Coalition of Lions by Elizabeth Wein

Author:Elizabeth Wein [Wein, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-3320-5
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-05-28T19:05:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX

Lord of the Land

TELEM AKOS WAS WAITING for us with the horses. He was there ahead of us, as he had promised. He rode with me, before me in the saddle, and none of us ever said anything more about the tunnels.

We left the city of Aksum. We followed the graveled high road to Adwa, three hours’ journey under the thick and luminous stars. We reached Kidane’s country estate in time to sleep before the sun rose, but we did not dare remain throughout the day. We were still close enough to Aksum that we could easily be tracked. We studied the Itinerary over our hasty breakfast.

“There are two ways to go,” I said. “One of them looks twice the distance, but the other follows the main road. If we take the longer route we can leave the highway today.”

“Good,” said Turunesh. “Your white face will be remarked by everyone who passes you.”

We took one of the farm ponies for Telemakos and set out. The roadside sparked with the wild gold of Meskal daisies, the bright asters of the Aksumite highlands. Terraced fields sloped toward woodland where coffee grew wild and monkeys danced across the treetops.

“I want to see lions,” Telemakos said.

“I don’t!” his mother exclaimed. “What shall we do if we come by a pack of lionesses hunting, hope the princess has enough arrows in her quiver to take them all herself?”

“Maybe she could. She is Ras Meder’s sister, and he could. His name was lion.”

“Medraut means marksman,” I said abruptly, “not lion.”

“The lion is lord of the land. Meder. It doesn’t mean lion, but it is.” Telemakos spoke with absolute conviction; of course, it was his own name, as well.

“Where do you hear such things?” his mother asked mildly.

He tilted his head. “I hear everything.”

We slept through the heat of the day in the village at Hawelti, then came through the trees at night. We saw nothing of the forest, but it breathed with rustling night birds and the cries of foxes and hyenas. The strange hours we were keeping put Telemakos in a fey temper. Turunesh worried constantly about attack from wild beasts. Once we were beyond easy reach of Aksum we stopped traveling by night.

Soon the road coiled around mountain peaks that matched endlessly away from us on all sides. The air grew rarer, and now that we were well beyond the merchant ways, the road was no longer well maintained. The recent rains had done it no good either, and in one place it was so badly damaged that there were ruts in it up to Telemakos’s chest. Country children wearing crosses of woven grass, like Wazeb’s, helped lead us through the worst sections of the trail. Their parents offered us fried bread and handfuls of spiced, roasted grain. Everyone we met was fascinated by Telemakos, more so even than by me.

“Foreigner! Foreign ones!” they cried in greeting. Telemakos got called also “salt-top” and something that might have meant “milkman,” presumably on account of his white hair.

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