Young Warriors (9 page)

PAMELA F. SERVICE grew up in Berkeley, California, where she developed an early passion for science fiction, fantasy, and ancient history. Her degree from UC Berkeley was in political science with an emphasis on Africa, but that emphasis soon moved back in time. When she relocated to London, newly married to Robert Service, her field of study was ancient African history. She completed her master's degree and spent a season in Sudan on an excavation at Meroe, the ancient capital of Kush.

Returning to the United States, Pam and Bob settled in Bloomington, Indiana, where she went into museum work and politics. During seventeen years as a museum curator, twenty years on the City Council, and the raising of daughter Alexandra, Pam also channeled her many interests and her love of the unlikely into writing for young people. She has by now published twenty books and numerous short stories and articles—a mix of history, fantasy, and science fiction. Today Pam lives in Eureka, California, where she continues her work as a museum curator, a political activist, and a writer for young people.

Her story “Lioness” combines her own experiences and studies of Sudanese archaeology with her desire to create fiction that shines light on the events, myths, and personalities of the past. Much in this story happened, much might have happened; the joy of fiction is the freedom to interweave the two.

THUNDERBOLT

Esther Friesner

HE TOOK ME TO ATHENS. I hate Athens. It sprawls like a bird-dropping over some of the meanest, least promising land in all of Greece. Just about the only things its fields can raise are olives, vases, and philosophers. He carried me up the narrow pathway to the citadel where the royal palace stands and set me down by the courtyard well, then took a step back and grinned as if he'd given me half of Mount Olympos for a birthday present. I wonder whether he wore that same self-serving grin right after he killed the Minotaur? No matter what he did, Theseus, king of Athens, was always so very proud of himself.

“Welcome home, Helen!” he declared, spreading his arms wide. He'd sent a runner ahead to announce our arrival, so there was a crowd assembled to greet us—slaves, guards, servants, and others who had no choice in the matter. They all sent up a small, dutiful cheer. Only Theseus' mother, Lady Aithra, sounded as if she meant it.

I looked around. I wasn't impressed, and I didn't mind saying so. “What a midden. I thought you were bringing me to the royal palace of Athens.”

Theseus scowled at me. “This
is
the royal palace,” he said. There was something dangerous in his voice, but I was still too angry to pay attention to things like that.

“Hunh!” I snorted as loudly as my favorite mare. “In Sparta, we'd use a place like this to stable the king's third-best horses.”

That was the first time he slapped me. He hit hard. I staggered back from the blow, and I think I would have tripped on the hem of my gown and taken a tumble if not for Lady Aithra. She moved with the grace and silence of shadow, suddenly there at my back to catch me. My face stung and tears tried to escape my eyes, but I reminded myself that I was Helen, princess of Sparta, and that it didn't matter if I was only fourteen years old, this man would never see me cry.

“Child, apologize.” Lady Aithra's voice was soft and gentle, but I could hear the urgency behind her words. She knew her son's nature better than I did. My mother, Queen Leda, often complained I was a hasty girl, prone to act first and think afterward, but this time she would have been proud of me: I fought back my first impulse, which was to spit in Theseus' eye. Instead I bowed my head, just as if I were some spineless little slave girl.

“I'm sorry,” I said, staring at my dusty feet.

He didn't respond right away. He must have imagined that I meant my apology, that I really was afraid of him. I'm sure he drew out his silence because he thought it would make me squirm. He was a fool. In Sparta we know how to deal with our enemies. If sometimes we let them believe that they've won a battle, it's only so we can study their tactics and weapons long enough for us to win the war.

We are never afraid.

At last I heard him chuckle, almost the way my father, King Tyndareus, does just before he gives me a present or a treat. When I hear that laugh from my father, it makes me smile. The same sound from my abductor was wrong, and the anger burning in my heart filled my mouth with bile.

“That's better,” he said. “That's a good girl. I forgive you. You're probably tired from our journey. Girls are too weak to endure hard travel. Mother, take her to your room and help her get clean. Order food and drink—only the best for my bride—and have your slaves fetch her fresh clothing worthy of Athens's new queen.”

I felt his rough hand come up under my chin, forcing me to look at him. I already knew every curve and crease and scar of that hated face. I'd had more than enough time to commit it to bitter memory during our headlong race from my beloved Sparta to this flea-fart of a kingdom. When he grinned at me, I recalled the tame baboon that a wandering Egyptian merchant dragged into my father's court, except the baboon smelled better.

“Perithos and I have some business to attend to, but when that's settled and we return, you and I will be married. Now smile for me, sweet Helen, and maybe I'll bring you back a pretty present as a wedding gift.”

I couldn't smile. I tried, if only to hurry him on his way and be free of him. I had things to attend to myself, things that I wouldn't be able to accomplish if Theseus hung around. I wanted him gone, but I couldn't smile. The best I could do was to twist my lips so that they must have looked like a pair of earthworms with stomach cramps. Theseus wasn't pleased by my disobedience. He slapped me again. This time he did it harder, and so suddenly that Lady Aithra never saw it coming and couldn't catch me. I fell on my rump in the courtyard.

“Spartan barbarian,” he snarled. “You should count yourself lucky I've brought you to rule a civilized land!”

I met his scowl with one of my own. The gossips claim that I am not King Tyndareus' daughter, that my royal mother took Zeus of the Thousand Thunderbolts for a mate. I love my father, Tyndareus, and hate the gossips who try to dishonor him with such stupid lies, but when I scowled at Theseus I was Zeus' daughter in truth. I put all the black ferocity of a storm cloud into my face and imagined I could make my eyes shoot flashes of heaven's own fire. It worked. The fool-king of Athens actually blanched just a bit and took a step away from me, but then he recovered his nerve and was angrier than before.

“Mother!” he shouted, even though Lady Aithra was standing right there. “If you can't teach this wildcat some manners by the time I come back, you'll wish you had.” With that, he turned his back on all of us and stalked away.

Lady Aithra helped me to my feet, her eyes sad as she surveyed what her son had done to my face. Her fingertips were smooth and cool as they traced the spots where his heavy hand had fallen. I would have a bruise or two, but they'd probably heal before I could find a proper mirror anywhere in this crude excuse for a palace.

“You must forgive him,” she said, her voice soft as the breath of a summer's breeze through a barley field. “He has a king's temper.”

“With respect to you, Lady, my father is a greater king than your son will ever be,” I said, bearing myself stiff and tall, the way I'd seen the priestess of Demeter stand before the holy altar of the goddess. “He says that if a man can't govern himself, he shouldn't govern others.”

That made her gasp and dart her eyes fearfully in the direction of the doorway through which Theseus and Perithos had vanished. Did she think he had a god's heightened sense of hearing, or had he simply terrified her to the point where she could no longer think of him rationally? Had he struck his own mother? It wouldn't surprise me at all.

“Princess, please.” It was painful to hear so much fear in a woman's voice. “Don't speak so rashly. If he should learn of what you say—”

“He will,” I replied. “He must have spies throughout these halls—all kings do, even the stupid ones. I want him to know what I think of him. What will he do about it? Hit me again? But then he might leave a mark that won't heal. I doubt he'd risk that. Do you think he stole me from my father's house because I'm so wise, so skilled at the spindle, the loom, and the needle, such a wonderful teller of tales to pass winter nights?” I laughed. “I'm a girl! I listen to the winter stories and I haven't lived long enough to gather any wisdom worth the name. As for my handiwork, my royal mother tells everyone that I couldn't make a worse showing if I spun and wove and sewed with my feet. Lady, there's only one reason why your son made me his captive and wants to make me his queen: I am beautiful.”

She stared at me as though I'd uttered blasphemy. O gods, spare me; not another woman who's been trained to scorn her own looks. How stupid! And how tiresome to have to hear such women go on and on about how their hair is too straight or too curly, their skin too dark or too light, their bodies too bony, too fat, too soft, too hard. Why do they do it? Power is a queen who carries many spears. Beauty is only one of them, but I suppose these silly women don't dare touch any weapons for fear of what their men might think.

We Spartan women have a different attitude when it comes to spears.

Lady Aithra shook her head. “Child, it's true that you are beautiful. My son heard tales of your beauty from the lips of a score of travelers. Still, a proper woman practices modesty.”

I wanted to laugh. A proper woman! Then I realized that I didn't want to defy my captor's mother, not when I needed her on my side. This was war; I needed allies. The battle lines were drawn the moment Theseus snatched me from my bed and galloped away with his gang of ruffians around him.

“I'm sorry,” I said, biting back my laughter, choosing my first weapon: false words. There is no dishonor in lying to a thief, and if Lady Aithra wasn't the thief himself, she was his unwilling agent. “I—I spoke without thinking. I'm so tired and hungry!” I rubbed my eyes as though I were about to cry.

Lady Aithra gave me such a look of tenderness and sympathy that for a moment I almost regretted deceiving her. “There, child, there, it's all right,” she said, embracing me. Her hair smelled of sun and pine boughs and the sea. For an instant I missed my own mother dreadfully. “You'll learn. I'll help you.”

That was my intention, to have her help me. She wouldn't need to know that her idea of help and mine were as different, one from the other, as my brothers. Castor and Polydeuces are twins, yet as unalike as they can be and still claim the same birth. I suppose that's why the wag-tongues claim that Polydeuces also had Zeus for a father, just like me.

Theseus' mother led me to her room. We were followed by several slave girls, all of them meek as mice, and by six guardsmen bearing tall bronze-headed spears. The sight of them was almost comical: were they supposed to defend a palace using weapons more suited to a boar hunt? Long spears are good enough in the open, but when a king's dwelling is your battleground, you want something to hand that can be used freely between walls. No doubt Theseus gave them spears because it made a better show, to his supposed glory.

The guards did not follow us into Lady Aithra's room. I admit that I was afraid they might do just that. Theseus had made no secret of the fact that I was to be warded constantly. He put his faith solely in the number of men he had to serve him, not in their quality.

Good. I could use that, too.

The walls of Lady Aithra's room were painted with scenes exalting her son. I walked slowly around the perimeter, studying them, pretending to be interested, acting as though this were the first time I'd ever seen or heard anything of my captor's exploits.

It was all a lie, of course, though this was war—my war for my freedom—and in war, lies are often called strategy. When Theseus and his brutish friend Perithos first came to call at my royal father's house, it didn't take them long before they launched into an endless boasting session. We all had to listen politely as those two regaled us with their tiresome tales of how Theseus was really the sea-god's son; how Theseus defeated the cruel Procrustes; how Theseus overcame the wicked Sciron the Pine-Bender; how Theseus freed his mortal father, King Aegeus, from the evil spells of the Colchian sorceress Medea; how Theseus put an end to the Cretan tribute of seven youths and seven maidens by slaying the Minotaur, King Minos' pet bull-headed monster, which devoured them.

Theseus, Theseus, Theseus! It was a miracle that the brash Athenian kinglet didn't go completely voiceless from singing his own praises. Only the rules of hospitality kept my father and the rest of us from laughing in his face. As if we were children, to believe in monsters!

Lady Aithra watched me as I made my way around the room. She was smiling. I'm sure she believed everything her son told her, even when he told her that she'd given birth to a god's child. Whether out of fear or love, she wouldn't dare to contradict him.

“Wonderful, isn't he?” she said. “My boy, my dear boy. When I first held him in my arms he was so small, such a helpless little thing. I had no idea that he would grow up to be such a great hero.” I bit my tongue at that. My deliberate silence made her add: “You see now how fortunate you are to have such a husband.”

“I had no idea.” I looked her right in the eyes so that she couldn't doubt my sincerity, clasped her hands, and without her ever knowing it, sent my armor-bearer onto the battlefield to deliver the challenge to my enemies: “He never spoke of his accomplishments to me.”

That was all she needed to start talking. If I'd ever imagined that Theseus and his friend were the greatest trumpeters of his exploits, now I learned better. The hero's mother must be the unchallenged victor in that contest. And could I blame her? Her glory days ended when her baby grew up and left her side. What else did her life hold now? Spinning, weaving, sewing, harrying her slaves? Theseus was her life.

Listening to her gabble on so worshipfully, I gave thanks to all the gods that I would never be reduced to such a state. My life would be my own, not merely the mirror of some man's grand deeds. (I know that even thinking such things is hubris, the great crime of pride. We are taught that the gods delight in punishing mortals for this above all other offenses, but that only happens in stories.)

Make no mistake: I didn't hold Lady Aithra at fault for how she was raised or what she had to do to make the best of her life. We Spartan women are the exception to the sad rules that govern the rest of Hellas. We're given the same training as our brothers: taught to harden our bodies, to use the javelin, even to wield the sword if we show any inclination for it. My mother, Leda, still laughs when she hears the tales of how Zeus overpowered her in swan's form. God or mortal, any swan that came within sight of Leda would learn that the Spartan queen still knew how to cast a spear and bring down a fat, white-plumed contribution to our dinner table.

You don't blame the prisoner for the prison that holds her, but if someone tries to shut you up in the same cage you have a choice: settle yourself on the bench beside her willingly or pick it up and use it to batter down the door and escape.