by Marc Secchia
She should not be so frightened of him. ‘Trembling like a leaf,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Brave warrior of Sheba you are.’
“Move closer, Shioni. I want to read that inscription.” As she stepped forward, the Fiuri added, “But not onto the bridge. That’s too obvious a place for a trap. Hmm… I see. It says, ‘Key to the Caves’. Why would you chisel that in stone?”
“Maybe because it’s not that obvious,” grunted Talaku. “Go on, titch, why don’t you walk over the bridge and see what you can find out? You’re not going to set anything off.”
“Titch?”
Her indignant squawk made the giant chuckle knowingly, as if he were a father indulging a small child. “Fine. Pretty titch, will you pretty please move your pretty self–”
“Ha! You overstuffed, unschooled barbarian! All muscle and no brains. Just you come down here and say that to my face!”
“Couldn’t if I tried.”
But Talaku was addressing the wings on Azurelle’s back as she flounced off towards the bridge. Coming from someone only four inches tall, her exit was a masterpiece of stomping exasperation–but Shioni thought it made her look cute. She smothered a chuckle. No point in provoking the Fiuri any more than necessary!
Sooner than she had expected, Zi’s voice floated back to them. “It’s complete gibberish, my fine friends,” she called. “I’ll bet the nectar of a thousand flowers it’s a code.”
“Ha!” said Talaku. “Did you check all three sides?”
“What kind of an idiot do you take me for?” screeched the Fiuri. “Of course I did!”
Talaku waggled a bushy eyebrow at Shioni. “Of course.”
“There’s two levers here! What do you think they do?”
“They probably set or disarm a couple of traps,” hazarded the giant. “Hmm–I suppose I could jump that ravine. What do you think?”
“I think we should get Annakiya and Shuba here to take a look,” said Shioni. “Maybe they could figure out what’s on that stele. And the chief engineer–don’t step on the bridge! Talaku! Are you asking for trouble?”
Talaku tapped the stones with the sole of his leather sandal. “What do you think’s going to happen?” A second later, the giant had his answer. “Ouch...”
Shioni folded her arms and tapped her foot. Pointedly.
“Okay, that didn’t do much to prove that being big doesn’t equal being thick between the ears, did it?” And he beamed at her, which was amazing given a flying spear had just pierced right through the calf muscle of his left leg. “Are you okay? You weren’t hit?”
“Oh, I’m fine, no thanks to you!”
Talaku was examining the spear. “At least they didn’t poison these.”
Shioni let her breath out in a sigh and stepped over another spear, which had narrowly missed her ribs. “First your stupid race, now you go setting off traps deliberately? We’re lucky to be alive.”
Azurelle had come rushing over the bridge at the sound of twanging and the swish of a dozen or so large spears hurtling through the air. She told Talaku more succinctly and a lot more rudely than Shioni, exactly what she thought of his behaviour.
The giant had the grace to look chastised. But only a little.
“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll guard the cave, if you go tell General Getu.”
“Tell him which bit of this hyena’s breakfast, exactly?” shrilled Azurelle. “Your stupidity, or–”
“Zi!” Shioni cut in. “Come on. We’ve baited old lions before.”
Chapter 4: Troublemaker-in-Chief
From a distance, Castle Asmat resembled a blocky red ant heap. Its ruddy stone walls were covered in wooden scaffolding and swarming with hundreds of male slaves labouring to complete the thick outer defensive wall. Within, Mama Nomuula’s gardens sprouted right up against the four towers of the inner keep. Above them even, Shioni saw the crown of the massive baobab tree beneath which she had fought Kalcha’s python and rescued Zi. Then, the potbellied tree had seemed bare and dead. Now it was replete with creamy, sweet-smelling blossoms and attracted birds from miles around to a great feast.
Thunder cantered eagerly up the well-worn trail to the castle. He snorted as Shioni waved to the elephants, working hard at hauling lumber and stones for the building works.
“The Chief Elephant is a terrible bore,” he said. “If you ever have trouble sleeping, just ask him to tell you a story.”
Shioni giggled. “He does like his stories, doesn’t he?”
“Ferengi! Ferengi!”
“Shall I bite that little brat,” said Thunder, curling his lip at a wide-eyed little boy running alongside the trail, “or do you want first pickings?”
“Oh, leave him be, Thunder. It doesn’t bother me.”
He flicked his ears. “I’ll believe that the day Captain Dabir dresses in a monkey suit and parades around the castle scratching the fleas in his armpits.”
Shioni smacked his withers with her hand–which didn’t hurt him a bit–as she burst into laughter. “He isn’t my favourite Captain, Thunder, but that’s too much!”
But as they clattered up the short strip of cobblestones into the castle keep itself, Shioni rubbed the back of her head where Captain Dabir had once smeared his dung-encrusted boots all over her hair. Oh, the slave’s life! Maybe Thunder was right. Some things could be perfectly beastly. And Captain Dabir was nothing if not a beast.
“If I can’t bite any more, can I at least kick that bully Yeshi? Please?” asked the horse, spying the sly older girl carrying several gourds into the kitchens. “She reminds me of a walking hyena.”
Shioni swung down from the saddle and handed the rope to a fearful stable boy. “Now just you behave yourself.”
“Killjoy. Can’t a horse have any fun…?”
“No! No biting, kicking, stamping, prancing, squashing, nipping–”
“–or any other kind of equine misbehaviour. I know the lecture by heart, thank you very much.” But as the stable boy led him away, as docile as a sleepy donkey, Thunder surprised her by nickering over his shoulder, “And thank you, Shioni… for all this. I appreciate my new life more than you might realise.”
Well! Shioni stared after the King’s horse. Just when she thought he was in a frisky, feisty temper, he had reached out with a few sincere words and turned her heart into mush. Rascally horse. What a change from the walking rack of ribs he had been when she first met him! Now there was a job worth doing and well done, she told herself, thinking back to how she had travelled deep into the Simien Mountains to rescue Thunder. But without her friend Tensi, the daughter of one of the warriors, and her healing touch… she clenched her jaw. Thunder might have been reduced to a bag of bones. Just like poor Star.
Shaking off her pensive thoughts, Shioni quickly asked after General Getu and learned he was in his room. She knocked politely on the doorpost, slipped within, and dropped easily into the customary kneeling position just inside the door to await his attention. The General was sharing a large, round plate of injera bread topped with several fiery sauces, including Mama’s signature spicy chicken sauce–judging by the rich, aromatic smell of berbere that made her stomach announce itself grandly to every person present–with Mama Nomuula, Princess Annakiya, and several of the Captains.
Cheeks burning, she dropped her gaze.
Shioni hoped she would not have to wipe drool off her lips–that would be almost as embarrassing as the ridiculous antics of her stomach. Mama’s berbere spice blend was widely praised as the best in Sheba, and the reasons for that praise kept tantalising her nostrils. But a slave’s lot was to be hungry, wasn’t it? Constantly. She pressed the hollow of her stomach discreetly with her hands to still the pangs, and had to fight off a fierce urge to behave like a lion licking his chops over a juicy haunch of bushbuck. ‘Oh, Mama!’ she groaned inwardly. ‘A smell so sweet it’s sheer torture…’
After a few moments, Getu rested his elbow on his knee, carefully keeping the red, sauce-smeared fingers of his right
hand away from his uniform. He raised an eyebrow in her direction. “I trust this is important? Make your report.”
She swallowed. Now to beard the grizzled old lion!
In terse sentences, Shioni related how she had found the spoor of Kalcha’s overgrown hyenas by the river, followed by surprising the Wasabi patrol with Talaku, and the traps leading up to the tunnel the Wasabi had vanished into. By the time she finished, all the Captains had stopped eating and were looking to General Getu. His expression turned harder than a block of granite. Briskly, he ordered thirty warriors to rush down to the juniper thicket, clear it of traps, and support Talaku; a troop of scouts to check the spoor by the river; other scouts to be interrogated as to why they had missed a secret tunnel so close to the castle; patrols to be sent in all directions on high alert; the castle to be secured and the guard doubled… in less time than it had taken her to relate the story, Castle Asmat came to resemble a termite mound stirred by a stick.
When his Captains had rushed to their duties, the one-armed General rounded on Shioni. He narrowed his eye–his good eye. The left half of his face had once been terribly burned. It made him look angry even when he was not. The warriors all said he was the best General they had ever served under. As tough as old elephant hide, but also fair and upright.
He said, “Why weren’t you paying attention when you ran into that Wasabi patrol?”
The General was too sharp to miss the inconsistencies in her tale–as expected, Shioni thought, and quietly told him about Talaku’s strange behaviour and their race which ended amongst the Wasabi patrol. “We probably came upon them too fast for them to hide, my Lord.”
Mama Nomuula checked for the fifth time, “But you’s fine, my pet?”
“Hardly a scratch, Mama.”
“You looks all shook up. Have a bite from our plate. Them Captains is missing my best!”
“Because you and the Princess aren’t going anywhere until I’m satisfied that Wasabi patrol really has vanished into the mountain,” growled Getu, with much of an angry hound about his tone. “Eat! Eat first! Then you will accompany the Princess and Shuba to examine the stele. And you will return Princess Annakiya here before sundown without losing so much as one hair upon her head, or I will personally arrange your intestines on a platter for the vultures to pick over. Are we clear?”
“Clear, my Lord.”
As it seemed the General had spoken his piece, Shioni stretched out her right hand, tore off a piece of injera, used it to scoop up a portion of sauce, and popped the bundle into her mouth. Bliss! Oh, Mama’s chicken wot was the tastiest food in the whole world…
“I will prepare my scrolls and ink,” said Shuba, the Kwegu Ascetic, appearing suddenly from a shadowy corner. Her gaunt, hollow-cheeked face, heavily scarred with tribal markings, caught the lamplight for a moment as she gave Shioni a dark, unreadable stare. Then she turned and swept out of the door with her robes swirling about her legs like black-edged wings.
Shioni shivered. She hated it when Shuba popped out of nowhere. It gave her the shivers every time. However, it did not prevent her from taking another hurried bite. The General might become offended if she disobeyed his order to eat. And she was famished.
But a pair of huge arms enveloped her and crushed her into a hug. “I swear you treats my girl like one of your men, Getu!” Mama accused him. “It in’t right!”
“She’s here to serve Sheba.”
“She’s a girl!”
When she became angry, Mama sometimes forgot how strong she was. She was in all dimensions a huge woman, born somewhere down the southern coast, brought to the land of Abyssinia by the slave ships. Her formidable cookery and healing skills had landed her a position in the royal household. She had tree trunks for arms, and a heart as big as her frame. Shioni wished Mama were her real mother–even when she was bending her ribs like kindling for a fire!
“Well, unlike some of the others, this one has heart, and even demonstrates a remarkably functional brain from time to time,” Getu drawled, openly enjoying the way his words made Mama’s jaw drop in surprise. “But she’s also my troublemaker-in-chief. Whenever there’s trouble in this castle–”
“You think!” cried Mama. “She’s just a-looking after your backside and mine.” But at least her arms let up. Shioni could breathe again.
“It’d take five of her to look after your backside.”
Mama seemed to find his rudeness amusing. A beaming smile lit up her round face like the sun leaping above the hills of Abyssinia in the morning. “Better a plump, well-padded rump, than the rear end of a skinny goat like you, eh?”
It was only when no-one else was present that Mama and the General dropped their guard, Shioni thought. They could be so funny! It was almost embarrassing to listen to them sometimes, as though she were overhearing a private conversation. But in a sense she was invited. They didn’t mind her being there.
Being curled up against Mama Nomuula made a perfect storm of feelings boil up within her. Mama smelled of herbs, bread dough and sweat, and the lavender oil she loved to lavish on her dark curls; a smell that Shioni thought all mothers must have. How she longed… how she dreamed... no, she must not even think it. It was too painful. And, catching Annakiya’s unguarded gaze from within the circle of Mama’s arms, she realised how much her friend must miss her mother too. The Queen of Sheba had died a year before she came to court. Shioni had been purchased as a present, a pretty plaything, for the Princess. A diversion from her grief.
A toy-child, some people had called her, unable to believe she was even a real person.
Shioni closed her eyes. Mama Nomuula was in many ways mother to them both.
“You should go saddle my horse, Shioni,” said the Princess, coolly. “I will want to ride out as soon as the General receives word the trail is safe.”
She was jealous! Just because the Princess was cosseted and protected, by none more than Shioni herself… and preferred reading scrolls to having adventures… of course accidents such as running into Wasabi patrols never happened to her! Spoiled brat! But a calmer voice in her head added: she carried many burdens these days, with her father the King lying in a coma, and the impending judgement she had to pass on the rebel villager, Desta. With her brother Prince Bekele away in the Sheban capital of Takazze, Princess Annakiya effectively ruled Castle Asmat and all the warriors and support staff stationed there. That must be like carrying around a sack full of boulders all the time, Shioni thought, regarding her friend loyally. But who better to carry those burdens? Not grasping, selfish Prince Bekele!
Four mouthfuls of food was enough only to tease her stomach into wakefulness. Could she risk more? The set of Annakiya’s lips suggested she had best not delay.
Shioni ironed the pangs of hurt out of her voice with the ease of long practice. “At once, my Lady.”
Princess Annakiya nodded stiffly. Was that regret flickering in her eyes? Lowering her head to hide her feelings and chewing the inside of her cheek once more, Shioni left the room. Until her slave’s necklet was removed, Annakiya would always be her owner first, and her friend second.
And nothing could change that, could it?
Chapter 5: Castle of Life
So, waiting for the General’s all-clear was evidently an opportunity to have the Princess’ official portrait painted. Shioni battled a fierce desire to scratch her nose and kept her smile pasted in place..
Standing out in the blazing sunshine in Mama’s rose gardens was the problem–well, the heady fragrance of the climbing roses, to be exact, was creating an unbearable tickle in her nostrils. She sniffed discreetly. Mama said some of the roses must have been imported years ago. The size of the roots and stems told her that several of the plants were hundreds of years old. And according to Princess Annakiya, the pretty pale Abyssinian roses were also poisonous, used by the desert warriors of the Afar to tip their arrows for hunting and fighting. She winced. Beautiful and deadly. Did that make her appreciate the roses more, or less?
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Holding the heavy, gold-brocaded umbrella aloft to shade the Princess from the intense heat, Shioni let her eyes wander over to the Archivist. He was poring over his painting. It surprised her he could even see the Princess from ten feet away. He kept squinting and grumbling under his breath like an elderly dog guarding a choice bone, and when he applied himself to the frame-stretched cowhide, it seemed he would almost wet his nose in the paint.
The roses were her favourite feature of the gardens. The dense sprays and huge clusters of creamy climbing roses had quickly overwhelmed the trellises Mama ordered to be constructed for them, and were spreading up the side of the keep and two of the towers as if intent on burying them in an abundance of flowery splendour. The slaves muttered distrustfully. Magic? Shioni had no idea how fast roses should grow, but just four months after appearing from barren, cracked soil, they had flourished to their current glory. When questioned, Azurelle said, ‘The castle is enchanted, Shioni. Learn to listen to her.’
Listen to her? A feminine castle? There was nothing overly delicate about the keep or the massive defensive wall! But sometimes–just on the odd occasion–Shioni did imagine she could sense something unusual about the castle. Call it a presence. A heart. Or… she shook her head as though she had a mosquito buzzing around her ear. Or an overexcited and fanciful imagination much preoccupied these days with how it was even possible to speak to animals. That was more likely.
She wondered again: was she going mad, like Talaku? Where could she draw the line between reality, magic, and imagination? Just a few months before, she would not have dreamed a Fiuri even existed! And now? She had daily conversations with horses and elephants!
Shioni wrinkled her nose as the tickle crawled up her left nostril as if an insect had decided to go exploring. She rather enjoyed the Archivist. Everyone else called him ‘eccentric’ or ‘that odd man’. But she knew he was a slave of Sheba too. A slave who could afford lashings of frankincense and robes to outshine the magnificent High Priest himself? It was he who had once called her ‘the famous Shioni’ and opened her eyes to some of Sheba’s strangeness.
