“I did not go far,” I said. “And I have my bow.”
Priamos said apologetically, “Well, but he is right. It is outside the bound of protocol. You are not riding with your brother or fleeing a death sentence. You are representing your kingdom in a ceremonial pageant, and I am an inappropriate companion.”
“A true and brave companion,” I contradicted. My horse startled, as though in great fear, and it was all I could do to stay seated and calm her.
Abreha dismounted and took his own horse by the head, softly coaxing the trembling animal. Priamos bent low over his saddle to whisper in the ear of his mount and came so near to being thrown that he dropped his spear. He looked frowning over his shoulder at me.
“What is the matter with these horses?”
Mine danced in a nervous circle, fighting her reins, and I saw what startled them so.
Telemakos came toward us out of the bush. He carried a lion cub over each shoulder, two large, squirming, glorious bundles of tawny golden fur spotted with fawn.
“Idiot child,” Abreha scolded, “don’t carry them like that, the teeth so close to your face!”
We three were no more able to aid Telemakos than if we had had our hands tied to our terrified horses.
“Put them down,” I ordered.
“I will not!” Telemakos said. “These are for the emperor.”
I hesitated, then let my horse have her way. She ran headlong toward the camp, I dragging her back as much as I dared, so that I was able to slide from the saddle once we were safe within the circle of tents. Constantine caught me.
“Lady!”
“Let go of me! Bring Medraut!” I shook him off. “Where is Medraut? Tell him to take a spear and run southeast of here—”
I had Medraut and Constantine, both carrying spears, on either side of me as we raced back on foot toward the place where I had left Telemakos. I gasped out what was happening as we ran.
“Only approach quietly,” I managed to say. “The horses are frantic.”
“There’s a lioness about,” Constantine guessed briefly.
Abreha, Priamos, and Telemakos were exactly as I had left them. Priamos had managed to dismount also, but neither he nor Abreha could do anything with the frightened horses. Telemakos also had his hands full, and his path blocked. He looked very cross.
“Which way have you come?” I asked him. “Where was the lair?”
“It is only a little distance,” Telemakos said angrily, his slate blue eyes gone smoky and cold. “You need not all make such a fuss. They are a gift for the emperor. I would not let them hurt me.”
Oh—fearless, as in my dreams.
The great, golden kits writhed and swarmed over his shoulders, struggling to break free. Telemakos held them as firmly as he held Candake’s cats, and with as little regard for the strength of their claws.
Medraut laid down his spear and knelt to look into his son’s eyes. Whatever Telemakos saw there was so fearsome that he burst into tears.
“Do not kill them,” he begged. “I will let them go, if I must, but don’t kill them. I was only trying to bless the kingship.”
“You mad thing!” I exclaimed, half inclined to laugh. “What of their mother? She will come hunting for them! What if she had caught you alone?”
Medraut saw the real danger first. He snatched for the spear that lay at his side, and stumbled to gain his feet. The knee that he had broken earlier that year collapsed beneath him; he missed the spear and missed his footing. In the moment before the lioness was upon us, he cried out in a terrible voice, “’Ware Telemakos!”
One of the brothers Anbessa threw himself at the child. They went down together in a flash of gold and dark limbs. I could not tell whether it was Priamos or Abreha.
My bow was in my hand unbidden, and I set arrow upon arrow in the lion’s throat. I shot as Medraut shoots, coldly, accurately; but my bow was not strong enough to kill her outright. The man who had flung his body over Telemakos lay crouched with his narrow hands locked behind his neck, in the desperate hope that if he were attacked he would lose only his hands and not his life. The lioness stood over the man and the child for a fragment of a second, bewildered by the stinging arrows in her throat, scenting the kits.
Then Constantine gave a great cry of fear and anger, and lifted his spear and caught the snarling creature through her breastbone. I shot another arrow into her throat, so close to her now that the shaft buried itself to the fletching. Between spear thrust and arrow’s point we took her at last, between us, Constantine and I.
Constantine worked his spear out of the heavy, golden carcass and stood panting, stunned, his hands smeared with blood. The rest of us flung ourselves at the cowering man and boy. I should say the cowering man, for the child was not in the least cowed. He still clung to his lion cubs as though he would never let them go. They had torn his shirt to ribbons. Medraut, moving with his own recovered leonine stealth and speed, plucked the cubs from Telemakos’s hands by the backs of their necks. The great cats went limp, as kittens do when carried so. They were enormous kittens.
It was Priamos, of course Priamos, who had chanced being rent to pieces in defense of my nephew. The cubs had torn long scratches across his face, traveling from the bridge of his nose over his cheek and down his throat. Abreha let the horses go, now that the danger was past, and crouched at his brother’s side searching for any more serious injury. I snatched Telemakos close against me, and he wound beguiling arms about my neck.
“Can I keep them? I mean, can we keep them? May I present them to the emperor?”
Medraut stood helplessly holding a lion cub at arm’s length in either hand. Constantine rubbed one hand against his sandy forehead and left a great red streak there.
“Well, so it was you,” he said wearily to Priamos. “I wondered which of you could be so selfless.”
“You did not know—” said Priamos, and stopped. Then his flyaway hornbill’s tongue, and perhaps the shock of expecting the perilous teeth to close on the back of his neck, overrode all reason or gratitude in him.
“You did not know! You did not know who you were defending! If you had known it was me, you wouldn’t have done anything! You did not know, you did not care!”
“By God, I did not care!” cried Constantine. “Why, it was either you or the Himyarite king! How should I stand by and watch either one of you have your throat torn out?”