“You, Ras Ityopis, you tread a very narrow path, and my ministers and I can find no fault in you. But Priamos—”
Constantine dug his nails into my wrists. I clenched my teeth and did not flinch.
“You did not want to see him whipped,” he said to me softly.
“No one did! Even your young imperial catspaw, even Wazeb made an excuse!”
“Now listen, Goewin: I will not have you inciting Priamos again.”
“God help me, I won’t,” I swore ardently.
“You will not. I will see to it. I will provide you with a guard. They will stay with you here in the New Palace, and ensure you do not come anywhere near him.” He paused. “You’ll be thankful to find an imperial escort waiting for you in the street when you venture out alone; you will keep out of harm’s way as well as out of trouble. You will not need protection within the walls of Kidane’s villa, of course, but it will be pleasant for you to be able to walk about the city without fearing a ragged flock of Himyar veterans begging at your heels.”
This was entirely within his jurisdiction. I bit down hard on the protests that rose in my throat, and said only, in a voice like ice:
“If I may take a hostage, so may you.”
“You are my betrothed, not my hostage,” said Constantine. “And Wazeb is my ward. It is Priamos who is my catspaw. Cross me again, Goewin, and I swear I will find a way to use it against him.”
He dropped my wrists, at last, disdainfully.
“Lij Telemakos Meder, heir to the house of Nebir; Ras Priamos Anbessa, heir to the house of Lazen. How many more will you place in jeopardy? Your proud will may soon determine the fate of half the Aksumite imperial court,” he commented, and blew angrily on his way.
CHAPTER VII
Prisoners
I DREAMED I WAS trapped in a deep well full of chained lions, and I watched Telemakos free them one by one as he pulled their iron chains out of the stone walls. Don’t do that, I kept telling him, and he answered: I’m not afraid of lions. Blood flew from his golden fingers like drops of water. I woke all Kidane’s household, screeching.
I dreamed the Golden Court was littered with broken glass in gleaming colors, like the shards with which Lleu had once mended the mosaic floors of our villa at Camlan. Priamos chased lion cubs over the bright slivers on bleeding feet, while I apologized to Constantine for the stained floor.
I dreaded sleep. I sat late in Turunesh’s sitting room, listening to the running gutters, reading by the ethereal light of her glass ceiling lamp.
The young men who protected me in the street were shy and quiet, serious and disciplined. Constantine never sent the same collection two days running. I was hard pressed to learn any of their names; they would not look at me. They stared straight beyond me as we marched together through Aksum’s plazas and markets, their spears bristling, daring anyone to come near. There was always a group of four waiting for me outside Kidane’s gate, an imposing group of handsome spearmen. Passersby stared. I did not like to make a spectacle of my hosts.
Kidane’s mild comment was: “Our first British ambassador was a more subtle suitor.”
“He was as persistent,” said Turunesh.
When I tried to climb the grand stairway leading to the upper stories of the New Palace where Priamos was kept prisoner, I met with the same blank-faced, apologetic guards that waited for me in the street.
“Remember me to Ras Priamos,” I said to them, feeling both furious and pathetic. I said it also many times to Halen, and Ityopis, and Candake; and once, in desperation, I sent Telemakos as my message bearer, and suffered a punishing few hours of frantic guilt and worry while Telemakos took advantage of this unanticipated release from his own bondage. I never saw Priamos myself, no matter where I went.
And this went on for weeks.
Winter was drawing to an end. The rain grew less constant, then erratic, then stopped altogether. It was September, the Aksumite new year, and the sloping fields around the city exploded in a blaze of golden asters.
“Would you like to come to Adwa with us?” Turunesh asked me, scattering grain across the flagged courtyard for the doves. She and Telemakos fed them together, ritually, before he went to bed.
“Not with the imperial guard trotting at my heels,” I answered.
Turunesh said calmly, “We can get you out of the city in secret. We can take you out through the Necropolis. There is a tunnel from this house to the family vault, for use in funerals.”
The Necropolis spread vast and silent on the slopes beyond the cathedral, an imposing cemetery of towering monoliths and stately mausoleums. The tall stelae stood over the graves of ancient Aksumite. kings.
“A tunnel from this house?” I repeated quietly. “What can you mean?”
“The ground beneath the city is a warren of tunnels,” Telemakos said, trying to tease a dove out of its niche and into his hands. “One of them stretches from here to Kolöe.”
“You do hear the most improbable things!” Turunesh exclaimed. “It is upward of eighty miles to Kolöe. Our own passage leads only to the tomb of the house of Nebir, but that is a good distance across the city.”
“She used to play in it with her cousins,” Telemakos said. “The tunnel, I mean, not the tomb.”
“It is an accursed struggle keeping the boy out of it.”
Telemakos cupped his hands together to coo and warble through them, and ignored his mother.
“Could I really get through without anyone knowing?” I asked.
“We would have to lead you to the vault and then go back through the house while you waited for us to let you out on the other side.”
“What would I do in Adwa, though?” I paced to the fishpond and back. “I’d be free of Constantine’s guard, at any rate.” A wild thought occurred to me. “I could go to Abreha. He wants his own British ambassador in Himyar, Constantine said.”
“Or you might seek out Caleb,” Turunesh suggested softly. “When he passes his golden head cloth to Wazeb, Ella Amida’s authority will end.”
“Is that what happens?”
“That is what Caleb said would happen, before he left. But he did not tell anyone where he was going, or if he would return. People say he’s in the monastery Abba Pantelewon, above the city here. Though at the same time they say he has gone to the mountain of Ophar in the Salt Desert.”