“You are supposed to be inconspicuous!”
Telemakos finished his circumnavigation of al-Kabir and moved on to Zuqar Island. Quietly skirting the traders’ outpost there, Telemakos considered what might happen if he did not meet Iskinder at the next inlet. Would they search for me? he wondered. If they missed me, could I then marry a fishergirl and spend the rest of my days diving for pearls?
He narrowed his eyes and kept going. One-armed pearl diver: it was stupid even to think about it, and anyway, he was branded with the najashi’s mark. He could not hide that. If a hunt was made for him, no one would dare to give him harbor against the najashi.
In something more than a month the project was finished. They sailed back to the prison harbor on al-Kabir and anchored anonymously off the beach alongside a half dozen other sleek turquoise warships from Himyar, opposite a squadron of larger, seagoing Aksumite vessels. Iskinder in his hawri canoe took Telemakos and the completed maps to Abreha’s flagship, which waited among its fellows.
The najashi’s ship was larger than the warship Telemakos had grown used to, with a fully covered lower level for its oarsmen. Abreha had his own cabin, scarcely bigger than a cupboard, fitted with a worktable that folded down over most of the floor; Telemakos had to stand at the najashi’s shoulder, there being no room to kneel, as Abreha paged through his new maps. He checked them immediately, even before he allowed Telemakos to ask about Athena.
“Tell me about this harbor.”
“You can’t see it from the water. You have to row around that headland to get in.”
“Sheltered and hidden? And deep enough for a ship?”
“If you steer clear of the reef.”
The najashi turned pages in silence.
“Fresh water here?”
“A rain pool.”
“Springs?”
“There are two springs on Zuqar. You must know that. There’s a deep pool up the mountain on al-Kabir just here—I plumbed it. But you can’t get there overland, and you wouldn’t get a ship near the coast there.”
Abreha said seriously, “These maps are remarkable, Morningstar. You’ve paid your sister’s ransom and more.”
Telemakos hesitated, then dared to ask at last, “Where is she now?”
“I left her in the port at Adulis, with your father, in the governor’s mansion, your great-uncle Abbas’s house. Abbas had sent a message to your mother to meet them there, but she had not yet arrived when I left. Athena is content enough, and safe. You may trust that, Morningstar. But it will be easier for you if you do not press me to talk about her over and over.” Abreha prowled through the pages of maps again, handling them carefully. He said, “I wish I had given you more time.”
Three days went by, and still they did not leave the prison harbor. Abreha went ashore each morning; the oarsmen were idle. Telemakos was not allowed on deck by daylight. Iskinder hovered near him, usually with his back turned apologetically, alert and wary.
Abreha asked Telemakos to eat with him, each night when he came on board his ship. “Why are we still here?” Telemakos asked on the third evening. The waiting made him want to weep and scream. It had not been so bad while he had work to occupy him, but in idleness his mind was left with nothing to do but construct his own execution a thousand times over. “Why not return to Himyar now? What are we waiting for?”
“I have a negotiation to complete with Gebre Meskal’s representative and the warden on al-Kabir,” Abreha told him. “You remember I had asked for release of certain prisoners there.”
Telemakos drew a sharp breath. He said evenly, “Anako called Lazarus, former governor of Deire.”
“Nothing escapes your attention, Morningstar.”
The injustice of it so overwhelmed Telemakos that for several seconds he did not think he could breathe, let alone speak or put food in his mouth.
“I owe it to him,” Abreha said sadly. “Surely you understand that.”
“If you’re securing his release,” Telemakos said, “does that mean he will be aboard this ship when it sails back to al-Muza?”
“And if he is? How is he anything to do with you anymore?” Abreha asked. Telemakos pressed his lips together; he could make no answer.
“How, boy? Can he hurt you? Instruct you? Beg a favor of you? Can he send you to prison? Condemn you to death?” Abreha paused, waiting for an answer, while Telemakos, in polite and silent hatred, stared fast at a splintered place in the deck between himself and the najashi.
“He cannot touch you, Morningstar,” Abreha said. “I understand why you should detest him; I do not like him, either, but to fear him, when you are utterly beyond his government? You manage your fear of me with grace and strength. What effort wasted, that you should spend your life in fear of such a one as Anako!”
He picked a comb of fine bones from his smoked fish and tested their sharpness with his fingertips. He looked directly at Telemakos from beneath his forbidding eyebrows. The najashi said, “Your fantastic title makes you his superior. I will require him to treat you with consideration, or suffer for it.”
“Thank you,” Telemakos said stiffly.
“I’m going ashore again tomorrow,” Abreha said. “Would you like to work in my cabin, and make me copies of certain of your maps? I am sorry to keep you confined below, but I do not want you to be seen.”
“Thank you,” Telemakos said again.
“There are fresh pages and ink in the chest below the table.”
“Thank you,” Telemakos said through his teeth, and bent to his own meal, determined not to be forced to acknowledge any more of these courteous, meaningless offers of small kindness.
He spent the next day at the folding desk in the najashi’s cunningly constructed cupboard workplace. Iskinder sat just outside, with his back to the entrance. The cabin did not afford Telemakos more space than he was used to, but it made a change from the monotonous horror of waiting with nothing to do. He was reaching for a new ink block when he discovered, rolled carefully behind the chest of supplies that Abreha had allowed him to make use of, the harness in which Telemakos had carried his sister at his side for the last two years and more.
For a moment Telemakos was defeated, too unhappy and tired to think. He sat on the planking beneath the folding easel with the saddle in his lap. It had grown too small for Athena, Telemakos admitted to himself now; even his charm bracelet had had to be lengthened during the time he had worn it, but nothing had ever been done about the baby’s saddle. She should have learned to walk before she outgrew it. Why had Abreha kept it? Maybe it broke his heart, also, to part with Athena. Or maybe the najashi simply had not needed the harness as Telemakos had, having two arms, and had left it on board when he took Athena ashore. Telemakos slipped his fingers into the pockets at the side; Athena’s finger dolls and the bone rattle and the wooden giraffe were gone. She must have taken them with her. Good.