A Coalition of Lions

I stared at the child. Turunesh caught him by the shoulder and made him turn around to face us.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Candake said it, do you not remember, Goewin? She said that Caleb would retire to the dragon’s hermitage while Ella Amida patched up his empire. That is Debra Damo, isn’t it? In Ras Priamos’s book of maps there is a picture of a dragon guarding it.”

“Is there nothing that escapes your attention?” Turunesh gave her son’s shoulder an abrupt shake and let go of him. Then she sighed and absently threw another handful of grain for the birds at our feet.

I said in wonder, “Might Caleb have gone to Debra Damo?”

“He might indeed,” Turunesh answered. “He has been there before. He took Medraut to visit there.”

She reached out to touch my hand. “If Caleb is in Debra Damo—he would pardon Priamos. And he would see to Telemakos’s safety himself, I know it. He would do it for Medraut.” She did not take her eyes off Telemakos. “They do not allow women in the monastery, but we could take the boy to be our messenger.”

“Are you sure Candake meant Debra Damo?”

“We can ask her,” Turunesh said. She knelt by Telemakos and said gently at his ear, “Shall we take up Candake’s invitation to join her at the Feast of the Cross?”

So Turunesh and Telemakos and I sat with Candake throughout the endless Meskal ceremony in the cathedral square, while the courtiers and soldiers of the Aksumite court pledged another year’s service to their empire.

Constantine greeted me most civilly when we arrived, before the formalities began. I am sure he was feeling more smug than he allowed himself to behave, seeing me and my hosts well-guarded.

“The rains are over,” he said, “and in a few months the winds will change. You will be able to go home soon, my cousin. I pray that you will take me with you, and not some lesser instrument.”

“What will you do with the regency here?”

“I have arranged that Danael will become viceroy. I cannot turn over the kingship to Wazeb while his father lives, without his father’s blessing; Caleb has forbidden it.”

Then he turned to respond to some other minister, and Turunesh and I sought Candake. I knew Constantine would not speak to me again that day. He avoided the queen of queens.

Candake had her own stand, close to the thrones of the viceroy and the emperor-in-waiting, but clearly separate from them. She bellowed a greeting to us and banned my guards with her own. They laughed and saluted one another as she ordered us to sit beneath her fringed umbrellas of green and scarlet silk, and set about feeding us fried cakes.

Candake explained for us, loudly, every detail of the parade.

“Those are the officers who lead the fleet. That is Anda, a very nasty man; he has charge of the Arabian prisoners who toil in the northern gold mines. HOW MANY HAVE YOU SLAIN THIS YEAR, ANDA?”

No one dared laugh at her, or shut her up.

“Those squadrons patrol the Highway of the Cataracts. Those with the arrows on their helms patrol the lands of the Beja, where emeralds come from.”

She knew everyone; she knew everything. Hours passed, and she did not fail to identify a single officer. She fed us so much that Telemakos was sick. As the day wore on and his wild excitement began to reshape itself into wild boredom, she taught him finger games and made her attendants arrange his arms and legs and chair as they arranged hers. She was the only one of us who did not flag in her enthusiasm for the spectacle, and the only one of us who seemed to remain in perfect humor. Telemakos finally fell asleep with his head in her enormous lap.

“His hair is not so silken as yours, is it, Goewin, little Sheba? But such a color, like the snow of the Simien Mountains! Your brother let me put his own icy hair into plaits once. He looked like a gorgon.”

She sighed, and smoothed a hand over Telemakos’s head. Then she gave another chuckle.

“There are the bala heg at last. When they have finished, we can go home. The afa negus must take his turn before them, though, HALEN, you let my son speak FIRST.”

At her sudden shout, Telemakos raised his head with a jerk and stared at the parade. There, alongside his tutor, was Priamos. When Candake called out to the afa negus, they both looked across at us. Priamos made a bow to his mother, and saluted me like a soldier. He must have been no more than ten feet away from me as he knelt before Wazeb. It was the first I had seen him in nearly six weeks.

“Goewin, Goewin,” said Telemakos, pulling at my elbow, “you are crying! Look, my lady queen, you’ve made her weep, shouting like that.”

“It’s the sun,” I snapped at him.

Turunesh took hold of his hands and held him close against her. She whispered at his ear, “Hush, my love. This is a solemn ritual now. Not another word from you till it is over. Only listen.”

Candake, in her single minute’s silence of the afternoon, listened as Priamos renewed his vows of service to his sovereign and state, first to Wazeb and then to Constantine.

“Hum,” she grunted, when he had finished. “Men! They come and go, they snatch at power, they wander off to beat each other over the head. But I stay in one place, and they all come back to me: brothers, nephews, sons. The lioness is the pride’s heart, not the coalition.”

Priamos joined the ranks of other officers across the square. He was guarded even now. He did not dare to look at me again.

“Is he well?” I asked.

“Aye, as may be, girl,” Candake said darkly. “As may be. Losing his temper last month did him no great service.”

I watched him standing quiet and calm across the square.

“The best of my sons, he is,” Candake wheezed, but for once she did not laugh. “The best of my sons. Do you hear that, ITYOPIS, you POMPOUS YOUNG LICKER OF ROYAL BOOTS? The best of you all, Priamos is. You might have stopped it—”

She stopped screaming. Ityopis stood cringing as he waited his turn in the parade, and so did Priamos, both looking as though they hoped the underground tunnels would kindly open and swallow them.

“You might have stopped it, too, Goewin dragon’s daughter,” Candake said in a normal voice, rocking as though she were chanting. “There was no need for him to be punished like a drunkard in the marketplace. For loosing ten monkeys! He came to eat with me a day after the beating, and his hands were still so swollen he could not feed himself. He sat and wept into his coffee as I have not seen him weep since the night he came back from the Himyar.”

“Candake,” I said slowly, “you will kill me if you go on.”

“You did not have to endure it.”

“I am enduring it now.” I clenched my teeth. “I know, I know it is my fault. I cannot sleep, knowing I have brought him to such disgrace.”

Candake shifted her weight and consoled herself with another three fried cakes, and then said wearily, “Go home, girl. Go home and take your bridegroom the mosquito with you, as you intended.”

“I hate my bridegroom the mosquito,” I said vehemently, heedless of who might hear. “How I detest him! To threaten a child of six summers with beheading!”

Turunesh gazed serenely at the solemn procession of ministers, as each knelt and spoke in turn. She held Telemakos tight and still against her side.

“Constantine keeps me prisoner, I can barely speak to him civilly; I do not know why he should ever want to complete our union.”

“Because you are beautiful,” Candake said.

Telemakos was watching me, not the ceremony.

“‘Fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners.’” Candake wheezed again as she settled herself more comfortably. “So sings Solomon to Sheba in the Song of Songs. You cannot see yourself! ‘Terrible as an army with banners.’ How should dogged Constantine court such majesty? His promised bride is beyond his grasp, and he is eaten up with jealousy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Silly girl, why do you think he deals so harshly with my gentle son?” she said sadly. “The mosquito is eaten up with envy because Priamos, though he has never courted kingship, has courted you, and owns your heart.”

I opened my mouth to protest that no man should ever own my heart or any part of me. No words came. All I could produce was a small, quiet spate of bewildering tears, which I swiped at angrily. I stared across the square at Priamos Anbessa.

So he does, I realized. So he does.

“He wept when they told him you were no longer allowed to see him. He WEPT. How much weeping have you done on his account, girl?”

“I wake up screaming every night on his account,” I said fiercely, and scrubbed at my eyes. “My God! What hope is there for either of us?”

“Go home, girl.” Candake closed her eyes, as though she were so tired of it all. “I do not want my wise and noble son to spend his life prisoner to a mosquito.”

“I will not leave Aksum until I see Ras Priamos go free,” I said through my teeth.

“He will never go free while you are here.”

Ityopis had made his pledge, and Kidane Danael was finishing his. I took Candake’s hand, leaned in over her enormous bulk, and kissed her painted cheek.

She was more like my aunt Morgause than I had realized. Not in that she was cruel, for she was not; but in that for all her loud and acrid talk she was without authority, she was helpless. Her sons’ fate was utterly beyond her control. She could not even walk without assistance.

I said at her ear, “Dear lady, Queen of Queens. Might not your brother’s word override my cousin’s? Or the emperor’s override the viceroy’s? If you will tell me where to find him, I will seek out Caleb instead of going home, and bring your nephew his golden head cloth.”

Candake sighed. She traced the track of a tear across my cheek with a large, soft fingertip, and sighed again.

“Ah, proud little Sheba,” she said. “Nor should you be made to spend your life prisoner to a mosquito, either.”

PART III: FLIGHT

CHAPTER VIII

The Tomb of the False Door

WAZEB PAID A VISIT to Kidane’s mansion, a day later. He came with his own retinue, which he left at the gate along with Constantine’s escort for me, so that it looked as though there were rival factions preparing for a small battle on Kidane’s doorstep. Wazeb wore his customary simple white cotton kilt and head cloth bound with grass, though on this occasion the ends of his shamma were pinned with a great clasp of gold and emerald.

He came upstairs to share imported wine with us, to the joy and terror of Kidane’s servants. He had a disconcerting habit of rewarding the attendant women by feeding them sweets out of his hand. He was most at ease in Kidane’s house.

“Have you heard any of our old stories?” he asked me. “Will you understand if I speak in my own language?”

“Please do. I’ll try.”

“I have a favorite story. It is of Menelik, the queen of Sheba’s son, and tells of his visit to Solomon, his father. When Menelik returns to his mother, he steals the Ark of the Covenant from Solomon. And Solomon discovers him. But instead of punishing him, Solomon gives him the Ark and lets him go free.”