After we got back he had married Chryse, the best of the bull-girls; so he understood. But things must have gone far enough, if he thought this message needed.
I called a servant to bring wine. I suppose they had thought to stay the night in my house, before they saw it. Their eyes crept round all four walls, lingering on the bed. I was growing weary of them. “I will not keep you now,” I said. “The track is dangerous in the evening mists. I want a message taken to the Head Steward of Athens; send a runner if no ship is leaving. I want the Queen’s rooms opened up, which were closed in my father’s day; cleaned, painted and made handsome. I want to find them ready.”
There was a pause. They did not look at one another; I saw to it that they did not dare. But their thoughts spun between them like cobwebs in a breeze.
“You came by ship,” I said. “Is it fit for me to sail in?” Indeed, they said, it was well prepared. “The Lady Hippolyta is coming with me. She was a royal priestess in her land, and will be treated as befits her. You have leave to go.”
They laid fist on breast, and started backing out. In the doorway they took root, blinking; and the lesser ones edged behind the greater. The chief of them, who had found us in the wood, seemed to have words stuck in his throat like a fishbone. I waited, tapping my fingers on my belt. At last it came. “By your favor, my lord. The ship for the Cretan tribute is at Piraeus, waiting to sail. Have you any commands? Some message?”
He had not the face to hold my eye. I was getting angry.
“You have got already,” I said, “my message for the runner. There is nothing in Crete that will not wait.”
IV
ALL PEOPLES HAVE THEIR time-marks. In Athens they will say, “It was while we still paid Minos tribute,” or, “In the year of the bull.” But sometimes in my presence they check and pause, and count by the feasts of Athene or the Isthmian Games. They do not say, “In the time of the Amazon,” though all Athens says it. Do they think I shall forget?
It was ripe autumn, the turning of the grapes, when I brought her home. We would stand on the Palace roof, while I showed her the villages and great estates; then she would point to some peak of Parnes or Hymettos, and say, “Let us go there!” I took her, whenever I could. She was not used to sitting indoors, and would get into mischief, meaning no harm; running up to me in the council chamber with two couple of great wolfhounds, which knocked the old men over and trod in the clerks’ wet clay; getting some rich baron’s daughter to strip and wrestle with her, so that the mother, finding them at it, screamed and swooned; clambering in the beams of the Great Hall to get her hawk; and so on. I once overheard my chief steward call her a young savage. But he was so frightened when he saw me, that I was content and did no more to him. I was too happy to be cruel.
They had made the Queen’s rooms fine again; but she only used them to dress and bathe. It was in mine she liked to be, even when I was not there. Our arms hung up together on one wall, our spears stood in one corner. Even the deerhound I gave her, a tall bitch from Sparta, mated with Aktis as soon as it was grown.
Against her coming they had laid out a treasure of jewels and clothes, embroidered bodices and gold-hung flounces. She walked up to them softly, like a deer smelling a trap, wrinkled her brows, drew back, and looked at me. I laughed, and gave her the jewels to play with—she loved clear bright things—and let go the clothes to the Palace women. Hers I had made by my own craftsman, in her own style, but richer. The kidskin was Sidonian dyed, the laces were plaited gold tagged with agate or crystal, the buttons lapis, or Hyperborean amber. For her caps, I got the one thing fine enough to put against her hair: the silk that comes a year’s journey before it reaches Babylon, woven with flying serpents and unknown flowers.
As I had promised, I gave her arms: a shield with her leopard crest, a cheek-flap helm plated with silver and plumed with sheet-gold ribbons that glittered when she moved. I had brought her a Scythian bow from the Hellespont; and she used to come with me to the smithy to watch the making of her sword. It was the best one made in my time in Athens. The center rib had a line of ships let into blue enamel, in memory of our meeting; the pommel was made of a green stone from the silk country, like clouded water, carved with magic signs; the golden handgrip of the hilt was beaten into lilies. I taught her myself to use it. She used to say it handled like a living limb. Often at evening I would see her lay it across her knee, and run her fingers over the work to feel its fineness. Her hands lie on it still.
The Cretan ship had sailed, with no message from me. Sometimes I was sorry, as one would be for forgetting a child’s name day. But Phaedra was leaving childhood, and it would be crueller still, I thought, to let her think I would soon be coming. “There is time enough,” I would say to myself; though for what, I did not know.
As the people saw it, there was one more woman in my house, a captive of my spear, who had caught my fancy above the rest. Kings marry notwithstanding, and get an heir. Only I knew, and she who never thought to question it, that I could never watch another woman walk in front of her.
The Palace girls guessed, however, finding me so changed, who had never before kept to one alone. I had brought them all gifts from Kolchis, and gave them leave, if they were lonely, to go with my guests of honor. Those with growing children of mine, for whom they still hoped favor, took it well; but I saw some looks that I did not like. A great house must have women, who are as much its wealth as corn and cattle; there must be proper service; besides, they are the signs of victory. But I told Hippolyta, if she had any trouble, to bring it straight to me.
She said nothing, so I thought no harm, till one evening I came in as she dressed, and she said to me, “Theseus, must I undo my hair?”
“What need?” I said, smiling and catching her eye across the maid; I used to undo it in bed. She answered, “This gift of yours will need it.”
She lifted it in her hands: a heavy golden diadem, crusted with gold flowers, with a shower of gold chains on either side to mingle with the hair. She was going to put it on, when I jumped forward and caught her wrist, and called out, “Stop!”
She put it down jingling, and looked at me surprised. I said, “I did not send this. Let me see it.” I put out my hand; but it drew back as if from a snake. There was no doubt what it was. Someone had brought out the crown of the witch Medea. She had worn it when I had seen her first, sitting by my father in the Hall.
Hippolyta, too, sat there at my right hand; perhaps in the very chair. She would have worn this for my sake before all the barons, if I had not come in time. It broke my night’s sleep; I would reach over to feel if she was breathing. In the morning, I sifted the matter out.
The treasurer owned to me, since there was no help for it, who had coaxed him for a peep inside the strongroom. He was no worse than a doting fool, and had served my father, so I only took his office from him. Then I sent for the woman.
While I walked up and down, Hippolyta came in. I heard her behind me, but would not turn. I was angry with her for keeping her mouth shut. Any woman can tell when another hates her; she might have been poisoned, instead of this. The truth was, of course, that she had felt herself a victor; it was beneath her to trample on the fallen. I heard her breathe hard behind me, and a clink of bronze. Trying to harden my heart, and keep a rebuking back to her, I could not help a quick look over my shoulder. She was dressed for battle down to her shield.
Our eyes met. She was as angry as I.
“They say you have sent for her here.” I nodded. “Her, without me?”