Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons by Jane Yolen Page A

for an apple,” Tithonus said. “Even the peel would be something.”
    “Well, there’s a bramble bush over there,” Hippolyta said. “We can pick some berries.” And , she thought, looking around at the scrub and brush, there’s always nettle soup.
    The bush was small, and the berries were mostly unripe. Neither of them felt any less hungry after their meager breakfast. The waterskin had been lost back where Hippolyta had been staked out. She didn’t suggest they return to look for it.
    “I’d be having milk and freshly baked bread for breakfast if I were in Troy,” Tithonus whimpered.
    “I’d be breakfast if you were in Troy,” Hippolyta said. Not that she was thanking him. He hadn’t meant to help her escape.
    “I’m starving!” said Tithonus, paying no attention to her reply.
    “Well, why don’t you run off home?” she said, adding quickly, “Of course I wouldn’t risk it in your place.”
    That got his attention. He looked at her with wide-open eyes. “You wouldn’t?”
    “Surely your father knows by now that you set me free with the monster stomping about the countryside.”
    His lower lip turned down. “That was an accident.”
    “I know that. You know that. Who else would believe it?”
    He looked at his feet, the sandals scuffed and filthy. “My father wouldn’t.” The stuck-out lower lip now began to tremble.
    “I mean,” Hippolyta went on, hoping she wasn’t slathering it on too thickly, “ I only ruffled his tunic, and he had me trussed up for monster food.”
    “But I’m the heir to the throne,” Tithonus whispered.
    “Don’t forget he has another heir now,” Hippolyta said. “Little Podarces. The baby I delivered to him. That makes you as expendable as I am.”
    He looked so stunned and lost that for a moment Hippolyta felt sorry for him. Then she reminded herself what a spoiled brat he was and how she meant to make him suffer. And his father.
    “So you have no choice, really,” she added.
    “What do you mean?”
    She smiled and held out her hand. “You have to come with me. To my home. To Themiscyra.”
    His lower lip snapped back, thinned out. His mouth was like a sharp, hard line. He looked just like his father. “I thought Amazons didn’t let men into their country.”
    “You’d have to come as my slave, of course,” Hippolyta said, furrowing her brow as if in thought. “That way you’d be safe.”
    “I’m nobody’s slave,” Tithonus said. “I’m a Trojan prince.”
    She shook her head. “Not in your father’s eyes. In his eyes you’re a traitor. And”—she raised her hand, palm out—“I saved your life.” Her voice was as stern as any Amazonian teacher. “By the laws of the gods, your life now belongs to me.”
    He groaned. “Is that true?”
    “Absolutely,” Hippolyta said. “Why should I lie to you?”
    He couldn’t think of an answer. She let him try.
    At last Tithonus whimpered. “But my mother will set me free, won’t she?”
    “I expect so,” Hippolyta agreed, thinking that with any luck their mother would never set eyes on him. A dagger will set you free on Artemis’ altar, she thought, and I will save the Amazon nation with your Trojan blood.
    They trekked northward, away from Troy, and around midday came to a stream, where they drank the clear water gratefully
    Hunger was a hard knot in Hippolyta’s belly. But she’d been hungrier. Amazons trained for such long, foodless treks.
    Tithonus had been complaining about thirst for hours. But suddenly he grabbed on to Hippolyta’s arm, spilling the water from her cupped hands, and pointed.
    About thirty yards upstream an old man had emerged from the trees to water his horse. Apart from a few scraggly gray hairs near the nape of his neck, he was completely bald. His beard was cut so close to his face it was just a dark stubble. He wore a crude smock of ragged sacking tied at the waist with a length of rope.
    “Do you think it’s one of my father’s men searching for me?”