“Have you ever seen an Aksumite gold piece?” the emperor asked me.
I thought of the brave sunburst on Constantine’s new coin. But that had been copper. “I don’t think so.”
“Here is one of mine,” said Caleb, and he held out a thin, bright coin. It winked more golden than rising moonlight as he passed it across to me. Its face showed the profile of a king wearing a heavy and elaborate tiered crown.
“Is this you?”
“The image is a symbol,” said Caleb, “not a close likeness. You will find a like portrait on hundreds of years of Aksumite coins. See, on the face is the king, royally robed and crowned, and here he bears the imperial fly whisk that scatters the enemy like insects. Now here—”
Caleb flipped the shining disc over on my palm. “On the reverse the king is no more than a man, the servant of the people, wearing only a head cloth.”
It was a simple counterpart to the king on its face. Three ribbons banded the head cloth in place, tiny stripes across his forehead. The delicate miniature contrasted sharply with the first figure: crown, no crown; king and mortal man; image and opposite.
“A king’s power may come from God, but he is not a god,” said Caleb. “When you do battle against Ella Amida, Britannia, are you battling the king he represents, or the man he is? What wrong has he done as a king? Look carefully at the other side of the coin.”
I sat silent as Medraut, and thought.
Constantine had arrested Priamos for abandoning a post he had, in fact, abandoned. Constantine had had Priamos punished for running riot in a palace that was held in stewardship for another, and Priamos had chosen the punishment himself. Constantine had placed a guard over me because I, a foreign princess barely past girlhood, was followed through the streets by a crowd of beggared soldiers. Constantine had found Telemakos lurking in his office and had turned him out with a slap on the head.
I stared down at the engraved face on the coin in my palm, modest in its shining head cloth, then turned it over. The crown glittered in the torchlight.
Constantine was not a kind man, but he was an excellent viceroy. I prized and valued kindness, but I knew it was not kindness that would repair my father’s war-torn kingdom.
I glanced at Medraut and remembered that he, too, had had a thundering argument with Constantine before half the imperial court when they first met, whatever that had been about.
“You know Constantine better than I do,” I murmured to my brother. “Would you give him your blessing as high king? Would you step down to him?”
Medraut bowed his head, then nodded once.
I laughed, a little hysterically. “Oh, God help me, I don’t know what to do. You are the man who would barter your kingdom for a cup of coffee!”
Caleb laughed also. “I think you have put your threat to Ella Amida the wrong way around, Britannia. Agree to make him king only if you may choose your own husband.”
The distant chanting stopped. The moon sailed high. I gazed down at the coin in my palm.
“I will make him king,” I said decisively, “if Priamos goes free and fully pardoned. Then Priamos may complete his commission in Britain as Constantine’s ambassador, though I dread having to mediate between them.”
I could not remember what Priamos looked like smiling; in my memory he wore a permanent frown. It made no difference. To speak his name made tears catch in the back of my throat.
“Priamos goes free,” I repeated firmly. “And Telemakos—”
Medraut placed his lean hand over mine where I held it open on my knee, lacing his long fingers between my own and locking the gold coin between our palms.
“Telemakos is blameless,” I said. “He is already free.”
“Your plan has a single flaw,” Caleb said.
“What flaw?”
“It leaves Wazeb with no British ambassador.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
Medraut squeezed my hand. I saw that he was looking at me, a curious expression of fond admiration in his face. He let me go and softly touched the top of my head, as though he were blessing me.
I said calmly, I made myself sound as calm and serene as Turunesh: “We expected my twin brother Lleu, late prince of Britain, next in that position; so if Wazeb will accept it, I will stand in Lleu’s place.”
Caleb did not answer immediately. I remembered to lower my eyes, but held my head high, feeling the cloth of gold and the narrow crown weighing heavy on my hair.
“You are a child,” Caleb said. “You are a woman.”
I heard the paradox in his words before he did.
“There are no women allowed in Debra Damo,” I answered, “yet I am here.”
It was a place of paradox, Debra Damo, prison and sanctuary, a double-sided coin.
“Neither truth has ever prevented me from acting. Let me represent my kingdom in your capital as I represent it here, tonight.”
Then Caleb’s laughter rang across the high plateau.
“Done, Britannia.”
The night air was like coffee: sharp, dark, uplifting, strong with excitement. I breathed deeply of it and bowed my head before the emperor.
“Thank you, Highness,” I said. “I will serve as I am able.”
The emperor Ella Asbeha stood up. He beckoned me to rise also. “You will sleep here tonight,” he said, “but do not remove the head cloth while you are in this place. It is only my borrowed sovereignty that allows you here, and you may not stay more than this one night. Nor should you otherwise delay your return. Priamos will be suspected in your disappearance, and will be harshly used if anyone thinks he encouraged you to peril.”
I hissed sharply. How could I not have seen that? Placing me in harm’s way could be punishable as real treason, punishable by death.
“And he deserves better,” Caleb added, musing. “No other has been so adamant in his loyalty, or has been tested so severely. He is the best of Candake’s brood.”
Caleb paused, then finished lightly, “You will be given a room in the royal enclosure, where my nephews sleep. Ras Meder will show you the way. If I do not see you in the morning, Britannia, I wish you God’s speed and God’s blessing. I am sure you will serve both our kingdoms well.”
I could not sleep in the hard, bare, beautiful house that they called the royal enclosure. I lay awake and stiff all night, in the place where Priamos had passed his childhood, afraid that I would damage Caleb’s head cloth if I moved in my sleep while I wore it. In truth, there was no reason I could not have taken it off in the privacy of the room they gave me for the night; but Caleb had warned me to wear it, so I did. It felt like cloth of lead, not cloth of gold, by morning.