For the Immortal

by Emily Hauser

  At last, as a sliver of light was creeping beneath the wagon’s door and my feet were numb with cold, I stood to face her. I could not see myself, but the brightness of her eyes as she took me in told me that I looked every part her daughter.

  I moved towards the door, and lifted the latch to let in the cold grey light of dawn. Then I turned back.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered. ‘I will cure Alexander for you – for all of us. I do not know how yet – but I will.’

  Her lips – cracked and dry – parted for a moment in a smile, and she nodded, though her eyes were filled with tears. For a moment she pressed her lips to my forehead, and I shut my eyes, relishing her closeness.

  ‘You know,’ she said, her voice unsteady as we broke apart, ‘that I wish I had acted differently. I am not proud of it.’

  I nodded. ‘I know.’ I took her hand in mine, holding her in my gaze a last time, trying to convey in my faltering smile how much I would miss her, even though I knew I had to go on. Then, summoning my resolve and lifting my cape over my head, I stepped out into the open air, towards the horses gathered for our departure back to Tiryns.

  I never saw her again.

  Hippolyta

  Amazons, Land of the Saka

  The Thirty-fourth Day before the Day of Storms in the Season of Tar, 1265 BC

  No words could describe how it felt to ride along the shores of Temarunda, cross the Silis at its shallowest fording point, and see my people again, just as they had been when I had left them. The crowding tents flapped in the wind, moved further upstream now towards the source of the Silis where the grass was more plentiful. The horses grazed over the plain. The Amazons – my people – were drying and salting horse-meat for the winter, as we had always done when the Season of Tar began. It was a bittersweet happiness, a pain, like a sword-blade, beneath the ribs, a sob swelling in my throat that was also a cry of joy to be home. The sense of my past repeating itself – the memory of a time when I had ridden into camp many years before, younger then with an infant at the breast – almost overwhelmed me, so that I could hardly tell which of myself I was: the young Amazon, wilful, broken by love, fleeing Skyros with her bastard child, or the queen who had been captured and scorned by a Greek a second time, rescued by the people she was meant to rule.

  The clouds scudded overhead, grey and sea-blue, as I spurred my horse, pangs of love and guilt riddling me as the Amazons in the camp distinguished me at the head of the train and cried out, their cheers rending the air even as they were whipped away by the wind. I laughed, and Melanippe galloped up beside me, letting out a whoop of joy and our battle-cry, ‘Oiorpata!’ Soon the sky was ringing with shouts of ‘Oiorpata!’, the stamping of feet, the clapping of hands, the whoops and cries. I could see Ainippe and Teres jumping up and down in the camp, waving coloured ribbons over their heads, and Toxis rattling her spear against her crescent shield, Thraso beside her giving a piercing whistle, like an eagle’s call. At the clamour even the horses raised their heads from grazing, whinnying, and my steed snorted in reply. It was with a hollow pang that I realized I was searching for Orithyia among them, and that, though I was returned to our Amazon home, I would never see her again. My vision blurred as I rode into the camp, feeling hands grasping at me, hearing a cacophony of voices welcoming me. I slid from my horse’s back into their midst and felt the grass of the Saka plain beneath my feet again. Everyone seemed to want to touch me, to grasp at my hair, my cloak, my arms, as if they feared I was some dread apparition sent by Tar. I laughed and greeted them one by one, embracing them, clasping to me the children, the warriors, the mothers and tent-holders, inhaling the scent of horse, leather and smoke – my home – as tears of happiness poured down my cheeks.

  I could not tell how long I stood there, hand-clasped with my people, reacquainting myself with them, hearing their news, smiling, laughing and reassuring them that I was well, that I was returned. Yet as full as my heart was to see my people again, it was nothing to the moment when I saw Cayster standing beside me, tugging at my trouser-leg and reaching a hand up to me.

  I knelt beside him, the blades of grass brushing my arms, and gathered him into me, stroking his head, his hair, his arms.

  ‘Cayster,’ I said, over and over again, ‘Cayster.’

  I did not know how long I knelt there with my son in my arms, feeling the warmth of him, the softness of his curling hair. When at last I let him go, he ran back to Melanippe and, as our eyes met, I knew what I had to do.

  I vaulted onto my horse so that I might see them all, sidling left and right as I surveyed my people. There was Ainippe, looking up at me from her mother’s waist, her thumb in her mouth; and there Ioxeia, her blind eye shining milk-white. There was Teuspa, and beside him Agar, talking with Toxis. With a singing of metal I drew the sword from my sheath and raised it glittering to the wide arch of the sky.

  It took some time to quiet the gathered crowd of Amazons, many of whom were rejoicing at the return of their loved ones as well as their queen. At last the chatter died away.

  I slid the blade back into my war-belt, my heart thudding in the silence, and their gazes upturned to me, hopeful, joyful.

  Yet I can hold it from them no longer. If I am to be their queen, then I must be truthful with them.

  And if they do not accept me – at least I will know I have told them all. At least I will no longer have this fear, this guilt.

  ‘My people,’ I said, swallowing as my mouth dried, ‘by all the gods, I am so glad to be returned to you.’

  They raised a cheer so loud that my horse shimmied nervously beneath me and tossed his head, but I raised my hand to silence them.

  ‘There will be time for festivities later,’ I said. ‘What I have to say concerns my right to be queen, and as such I feel you should know it – you should have known it for many years – so that you may accept me now or …’ My voice wavered. I could not say it. ‘So that you may be ruled by one whom you deserve.’

  I gazed over at Melanippe, smiling, though my lips shook. Have courage, I thought, and my smile grew as I realized my mother’s voice was speaking within me; that, though I might have lost the war-belt, I had not lost her. Have courage, Hippolyta. They will accept you for who you are.

  I felt the strength rise in me.

  ‘You all know that this is not the first time I have returned here from the Greek lands. You know the tale of my capture in my youth. You know that I leapt from the ship in which I was held and swam to the lands of the Greeks, and that at last I made my way back to our home.’

  I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself.

  ‘What you do not know is that I lay with a Greek man while I was there; that I had a child with him. This child.’

  I gestured, my hand shaking, towards Cayster.

  I had expected an outbreak of muttering, curses, oaths, perhaps even cries of ‘Paralati!’ But the Amazons stood there, watching me, their eyes not moving from me except, once or twice, to glance towards Cayster, who stood at Melanippe’s side, clutching her trouser-leg.

  ‘I did not wish to be any less than the queen you expected, the queen you had known my mother to be,’ I said, my words rushing one after another. ‘But I know, now, that I was wrong to keep it from you, for the queen you deserve is also one who speaks with you the truth, who opens herself to you with honesty. I submit myself to your judgement. I have told you the truth, before the gods.’

  I was twisting my hands in my lap. Oh, gods, they hate me. They have nothing to say to me. Please, Tabiti, let them give their sentence, and this torture be done.

  And then, at last, someone spoke.

  ‘You are our queen.’

  It was Ioxeia. She had not spoken loudly, yet the words were as clear as a wolf’s howl over the plain.

  ‘You are the eldest of Queen Marpesia’s daughters,’ she said. ‘The blood of Opoea, daughter of Targitaus, runs in your veins. You are the rightful queen, chosen by the gods, sworn in by the sacred stone. There can be no oth
er.’

  I swallowed. ‘But Melanippe—’

  Melanippe had stepped forwards. ‘You are the queen,’ she said, her dark eyes warm and bright. ‘We rode to the ends of the earth to find you. We are lost without you. You are our queen.’

  The Amazons were talking, the sound rising to a great swell, and then, all at once, they were shouting together, waving their sagaris in the air. ‘The queen! The queen! Oiorpata!’ Teres and Ainippe were swirling their ribbons again. Yet still uncertainty lingered. Surely they cannot have understood. Surely they must not have heard.

  ‘But I—’

  My words were lost as they surged towards me. Hands pulled me down from my mount and pressed me to my people, everyone shouting, ‘The queen! Our queen!’ and from somewhere Melanippe appeared with Cayster and lifted him into my arms.

  ‘Cayster,’ I said, holding him to me so tightly that I almost knocked the air from him, my voice breaking. ‘Oh, gods, Cayster, my love, can you forgive me?’

  He said nothing but clasped his hands over my shoulder and bit his thumb. ‘You are my mother?’ he asked at last, amid the tumult of the Amazons dancing and shouting around us.

  I nodded, my throat tight, unable to speak.

  He waited a moment more. Then: ‘I am glad you are home,’ he said shyly.

  I laughed aloud, tears running down my cheeks, and gathered him to me, and felt my joy overflow.

  Ἀδμήτη

  Admete

  Tiryns, Greece

  The Third Day of the Month of the Goddess, 1265 BC

  Somehow – though I knew not how – we made our way back, following the course of the Borysthenes south to the sea, then tracing the desolate coast, past the mountains of Thrace and down to Greece. Alcides and I spoke but little on the journey, both involved with our own thoughts. For my own part, the fear of returning to find Alexander deathly ill – or worse – goaded me on as we neared home. I was barely conscious of the chattering of my teeth and the fatigue that threatened to engulf me. All that mattered was Alexander. The men were tired, sweating in the driving rain that poured down on us from the heavens as winter neared, and the horses’ flanks foamed with sweat as we urged them towards Greece.

  The night we returned to Tiryns I did not spare a moment to find my father, I was so anxious to see Alexander – and so I did not witness the cheering and feasting that greeted Alcides’ return, or his pronouncement of the end of his labours to the gathered crowds who thronged to the throne room of the palace of Tiryns. My hair was lank, my lips and fingers dried out by the cold winds, my legs trembling after many days spent riding in the snow, but I ran through the corridors towards my brother’s chamber, a torch flaring in my hand, without any thought but one.

  He has to be alive. He has to be … The words drummed in my mind, driving my feet on, on, up the steps, through the archways and over the court beyond, hardly registering the heat of the open hearth that burnt in the hall creeping over my skin, the chatter and the colour and the warmth all blurring into a single slash of light, when all that mattered was Alexander, that he was still alive …

  I blinked. I was at the doors to his chambers, the guards standing either side with their spears planted on the tiled floor.

  ‘Alive?’ I gasped, trying to ignore the stitch burning in my side.

  One nodded, though his slight hesitation told me all I needed to know. I pushed my way past them through the doors, and the sickly stench of death and firesmoke filled my nostrils.

  ‘Oh, gods …’

  Alexander lay ahead, a limp form, flesh clinging to bone, spread on his sheets, surrounded by slaves whose figures glowed in the low light. I ran to the bed, panic filling me, thrusting the torch into the hands of one of the slaves. ‘Oh, my brother, my brother …’ His skin was pale and translucent as papyrus, his lips dry and his hair soaked with sweat. As I thrust a hand to his head, my heart pounding, I felt his flesh burning beneath my touch.

  ‘Admete – oh, thank the gods you are returned.’

  My father strode across the room and gathered me into his arms, pressing his face into my hair.

  ‘He is so weak!’ I exclaimed, breaking apart from him to look at Alexander, and shuddering as I saw how thin he had become, the bones of his wrists and collarbones protruding from the skin. I turned to Elais, who stood beside me, her eyes hollow and dark in the torchlight. ‘What have you given him?’

  ‘Feverfew and willow-bark, as you said,’ she replied, her voice breaking, ‘but he has only worsened. It is a miracle you are come, Admete, for truly I think he is but a few days from death.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘No. No. We do not say that until it happens. There is always some recourse.’

  I sank to the stool beside his bed, sweeping the hair from Alexander’s face, though it was covered with a sheen of sweat and his eyes rolled from side to side beneath the lids.

  ‘I am here,’ I said, ‘I am here, brother.’ I fumbled in the pouch at my girdle for the golden apple, almost dropping it in my haste, my fingers numb and my eyes blurred with tears.

  ‘Here,’ I said, ignoring the streak of sound with which the slaves in the room greeted the gorgeous gold, holding it to his mouth, which was hanging open and smeared with spittle. ‘Bite, Alexander, please – you must bite. It is the apple of immortality. It will cure you.’

  I held his head cradled in one hand, my arm straining under its weight. He tried to move his jaw, but his lips were swollen and he could not manage it: his mouth kept slipping over the skin.

  My fingers shaking, I lifted the apple to my own lips, holding it tight between finger and thumb, and tried to bite, but it was as solid as a lump of granite on a riverbed, and my teeth scraped over the skin.

  ‘What?’ I cried, trying again, but again my teeth slid from it. I attempted to open it, twisting it with my hands, feeling all over in case there was a catch I had missed that might open, but there was nothing, and even as I held Alexander in my arms I could feel the strength draining from him. Oh, gods, what will we do if we lose him? ‘It’s the apple – the golden apple of immortality. How can it give immortality if it can’t be eaten? Oh, this is no use—’ and I let the apple fall from my fingers, sobbing now, the gasps snagging on my throat and coming out in high-pitched moans. I clung to Alexander as he hung limply in my arms, his breath shallow and faint. ‘What am I meant to do? What by all the gods am I meant to do?’

  His head lolled in my hands, and though he was still breathing his pulse was shuddering.

  He is about to die. I knew it – I could sense it in the chill that was creeping across his flesh and the floundering of his heart. Terror gripped me, and I gasped for breath, gulping at the stifling air as tears streamed down my cheeks. What else could I do? I had tried the apple, our last hope, the very last, and it had been as useful as if I had attempted to cure dropsy with the root of the mandrake, which everyone knew was only good for …

  For …

  And then I realized.

  My heart pounded painfully against my ribs and my fingers slipped on the cords of the pouch tied to my girdle as I tried to tug it open. Of course! I thought. Of course! How could I have forgotten – the wormwood our mother had given me. It was the faintest, the very faintest of hopes, but still, there was nothing I would not try.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I shouted, tugging harder at the pouch, the knotted thongs biting into my fingers. At last it gave way, snapping open, and the contents tipped onto my lap. ‘Sweet wormwood, sweet wormwood,’ I muttered to myself, and though there was not enough light to see well in the dim-lit chamber, I knew what the leaves I was searching for should feel like. I had written it myself in my records. ‘“It has a leaf like bitter wormwood,”’ I quoted beneath my breath, blessing the gods as I did so for the gift of memory, ‘“but a brighter green, and yellow flowers and a sweeter scent. They use it for rashes and lesions, and in general to counter diseases of heat, which they conceive of as a fire in the body. It is administered in a draught mixed with vinega
r, or an infusion which is drunk, and in treating a rash they make a plaster of it.” Hah!’

  A spark flew from the hearth, golden-red, at the same time as my fingers snagged on the wormwood my mother had given me, the leaves coarse beneath my touch and folded in on themselves. Pulse racing, I tore them as fast as my fumbling fingers would move and, wincing at the bitter taste, ground it to a paste between my teeth. I spat it onto my hand, took up the goblet from Alexander’s bedside, which bore an infusion of willow-bark, tipped in the paste, stirred it and forced his head up so that he could drink. Much of the liquid slopped down his face, but I hardly cared. I had forced at least some of it into his throat, and – pray the gods – that should be enough.

  Then all I could do, holding my breath and digging my nails into my palms, was wait.

  After that I administered the wormwood every day, cold-pressed with vinegar and some of the Amazon halinda. I did not know which of the slaves or priest-healers stood there with me, or how many hours passed as I worked. My senses were filled with the aromatic scent of the sweet wormwood as I chopped and pounded it in the mortar, the tang of the vinegar as I stirred it in and tried to force a little down Alexander’s throat. My eyes could take in nothing but the pallor of his cheeks and the shallow rise and fall of the linen covers over his chest – the last sign of the fraying thread of his life. I lost my awareness of time, and though the light splashed across the wall before me, then faded again, I did not eat or sleep, but continued to tend him, bathing his hot face and hands, pouring out measures of the wormwood tincture and tipping it into his mouth, till my eyes were dry with exhaustion and my hands shook.

  And then, at last – so faint I might not have heard it had not my every nerve been straining for the sound – Alexander’s swollen lips parted, and he gave a gasp.