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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.
    You can learn from me just as soon as you can catch me!
    I don’t know why I heard Polydeuces’s long-ago taunt at that moment. I only knew that the gods themselves had thrown a challenge my way, and I meant to accept it. Without breaking stride, I veered sharply and ran after the hare. The wind tasted sweet as my shadow flew across the grass. The hare ran, he leaped, he zigzagged wildly, but I matched him every time, move for move, until at last he slowed his pace. That was when I paused, bent my knees, and with a mighty leap flung myself onto the creature.
    A moment later the hare was racing off, unharmed, and I was standing in the middle of the field holding a tuft of fur from his tail and shouting triumphantly at the sun, “
Got
you, Polydeuces!” Then I toppled backward into the meadow and watched the sky spin crazily above me as I gasped for breath and grinned.
    When I recovered from my mad race, I felt ready to take every last
You can’t!
that the world wanted to throw at me and turn it into
Oh yes I can!
    It was time for me to learn how to do more than run.
    I got back on my feet and looked across the field to a grove of olive trees, their silver-green leaves fluttering in the breeze. The palace citadel lay in that direction, and so did the narrow strip of open ground where Glaucus gave my brothers their daily training lessons.
    If Polydeuces was so dead set against girls learning the ways of sword and spear, I was certain that his