Last of the Amazons (17 page)

It is cold in the mountains at night; I could see he suffered. He must sleep under my cover, I instructed him. It was comical, his abashment. “You have never slept beside a woman?”

He writhed in his slumber. Twice he called Antiope's name and once clamped me so tight I had to elbow him, hard, to shake him awake.

“Antiope believes she has committed some crime against the free people, doesn't she, Selene?” Then: “Will she take her life?”

Theseus rose before dawn, fearful for her and anxious to overhaul her. “If I were to offer my own life,” he asked, “would your gods accept that in trade for hers?”

We found Antiope on the fifth morn, as day broke. She descended across a meadow of white poplar, a thousand feet above us. “Do you mark her?” When I turned to see if he had heard, his eyes worked as though stung by the wind, though the air was so still a feather would have dropped to earth like a lump of lead.

I left him then, not staying to salute Antiope. I should have backtracked down the slope, ceding them their privacy, but instead traversed at an angle, mounting even higher. Turning back on a ridge I could see them, woman and man, cross toward one another within the bowl of the meadow.

The man reined and dismounted. The woman came up to him, still on horseback. The man crossed to her side and, standing beneath her, embraced her about the waist, burying his face in the buckskin legging of her hip. Only after some time did the man release the woman and remount. The two tracked down together.

This sight cast me into consternation, for I saw, and credited truly for the first time, that Antiope, bulwark of the people, had lost herself. She was like that space which is neither battle nor advance to battle, but that no-man's-land between. And I the same. For although I knew my duty, which was to gallop to the new commanders and inform them of all I had seen, I could not overrule my passion, which bound me to the same mystery as had bewitched our queen: a man to whom my heart had surrendered.

How I scourged myself for this! I abhorred my spinelessness and stood upon the point, more than once, of taking my own life. What had become of my warrior's constancy? Would the gods rob me too of
hippeia,
exposing the treason of my heart as they had our queen's?

Yet the alternative—never again to speak to, or even catch sight of, this youth I loved—was unendurable to me.

At last at the Mound City I went to Damon by night. Beside the ships, where the Greek camp was made, I called him away and declared the holdings of my heart, weeping at my own deficiency and dreading more than hell his spurning of my affection. We had moved apart to a space adjacent two vessels a-building. The ships stood hull by hull, with a shack of unplaned timber between them to shield the tools from the elements. Into this hideout my lover tugged me and, once within, broke down as I had, reciting his own anguish at his actions at the Parched Hills. Yes, I had scared him, he said, by my
lyssa,
battle rage, and my countrywomen's
outere,
the emotion of women in all-female groups. Yet he had never intended by his retirement to cause me grief. He loved me, he swore, and had from the moment he first saw me. To hear such words, my heart seemed to dissolve as the ice of winter streams when the spring sun brings its warmth. The smell of his skin, the tenderness of his touch . . . he sought to take my maidenhood there, in that barn, but I would not endure it. I made him ride onto the steppe and there consummate our passion, with none to witness but the sky, who was made by God and is God.

Never had I experienced such despair as in the aftercourse of that act. For as a part of me idealized this youth as if he were a young god and held, as a jewel in my palm, all that he would grow to and become, yet at the same time another part saw him for what he was, a boy bursting with the sap of youth and on fire for me, perhaps, only as one in the grip of such fever for any who fell within his frame. And I knew, hearing my heart in his arms, that I would desert the free people for him, yes, even work treason against them, if he so commanded.

I mounted and galloped away. I drove Daybreak till his lather frothed my thighs, fearful at every step that he would revolt from my rule.

Days passed. Antiope and Theseus did not return. I vowed never to speak to Damon again, or even present myself in his sight. Yet each night my tracks returned to our bower on the steppe. I could bear this loss of self-sovereignty now, I told myself, when its cost to the people was nothing. But what would I do when my beloved's captain called him and he mounted to his bench aboard the ships? How would I live, never again to hear his voice or feel his touch? Such joys as had sufficed my heart before he came, to ride and to hunt, now had lost all savor. My lover's farewell would steal the moon from the night. I would give up earth and sky for him; yes, and sun and stars! I declared this to him and he to me. I would sail with him! No, he would stay, make his life here with me!

One dawn Theseus was at the ships. Antiope was not with him. I rode in to the Mound City. She was there, on the Runway, training alone. Later she took the baths and attended Council. The camp had become a hive which buzzed of nothing but her reappearance.

The people had turned from Antiope in a way I had never seen. Had she been conquered by simple heat, I believe, tal Kyrte would have exonerated her. To mount a man beneath the sky, this could be indulged or made light of. Even had her passion been spurned and she mooned about, lovestruck, this too could have been acquitted. But what Antiope had surrendered to Theseus was different. What belonged to the people, she had ceded to him. Tal Kyrte hated this, and hated her for it.

Among the herds of the steppe, mares will form up in phalanx to expel one “struck by God's axe,” a cripple or misbegotten. So did tal Kyrte now exile her who had been their queen and champion.

None confronted Antiope directly. No harsh words were offered. Rather each pair and trikona turned apart at her approach. None would give her fire. When she knelt to draw from the stream, those on both sides withdrew. Even the horses shied from her. I too held apart, I am ashamed to confess.

Antiope bore the people's ostracism in silence. She did not go near Theseus, nor alter her regimen, but each morning trained on the steppe, alone with Sneak Biscuits and the others of her string, and in the evening made her camp solitary and apart.

One night within the Hexagon Court she and Eleuthera fell out. This was the first open clash between them. The people attended raptly.

The Athenians, Eleuthera declared, prepare their ships now for departure. Will you, she demanded of Antiope, sail with them?

Antiope: If I do, sister, you for one will not stop me.

Eleuthera: Those are your thighs talking, wench. I smell the mare stink on you, and it makes me sick.

Antiope: Whence your rage at me, sister? My love for you may never abate, nor is it threatened by what I feel for this man you hate for no reason other than jealousy of him.

Eleuthera: I reckon the object of your love, sister. It hangs between the legs of this incurser. What is love, I say, but madness? And what its issue but disseverment from one's wits? You and I have sworn as warriors to remain free at all times, never yielding to fear or anger, which are forms of possession, undoing the valiant heart. Love is the supreme form of possession. I behold its mastery of you, Antiope, and I abominate it.

Antiope: What is this “freedom'' you so venerate, Eleuthera? How are we free, you and I and all of tal Kyrte, except to live as exiles from our humanity, freaks of nature as deformed as satyrs and centaurs? God made man and woman as halves of one whole . . .

Eleuthera: Yes, halves
.
You said it.

Antiope: Will you make me your enemy?

Eleuthera: Will you betray me?

The people clamored, hearing this. Not one sided with Antiope, but each sway and cry seconded Eleuthera.

Eleuthera: This barnyard stud has bewitched you, sister. Wake up! Do you think love animates his purpose? What he wants from you flows between your knees. This he scents as a stallion and counts you another mare within his herd, as Ariadne and Phaedra and scores before and since. You are this season's filly, Antiope. He loves not you but the possession of you. How I hate his pride! When I see him strut about . . .

Antiope: Will you take arms against me, Eleuthera . . .

Eleuthera: Will you stand with this foreigner against your people?

Antiope: . . . for I count my skill not inferior to your own.

Eleuthera: Answer! That the nation may know you for what you have become.

Antiope's silence spoke for her.

Eleuthera: Go to him then! But know this, thou whore: from that moment thy sole treads the planks of this villain's vessel, thou art mine enemy.

And plying upon her heel, Eleuthera strode from the chamber, never turning to look back.

19

ACROSS THE
FRONTIER OF LOVE

W
as Antiope pregnant then? I do not know.

Did she herself know? I cannot say. That she gave birth at Athens well within the year to that boy-child she named Hippolytus, any who can count the months may confirm.

For my part I recall the days following the clash between Antiope and Eleuthera as a term of unsettlement unlike any tal Kyrte had endured. The tribes' blood was high. Games and sacrifices proceeded in the wake of the victory at the Tanais. Many trophies had been taken; their influx into the body of the nation acted as an inflammatory. Those who had tasted glory were hot for more, while they who had missed out burned to “paint their blades” in emulation of their scalp-wealthy comrades.

Theseus and his men were packing up fast, to sail home, or at least get quit of Amazonia before the people's caprice took it in mind to make prizes of them as well. Already bands of mounted warrioresses had taken to running speed drills along the strand where the Greeks' ships were beached. They built up bonfires, these hotbloods, amid nightlong chanting and agitation, producing such an incendiary atmosphere that the Greeks must keep arms to hand as they labored, even erecting a palisade, while they redoubled their exertions to make ready for sea.

My own heart burned with little save fear for my Damon. How soon would this squadron cast off? Theseus might embark on the instant, compelled by some sally of his besiegers. I could not go on living without my love. I would flee at his side, I signed to him across the space between us. He replied that he would stay with me, jump ship to make his life among the free people. At worst we would fly to some far country, there to reconstitute ourselves as something wholly new.

At that time, in the aftercourse of the recovery of the herds, all warriors who had taken scalps were giving away horses. This rite is called
tal Neda,
“the Repayment.” It works like this: A warrior's mother-mother has the herald cry through the camp the names of those to whom she will present horses and arms. These are usually women between thirty or forty whose daughters have not yet reached majority, honored veterans whose role has evolved to that of dam or mother and who possess slender means of acquiring wealth. These, hearing their names, make their way, convoyed by the lasses they are raising, to the Islet and the Needle, the twin yokes of the pens that form the buttressway to the Mound City. Here the horses are awarded. These will become the mounts given to the recipients' charges, the young maidens in training, or used to pack their kit, or for trade or sale. The Sky Song is sung and the Hymn to Mother Horse, then the individual war songs of the women. Each of these veterans has her own, of her exploits in battle, and the girls in her charge sing this to honor her, as does the warrior donating the horses. Tal Neda is an occasion of joy, in which the generations are bound—the elder honored, the middle honoring, and the younger feeding upon the interchange.

This time it was different. Rumors flared among the horse pens. The Greeks, it was said, hatched a plot to assassinate Eleuthera and reestablish Antiope. Theseus would seek to extend Greek power by his bewitchment of our deposed queen, to rob us, as the pirate he was, and turn our enemies upon us. So detailed was this report as to include the watch of the attack and even the names of the conspirators.

You may imagine the outrage erupting in this train. At its peak Eleuthera herself appeared. She forbade the rumor's further circulation, but stopped short of denying its substance. When she saw me, she called me to her and commanded me to break off the round of tal Neda. I was to bear a message to Antiope.

“Our friend is in danger, Selene. You have heard the people; you see their state. Bring Antiope to me. I will protect her.”

I asked Eleuthera why she did not go herself.

My mate regarded me queerly. “Let me not be seen approaching her; this will only further publish our break. Rather let the people see us together, bond reaccomplished, as though we had never been estranged.”

I found Antiope at the Runway, training alone, apart from the seven or eight score who also drilled on the site. She was running the stop-and-go exercises in which one races at full gallop toward a stake or post, to accustom her horse to shy from nothing. Mastery of this skill is fundamental; a girl trains her horse to it before she is six. That Antiope ran these drills now with Sneak Biscuits told she had still not regained her
hippeia.
But what struck one most was that the lane she had chosen was the most remote from the city, with nothing but open steppe beyond. It was a place where a warrior could not be taken by surprise—and from which she could flee with no obstacle intervening.

I did not ride directly to Antiope, as that would constitute unseemliness, but drew rein at a distance, held for a time, then trotted off around the shoulder of a rise. I did not have to wait long before Antiope appeared.

She rode Sneak Biscuits and trailed two more of her string, one pack-laden, the other rigged for battle. Her eye scanned the site for treachery.

“Eleuthera has sent you,” she spoke by sign.

I acknowledged this.

“To assure me it is safe to come to her.”

Again I confirmed.

Antiope smiled, rueful.

“We must cross frontiers now, Selene.”

I dared not inquire what frontiers she meant, though my heart knew: those borders which separate innocence from necessity, on whose far side one's dearest love may betray her or use her for infamous ends.

“Tell me, my friend,” our lady spoke, “have all the people turned against me?”

“Not all, but . . .”

She smiled again.

“Ah, Selene. You are incapable of perfidy. Would that to preserve you thus would hold you from peril.”

I read fatigue on her. Care lined her face.

“Do not wonder, child,” Antiope continued, “that I address you so plainly, as though we were closest of friends, for fate has called us to this juncture together. Do you fear me? That association with one so fallen will work mischief to your ambition?”

My look must have answered. Antiope acknowledged with sorrow.

“My years are twenty-seven,” she said. “This is ancient among our people, where many by twenty have donated issue and by thirty have put aside their bridles of war. Yet I have held myself till now
anandros,
unpossessed by man. Do you know why?”

I did not.

“Because I had never found one worthy of me.”

She laughed.

“In this you have bested me, Selene, and have not had to tarry so late.”

I understood. Because love had claimed me, as it had her, I might, when others could not, apprehend the conflict of her heart.

“Do you remember when we crossed daggers in the earth, Selene, and swore a mighty oath, each to take the life of the other should she fail, through madness spawned by love for a man, to put care of the people before all?”

Our lady regarded me gravely. “Theseus is a great man, Selene. Not alone for his triumphs as a warrior, which place him second among mortals only to Heracles, but for the flame he bears and the destiny he has been called to champion. Do you understand, my friend? Theseus has taken a nation on his back and embodied in his flesh its ideals and aspirations—and no rude or savage nation, as those that surround us in the Wild Lands, but one whose charge is epochal and noble and unmade heretofore, this thing called Athens and
democratia,
rule of the people, which Theseus has invented by his own hand and bears as a herald a brand in the wind. The gods are with him in this, Selene. It may be true that he is Poseidon's son, in that mighty forces stand at his shoulder and that he must bear the burden for their manifestation, unsustained by a single ally who comprehends his office and his isolation, but compassed by enemies, devoid of vision, who would snuff this flame and him with it for no cause but their own fear of the brave and the new. Perhaps I was made for him because I too know what it is to bear a nation upon my shoulders, to surrender all that is private and personal and live only for the greater whole. In any event, I am swept up in this destiny. Do I frighten you, Selene? You were charged only to impart a message. Do you wish to fly?”

What could I say? I understood then and believe to this day that this soul, with whose course fate had caused mine to intersect, was the noblest ever produced by our nation. I knew her too to be what her war name called her,
om Kyrte nas,
“Bulwark of the People.''

She held me with her eyes. “The warrior bound for battle crosses a frontier, Selene, which tal Kyrte calls
ahora pata,
‘to abolish the ordinary.' We honor this passage so highly as to give it its own language, do we not? On its far side we call our horses by different names, and our weapons and even ourselves. We call things by new names because all have been made new by the proximity of death.

“The same holds true of love. In love we cross a frontier, upon whose far shore all has altered. We have altered too. Beneath love's hand I am Antiope no longer but some precedentless creature, spawned afresh, as my lover is new, reconfigured by my love and by his own. You understand this, Selene. You too have been transfigured by love. Therefore I beseech you, standing in for the people: be my witness. Do not forsake me because I have been made over into that which you have never known me to be.”

At this word her speech broke off. I heard hooves approaching at the gallop. Into view thundered Damon, racing from the city.

If he had bolted the ships it could mean only calamity.

“Two hundred are coming for you!” Damon cried to Antiope in Greek, using the feminine to denote warrioresses of tal Kyrte. She knew. One saw she had no fear. She saluted Damon in gratitude and commanded him to get clear, before harm came to him. His eyes shot to mine in urgency. I heard Antiope behind me: “Go with him, child.”

I should have known this was the moment. I must flee with my lover, now or never. But to abandon Antiope as I had done before, even now when she commanded it—this I could not do. I could see the dust of the two hundred approaching. If they discovered a Greek bearing warning to their queen, they would tear him to pieces. “Go! Go!” I heard my voice cry to him I loved, and felt my heels drive my horse at his, to put him to flight.

Our lady held her own mount in a grip of iron. I turned back to her. A peace possessed her, as one who, worn with dread of the worst, hears it acclaimed and breathes at last absent apprehension, knowing she has no more to imagine but only to endure.

“Your fate has held you at my side, Selene,” she spoke, her eyes tracking with mine my lover's reluctant withdrawal. “May God preserve us both.”