“Candake,” I said slowly, “you will kill me if you go on.”
“You did not have to endure it.”
“I am enduring it now.” I clenched my teeth. “I know, I know it is my fault. I cannot sleep, knowing I have brought him to such disgrace.”
Candake shifted her weight and consoled herself with another three fried cakes, and then said wearily, “Go home, girl. Go home and take your bridegroom the mosquito with you, as you intended.”
“I hate my bridegroom the mosquito,” I said vehemently, heedless of who might hear. “How I detest him! To threaten a child of six summers with beheading!”
Turunesh gazed serenely at the solemn procession of ministers, as each knelt and spoke in turn. She held Telemakos tight and still against her side.
“Constantine keeps me prisoner, I can barely speak to him civilly; I do not know why he should ever want to complete our union.”
“Because you are beautiful,” Candake said.
Telemakos was watching me, not the ceremony.
“‘Fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners.’” Candake wheezed again as she settled herself more comfortably. “So sings Solomon to Sheba in the Song of Songs. You cannot see yourself! ‘Terrible as an army with banners.’ How should dogged Constantine court such majesty? His promised bride is beyond his grasp, and he is eaten up with jealousy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Silly girl, why do you think he deals so harshly with my gentle son?” she said sadly. “The mosquito is eaten up with envy because Priamos, though he has never courted kingship, has courted you, and owns your heart.”
I opened my mouth to protest that no man should ever own my heart or any part of me. No words came. All I could produce was a small, quiet spate of bewildering tears, which I swiped at angrily. I stared across the square at Priamos Anbessa.
So he does, I realized. So he does.
“He wept when they told him you were no longer allowed to see him. He WEPT. How much weeping have you done on his account, girl?”
“I wake up screaming every night on his account,” I said fiercely, and scrubbed at my eyes. “My God! What hope is there for either of us?”
“Go home, girl.” Candake closed her eyes, as though she were so tired of it all. “I do not want my wise and noble son to spend his life prisoner to a mosquito.”
“I will not leave Aksum until I see Ras Priamos go free,” I said through my teeth.
“He will never go free while you are here.”
Ityopis had made his pledge, and Kidane Danael was finishing his. I took Candake’s hand, leaned in over her enormous bulk, and kissed her painted cheek.
She was more like my aunt Morgause than I had realized. Not in that she was cruel, for she was not; but in that for all her loud and acrid talk she was without authority, she was helpless. Her sons’ fate was utterly beyond her control. She could not even walk without assistance.
I said at her ear, “Dear lady, Queen of Queens. Might not your brother’s word override my cousin’s? Or the emperor’s override the viceroy’s? If you will tell me where to find him, I will seek out Caleb instead of going home, and bring your nephew his golden head cloth.”
Candake sighed. She traced the track of a tear across my cheek with a large, soft fingertip, and sighed again.
“Ah, proud little Sheba,” she said. “Nor should you be made to spend your life prisoner to a mosquito, either.”
PART III: FLIGHT
CHAPTER VIII
The Tomb of the False Door
WAZEB PAID A VISIT to Kidane’s mansion, a day later. He came with his own retinue, which he left at the gate along with Constantine’s escort for me, so that it looked as though there were rival factions preparing for a small battle on Kidane’s doorstep. Wazeb wore his customary simple white cotton kilt and head cloth bound with grass, though on this occasion the ends of his shamma were pinned with a great clasp of gold and emerald.
He came upstairs to share imported wine with us, to the joy and terror of Kidane’s servants. He had a disconcerting habit of rewarding the attendant women by feeding them sweets out of his hand. He was most at ease in Kidane’s house.
“Have you heard any of our old stories?” he asked me. “Will you understand if I speak in my own language?”
“Please do. I’ll try.”
“I have a favorite story. It is of Menelik, the queen of Sheba’s son, and tells of his visit to Solomon, his father. When Menelik returns to his mother, he steals the Ark of the Covenant from Solomon. And Solomon discovers him. But instead of punishing him, Solomon gives him the Ark and lets him go free.”
Wazeb stopped speaking for a moment, and everyone in the room waited in expectant silence.
“Solomon is remembered for his wisdom,” Wazeb said. “But when I am shown his likeness in the pictures, I do not make note of his wisdom. It is the face of forgiveness that I see in him.”
He raised his head a little, proudly. It would be another year and more before his beard began to grow.
“I should like to be wise enough to grant forgiveness,” he said, “like Solomon; like Christ.”
I nodded, slowly, staring at him. I had not got in the habit of lowering my eyes in the presence of authority, and as the emperor’s heir, neither had he; so when he raised his head, for a moment we looked into each other’s eyes.
“When I am emperor, I will take the name Gebre Meskal,” he said. “The servant of the cross.”
“You have noble ambitions,” I said, thinking to glance away, then astonished that I had done so.
Wazeb beckoned to his footman. “My aunt Candake sends you a present, Princess Goewin,” he said in lighter tones. “She knows you have trouble sleeping, and is so kind to give you a book to read. She thinks you will like this. Your nephew told her you like maps.”
He put into my hands Priamos’s Red Sea Itinerary.
“The queen of queens tells you to study these,” said Wazeb. “She thinks you will find them entertaining. Here, let me show you.”
He turned the pages carefully until he came to the stylized church on the cliff, with the dragon at its foot.
“Here is one. This shows you the road to the hermitage at Debra Damo, among the amba plateaus, where the emperor’s nephews are sequestered.”