The Empty Kingdom (The Lion Hunters #5)

“Well met again, Abreha Anbessa, Lion King of Himyar!”

Goewin beckoned Telemakos forward and gripped him by the shoulders, so that she and Priamos flanked him protectively, like the emperor’s spearbearers. But when Telemakos leaned over the rail, Abreha did not speak. He gazed up at Telemakos in silence.

Telemakos did not look away. Long seconds passed, and after a time the sounds of wind and sea and the noise of work in the prison quarry seemed to become oppressively loud.

“My najashi!” Telemakos called down. “Please don’t punish Iskinder.”

Abreha only glared up at him accusatorily, until Telemakos felt almost desperate that the najashi speak to him.

“I’m sorry I poisoned your crew,” Telemakos offered. He was in truth rather appalled at the number of men he had laid low in making his escape. He was not sorry for any of the rest of it.

Abreha stated coolly, “You swore to me once that you are not a thief.”

“I am not a thief,” Telemakos retorted. “I am about to pay off all my debt to you. And anyway, you swore to me that you would forgive me anything but knowledge.”

“I did what?”

“On the night you sealed our covenant. Our first covenant, when you told me you had written out my death warrant. You held the mark of Solomon before me on your open hand, and said, ‘There is no tangible thing you could take from me that I would not forgive you.’”

The najashi knelt upright in the bobbing hawri, frowning thoughtfully. Then light seemed to break across his face, and he was smiling his joyful, child’s smile. “I remember. And you, silver-tongued sycophant, compared me to Solomon in my wisdom and forgiveness.”

Abreha threw back his head and laughed.

“I suppose I must forgive you, then, if I already gave my oath that I would.”

“My najashi,” Telemakos called, and managed to keep his voice from cracking. “Mukarrib, Federator of Himyar! I would like to link the Hanish Archipelago with your Federation!”

“So be it!” Abreha cried. “So be it. By heaven, you shall seal this contract yourself. You may keep my ring, on condition that you wear it, King of the Pearl Fishers! You may keep it, on condition that you bring it back to Himyar on your one fine hand, as my son should have done, if it is required of you! I will forgive the mark you took from me, if you forgive the one I made on you!”

Telemakos lightly touched the seal at the back of his neck, and thought about the pact he was about to enter into. The threat of death was gone, but it had never been real. The danger of death was real, and would be there always. All the old bonds were still in place and more: his service to the najashi, and the emperor, and the high king.

“You should have been plain with me,” Telemakos said. “You should have told me what it meant.”

“I did you wrong. I meant well. I am sorry.”

“If I did you wrong, I am not sorry!”

“But you are sorry for Iskinder.” The najashi laughed again. “Well, if I can bring myself to send you away with my pardon, it is a small thing to overlook Iskinder’s negligence into the bargain. When are you coming back to Himyar?”

“After your death! And not if I’m needed elsewhere first!”

“Good,” said Abreha. “That’s all I ask of you.”

Telemakos blessed him. “God grant you a great long life of prosperity, and also many healthy children of your own, my najashi.”

He meant it.

The Aksumite fleet was dismissed from al-Kabir. There was a change of guard at the prison, which Telemakos did not witness, because Priamos’s ship was long departed before the military formalities were finished. The monsoon had not yet begun and the wind was still in their favor; they sped smoothly back to Adulis, running before the wind.

Telemakos slept contentedly through the dark, gentle nights of the sea voyage. His dreams were quiet and unmemorable, save one.

He knelt alone at a well in the Salt Desert, dipping up water in a small wooden cup. The cup was perfectly round, like a globe; it fit smoothly into the palm of Telemakos’s single hand. When he looked inside it, the water was so clear he could see each grain of wood magnified, and the pattern made by these lines formed a miniature map of the world. Reflected light glinted here and there within the little hollow as though the map etched there was lit with tiny gold stars. When Telemakos lifted the cup to his lips he was astonished to find that the water of this barren place was sweet, and pure and cold as al-Surat mountain rain.

When Telemakos woke, he imagined the taste of this water lingered in his mouth.

“Peace to you, Lij Telemakos,” said the familiar gatekeeper of the archon’s mansion in the Aksumite port of Adulis. He bowed. “You’ve been lost. You have grown into a young warrior since you were here four years past!”

Turunesh was spinning flax in the basalt forecourt, expecting him. Telemakos knocked the bobbins flying across the glittering black pavement as he threw himself into her arms. Pandemonium broke loose as the white salukis joined him, competing wildly for his attention. Over his mother’s shoulder, camouflaged among the black columns and tossing green fronds of the ornamental date palms, he could see a small figure following the salukis.

“Athena!” Telemakos cried out, reaching to her. “My Athena!”

She came tearing across the courtyard. “Telemakos, Telemakos!” She did not walk. She ran.