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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 victory.

In the morning, Ras Lijasu’s guide came for us. He was mountain-bred, Tifari Amu, with skin the color of cinnamon, keen features and a quiet, capable manner. He and Kaneka conferred 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 Âka-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 Âka-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.”

“And now it is the heart of Saba?” I asked.

“It is,” Shoanete said. “The Melehakim hold a secret stolen from their own god, a secret so powerful He would take it back if He could find it. But Isis’ tears blind His eyes, and He cannot see it.”

My heart beat faster and the small hairs at the back of my neck prickled. “If… if it is so powerful, how is it that the Melehakim were defeated?”

“Ah, that.” The old woman smiled, deep creases forming in her wrinkled face. “That is the story of King Khemosh-Zadok, the falsely anointed, and how he broke the Covenant of Wisdom. For Queen Makeda herself, you see, was wisdom personified, and her fairness and great learning were renowned throughout the land. It came to her ears that a king far to the north, Shalomon of the Habiru, was similarly lauded for the virtue of his judgement. And so it came to Makeda that she wished to meet this king, and she journeyed with a mighty retinue, presenting him with gifts of gold and ivory and spices, that she might question him.”

“So it says in the Tanakh!” I said, excited. “And he answered her questions aright.”

“Indeed.” Shoanete nodded, unperturbed by my interruption. “And then Makeda told him much he did not know, and King Shalomon bowed down before her wisdom, and gave her the ring from his finger in tribute. And Makeda was moved by his fine form and his grace, and chose to lie with him. ‘Because thy wisdom has ceded to mine,’ she said to him, ‘we have made a covenant between us this night, man and woman. Of it shall come a son. I shall raise him with my teachings, and then I shall send him to thee to be anointed in thine. By thy ring shall thou know him.’”

“Melek al’Hakim,” I mused. “So that was the Covenant of Wisdom?”

“It was,” she said. “As equals did they meet, man and woman, King and Queen, and the lesser wisdom did cede to the greater. And thus it was, for many generations. Melek al’Hakim did not steal the Treasures of Shalomon. He was anointed, and they were his by right; his, and the descendants of Khiram the architect and his people, who fled the sacking Akkadians.”

“The Tribe of Dân,” I said.

Shoanete paused. “It may be,” she allowed. “Their name was not known to me. I will add it to the story, little one. Know then that for many generations the Melehakim ruled Saba, a King and Queen ruling together, joined in the Covenant of Wisdom. Mother and son, husband and wife, brother and sister … King Tarkhet, it is said, was guided by his daughter, but that is another story. And the shadow they cast over Jebe-Barkal was vast, and all nations and tribes answered to wise and mighty Saba. Until the reign of King Khemosh.”

With that she paused, clearing her throat, and one of the listening children leapt up to fetch a cup of honey-mead. Shoanete sipped it and continued.

“There was trouble in the nation, then, for the young Ras Yatani of Meroë had lost his heart to Daliah, the sister of Khemosh. Now, Khemosh was not King at that time, but merely the widowed Queen’s elder son; Arhosh was his brother’s name, and it was Arhosh their mother chose to be anointed, for he was fair-spoken and wise where his brother was hot-blooded and angry. Arhosh looked with favor upon the union of Ras Yatani and Daliah, but Khemosh spoke against it, saying that Meroë looked to make a claim upon the throne of Saba.”

“Did they?” I asked.

Shoanete’s dark eyes glinted with mirth. “Perhaps they did, little one. If so, it was a peaceable one-the sword of the loins, and not the sword of steel. However it be, the young men listened to Khemosh and their hearts were stirred to anger. ‘Khemosh should be King,’ they said. ‘Not Arhosh, who will let a stranger reach his hand for the throne.’ And in time the elders listened to the young men, and the priests listened to the elders, and no one listened to the Queen, who spoke of the merits of an alliance by marriage to the most powerful of their vassal-nations.”

“And love,” I murmured, thinking of Ysandre and Drustan. “An alliance of love.”

“Yes,” she said. “It would have been that. But it was not to be, for the priests anointed Khemosh and raised him up as the King, Khemosh-Zadok, over his living mother and her chosen heir, thus breaking the Covenant of Wisdom. And he decreed the marriage-contract invalid. Now, Ras Yatani’s heart was sore within him, and he raised up his army and many allies, and marched against Saba.”

“And Saba was defeated,” I said.

“Saba was defeated,” Shoanete echoed. “It is another story, a long story, that battle. Enough to say that the spirit of the god which had filled the Melehakim ever before, rendering them fierce and invulnerable, filling their mouths with great cries that struck fear into their enemies-it deserted them, little one. On the battlefield, they stumbled and bled, and the only cries they uttered were cries of pain. And so they fled, for by this time, the widowed Queen was dead of sorrow, Arhosh slain in battle and Daliah the fair was dead by her own hand, and Ras Yatani’s heart was as a burning stone within him, and he knew no mercy. Under Khemosh-Zadok’s leadership, they fled, all the way to the Lake of Tears. And Ras Yatani, who found himself the undisputed ruler of Jebe-Barkal … Ras Yatani swore a vow on Daliah’s name that he and his descendants would honor the Covenant of Wisdom that Khemosh-Zadok had broken. It is said, for so long as a Queen rules in Meroë, his line will endure, and so it does, to this day.”