Jibril laughed. “Oh, of a surety, you have lost his trust. And so he names you beloved cupbearer, and trains you to hunt and to ride and to fight, and gives you opium whenever you need it, and indulges you when you bring your baby sister to his feasts or his councils or wherever you like, and follows your advice when you tell him which of his principalities to marry together!”
“Follows my advice!” Telemakos echoed, taken aback. “Is that true? Shadi, king of Qataban!” he called out, glancing behind him. “Has the najashi changed his mind about who is to marry Malika?”
“So she boasts,” said Shadi gruffly, hurrying to catch up with them. He had hold of Athena’s feet, one in each hand, to stop her kicking him. “Ah-la-la,” he hummed tunelessly at her ear. Telemakos began to understand how the Scions’ puzzling loyalty had taken root.
“I heard it, too,” Jibril said. “When last the najashi came hawking with us himself, I heard his lieutenant talking about it. And I wondered …”
Jibril hesitated yet again.
“… I wondered if you might find out what he plans for my future, now that I have come of age and have pledged him my service. I dread the day I must return to my father’s brother in Kinda, who neglects the tithe he owes to the najashi, and sends out raids against my mother’s tribe. How can I unite them for the Federation, I who have no skill with words or weapons?”
They walked the windy grasslands in silence, except for Athena’s occasional self-pitying sniffs. Telemakos kept his attention on the sparrowhawk, thinking.
“You want me to speak to Abreha on your behalf.”
“You helped Malika and Shadi.”
“So you did,” Shadi agreed.
Telemakos turned the names of kingdoms over in his head, as though he were memorizing the names of rivers or stars: Sheba and Qataban, Sheba and Qataban. He could see their outlines spread on the world as they spread on a map, the green terraced hillsides rich with frankincense and grain, the torrid ports beyond the narrow straits that guarded the Red Sea.
I could make a collection, Telemakos thought, of tribute owed me by Himyar’s rising generation. Which is Jibril’s kingdom—Kinda? How will Abreha go on playing God with me when I am able to twist debts of loyalty out of Sheba, Qataban, and Kinda? That’s a quarter of his kingdom.
“Perhaps the najashi might arm you, now that you’ve reached manhood,” Telemakos said slowly. “You could train with the young soldiers, as I do. Then you will have some standing when you return to your tribe.”
“I would be indebted to you.”
“I won’t forget,” Telemakos said, smiling. “I’ll tell him.”
It was well into Himyar’s dry winter months then, the traveling season, and still Telemakos had no letters from his father or his aunt. But his mother wrote to him at last:
A sad thing has happened to our neighbors. Gedar is discovered to have had a large store of salt illegally acquired during the quarantine, and also stands accused of other petty thefts and piracies, so he has been arrested and fined and put to labor. The emperor has been merciful to his family, though. He has taken the children in as pages, and allowed their mother to go away to live with her sister. The villa opposite our house stands empty now. Perhaps Abreha has already told you this sad news, for I know that Gedar used to supply all the najashi’s lamp oil.
Your aunt Goewin sends you greetings, and also your father.
VII
A GAME OF JACOB’S DREAM
“THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR IS back,” said Shadi. “I saw the najashi showing him the falcons, when Jibril and I were down yesterday.”
“It wasn’t the British ambassador.” Quarrelsome Haytham, who was by birth king of Awsan, spoke quickly. “It was a white man, but it wasn’t Gwalchmei. It was an older man, and taller, and Gwalchmei’s hair was red, not moonlight fair.”
“He looked like Gwalchmei,” said Shadi. “Gwalchmei with silver hair. Gwalchmei’s beard was silver-fair, remember? Maybe his hair’s gone white, too. He would be older now.”
“He couldn’t be taller, could he?” Haytham derided.
“Who else has such hair?”
Telemakos caught his breath. He was idly stringing wooden beads with Athena, holding up a leather lace for her to thread them on, but he was listening intently as always to everything the fourteen Scions said. Head bent, watching through his lashes, he could see all of Abreha’s foster children turn to gaze at him as if in obvious answer to Shadi’s idiotic question.
“It’s Ras Meder, Medraut son of Artos, Medraut of Britain,” said Jibril.
Telemakos carefully let out the held breath, too steeled to disappointment to allow himself to believe this news, yet half expecting it. For nearly a year he had been hiding secrets in everything he wrote, and he had immediately seen the double meaning in the cryptic close of his mother’s letter: Your aunt sends greetings, and also your father.
Athena held the leather lace upside down so that all the beads slid off.
“Who is it?” she asked. “Who is coming? Who is Ras Meder?”
Telemakos gazed at her in guilty sorrow. “Ras Meder is our father,” he said. “Yours and mine.” He should have taught her her father’s name by now. She ought to know her father’s name, and her mother’s.
Malika turned on him with accusation in her voice.
“You didn’t tell us your father was on his way here, Morningstar.”
“I didn’t know,” Telemakos answered, and could not stop his heart leaping with excitement and sudden hope. “I’ve had no more than two letters from him since I arrived in San’a. If he’s here, it’s not on my account.”
“That’s so,” said Jibril. “He wants to be the new British ambassador.”
But three days passed, and still Telemakos never saw Medraut, and would not have known he was there if the Scions had not told him so.
On the third morning he saw that his father was sitting with the najashi on one of the upper terraces during the young spearmen’s target practice, watching him. Telemakos’s aim went all to hell after that. Tharan, in disgust, put him to shame by setting him to retrieving spent spears.
Telemakos went to see the lion later that afternoon; lions always consoled him. Telemakos was too tall now to ride on Menelik’s back as he used to with the lion Solomon, but Athena could. Telemakos held her in place and she clung to the short black tufts of Menelik’s new mane. The young lion walked sedately around the dogs’ racetrack with Athena sitting astride his shoulders.