The Empty Kingdom

by Elizabeth E. Wein

  “Can you say what you are sent to do with these?” one of them, Harun, asked carefully.

  Telemakos raised his eyebrows, as the Himyar children did in disapproval or denial, a habit he had picked up from Abreha’s Royal Scions. “Of course I may not say,” he answered.

  Harun mirrored the gesture, understanding. “I should not have asked,” he apologized. “I am always nosing to discover other people’s errands.” He laughed.

  “Harun was brother-bonded to Asad, the najashi’s eldest son, until he died,” said Ghafur, whose handsome mustache was so fleetingly familiar that Telemakos always felt he was just on the verge of recognizing him as an old friend. “Do you understand what brother-bonding is?”

  “Isn’t it that your life is pledged as another child’s servant, and the pair of you grow up together? As Rasha is to Queen Muna.”

  Ghafur blinked agreement. “Harun could never have waited on anyone else, only Asad; so after Asad died, Harun here was honored with a warrior’s training. But Asad used to tell him everything. Harun knew all of Ghumdan’s palace secrets.”

  “Oh. Not like me, then.”

  They looked so blank that Telemakos realized, with sudden surety and wonder, that none of his guard had any notion of his disgrace. He could not fathom what they must think of him.

  “Were you all trained together?” he asked quickly.

  “Not I,” said Ghafur. “I’m newly sent from the garrison at Marib, for this detail especially. You know my father, Tharan.”

  “Of course, Tharan!” Telemakos exclaimed as he placed the naggingly familiar mustache. “You favor him exactly.”

  Then Telemakos was inspired. He took a dare on himself. He raised his head and tried to look Harun directly in the eyes, and then did the same to Ghafur, and all the other young soldiers in turn, finishing with Fariq, their captain. Each one deferentially looked away when Telemakos stared at him. So he knew they considered him their superior in rank, because he was surely not their elder.

  “I like to nose in other people’s business, too,” Telemakos said. “You must tell me all your histories. I didn’t realize you were so select a band. So you, Mahir, why were you chosen for this detail?”

  “I am no one special. I am no prince’s favorite servant or vizier’s son.”

  Abreha’s warriors always spoke like that. Telemakos thought their modesty must be part of their training. But the others laughed. Telemakos gave a little inward sigh of wonder and envy; they laughed so freely.

  Their captain answered on Mahir’s behalf. “Tharan says Mahir is the finest spearman he’s ever taught. But I am their captain because, of us all, I am the only one who has seen combat. I was the najashi’s squire at the battle of al-Muza.”

  All six of them had some royal connection or high rank or unusual skill. They were a privileged and intelligent elite among Abreha’s young soldiers.

  “I meant to flatter you when I called you a select band,” Telemakos confessed. “I meant flattery, but you really are select.”

  “Well, we know your full title,” Fariq acknowledged, “though we’ve been told not to use it.”

  They thought his high rank was excuse for their own. That explained their courtesy. Still, why these six? Telemakos wondered. Why these proud six to escort me, when brute strength would serve just as easily? The najashi doesn’t have any reason to honor my ridiculous title.

  On the fourth day they left the highlands and began their descent down the staired ways through the wadi valleys that drew off the mountain rainwater. Telemakos could make out nothing of the Hot Lands ahead, the low-lying plain of acacia and whining insects that lay between the mountains and the coast; the horizon was all steel-blue cloud. Late in the afternoon when, hours before sunset, the round red sun collapsed into this pall like a hot coal into ash, he realized it was not cloud, but smoke.

  Wildfire crept across the lowlands and up the wadi valleys. It had been a dry year, and though the complex irrigation systems of canal and well and reservoir kept the cultivated terraces green, wayside field and forest were brittle as tinder. At first the fire was all below them as they made their way cautiously down the main wadi. Then they found that there was fire smoldering in the dry brush at the edges of the staired ways. They could smell the smoke now, all the time.

  They camped apprehensively. Unless there was a strong wind in any direction, the fire was completely unpredictable. It crept in flickering zigzags through the undergrowth as though it were following some mysterious map of its own. They saw a running wall of knee-high flame leap an irrigation ditch and engulf an arbor, and yet the fire never reached the next level of the terrace, only eight feet higher up the hillside. At night they took turns to sleep. Telemakos was never made to wake more than one watch in any night; they babied him, he thought. But, of course, it made no difference whether he was awake or not, since one of them always sat guard over him, wildfire or no wildfire.

  Oh please, Telemakos prayed silently, let the najashi be already safely past this with Athena.

  The people of the towns and villages Telemakos passed through were all tense and tired. He and his guards had only a day’s march yet to the Hot Lands when they came upon a group of farmers and officials arguing loudly, while onlookers raised their fists and hissed. Telemakos swerved from the main track toward the conflict without being aware he was doing it. Harun strode up beside him, herding him back to the road.

  “Nosing in others’ business?” Harun jested.

  But the others were hesitating, too; the valley below them roiled with smoke. “Let him nose,” said the captain. “It will give this inferno a chance to burn off.”

  They went in single file across a narrow ridge between two gullies so they might join the gathering. When they came closer, they could see that the crowd stood in a circle of ground at the upper edge of a sizable reservoir, half full. It was cleverly built into the hillside, and its walls formed the sides of the terrace below, so covered with grapevines that you would not know the reservoir was there unless you were standing on its rim.

  A delegation from the besieged township lower down the valley was asking if the water could be tapped to help them fight the fires below. Their headman argued with a local official, back and forth, both of them stiffly courteous and neither yielding.

  Telemakos was a slave to curiosity. He slid through the gathering to get closer to the arguing men. He loved the ease with which he could move among these folk who did not know him, now that he was out of San’a; his hair and eyes were always strange, but his skin was no darker or paler here than anyone else’s. In Aksum, in his home, he had had to make an effort to be inconspicuous; in Himyar he blended well enough that he did not have to hide behind people. Infiltrating this crowd was easy. Harun managed to stick by him as he wormed his way to the front, but they left the rest of their band behind.

  Telemakos saw how defensively the local spokesman stood, with his back to the sluices and his expression fixed and fierce, and felt instantly, inexplicably sorry for him.

  “But I do not know what to do,” this village official was saying unhappily. “I do not have the authority to divert this water. And what if the fire comes here, and I have spent Wadi ar Ramadah’s reservoir on Wadi Risyan, what do I do then?”

  “It surely will come here if it’s not put out,” the headman from the lower township retorted angrily. “Do it to save your own crops if you must, your own homes if not ours; but do it now.”

  Telemakos listened to their exchange with interest and caution, as anxious as anyone that the grass fires on the lower terraces be contained, as otherwise he was bound to walk straight through them. And he was tired, despite the attention of his guard, nerves worn thin with flame and fear and grief. He was not looking forward to fighting his way across the Hot Lands.

  “I do not have the authority,” the reservoir’s representative repeated slowly and emphatically, as though he were speaking to a child in a foreign language. “Do you think I do not want to help
you? I do not lack sympathy. I lack authority.”

  Telemakos hesitated briefly. He had an idea that would either turn him into a hero or a fool. But it did not matter if he made himself ridiculous, and it might help; so he stepped decisively between the arguing men and knelt at their feet with his head bowed. He splayed his fingers across the back of his neck, framing the new brand that burned there, oozing red. It was healing slowly; he rinsed it daily, but he still had not dared to touch it directly.

  “Here’s your authority,” Telemakos said. “Do what you need; hold me responsible.”

  He thought he could almost feel the heat of their stares, blazing down at him like flames fanned by the dry wind.

  “That is the najashi’s seal,” the local spokesman and the visiting headman explained to each other, speaking both at once, and then they both went abruptly quiet, embarrassed and polite.

  “Is it authority enough?” Telemakos asked, his head bent, still kneeling to show off the blaze.

  “Yes, yes,” said the spokesman in hasty agreement. “Indeed, yes. I would not have hesitated if I had known—”

  “I will give you a lock of my hair, too, as proof that I was here and spoke to you, in case anyone questions your decision in weeks to come.” Telemakos raised his head, elated and somewhat choked with mirth as he considered the trail of havoc he could leave on his way through Abreha’s kingdom, wielding his own scorched, living skin as a weapon of unchallenged power.

  He stood up. He was not exactly inconspicuous anymore; he felt as if he had just thrown off a disguise.

  He asked, “If you really are going to drain your reservoir, can I watch?”

  Harun was quiet, very quiet that evening as they camped. They had not built a fire themselves since they had left the highlands, not daring the risk of it spreading. And, too, they had been gifted generously with fresh bread and yogurt, and a skin of local wine, from the township with the reservoir. It was no great challenge for Telemakos to dip bread in yogurt and put it in his mouth. But Harun waited on him industriously, all the while holding this polite and fearful silence.

  “Harun, have I offended you?” Telemakos asked at last.

  Harun would not look at him. By now Telemakos was used to the way they all lowered their eyes when they spoke to him, but now Harun would not so much as turn his face in Telemakos’s direction. He looked at the ground as he answered with neutral respect, “Oh—indeed not, sir.”

  “Well, then, what’s the matter with you?”

  Harun drew a deep breath. At last he said evenly, “You know—we have said we know as little about you as you know about us. And none of us, yourself especially, is at liberty to tell why he’s sent on a certain errand, or where our errands will bring us. I have today seen a thing, the mark of Solomon on your skin, that … maybe raises you in my esteem, but also makes me wonder who you are. And what you are.”

  Harun took another breath, and no one interrupted him. He had all their attention.

  “Asad bore that mark, in the same place you bear it. The najashi’s own son. It was there as long as I knew him.”

  Telemakos stared at Harun through narrowed eyes, astonished. But Harun was still glaring fixedly at the ground by his own feet.

  “Maybe the najashi put his seal on you so that I would wait on you as I waited on his son.”

  Telemakos could never form any clear image of Asad in his mind: biddable Asad, whom Goewin had mistaken for a servant. Now this faceless boy had a brand on the back of his neck.

  “It was to seal a contract between us,” Telemakos said quietly. “If the najashi had wanted to bind his son to his service, perhaps he used it on him as well. Asad was his cupbearer.”

  “The najashi bears that mark also,” said Fariq, the captain, he who had been the najashi’s squire in battle. “Twin to the seal on his signet, burned into his flesh. In the same place you wear it, at the base of his skull.” He added hesitatingly, “Do you forgive me the impiety, sir, but may I look?”

  Their sudden heightened courtesy alarmed him as much as the hidden truths they were revealing. “What do you mean, Fariq, the najashi bears that mark? Oh, God’s teeth, don’t turn away from me like that!” Telemakos bent his head. “Go on and look, it’s getting dark. What do you mean?”

  They looked quickly, each in turn. It reminded him of the way the street children in Aksum used to line up to ogle a certain beggar, who had boasted an extra pair of shriveled legs growing out of his stomach and would show them to you if you paid him enough.

  “Now tell me what it means,” Telemakos demanded, and ordered fiercely, “Look up! Meet my eyes!”

  “The najashi didn’t always have the signet ring he wears now.” Fariq met Telemakos’s gaze for one brief, apologetic second and quickly lowered his eyes again. “His father’s ring came to him after his brother Hector was executed, during the Aksumite wars. Abreha the Lion Hunter used to use the mark on the back of his neck to bear witness to his authority; I’ve seen him do it, just as you did this afternoon. In the early days of his Federation here, when he was newly come from Aksum, men respected his father’s authority in that mark as much as they did Solomon’s. Ras Bitwoded Anbessa, his father was called, the beloved prince Anbessa, the lion of Wedem.

  “You bear Anbessa’s title as well as his mark,” Fariq reminded Telemakos.

  “It’s an Aksumite title,” Telemakos said. “It doesn’t mean much here. But I don’t know, truly, I don’t know all that the mark means. It was given me in trust, but I did not really believe it would give me the power to empty reservoirs and put out fire.”

  Once they reached the Hot Lands, they went a day and a half without stopping to sleep, to take them through the worst of the wildfire. When at last they did stop, Telemakos slept for fifteen hours. His companions, hardier than he, watched and hunted without him. He was annoyed afterward, when he woke and realized how much time had passed.

  “You should have kicked me,” he told his guard crossly. “I’m not a baby.”

  They laughed. “You’re not a soldier, either,” Fariq said. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t rest if you need to. We made good time yesterday.”

  Finally they left the fires behind. Apprehension of a different kind filled him as they approached the sparkling white domes and towers of al-Muza, which he had not seen since he arrived in Himyar nearly three years ago. He did not want to leave this band he had been traveling with. Suddenly the trying journey of the past two weeks seemed secure and uncomplicated: a flight from straightforward danger, no need to plan or think, and a devoted retinue who brought him food and guarded his sleep. Desolation filled him as they escorted him along al-Muza’s glittering streets between houses glazed with gypsum plaster. His warrior companions had treated him with kindness and devotion he surely did not deserve, and he would never see them again.

  He had not realized how indelibly the open square with the fountains and black granite thrones was fixed in his mind until he was in the middle of it. He stood perfectly still for a moment when he recognized the place, shocked by the vividness of his memory. There was the condemned man still hanging here in his mind, the smell of blood and basil, and of Athena’s sandalwood-scented hair and sweaty skin so close to his face, and the bitter taste in his throat and the feel of the lukewarm water of the fountain on his skin afterward, and the dying man’s curse hissed at him: Let the najashi hang you up in my place next, you unholy creeping mongrel spy.

  Fariq, the captain of his guard, grasped him gently by the elbow to press him forward. Telemakos started, and cast him an unguarded, stricken glance over his shoulder. He shook his head, desperate to get rid of the picture in his mind.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “This is the place where criminals are executed,” Telemakos answered, and added softly, “It makes me sick to stand here.”

  Fariq blinked. And then he said, with quiet sympathy,” Whatever it is you’re sent to do, Morningstar, I don’t envy you.”

  They came fina
lly to the wide white coral beach where boats landed and unloaded, and delivered Telemakos directly to a neat, slim fighting ship whose teak hull was painted turquoise, striped here and there with curls of white. You could scarcely tell where the ship and sea met, they were so similar in color, but for the watching black eyes painted on either side of the prow. The ship was pulled up in the shallows while men used hawri canoes and donkeys to ferry out a fresh water supply; the beach was covered with boards and mats and teeming with sailors and workmen.

  Telemakos waited with his guard until the captain of the warship came to meet them. There was some confusion over who was in charge of him now, and the ship’s master dismissed Telemakos’s companions with brisk efficiency. They saluted him respectfully and left him with no other show of sentiment. They were lost in the crowd before they were thirty paces away.

  “Apprentice pilot, eh?” the captain said, looking Telemakos up and down. “Are the tools of your trade covered in gold leaf, that you come so closely escorted? You’re to have a personal guard on my ship as well. Whether that’s for our safety or your own I’ve not been told. He’s not here yet.” The man raised his eyebrows in disapproval. “My outbound crew hasn’t arrived, and I don’t expect to have to watch you. You can sit in the hold until the najashi’s new guard comes for you.”

  “Sir,” Telemakos acknowledged coldly, handing over his satchel of cartographer’s tools. He might have waited with his escort if they had not been so swiftly turned away.

  “Go with the water bearers.”

  The compartment they found to use as a prison was so small a space between the hull and the forward oarsmen’s bench that Telemakos could not sit upright after they had shut him in. Nor was there room for him to stretch out flat. It was pitch dark and ferociously hot, and stank of fish oil and the rank straw that lined the floor. Curled against the wooden staves, Telemakos did not dare close his eyes for fear that some dreadful memory would overpower him.