greet each other before we are battling, and we get nowhere, and each day we begin again at the beginning. I have said I will not marry him unless he lets me choose an heir.”
“Ah, queen of kings indeed!” Priamos laughed. “A princess at liberty to choose her father’s heir! How you have turned your weakness to your advantage. Or is it more like a hostage negotiation?”
“That,” I said, and reached to take the book Telemakos held, “that is a thing we do not talk about.” I closed the book and put it aside. Telemakos picked it up again. “I grow weary of my fruitless interviews with Constantine. We will have nothing to say to each other long before winter is over.”
“You must think of some occupation,” said Priamos. “I am teaching the tame lion to read the testaments in Greek.”
“Teaching the tame lion to read Greek? What are you talking about?”
“It is my mother’s name for Wazeb,” Priamos said. “It is a greater compliment than you might think. A tame lion is less predictable than a chained one. Isn’t that right, young lion tamer?”
Telemakos did not answer. He was frowning studiously over the volume I had tried to take from him. He cried, “Oh, look at this!” and began to unfold a page. Spread out, it entirely covered his lap. “Oh, what is this a map of? I can’t read Greek either—”
I bent over his shoulder. It was a map of the world.
“Here’s Aksum—” I pointed “—where we are now. And here is Britain, where I come from. I can show you the way we traveled, look, starting up here, following the coast past Britanny and Iberia—”
We were both suddenly absorbed. Telemakos held the map open, his touch light and careful. He watched my finger tracing its path across the papyrus and nodded as I listed the Mediterranean ports where we had stopped.
Priamos watched us. When I looked up at him again he said, “I did not know you read Greek.”
“I don’t. My mother was a mapmaker. She taught me to draw the projections in Ptolemy’s Geography. I can’t read the names, but I know the map very well. What is this book?”
“It’s a Red Sea Itinerary. It’s a shipping guide. I wish we’d had this on our voyage; it might have stopped you always questioning our route.”
“I only questioned when you suddenly changed our route, before I knew we were followed. Look, Telemakos, here is Gabaza, the customs point for ships arriving at Adulis. I thought I would not be able to breathe, it was so hot when we landed there. It was so strange to me. But there was another white passenger on our ship, a merchant sailor who could not speak, and while I was waiting to disembark I watched him making his way through the crowd on the quay. He gave me courage. I’d never met him face-to-face; I only ever saw his back. But he gave me courage. He walked haltingly, like the rest of us, unused to land beneath his legs, but he moved with such confidence and purpose. I thought that if a man who could not speak was able to face strangers so fearlessly, then so should I be able to. And see, when I arrived, there were no strangers after all. There was you.”
“Show me how you came here from Adulis,” Telemakos demanded.
“Goodness, haven’t you had enough of maps yet?”
“I love maps,” Telemakos answered promptly.
Priamos laughed. “Well, see, both of you. I bought this edition because of the maps.”
He lifted the book from Telemakos’s lap and folded the wide sheet back in place. “Here is the road from Adulis to Aksum,” Priamos said, turning pages over. “And look, let me show you my favorite. Here is the road to Debra Damo, the cliff top hermitage where I and my brothers were sequestered.”
The picture was so stylized that you could scarcely call it a map: it showed an entire landscape. The road was drawn as a thin line with a cross marked at either end, and hatchings and bends here and there to mark turnings along the way. Around the road were miniature sketches
“Ah, queen of kings indeed!” Priamos laughed. “A princess at liberty to choose her father’s heir! How you have turned your weakness to your advantage. Or is it more like a hostage negotiation?”
“That,” I said, and reached to take the book Telemakos held, “that is a thing we do not talk about.” I closed the book and put it aside. Telemakos picked it up again. “I grow weary of my fruitless interviews with Constantine. We will have nothing to say to each other long before winter is over.”
“You must think of some occupation,” said Priamos. “I am teaching the tame lion to read the testaments in Greek.”
“Teaching the tame lion to read Greek? What are you talking about?”
“It is my mother’s name for Wazeb,” Priamos said. “It is a greater compliment than you might think. A tame lion is less predictable than a chained one. Isn’t that right, young lion tamer?”
Telemakos did not answer. He was frowning studiously over the volume I had tried to take from him. He cried, “Oh, look at this!” and began to unfold a page. Spread out, it entirely covered his lap. “Oh, what is this a map of? I can’t read Greek either—”
I bent over his shoulder. It was a map of the world.
“Here’s Aksum—” I pointed “—where we are now. And here is Britain, where I come from. I can show you the way we traveled, look, starting up here, following the coast past Britanny and Iberia—”
We were both suddenly absorbed. Telemakos held the map open, his touch light and careful. He watched my finger tracing its path across the papyrus and nodded as I listed the Mediterranean ports where we had stopped.
Priamos watched us. When I looked up at him again he said, “I did not know you read Greek.”
“I don’t. My mother was a mapmaker. She taught me to draw the projections in Ptolemy’s Geography. I can’t read the names, but I know the map very well. What is this book?”
“It’s a Red Sea Itinerary. It’s a shipping guide. I wish we’d had this on our voyage; it might have stopped you always questioning our route.”
“I only questioned when you suddenly changed our route, before I knew we were followed. Look, Telemakos, here is Gabaza, the customs point for ships arriving at Adulis. I thought I would not be able to breathe, it was so hot when we landed there. It was so strange to me. But there was another white passenger on our ship, a merchant sailor who could not speak, and while I was waiting to disembark I watched him making his way through the crowd on the quay. He gave me courage. I’d never met him face-to-face; I only ever saw his back. But he gave me courage. He walked haltingly, like the rest of us, unused to land beneath his legs, but he moved with such confidence and purpose. I thought that if a man who could not speak was able to face strangers so fearlessly, then so should I be able to. And see, when I arrived, there were no strangers after all. There was you.”
“Show me how you came here from Adulis,” Telemakos demanded.
“Goodness, haven’t you had enough of maps yet?”
“I love maps,” Telemakos answered promptly.
Priamos laughed. “Well, see, both of you. I bought this edition because of the maps.”
He lifted the book from Telemakos’s lap and folded the wide sheet back in place. “Here is the road from Adulis to Aksum,” Priamos said, turning pages over. “And look, let me show you my favorite. Here is the road to Debra Damo, the cliff top hermitage where I and my brothers were sequestered.”
The picture was so stylized that you could scarcely call it a map: it showed an entire landscape. The road was drawn as a thin line with a cross marked at either end, and hatchings and bends here and there to mark turnings along the way. Around the road were miniature sketches
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