Medraut made a saddle for Athena to ride in so that Telemakos could carry her at his side without having to tie her in the carrying cloth. The new harness had a supporting strap held in place by a sleeve over Telemakos’s right shoulder, and a belt around his hips so that the baby’s weight did not strain his back. Athena would be able to climb in and out of the saddle herself when Telemakos unfastened the buckles.
It took Medraut several days of concentration to make the saddle. He sat on the edge of the fish pool in the garden court behind the house, stitching pieces of leather together and keeping Athena nearby so he could measure her every so often. The fish fascinated her. She stood by the rim of the pool, watching them dart back and forth, or smacking the surface of the water to make them start away. Medraut tethered her by the waist to a date palm so that she could reach the pond but not him. He cracked strips of antelope hide like a whip against the granite paving blocks if she came too close. He had caught her fingers once, and she kept clear of his work now.
This afternoon she crawled round and round the trunk of the palm until she was stuck there, and sat digging in the dirt at the foot of the tree for a few minutes before she carefully untangled herself. Telemakos watched her, fascinated, from the podium stairway at the back of the house, where she could not see him. She wound and unwound herself around the tree three times.
When Telemakos finally came toward her, she crawled to the fishpond and pulled herself up to the rim. There she stood screaming frantically, “TatatataTATATA!”
The first time she had greeted him this way, Telemakos had thought, with a surge of delight, that she was trying to say his name. But he soon realized that, in fact, she was trying to say her own name.
He sat on the pool’s rim between his father and his sister.
“Will you teach me to throw a spear?” Telemakos asked his father.
Medraut looked up. “I have not the ability. I am trained as an archer and a swordsman.”
“You were Gebre Meskal’s ceremonial spear bearer in the royal hunt, when he first became emperor. And you killed the lion whose skin hangs in the reception hall.”
“That, too, was a royal hunt. It was a test. I had to prove myself a worthy representative of my father the high king in the Aksumite court. Abreha did the same when he became king of Himyar, which is why his nobles call him ‘Lion Hunter’ now. No Himyarite before him had to pass such a test; it is a custom of the Aksumite kings.
“You have no such challenge to rise to,” Medraut finished. “If the emperor wants you for his warrior, he will give you a spear, and show you how to use it.”
“I, a warrior?” Telemakos said, and laughed. “I want to hunt with you. It doesn’t have to be lions.”
“It is no jest,” Medraut said seriously. He looked down again, and picked up his work. “I have this for you,” he said, and Telemakos saw that it was a sling, woven of intricately plaited strands of dark wool. “It will afford you some protection, and small prey if you are accurate.”
Medraut lifted a cloth that lay among his tailor’s equipment, uncovering a bowl of dried dates. He picked this up and set it between himself and Telemakos on the edge of the pool. Athena inched along the stone rim until she was leaning against Telemakos’s knees, gazing at the dates. Telemakos did not think she realized they were food; they were simply shiny and interesting. But she did not dare to touch anything that lay within her father’s perimeter.
Medraut fixed a date in the sling’s cup and let it fly in one quick, smooth flick, without any windup and apparently without aiming at anything. In the arbor that shaded the south wall of the house, a ripe fig suddenly seemed to explode.
Medraut laid the sling in Telemakos’s lap. Athena reached for it.
“Put it down,” Telemakos told her, pulling the wrist loop in place with his teeth. Athena snatched at the sling, letting out little squeaks of possession and desire. The tail end trailed in the fish pool and got wet.
“Drop it,” Medraut ordered darkly.
Athena instantly let go, like a scolded dog. Telemakos thought that Medraut could have said anything to her in that tone—“Eat up” or “Dancing time”—and she would have let go just as quickly.
Telemakos shook the water from the tail and laid open the cup between his fingers. It fell shut when he picked up a date. He tried again, and when he stood up to make the shot, the date fell out, dropping into the pool with a light plip. It floated, and Athena reached for it, then checked herself with a glance at Medraut and drew back.
Telemakos apologized. “I’m long out of practice.”
“Give it me,” Medraut said, but did not wait. He slipped the sling away from Telemakos. “Take three dates and hold them up to me one at a time.”
Telemakos held one out. Medraut swung the empty sling and caught the date with it, shot into the tree, swung again, and caught the next date as Telemakos held it up. The woolen cord sizzled the tips of Telemakos’s fingers as it whipped over them.
“Now let the child hold up a stone,” Medraut ordered.
“She’s afraid of you,” Telemakos said. His fingers burned. “You’ll hurt her.”
“You take the sling, then. She’ll hold one out for you. Here, child,” Medraut said, his voice like silk, and serpentlike, gave Athena a date. She, seduced, took it in astonishment at her good fortune. She stared at Medraut with wide eyes like gray crystal. “Hold it for the boy. Up, like this. Now you, Telemakos, take the sling, let go the end—”
“I will not!” Telemakos raged at him. “I haven’t the skill. I’ll hit her! Mother of God! Are you mad? Tear up her trust in me for a silly thing like that? I won’t do it!”
Athena turned her steady gray gaze from Medraut to Telemakos, and calmly put the date in her mouth.
Medraut drew in a ragged breath. Then he laughed.
“You are right, boy; I am touched with madness now and then.”
Telemakos dared to glance upward at his father and saw that there was no malice in the storm-filled, dark blue eyes; Medraut was gazing at his daughter like a man watching a show of magic.
“You can teach her,” Medraut said quietly. “Not yet, perhaps, but soon. She’ll hold up the pellets for you. I’ll fix a pocket on the saddle, so she can reach them. Practice taking them from me, to start with; it doesn’t matter if you hit me. We won’t hurt the little princess.”