by Judith Hand
She took her seat just as Damon’s serving girl arrived with a similar plate of bass and a fresh cup of wine. The girl gave Damon a shy smile and sat the plate and cup on the table, but as she took her seat, Paris snapped, “Idiot girl! Commander Damonides asked for pheasant, not fish. I asked for the fish.”
The girl blushed to her hair’s roots, leapt from her chair and picked up Damon’s plate. “F-forgive me,” she stammered, and hurried off before Damon could say fish would be fine.
Damon had to this point made no assessment of Paris’s nature. Now, to mask his disgust, he took a sip of the wine. The pretty young prince sadly lacked grace of spirit.
Perhaps to cover her husband’s outburst, Helen said sweetly, “How long do you think it will be, Commander Damonides, before our joined forces fight the Acheans?”
Paris answered. “It will be soon.” He stuffed a bit of fish into his mouth.
Damon said, “We meet with your military staff tomorrow. After assessing the strength of both armies, we will pick a set of days suitable to us. We will send our choices to Agamemnon. If he behaves according to custom, he will respond with whichever one of those days suits him. Presumably not too soon, as he will be working hard now to assess what we have brought with us. But also not too far into the future. Perhaps no more than a week, because he won’t want to give us much time to practice together.”
“My husband is Troy’s finest archer.”
The sound of familiar laughter, a female voice, rose above the general noxious din. Startled, Damon looked to where Pentha sat beside Priam. She wore a formal set of scarlet silk pants and tunic. The only woman in the room to even come close to her beauty was Helen.
Priam said something to her, and again she laughed so loudly it carried throughout the hall. Then she lifted her wine glass and took a long drink.
By Zeus! Pentha was drunk.
At that moment she stood, wine cup in hand. “I want to make a pledge to the people of Troy and to her great King,” she said. Her voice was strong, and it immediately commanded everyone’s attention. Only if you knew her well would you know how much such a tone and behavior felt wrong.
She sat down the cup, then put out her hands to gather even more attention, as if that were necessary. Damon held his breath.
“I take an oath. I swear that the People of Artemis will help the People of Troy destroy the Acheans. We will not leave here until we kill Agamemnon. Until we kill Ajax. We will not rest until all of the Achean royals are dead or running for home with tails between their legs like the dogs they are.” She swayed a bit, then finished. “And I swear by my life that I will kill Achilles.”
The room, which had been hushed, fell utterly silent except for the twittering of birds.
Hubris! The word struck Damon like a lightening bolt. Not just hubris. The Furies within her. And certainly the wine. His heart beat hard in his ears.
Pentha slumped into her seat. The hum in the room slowly resumed as four boys dressed in blue, their skin painted blue, ran into the central open space and began an acrobatic performance with eight blue balls.
Damon stood. He bowed to Paris and then Helen. “Excuse me.”
He rushed to Pentha. She was talking with Aeneas. “Forgive me.” He looked at Pentha. “I need to speak with you.”
Aeneas smiled agreeably, and Pentha rose, to Damon’s eyes a bit unsteadily. He took her elbow and steered her far enough from the table that no one could overhear them. “Pentha, you’re drunk.”
Her back stiffened.
“It’s my fault. I should have warned you about wine.”
“I like the wine.”
“You’ve never had wine before. It’s much stronger than the fermented mare’s milk you’re used to.”
“I am not drunk.”
“Unfortunately, you are.”
Green eyes glittered dangerously. “What is the matter with you?”
She moved to return to the table. He grabbed her by both elbows. “Listen to me. The wine has gone to your head. Did you listen to what you just said? Do you know what you just said?”
“Certainly. I said we’d get rid of the Acheans.”
“But you made it a pledge.”
“And why not?”
“You took an oath. In front of this entire Trojan assembly.”
“I meant it.”
“But such bragging tempts the Fates”
She hesitated.
“An oath, Pentha!” He shook his head, trying to clear it.
“Look. I am tired. The sounds of all these voices are too much. I’m leaving.” He let her go. “You will do what you choose. But I tell you, drink no more wine. You are speaking nonsense. Dangerous nonsense.”
She stared at him. He couldn’t tell if he’d reached her or not.
Damon left, enormously relieved physically when he reached cool, open air, but profoundly agitated by troubled thoughts. One should never tempt the Fates.
54
“TIME TO RISE, MY BEAUTIFUL QUEEN.”
Pentha felt the shaking of her shoulder, recognized Damon’s voice, but refused to open her eyes. For many minutes she had been awake, but the room was spinning. Her bed kept tilting backward. She kept clutching the bed covers to keep from sliding off onto her head.
And the headache! Demon’s piss. She had never had such a headache!
He yanked her coverlet back, and a rush of cool air sent goosebumps flying across her skin.
“I’ve brought a bath.”
“Leave me be!” She forced one eye to open a slit. The man stood fully dressed in his armor and grinning, missing only his helmet and sword. They sat on a nearby table. She pinched the eye closed.
A rough, wet tongue stroked her hand. Her eyes flew open. Wolf stood beside his master, staring at her.
“Damon, I feel terrible. Go away!”
“Can’t.”
He grabbed her hands and pulled her into a sitting position. Her head threatened to fly off her shoulders.
“Ohhh,” she moaned, praying he would take pity and desist.
“In very few hours we meet the Trojan High Command. You have to be in top form. It’s going to take some work.”
He swept her legs off the bed and her feet onto the floor. “Can you walk? Your bath awaits.” He gestured to a tub on the far side of the room where a young girl stood ready.
“How can you always be so horrifically cheerful? You and Bias. The two of you never take anything seriously.” She gave him what she hoped was an intimidating stare. “I am seriously sick. I can’t crawl let alone walk.”
He cocked his head and grinned still more.
He pulled her upright, and even as she struggled to push him away, he used both hands to shove her sleeping gown up her body and over her head, leaving her naked.
“Damon!”
He swept her into his arms, tramped across the room, and deposited her into the tub.
Warm, lovely warm water, smelling of night jasmine. She closed her eyes.
“And I don’t find everything amusing,” he continued. “For example, last night I did not find your speech amusing.”
“What speech?” The girl put a warm sponge to her back.
“So you don’t remember?”
She wrestled with images of the banquet, Priam, Hekuba, Aeneas. And of herself standing in front of a sea of attentive faces. She looked up at him. He had pulled a stool not far from the tub and was happily watching the girl bathe her. “What did I say?”
“I hesitate to repeat it, Pentha. You made outrageous boasts in the form of oaths.”
“Boasts.”
He nodded.
“What boasts?” Shocking that she couldn’t remember a thing. The girl lifted her arm and washed it.
“Well, let’s see. You took an oath that the People of Artemis would not leave Troy until we had killed or driven out every Achean. And I quote you further,”I swear by my life that I will kill Achilles.”
She pulled her arm from the girl and studie
d his face. He was not smiling, nor grinning. He was telling the truth. She sat silent, stunned.
He nodded. “It was the wine talking. Mostly.”
They remained silent as the girl finished her task, although when the bathing became most intimate, he stood and retreated to a chair by the table.
She stood to be rinsed. The girl brought the customary large jar of water and climbed up on a stool. “Are you sure?” the girl said to Damon.
Without looking, he said. “Yes.”
The girl poured.
Icy water hit Pentha with a stunning splash. She sucked in her breath and shrieked, a howling “EEeeee!”
“You demon!” she hurled at him.
She leapt from the tub, snatched up the waiting robe and threw it on, and strode to her pillow. From under it, she took out the dagger and dashed to the chair where he sat. She stepped behind him and placed the dagger at his throat. “That water is melted snow. I should kill you for your disrespect.”
With calm he said, “Take care! I will sic Wolf onto you.”
Wolf was watching them both most intently.
She pressed the knife closer against his skin. “Why ice?”
“It’s the best thing for curing the ills of too much wine.” He took the wrist of the hand holding the knife, pulled her around and into his lap. “You’re especially beautiful when you’re angry.”
He kissed her. She let herself relax. When he let go of her wrist, she wrapped her arms around him. She pressed her mouth to his mouth, let his tongue explore inside her, thrust her tongue into him.
All thoughts slipped from her mind. For now, for this moment, there were only Damon’s lips, his intoxicating male scent, and the divine touch of his hands on her body.
55
USING A SECRET CORRIDOR, DERINOE ARRIVED at the point where, if she, Leonides, and Myrina stepped outside into the public corridor, they would be close to where Alcmene had assured her Priam’s chamberlain had quartered the Amazon Queen.
“This is fun,” Myrina said.
Derinoe straightened the dark blue ribbon in Myrina’s hair.
Leonides said, “Why do we come a secret way, mother?”
“Because, if we tried to reach my sister through regular corridors, we’d be stopped. You both wait a moment.”
She stepped into the small alcove that lay behind a tall tapestry. Through two eyeholes, she peeked into the public corridor. Seeing no one, she reached behind and taking Myrina’s hand, said, “Keep close, Leonides.” She slipped from behind the tapestry.
They arrived at the end of the corridor just as a serving girl, flustered and grinning, came running toward them. They turned the corner, and halfway down the hall an Amazon guarded a door. “Just do what I say.”
At the door, she said to the guard, “I and my children are here to visit the Warrior Queen, Penthesilea.”
“Penthesilea is not seeing guests.”
“Tell her that her sister is here to see her.”
The Amazon gave Deri a hard stare. “Well, that’s a remarkably unconvincing lie. Are you the only person alive who doesn’t know that only months ago she killed her sister?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I am her sister.”
“Go away, crazy women, before you get into trouble.”
“Just tell her that her sister is here.”
“Go away!”
Derinoe leaned down and said softly to Leonides, “You stay here with Myrina.” Without straightening, she shoved her way past the guard, and bolted into an antechamber. Another room lay beyond. With the guard scrambling behind her, she plunged into the second room.
There, on the lap of a man dressed in battle gear sat Pentha in a dressing gown, her hair wet, her arms around the man’s shoulders.
The guard grabbed Derinoe’s arm with fingers that felt like metal pincers. “I am sorry, Pentha,” the guard said.
Pentha jumped to her feet. Derinoe stood speechless, partly from simply seeing Pentha so close and so alive and partly from huge embarrassment at barging in on such an intimate moment.
FOR SEVERAL HEARTBEATS, PENTHA simply stared. She pulled her robe tighter. Finally, comprehension dawned. She shook her head. Then the spell holding her broke. Joy, like the arrival of a thousand springtimes, exploded in Pentha’s chest. She rushed across the room and threw her arms around the vision from the past. “Deri,” she cried, as Deri hugged her back.
Without letting go, they swung each other around in a circle, stopped, and Pentha clung to Derinoe for fear she would wake from this dream and Deri would be gone.
But no. The woman in her arms did not disappear.
She stepped to arm’s length, held Deri by the hands. “You are alive. Artemis has granted me the greatest kindness I could imagine.”
The guard left them. Behind her, Pentha heard Damon rise.
Deri said, “And you are not only alive, you are Warrior Queen. The world is surpassing strange.”
Pentha gestured to Damon. “Come,” she said.
He joined them.
“Deri, this is Damonides. Damon. My friend. Commander of my infantry.” Pentha still couldn’t believe it. “I don’t yet know how, Damon, but somehow my sister, from Tenedos, is alive.”
Damon bowed his head to Deri.
Pentha thought how Deri had grown exceptionally beautiful. Deri studied Damon a moment and gave him a lovely smile. Deri was not the young girl Pentha remembered, but a stunning woman.
“I have more surprises,” Deri said. She turned and went back toward the entry.
Pentha turned to Damon. “She’s here in Troy, safe. She’s alive and not with … she is not a slave.” He put his arm around her.
Deri reappeared and with her, two children. She stood them in front of Pentha and said, “Pentha and Damon, this is my son, Leonides. And my daughter, Myrina.”
Pentha felt for a brief moment like she ought to sit down.
The boy, Leonides, looked past Damon to where Wolf stood beside the chair Pentha and Damon had so recently shared. “Is it a real wolf?” the boy asked. He was handsome, with chestnut hair and big hands that suggested he would grow into an impressive man.
Damon smiled. “Full blooded.”
The little girl, Myrina, hugged Deri’s leg as she gazed shyly at Pentha. She looked very unlike her brother. Delicate, with dark hair and dark blue eyes.
“Come,” Pentha said. “Let’s sit.” Before Deri could take a chair, Pentha grabbed her, hugged her again, and whispered in her ear. “I should have tried to help.”
Deri shook her head. “There is nothing you or I could have done to change anything. We won’t talk of it.”
“Lie down,” Damon said to Wolf, who gave Damon an adoring look and immediately circled, tucked his haunches, and flopped to the floor.
“I never knew anyone who had a pet wolf,” the boy said, his eyes on Damon, wide with wonder and admiration.
“The Fates delivered him to me when he was young. He lost his family, and I was the fortunate person destined to take him in. If you’d like, you can pet him.”
Leonides made no move to pet Wolf. Pentha certainly understood. Wolf was full grown, and sometimes she even felt a shiver of awe when he stood close to her.
Damon looked at Deri, studying her with what appeared to be surprised interest. “You know the two of you look alike. But you also have an unusual voice? It is like your sister’s.”
“How so?”
Pentha said, “Is it true, Damon? Is her voice also yellow?”
“Exactly like yours.”
To Deri, Pentha said, “Damon has many wonderful traits. One of them is that sounds have colors to him.”
Deri frowned.
Feeling pleasure in talking about this extraordinary man that she loved, Pentha said, “When Damon hears sounds, almost all sounds, he can close his eyes and see colors. He even sees a halo of colors when his eyes are open and there are sounds. And he likes my voice because, so he tells me, when I talk, I cre
ate a pretty yellow aura. Apparently you do too.”
Deri looked to Damon, and he nodded, his arms crossed and one of his characteristically happy smiles on his face.
Myrina had made her way close to him, specifically to his sword. It lay in its scabbard on the table. She touched the scabbard.
Damon said to her, “Do you like pretty things made of leather?”
She smiled at him and nodded.
“So do I.”
Myrina stepped to him and raised her arms, wanting him to take her into his lap.
To Pentha’s surprise she realized she had never before seen Damon in intimate contact with children. With Bias, yes. But Bias was a boy of fourteen years. And children always followed Damon when he walked any place in Themiskyra. But never had she seen him in a room, as a man would be with his family.
And Damon, too, was apparently struck by the moment’s strangeness, because he smiled at Myrina awkwardly. Then he carefully lifted her into his lap, as if his big hands might break her if he squeezed too hard. Myrina reached onto the table and used her small fingers to trace the bronzework of the scabbard.
Pentha said to Derinoe, “How did you find me? And how could you reach me here?”
“I saw you yesterday. In the parade. And I know all of the secrets of the Trojan citadel.”
“How is that?”
Leonides finally worked up the courage to approach Wolf. He petted the broad head.
Bias stepped into the room. Seeing Damonides, his mouth went slack, apparently feeling the same amazement Pentha felt at the sight of a little girl in Damon’s lap.
“So Bias. What is it?” Damon asked.
Recovered, Bias said, “I’d like permission to go into town.”
“You have it. But first, do me a favor. Pentha has a visitor. I think the women need to talk in private. Take the children onto the roof garden with Wolf and show them the things he can do. If that is agreeable to their mother.” He looked at Derinoe.