“The fifth target,” said Wazeb.
Priamos did not weigh the spear. He scarcely took aim. He threw almost blindly, in sheer freedom of release.
His cast went wide, and he laughed.
Wazeb said lightly, “You are out of practice. Throw again. Use Tedla’s lance.”
Tedla was one of the guards over Priamos himself. Tedla did not simply hand over his spear: he bowed his head and knelt before Priamos, offering up the lance as if in ceremonial tribute.
“Thank you, faithful one,” said Priamos. “I am indebted to you, now.”
“Never,” said Tedla. “I and half the soldiers in this city would not have come home from the Himyar without your intervention.”
“I did nothing. There was no act of wit or courage on my part that brought us home alive and free. It was Abreha’s generosity.”
“Take my lance, Ras Priamos,” said the soldier.
Priamos did so, without another word, and threw again at the fifth target. And as he did I noticed things I had never seen in him or thought about before: how he lifted his spear with as much effortless grace as did the negus’s guards; the smooth glide of limb and torso as he launched the spear, the force with which it struck his mark; and the way he folded his hands slowly shut at his sides as he came to attention again, nodding slightly as he judged his cast. How could I not have seen how easily and fluently he moved, or that Caleb had trained his body as thoroughly as he had trained his mind? How could I have ignored or forgotten such whole and complete beauty in favor of one single striking feature of his face, in favor of his accidental frown?
“Better,” said Wazeb. “Now throw again, so we are sure it was no accident. The seventh target.”
There was only one spear still raised, not on the ground or stuck fast in a bale of straw, and that was held by Priamos’s other guard. As Priamos took it from him, I saw what Wazeb had done: he had seen to it that now Priamos alone was armed, of all the assembled throng of soldiers. If Priamos had intended revenge or treachery, it could have been his in that moment. He could have killed Constantine, or Wazeb, or taken any one of us as a hostage. His sovereign lord was granting him a public display of trust and honor.
Priamos threw again, well in control of himself now, and Wazeb said at last, “Well struck.”
“Well spoke,” I said quietly, “Gebre Meskal; emperor of Aksum.”
Telemakos lost his head. In the stillness that followed my words, he exploded into a run and hurled himself across the playing field at Priamos, crying out with open arms, “Now you can go hunting with the princess!”
Priamos lost his head as well. He swung Telemakos aloft as though the child were his own, then held him tightly to his chest and showered the silver hair with kisses.
“Have you given my brother his cup of coffee yet?” I asked Turunesh. “The one he said he’d give away his father’s kingdom for?”
She smiled. “He hates coffee. He was being sentimental.”
“I’m going to make him drink it.” Turunesh had taught me how to perform the coffee ceremony, and it gave me a great and absurd pleasure to manage it deftly. “I’ve still to instruct my king and my ambassador in what they must accomplish on their return to Britain, and I’ve yet to see them speak directly to each other. I am sick to death of these formal meetings in the New Palace. Let me serve them coffee in your garden.”
It was a week since our return from Debra Damo. All politics seemed to be swept aside in the plans for Wazeb’s royal hunt, and I, with Constantine, was growing anxious over the fate of my own distant kingdom. Constantine readily accepted my invitation to coffee. He might be Britain’s high king, but he suddenly found himself with no place in the Aksumite court, and that was hard for him.
“Wazeb, Gebre Meskal, is a madman,” said Constantine, sitting stiffly upright in Kidane’s garden court with his arms folded, watching me light Turunesh’s burner.
Priamos and Kidane watched also. Medraut and Turunesh sat side by side, across from me. Except the time she had kissed his hands in greeting, I still had never seen them touch each other; but Telemakos stood between them, leaning in his casual, affectionate way against his mother’s side, one small brown hand holding tightly to his father’s large fair one. Medraut and Turunesh were, unquestionably, united; Telemakos linked them.
“The emperor is a madman,” Constantine repeated. “He forbids me to leave until we have hunted together. I fear for Britain.”
“Yes, I do as well,” I said, speaking slowly as I watched the flames in Turunesh’s borrowed burner. “But if we do not wait for the Red Sea winds to change, we will have an overland journey of a thousand miles, and in all honesty, I think another month will make little difference now.”
“I am with Constantine,” said Priamos. “The emperor is a madman.”
“I am glad you have found something that you and Constantine agree on,” I said, pouring steaming water over the roasted seeds. “Tell me then, what reason have you to accuse your new sovereign of madness?”
“He has invited Abreha to join the hunt,” said Priamos.
I dropped and smashed the pot and spilled hot coffee all down my front, and gave a scream that was more of fear than pain. Medraut, you can imagine, came pelting across the court. Constantine leaped to his feet, shouting for an attendant, and Priamos dragged me to my own feet by one wrist.
“She has scalded herself—” he cried, and Medraut lifted me off the ground and carried me straight into the cold water of the stone pool.
I sat among the weed and fishes, gasping and choking, drenched. “It’s all right, it’s all right. My shamma caught most of it.”
Turunesh found herself at once trying to calm Telemakos and to keep him from treading in broken pottery. Kidane bellowed for a nurse and a broom. Priamos and Constantine hovered helplessly at the pool’s edge, as I and Medraut peeled back layers of fabric so that we could expose my arms and shoulders to the air, hunting discreetly for burns. “I should not have screamed so. I was frightened—”
There was a narrow band of stinging red skin arcing down from my left shoulder. Medraut poured handfuls of water over it, hesitating to undress me further.
Priamos flung himself down on the rim of the pool, bent double with his face in his arms, shaking with sobs. “Ai, sweet lady, well am I named Hornbill! My wild speech is more treacherous than any plot! In the shared cup of a single afternoon I do you more harm than all your enemies have ever done—”