“You can say yes or no all you want right now, little sister. The trick is getting other people to pay attention.” Polydeuces gave one of my curls a playful tug. “You’re pretty…for a toad”—his smile said he was only joking—“but even Aphrodite herself has to obey Zeus’s commands. Now, if she could get her hands on a bundle of his thunderbolts—well, if she could, not even Zeus would dare tell her what to do. Of course, that won’t happen. Aphrodite’s happy with the way things are. She’d rather sip nectar all day than have thunderbolt target practice make her hands rougher than mine.”
Polydeuces held out his palms so that I could see the calluses. “That’s from all the time I’ve spent learning to fight,” he told me proudly. “Castor’s hands aren’t half as tough as mine—our teacher Glaucus said so. That reminds me—” He stood up. “I’ve got to go help Castor rewrap the hilts on our practice swords with rawhide. If we don’t, Glaucus will knock them out of our hands tomorrow.”
I grabbed his wrist as he started for the door. “If I help you rewrap your swords, will you let me hold one?” A new idea had taken fire in my mind, a fire kindled by my brother’s light words about Aphrodite: If she could get her hands on a bundle of his thunderbolts, not even Zeus would dare tell her what to do. “Will you teach me how to use it too?” I persisted. “Please?”
Polydeuces stared at me as if I’d grown fins and scales. “Why would you want to do that? Swords are for warriors, not little girls.”
“Why can’t I be both?” I countered. “I’m just as old as you were when you and Castor first started learning how to fight.”
“How hard did Ione spank you? I think she rattled your brains.” Polydeuces shook his head and tried a second time to walk out of my room.
I ran after him, seized his arm with both hands, and refused to let him go. “Why can’t I learn the same things you and Castor do?” I demanded. “Why can’t you let me try?”
“I’ll tell you what, little sister,” Polydeuces replied, pulling his arm free. “You can learn from me just as soon as you can”—he took off like a rabbit, sprinting out of my room and down the hall, calling back over his shoulder—“catch me!”
I tried. I ran as fast as I could, even though I knew I’d be in a lot of fresh trouble if Ione came back to the room and found me gone. I didn’t care. Suddenly I knew what I had to do if I was going to have the life I wanted for myself, a life in which I was the one who said yes or no, the one who made her own choices.
It was a useless race, one that I lost. Polydeuces had longer legs, and they weren’t all tangled up in a dress. He’d also had a lot more practice running; it was part of his warrior’s training, along with swordplay, spear-throwing, archery, horse-taming, and racing chariots over the worst terrain.
By the time I gave up trying to catch him and went trailing back to my room, I knew three things:
Even if I was pretty, it wasn’t going to be enough to bring me the life I wanted: one where I was free to make choices that mattered, one where people listened to what I had to say.
Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus.
I’d never get my hands on a thunderbolt, so if I wanted to be free, I’d better find a way to get my hands on the next best thing: a sword.
Polydeuces said he’d teach me how to use a sword if I could run fast enough to catch him. I didn’t really believe he meant that, but he did make me realize that one of the first things a warrior must know is how to run.
Not run away—a Spartan would sooner die—just run. Even I knew that a fighter needed strong legs as well as strong arms. When the poets performed in our great hall, I loved to hear them sing about how famous heroes outraced the wind to reach the thick of battle.
No one can run in a dress, so the first thing I did was “borrow” a short tunic from my brother Castor. If my brothers hadn’t been too big for a nursemaid, Ione would have turned that shabby old thing into cleaning rags long ago. Castor didn’t pay attention to how his clothes looked, or even to where his clothes were. I was thankful for that.
Once I had the tunic, I tied my hair back the way my brothers did when they had their lessons with Glaucus. They called it a “club,” because that’s what it looked like hanging down the nape of the neck after they’d twisted up the long, thick strands. I’d never had to do anything with my own hair—Ione always washed and combed it for me—so it took a lot of work until I managed to do it.
Then it was only a matter of waiting for a time when I knew Ione would be busy elsewhere in the palace long enough for me to slip away. I waited until one of our countless small household crises popped up—in a household the size of our palace, they always did—and I had my chance.
I pulled on the tunic, rubbed a little dirt on my face, then said a quick prayer to Aphrodite. Great goddess, Ione says that love makes people see things that aren’t really there. If anyone notices me today, please let them think they’re seeing my brother Polydeuces.
And then I ran. I ran without sandals, even though it hurt, because the songs said that was how real warriors ran. As I dashed out through the palace gates, I heard one of our guards call out behind me, “Good day to you, young prince! The gods bless you,” and I thanked Aphrodite for having heard my prayer.
From that day on, I ran whenever I had the chance, and the years ran with me. The hardest part was getting away from Ione and from all the times I was supposed to be with my sister and the other women, turning fleece into thread, thread into cloth, cloth into clothing. Before, I’d only disliked those chores because they were so tedious. Now they were obstacles that kept me from doing what I really loved, and I hated them passionately. I ran my best whenever I imagined that every stride was putting more distance between me and the carding combs, the spindle, and the loom.
On my tenth birthday, I was running across a field not far from the palace when a hare broke from cover in front of me and took flight.