For the Immortal

by Emily Hauser

  ‘Let us move to my quarters,’ I said. ‘They will be more comfortable than this draught-ridden old hall. Theia,’ I nodded to her, ‘make up the fire in the queen’s hall, and provide us with some sweetmeats. We will retire there. What would you say to a handful of honey-dipped almonds, Helen?’

  The girl tilted her face to mine, then cast her eyes down as if she would chastise herself for her eagerness. ‘I do like them, if it pleases you, my lady.’

  ‘You may call me Hippolyta,’ I said, and, though I saw her mouth open and then close, Theia said nothing at my resistance to Theseus’ orders. Helen glanced up at me and smiled, her long blonde lashes sweeping her cheeks as she tucked her horse under her arm. By the gods, she is a beautiful child, I thought, swallowing the fear that seemed to rise to the surface so easily, these days. I longed for nothing more than to gather her to me and cling to her, for pity at what her beauty might bring her. What it has already brought.

  ‘Has Theseus been kind to you?’ I asked, shifting her around so she sat on my hip-bone. Her grasp tightened on my neck, and I felt her fingers close around my under-tunic at the collar. I said nothing more, and set out across the darkened hall, treading carefully to avoid scattered cushions and wine-goblets, the remnants of the feast, my skirts gathering crumbs and my sandals slipping on the morsels of gristle and the discarded bones that the slaves were sweeping up. I held Helen to me, laying my cheek on her head and taking in the scent of her curls, as sweet as Cayster’s when he was a babe.

  If only that was what we were – a family – not the captive slave of the lord of Athens and his new plaything.

  The hearth was only just lit when we arrived in my quarters, and the hall – smaller than Theseus’ – was cool, now that an evening breeze was blowing through the opening in the rafters. I sent Theia for blankets, and we sat before the leaping blue flames, huddled together for warmth. I pulled a gold ringlet back from Helen’s forehead and tucked it behind her ear, watching the flames play over her pale skin as if her face were alight and burning.

  ‘You did not answer me before,’ I said to her, when Theia had set a bowl of almonds before us and an oiled bronze pan on a rack over the flames. I tossed a nut into the pan and it sizzled, sending up a warm, rich scent. ‘Has Theseus been good to you?’

  She shrugged. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘He lets me eat figs from the kitchens whenever I wish it. But I miss my home.’

  ‘And he has not …?’ My voice trailed away into the crackling of the flames and the spitting oil. I could not bring myself to finish.

  Her blue-grey eyes widened. ‘Not what?’ She stared up at me, sucking the almond, her lips sticky with honey, and her expression so unknowing that I could tell he had not.

  I let out a breath. ‘Well, that is something, at least,’ I said to myself, then went on, ‘He has not taken you to the lower city? I hear there are many different villages spread beneath the rock, which he has undertaken to bring together into Athens.’

  She shook her head, and her ringlets bounced. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have not been allowed outside the palace.’

  You and I both, I thought, feeling a flutter of panic in my chest, which was overtaken at once by the sight of her sloping shoulders and the downturned corners of her mouth.

  She was silent for a moment, watching the nuts as they leapt and danced on the bronze pan. Then she looked up at me and, as easily as if it meant nothing, she asked the question I had been dreading: ‘Why am I here?’

  I hesitated, and she picked at a nut but did not eat it, peeling the browned outer layer with the thumbnail. I saw her lip quiver. ‘I – I want to go home. I want to go home to Sparta.’

  The strength drained from me. I heard my sharp intake of breath, felt myself lighten and drift, as if I were somehow outside myself, looking down at the strange pair of captives in their prison: a Spartan princess and an Amazon queen, cowering together in the shadows of the stone-walled garrison of Athens.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ I said, drawing her close to me, biting back tears. She curled up in the crook of my arm, and a terrible sadness engulfed me, an itch of powerlessness so strong that I wanted to scream aloud, to Theseus, to the gods, to all the masters of our fate: Is this what you have done to me? To this poor, innocent child? Have you not had enough from us?

  I longed more than ever for my weapons and my war-belt, the smooth shaft of a sagaris in my right hand and a sword-hilt in my left, a bow and quiver at my hip. I longed to have more with which to protect her than my embrace alone. ‘I cannot tell you why you are here,’ I said, closing my eyes and cursing myself silently. It is in your power to tell her, but you do not want to. You do not want to tell Helen the terrible reason for which she was brought here. You do not want to admit to her that you are a captive, as powerless as she – you, who were once a queen.

  But the pain of it … I clutched her to my breast and tried to ignore the aching hole that seemed to have opened there, gnawing as a puncture wound.

  And the gods and the ancestors, Scythian and Greek, looked down on us from the stars above – and did nothing.

  Ἀδμήτη

  Admete

  Sarmatia

  The Twenty-fourth Day of the Month of Threshing Wheat, 1265 BC

  I tried to loosen my hands, which had clenched, fingernails digging into the palms, to breathe, to command my gaze, which was flicking to right and left, but it was no use. My pulse was dancing and I could not staunch the fluttering in my stomach, in spite of the cold that was making my skin clammy and my bones ache. I got to my feet, legs shaking. The firelit scene around me seemed to dim and sway, figures growing larger and receding, like looming shadows. I forced myself to walk, though my legs were heavy and there was a humming in my ears; and all the while my gaze was fixed on her, the figure standing at the hearth’s other side.

  It seemed to take a long time to cross the crowded space, and all around me Sarmatians and Greeks talked and ate, as if nothing was happening, as if my life were not changing – as if it were not my mother there, laughing just as I remembered her. I could not tear my gaze from her face – as familiar to me as the contours of the hills around Tiryns, though it was older now, the eyes sunken and creased with lines, the skin darker, red in the cheeks from days in the sun and wind. She wore the tunic and patterned trousers of the rest of the tribe, a war-belt with a pointed dagger at her waist, and a baldric across her chest and shoulders. It suited her, in a way that Greek skirts and bodices never had.

  As I neared her, close enough to see the wisps of grey threading through her plait, close enough to reach out and brush her with my fingertips, I felt a sickening swell of fear, and also a rush of anger, prickling along my skin, like heat. What daughter should have to approach her mother after she had been abandoned, left to grow into a woman alone? What daughter should have to fear to face the woman who bore her? I had done nothing – nothing! – to deserve abandonment, yet here, on the very edge of the world, my mother hid, having deserted the daughter who had needed her.

  Heat flooded my face, my heart was hammering against my ribs, and in the moment of silence before I called her and she saw me, I realized that perhaps it was not my fault she had gone, as I had thought so long ago. Perhaps it had been her error, her weakness – not mine.

  I took a deep, shaking breath.

  ‘Mother.’

  She turned. The colour had drained from her face, making her seem haggard and old. She swayed and I moved to hold her, but she gripped my shoulders, fingers digging painfully into my flesh, her eyes wide, staring into my face.

  ‘Say it again,’ she said. She shook me, and I gasped aloud. ‘Say it again!’

  ‘Mother,’ I repeated, my voice breaking, my eyes filling with tears. I searched her face. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  She let out a strangled sob. ‘Admete!’ In one movement she pulled me to her and embraced me so that I could barely breathe, stroking my hair and saying my name over and over again. I had never been so full of emotion as
I was in that moment, like a goblet of wine full to the brim and spilling over, and my tears and hers mingled into our robes.

  At last we broke apart. I brushed my face with my sleeve, and she gestured to a stool near the fire. Most of the others seemed to have finished their meal and returned to their wagons for the night. I sank onto it, feeling as if the strength had drained from my legs and longing for sleep, though my mind was feverish with questions. It was she who spoke first.

  ‘How is it that you are here?’ She leant towards the fire, which was now a glowing pile of embers casting her face bronze-red. Her eyes were raw, and I noticed again – almost with pity – how much older she looked.

  ‘Alexander,’ I said, breathless. ‘He has a terrible fever, the like of which I have never seen.’

  Her face sagged. ‘My boy?’ She rested her head in her hands, then looked up at me, running her fingers through her hair. ‘Oh, gods, what must you think of me?’

  I bit my lip. What truthful answer could I give? I think you left me for your own selfish reasons, because you had made a mistake in coming to Greece, and you could not hold to it. I think I remember a courageous, wilful woman, yet the one I see before me is old, uncertain and afraid.

  ‘Why did you leave?’ I said, and cursed my voice for faltering. I did not look at her, fearing the regret I might see in her eyes.

  ‘Greece was never my home.’

  I let out a breath, and she cowered at the burning look I gave her, forgetting at once my resolution to look away. ‘You chose to make it your home when you wedded my father,’ I said, ‘and when you bore me. You had a duty to your family. Did you care nothing for that?’

  I was becoming angry, I could feel the heat creeping up my neck.

  ‘I do not say that what I did was right, Admete. I am explaining why I did it,’ she said.

  ‘I know why you did it,’ I said. ‘You left because you longed for the wind of the plain in your hair, to ride once more with the Amazons. Is that enough of a reason for you to throw your marriage vows to the winds, to desert your daughter …’ I glanced aside, my eyes filling with tears again and my throat obstructed ‘… and leave her to find her way to womanhood alone, always wondering if she might have done something more to keep you with her?’

  She opened her mouth, her eyes wounded and afraid. ‘Admete,’ she said, stretching out her fingers to brush my arm.

  I stood, knocking over the stool. ‘I do not want to hear it,’ I said, bitterness coursing through me. ‘I was a fool to think I would be spared any pain in finding you.’

  And with that I ran from the tent into the storm, my tears mixing with the rain, my hand rubbing at the terrible gnawing pain in my chest, more alone than I had ever been in my life.

  The Amazons Attack

  Ἀδμήτη

  Admete

  Sarmatia

  The Twenty-fifth Day of the Month of Threshing Wheat, 1265 BC

  ‘I wish to speak with you.’

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘But I do – there is so much I would tell you.’

  ‘Then I do not wish to hear it.’

  I was seated on a stool in the wagon the Sarmatians had offered us, the rain pouring on the roof, like the gods’ tears. Outside the door, an arm’s reach away, stood my mother, her voice brittle against the howling rain and wind. Alcides and the rest of the Greeks had been gone all day with the Sarmatians and were now, no doubt, partaking of the evening meal together. I had remained here by the brazier, unable to bring myself to speak with Alcides, shunned by the rest of the Greeks, and furious with my mother. Emotion pounded through me, like the storm, and I narrowed my eyes, staring at the flames that blurred to streaks of red and orange with my tears as I thought of her betrayal.

  Why did she never come back?

  Why was she content to stay here, safe, when I yearned for so many years to see her?

  ‘Admete, please—’

  A fresh bout of wind pummelled the wagon, making it rock to and fro.

  A pause, then: ‘I am soaked to my skin.’

  I let out a breath through my teeth, thinking of all the days I had wandered over the hills of Tiryns calling her, wearing my sandals through, tearing my tunic and cutting my shins on the brambles. As the silence outside lengthened, I gritted my teeth, stood and walked to the door, undoing the latch and pulling it open.

  She did not fling herself into my arms. She nodded, trembling, shivering, her trousers wet through, then passed by me to the brazier, water dripping from the end of her plait and her clothes. I shut the door and resumed my position.

  ‘You are angry with me,’ she said, crouching before the brazier and looking across the flames at me. My heart twisted at her gaze on me, her eyes clear in the firelight as I remembered.

  I turned away, forcing myself to trace the dancing shadows over the wagon walls rather than look at her.

  ‘You have more than enough cause for anger,’ she went on, her voice trembling. ‘But, daughter,’ the word was like a pain in my stomach, ‘you must hear me.’

  I bit the inside of my cheek, staring fixedly at the wall. ‘Why? Why must I hear you? Why do I owe you anything when you took everything from me?’

  Her voice broke as she said, ‘You must allow me to explain.’

  Silence fell between us, but for the clattering of rain on the roof and the wind through the cracks in the wagon’s sides. The fire in the brazier sputtered.

  ‘Very well,’ I said at last. ‘Say what you have to. I have not come this far to return without answers.’ I turned to her, keeping my gaze cold, though anger and fear beat through my veins. ‘Why did you leave? I would know,’ I said, ‘so that my father and brothers and I may be free of the pain you brought us, not to have you return.’

  ‘I told you,’ she whispered. ‘I was no Greek.’

  I opened my mouth to retort, but she held up a hand to forestall me. ‘Please.’

  I fell silent, watching her – her skin still gleaming with rain-water, her eyes searching back and forth, her brow creased as she remembered. ‘It came over many years, as you grew from an infant and your looks came to be more and more like mine – and for a while I was proud. I gave you our tamga. I plaited your hair and dressed you in the tunic and trousers I wore. I raised an Amazon as I had always wanted to, and you laughed with me as we spoke of riding the plain. But as you grew older, the nobles of the court began to see you, and what had started as the fanciful play of the foreign queen became a threat to their ways, to their line. What if I turned Alexander into a barbarian, too? What if the next king after Eurystheus – renowned for his justice, his fairness as a ruler – was a savage?’

  I found I was staring at her, drinking in her words, in spite of my resolve to feign indifference. My hands were clammy in my lap, my lips parted.

  ‘There were many incidents – small, at first, harmless. A Spartan noble visiting the court who refused to bow to you when you were presented to him, and who spat on my boots. Cries that I was a barbarian, an enchantress, a witch, as I tried to tend the sick in the dwellings of the city. Accusations. Whispers. Condemnation. Rumours that I had seduced the king of Tiryns with herbs and spawned a witch-daughter. Demands that the cursed Amazon women, you and I together, should be tied to the rocks, left to have our innards pecked out by eagles.’

  As she spoke, memories flooded me, unbidden: faint, half-forgotten thoughts, pointing fingers, cries, doors slammed in my face … children of the court pulling my plait and chanting, Amazon, Amazon, as they danced around me …

  Her eyes shone with tears as she looked at me. ‘I realized what I had done to you – the legacy I had left you, unthinking, selfish, to be different, to be stared at, to be distrusted always. Many times I tried to persuade your father to let me leave, for your sake – for the sake of all the children. Often we argued. He restrained me, saying it would pass, that the people would become accustomed to it. And then there came a day,’ she swallowed, blinking, ‘when I happened upon you
in your chambers, and the slaves were tying your hair in ribbons, and you were laughing and spinning before the mirror in your Greek dress, smiling in the sunlight – and something within me broke. My guilt and fear tore me apart as I thought of the life you might have lived without me. I knew that I was holding you back, preventing you from being all you could, free from doubt and prejudice and the scorn of a people among whom, if I stayed, you would never belong. And so,’ she pressed her eyes closed, tears rolling down her weathered cheeks, ‘I left, though it broke my heart – I left you with your people, and I went to mine.’

  I felt a tightening in my chest, a stinging in the corners of my eyes.

  ‘Believe me,’ she said, her voice low, and her hands extended to me, trembling, around the flames. ‘You have to believe me. I would never have done anything to hurt you.’

  The pressure in my chest was building, rising to my throat. Our fingers touched, and a sob emerged from my lips.

  ‘Believe me,’ she said again, in Greek.

  And then I was nodding, and tears were wet on my cheeks, and I was in my mother’s arms as the dam of my fears broke, sweeping through me like the first torrents of melting snow in spring, and the flames crackled beside us.

  Dawn stole through the rain, like a silver veil, lightening the sky. From what I could hear above the soughing of the wind through the trees, the birds were beginning to herald the dawn. I took a cape from a hook on the wagon’s wall, undid the latch and pushed open the door, my sandals slipping on the wet wooden steps.

  I crept across the still-shadowed camp, my way lit by the dull grey of dawn reflecting off the slanting rain. I knocked three times on the red-painted door of the wagon where my mother slept.

  She opened it, a lamp in one hand and a blanket thrown over her shoulders. Her eyes, bleary with sleep, widened at the sight of me and she smiled, shedding the years that had passed so that she looked like the woman I remembered. ‘Come,’ she whispered, gesturing to me, the blanket slipping as she did so. ‘Come in.’