Home > The Empty Kingdom (The Lion Hunters #5)(33)

The Empty Kingdom (The Lion Hunters #5)(33)
Author: Elizabeth Wein

“Not so much,” Tharan directed. “Show them humility, not shame. Are you ashamed of yourself?”

Telemakos did not think Tharan expected an answer to this, but he raised his chin, keeping his eyes cast down.

“Princely,” Tharan said. “Perfect. Hold that. Can you?”

“Sir.”

“I shall cough, to remind you, if I see you falter.”

“I don’t understand,” Telemakos said quietly. “Why does it matter how I—”

He stood suddenly overwhelmed by his own perfidy, frozen, unable to step forward into this bleak, brief future he had created for himself, facing a lifetime’s worth of fear and torment packed into a few weeks.

Tharan gripped him by the shoulders, as a soldier would his comrade before battle.

“Morningstar,” he said, “do not be afraid.”

Telemakos managed to swallow, and held his chin raised and his eyes lowered. He felt sure he must seem as demure as Muna as he walked into the assembly room where King Solomon was said to have held his councils.

Telemakos had no idea what to expect of this ordeal, but his first shocked thought as he entered the arena was that he knew every one of his judges by name. There were sheiks he had met on his first day in Himyar, at the Governor’s palace in al-Muza; others he had been introduced to and spoken with at the last Great Assembly of the Federation; Shadi and Jibril and Haytham of the Scions; and Malika’s uncle Alim, who had traveled with them from Marib. Dawit Alta’ir the Star Master was there, representing his home island kingdom of Socotra.

And why isn’t the najashi here himself? Telemakos wondered bitterly—but of course, the najashi was taking Athena to Aksum.

Telemakos stepped into the center of the room to meet the contempt of the gathered tribal lords. It had taken less courage to face down a pair of fighting lions.

His first interview lasted all that day. But it did not have the feel of the criminal trial Telemakos had expected. From the start it seemed far more like a scholar’s examination than an inquisition. Dawit spent an hour quizzing Telemakos on his knowledge of Himyar’s water: which provinces each wadi valley irrigated, how to harvest flood waters, the working of the wells beneath San’a, the depth behind the dams. It seemed unjust to Telemakos that he might be accused of treachery for possessing knowledge that his Himyarite masters had pounded into his head without his ever asking for it in the first place, but it also seemed pointless to pretend he did not know these things. So long as his questioners were focused on their own kingdom they did not touch on Aksum, and that was a relief.

The three Scions were given their fair turn to speak among the others. They sat together in a tense, conspiratorial knot. They avoided looking at Telemakos, but they were scribbling furiously back and forth among themselves on wax blocks the whole time, and Telemakos guessed they were probably more focused on him than anyone else there. They elected quiet Shadi as their spokesman. Shadi looked at him directly when he spoke, as a king to a supplicant. Telemakos kept his eyes lowered.

“Your loyalty is in doubt,” Shadi said, a thing no one else had directly mentioned.

“My lord,” Telemakos acknowledged.

“Jibril and I have good reason to uphold you, but Haytham wants you to account for your interest in Awsan.”

“I have none,” said Telemakos. “I’ve never set foot in Awsan.”

Shadi directed his reply to the assembly as much as to Telemakos. He ducked his head and murmured in his half-embarrassed way, “Haytham observes, by your answers to the Star Master, that you’re more intimate with Awsan’s fruits and fields than he is.”

“Anyone can memorize names and figures,” Dawit snapped, “and it is a pity Haytham of Awsan has not applied himself better to the geography of his own kingdom. The Morningstar has never been to Britain, either, but he has got the measure of it in his head. Tell this assembly of Britain’s principal rivers and where they flow, Morningstar, just as you have done for Himyar.”

Half in disbelief, because it was so irrelevant, Telemakos spoke hesitantly. “Tamesis, in the southlands, flowing east; Sabrina in the west; and Tava in Caledonia, north of the Roman wall. These are the largest …”

Tharan coughed. Telemakos had raised his eyes, without thinking, to see if anyone was actually interested. He looked down quickly.

“Did you ever think to hear such a thing?” Dawit Alta’ir demanded of no one in particular, sitting back and picking leaves from his beard. “A young Aksumite speaking the names Tamesis, Sabrina, and Tava in Ghumdan’s alabaster halls? He knows what he knows. Question him further if you are dissatisfied with him, my princes and my servants. Question him yourselves; I will not.”

The interrogation lasted three days, not always under the same people. For its duration Telemakos was housed with the palace guard in their barracks. No one seemed specifically assigned to watch over him, but he was expected to adhere to the warriors’ routine and standards and was never left alone. Each night before Telemakos slept, Tharan stopped by to bid him good night and to drip clean water over the burn at the back of his neck.

When the Federation assembly had finished with him, Telemakos started on the journey to al-Muza and the Hanish Islands to fulfill his pledge to the najashi. He traveled as one of a detail of young Himyarite soldiers. None of them towered over him as the cadets had done two years ago, though he was more slightly built than they; dressed like them for desert travel, and with his hair plaited tight against his skull, Telemakos looked like one of their number. Only he carried no weapon.

In the evenings, as they roasted partridge over a sage-scented cooking fire, the soldiers talked neutrally about hunting and the day’s journey. Telemakos studied his companions’ faces from beneath his lashes and wondered why these particular men had been chosen as his guard. Some of them were not very much older than he. He was curious about them but did not want to risk being cut cold by his only companions when they might be under orders not to speak to him casually. No one had said anything, in the middle of the first night out from San’a, when Telemakos had suddenly sat up sobbing aloud and calling for Kidane—Save me, save me, Grandfather! He would have been deeply embarrassed if anyone had said anything, so maybe they were just being polite. He did not want to have to explain the wound on his neck, either, and only rinsed it briefly when no one was looking.

   
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