Seventeen is a wonderful age to be, and on Princess Atalanta of Tegea's seventeenth birthday, her father King Iasus gave her a wonderful present.
He told her she was to be married.
Atalanta wept. She stormed. She locked herself in her bedroom for three days. Then at the end of all that she took off alone into the forest with her bow and quiver. And when she came back she was calm, but with a steely look in her grey eyes. Going to her father, she said,
"If I am to be married, it is with one condition."
"Certainly," said the king, who had naturally been expecting some protest from wild, boyish Atalanta, but had been surprised by her tempestuous response and was willing to do anything to make her behave as a proper princess should.
"I will only marry a man if he can beat me in a footrace," said Atalanta, "And—" she paused, a wicked glint in her eyes— "if he loses he shall be put to death."
"But Atalanta," protested poor King Iasus, "why must they be killed? That could put us on very bad terms with our neighbors."
"Oh," said Atalanta airily, "that's just so no cowards try to marry me. I can't stand a coward, and I won't marry one, either." And twitching her long, honey-colored braid over her shoulder, she turned and stalked out of the room. King Iasus knew there was no changing his stubborn daughter's mind, and with a sigh he summoned his secretaries. He wondered why his daughter had chosen a footrace, of all things, but knew it would be useless to ask her.
What he did not know was that only one person had ever come near to beating Atalanta in a footrace.
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Seventeen
Short StoryOn her seventeenth birthday, Princess Atlanta of Tegea is given a present: she is told she is to be married, but that she may pick the suitor. Determined not to marry until a certain person comes along, she comes up with an impossible challenge. Cov...
