I saw no one in that house during the night, after Medraut left me alone. But as he led me out again in the morning, we passed three men. All three were dressed alike, in plain shammas of unbleached homespun, but the two younger men seemed to act as retainers for the third. He was my father’s age, perhaps slightly younger. He talked animatedly to his companions, or to himself, waving bent and twisted hands as he spoke. He was quoting scripture, I think, glibly and at great length. His wrists were all but ruined with arthritis. I thought he must be another veteran of the Himyar.
He fell abruptly silent when he saw me, then threw himself flat on his face on the stone floor at my feet.
I was stupid with lack of sleep. I had no idea what this could mean until Medraut lightly touched the head cloth that I still wore.
“Please stand up,” I said to the man at my feet, in Ethiopic.
He did, and held out his gnarled hands to me as if in supplication. With no idea of his intent, but moved by his severe deformity, I laid my hands in his. He could scarcely close his fingers around my own, but he lifted them closer to his face and stroked them as had the queen of queens, as though fascinated by them.
Then I saw that his crippled wrists were patterned with the same faint scars that marked Priamos. And though he no longer wore the chains that Priamos had spoken of, I knew that this was Mikael, Candake’s mad and tragic eldest son. How long had the arthritis been eating at his wrists to make them so misshapen, and did he still demand his serpent-slaying spear? He could never hold a spear, let alone throw it.
No one spoke any word as he looked at my hands. No one told me his name, or explained to him who I was. His companions and mine all stood alert and ready to restrain him should he seem to threaten me, but he was very gentle.
At once it occurred to me that his amazement was not to do with my pale skin.
He let my hands fall at last and rubbed his eyes.
“No one tells me a thing,” he said plaintively. “I hear nothing.”
Then he turned and walked away, still shaking his head. His calm companions followed him.
“Why was I never told that the emperor is a woman?” he complained, and went his way.
PART IV: FORGIVENESS
CHAPTER XII
All the Wealth of His House
MEDRAUT NEVER OPENED HIS mouth. He was a walled city with no gates, his spirit inaccessible, unworthy of his father’s kingdom, unworthy of the woman he deeply loved. But whatever other bonds he might shed like oiled cloth sheds rainwater, he could not resist Telemakos.
Medraut came back to Aksum with us. On the night of our return he wandered about Kidane’s mansion like a bewildered ghost, touching fabrics and ornaments, leaning out of windows, gazing up at the carved ibex and cheetah on the coffered ceiling. Telemakos shadowed him, as he had done all through our homeward journey. He held his father’s hand, or leaned insinuatingly against Medraut’s waist like an affectionate cat, chattering incessantly in a low voice. It was the exact way he talked to his wooden animals. You could hear what he was saying, if you listened carefully. He was filling in the missing conversation.
“Ras Meder asks, ‘What is that picture, Telemakos?’
“Well, sir, that is Menelik traveling to visit his father, Solomon. Menelik is going to steal the Ark of the Covenant from Solomon’s palace when he leaves.’
“Ras Meder says, ‘That’s not right, is it, boy?’
“Indeed not, but Solomon will forgive him.”
Or again:
“Ras Meder says, ‘Look, child, can it be that this is the very lion skin I gave to your mother, before you were alive?’
“It is, sir; it has an esteemed place in this house. No one but yourself or a chieftain may wear it.”
Medraut had the child underfoot almost constantly, and must have heard it all. He never answered, but I could see him biting down on rising tears, could see his jaw and hands tightening as he flinched against the assault. Telemakos would walk a far, hard road before he healed his father, but effortlessly he won his father’s heart.
When we made ready for our parade to the New Palace on the following morning, Medraut appeared among us prepared for his role like a general returning triumphant from war. He had shaved clean his face and cropped his hair short, in the style of a Roman senator. Over one of Kidane’s well-made shammas he wore Turunesh’s lion skin. The glaring head crowned him, and the shimmering black mane hung over his shoulders and down his back. It must have been heavier than battle armor. He had no other ornament. He stood taller than any of Kidane’s household; he looked like Caesar Augustus.
He gave me the only smile I had seen from him in the weeks since we had found him: a proud, bitter smile of encouragement.
“Medraut son of Artos,” I said.
He bent his head in acknowledgment.
I smiled back at him, and said with determination, “Let us go now and give away our father’s kingdom.”
He held out his arm to serve as my escort.
It was a triumphant march to the palace for me, accompanied by the party of priests that Caleb had sent with us to bring his blessing to Wazeb. Passersby stopped to bow and kiss their wooden or silver crosses, instead of veering away from my guard. Medraut walked into the New Palace as though it were his own. Everyone knew who he was, though it had been more than six years since he had been in the city; with Artos dead, for all anyone knew, this was the high king of Britain. I sailed in his wake, outraged at how simple this was for him, at how simple all the last year would have been for me, if I had been a man. Medraut did not even have to open his mouth.
It was a day of clear, scoring sunlight, and we found Constantine afoot in one of the training yards, watching a troop of spearmen at practice. The yard was sited so that the crenelated shadows of the palace’s towers tricked the eye and made the spearmen’s targets difficult to see. Rows of seven soldiers at a time took turns casting in unison, with unerring precision. I waited for Constantine to call them to a halt. He stood with seventy armed men ranked at his back, and I with my sundry entourage of priests and child and mute.
“Saints be praised, Princess, I had nearly given you up for dead!”
Constantine grasped me by the elbows in a warm yet formal embrace, and kissed me on either cheek.
Well, so he should.
“I have been frantic for your safety—” He stopped abruptly, and stared at Medraut. Then he fell to his knees.
“My lord. My king.”