A Coalition of Lions

“Better,” said Wazeb. “Now throw again, so we are sure it was no accident. The seventh target.”

There was only one spear still raised, not on the ground or stuck fast in a bale of straw, and that was held by Priamos’s other guard. As Priamos took it from him, I saw what Wazeb had done: he had seen to it that now Priamos alone was armed, of all the assembled throng of soldiers. If Priamos had intended revenge or treachery, it could have been his in that moment. He could have killed Constantine, or Wazeb, or taken any one of us as a hostage. His sovereign lord was granting him a public display of trust and honor.

Priamos threw again, well in control of himself now, and Wazeb said at last, “Well struck.”

“Well spoke,” I said quietly, “Gebre Meskal; emperor of Aksum.”

Telemakos lost his head. In the stillness that followed my words, he exploded into a run and hurled himself across the playing field at Priamos, crying out with open arms, “Now you can go hunting with the princess!”

Priamos lost his head as well. He swung Telemakos aloft as though the child were his own, then held him tightly to his chest and showered the silver hair with kisses.

“Have you given my brother his cup of coffee yet?” I asked Turunesh. “The one he said he’d give away his father’s kingdom for?”

She smiled. “He hates coffee. He was being sentimental.”

“I’m going to make him drink it.” Turunesh had taught me how to perform the coffee ceremony, and it gave me a great and absurd pleasure to manage it deftly. “I’ve still to instruct my king and my ambassador in what they must accomplish on their return to Britain, and I’ve yet to see them speak directly to each other. I am sick to death of these formal meetings in the New Palace. Let me serve them coffee in your garden.”

It was a week since our return from Debra Damo. All politics seemed to be swept aside in the plans for Wazeb’s royal hunt, and I, with Constantine, was growing anxious over the fate of my own distant kingdom. Constantine readily accepted my invitation to coffee. He might be Britain’s high king, but he suddenly found himself with no place in the Aksumite court, and that was hard for him.

“Wazeb, Gebre Meskal, is a madman,” said Constantine, sitting stiffly upright in Kidane’s garden court with his arms folded, watching me light Turunesh’s burner.

Priamos and Kidane watched also. Medraut and Turunesh sat side by side, across from me. Except the time she had kissed his hands in greeting, I still had never seen them touch each other; but Telemakos stood between them, leaning in his casual, affectionate way against his mother’s side, one small brown hand holding tightly to his father’s large fair one. Medraut and Turunesh were, unquestionably, united; Telemakos linked them.

“The emperor is a madman,” Constantine repeated. “He forbids me to leave until we have hunted together. I fear for Britain.”

“Yes, I do as well,” I said, speaking slowly as I watched the flames in Turunesh’s borrowed burner. “But if we do not wait for the Red Sea winds to change, we will have an overland journey of a thousand miles, and in all honesty, I think another month will make little difference now.”

“I am with Constantine,” said Priamos. “The emperor is a madman.”

“I am glad you have found something that you and Constantine agree on,” I said, pouring steaming water over the roasted seeds. “Tell me then, what reason have you to accuse your new sovereign of madness?”

“He has invited Abreha to join the hunt,” said Priamos.

I dropped and smashed the pot and spilled hot coffee all down my front, and gave a scream that was more of fear than pain. Medraut, you can imagine, came pelting across the court. Constantine leaped to his feet, shouting for an attendant, and Priamos dragged me to my own feet by one wrist.

“She has scalded herself—” he cried, and Medraut lifted me off the ground and carried me straight into the cold water of the stone pool.

I sat among the weed and fishes, gasping and choking, drenched. “It’s all right, it’s all right. My shamma caught most of it.”

Turunesh found herself at once trying to calm Telemakos and to keep him from treading in broken pottery. Kidane bellowed for a nurse and a broom. Priamos and Constantine hovered helplessly at the pool’s edge, as I and Medraut peeled back layers of fabric so that we could expose my arms and shoulders to the air, hunting discreetly for burns. “I should not have screamed so. I was frightened—”

There was a narrow band of stinging red skin arcing down from my left shoulder. Medraut poured handfuls of water over it, hesitating to undress me further.

Priamos flung himself down on the rim of the pool, bent double with his face in his arms, shaking with sobs. “Ai, sweet lady, well am I named Hornbill! My wild speech is more treacherous than any plot! In the shared cup of a single afternoon I do you more harm than all your enemies have ever done—”

He glanced up wildly. “Ah, Goewin, Goewin, I will cut out my tongue myself if I have hurt you!”

“Priamos, I am not hurt!”

Unthinking, I reached to wipe tears from his face. Medraut pulled the soaked cotton cloth back across my shoulders.

“Goewin?” said Priamos softly.

He had never called me by my name before.

“Let me change my clothes,” I said, feeling more scalded by Constantine’s scorching, silent gaze than by the coffee. “Let me change my clothes, and then you may both tell me about Abreha.”

I was sure they would kill each other on this confounded lion hunt.

CHAPTER XIII

Arabia Felix

THE YOUNG EMPEROR’S HUNTING party included some four hundred courtiers and nobles, porters, cooks, and servants, as well as oddments like myself and Turunesh and Telemakos and even his nurse; I could imagine what Constantine must have thought of the expense. I could seldom come near Priamos, nor Medraut, who were at Wazeb’s back as the negus’s spear bearers. And Constantine dogged me, as though he found it necessary to take over the job of his foot soldiers now that they had been dismissed.

We traveled south from Aksum and descended into the gorge cut by the Takeze River, a northward-flowing tributary to the Nile. We followed the Takeze toward its source, until we came to a wide plain at the foot of the Simien Mountains. It was not far from Aksum, but the grassland and forest seemed empty after the cultivated fields surrounding the city. Late in the afternoon on the second day in this high valley, Wazeb took it into his head to set those of us who were on horseback at racing.

“Whatever are they doing?” I asked, as the emperor’s retinue taunted and chased one another. It was a chill and sun-lit evening in December, the air sage-scented and colored like liquid gold.

“It is guks,” said Turunesh. “A game.”

“It’s a royal game of Tig,” Constantine said.

When one rider came close to another he would hurl a wand at him, which the other would duck, or fend off with his shield.

“I see Wazeb isn’t playing,” I remarked.

“Oh, he is. Gebre Meskal is the puppeteer. He guides the strings,” Constantine explained. “He will not compromise anyone’s loyalty in a personal challenge.”

Now Wazeb said a word to Priamos, who turned on Ityopis.

“Come on, you skulking minister of dinner parties! You soft-pawed mongoose of a man! When did you last spur your horse to a gallop? Can any mount still carry you after so many years of your mother’s fried cakes? Has anyone ever seen you race?”

“Hai!”

With a yell of outrage, Ityopis snatched a blunt spear from one of the footmen and tore after his brother, laughing. Their shouts were muffled by the thunder of hooves.

“So, Constantine,” I said. “Are you playing?”

Constantine shrugged. “I have no great skill at this.”

It is beneath your dignity, I thought, but restrained myself. There was no reason to nettle him.

“It’s Medraut who’s not playing,” said Turunesh. “No one dares challenge him. He did once unseat three riders in an afternoon.”

She added, not without pride, “They are all afraid of him.”

“Well, I’m not afraid of him,” I said scornfully.

Then I was seized with the kind of deviltry that used sometimes to overcome Lleu. Medraut was such a self-contained prig; somebody had to challenge him. I neither knew nor cared what rules of protocol I might be breaking: this was my brother, my lifelong friend and opponent.

“Ras Meder, Medraut son of Artos, you posturing stiff-necked hermit!” I cried. “We used to call you marksman! How long has it been since you rode in the hunt? You’ll never catch me!” I crouched down in my saddle and tore away.

God, it was good to race. I glanced over my shoulder and saw, with a thrill of excitement and crazy joy, that Medraut was pounding after me.

We left Wazeb and his band on the river’s edge. Medraut could not get close to me. I slowed my horse and came to a halt, waiting for him.

He was smiling. His mouth had quirked unaware into its odd, characteristic half-smile, amused and relaxed. Since before Camlan, I think, I had only ever seen the ghost of that smile, in Telemakos.

Medraut reached over to give me a playful clout on the shoulder. I laughed. Then he raised his head, scanning the highland fields.

“What is it?” I asked.

Medraut pointed at a dark and glinting patch that moved across the plain beyond us. It would have had the look of an approaching herd of buffalo or gazelle, but for the glitter and toss of something like gold in its midst.

“It looks like a hunting party.”

Medraut nodded, narrowing his eyes and gazing into the distance.

“It is Abreha,” I said.

Medraut saluted me, then turned quickly and rode back toward our own party. His first duty now was as Wazeb’s spear bearer.

With fearful speed, our huntsmen became courtiers and soldiers. The racing contestants now waited in ordered ranks, bright with armor and ceremonial silks, as Abreha’s embassy approached. Medraut and Priamos stood opposite each other in place at Wazeb’s shoulders, each armed formally, and somewhat vainly, with a short spear cast in solid gold.

“Well,” Constantine remarked, at my own side, “At least Priamos makes a show of loyalty.”

It was outrageous. I laughed aloud.

“Priamos Anbessa is the most loyal man I know. Let him serve you faithfully, and he will. What does everyone see in him that makes him such a monster?”

“We see Abreha,” answered Constantine simply.

“Abreha, still chewing over the evils of Abreha! Heaven help us! We are all awaiting Abreha’s great offer of reconciliation,” I said. “What has Priamos to do with it?”

Abreha’s company had landed at the southern port of Deire and trekked across the Salt Desert, a more arduous journey than our own. They marched solemnly with pennants and silken fringes fluttering. I could hear nothing but the whine of insects and the distant squeal and titter of baboons as we waited for the Himyarites to join us.

Priamos stood frowning ferociously. Like Ityopis, he had covered his hair with a head cloth bound with silver to mark his nobility. I thought of the image on the reverse of Caleb’s coin.