Nobody's Princess (9 page)

“Our kinsmen need us!” Polydeuces, too, leaped up. He gave our host a wicked grin as he added, “My lord Thyestes, we have no choice. We must go.” I could have kissed him.

Before the king could open his mouth to offer a word of protest or argument, I rose from my place. “My brothers, the gods bless your bravery.” I pictured myself as Mother at her most queenly as I announced, “I make a sacred vow, by Artemis the huntress, that on the day you kill the boar, I’ll make a thanksgiving sacrifice at her temple in Calydon with my own hands. May the gods destroy me or any other who keeps me from fulfilling this promise.”

The Mykenaeans cheered my sisterly devotion as I sat down. I stole a sideways look at our host. He wasn’t cheering. Instead, he looked ready to bite through bronze. Between my brothers and me, the old fox had been outfoxed. It was all I could do not to crow in triumph.

         
8
         

THE HUNTRESS

The journey to Calydon was long and grueling, but I felt like singing all the way. Being free of Lord Thyestes was worth a thousand jolts in the oxcart.

During the trip north, I came to realize that my brothers really were all grown up, men in fact as well as name. As soon as we were out of sight of Mykenae, they began to take precautions for our protection, in case Thyestes decided to try to regain what he’d lost. It made me proud to see how Polydeuces organized our soldiers to stand double watches by night and how he commanded them to scout the land by day. A mouse couldn’t have sneaked up on us.

As for Castor, he opened all the supplies that Thyestes had given us and called for volunteers to taste a mouthful of everything, down to the smallest clay jar of water. Even then, he insisted that half of our men eat first while the other half waited to see if the food and drink had any ill effects. (They didn’t. Lord Thyestes wasn’t
that
desperate to recapture me.)

All of this made it slow going for us until we reached Corinth, where we were able to get supplies we could trust. It was also in Corinth that my brothers suggested I go home.

“Go back?” I said. “You might as well have handed me over to Thyestes in the first place.”

“You won’t have to go through Mykenaean territory,” Castor argued. “You can go home by ship; we’ll send word to Mother and Father to have you met at the coast—”

“And break my vow to Artemis?” I asked sweetly. I had him there. A messenger was sent to Sparta to let our parents know that I would be traveling safely with my brothers, returning to Mother’s homeland.

From Corinth, we were lucky enough to find a ship that was ready to sail for Calydon. My brothers and I had never traveled by sea, but Poseidon blessed us with a calm, swift, comfortable voyage, a real relief after that miserable, tooth-clattering oxcart.
I could get used to this,
I thought as I stood in the prow and watched sunlight glint across the water.

We arrived safely in Calydon and were welcomed by our aunt, Lady Althea, and her husband, Lord Oeneus. The king beamed when he saw how tall and strong my brothers were, worthy additions to his hunting party. He took them away at once to introduce them to the other warriors and to see what they could do on the training field.

My aunt took care of me, which meant she led me to my room, summoned a slave to attend me, told me that someone would come for me when it was time to eat, and left. I felt I’d been dropped like a bundle of old clothes.

“Tsk, poor Lady Althea,” the slave muttered while she shook dust from my mattress. She was a fat, gray-haired woman, sweet-faced and motherly. “She has so much to do these days, I pity her.”

A slave pitying a queen? This was new. “What’s keeping her that busy?” I asked.

“Why, the great hunt, my lady; what else? So many guests, and more arriving every day! It’s doubled and redoubled the work we’ve got to do inside these walls. And the queen must oversee it all constantly, to make sure that everything is worthy of her husband’s hospitality.”

I was eager to begin exploring the palace of Calydon, but I didn’t get the chance to do it on my first day there. When the slave finished tidying my room and left, I stretched out on my bed just for a moment—so I told myself—and woke up to the last glow of the setting sun. I was still yawning and stretching when the motherly slave returned with a lamp and helped me prepare for dinner.

The palace hall was filled with tables, the tables packed with the great men of over twenty lands. My brothers and I were given places of honor, not because we’d done anything to earn them but because we were the queen’s kin. I knew that where you sat at the king’s table was the king’s choice, so your seat told everyone exactly how much or how little he respected you.

Polydeuces must have impressed Lord Oeneus already. After just one day’s display of his skill with sword and spear, he was seated between the king and the queen. Castor sat at Lord Oeneus’s other side, and I was next to him. It was a good spot for observing the hall.

The place beside me was empty, which was odd. With so many heroes under Lord Oeneus’s roof, a seat so near the king
had
to be filled. If not, it was as if Lord Oeneus were telling his guests,
None of you is worthy to sit this close to me.
It would be an unforgivable insult; all the warriors would leave, and the boar hunt would end before it began.

Castor saw me eyeing the empty seat and quickly put my puzzlement to rest. “That’s for our cousin Prince Meleager,” he whispered. “Polydeuces and I already met him, out on the training ground today. He’s twenty-one, a couple of years older than us, but he looks much younger, and sickly in the bargain. Lady Althea was with him, asking him if he wouldn’t rather go inside and rest, fussing over him as if he were a child. Thank the gods Mother would never embarrass
us
like that! Finally Lord Oeneus sent her on her way.

“Once she was gone, we saw the
real
Meleager. Helen, he’s incredible. The instant he picked up a spear, you forgot how pale and thin and fragile he looks. Fast? He outran every one of us. Strong? I’m still aching from the wrestling match I lost to him.” Castor chuckled.

“You didn’t mind losing?” I asked.

He reached for a bowl of olives and dropped a handful on my plate. “Glaucus taught me better than to resent the man who beats you in a fair fight. Or the girl.” He winked at me.

“Oh,
now
you admit I beat you fairly?” I teased.

“Who says I’m talking about you?” With that, my brother indicated a table that stood at the far end of the great hall. The men seated there were plainly dressed, young, and nowhere near as well muscled or imposing as Lord Oeneus’s other guests.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Servants,” Castor replied. “Weapons bearers who came here with their masters. And one more. I’m surprised at you, Helen: Can’t you recognize your own trick when someone else plays it?”

“What are you talking about, Castor?” I demanded.

“Open your eyes, little sister.”

I did, and I saw something wonderful.

She wore an unadorned tunic, like most of the young men at that distant table, with her dark bronze hair pulled back and tied horse-tail style. The flickering light of the oil lamps made it easy to mistake her for a man, especially when I wasn’t expecting to see a woman among the weapons bearers.

“Who is she?” I asked Castor. And then, in a whisper: “She doesn’t
look
like a man; she’s just dressed like one. If she’s trying to disguise herself, it’s not—”

“I was only teasing you about her having stolen your trick, Helen,” Castor said fondly. “She’s never tried to hide the fact that she’s a woman from anyone; she’s proud of it, if you ask me. Her name’s Atalanta, and she’s the daughter of Lord Iasius of Arcadia.”

“A king’s daughter? And our uncle sat her all the way down there?” I asked, nodding to the far end of the great hall. “With
servants
?” I was flabbergasted. The king had placed her so far away from him that she might as well have been in another room. The insult didn’t seem to bother her or affect her appetite. She was eating heartily and had all of her dinner companions laughing at jokes I couldn’t hear. “Does Lord Oeneus
want
war with Arcadia?”

“Oh, she’s not here as a daughter of Arcadia,” Castor replied, smiling. “She’s here as one of us; she’s come to hunt the boar.”

“That’s disgraceful,” a new voice spoke in my other ear, making me turn sharply from Castor at the sound. While I’d been staring at Atalanta, our cousin Meleager had taken his place beside me at the table. He was just as frail-looking as Castor had described him, but there was nothing weak about the anger burning in his eyes.

“What’s disgraceful, cousin, that a woman’s a huntress?” I asked coolly. As a guest, I had to keep my own anger under control, but I didn’t like my cousin’s attitude toward Atalanta at all. “I’m surprised that something like that bothers you. I thought that in this land it’s acceptable for royal women to know how to hunt. My own mother, your aunt, taught me the same tracking and archery skills she’d learned when she was still a Calydonian princess.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Meleager replied. “The disgrace is how Father treats her. Maybe it’s because he’s only king of Calydon by marriage. If he’d been raised here, he might be more willing to accept her for what she is. Atalanta’s at least as strong and brave as half the men here, and she can outrace us all. The day she came riding up to the gates, some oafish palace guard tried to send her away. When she dismounted and told him she refused to go until she’d seen the king, he tried to—what was that stupid thing he said?—to ‘teach her she’s a woman.’” My cousin had a wicked smile. “It was an unforgettable lesson…for the teacher. She didn’t even have to use a weapon to disarm him, knock him off his feet, and hold him helpless until the king arrived.”

“I wish I’d seen that,” I said.

“And I wish Father could remember that he did. He says that it’s one thing for a girl to bring down a rabbit or two with her bow but that there’s something unnatural about one who also knows how to use sword and spear, who can wrestle, ride, and race like a man. He acts as if each of her achievements is a fluke.”

“True,” Castor put in. “When she beat me at wrestling, Lord Oeneus took me aside and apologized for the poor condition of the ground. According to him, the only reason I lost was that my foot must’ve slipped on a stone. I know better than that. I have to admit it. She’s not bad.”

“You mean for a woman?” I asked, putting a little bite into the question.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, little sister,” Castor responded. “After just a short while on the training ground with her, I saw what she can do. I
felt
it. I don’t know about the rest of the hunters, but Polydeuces agrees with me: She’s a worthy companion. A pity that our uncle won’t see that.”

Meleager shook his head over his father’s obstinacy. “How many times can he blame her wins on luck? He can’t stand to see a mere girl outdo men time after time. Hasn’t he heard of her exploits? The singers already know at least half a dozen stories about her triumphs as an athlete and a hunter.”

“Maybe he thinks they’re just stories,” I said. “That’s why he won’t believe them.”

Meleager snorted with disgust. “Then why is he so eager to believe the high-flown tales the singers recite about all of
them
?” He made a sweeping gesture that included every man feasting in his father’s hall. Two red spots flared on his pasty cheeks as he spoke with even more indignation. “They don’t even need the singers’ tales. They do their own boasting well enough.
Too
well. They come here with stories about how they’ve slain giants and monsters, but where’s the proof?”

I smiled, liking my cousin more and more. “What do you want them to do? Haul a dragon’s head around with them everywhere they go?”

I was teasing, but he took me seriously. “A dragon’s tooth would be enough. The hunter who kills the boar will be given its hide as a trophy—Father said so. The tusks go with the hide. I’ll bet that whoever wins that prize will always carry one tusk with him from then on and show it proudly. That’s because
this
beast is real. Anyone can destroy a thousand imaginary monsters.”

He took a long drink of wine and fell silent. His eyes never left Atalanta for the rest of the meal.

As the feast went on, I saw what Meleager meant about the other hunters’ love of boasting. It didn’t take much to get them started. Mention the weather and someone would claim to be the son of Zeus, master of the thunderbolt; say that you couldn’t eat another bite and someone would start telling the tale of how he’d slain a giant who could eat a whole ox in one mouthful. As soon as one of them would finish, another would start.

I leaned toward Castor and whispered, “Want to play a game? If we hear ten stories about dead monsters before we hear ten about who’s a god’s son, I win. Otherwise, you do.”

“Not fair! We’ve already heard at least six men speak.” He lined up six olive pits on the table in front of him. “
All
of them claimed their fathers were gods. If I can’t count them—”