Abreha laid the knife down on his desk. He said gently, “Morningstar, I will not profane the souls of my dead children. But I’ll give you surer proof than my word alone. I’ll entrust you with my kingdom, if you dare to accept it.”
In contemptuous disbelief, dumbfounded beyond fear, Telemakos raised his eyes to meet Abreha’s, as one warrior might accept another’s challenge. The najashi held his gaze.
“How are you going to do that?” Telemakos inquired as politely as he could, given that he was staring boldly into the najashi’s face.
“By this seal.” Abreha gestured to the signet ring that lay in the warming pan.
Telemakos began to guess at the najashi’s intent. They were still eye to eye. He murmured, “Why doesn’t it melt?”
“It is nickel, not precious metal. That little flame is not hot enough to melt it. It can be used as a brand, as well as a seal.”
Then Telemakos lost all strength to speak. His question came out as no more than whisper, but still he stared brazenly into the najashi’s face. “Do you brand all your servants?”
Abreha answered with quiet patience: “It is not the mark of a servant.”
Telemakos remembered the touch of the smooth metal, after Abreha had sealed Telemakos’s unsent letters with it, warm against the base of his skull.
“This seal on you will afford you protection within the bounds of my kingdom, and my own authority if you choose to wield it,” Abreha explained. The najashi spoke seriously. He was not threatening; he was offering terms. “Accept the seal, and you accept the responsibility of carrying that authority as long as you remain alive, unless you tear it from your skin first. Misuse it, and you risk your sister’s life. Or refuse it, with no honor lost, and trust me on my word alone.”
Telemakos gazed into the najashi’s sad black eyes beneath the heavy brow, and moved his lips to say, I will accept. But no sound came out. He licked his dry lips and managed to croak, less formally but with no less determination, “All right.”
The najashi turned away first, graciously.
“Wait by the window, with your head on the sill. The mark goes on the back of your neck, where it may be hidden by your hair. It is not meant to be disfiguring.”
Telemakos moved to the window, thinking, I have spent a great deal of the past two years on my knees before Abreha.
He rested his cheek against the sill, feeling as if he were preparing himself to have his head struck off.
“You are fearless,” said the najashi warmly.
“I’m afraid of dreams,” Telemakos croaked.
“Yet you aren’t afraid of pain, which is real, while the dreams are not.”
Telemakos gave a hiss of sudden frustration, and found his voice again. “Must we discuss this like a pair of scholars? Do it!”
“The seal isn’t ready,” Abreha said quietly. “I can wait in silence, if you wish.”
So they waited in silence, Telemakos with his head bent over the wide windowsill, watching the jeweled lights of the city above and below.
Abreha’s narrow fingers smoothed back the hair at the base of Telemakos’s skull.
“I doubt you’ll ever thank me for this,” Abreha said. “But perhaps you will forgive me.”
Very gently, he kissed the back of Telemakos’s neck to seal their contract, then pressed the mark of Solomon into his skin.
For one second the world was made of sparkling white light and blinding heat; then it was black. When he knew himself again, Telemakos was slouched against the wall below the window, sobbing childishly. The limewashed plaster beneath his cheek was damp with tears. He clenched his teeth and bit back the next sob.
He saw, rather than felt, that his hair was suddenly aflame. Abreha instantly beat it out with a damp cloth.
He expected this, Telemakos thought. He expected me to come to him. He expected he would be setting me this task, and sealing it like this. He had everything in place.
The najashi left Telemakos sitting by the window. He laid his ring in a dish to cool, and put away the tongs he had used to hold the heated metal. Then he slid his hand beneath the lip of his writing desk and sprang the hidden panel. He took a curl of palm tape out, closed the lid, and rolled the writing open on the marquetry.
“Your aunt has sent you a letter,” Abreha said, “thanking you for the lion skin you sent her, and I see no reason you may not read it.”
He expected me here, Telemakos thought again. He has saved this for last, to distract me, to court my favor, to reward my compliance …
But it worked. Telemakos crept to Abreha’s side. The najashi held up the light in the burner so Telemakos might read.
Goewin’s love and elation seemed to shout at him from the scratches on the narrow frond. Telemakos had the strangest sensation, shaping each word silently with his lips as he read, that he knew exactly how each sentence should end, as though he had read it all at least a dozen times before.
Telemakos my dear,
This gift, this prize
delights me! Never you the coward or
the fool, not with your father’s strength and wit
and cunning bred in you to such degree.
A child no more, you’ve grown to manhood now.
Heed me, Telemakos.
He prowled among
the lions; he became a young lion,
and he learned to catch prey.
Few sons achieve
their father’s stature. Most do not, and few
outstrip them. You, my soldier, you won’t fail,
my bold hero. Beloved friend, you are
so well grown now, so wise, the flower of
the rising generation, and your deeds
will be their song.
Telemakos, heed me.
Your loving aunt, as ever, G.
The letter was in Ethiopic, but the inset quotation midway through it was in Latin. This meant that the word lion was in Latin, too; it would have been anbessa, Abreha’s second name, in Ethiopic. So Goewin avoided making any connection between Telemakos’s gift to her and the najashi’s part in it. How I love her, Telemakos thought.
“May I read it again before you put it away?”
“Of course.”
A child no more, you’ve grown to manhood now. Heed me, Telemakos …
He suddenly recognized the familiar rhythms of Homer’s Odyssey. He reached out to touch the palm leaf, as if physical contact with Goewin’s written words would bring him closer to his aunt, and at the second his fingertips brushed the inscription, he realized that the entire letter was composed of the goddess Athena’s inspiring words to the prince Telemakos. The thrill of discovery and mystery that went through him felt as though it really did come straight through the scratched marks.