“Your crystals are in the way,” Telemakos said. “They catch the light and glitter—”
The room was utterly bewitching in its beauty.
“I cannot see,” said the astronomer. “I can see the light catching the crystals, but not the soft lights against the dome above. The crystals can be fixed against the ceiling so they are out of the way. We’ll do that tomorrow.” Dawit gave a great push to the side of the globe, using both hands, and the stars wheeled at a dizzying pace.
Malika gasped. Athena shouted, “Again! Again!” She pulled herself up to stand behind Telemakos with her arms locked around his neck, watching the show from over his shoulder. Telemakos sat with Shadi pressing against one side of him and Inas against the other, while Athena leaned over his back, cheek to cheek with him. Never in his life had Telemakos felt so loved, and so at ease, with others more or less his own age. He had not missed it; he had never known life could be like this. And now he was ready to learn to hunt.
Telemakos thought, not for the first time, I am glad to be here.
He did not flinch when Tharan bound fast his eyes in the training ring the next morning. The neat desert horse he was to ride was whickering near his shoulder, and Telemakos, drawn by its warm smell of sun and dung, reached up blind to fondle its bony head and rub its coarse-silk cheek against his own. When Tharan helped him up and Telemakos sat astride the narrow back, gripping the saddle cloth behind him, he wondered briefly, What am I to these people? I am not a hostage. I am not a servant. Abreha can’t expect me to repay him for any of his gifts. Why are they teaching me such mastery?
He wondered only briefly. He did not care. He had never expected anyone to give him a warrior’s training, and he was too grateful to question it.
Daily after that, at daybreak, Telemakos joined the palace guard in their target practice. The cadets were all at least a year older than he, so even if he had been whole as the rest of them, he would not have been expected to achieve their standards. But Telemakos was never treated with any kind of indulgence. The vizier Tharan directed them in this as well, and he was a hard taskmaster. But he approached the challenge of uncovering the most effective technique for a one-armed warrior as though it was the most fascinating puzzle he had ever been set. Telemakos, slowly acquiring some skill, did not mind the work. He thought of hunting with his father in years to come and was driven with hope.
One morning when Telemakos came through the library on his way back to the Globe Room after his daily practice, he found the custodian carefully copying a list of royal transactions of olive oil. Supervising this work, of all men, was the merchant Gedar, Grandfather’s neighbor from the villa across the street to the house of Nebir.
“Peace to you, Telemakos Meder,” Gedar greeted him, smiling. “Are you surprised to find me here?”
Telemakos knelt, swiftly and sincerely, and bowed his head. My poise is coming back, he thought; I must thank Tharan for his attention.
Telemakos apologized to Gedar. “Of course I know you traffic with the Himyar court.”
“Indeed, I was sent as a messenger again,” Gedar said. “I am in San’a on business, but your family have given me letters to deliver you.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!”
“Come, sit by me.”
Telemakos obeyed eagerly—too eagerly, for Gedar’s expression changed. He warned, “You’ll be disappointed. They are badly sea-damaged; our crossing was nearly unendurable.” He handed over to Telemakos a wallet of woven raffia, warped and stained with salt. Telemakos bent over the packet and knew, even before he opened it, that the letters within would be unreadable. The pages fell to shreds when he tried to pull them out.
He wiped the pulp from his fingertips against the outside of the folder, feeling suddenly desolate. He longed for another letter from Goewin.
“What filthy bad luck,” Harith the librarian said sympathetically.
“It was base neglect on my part, not luck,” Gedar said. “I am sorry, Telemakos. I should have kept them with my invoices. They would have survived in my document case.” He reached for the hide-bound box resting on the floor beside him. “You see.” He laid open the lid. Paper and parchment scrolls lay packed in dry ranks like rows of bone. Telemakos smelled dust and faint decay.
It was like a blow to the skull. For a long moment he had to sit very still, holding his head against his knees, sick with what that breath brought to his memory: the bright green plumage of the murdered sunbird, the nail through its back.
Telemakos raised his head.
“I’m sorry,” Gedar said again.
His whole house smelled like that, Telemakos remembered.
God help me, I do not dream when Athena is there by me, I can ride a horse and carry a spear blindfolded, Afar is on the other side of the Red Sea and Hara is dead. And yet still the smell of dust makes me faint?
“It can’t be helped,” Telemakos replied quietly.
Gedar, as the najashi’s guest, was invited along to view the parkland beyond the blossoming almond groves north of the city, the very first time the lion Menelik was taken out to hunt with the gazelle hounds. The hunting party was small, only seven men and four dogs. Gedar stuck by Telemakos, though clear of the lion, of which Telemakos had charge. The olive merchant’s endless questions of polite interest quickly wore Telemakos’s patience thin. The thought of setting the lion loose was making him increasingly nervous, even without Gedar distracting him; he knew that neither he nor Menelik was ready for this.