The Lion Hunter

Page 17

He did not expect the clear treble of his voice to ring with such damning scorn.
The men fell silent and stared at Telemakos. Then one of the chieftains bowed to him with exaggerated courtesy.
“He is hiding his crown in his pocket,” the man explained to his companions, and they fell about laughing. Then they cut Telemakos low with ridicule.
“His queen sits in his other pocket.”
“He travels with all his court about him.”
“How many paces does it take to measure your dominion, little sheik?”
Telemakos bent his head before them, his cheeks burning, knowing he deserved this. What a day. He glanced upward through his lashes for an instant and saw that Abreha Anbessa, the Lion Hunter of Himyar, najashi over all the Arabs of the coastal plains and the highlands, stood in their midst.
The najashi wore a linen head cloth like any Aksumite noble, bound about his temples by a narrow rope of coiled gold. His skin was considerably darker than that of the Himyar natives, and Telemakos was reminded that he and the najashi were countrymen, though he would have recognized him anyway by the heavy brow that made him so like his brother Priamos. Abreha had sensibly and firmly taken hold of Menelik’s lead.
“Dogs, dogs, dogs!” Athena told them all.
“Pardon, pardon, gentle masters,” Telemakos apologized with due humility. “I am ashamed. I am your servant.”
Abreha cut him off with his own name, speaking with fond recognition and no surprise.
“Lij Telemakos Meder, at last. My sheiks, my brothers, cry welcome to this prince, and do not mock him. I expect he does not yet have the measure of his dominion.”
Abreha pushed aside one of the dogs. He knelt with one arm lying fearlessly along the lion’s back and looked Telemakos up and down in silence.
“You are not the same child I met seven years ago,” the najashi said at last. “Did I not warn you to beware Solomon’s teeth? Do you remember?”
“I shall surely take better heed of your warnings in future,” Telemakos said.
“Your tongue is still as silver as your hair, Lij Telemakos.” Abreha’s attendants chuckled in agreement. “Or Beloved Telemakos, as Gebre Meskal names you in his letter. How you are favored! That was my father’s title, too. Well, I could ask no better fortune than that the son of Medraut of Britain grace my court this year. Where have you been all afternoon, you elusive young jackal? Your recommendations came straight to me, instead of dawdling about the city with their wayward owner.”
“I did not think! Again pardon—” Telemakos bit down on his silver tongue to keep it still, and lifted the najashi’s free hand to his lips to kiss it ceremonially. Abreha wore a heavy intaglio ring of some dull metal, pewter-sheened as a storm cloud. It was engraved with his mark, the lion’s head within the five-rayed star.
The great ring was level with Athena’s chin. Copying Telemakos, she seized the najashi’s dark, narrow hand in both of hers and kissed the impression of the lion. Her bracelet from Gedar jangled. She gazed at the king of Himyar with her luminous eyes, her nose still pressed against his ring.
“Lion,” she said.
His courtiers burst into laughter. She was talking about the picture on his ring, but it sounded as though she were addressing him.
Abreha let the baby linger over the glowering sigil.
“It is supposed to have belonged to Solomon,” he told Telemakos, “passed down all the ages from father to son. It is the crest of my father, Ras Bitwoded Anbessa, the Lion of Wedem. Asad, my eldest son, who is dead now, was named ‘lion’ like my father, but in South Arabian.”
Still he did not take his hand away. “She’s wise for her years, this bright-eyed enchantress you carry with you. Athena, is it? The goddess of wisdom! Most appropriate.” The najashi smiled. His full smile was a surprise, breaking his unhappy frown with joy and light. “Young Princess, Emebet Athena Meder. You are welcome to my kingdom.”
Telemakos did not think he had ever heard anyone call his sister by her title and full name. He looked down at her as if seeing a different girl there: a small royal lady who could charm a king with a word and a kiss, with hair like a cloud of spun bronze and eyes of gray crystal.
And what do I look like, he wondered as an afterthought. What do they see first: my white hair, my one arm, my sorcerous eyes?
Abreha showed no sign that he noticed any of these things.
“Look at this, my sheiks, my brothers,” the king of Himyar announced. “We have lost Himyar’s rising generation, but we are gifted now with Britain’s.”
“Goewin Dragon’s Daughter would never send you such treasures, my najashi, if she knew what a wolf you are,” said one of the turbaned men.
“She knows what I am,” Abreha answered softly.
Athena still had hold of the najashi’s hand. He raised the children both at once, drawing on Athena to bring Telemakos to his feet. “You need not kneel to these men, Lij Telemakos,” said the najashi. “All princes are of equal merit in my Federation. I guide them, but I do not rule them. Najashi is the South Arabian word for ‘king,’ but my formal title is a more ancient word, mukarrib, ‘federator.’”
He stood with Telemakos at his side and ruffled the short scruff at the back of Menelik’s neck. He said to his companions, “We’ll let the young lion learn to run with the salukis, eh?”
XI
STAIRWAYS
TELEMAKOS SPENT MOST OF the next day sitting in the shade of the colonnaded courtyard and composing a letter to his mother. The first part was easy, telling of his journey and Athena’s adventures on the ship. He drew a sketch of Athena sitting in a boat, smiling and waving her wooden giraffe, which he hoped would make his mother laugh. He assured Turunesh that Abreha Anbessa was happy to accept both children into his household.
It was more difficult to word the cryptic information Telemakos wanted to embed in this bland report. He practiced his message to Goewin in wax and let Athena rub it out with her fist, until he had what he wanted to say by heart and could transcribe it directly onto a palm strip without leaving any legible trace of his false starts:
Please send my love also to my father and my aunt. My father should be thankful I am here with the lion, for I have seen it kill a scorpion. I am glad it is bold but I hope it does not happen again.
Telemakos had no doubt that Goewin would decipher this the first time she heard it. The meaning seemed so plain to him he had misgivings about letting it go, but no one questioned that he should let his mother know he had arrived safely. No one even asked to look at the letter, let alone censor it. Abreha sealed it with his own mark, to speed its passage.
Two days later they started for San’a. The najashi traveled modestly, on foot, with an entourage of half a dozen men and three camels, and Telemakos carried Athena. She was a good traveler. Medraut had sewn several pockets into the side of her harness, and she would spend most of a march fitting a stalk of sugar cane into each of these by turns before she finally decided to teethe on it. She switched at flies with an ostrich feather, for Telemakos as well as herself.
“How many weeks has it been since either one of you used a comb, boy?” Abreha asked him. It was after sundown; the worst of the low-lying Hot Lands were behind them, and they were about to enter the wadi valley that channeled the mountain rainwater. They had found grazing for the camels and set snares for sandgrouse to feed the lion. Now they sat in firelight over the evening meal. “You’ll soon find things nesting in your hair.”
“We’re both perfectly nit free just now,” Telemakos answered defensively.
“I mean mice, or birds.”
Telemakos laughed.
“Give me your comb, Boulos,” the najashi said to one of his companions. The soldiers wore their long hair plaited and buttered sleekly against their scalps. “Now, will the young princess Emebet Athena let me untangle her bright hair? Come here, my honey badger.”
Telemakos had never seen her so indulgent of a stranger. She steadied herself against the najashi and pulled at his bushy eyebrows and chewed on the signet ring that was said to have belonged to King Solomon. Then she sat contentedly in Abreha’s lap and let him pick through her hair for a full ten minutes or so before demanding, “Tena do.”
Her arms were still so babily disproportionate to her body that she could scarcely reach the top of her own head. If she did manage it, she would not draw the teeth through her hair, in case she pulled it.
“Boy,” she said, and waved the comb at Telemakos. “Boy’s hair. Tena do.”
He bent his head to her, to let her try. She was gentler than his mother. She trawled through the tips of Telemakos’s hair with the mesmerizing, absorbed patience of a cat washing itself.
I’ll let her do it every day, he thought. In a year or two she’ll do it properly, and I won’t have to ask for help.
“They share everything,” Boulos observed. “Did you see them this afternoon, brother and sister, taking turns drinking from the same goatskin bottle?”
“Aye,” said Abreha thoughtfully. “They hold it between them.”
Telemakos said, “We shoot together, too. She holds the stones, I the sling.”
The soldiers clapped and laughed, enchanted. “Seeing is believing! Show us, show us!”
Abreha stopped Telemakos from reaching for his sling.
“We are not a traveling circus,” the najashi said in a low firm voice, reminding Telemakos again of his own father.
Athena crawled away from Telemakos in the night to cuddle up with the lion. Left alone on the warm, dry ground at the edge of the Himyarite Hot Lands, Telemakos dreamed he was sharing a meal of injera bread and fasting food, no meat, with a man who had a lion’s head and a scorpion’s hands. They were feeding each other, by way of honor. The lion’s teeth snatched the thin bread and greens from Telemakos’s fingertips with fearful enthusiasm. He will eat me next, Telemakos kept thinking, there is not enough here to satisfy him.
Abreha’s hand on his forehead woke him to snarling battle.
“Get away from my eyes!”
It was early morning. The scrubland where they were camped was veiled in blue light; the sun was not yet up.
“Mercy on us, child,” said Abreha softly. “What is wrong with your eyes?”
The other men were awake, busy with the camels and the cooking fire. Menelik was sitting upright, tethered to his stake, calmly washing himself. Athena slept on, pressed against the lion’s thigh with her arms and legs tucked beneath her.
“I—” Telemakos did not know how to answer. Never lie to Abreha, his mother had warned him. “I was dreaming. I—” He could not tell Abreha of the salt mines. “When my eyes are covered, I—” He hesitated. “I have ugly dreams, sometimes, since my accident. It was through protecting my head that I lost my arm.”
It was not untrue, just indirect.
“I know how it is with nightmares,” Abreha said, and blinked agreement, understanding. “But you were wide awake the instant I touched you. You will have to learn to control that.”