Queen of the Amazons

ONE The queen's daughter lay in her cradle. Her hands and feet paddled aimlessly as a newborn's will. Her skin was beginning to lose the redness of the very young; one could see that it would be ivory and her hair would be ruddy gold. Her eyes were wide-set and lucent blue, and perfectly blank. "She has no soul," said the seer. She had come long day's ride to look on this child and conjure her name, traveling to the westernmost edge of the hunting runs, where Queen Hippolyta had paused to give birth to her daughter. The celebrations were just dying down when she came. The last of the wine was going round, and the birth-festival of a royal heir advanced toward its ninth evening. Selene happened to be abroad in the camp when the seer was sighted riding up the steep track to the summit of the hill. She had gone altogether blind since last Selene saw her, but she had acquired no servant or acolyte. Her little bay mare was all the eyes she needed for the road. In camp she had the goodwill of the people to guide her. She hardly needed a guide to bring her to the queen's tent and the child in it. The Goddess led her, bringing light where others could see only dimly if at all. Selene followed in silence, soft-footed as a hunter, but she knew the seer was aware of her. Hippolyta was not with her daughter. Her attendants had persuaded her to snatch a little sleep while the child slept, and Selene had set guards to keep her there until she was rested. Charis was watching over the child, rocking the cradle with her foot while she suckled her own daughter. She rose at the seer's coming and offered reverence. The seer passed her as if she had been invisible. The child was awake, watching the play of light and shadow on the tent wall. She took no notice of the figure that bent over her. The seer's nostrils flared. She straightened abruptly and said the thing that Selene had been thinkingand dreadingsince the day the child was born. "She has no soul." Selene's throat closed. It was impossible, and yet the seer had seen it at least as clearly as she had. This beautiful child, this first-born of the queen, was as empty of soul and self as an image carved in ivory. "How can that be?" said Charis. "She lives, breathes. She eats. She clasped my finger just now. Surely she can't be" "There is no soul in this body," the seer said. "The breath of life is in it, but no spirit fills it. There is nothing here to name." "We name animals," Charis said. She was stubborn, and she had formed an attachment to the child. "This is less than an animal," said the seer. She turned her back on the cradle. The child's eyes never flickered, her face never changed. The seer might not have been there at all, for all that the child knew of her. * * * The seer found Selene that evening by the cookfires, tending a pot and pondering imponderables. She did that when she needed to think long and hard: found a pot or a spit and a bag of herbs and created something for people to eat. She looked up from seasoning the pot to find the seer standing over her. She sighed, making no effort to hide it. "Still pursuing me, aunt?" "Always," her aunt said. She had been Kallinike before she left her name behind to become a voice for fate and the Goddess. "The answer is still no," Selene said. "And my response is still that this is not a choice. The gift is given. You must take it." "I refuse," Selene said. She was calma warrior's calm, with powerful resistance beneath. "My gift is toTarr, Judith is the author of 'Queen of the Amazons', published 2005 under ISBN 9780765303967 and ISBN 0765303965.