The Lion Hunter

Page 8

Telemakos followed Gedar into the corridor.
“Here, by the treasury, Japheth,” Gedar called.
“Father? Father?”
Japheth appeared around one of the dim corners. He was feeling his way, and he was very loud. Telemakos saw that he was frightened of the dark, and the dust, afraid of his own house. Telemakos felt sorry for him.
“Stop shouting, Japheth,” Gedar said mildly. “What is it?”
“Ras Meder and the lady Woyzaro Turunesh are here now, too….”
“Oh.” Gedar heaved a small sigh, and turned it into a chuckle. “A party.”
Telemakos looked away, embarrassed.
“Sir—” Japheth glanced at Telemakos, then lowered his eyes respectfully before his father. “Woyzaro Turunesh is…upset. She’s looking for her children, and Ras Meder her husband wants her to return home.” Japheth’s eyes met Telemakos’s this time, and for one astonishing moment, the two of them were united in sympathy at each other’s ghastly parents, “You’d better come to her,” Japheth said to Telemakos directly. “She’s out front.”
“Thank you,” Telemakos said.
Medraut had caught Turunesh in Gedar’s courtyard. He must have chased her all the way through Grandfather’s forecourt, across the street, and through Gedar’s gate before he got hold of her. Now he stood behind her with his arms locked around her shoulders, imprisoning her by the wrists with her own arms crossed over her chest. Goewin stood before them with Turunesh’s face clasped tenderly between her hands. She whispered something at her friend’s ear through the wild hair. All Gedar’s family stood by gawking; even the chickens seemed to be staring.
Telemakos braced the back of Athena’s head protectively against his chest and ran to his mother. Goewin stepped away and Medraut let go of one of Turunesh’s wrists, so that Telemakos could take her hand.
“Mother, I’m here. Look, I have the baby with me, too. See what Gedar’s given her?” He stretched Athena’s arm out, and she shook her silver bracelet. “Isn’t it lovely? She’s never had a decoration before—” As Turunesh grew calmer Medraut let go of her other hand, and she gripped Telemakos’s shamma.
“Where did the scorpion touch you?”
“Turunesh Kidane!” Goewin hissed.
Telemakos stood appalled, held fast by his mother’s clutching hands.
Medraut said sharply, “She overheard your grandfather telling me of your adventure this morning, Telemakos.”
Goewin drew a quick breath and did not let it go, her mouth half-opened. Telemakos shook his head silently, not understanding. Athena had spotted the chickens now and was bobbing her head and clucking in imitation of them; Telemakos watched her without seeing her.
“Of the visitor you had in your flour sack, boy,” Medraut reminded his son, but glared at Goewin as he spoke. She was not easily caught off guard. “Your mother heard Kidane speaking of the scorpion you found, and thought you might have been stung. Not satisfied with your grandfather’s pledges of your sound health, we’ve all come running over here to see for ourselves.”
“Oh,” Telemakos gasped in great relief, and laughed, comprehension coming back. Athena was so funny. She shook her head vigorously up and down along with the hens as they pecked at bugs in the dust. It was like being pulled to pieces, trying to cope with her and his mother at the same time. “I wasn’t hurt at all, I’m fine, Mother! How you worry!”
Then Gedar’s wife made a valiant effort to preserve her neighbor’s dignity. “Ah, Turunesh Kidane,” Sesen said, and came forward to kiss Turunesh on the cheek. “I can see why you should worry, when Telemakos Meder has been ill so long, and this his first time out in the wide world again. What a joy it must be that he is well. And able to help with the baby, too, clever lad. It’s a blessing he was not crippled, or worse.”
Turunesh looked down at Athena, and then at her husband. She and Medraut stared at each other, seeing and understanding something no one else saw or understood.
Sesen finished warmly, “Take care of your lovely sister, Telemakos.”
“You see it?” Turunesh said, and she was speaking only to Medraut. “Do you realize? The baby hides his arm. He looks like anyone else carrying a baby. So long as she’s there with him, no one will ever notice!”
Medraut gazed at Athena as if he were seeing her for the first time. Turunesh was right. None of Gedar’s family had noticed anything wrong with Telemakos, not even Japheth and Eon. All afternoon there had been not one remark about his missing arm. There had been no staring, no whispering.
Telemakos understood, too.
“Indeed, Sesen, my mother’s friend, I will take care of my lovely sister,” he vowed.
Medraut said, “We all will.”
VI
HOPE
TELEMAKOS STRUGGLED IN HIS sleep with such violence, trying to escape his tormenters, that he ended up halfway across his bedroom. He had managed to tangle himself so securely in the bedclothes that he could not free his face. He lay on the floor screaming, “Take it off! Take it off!” until his father came in and tore the blanket nearly in half.
Medraut held Telemakos against him without speaking while Ferem made up the bed again. Medraut’s rough cheek was cool against Telemakos’s temple. Athena wailed in her room across the hall.
“I wonder what she dreams about,” Telemakos whispered.
“Hunting for milk, probably,” Medraut murmured close to his ear.
They sat quietly on the floor together. Turunesh came in with the baby snuffling against her shoulder. She sat down with them and let Athena suckle.
Telemakos lay curled with his head in his father’s lap and his back pressed against his mother’s side, and had nearly drifted to sleep again when Medraut started to lift him up to help him back to bed. Telemakos started awake suddenly, whimpering.
“Take the baby to sleep with you,” Turunesh said. “It makes you both calmer.”
She settled them together. Athena bunched herself up like a small animal, with her arms and knees pulled up beneath her, her face turned aside so she could snuggle against Telemakos. He had never heard any sound so peaceful as her gusty, quiet snore. Turunesh kissed them each on the forehead before she left.
Medraut made a saddle for Athena to ride in so that Telemakos could carry her at his side without having to tie her in the carrying cloth. The new harness had a supporting strap held in place by a sleeve over Telemakos’s right shoulder, and a belt around his hips so that the baby’s weight did not strain his back. Athena would be able to climb in and out of the saddle herself when Telemakos unfastened the buckles.
It took Medraut several days of concentration to make the saddle. He sat on the edge of the fish pool in the garden court behind the house, stitching pieces of leather together and keeping Athena nearby so he could measure her every so often. The fish fascinated her. She stood by the rim of the pool, watching them dart back and forth, or smacking the surface of the water to make them start away. Medraut tethered her by the waist to a date palm so that she could reach the pond but not him. He cracked strips of antelope hide like a whip against the granite paving blocks if she came too close. He had caught her fingers once, and she kept clear of his work now.
This afternoon she crawled round and round the trunk of the palm until she was stuck there, and sat digging in the dirt at the foot of the tree for a few minutes before she carefully untangled herself. Telemakos watched her, fascinated, from the podium stairway at the back of the house, where she could not see him. She wound and unwound herself around the tree three times.
When Telemakos finally came toward her, she crawled to the fishpond and pulled herself up to the rim. There she stood screaming frantically, “TatatataTATATA!”
The first time she had greeted him this way, Telemakos had thought, with a surge of delight, that she was trying to say his name. But he soon realized that, in fact, she was trying to say her own name.
He sat on the pool’s rim between his father and his sister.
“Will you teach me to throw a spear?” Telemakos asked his father.
Medraut looked up. “I have not the ability. I am trained as an archer and a swordsman.”
“You were Gebre Meskal’s ceremonial spear bearer in the royal hunt, when he first became emperor. And you killed the lion whose skin hangs in the reception hall.”
“That, too, was a royal hunt. It was a test. I had to prove myself a worthy representative of my father the high king in the Aksumite court. Abreha did the same when he became king of Himyar, which is why his nobles call him ‘Lion Hunter’ now. No Himyarite before him had to pass such a test; it is a custom of the Aksumite kings.
“You have no such challenge to rise to,” Medraut finished. “If the emperor wants you for his warrior, he will give you a spear, and show you how to use it.”
“I, a warrior?” Telemakos said, and laughed. “I want to hunt with you. It doesn’t have to be lions.”
“It is no jest,” Medraut said seriously. He looked down again, and picked up his work. “I have this for you,” he said, and Telemakos saw that it was a sling, woven of intricately plaited strands of dark wool. “It will afford you some protection, and small prey if you are accurate.”
Medraut lifted a cloth that lay among his tailor’s equipment, uncovering a bowl of dried dates. He picked this up and set it between himself and Telemakos on the edge of the pool. Athena inched along the stone rim until she was leaning against Telemakos’s knees, gazing at the dates. Telemakos did not think she realized they were food; they were simply shiny and interesting. But she did not dare to touch anything that lay within her father’s perimeter.
Medraut fixed a date in the sling’s cup and let it fly in one quick, smooth flick, without any windup and apparently without aiming at anything. In the arbor that shaded the south wall of the house, a ripe fig suddenly seemed to explode.
Medraut laid the sling in Telemakos’s lap. Athena reached for it.
“Put it down,” Telemakos told her, pulling the wrist loop in place with his teeth. Athena snatched at the sling, letting out little squeaks of possession and desire. The tail end trailed in the fish pool and got wet.
“Drop it,” Medraut ordered darkly.
Athena instantly let go, like a scolded dog. Telemakos thought that Medraut could have said anything to her in that tone—“Eat up” or “Dancing time”—and she would have let go just as quickly.
Telemakos shook the water from the tail and laid open the cup between his fingers. It fell shut when he picked up a date. He tried again, and when he stood up to make the shot, the date fell out, dropping into the pool with a light plip. It floated, and Athena reached for it, then checked herself with a glance at Medraut and drew back.
Telemakos apologized. “I’m long out of practice.”
“Give it me,” Medraut said, but did not wait. He slipped the sling away from Telemakos. “Take three dates and hold them up to me one at a time.”