“That would not be right,” Abreha answered mildly. “Your father is wise enough to draw his own conclusions. Read on.”
Abreha can use Menelik now, if need be, to make the killing blow once the dogs have brought down their prey. But then Menelik always thinks the kill belongs to him. Abreha may reason with him at such times, but the lion snaps at all the others as though they are his cubs, or his mates, and are trying to cheat him of his masterly share. I hope when my seclusion is through, Menelik will remember me, because the najashi estimates that at one year old Menelik weighs as much as a grown man, and though I, too, have begun rapidly increasing in stature, I do not think I will catch up to the lion.
The najashi skimmed through the letter himself, as he always did, then sealed it without fuss.
“Can you imagine what your father will make of my lunacy when he reads this tale, Morningstar?” he commented. “Don’t be surprised if he forbids you to hunt with me, or orders another long confinement for yourself.”
It would be worth it, Telemakos thought, to know that my letters are going where they are supposed to.
He never received any response from his father. He never received anything from Goewin. But it could have meant Abreha was keeping his mail from him. The najashi had done that before; his family’s letters made mention of some impenetrable circumstance the najashi did not want Telemakos to discover, perhaps to do with the departed British ambassador. The letters arriving from Telemakos’s mother were two months old, and predated his disgrace.
Endless weeks passed. It was nearly a year since Telemakos had first arrived in Himyar. The apricots were harvested, Athena passed her second birthday, and lordlings from all Arabia began gathering for the Great Assembly, the yearly meeting of Abreha’s Federation. Telemakos did not witness any of these things. He knew they were happening, or he heard about them from Dawit. He memorized maps and watched the stars and slept on the floor of the Great Globe Room with his head close to the pulley hole, where he could catch the faint breath of Athena’s sandalwood-scented hair and hear her self-pitying baby sobs as she cried herself to sleep.
Dawit woke him in the middle of one night, kicking him gently. It took Telemakos some time to work out that this was real, and not some new abuse of his own dreams.
“Get up, boy,” the Star Master barked. “Fetch clean tablets and an abacus, and give them to me to carry. You go ahead, up to the gallery on the roof. The librarian says there’s a star shower on.”
Telemakos, struggling from sleep, obeyed numbly. He had got used to navigating the Globe Room in the dark, for Dawit rarely bothered to light a lamp in the evening, and Telemakos still could not master the striking of a flint one-handed to make a light himself. Groping in the gloom, Telemakos found three writing tablets fresh with new wax, and a portable abacus with its own stand. Dawit took the things and pushed Telemakos up the steps that led to the door to the scriptorium.
“Go on, go! We’re missing it! Harith doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Every time a star falls he thinks the world is coming to an end. And anyway, he can’t count.”
Telemakos felt his way along the scriptorium shelves to the narrow stairway that led to the roof. Dawit followed behind, his arms full.
The parapet around the base of the Globe Room’s dome was the highest point of the Ghumdan palaces that could be reached without scaling the slopes of the dome itself. There was scarcely room for two men to pass abreast on this terrace, and the stair that led to it was so narrow and steep that you had to climb it face-to both up and down, like a ladder. Telemakos emerged blinking from the black pit of the stairwell to a warm summer night lit faintly by a sliver of new moon, about to set, and streaked silver above and behind him with falling stars.
He could see the silhouettes of half a dozen men leaning against the dome or the rails of the terrace, and realized suddenly that he had not got dressed. He stood limned with starlight, all strengths and flaws on full view to any whose eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to be able to see him.
“Get out of the way,” Dawit said behind him, gruffly.
Telemakos stepped aside and crouched low on the parapet, partly out of embarrassment and partly because he was blocking the view. He moved quickly, and the silver bells at his elbow thrashed and jangled like an accompaniment to the strange show in the sky.
“Welcome, young prince,” said the najashi’s voice. He spoke in Greek, the common language of the Red Sea.
It was impossible to tell which of the figures was Abreha until the najashi made his way along the terrace to meet him. Abreha took off his own short surcoat and slung the heavy embroidered silk over Telemakos’s shoulders. Then he offered Telemakos his hand and raised him to his feet.
“Come and join us! I’ve saved a good place for you, so you may act as Dawit’s eyes.” The watchers made room for Telemakos deferentially, with good nature. “Come along, stand here. There is room for your abacus by the railing. Dawit, my Star Master, here is a seat for you.”
The najashi’s robe was too broad for Telemakos. Its folds flapped loose and got in his way as he tried to erect the abacus, which he just managed to discreetly save from being knocked over the edge of the terrace. He slipped his sound arm free of the trailing sleeve and let the silk hang precariously from one shoulder, hiding the bare stump of his lost arm. The chimes at his elbow shivered and sang.
“Let me muffle those bells,” said the najashi, untying his own fine sash. “Their ringing will distract us.”
He took Telemakos by the wrist and wrapped the belt of silk again and again around the charm bracelet, tying it off securely. Telemakos watched him do it, aware of the shooting stars littering the sky above him.
“Some princess’s sweetheart, is he, your young astronomer, wearing her gift as a decoration?” jested a man who spoke Greek with a Persian accent.
“He is adored by his infant sister,” Abreha answered lightly. “Little bells keep her entertained. He does not wear them idly, though the right to display some decoration would be his if he were given to vanity. This is Lij Bitwoded Telemakos, the beloved young prince Telemakos, heir to the Aksumite house of Nebir and a favorite of the emperor Gebre Meskal.”
The dark, faceless figures around him bent their heads in respect, there being no room to kneel.
Telemakos stood frozen and astonished, not knowing what to make of this formal introduction.