“How’d he beat you, Telys? Trip you with his cradle?”
“Hey, for all you know, the baby didn’t take the spear. Telys probably loaned it to him so he’d have something to teethe on.”
With every step we took, the young guard drew his shoulders up higher and higher, like a turtle taking refuge in its shell. As much as I despised him for what he’d done, I was relieved when we entered the palace itself and left his tormentors behind.
I was herded into a small reception room and told to wait. The two big men took up positions flanking the doorway outside, but Telys waited with me. He avoided my eyes, pretending to be fascinated by the wall paintings. They showed a powerfully built man defeating a series of opponents, some by the sword, some with his bare hands. The most spectacular picture had him locked in combat with a bull-headed man, the Cretan Minotaur. I hope you rewarded the artist well, Theseus, I thought. He’s drawn you as if slaying monsters were as easy as swatting flies.
By the time I was summoned from the waiting room, I’d had enough time to memorize every curl of hair between the Minotaur’s painted horns. A well-dressed servant came to announce that Lord Theseus would see me. I walked with my head down, not because I was ashamed, but in hopes that Lord Theseus would not see me. I pretended to scratch my head so that I could pull a tangle of hair down over my face. If he shared his soldiers’ contempt for Telys, perhaps he’d dismiss the whole matter without giving me so much as a glance. The gods grant it!
I also gave thanks to the gods that the previous night had been cool enough for me to wear a loose, shabby tunic for additional warmth under my blanket. The looser, the better, I thought. My body had changed in more ways than one since the Argo sailed from Colchis, changed outwardly as well as within. I hunched my shoulders forward, trying to conceal the telltale curves.
The Athenian king’s throne room was very much like the others I’d seen in my life, including my own father’s. I tried hiding in the shadow of one of the big guardsmen. It proved to be a useless tactic. Theseus sat on a high-back stone seat. A regal, gray-haired woman occupied the smaller throne at his right hand. They were sharing a joke when we entered, but the smile on his face was nothing compared to the ear-to-ear grin he wore the moment he caught sight of me.
“I don’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “What wonderful, generous, beloved god has brought me this prize? I swear I’ll build him a temple, the likes of which Athens has never seen, as a thanks offering!”
Foolish Telys stepped forward. “I brought him here,” he said, eager to claim credit for whatever had so overjoyed his king. “I caught him making a sacrifice to Lord Hades at your shrine, my lord Theseus, and when I tried to stop him—”
Theseus’s laughter crushed Telys’s weak attempt at boasting. “We all know what happened when you tried to stop him, you clown,” he said, wiping his eyes. “The whole palace is talking about how you were bested by a mere boy. Well, the truth is even better.”
He was off the throne and across the floor in an instant, scattering everyone who stood between him and me. He bounded behind me, grabbed the waist of my tunic with both hands, and yanked it back, hard. I’d relied on the looseness of my clothing to hide my breasts, small as they were, but now the thin cloth pulled taut against every line of my body. I might as well have been wearing nothing at all. I heard the onlookers gasp.
“Why aren’t you smiling, Telys?” Theseus leered as he confronted the horror-struck young guard. “You ought to be glad. You weren’t beaten by a boy after all.” He scowled at his subjects, which scared up a few halfhearted titters, but most of the people present were too jolted by their king’s crude behavior to react at all, except with silence.
Maybe Athens is civilized after all, I thought. When I twitched my tunic out of his grasp, looking at him as if he were a mouse-dropping in a bowl of milk, he appealed for sympathy from the woman on the queen’s throne.
“Mother, what’s the matter with this girl? Don’t Spartans have a sense of humor?” he asked, completely ignoring the fact that his own people hadn’t found anything funny in what he’d done. “Or perhaps it’s just their royalty who can’t take a joke.”
“‘Royalty,’ my dear?” Theseus’s mother raised her eyebrows and looked at me doubtfully. I couldn’t blame her.
“This is the princess of Sparta, Helen, daughter of Lord Tyndareus and his queen,” Theseus proclaimed. He caressed me with a slow, sidelong look. “Lady Helen of Sparta, my lovely bride.”
For a moment, shock snatched the breath from my lips. When I could speak again, I said, “If that’s another of your ‘jokes,’ Theseus, it’s not funny.”
He laughed at me. “It’s not supposed to be. Mother, look after my sweet queen-to-be. She seems weary.”
The older woman came toward me and rested one soft, slim hand on my arm. “I am Lady Aithra of Troezen, my dear. Please come with me.” Her voice was warm and kind. “You’ll stay in my quarters.”
I drew away stiffly. “I’m not staying with you, or your son, or in this city,” I declared. “This is ridiculous, a disgrace! I demand to be set free at once.”
“And then what, my sweetest one?” Theseus drawled, amused. “Where will you go? I doubt that your royal parents know you’re here alone, so far from home.”
“I’m not alone,” I countered. “I’m traveling with—with an escort.”
“Yet here you are. Not very good at their work, are they?” Theseus said.