Oh please, Telemakos prayed silently, let the najashi be already safely past this with Athena.
The people of the towns and villages Telemakos passed through were all tense and tired. He and his guards had only a day’s march yet to the Hot Lands when they came upon a group of farmers and officials arguing loudly, while onlookers raised their fists and hissed. Telemakos swerved from the main track toward the conflict without being aware he was doing it. Harun strode up beside him, herding him back to the road.
“Nosing in others’ business?” Harun jested.
But the others were hesitating, too; the valley below them roiled with smoke. “Let him nose,” said the captain. “It will give this inferno a chance to burn off.”
They went in single file across a narrow ridge between two gullies so they might join the gathering. When they came closer, they could see that the crowd stood in a circle of ground at the upper edge of a sizable reservoir, half full. It was cleverly built into the hillside, and its walls formed the sides of the terrace below, so covered with grapevines that you would not know the reservoir was there unless you were standing on its rim.
A delegation from the besieged township lower down the valley was asking if the water could be tapped to help them fight the fires below. Their headman argued with a local official, back and forth, both of them stiffly courteous and neither yielding.
Telemakos was a slave to curiosity. He slid through the gathering to get closer to the arguing men. He loved the ease with which he could move among these folk who did not know him, now that he was out of San’a; his hair and eyes were always strange, but his skin was no darker or paler here than anyone else’s. In Aksum, in his home, he had had to make an effort to be inconspicuous; in Himyar he blended well enough that he did not have to hide behind people. Infiltrating this crowd was easy. Harun managed to stick by him as he wormed his way to the front, but they left the rest of their band behind.
Telemakos saw how defensively the local spokesman stood, with his back to the sluices and his expression fixed and fierce, and felt instantly, inexplicably sorry for him.
“But I do not know what to do,” this village official was saying unhappily. “I do not have the authority to divert this water. And what if the fire comes here, and I have spent Wadi ar Ramadah’s reservoir on Wadi Risyan, what do I do then?”
“It surely will come here if it’s not put out,” the headman from the lower township retorted angrily. “Do it to save your own crops if you must, your own homes if not ours; but do it now.”
Telemakos listened to their exchange with interest and caution, as anxious as anyone that the grass fires on the lower terraces be contained, as otherwise he was bound to walk straight through them. And he was tired, despite the attention of his guard, nerves worn thin with flame and fear and grief. He was not looking forward to fighting his way across the Hot Lands.
“I do not have the authority,” the reservoir’s representative repeated slowly and emphatically, as though he were speaking to a child in a foreign language. “Do you think I do not want to help you? I do not lack sympathy. I lack authority.”
Telemakos hesitated briefly. He had an idea that would either turn him into a hero or a fool. But it did not matter if he made himself ridiculous, and it might help; so he stepped decisively between the arguing men and knelt at their feet with his head bowed. He splayed his fingers across the back of his neck, framing the new brand that burned there, oozing red. It was healing slowly; he rinsed it daily, but he still had not dared to touch it directly.
“Here’s your authority,” Telemakos said. “Do what you need; hold me responsible.”
He thought he could almost feel the heat of their stares, blazing down at him like flames fanned by the dry wind.
“That is the najashi’s seal,” the local spokesman and the visiting headman explained to each other, speaking both at once, and then they both went abruptly quiet, embarrassed and polite.
“Is it authority enough?” Telemakos asked, his head bent, still kneeling to show off the blaze.
“Yes, yes,” said the spokesman in hasty agreement. “Indeed, yes. I would not have hesitated if I had known—”
“I will give you a lock of my hair, too, as proof that I was here and spoke to you, in case anyone questions your decision in weeks to come.” Telemakos raised his head, elated and somewhat choked with mirth as he considered the trail of havoc he could leave on his way through Abreha’s kingdom, wielding his own scorched, living skin as a weapon of unchallenged power.
He stood up. He was not exactly inconspicuous anymore; he felt as if he had just thrown off a disguise.
He asked, “If you really are going to drain your reservoir, can I watch?”
Harun was quiet, very quiet that evening as they camped. They had not built a fire themselves since they had left the highlands, not daring the risk of it spreading. And, too, they had been gifted generously with fresh bread and yogurt, and a skin of local wine, from the township with the reservoir. It was no great challenge for Telemakos to dip bread in yogurt and put it in his mouth. But Harun waited on him industriously, all the while holding this polite and fearful silence.
“Harun, have I offended you?” Telemakos asked at last.
Harun would not look at him. By now Telemakos was used to the way they all lowered their eyes when they spoke to him, but now Harun would not so much as turn his face in Telemakos’s direction. He looked at the ground as he answered with neutral respect, “Oh—indeed not, sir.”
“Well, then, what’s the matter with you?”
Harun drew a deep breath. At last he said evenly, “You know—we have said we know as little about you as you know about us. And none of us, yourself especially, is at liberty to tell why he’s sent on a certain errand, or where our errands will bring us. I have today seen a thing, the mark of Solomon on your skin, that … maybe raises you in my esteem, but also makes me wonder who you are. And what you are.”
Harun took another breath, and no one interrupted him. He had all their attention.
“Asad bore that mark, in the same place you bear it. The najashi’s own son. It was there as long as I knew him.”
Telemakos stared at Harun through narrowed eyes, astonished. But Harun was still glaring fixedly at the ground by his own feet.
“Maybe the najashi put his seal on you so that I would wait on you as I waited on his son.”