by Marc Secchia
“Hmm,” said General Getu. “Where’d you pick up that shiner, girl?”
“Weapons training with the warriors, my Lord.”
He raised an eyebrow. On his half-burned face, that was hardly a comforting expression. “My men playing rough?”
Her eye, Princess Annakiya had commented that very morning, looked like a ‘magnificent beetroot’. Shioni dropped her gaze to her toes, tongue-tied. It was a fine shade of purple, for sure, and starting to turn yellow as it healed up.
The General said, “Hmm,” again, and turned his attention back to the discussion.
What did he mean–‘hmm’? She was accustomed to being ignored by important people, or at very best, insulted or told how slow and lazy she was. Shioni directed a meaningful look at Princess Annakiya, who replied with a tiny shrug of her shoulder as she plucked another scroll out of the bundle.
“My Lord, this old record we have from Axum says that the castle once supported up to a thousand people living hereabouts.”
Without raising her head, Hakim Isoke said, “Well, anyone could see that from the remains of the terracing on the hillsides here. It was an extensive farming operation. That’s one thing we should start developing. When the rains come, the terracing will stop the flow of water downhill into our foundation works.”
“But we want to fill the moat.”
The Hakim rounded on the unfortunate mason and snarled, “When we’re well and ready, you fool, and not before! Have you not listened to anything I’ve been saying? If you want mud and rocks being swept into what you’ve just cleared out then carry on!” She rolled her eyes. “At least try to think with what God set on your shoulders, man!”
“No, this is not your average hilltop fortress,” she said. “Whoever designed this castle was very, very advanced. The size of the outer walls, the corner towers… I have never seen anything to compare. A refuge of last resort against terrible enemies? Enemies with weapons that could threaten such walls as these and tear them down? It doesn’t make sense–but we’ll work it out, won’t we, Princess?”
“Yes, Hakim.” The Princess could be demure when she wished, and Shioni had noticed many times that she knew exactly how to handle the Hakim’s temper. “What about when Ma’rib was threatened by the Axumites...?”
“Many times over the centuries, the Kings of Axum cast greedy eyes across the Red Sea at Sheba’s riches,” Hakim Isoke lectured. “That is beside the point. Our forefathers did not have this knowledge or technology, Princess–have I not taught you so?”
“We built the great dam at Ma’rib.”
“And your father put Axum to the sword. But we still could not have built this structure, nor could the Axumites. Even to cut stone with such precision is a marvel. It must have taken the resources of a great kingdom.”
The Hakim turned to the engineers. “So don’t forget the terraces. Put fifty slaves to it at once. And they can start spreading the manure up there too. We might as well get some use from our horses and elephants.”
General Getu was leading the group further. “So I think we have the wrong course for the river diversion,” he said. “You can see from here. Look up the hill.” His finger traced a path around a large mound. “They brought it down this way. You can still see the channel’s ancient path. This is how they flooded the moat.”
“From higher upriver than we were planning.” The Hakim was measuring the distance with her eyes. “It’ll still take some work. Agreed. Chief mason–mark the plan. Now, about these elevations…”
From then on the discussion turned very technical. Even Annakiya was only pretending interest, Shioni noticed. She waggled her ankle gently. Her collection of bruises and hurts was definitely healing up now. Mama had taken the stitches out of the cut on her cheek. She just hoped it would not leave a scar.
“Pwincess! Pwincess!” A little messenger boy came puffing up the hill. “Twader’s here, Pwincess.”
“The trader?”
“Fabwiccy man.”
“Fabrics,” Shioni translated with a smile. “The fabrics and cosmetics trader, Princess.”
“Oh, he’s early. Come on, he’s supposed to have silks from the east! Hakim?”
“If you have to.”
Annakiya was only too glad to escape. “I must do my father’s bidding.”
Her father’s bidding? Shioni wanted to laugh. Most of all, she wanted to share with Annakiya all that had been happening to her. But she could not put words to her secrets and so they lodged in her breast, making her quiet and pensive and ready to explode. And she had been thinking about going back to check on the lion. She really was a sad case.
Having offloaded the scrolls and plans with another slave, Annakiya and Shioni walked back downhill. From above, the castle resembled an anthill. Workers were swarming over every square foot. The busy clinging and clanging of masons’ chisels and hammers was a constant background noise, along with slaves singing as they shovelled rubble down in the fosse and hauled it out in great bucket-loads. Three elephants were dragging out the bigger blocks of dressed stone, which would be used once more in the building work.
“Not very tall, but stout,” said Annakiya, looking at the castle. “Hakim Isoke says the central keep is quite an innovation. I expected it to be taller, but it’s only twelve feet or so on the walls. The towers are a decent height though.”
“I like it. Especially the baobab.”
“There’s talk of cutting it down for firewood. It seems dead.”
“It reminds me of a fat old man whose belly is nearly sagging to the ground.”
Annakiya laughed. “I think it looks like one of those old wineskins. A pot-bellied wineskin. You know, Mama has been telling me about how useful the baobab is in medicine.”
“In which case, let’s keep it.”
“It’s dead, you silly. Anyway. Will you help me select fabrics for the King’s room, and my clothing, and some curtains…? And then we’ll see what nice cosmetics he has–I’m all out of kohl for starters. And lipstick.”
“I suppose someone has to empty the King’s treasury, right?”
“Whatever do you mean?” The Princess stamped her foot in a fit of outrage so fake that Shioni had to laugh.
“I mean, there’s a reason the traders come all the way from Takazze to find you, isn’t there? And it’s not to take in the cool mountain air. It’s the jingle in your purse.”
“Huh! I am the Princess of West Sheba after all.” Her shoulders slumped. “So I have to set fashion trends, or what would all those women in Court do with their days? I’m so glad we left behind all those tailors and hairdressers, perfumers and stylists…”
“You love the fuss, really.”
“I love a good scroll, that’s what I love. Do you know what Father said to me yesterday? I need to have my hair done like a proper Princess. Apparently–” she kicked a stone off the path, “–I have ‘let myself go’ since we came to the castle.”
“Oh, Anni.”
“Nothing I do is ever good enough for him, Shioni! Nothing–I’m a girl. He always wanted another boy, and that’s that. It’s my fault.”
“Your fault?” Shioni knew little about the Queen, except that she had passed away when Annakiya was four and nobody talked about it. How could her death be Annakiya’s fault? “But your mother–”
“Not my mother!” Annakiya shot back. “Don’t you know anything? I mean the signs of my birth. The wise women told Father I was a boy-child. When a girl arrived, he went mad, absolutely mad. Everyone agrees–a girl is very unlucky.”
“If you believe those things, Anni,” she said earnestly.
The Princess stormed off several steps, then turned to shout, “You know the only reason the King bought you? Because my mother died! You’re just a stupid slave!”
Shioni looked up at the sky. Had lightning just struck from that unblemished expanse, she would have been no less shocked. The accusation that she had been purchased just to provide Annakiya with a distractio
n–a toy, even–after her mother’s death should have hurt more, she felt. Or would the pain come later? Stupid slave. She’d been called worse. But not by someone who called her ‘friend’, nor with such venom.
Annakiya blamed her mother’s death on her unlucky birth, she realised. Boys were valued above girls in Sheba. So much so, that many of the slave-girls she worked with shared similar stories of being abandoned after birth. But not many had been bought as toys for Princesses.
The Princess had a father.
So was it better to have a father who treated you as worthless, or none at all?
Shioni hurried after Princess Annakiya. She would need someone to hold her purchases–a piece of living chattel to hold her chattels. There, cupped in a perfect nutshell, was her gloriously weird slave’s life.
Chapter 10: Famous, What?
“Ah, the famous Shioni,” said the Archivist, peering short-sightedly at her. “Step into the light, my child.”
Shioni stepped forward, feeling a little shy in his presence. The man’s hair was pure white, his eyes deep but twinkling in welcome, and when he smiled his cheeks seemed to develop so many deep creases that the corners of his mouth fairly vanished from sight. He was gorgeously dressed, like the other priests and deacons who had paraded up to the castle for the occasion of the King’s birthday, and–she scrunched up her nose–he fairly reeked of frankincense.
“Shioni, personal slave to Princess Annakiya,” he said, consulting the scroll in front of him, “of foreign birth, purchased for one talent of pure silver, no less, at five years of age. Please confirm your name. And speak up, girl, my ears are not what they used to be.”
“I–I am Shioni, my Lord.”
He tapped the scroll, giving her a friendly smile. “I neither growl nor bite–well, only when I’m feeling grumpy. Not today. How old are you?”
“Eleven, sir. I think.”
His red velveteen robes were decorated with such a weight of gold brocade that the cloth stood in stiff folds, rather than hanging loosely. Only the High Priest himself wore more splendid attire than this. Shioni wondered how someone could move under such heavy clothes. Never mind surviving the heat!
“What happened to your eye?”
“Training with the warriors, sir.”
“Mama Nomuula stitched that, or I miss my mark,” he noted, correctly. Shioni touched the spot self-consciously. “She has a deft hand. It’ll heal almost without a scar, I think.”
“Yes, sir.”
What if she told him there was a monster python somewhere beneath his feet, Shioni wondered? She had not forgotten, even amongst the bustle of preparations. Mama Nomuula had been driving her slave-girls from dawn to dusk and beyond to ensure the castle was in perfect condition to receive guests.
The Archivist jotted several notes on the scroll. “You are the Princess’ bodyguard and companion?”
“I take weapons training, yes–what is that you are writing with?”
The kindly eyes considered her more closely. “It is a reed-pen and ink, Shioni. Different to the quill pen I assume your mistress writes with. Am I to understand you can read?”
“No sir,” she lied quickly. “It is against the law.”
“That it is,” said the Archivist, jotting something quickly on another, smaller scroll. After a few minutes, he signed it with a flourish. “But you will find that not all in Sheba is as one might expect.” Reaching inside the neck of his robes, he drew out his slave-necklet and briefly showed it to her.
Shioni gasped. “But… sir! I don’t understand!”
He picked the scroll up and blew softly on the ink. “There was a time before the King’s law against slaves being taught to read and write. I find one cannot unlearn what one already knows, even if a King commands it.”
With a practised movement, he rolled up the scroll and sealed it with a wax seal. “This is the official record of your ownership, Shioni of Sheba. Give it to your mistress, the Princess.”
Bowing her head, Shioni accepted the scroll. She decided to risk the question that was burning in her heart. “Sir, are you saying slaves can be freed?”
“That is also illegal.” But the Archivist’s eyebrows twitched as if to suggest his displeasure with this law. “You are a truly expensive young lady. One whole talent of silver! I hope the King knew what he was getting when he bought you.”
A blush stole up Shioni’s cheeks. “I try not to cause too much offence.”
“No, no, I meant it in a good way! I don’t care that you’re a ferengi–” his smile creased up his whole face again, “–or a slave, or a girl. Trust an old man, Shioni. You need to chase your dreams to catch them. And don’t let your position as a slave stop you.”
Shioni studied her toes, feeling baffled and buffeted by the ideas he had put into her head.
“You are dismissed,” he said. “Until we meet again.”
“My Lord.” She bowed deeply.
She left the short interview convinced he was a very peculiar man indeed.
Why tell her those things? Why call her ‘famous’? Simply a nonsense! Had he suggested the King regretted purchasing her in the first place? No… and her glib lie hadn’t fooled him in the slightest. He knew very well she could read and write. Was he trying to encourage her? Surely not.
Well, she had better hurry. Mama Nomuula’s enormous pots had been bubbling and spitting and spreading the most delicious smells around the castle for several days now. They had gobbled up chickens, goats and whole cows. A team of twenty slaves had been occupied chopping onions, peeling garlic and washing sweet potatoes by the bucket-load. Mmm–just smell that garlic, cardamom, sweet cloves and hot berbere, Mama’s own special blend of eighteen spices! Her step quickened. It was going to be a wonderful feast!
But as she crossed the courtyard, a group of older slave-girls who were setting up long trestle tables for the feast, saw her coming and quickly blocked her path.
“Hsst, ferengi! Where you going?”
“Hyena-breath! Wait up!”
One of the girls grabbed her shoulder. “Too high and mighty to talk to us, are we? Well, working for the Princess doesn’t make you any less a slave!”
“Where’s your holiday dress, slave-girl?”
Dismay stole her tongue. Princess Annakiya hadn’t given her anything to wear for the feast, not even an old cast-off. And Yeshi, her least favourite of the older slave-girls, knew that as well as everyone else.
“Only these old rags?” teased the bigger girl. “Obviously the Princess likes to keep her little ferengi beggar in rags.” Cruelly, she yanked at the neckline of Shioni’s tunic until the cloth ripped. “There. Now you look like a proper beggar.”
Before she knew it, Shioni’s dagger was in her fist. The girls shrieked.
“She’s got a knife! Watch out!”
“SHIONI!” Mama Nomuula’s bellow silenced them all. “Come and stir pots! You girls–are those tables laid yet?”
“Get you later!” hissed Yeshi.
Shioni tucked the dagger into her belt almost as quickly as it had appeared, feeling mutinous and ashamed at having risen to the bait. Now Mama Nomuula was mad at her too. And not even the prospect of a half-day holiday after the feasting would mend that. She stamped off to the kitchen, where she stirred the pots so ferociously that Mama Nomuula had to chide her again.
Chapter 11: The Captain’s Coffee
Later that evening, after the first day of feasting had wound to its conclusion, Shioni knocked on the doorpost of Prince Bekele’s quarters.
“Enter!”
Picking up a small coal stove by the handles, she pushed aside the heavily-brocaded hangings with her shoulder and stepped sideways into his room.
The Prince, Annakiya’s older brother and next in line for the throne, was lounging in a comfortable leather chair, talking to someone whose back was to the door. She was to perform the coffee ceremony for him and his guest.
Shioni set the stove down in a corner, and set about pr
eparing the coffee. A low table held six tiny porcelain cups, a pot of honey, a mound of green coffee beans of the finest quality, a tiny bowl of frankincense, and a long-necked clay jebena for heating water. She touched the jebena and burned the tip of her finger. Perfect. Shioni sprinkled incense on the red-hot coals, releasing a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. Kneeling, she picked up a small iron skillet, emptied the green beans into it, and carefully settled it onto the coals. She fanned the stove to encourage the beans to roast quickly.
Then Prince Bekele’s guest spoke for the first time, and she had to grit her teeth to stop a groan from escaping. Captain Dabir! Thank heavens the dim corner hid her burning cheeks. Fancy having to run into him again, after so memorably inscribing herself on his scroll of slave-girls he would most like to kick given the chance…
Presently, as she shook the skillet repetitively, the beans began to hiss and spit and turn a lovely dark brown on all sides. The rich aroma of roasting coffee mingled with the incense to fill the room with a heady scent. Shioni lifted the hot skillet with a practised hand and brought it before the men so that they could inhale the coffee aromas.
“Slave,” said the Prince, “why are you not properly dressed for the coffee ceremony?”
Shioni was trying not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. One of the men must have stepped in manure, she thought. “My Lord Prince… these are my only clothes,” she said.
“Is it too much,” he asked scornfully, “to ask slaves of the King’s household to dress properly for their Prince? What do you think, Captain?”
“Unacceptable, of course. An insult.”
“Indeed.”
Shioni fled to her corner. She seated the jebena among the coals and placed a chip of wood in its tall, narrow neck, to help the water to boil quickly. She must serve the Prince without delay. But her hands were shaking. When she poured the beans into a wooden pestle in order to grind them, she spilled several on the floor.
