by Marc Secchia
Almaz was quickest to capitalise. She leaped forward, driving her knees into Shioni’s chest with all of her sizeable weight. The breath burst out of her in one huge kafuffle of bubbles. Shioni swallowed, choked, and thrashed about desperately. Then suddenly she was up again, then down, being slapped and pushed about and repeatedly dunked by the three. Was this real? Was this happening to her? Shioni felt herself drift away. Perhaps it was someone else’s body being pummelled like a sack of grain and spitting up water and drifting hazily beneath the surface.
Suddenly she became aware they had stopped. Rising from the water Shioni turned around slowly, feeling as though she was a frog that had just been tumbled in a waterfall. Were they bored by her lack of response? She blinked. No, they were looking across to the far side of the pool, where a solitary rider had appeared between where the tall riverside reeds gave way to a stand of flat-topped acacia trees.
Captain Dabir.
He raised his hand and waved, calling, “Make sure the ferengi gets nice and clean, girls.” And he rode on without a backward glance.
It crystallised in Shioni’s mind then. Tiny’s mouth was moving, but she did not hear what she was saying. Their attack was organised. Efficient. The messenger boy sent to lure the Princess away. The cord ready to bind her wrists. The pool, hidden from sight… it all stank of Dabir’s handiwork. She had crossed Dabir before. Now she would pay.
Azurelle would be watching, but what could she do?
Anger boiled up inside her as superheated lava rises up a volcanic pipe. Abruptly, she head-butted the face in front of her. Blood exploded out of Almaz’s nose. Next, as she had trained countless times with the warriors, she leaned forward and executed a powerful back-kick with her heel. Suddenly it was Yeshi stumbling backward, clutching her split lip.
The girl looked at her fingers stupidly, as if she could not believe she was seeing her own blood. “You little worm!”
Real fear speared into her, marrow-deep. Before, Yeshi had been fooling about, showing off her power, arrogantly abusive. But now she had been shamed. Shioni could read the emotions straight off her face. This was going to be bad.
Tiny was a small dog nipping at her, but it was Yeshi who grabbed a fistful of Shioni’s long blonde hair and began to pull her across the pool, yanking her along as though she were a stubborn donkey, from the shallows into deeper water. The other two pushed from behind. Shioni was helpless to resist their combined strength. Water was soon lapping up to her chin. Yeshi and Almaz, both a head taller than her, had no trouble keeping their footing.
Shioni heard herself bawling for help and despised the note of misery in her voice.
Yeshi’s hands forced her head beneath the surface. Now there was no respite. Lungs burning, head pounding, a dull roaring filling her ears. This was it. She meant to kill her. She had a second to hear Yeshi screaming in her ear and to snatch a precious breath before the water closed over her head again. Shioni tried to kick herself off a boulder on the bottom, but the cruel hand only gripped her hair as tightly as an eagle’s talons grip a lamb to wing it off into the sky.
Her world was a brownish-blue haze. Disconnected, her limbs seemed to want to float away. She saw two tilapia fish staring at her from a few feet away. A freshwater crab pinched her foot gently with its oversized claw, as if to ask her what the matter was. Confused, Shioni could only stare back mutely. Suddenly the tilapia flashed by her face and away. A current curled around her body, tugging at her legs and feet.
Up again. Her cheeks stung from several slaps. Yeshi and Almaz seemed to be up on a boulder, handling her as if she were a bobbing cork. Yeshi’s face was blotchy with anger. Almaz wore a glazed, vicious expression, as though she hardly knew or cared what she was doing. Her nose was turning purple… was it broken?
Wriggle, struggle, buck, battle. Shioni’s whole world was reduced to the now. The hands were shoving her down again… down toward the pool’s pebbly bottom… and she felt her legs being towed sideways. Seized by the current, they slipped toward a narrow crack between the boulders. It was similar to her dreams of the witch Kalcha: she could watch, but was powerless to stop what was happening. Her feet were swept forcefully into the gap. Her right foot lodged there.
Even in her dream-state it happened too fast for her to credit. The person above her pulled so hard it felt as if a chunk of hair had been torn loose from her scalp. But her foot would not budge. The pull came again, perhaps a little panicked. Pain shot through her ankle.
Shioni had enough air left in her lungs to perfectly appreciate her predicament. She fought and kicked with all of her strength, using her free leg to try to brace herself against the boulders; but her foot was wedged too tightly in the crack. She fought the rope binding her wrists. If only she could loosen that… and in her mind she was screaming: Help! Help me! They’re killing me! Every time she tried to drag herself downward, the direction she instinctively knew her foot should come loose, she bobbed up again. She was simply too buoyant.
Terror and distress consumed her. Her battle was strangely silent, gently muted in that underwater world, a nightmare dawdling to its inescapable conclusion. Every movement was slowed by the water. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Her vision began to turn yellow, and then black at the edges, closing in as though wings of night were coming to spirit her away.
As her strength faded, Shioni delved deeper than ever before and screamed inaudibly to the world: Help me! Please…!
Here came the crab. A concussion struck her limp body… and… a trunk writhing toward her like an underwater snake? How…?
The world faded into silence.
Chapter 9: Flying Elephants
A hand pounded her back as though she were a lump of bread dough being shaped on Mama Nomuula’s kitchen table.
Shioni coughed–but the cough turned into a convulsion that caused her to vomit up river water until she felt her stomach would spill out to join the mess on the ground next to her face. Tender fingers drew back her hair; a voice murmured something she barely understood, but which comforted her nevertheless.
Her mind drifted back from a place beyond sleep.
Next she felt a puff of odd-smelling air waft against her cheek. Her eyes slowly focussed in on the soft tip of an elephant’s trunk exploring her face. Was she dreaming? Here was the elephant again. Had the elephant been underwater with her? Now she was definitely going crazy…
“Tell the elephant you’re fine, honey,” said a familiar voice. “She won’t let you alone.”
Shioni groaned loudly and flopped over. She instantly regretted moving. Her head was throbbing intensely, as though an unseen drummer were pounding its insides without care or mercy. Foetid water surged out of her mouth. Each cough was accompanied by a blinding stab of pain. But after clearing her stomach, she immediately began to feel better.
She dared to prise her eyes open again.
Beside her she saw Mama Nomuula and Dusky, the oldest of the female elephants. Here too was Princess Annakiya, as red-eyed as though she had been crying rivers. Her eyes wandered further. General Getu, sitting on a stool as though it were a sharp rock he would rather not have sat upon. A slave held an umbrella over him. His face told a grim tale. Yeshi, Almaz and Tiny were kneeling in the dust near him. Their faces were scratched raw, as though they had been dragged repeatedly through a patch of thorn bushes. A group of Elite warriors in full lion-headdress regalia stood guard over the unhappy trio. Almaz had two black circles beneath her eyes, as if each had been punched separately. Definitely a broken nose, Shioni decided. As she deserved.
The trunk prodded her stomach insistently.
“Dusky… I’m fine.”
Pictures swarmed into her mind like a cloud of mosquitoes rising from a still river. Shioni’s screams for help. Dusky running downriver… launching herself from above the waterfall… diving… pulling a flaccid body away from the rocks to the shore. Birds, a dark cloud of birds, swarming over Yeshi, Almaz and Tiny. Diving, screaming, scratching,
clawing… what on earth? Crabs hanging off Tiny’s legs and fish trying to bite her flesh?
She was so confused! The only thing she could think was how grateful she was to Dusky for pulling her out. A wave of thanks poured out of her. But how had Dusky known, she wondered? The pictures kept whizzing around in her head as though they were a group of hostile wasps protecting their nest. She could not make sense of it all. What in heaven’s name had she managed to set off this time?
Now–at last, judging by relieved expressions all round–Dusky ambled off with her handler. As she departed, she was rumbling deep down in her chest, telling the other elephants the news.
Mama was saying, “Fine now? I’s got medicine in my kitchen for you. You swallowed half the river. The dirty half at that. Them girls–”
“What was the elephant doing, Mama?” asked Shioni, struggling to sit up.
“You should have seen her!” laughed Annakiya. “We all did!” Then her face fell. “When I found Getu and he said he’d sent no such message, I knew… I just knew something was wrong. I ran back here with all these warriors and Mama on my tail–and next thing–”
Mama waved her hands, crying, “That elephant she come charging down the river trumpeting like there’s fire in the halls–”
“And the birds, Mama! Tell her about the birds!”
“There’s birds, these buzzards, all diving about and screeching and attacking them girls. The she-elephant jumps off the rocks and splashes down in that pool like you dropped a mountain in a puddle, and she just reaches down and pulls you up clean as pie…”
“You should have seen Mama run, Shioni!”
“I’s never run so fast in my life, girl!”
“Dusky didn’t hurt herself?” Shioni started to laugh at the thought of Mama thundering down to the river like a she-elephant amongst all those lean, swift warriors, but succeeded only in coughing more water out of her lungs.
“A bit,” admitted Mama, patting Shioni’s back again. “She were heaving and wheezing like furnace-bellows for a bit there. But she wouldn’t leave you. She wouldn’t let nobody near you except me.”
Her foot was ablaze in pain now. A meaty wash-rag of skin was flapping off it. The elephant must have wrenched her from between those rocks. Brave, wonderful Dusky! Jumping off the waterfall! Guilt shot through her heart. Surely an elephant–especially an elderly elephant like Dusky–shouldn’t be jumping into rock pools? Flying elephants… what if she’d broken a leg? Or worse?
And the birds? The fish and crabs? She must have called them all to her aid! Including the elephant! A violent, malarial shivering accompanied the shock of her new realisation. This would throw dry tinder on the fires of the rumours accusing her of being a witch!
Gentle hands drew a blanket around her shoulders. “You cold, honey?”
“So!” General Getu’s voice rasped forth. “Now that you’re back with the living, Shioni, let’s talk about why these three tried to kill you.”
Chapter 10: The Price of a Goat
Shioni weighed up the contestants in Castle Hiwot’s courtyard.
She was growing heartily tired of kneeling upon the courtyard stones. She could identify her exact position now, and it had grown no softer since three days before, when Annakiya had sat in judgement of Desta. She had been allowed just two days to recover from nearly being drowned.
Her injured foot ached as though one more violent throb would make it drop off. The pain speared all the way up through her knee into her thigh. Shioni eased her foot and tried to concentrate on goings-on despite feeling woozy from Mama’s medicine. She was afraid she might faint.
There were three distinct groups in the courtyard–Talaku in the first, managing despite his gigantic presence to remind her of a sullen boy accused of stealing honeyed sweets from Mama’s kitchen, Princess Annakiya and General Getu in the next, presiding over proceedings, and a gaggle of quarrelsome village elders in the third, trying not to be intimidated by the one hundred Sheban Elite warriors standing to attention all around them and lining the battlements above.
“How many goats was that?” whispered Princess Annakiya.
“I make it nineteen,” General Getu muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
“Twenty-three,” said Shioni, who had been scratching lines on the stones by her knees. “And counting.”
She just about caught Getu’s snigger of amusement, made with a perfectly straight face. He clapped his hand on his knee for attention. “My fathers! From what I hear, you have been blessed with many goats. We Shebans will of course offer fair compensation for these stolen animals. Appoint therefore amongst yourselves one who will receive an agreed sum and distribute it among you according to what you agree has been lost by each person.”
Getu, the old fox, had lost none of his wiles. Shioni grinned inwardly. How she wished she could have as much wisdom dealing with people! Maybe then she would spend less time floating underwater. A shiver touched her neck with spiderlike delicacy. The three slave-girls had vanished. Overnight, sent away, as though they had never been–at Annakiya’s orders, she reasoned, or she was a plodding old donkey. But things were no better for her since.
Her latest nickname was ‘the ferengi witch’. When they saw her coming, her fellow slaves and many of the warriors would make a sign to ward off evil. The tale of the attacking birds was like a grass fire stoked by a blustering breeze. Shioni would have preferred the tale of the flying elephant, which Mama loved to tell in her unique style. Her jaw was tender from constantly gritting her teeth over the matter. Either way, there was nothing natural about what had happened.
And she would never be the same person again.
Shioni held that thought for a moment. It was frightening what one experience could do to her. Mama had ordered her to go back to the pool and swim there. Would she find the courage? There had been no opportunity as yet.
At least Dusky was alright–winded and sore, but otherwise none the worse for wear. That was more important than her stupid, aching foot!
Here came Mama now, directing a group of slave-girls to lay out a meal, missobs–low, round tables woven from rushes–for eating from, and three-legged stools for the elders. The stools had been carved by the carpenters just last week, she remembered. The shared meal symbolised the understanding between West Sheba, or Talaku, and the villagers. She just hoped the giant would not stuff his face too obviously. Her thoughts must have shown, because Talaku was giving her a sinister glare across the courtyard. His cheek twitched once. And then she caught a picture from him, remembering how he had stolen his most recent goat.
Her jaw sagged open. Heavens above, Talaku was talking–well, emoting, that was what Shuba called it–just like an animal! How creepy! Nausea burned in the pit of her stomach. How… disturbing. Shioni clamped her teeth back together. She tried to think it through, but all she could imagine was that either he was changing, or she was. And she didn’t fancy either idea. Not one bit.
Her neck was killing her. So much for having time to recover, as Mama Nomuula had ordered. The village elders had not announced their visit–which was not unusual, but it threw the castle staff into a frenzy of preparations. Apparently she was still fit to chop onions. No bandaged foot or red weals on her wrists from fighting the leather thong had changed that.
The Elite warriors had spent the days preparing for their raid on Chiro Leba, judging from the sounds she had heard as she was resting and recovering on her pallet. The patrols had been redoubled, night and day, and General Getu issued orders that hyenas were to be killed on sight. But now the ranks of dark, battle-ready warriors stood to attention beneath a cloudless sky, roasting in their armour, sweat dripping down their necks, as the hasty court wound to its inevitable conclusion.
Her stomach gave a gurgle similar to a feeding hippopotamus. Annakiya was enjoying herself, smiling prettily as she flattered several of the elders, eating as much as she wanted–and her slave had a rack of ribs one could play music on.
Shioni sighed and lifted her eyes to the heavens. Immediately, she spotted an eagle atop the baobab. Squinting into the glaring sun, she judged it a fish eagle from the cotton-white head and chestnut belly. What a savage, beautiful mien it had! The predatory, hooked beak and curled talons! It was the first fish eagle had seen up in the mountains. What if she called it now? Would the eagle respond to her? As if it had sensed her inmost thoughts, the eagle opened its wings and took off gracefully, winging over the castle with a plaintive cry.
“Come,” said Annakiya, touching Shioni’s shoulder. She rose gratefully. “Walk with me, old woman.”
“I’ll whack you with this stick if you don’t watch out.”
“Now, is that any way to treat the Princess of the realm?” But Annakiya slowed her pace to match Shioni’s game hopping. “How’s the foot?”
Shioni grimaced. “Infected. Smelly. Mama’s upset with me.”
“Sorry you had to be out here today.”
“Somebody had to count the goats.”
“Ah, the amazingly multiplying goats?” The Princess steadied her up the small stone step into the cool corridor of the castle. “Careful. Talaku must have been ravenous. He did take them, didn’t he?”
“A good number, I’d guess. But not twenty-three.”
Chatting away, they entered the relative coolness of Annakiya’s chamber. A few purchases from the merchants, and it was looking much more homely now–linen hangings to cover the bare stone walls, hand-woven with stylised Ethiopic crosses hand-stitched along their borders, a wooden table to hold an oil lamp, a writing desk with scrolls neatly arranged across its entire surface, a comfortable wood frame bed with Shioni’s separate pallet at its foot, and a tall cupboard for her clothes: these were all the things the Princess needed.
“Finally! Where have you two been?” Azurelle put her hands on her hips. “How am I supposed to unfurl a scroll without my personal slave present?” And she turned her cheekiest grin on the Princess. “Hey, slave-girl, make yourself useful!”
