“She has him enchanted,” Telemakos said. “She sits in his study every morning while I am riding, and plays with his ink brushes.” He buckled his sister against him and looked up. Muna’s mouth was set in the hard, pursed grimace of someone who is biting back tears; her pale green eyes were too bright. Telemakos took her hand, quickly, and bent to rub noses with her, as the Himyarites did in greeting.
“I will bring Athena back soon, sweet lady, and in a better temper.”
“Stop here a moment, Morningstar,” Muna said. “You look as though you have been weeping.” She pushed the pale hair back from his temples with cool, dry hands. “Now stay still until you stop gasping and can breathe again.”
Telemakos waited. Muna gave her shy, sad smile and took her hands away.
“There. Now you are ready. Rasha, please warn Tharan that the boy has not yet used the anodyne, and has not washed.”
XIV
THE COVENANT
THARAN LED TELEMAKOS DOWN the narrow flights. He made no comment about Athena, who was taking on and off two of Mima’s bangles that were tied to her saddle.
“Did you use your spear today?”
“I couldn’t,” Telemakos said.
“Did no chance arise?”
“I wasn’t able to manage a weapon and the lion together,” Telemakos admitted in a low voice.
“Better fortune next time out,” Tharan said, offering neither praise nor blame. “You must try a hunt on horseback, soon, as well.”
Tharan led them to the najashi’s own apartment, a sprawling suite of luxurious chambers and terraces on one of the palace’s middle stories. There were guards outside the door, but the rooms were empty. No life stirred in them except the flames in the brass sconces. There was not even a birdcage. All was bright and quiet.
“The najashi and his guest are still in the bathhouse,” Tharan said. “They will be here presently. Wash your face at the basin in the antechamber. There’s wine heating on the brazier in the study; I will leave a cup for you on the writing table, and you may administer your potions as you see fit. I must see to the attendants now.”
He left all the appropriate doors standing open, and told the guards to stand within the room while Telemakos was on his own.
Telemakos went into the antechamber and cautiously scrubbed the grime from his face, astonished to discover how filthy he was. Athena grabbed hold of one of the towels and threw it in the basin. It landed with a splash, and she reached for another.
“Behave yourself, or they will send you away,” Telemakos whispered to his sister, trying to restore the small space to a fit state. “Come, I must take this drink they’ve left me.”
Telemakos backed out to the reception room again, nodded to the soldiers there, and stepped through to Abreha’s study. It smelled delicious; the simmering wine was laced with clove and orange. Cup and knife and plate were laid out on the writing table. This must be how Socrates felt, Telemakos thought, expected to prepare his own execution.
“Open box,” Athena said.
“Shh,” he told her. “I don’t need your instructions.”
“Table box,” she said. “Open najashi’s table.”
Telemakos stared at her. She knew this place, though Telemakos did not. She played in Abreha’s office for an hour every morning.
“Najashi’s box,” Athena repeated impatiently, and reached forward to smack the low tabletop with her slim brown hand. “Open box.”
Telemakos bent to look closely at the lacquered ebony. The marquetry panel in the center of the table formed a lid over a hidden well, like a large writing case. Telemakos moved the dishes aside.
“How does it work, Tena?” he whispered, aware of the soldiers standing guard in the outer room. “How did the najashi open it?”
She scrabbled her slender fingers lightly along the table’s edge. She knew what she was looking for, but perhaps it was by accident that she found it. The panel sprang free of the worktop.
“Open box,” Athena said with satisfaction. “See Boy’s animals.”
Inside, on top of a sheaf of neatly sorted documents, lay those finished maps Telemakos had sketched from the decaying wax the Star Master called the Plague Tablets.
Telemakos picked up the first sheet. It was his own drawing, the one with the ink-spattered pelicans that seemed to fly through a rainstorm across the top of the page. Someone else had written on it since then. The nameless coves and bays had been labeled. It had become a map of Hanish al-Kabir, Gebre Meskal’s prison island. Telemakos had not recognized it by itself, separated from its archipelago, its outline grossly distorted by the untrained hand that made the wax sketch.
Telemakos narrowed his eyes and knelt studying the drawing like a puzzle, until Athena began to squirm and grab for the papyrus sheet.
“Tena’s. Tena’s animals.”
“These aren’t animals,” Telemakos whispered. “Shh. Be quiet and I’ll tell you. Do you see these chevrons? These are Gebre Meskal’s guardian ships. These crosses are the najashi’s men, soldiers, hiding in the back bays of al-Kabir.”
The plans were crisscrossed with scratchings-out and scrawled notes. No landing here, said one, and another simply, Dry. It seemed clear to Telemakos what they meant. Abreha wanted to place an ambush around the prison but could not find any place to put his men ashore, or a water supply for them.
“Boats,” Athena said, diving toward the map that lay beneath the one Telemakos held. “More boats.”
“Those…” He studied the notes scrawled on this one, and managed to keep his voice low. “Those are Gebre Meskal’s boats, but some of them have got the najashi’s soldiers in them….”
Suddenly he realized what the Plague Tablets were. The crumbling, crude sketches he had been copying were Abreha’s only maps of the Hanish Archipelago. The najashi had made them while he was in his self-imposed exile there, with an eye to invading the islands as soon as he and his men were able.
Telemakos was aghast to think how diligently he had been hurrying this project along. Numb with disbelief, he moved the maps aside and reached for the wad of palm and parchment that lay below them.
Abreha stood like a statue in the door to his study. Telemakos looked up. He did not know how long the najashi had been watching him. Telemakos suddenly became aware that his own face was frozen in a blistering glare of discovery and accusation: his lips were pressed together in a thin line, his nostrils pinched, one eyebrow cocked in concentration. His expression must radiate suspicion. Telemakos let his mouth go slack and opened his eyes wide.