“You need new dresses,” she said, and proceeded to fumble and fuss over how tall I was growing and whether or not to add an extra layer of flounces to my skirt, just in case I grew taller still. I didn’t know you could waste a whole day over dressmaking.
The next morning I learned that you can waste another day over the same stupid dresses. Ione decided it was time for me to learn how to sew my own clothes. I objected, saying, “I’m never going to have to do this for myself when I’m grown up!” Ione countered with, “Well, you’re not grown up yet.”
I did a terrible job. Ione sat me down with a group of the palace women, and they all took turns undoing my mistakes and trying to say something nice about my clumsy efforts. Ione couldn’t deny that I had no talent for needlework, but that didn’t stop her from putting me to work embroidering dress sleeves on the third day.
Once again I was working in the company of other palace women—servants and specially trained slaves and the daughters of high-ranking nobles who had the honor of attending the queen. As soon as she gave me my work, Ione went off on her own errand, which gave me an idea: If I could find a pretext for leaving the courtyard, I’d be able to escape the palace!
I jabbed myself with the needle deliberately; it was the first inspiration that hit me. “Ow! My finger!” I held up my hand so that everyone could see the blood. I dropped my embroidery and stood up, pretending to be desperate with pain. “I have to find my mother!” I wailed. It was the queen’s duty to treat sickness and heal injuries. “Oh, it hurts so much!” I started out of the courtyard.
Three of the older servants, all friends of Ione, flocked around me before I’d taken five steps. “You poor lamb, what a dreadful, dreadful wound,” one of them said, shaking her head. “We can’t allow you to go to your mother unescorted, not with such a terrible hurt.”
“I can find her myself, really,” I said, but they wouldn’t hear of it.
“And what if you bleed so much that you collapse before you reach her, dear Lady Helen? No, no, we must bring you to the queen. It’s our duty.”
“But it’s not that serious! It’s only a small—” I began. Then I stopped, realizing I’d tripped over my own hasty tongue. The women smiled and escorted me back to my place in the courtyard.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth days nearly drove me barking mad. I kept getting up earlier and earlier, hoping to escape before Ione could catch me. That was how I learned that you can’t get up earlier than a farmer’s wife. She was always there, always with a new set of tasks for me. At least she’d given up on the needlework, but that didn’t stop her from dumping a herd’s worth of fleeces in my lap for carding, or dragging me off to spin thread with my sister, or, worst of all, turning me over to Clytemnestra with the words: “I give up. You teach her.”
The only advantage to having Clytemnestra for a teacher was that she wasn’t an early riser. I suffered through my lesson with her on the sixth day—and if I had one olive for every time she sneered at my uneven, snapped, snarled thread, I could press a whole jug full of oil! Earlier that year, we’d each been given our own rooms, so on the seventh day I slipped out of my room and past hers while she was still snuffling in her bed.
I hurried down the hall, Castor’s tunic wadded up tightly against my chest, wondering where I could find the safest place to change. I was just about to sneak into one of the palace storerooms when a hand fell on my shoulder and Ione’s voice sounded in my ear. “Oh good, there you are. I need you for some very important work.”
“But Clytemnestra has to teach me how to spin better,” I said, hoping Ione would accept my excuse. No need to tell her that once she let me go, I had no intention of going anywhere near my spindle or my sister.
“That can wait. Your mother will soon be making our winter medicines. She needs us to gather ingredients.” So that was how I lost yet another day, picking herbs and flowers instead of learning how to use a sword.
Glaucus laughed when I finally came limping out of the olive grove to where he had Castor and Polydeuces doing target practice with the throwing spear. “There you are, princess!” he cried. “I thought you’d changed your mind and given up on our pact before it began.”
“Do I look like I’ve changed my mind?” I grumbled. I rubbed my arms, sore and aching, and spat dust from my mouth. My legs were covered with bloody scrapes, and it would take me hours to work the tangles out of my hair.
“Then why so long coming out here?” I liked Glaucus better when he was being stern; he had the most aggravating grin of any man alive. “Forget the path? Lose your way?”
“I’m watched,” I said. “Ever since the day you promised to teach me how to fight, it’s been next to impossible to get away. Whenever I knew you were taking the boys down here, I’d try to follow, but Ione always seemed to come along with a task for me to do. I wouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t gotten up long before dawn, dressed, and hidden myself in one of the storerooms all morning. Even then, I had to drop from a window and climb down the eastern side of the palace hill to be sure that no one would see me.”
“The eastern side…” Glaucus rubbed his chin. “That’s where the briars grow thickest, isn’t it?” And his grin got wider and wider, until suddenly I understood exactly what had been going on.