mountain slope. She had hoped the men would have returned by now. Some small part of her prepared to make her trip to the shrine that very night.

  She had hoped, because the longer Pirithous lay motionless in this unnatural sleep, the more she feared he would not wake at all. And the more time passed, the more worn she felt, the title of queen weighing heavily upon her shoulders.

  “You should not stay locked up in this room,” Glaukos said when he allowed a servant in with her evening meal.

  Warm bread and honey, roasted goat, and more of the relished greens she detested. Pirithous had promised her she could have them however she liked, but she had not had time yet, or energy, to face the kitchens and request her greens served uncooked. It seemed such a worthless thing to concern herself with, after all that had happened.

  “King Pirithous would not want you tied to his bed day after day, and truly, you look too pale. Sickly.”

  “I will see to my own health, thank you,” she replied. The servant had brought broth, too, for Pirithous, and she took up the small bowl, moving to his side. “But if it will reassure you, I mean to climb the mountain once the men return and it is safe. To pray for my husband’s recovery.”

  “Melanthos will wish you to take a guard, if that is your intent.”

  She shook her head. “I will ride Podarkes and go alone.”

  “My queen, it is not safe. Even with the centaurs driven off, there are other dangers—wolves, bears, even wild boar. If you fell—”

  Fury burned through her veins, and the glare she gave him stopped his words. “Do you think I am not familiar with the hazards of the mountain? I, who was raised upon it, even within its very heart, while you Lapiths cowered behind your walls?”

  Glaukos stiffened. “You have seen for yourself the need for our walls, and it has little to do with the beasts in the wood.”

  “And you have seen my skill upon a horse, yet you suggest I might fall?”

  He lowered his eyes, a flush suffusing his cheeks. “Even the most talented horsemen can be caught off-balance when their horse rears or kicks. If any harm were to come to you, for any reason, King Pirithous would never forgive us. And you must understand, my queen, that if my lord Pirithous does not wake, the Lapiths depend upon you.”

  “Perhaps they shouldn’t.”

  His gaze flashed up again, alarm written in every line of his face. “Who else, if not the woman chosen by Queen Dia and King Pirithous, both?”

  She pressed her lips together, busying herself by spooning a trickle of broth into Pirithous’s mouth. It was excuse enough to look away. To turn her eyes from such earnestness, such painful loyalty. She deserved none of it. Not the way Dia had, or Pirithous after her.

  “I will climb the mountain alone,” she said, careful to keep her voice steady. “And with the blessing of the gods, Pirithous will wake. You need not worry about the rest.”

  And neither would she.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Hippodamia

  “Hippodamia!” Antiope burst through the door, gasping. She must have sprinted all the way from the palace wall. “They’ve returned. Theseus and Melanthos and the rest of the men!”

  Mia’s stomach lurched, like snakes coiling around her lungs, her heart, squeezing too tight. “All of them?”

  Antiope twisted a shoulder in dismissal. “I hardly counted them when they left, but they look in good spirits. Theseus is whole and unharmed, and Melanthos does not look injured, either. Beyond that, I can tell you nothing. But they will both be here to tell you everything you might wish to know before long.”

  Two days they’d been gone, and Mia knew Antiope had hated the waiting. Glaukos had told her that the Amazon paced the palace walls, strung taut as a bow, and liable to snap at anyone who approached her. She would not admit it, but Mia thought it was fear which had put her so deeply on edge, and her exultation now was proof enough of the truth. If she had not worried for Theseus, she would not be so ecstatic at his return, safe and sound.

  And Hippodamia was more familiar with fear of that kind than she liked to be, at the moment.

  “I know you will wish to take Theseus straight to your bed, but I must speak to him first,” she said. “I promise it will not take long.”

  Antiope rolled her eyes, but she smiled still, going to the window, no doubt to catch another glimpse of her husband. “Theseus would not let me drag him off until he’d spoken with you, regardless. His pleasure never comes before his duty.”

  Hippodamia wasn’t certain she believed that, for if she had learned one thing from her own marriage, Theseus’s decision to take Antiope as his bride had been far from dutiful. That the Athenians had stood for it at all was a testament to their love for their hero, but if things had gone just the slightest bit differently…

  She shivered, pushing the thought of the war Athens had escaped from her mind. Surely if the Amazons meant to reclaim their queen, they’d have done so before now. And she would not borrow trouble for her friends when she had enough already for herself.

  “You needn’t wait here with me,” she said, forcing a smile. “Go to your husband.”

  Antiope sniffed. “I am not so foolish that I cannot spend two days apart from Theseus without falling all over myself to reach his side again.”

  “And I never believed I would be so loyal to Pirithous that the thought of leaving his bedside would make me ache, yet here I am. There is no shame in your joy, Antiope. Go. Pretend I sent you, if you wish.”

  She smiled over her shoulder. “When did you become so wise?”

  Hippodamia’s gaze slid back to Pirithous, lying far too still. “It is not wisdom, Antiope.”

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “Grief.”

  Antiope was silent when she wished to be, but the rustle of her tunic and the soft scuff of her sandals warned Mia before the Amazon’s arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Do not give up all hope, my friend. Not yet. And even if the worst comes to pass, you will not be alone. Not in your sorrow, and not in your duty.”

  But Hippodamia was alone already. She had sent Theseus and Melanthos to make it so.

  The two men entered the room to stand grim-faced before her, still clothed in dust and dirt from their journey. She sank to her stool at their expressions, her heart constricting before they’d even spoken. She did not need them to. Their faces said it all.

  “How many?” she asked, the words half-broken.

  “More than could be persuaded to flee,” Theseus said. “You were right that there would be no reasoning with them. Most were too crazed by grief to think of anything but striking at us. I am only grateful we lost so few of our own men in the fighting.”

  She closed her eyes, struggling to breathe. “How many escaped?”

  “It was the widows with their foals,” Melanthos said. “They were consumed—”

  “How many, Melanthos?” she demanded, before he could paint the horror any more clearly behind her eyelids.


  He cleared his throat. “A dozen, perhaps.” He hesitated, and her stomach sank, sour and roiling and heavy as rock. “They were all too young, my queen.”

  Too young. Foals, only, and too young to survive on their own in a strange land, without the safety of their caves, without food, without the means to hunt. She had murdered her people. Was that not sacrifice enough for the gods? For Zeus? She had watered the mountain with the blood of the centaurs, and still Pirithous lay all but dead.

  “I must go to the shrine of Poseidon upon the mountain, and make offerings to the Horse Lord.” How her voice remained steady, even cool, she did not know, for she wanted to scream at the pain inside her. As if she had been torn apart slowly by despair, and a dull, thick needle was piercing through her body with the heaviest of strings to sew her back together again. “I would ask that Pirithous not be left alone while I am away.”

  “My queen, you mustn’t go—”

  “Alone?” she opened her eyes to meet Melanthos’s pitying gaze. “Alone is what I am, Melanthos. Alone is what I will always be. But I will not betray my people any further by allowing a stranger to set foot in our most sacred grove. No. I will go with Podarkes, and trust in the Horse Lord to keep me safe upon the journey. You and the rest of the men will remain here and see to your king.”

  “Will you not even accept my company?” Theseus asked.

  She knew by his voice he did not expect her to say yes. “If you wish to make sacrifice to your father I will not stop you, but you will not do so with me, upon the mountain.”

  “Pirithous would not want you to go unguarded, Hippodamia.”

  “Pirithous would trust that I know my way through the woods. He would not like it, but he would let me go. And so will you. He is all I have left, Theseus. I will not do less than everything in my power to protect him now.”

  Theseus pressed his lips together. “And if he wakes, what would you have me tell him?”

  “That I have gone for his sake, and I will return before nightfall, two days hence.”

  “My queen—” Melanthos began, but she stopped him with one uplifted hand.

  “I have made my decision. You may go.” Her gaze shifted to Theseus, then away again, before she weakened. Before he saw through her utterly, and argued in Pirithous’s name with words she couldn’t refute. “Both of you.”

  She did not even wait until morning. The supplies she needed were already gathered by Glaukos, though he had not liked it, and Podarkes, bridled by Machaon, was waiting ready at the stable door. The horsemaster did not question her, and she was glad at least for that. He merely gave a sniff after she’d swung herself up onto Podarkes’s broad back.

  “Keep your bow handy,” he said. “The scent of so much blood is bound to have drawn beasts by now.” Then he gave Podarkes a pat on the rump and turned away, disappearing inside the cavernous mouth of the stable doors.

  Hippodamia touched her heels to Podarkes’s flanks, and rode out the gate into moonlight and shadow.

  She only hoped that Pirithous would forgive her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Hippodamia

  She did not dare tie Podarkes, but let his reins fall to the ground and whispered in his ear to keep close. Machaon was not wrong about the blood, and while dawn’s first fingers were crawling over the earth, it was still night enough for the wolves to think themselves stronger. She tried not to look at the darker puddles and stains on the ground as she walked past the cluster of caves she had once called home. In the dusky light, she could see hoof prints in the packed earth, the only sign that her people had ever lived, now. The only sign of life.

  She touched the stone arch of Centaurus’s cave, which she had shared for so long, and ached for her father’s presence, his reassurance and love. If she failed today, perhaps she might join him before long. But she could not imagine what he must think of her, of the choices she had made. Of all this blood, spilled and rotting, filling her mouth with the taste of bronze and mildew.

  Hippodamia straightened and continued on, averting her eyes from the splintered wood and shattered crockery, and following the lonely hard-packed path away from the settlement itself. Upward, weaving through clumps of stone and boulders, so well-trodden that she had to watch her feet carefully to keep from tripping on the exposed roots of the old, stunted drys trees, planted by Centaurus in his youth for their acorns. She climbed on until she reached the pines, planted on either side of two immense stones.

  The path wound between them, and so did she, stepping out onto a wide slab of exposed limestone, worn into a shallow bowl by wind and rain. An altar stood at its heart, built of the same pinewood, sacred to Poseidon, and holding a small stone bowl, stained with blood from countless sacrifices. Hippodamia drew the knife from her belt and crossed to the altar before she lost her nerve. None of the animals she had sent in sacrifice to Zeus had been worthy of his response, but Poseidon would have no such complaint. With one swift stroke of the blade, she opened her arm and let the blood of her own body pour into the bowl before dropping to her knees before the altar.

  “Lord Poseidon, hear me. Forgive my failures, and accept this blood in sacrifice. Protect my husband. Guard him from death, and give him the strength to rise again, to live. This much, I beg of you, and nothing more.”

  She wrapped a bandage tightly around her arm, to stop the bleeding, but remained upon her knees. She would stay until nightfall, if she must. Even through the night, if the god demanded it, letting her blood flow until it spilled over onto the altar and, from the altar, soaked the stone beneath her knees, but she would not be ignored. She would not leave without some sign, some answer from the gods.

  “Lord Poseidon, hear me,” she began again. “I beg you to spare my husband, to keep Pirithous from death, to grant him life. He has lost so much. We have both lost so much.”

  She continued that way, upon her knees, leaning forward every so often to spill more blood into the bowl, repeating her prayers and singing hymns to the god until her voice grew hoarse and her head too light. And even then, she still gave more blood, her lips moving, shaping the words her voice could no longer carry.

  Hear my prayers, and save him. Lord Poseidon, father of horses, protect us both.

  Her body slumped until her head rested upon the altar.

  Lord Poseidon, accept my blood in sacrifice. Bring Pirithous back to true life. Let him live, let him live, let him live.

  When the sun began to sink beyond the rise of stone, she closed her eyes to stop the mountain’s rocking, sure it was only the result of too much blood lost, and the long fast while she waited for the god’s response. But the darkness only intensified the sensation, and the whinny of a horse brought her head up, her eyes narrowing against the glare of the sunset. The horse whinnied again, shrill and nervous.

  Podarkes. She had left Podarkes below. She looked toward the entrance, considered rising, but she was so unsteady, even upon her knees, with the stone rocking beneath her—

  The stone, rocking.

  She sat back upon her heels, her mind suddenly sharp and her gaze fixed upon the stone bowl which shuddered along with the rest of the mountain, splashing and spilling her blood upon the altar.

  Lord Poseidon Earth-Shaker, hear me! Spare Pirithous’s life!

  The altar itself jumped and toppled, along with the stones bracing the entrance to the shrine, and the limestone beneath her cracked, fissures flowing out like the branches of a river, spiraling around her where she knelt, and circling once, twice, three times, before disappearing into a pool of her blood. The earth went still, and all she could hear was the thunder of hoofbeats. Podarkes’s whinny, high and anxious and near.

  She touched the cracks, feeling the pulse of heat, of life, in the stone. Three circles, ending in a pool of blood. Her blood. She touched it, too, dipping her fingers into the puddle, cold and hollow. She shuddered, jerking her hand back just as quickly again. Death. The circles were life, and the blood was death. Three lives? Or…

/>   She swallowed hard and scrambled up, lurching to her feet. Podarkes was pacing, whinnying and rearing, on the other side of the toppled boulders. When she reached them, pressed her hand against the cold stone in search of some small leverage in order to climb, the boulders cracked, the sound so loud, so near, it made her ears ring.

  Three pieces. Two large, one small. A child’s face, she thought. A child’s face in the raw, broken rock. And hers. And Pirithous’s. A laughing, living, Pirithous, so clear and joyous it made her eyes prick with tears.

  She touched the second boulder and it turned to dust, falling in a spiral around her body, circling three times. Three times. Three circles.

  Three years.

  Podarkes charged through the dust, scattering the spirals, and she grasped the base of his mane, vaulting up on his back. Her body was covered in fine, white powder, blood staining the bottom of her tunic above the knees, and when she looked at her arm, meaning to wrap her wounds, the cuts were closed—leaving three long, white scars in their place.

  Poseidon had answered.

  He had accepted her sacrifice.

  He had accepted her in sacrifice.

  Poseidon, through Centaurus, had spared her life as a child. And in three years, he would take it back.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Pirithous

  Hippodamia was gone. Climbed the mountain alone, like a fool, to make sacrifice to the Earth Shaker, as if she could not do so just as easily within sight of his walls, and from the moment Theseus had told him what she’d done, he could not stand to lie in his bed a moment longer. Could not imagine a moment’s rest.

  “Take me to the wall, I beg of you,” he rasped, his voice rough with disuse. Theseus had claimed he’d slept a sevenday through, and then some, and Pirithous cursed himself for pushing his body too far. For provoking Hippodamia to such foolishness. As if seeing her caught by Peleus was not agony enough. “Or better yet, get me a horse, and I will ride after her.”