She was wrong. I didn’t regret wearing inadequate leg covering the next day. I regretted it that very night. I was sore from all the bruises I’d gathered in one fall after another, and my legs were badly chafed and aching after straddling Aristos’s wide body.
I also had more problems to deal with than my aches and pains. After that morning in the hills, I was filthy and reeked of horse. Though I’d tied up my hair, my repeated tumbles had left it snarled. How I missed Ione! My long strands of black curls fell well below my waist, and the tedious work of washing and unsnarling them had always been her job.
Though Ione was still in Sparta, I did have someone to help me with this sort of thing here in Calydon—in theory, anyway. My aunt had ordered the motherly slave woman I’d met on my first night in Calydon to attend me, but after she’d neaten my room in the morning for the day, she’d vanish until it was time to help me get ready for dinner. I had no idea of how to summon her if I needed her between those times, and I didn’t dare go searching for her while I was still dressed as a boy.
I had to do what I could for myself before I could even begin to seek her out. There was some water in a large jug by my bedside, so I used that to wash off the worst of the grime on my face, arms, and feet. Next I put on a dress and wrestled a comb through my tangles. I had to remove any telltale bits of twig or leaf before I got the slave woman to help me wash my hair thoroughly. I didn’t want her to start asking questions, or even thinking of them.
As I passed through the palace halls looking for her, I came across the large room where my aunt and her women sat working. It was like a glimpse of home. The great loom stood in the best light, with the queen herself making the shuttle fly back and forth between the up-and-down threads. Three nobly born ladies of Calydon sat nearby on low stools, one spinning thread, two doing needlework while they gossiped. The gold ornaments in their hair and decorating their brightly patterned gowns proclaimed their rank. The remaining five women at work were plainly dressed—slaves or servants, by the look of them—two using spindles, three toiling through a huge basket of raw fleece with their carding combs.
As I watched them from the doorway, unnoticed, I caught sight of the shallow basket standing next to the loom. It was filled with newly made cloth. Atalanta wanted me to protect my legs better for tomorrow’s lesson, and this looked like my chance to get something for the purpose.
I’ll tell the queen that I’ve lost my mantle and I need some cloth for a new one, I thought. I wasn’t sure of exactly how I’d alter the simple length of woven wool to shield my legs, but I decided Atalanta could help me with that. My task was to get the cloth in the first place.
Without pausing to think things through any further, I stepped into the room and greeted my aunt with reverence. She was pleased to see me and insisted that I sit beside her at the loom.
“Helen, my dear, you’ve found me! I’ve been so busy, I hope you haven’t been too bored? Have you found enough to do?” Abruptly, her affectionate expression froze. She wrinkled her nose grotesquely, then leaned a little closer, sniffed, and asked, “What have you been doing? Er, I mean, what have you been doing to entertain yourself so—strenuously?”
One of the noblewomen sniffed as well, then smiled. “I’d say she’s found the stables.” She squeezed my hand gently. “I loved horses when I was your age too. My nurse had to drag me away from them almost every day. When she caught me helping the grooms brush my father’s stallion, she was scandalized.” She mimicked her long-gone nurse’s gruff, scolding voice: “‘What do you think you’re doing, my lady? What evil spirit told you that this is fit work for any woman? What would your mother say if she could see you now?’”
When we all finished laughing, I lowered my head and said, “You’re right; I was with the horses. I’m sorry if I…brought some of the stables along with me.” I looked up and grinned. That brought fresh laughter.
My aunt patted my cheek. “You’re Leda’s daughter, right enough. She was just the same, when we were girls together. If it weren’t for the stables, you’d never find her inside the palace at all.”
“Did she know how to ride?” I asked eagerly.
Lady Althea shook her head. “She got into enough mischief without that. She just thought they were beautiful, fascinating animals. Besides, she was such a formidable runner that I think being on horseback would’ve only slowed her down. Did you know that she was quite the huntress?”
“Just like Atalanta.” I was proud to compare my mother to my new friend and teacher.
My aunt didn’t share my enthusiasm or my opinion. Her face darkened. “Don’t liken my sister to that unnatural creature. Leda might have known how to run and hunt, but she also knew how to do a woman’s rightful work. As soon as she married your father, she was glad to give up all those silly girlhood pastimes.”
I thought of my mother’s pleasure when she’d taught me archery, her joy when my arrow brought down my first quarry. And when did she learn that “rightful” woman’s work if you say she was never in the palace? I wondered. But I decided not to voice my thoughts to the queen. What would it accomplish except to irritate her even more?
“All that Atalanta needs is a good husband and a house full of babies,” the second noblewoman spoke up. “That will cure her quickly enough.”
“Cure her of what?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. “She’s not sick, she’s just not like you.”
“I should hope not!” The lady looked smug about it. “And I thank Hera for it. If I were anything like that—that—that want-to-be man, I’d throw myself into the sea!”