The Empty Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page B

keening alternated with angry, sobbed protests.
    “Sheba,” Telemakos added.
    With the side of his hand Dawit pretended to slash his own throat, commanding instant silence. He put the other hand behind his ear in exaggerated parody of a careful listener.
    Telemakos laid down his pen and bent his head. “I am forbidden to eavesdrop in this palace,” he said evenly, straining to catch the sense of the outburst below.
    “Pish. You are not eavesdropping; even Harith at the other end of the scriptorium can hear that. Their racket would wake the dead. Come and listen.”
    Dawit knelt with his head tilted low over the pulley hole; his beard hung down the shaft. No one in the room below seemed to notice him at all.
    Malika was wailing. “I shall not, it was my mother’s palace and I shall not dower it to a warrior lordling with no wealth of his own. I do not care how famed he is in battle, I am a queen, not a prize!”
    Inas’s calm, firm voice said soothingly, “Of course you are queen. Be heroic! Don’t you see, if you marry a man of petty title, your kingdom remains intact, your own?”
    “It does not,” Malika sobbed. “It all belongs to him.”
    There was another spate of speechless weeping, and then Queen Muna’s soft voice murmured something comforting that Telemakos did not catch. He glanced at Dawit. The old man was watching him, or trying to, through eyes like needle slits. The Star Master whispered, rather loudly, “All the girls go running to my daughter when they feel sorry for themselves. They are down there wiping one another’s eyes, cuddling and kissing like kittens in a basket.”
    Muna’s voice floated aloft, then, more clearly: “But you know, my love, it will belong to your husband, whoever it is you marry. Socotra is only mine by wedlock, though I was born there.”
    “I should make a union . Not a trophy,” Malika said bitterly. Telemakos had never heard her say anything so profoundly serious. Then she ruined it by adding, with deep petulance, “And I want someone younger and prettier.”
    “What’s her age?” Telemakos whispered.
    “She’s ten,” Dawit answered. “It is only a betrothal. Nothing will happen for some years yet. You see why the najashi is breaking the news early! She’ll have time to get used to the idea.”
    Gedar the despicable olive merchant went back to Aksum before the Long Rains began there. He made a special trip up to the scriptorium to ask Telemakos, with oily goodwill, if there was any token he could bear home with him for the lady Turunesh Kidane. Telemakos spent a furious, sickening afternoon composing an appropriate letter to his mother for Gedar to carry.
    Arrest Gedar , Telemakos wrote.
    “Dearest Mother, I miss you so much,” he read aloud for Abreha. “Give my love to all, my father, and Grandfather, and my aunt. I am still kept apart from Athena, and miss her as much as I miss you; still I watch for her daily, wishing I could just once follow her when she appears. I have only seen Athena a single time this week, but I watch for her always.
    “She isn’t bearing our separation well. They can’t let her near the songbirds; she tries to fling them out the windows. I have seen Athena arrest Lu’lu, the youngest of Abreha’s children, and bite her on the hand like a nasty little dog. She treats Queen Muna with such contempt it embarrasses me. Why does my lady endure it? Muna adores Athena. Gedar and the magus and the najashi’s children have all stopped trying to make her be nice to them, but Muna never even complains. My heart bleeds for the abuse she takes so selflessly on behalf of the unfeeling little wretch.”
    The charms were tinking softly. Telemakos pressed the bracelet against his ribs to steady the quaking. He thought: I am going to learn to keep this blasted alarm quiet. That will be a good challenge.
    There were two more paragraphs of this drivel still to read. He had woven the message in three times: Arrest Gedar . Arrest Gedar .