A Coalition of Lions (The Lion Hunters #2)

A Coalition of Lions (The Lion Hunters #2) Page 7

We both laughed wildly.

“Do sit down,” I said, biting my lip at my own lunatic behavior.

Priamos sat on the floor at my feet, finally, with his long legs drawn up against his chest and his arms clasped around his knees. He sighed again, and we sat still and silent for a few moments, apart, but drawing strength and solace from our shared laughter.

“My mother wants to meet you,” Priamos said at last. “I took coffee with her last night. I think you will like Candake the queen of queens, if she does not scare you to death first. You might visit with her this afternoon, while I am in tribunal.”

“I will not. I shall be there with you.”

He began to protest, sober now.

“I will not be ruled by you, or anyone,” I said. “I have more sway over Constantine than he cares to admit, and I will not hear of the state of Britain being discussed behind my back.”

“What have you over Constantine?”

I hesitated, then answered softly, “One who might be called prince of Britain.”

It felt strange to speak these words and mean what I meant by them.

Priamos shook his head without understanding. “The prince of Britain died at Camlan.”

“I don’t mean Lleu,” I said. “I mean Telemakos Meder. He is the high king’s grandson.”

“Oh.”

Priamos shook his head again.

He said slowly, “The boy has his own title; did you know? He is formally Lij Telemakos, which is something equivalent to young prince, a child of noble birth. He is heir to the house of Nebir. No one ever uses his title, though.”

Then he added, “You are playing a dangerous game.”

“I know it,” I said. “But I have no other strength. Oh! Would I were a man!”

Priamos rubbed one hand savagely down his face from temple to jaw and across his mouth, as though he were trying to wipe his face off. “Would I were a different man,” he said passionately.

It is not easy getting yourself into the innermost council chamber of the New Palace uninvited, but certain outrageous or persuasive people have succeeded in it once or twice. I managed at last, making the most of my title and my position as Kidane’s guest and Constantine’s promised bride. They were well under way when I came in, and there was a flurry of confusion while they set an extra chair for me at the side of Constantine’s throne. Constantine glared at me murderously throughout this disturbance. The crown prince Wazeb was there as well, sitting straight and silent, as though it were a great show performed for his entertainment.

The questions of the bala heg were fair. A few of the council must have had some sympathy for Priamos; I am sure that his brother Ityopis did, and Kidane. But it was an interrogation that fell just short of torture, and even so I think they dealt with Priamos more kindly while I was there. He stood for hours, with the patience of a lifetime’s training, before the knot of seated nobles. Not one of them remained in the room for the length of the session; they came and went as they grew weary, or had other appointments to keep. They had drink and sweets brought to them as they listened. Priamos alone remained on his feet without respite, like a prisoner.

My presence must have made the court even more tedious: for now everything had to be asked twice, first by a councilor in Ethiopic, and then again in Latin, for my benefit, by Halen. In an exquisite additional humiliation, Priamos was expected to translate his own answers. I hated that my very ignorance made this trial more difficult for Priamos, so that in everything he said he should be doubly checked by Constantine and by the translator, the afa negus. But I could not have followed it without Halen’s assistance, particularly when they spoke of numbers: how many men were left in Cynric’s force after the battle of Camlan, what the number of cattle and the weight in gold that Cynric had offered for my bride price. I sat absorbed in concentration, working at understanding the questions on my own, leaning forward as though it would make their words clearer if I were closer to the speakers.

Priamos had surrendered himself voluntarily to Cynric, a thing which was found to be deeply improbable, and not just by Constantine.

“I should think,” said Danael, the one of the bala heg who seemed to be the assembly’s leader, “that after being sent home in disgraced bondage from the Himyar, you would not be anxious to become captive again; and yet you submit yourself, untaken, to the warlord who came against the king you were sent to serve.”

Ityopis, who stayed in session longer than any of the rest, put in, “He was not sent from Himyar in disgrace. He was sent free, with Abreha’s pardon.”

“He was sent free by Cynric, as well, and I will know why there was so much goodwill all around, in the wake of a battle that resulted in the death of Britain’s high king.”

So Priamos explained how it had started by mistake, and how a settlement had been reached before it began, and how he had hoped to discover the prince of Britain’s fate through his own surrender. He took full responsibility for his actions, and I thought he acquitted himself well.

When Constantine spoke, he always seemed to ask things that Priamos could not possibly know, or which Constantine should know himself.

“You have said the southern ports are in Cynric’s hands: which are the southern ports?”

“Has Cynric allegiances among the Saxon pirates?”

“What was the strength of the Deva garrison before it was reduced?”

What did that matter?

“What is the present strength of the Deva garrison?” asked Danael.

Priamos waited patiently for the question to be translated for me before making an answer.

“I cannot guess with any accuracy,” he said in Ethiopic.

There was a long silence.

“I cannot guess with any accuracy,” Priamos repeated in Latin.

“You cannot guess?”

“I do not know.” There was another long pause. Priamos sighed, and translated. “I do not know.”

“Guess without accuracy,” suggested Constantine.

Priamos said hesitantly, “Two thousand, perhaps.”

“Closer to twenty-five hundred,” I said in Latin, “with five hundred more relocated to Melandra.”

There was a moment of frozen quiet.

Before anyone could repeat or translate my answer, Constantine asked, “How do you know that?”

“I ordered it,” I said, and straightened my back. I had been leaning forward for so long, with such intense concentration, that my neck ached. “I ordered the dispersal of all the infantry that fought at Camlan. As I ordered Caleb’s trove of silver to be locked in the underground vaults at Elder Field, near Camlan.” I turned to the afa negus. “Do you tell them what I said.”

If I had not been so outraged at their criminal treatment of Priamos, I would have laughed at the court’s reaction when Halen repeated my speech. Wazeb did laugh, out loud and in delight. He had straight teeth that were bright in his dark face, and a smile that came and went as quickly as lightning in a thunderhead.

Zoskales, the eldest of the council, asked in Ethiopic, “Who is she?”

The translator did not repeat this. I realized that half of them assumed I did not understand a word that was spoken unless it was in my own language.

I answered the question in Ethiopic. “I am Goewin the dragon’s daughter. I am the only living child of the king whose wealth you have discussed all this afternoon.”

Priamos, who had not yet spoken a word unless it was required of him, said now: “She is rightfully high queen of Britain, negeshta nagast, queen of kings. It shames me that we are not all on our knees before her.” He added recklessly, “And he who calls himself Ella Amida will not come into his own inheritance without her blessing.”

It threw them into uproar. Most of them came to their feet; Kidane and another three bowed, including Danael and Ityopis. Two more began to rise, then sat again.

“Who let her in, then?” the old man muttered. “I do not understand who let her in.”

“SHE IS DAUGHTER TO THE KING OF BRITAIN,” his neighbor bellowed at his ear.

“She is the viceroy’s betrothed. She is the viceroy’s betrothed,” said Priamos in Ethiopic and in Latin. In the frantic astonishment that followed, Priamos enthusiastically repeated this last in Greek and Arabic, and finally, for good measure, in Hebrew.

Wazeb gave another bark of delight.

“We will come to order!” Constantine thundered. “Zoskales, do you sit on this council to prescribe laws or to nap? And you, Ras Priamos, I swear, if I am made to endure one more insolence from you I will set you to cutting salt blocks in the desert for the next two years, do not doubt me. Now let us finish this! I cannot spare another afternoon—”

“You have a season of afternoons to spare,” I blazed, and I was on my feet with the rest of them. It was all I could do to keep from striking him in the teeth. “The long rains are upon us. I may have no jurisdiction over Priamos in this land, but by my father’s sword, I am your queen, Constantine. Ella Amida. Whoever you are. Detain Priamos here if you must, but save for me your questions over my father’s wealth and the size of his armies! We shall discuss Britain at length before either of us is able to travel there. You may schedule interviews with me over all this season, but I will see an end to this inquisition of my ambassador!” I sat down and added, “Now, shall you exile me for insolence?”

It was the end. There were no more questions. Priamos was taken back to his room, and Kidane and I walked home together through pouring rain.

PART II: STALEMATE

CHAPTER V

A Red Sea Itinerary

“WHY ARE YOU SAD?” Telemakos said to me suddenly.

I stood in Kidane’s reception hall, arms folded, staring out the tall windows at the dripping forecourt. Telemakos was trying to teach one of the parrots to whistle as he did, through the gap in his teeth.

“You look sad,” he repeated.

“The rain makes me homesick,” I told him. “What do you do all winter?”

“Beg Grandfather to take me to the New Palace with him,” Telemakos answered readily, in between whistles.

“What is there to entertain you in the New Palace?”

“I play gebeta and santaraj with the queen of queens. And I play with the animals. Candake has very clever cats: we make them do tricks. She tells good stories, too. I like the queen of queens. She is beautiful.” He whistled again, speaking absently, concentrated on the parrot. He had an unintentional habit of narrowing his eyes and lifting one white eyebrow when he was focused on something, which made him seem deceptively calculating and precocious.

“I help the animals keeper,” Telemakos continued. “And—” He whistled, and laughed, because this time the parrot answered him. “Well done, Rainbow!”

“And?” I prompted.

“I like to listen to the courtiers.”

“Don’t they mind?”

“They never notice,” he said casually. “Grandfather is always telling me to listen.”

“Do you hide sometimes?”

Still coaxing the parrot, Telemakos did not blink or falter; but he did not answer me immediately.