Coalition of Lions (14 page)

“You know Constantine better than I do,” I murmured to my brother. “Would you give him your blessing as high king? Would you step down to him?”

Medraut bowed his head, then nodded once.

I laughed, a little hysterically. “Oh, God help me, I don’t know what to do. You are the man who would barter your kingdom for a cup of coffee!”

Caleb laughed also. “I think you have put your threat to Ella Amida the wrong way around, Britannia. Agree to make him king only if you may choose your own husband.”

The distant chanting stopped. The moon sailed high. I gazed down at the coin in my palm.

“I will make him king,” I said decisively, “if Priamos goes free and fully pardoned. Then Priamos may complete his commission in Britain as Constantine’s ambassador, though I dread having to mediate between them.”

I could not remember what Priamos looked like smiling; in my memory he wore a permanent frown. It made no difference. To speak his name made tears catch in the back of my throat.

“Priamos goes free,” I repeated firmly. “And Telemakos—”

Medraut placed his lean hand over mine where I held it open on my knee, lacing his long fingers between my own and locking the gold coin between our palms.

“Telemakos is blameless,” I said. “He is already free.”

“Your plan has a single flaw,” Caleb said.

“What flaw?”

“It leaves Wazeb with no British ambassador.”

“Oh, yes,” I said.

Medraut squeezed my hand. I saw that he was looking at me, a curious expression of fond admiration in his face. He let me go and softly touched the top of my head, as though he were blessing me.

I said calmly, I made myself sound as calm and serene as Turunesh: “We expected my twin brother Lleu, late prince of Britain, next in that position; so if Wazeb will accept it, I will stand in Lleu’s place.”

Caleb did not answer immediately. I remembered to lower my eyes, but held my head high, feeling the cloth of gold and the narrow crown weighing heavy on my hair.

“You are a child,” Caleb said. “You are a woman.”

I heard the paradox in his words before he did.

“There are no women allowed in Debra Damo,” I answered, “yet I am here.”

It was a place of paradox, Debra Damo, prison and sanctuary, a double-sided coin.

“Neither truth has ever prevented me from acting. Let me represent my kingdom in your capital as I represent it here, tonight.”

Then Caleb’s laughter rang across the high plateau.

“Done, Britannia.”

The night air was like coffee: sharp, dark, uplifting, strong with excitement. I breathed deeply of it and bowed my head before the emperor.

“Thank you, Highness,” I said. “I will serve as I am able.”

The emperor Ella Asbeha stood up. He beckoned me to rise also. “You will sleep here tonight,” he said, “but do not remove the head cloth while you are in this place. It is only my borrowed sovereignty that allows you here, and you may not stay more than this one night. Nor should you otherwise delay your return. Priamos will be suspected in your disappearance, and will be harshly used if anyone thinks he encouraged you to peril.”

I hissed sharply. How could I not have seen that? Placing me in harm’s way could be punishable as real treason, punishable by death.

“And he deserves better,” Caleb added, musing. “No other has been so adamant in his loyalty, or has been tested so severely. He is the best of Candake’s brood.”

Caleb paused, then finished lightly, “You will be given a room in the royal enclosure, where my nephews sleep. Ras Meder will show you the way. If I do not see you in the morning, Britannia, I wish you God’s speed and God’s blessing. I am sure you will serve both our kingdoms well.”

I could not sleep in the hard, bare, beautiful house that they called the royal enclosure. I lay awake and stiff all night, in the place where Priamos had passed his childhood, afraid that I would damage Caleb’s head cloth if I moved in my sleep while I wore it. In truth, there was no reason I could not have taken it off in the privacy of the room they gave me for the night; but Caleb had warned me to wear it, so I did. It felt like cloth of lead, not cloth of gold, by morning.

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.

M
EDRAUT 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.”

Constantine knelt before Medraut. He knelt, and waited to be told to rise. Medraut, of course, said nothing.

“I submit to your authority,” said Constantine.

Would I were a man. Here was I to bestow on him a
kingdom,
and still he addressed my companion as though I were not there.

My voice seemed loud in my own ears as I said, “I mean to make you high king of Britain, my cousin. It pains me a little to do so, but you are my father’s chosen heir. Your regency ends as Wazeb becomes the emperor Gebre Meskal, the servant of the cross. I bring Caleb’s blessing for his son, and have crowns for you both.”

Constantine glanced up at Medraut and said hesitantly, “My lord?”

“I have crowns for you both,” I repeated, with fearful warning in my voice. “I have brought you the crown of the prince of Britain.”

“My lady.”

Constantine finally inclined his head in my direction.

He challenged: “Here stand a son, a daughter, and a grandson to Britain’s high king. Three of you stand before me alive and whole, and still you would offer me this kingship?”

“Not without condition.”

“Of course not,” Constantine acknowledged bitterly, just as though we were battling in his study once again, as if he were composing a new set of choice words to tell me how stubborn and irrational I was, only he could not embarrass himself before the troop of imperial spearmen.

“Of course not,” I agreed, temperate and composed. This was not a battle, and Constantine would see so eventually. I waited.

He murmured at last, “What are your conditions?”

“My engagement to you is sundered, that I may stay here in your place, as Britain’s next ambassador to Aksum.”

He blinked in surprise. Then I saw his jaw tighten, and knew it for jealousy, as he considered what I might do alone in Aksum after his return to Britain.

“There’s more,” I said, cool and proud.

“Go on,” he answered politely, through his teeth.

“Ras Priamos shall be freed, and formally pardoned by you. Caleb and I have agreed that Priamos must return with you to Britain to fulfill his embassy there under your rule.”

Constantine knelt quiet, nonplussed and speechless for a moment. Then hesitantly he began: “What then of your talk of choosing Britain’s heir…”

He glanced at Telemakos. I shook my head warningly.

Constantine gathered himself. “Who then will follow me?”

“Your issue,” I said, “or your choice. You shall not be bound to me any more than I to you.”

Again I waited. The terms were set.

“My lady,” Constantine said, and this time turned his reverence to me as well as his words. “This is a fair and generous offer. I will serve as I am able.”

Then, to one of the officers, “Bring Wazeb.”

“Bring Priamos,” I commanded, with cold and absolute authority, though my cheeks burned as I said it. I had not seen him since the Meskal parade. I had not spoken to him for more than two months.

So they joined the congress: Wazeb in his unadorned white shamma, emperor to be, wearing his cross of twisted grass like the novices from the monasteries or the children of the mountains; and Priamos with his two attendant spear bearers, like a pretender to the kingship.

Constantine saw it, too. He barked out, “My God, but this is madness. He has the very face of treachery.”

But why, why? That heavy brow, which I had held dear and inaccurate in my mind for so long, seemed faintly worried; but not treacherous. Eyes lowered, Priamos wore the careful, blank expression that meant he was hiding himself. I knew that look. It was the look Priamos had worn as he knelt to have his hands whipped. It meant he was afraid and would not let it show.