Kushiel's Avatar (Page 94)

I did, with gratitude.

We went, all of us, joining the procession to see Safiya restored to her family. Her father fell to his knees, weeping; all told, there was a good deal of weeping on both sides. I had learned a bit, by then, of how she had come to be enslaved in Drujan. One did not ask such things, in the zenana of Daršanga. Women volunteered it or kept silent; one did not ask. Safiya's father had entrusted her unto the keeping of a caravan-guide, to maintain the accounts, on a journey to Iskandria. It was there that the Skotophagoti had claimed her.

Queen Zanadakhete had spoken true: the bone-priests had never penetrated Meroë.

Of Kaneka's case, I knew less, for she was reticent on the subject.

We made merry after Safiya's restoration; it had been a joyous homecoming, and we celebrated it into the small hours. I was glad, after all that had transpired, to see with my own eyes a member of the Mahrkagir's hareem returned to the bosom of her family. It felt a vic tory.

In the morning, Ras Lijasu's guide came for us.

He was mountain-bred, Tifari Amu, with skin the color of cinna mon, keen features and a quiet, capable manner. He and Kaneka con ferred at length, arguing over the map, arguing over the number of donkeys required to bear our goods, arguing over everything; Kaneka truculent, the Ras' guide calm and insistent.

“I think she likes him,” Imriel observed.

“Yes.” I hid a smile. I had taught him well. “I think so, too.”

Their arguments were settled, and the matter decided. We would strike south for Debeho, and thence on to the fabled land of Saba.

There were politics involved; there are always politics. It is a fact of life. Relations between Jebe-Barkal and Saba were nonexistent. We would test the waters for Queen Zanadakhete, our embassy owing naught as it did to Jebean politics. It was somewhat they could disown; a favor to the Lugal of Khebbel-im-Akkad, if need be.

I didn't care. Let them use us as they would. I was glad we were going.

SIXTY-EIGHT

OUR COMPANY consisted now of myself, Joscelin, Imriel and Kaneka, with the addition of Tifari Amu and a fellow soldier of Meroë, along with four hired bearers. Leaving the desert behind, we spent now on the purchase of a donkey-train and mounts for ourselves, swift horses of Umaiyyati stock, with arching necks and tails carried at a jaunty angle, flying like pennants.We followed the Tabara River as best we might, but our journey often took us far afield. Lacking a poet's gifts, I am hard-pressed to describe the terrain we traversed. Such diversity! At its height, the landscape was nearly like unto the Camaeline Mountains that border Skaldi—forested and plunging, dense with pine and sycamore. Here the air grew thin and the nights were cold; so cold we huddled in our tents, shivering and glad of our woolen blankets.

The deep valleys were another matter altogether, green and tropical, filled with all manner of birds, flashing from tree to tree with raucous cries and bright plumage. There were monkeys, too; cunning creatures with bold eyes and scolding voices, agile and long-limbed. Our progress was slow through the valleys, and I was glad of our guides, for we would have been lost on our own, map or no map.

On the eleventh day, we reached the plain where Kaneka's village was located, and it proved yet another new landscape, vast and tawny plains dotted with the gnarled forms of eucalyptus trees. Here we were able to follow the river once more. It flowed at a good pace, narrower and swifter than where it joined the Nahar upstream.

As we drew near Debeho, Kaneka grew moody.

I asked her about it when we made camp that evening, pitching our tents beneath a spreading eucalyptus.

“I quarrelled with my brother, little one,” she said, her voice unwontedly somber. “Do you have brothers?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

Kaneka gave a faint smile. “They are a blessing and a curse. We sought, both of us, to be named our grandmother's successor.”

“The storyteller,” I said, remembering.

“Even so.” She nodded. “There was a contest. Each of us was to tell a story, a true story, that had never been told before. Mafud lied. His story, of a magic ring and a spellbound prince—an Umaiyyati trader told it to him. I know, for I overheard it. But my grandmother did not know, and judged him the winner. No one believed me, so I ran away.”

“The Skotophagoti found you? The ka-Magi?”

“Not in Jebe-Barkal.” Kaneka toyed with a gold necklace she held in her lap, a gift of the Lugal, bowing her head and polishing the gleaming metal. “Tigrati tribesmen found me; highlanders, like him.” She jerked her chin at Tifari Amu. “So I was their captive. They traded me to a merchant in Meroë, and there he sold me to a caravan-master, to cook and clean for him.” She smiled bitterly. “It is why I know so much about camels, little one. And he, he took me to Iskandria. That is where an Aka-Magus found me, and how I came to Drujan.”

“Do you fear the welcome you will receive?” I asked her.

“No,” she said shortly, clasping the pendant about her neck, where it nestled against the leather bag that held her amber dice. She looked at me. “Yes. As we draw nigh, I fear.”

“Don't.” I placed a hand on her arm. “Fedabin, in Daršanga you told us the stories of our fates, and you told them true. Without your courage to follow, the zenana would have faltered. You have lived such a story as your brother can only dream on his darkest nights, and emerged alive to tell it. You will be welcome. I am sure of it.”

Kaneka looked at me a long time without speaking, then shook her head. “Would that I could tell your story, little one, but it is writ in no tongue I understand. The gods themselves must throw up their hands in dismay.”

“Ah, well.” I stood and stretched, watching the purple twilight fall across the plains. Our bearers had a fire blazing, and the spoils of last night's hunt cooking in a stew. Tifari Amu and his comrade Bizan lounged before their tent, whetting their spearheads and conversing. Joscelin and Imriel were returning empty-handed from the river, Joscelin winding the cord of his fishing-line and explaining the finer points of the piscatory arts to Imri. “It is not over yet, I hope,” I said, noting absently how the dying sunlight pinned a crown of flame on Joscelin's fair hair.

“No.” Kaneka smiled. “Not yet, I think.”

In the morning, we rode to Debeho.

By unspoken accord, we rode in procession. Tifari Amu and Bizan took the lead, wearing embroidered capes over snow-white chammas and breeches, their horses prancing as if at parade. Kaneka, clad in her Akkadian robes with a dagger at her waist and her war-axe slung across her saddle, paced behind them, and Joscelin and Imriel and I followed. Behind us came the good-natured bearers and the donkey-train, laden with the Lugal's gifts.

Debeho was a collection of thatched mud huts along the river.

But to Kaneka it was home, and home is a powerful thing. We were spotted long before we arrived, and I saw the dark forms of children jumping and pointing, shrill cries of excitement carried on the breeze.

The village turned out to meet us, for good or for ill, weapons and scythes clasped in weathered hands. At Tifari's command, we raised our arms in salute, baring the passage-tokens of ivory and gold cord bound at our wrists.

And they rejoiced.

We were spectators here, all of us but Kaneka, and we hung back accordingly as she greeted her people, majestic as a queen, tears running in rivulets down her stern, dark face as she ordered the treasure-chests thrown open and her goods dispersed. There—that tall man with greying hair and shoulders like an ox; he must be her father. And the young one, who wept and kissed her hand—her brother, I thought. No mother, I noted—but there, a bent figure leaning on two gnarled sticks, her face wise and creased; surely, it was her grandmother.

It must have been, for proud Kaneka knelt. And the woman, the ancient woman, laid her knotted hand upon that bowed head, trembling, tears in her dark eyes.

Kaneka was home.

The celebration lasted for days, and I must own, they were the happiest I had known in longer than I can count. Debeho was a simple village, but I learned great fondness for it. The mud huts I had eyed dismissively were well-kept and clean, pleasantly suited to the hot clime of the plains. The villagers grew cotton and millet and a hardy strain of melon, and kept cattle as well. Wild bees produced honey, which Jebeans ferment into a heady drink. Spices were prized; some gathered from the fertile mountainous regions, where a particular strain of tiny, hot pepper thrived; others garnered in trade, for Debeho was not so isolated that it never saw traders. There were weavers in the village, and tanners and ivory-workers, for the plains afforded good hunting.

And there was Shoanete, Kaneka's grandmother, the storyteller.

if I had to name her equal, it would be Thelesis de Mornay, who was the Queen's Poet and my friend beside. She had been in seclusion these last few years, her ill health preventing her from carrying out her court duties; it is Gilles Lamiz, her one-time apprentice, who has assumed her mantle. He is gifted, Messire Lamiz—he was the first poet ever to dedicate an epic to me, and I am grateful for it—but the world does not stop and hold its breath when he recites his work. Although she always maintained my lord Delaunay was the superior poet, Thelesis de Mornay had that quality.

Shoanete of Debeho had it, too.

I know, for I spent many hours in that village seated at her feet while she recited tales of the Melehakim, the descendants of Saba, of Shalomon and Makeda and their son, Melek al' Hakim, who was anointed Melek-Zadok. And each one held me spellbound.

'Twas my interest, I will own, that made the subject so compelling; but this did not hold true for the children—yes, and the adults—of Debeho, who gathered round to hear her, listening to her cracked voice give forth the ancient tales. And cracked or no, there was somewhat in it … a resonance, a power, that brought her words to life.

“Here,” she said, tracing an area along the Ahram Sea on Ras Lijasu's map. “Here is ancient Saba, Saba-that-was. And here is the route along which King Khemosh-Zadok, the falsely anointed, led his people in retreat, weeping and beating their breasts, all the way to the Lake of Tears.” Her gnarled finger circled the vast inland lake the Ras had indicated. “It is the source of the Nahar itself, formed by the tears wept by the goddess Isis as she searched for the dismembered body of her beloved husband Osiris.”