The Sacred Lake (Shioni of Sheba Book 4)

by Marc Secchia

  Shioni noticed with surprise that the tables were bare. Where was the food? And where was Princess Annakiya expected to sit? The top table appeared to be full.

  Seeing them enter, King Meles rose. All of the guests rose at once with him. “Honoured guests!” he boomed, silencing the crowd. “True friends of Gondar! Welcome to this feast, which I am pleased to hold in your honour. Come and sit beside me.”

  Annakiya, used to royal occasions, made gliding across the room appear like a heron gracing a still pond. Shioni tried to imitate her best friend. People stared. For most, it was their first view of a ferengi, and all the attention made her acutely self-conscious.

  Places opened miraculously at the King’s right hand, between him and the Queen, as the family shifted along the wooden benches. Shioni knew the place of honour was at the King’s right hand. So she followed Annakiya to the favoured position and waited for the Princess to seat herself. Times enough, she had knelt behind or served her Princess. But now, Annakiya alarmed her by sliding into the seat beside the Queen and indicating for Shioni to take the seat of greatest honour, right beside the King. She could not disobey.

  “Be welcome at my table. Eat and drink, and celebrate with me. Let the feasting begin!”

  Meles sat. Everyone followed suit.

  At once, a small army of barefoot servant-girls clad in saffron-coloured dresses appeared, carrying clay bowls of water for the guests to wash their hands, and soft cotton cloths to dry them. Shioni washed her hands thoughtfully. Not long ago, she would have been the one holding the water and the cloth.

  More servants swarmed into the room, bearing on their right shoulders great flat wooden bowls full of sour-dough injera bread, piled high with tasty sauces, and a vast range of other vegetable and lentil dishes. Some dishes were red, orange and yellow, or green for the leafy vegetables, and a rich aroma of spices preceded them. They placed golden goblets of honey wine or cool water in front of the guests. More sauces followed, together with condiments; ayb made from goat’s milk, boiled eggs, the fiery red mitmita for dipping, and plates of green karea chilli peppers which Shioni knew were hot enough to turn her mouth numb. Fried meat tibs appeared on iron skillets to be ladled onto the already groaning dishes of injera. A whole roast kudu paraded around the room on the largest golden platter she had ever seen.

  Ceremoniously, the King chose a roll of injera and, breaking off a piece, used it to collect the best portions of food from his own platter. Despite his large fingers, he deftly assembled a suitably substantial mouthful. He reached past Shioni to feed this gorsha, the choice portion, to the Princess of West Sheba. Then he repeated the process for Shioni. Annakiya prepared a portion for the Queen of Gondar. The King’s children, ranging in age from a babe in arms to a gigantic youth of seventeen, lined up to receive ceremonial gorsha portions from their father.

  Now the guests fell to the feast with happy chatter and the metallic clinking of goblets. A harpist struck up nearby. The King kept urging Shioni and Princess Annakiya to eat: “Bilu! Bilu!” as a good host ought to. The Princesses of Gondar came to chat to Shioni and Annakiya, while Bezalel bravely made a home for herself on Shioni’s lap. She found a long golden braid, and amused herself playing with it.

  “You’ve made a friend there,” said King Meles.

  “What’s this pretty bracelet doing on your neck?” asked the little girl.

  “It’s–uh, well, it tells people I’m from West Sheba,” Shioni stumbled. “It’s got a royal lion, see?”

  “Is that lion your lion?”

  “The wounded one?” At the girl’s solemn nod, Shioni added, “No, her lion name is Samira, and she’s the bravest lioness you’ll ever meet. She’s a girl lion.”

  “I know that, silly. Do you have a lion name?”

  “I do,” said Shioni, feeling undone by the trusting dark eyes. “Mine is ‘Graceful Strength of the Dawn’. Samira’s name means ‘Dusky Twilight Hunter’.”

  “Mine’s Princess Bezalel. Is that a lion name, too?”

  Meles chuckled, plucking her out of Shioni’s arms. “I’m sure it means ‘Delight of my Father’s Heart’ in lion, my daughter. Now, I need to do a little something for Shioni here. Will you help her to be brave?”

  He whisked Bezalel up onto his hip. Shioni heard her whisper, “–bravest girl in the world, daddy.” Her heart sank. Not in front of all these people, she wasn’t!

  King Meles’ rising again made every guest leap to his or her feet. With a great smile, he bade them sit and invited Princess Annakiya to join him. Shioni wished her heart would stop pounding like a great kebero drum, because the King was only speaking about new, unexpected friends and alliances, and making promises about an enduring friendship with the ‘great Kingdom of West Sheba’ to the north, beside the Simien Mountains. He bowed to Annakiya, who accepted from him a vellum scroll as thick and long as one of Mama Nomuula’s rolling pins, covered in at least ten royal seals she could count, and an equal number of fancy ribbons. The Queen and Annakiya embraced, and a great cheer rolled around the hall, between the huge pillars of red-veined marble and out into the still, early afternoon air.

  She saw that the Sheban and Gondari warriors had abandoned their feasting outside for the moment. They crowded between the pillars along the open side of the banqueting hall, eager to see and hear all that was going on.

  Next, General Getu and Captain Yirgu accepted gifts and honours on behalf of the Elite Warriors of West Sheba, who had fought bravely and well. “Seventeen Shebans were killed and a greater number wounded,” King Meles said, soberly. “The price of our freedom was high. Too high. We can never thank you enough, warriors of West Sheba.”

  As the hall stilled, a shiver coursed through Shioni like a silvery fish slipping down a mountain stream. Haile was dead, wasn’t he? Drowned in the river? He wouldn’t come back to trouble the King and his beautiful family again, would he? A shadow crossed her spirit. The King had sent his scouts to scour the river’s course from where it fell a hundred feet from the cliffs behind the castle into a lake, before drifting away into the hills around Gondar. Please, let her have seen the last of Haile and his hateful magic.

  “Shioni?”

  She jumped. Annakiya had a tiny scowl creasing her brow–that scowl, the one that suggested Shioni was ignoring her and had better stop instantly or face a royal rage. Her eyes jumped like a darting finch. The King looked expectantly at her.

  “Sorry.” She jumped to her feet.

  The King of Gondar pitched his voice to carry across the crowd. “These have been strange and frightening times for my people. A time when we saw only darkness and a future of enslavement to Haile’s sorcery. But one person chose to stand against evil, and through her actions, restored to me not only my family, but my entire kingdom. Despite being kidnapped, chained up, and dropped into the pit of lions in a cage, this girl escaped, neutralised Haile’s most powerful enchantments, and cast him into the river to be swept away with the rubbish. Even more extraordinarily, this silver necklet proclaims her a slave of West Sheba.”

  Shioni’s cheeks burned at his words and the murmur of astonishment they produced.

  “My Lady of Sheba,” he said to Annakiya, “if even your slaves are so exceptional, your nation must be powerful indeed.”

  After the burst of laughter, Annakiya said, “Sheba, too, has powerful enemies, o King. Shioni has served both our kingdoms with the highest honour, and I would be pleased to recount her deeds. Were he able, I believe my father the King would already have changed our laws to grant her freedom.”

  King Meles drew himself up to his great height. “In our tradition, we mark deeds of outstanding sacrifice and valour with the Scroll Misgana, the Scroll of Praise, which expresses the undying debt of gratitude of the King and the Gondari people. This honour is not lightly given. I believe this is the eighth such scroll which has been handed out since the founding of our kingdom, 254 years ago. As it can only be given to a free person, I ask you, Princess Annakiya of West S
heba, to accept this award on behalf of Shioni and to hold it in trust for the day of her freedom. People of Gondar, I present the Scroll Misgana to … Shioni of Sheba!”

  A huge roar of approval rose from the crowd. The Gondari nobles and warriors chanted ‘Misgana! Misgana!’ over and over. The Sheban warriors stamped and cheered wildly.

  Shioni did not know where to look. She settled for nodding and smiling, and nodding and smiling, and trying to ignore her burning cheeks and thumping heart …

  When the hubbub finally subsided, King Meles said, “Shioni, usually this scroll would be accompanied by rich gifts from the King. However, as a slave of Sheba you are not allowed to own property. As you can imagine, this caused the Queen and I a great deal of head-scratching.” He shared a fond smile with his wife. “We would not want to cause you to break your laws, especially not with the Princess watching.”

  Annakiya and most of the room chuckled at this.

  “Besides, offering to adopt you might have ignited a war,” Meles said to Shioni, under cover of the commotion.

  She had to swallow against a huge lump in her throat.

  His voice swelled again. “Therefore, we will bend your laws a little.” The Queen approached them, holding a long, slim object in her hands. “Shioni of Sheba, we understand that every warrior of Sheba requires a sword. My family and I would like to offer you this sword for your use. It has long decorated the wall of the royal apartments, since before my grandfather’s time. It is unusual, being lighter and a little shorter than a man’s sword–which, I believe, should suit you perfectly. In our legend, this blade was forged of rock that fell from the sky. The legend claims that a dragon forged this sword in the fires beneath the Simien Mountains, and imbued it with all the mighty magic of the dragon-kind. I could think of none worthier to wield this blade.”

  Shioni could not keep from glancing at General Getu. He clutched the table as though afraid he might fall over. A strange light gleamed in his eyes.

  But something even stranger happened next.

  King Meles and the Queen of Gondar bowed low. Their whole family bowed, holding their bows to Shioni. Belatedly, the guests followed suit, until Shioni alone stood upright in that room, neither knowing where to look nor what to do. She wiped her eyes.

  “We owe you our lives,” said the King. “Please, accept this poor gift as a token of our gratitude.”

  Shioni felt a peculiar tingling in her palms as she lifted the sword in its beautiful scabbard from the Queen’s outstretched hands. It was lighter than she had expected, set on a tooled belt of what at first she took to be leather, but when she touched it, felt different to leather. The scabbard was the mysterious blue of a starlit sky, inset with golden flames rising toward the simple guard and two-handed grip of the sheathed sword, but even those, she could tell at a glance, were the finest she had ever seen, even at the hip of the King of West Sheba himself.

  Strange times indeed. Times in which a King and his people bowed to a slave-girl. Feeling so light-headed that her head seemed disconnected from her shoulders, Shioni gulped and said, “The greatest honour is due those who died, o King. But I will treasure this gift forever. And, I thank you for your kindness. I simply did my duty.”

  Meles straightened up. “To me, there’s nothing simple about what you did.”

  And suddenly, the entire royal family surrounded her, putting their arms around her and around each other. Squashed in the middle of their love, no-one else could see the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

  Chapter 22: Party’s Over

  King Meles’ huge FIST pounded on the door of Princess Annakiya’s apartments. The room was full of laughter and chatter. Annakiya flirted with and charmed his three sons, telling them an anecdote about life at Castle Hiwot, while Shioni filled in the two oldest Princesses, who were twelve and nine years old respectively, on the details of her discovery of the chamber hidden beneath the baobab.

  “A magical python,” sighed Princess Sosena, who at twelve years old was a little younger than Shioni and Annakiya. “I want to have fun adventures like you, Shioni.”

  “They’re not so fun when you spend half of them stuck to a lioness’ tongue,” Azurelle quipped. The Fiuri was naturally delighted to have new friends–Princesses, to boot–to admire her beauty. “Or inside a bottle, for that matter.”

  “Ooh, Zi, I want to put you above my fireplace,” suggested Shioni, making to prod her with her forefinger.

  “Vile, vulture-clawed witch,” squeaked Azurelle. “Oh, save me!”

  “Hold still,” muttered Tensi, preoccupied with cleaning out the cut decorating Shioni’s cheek.

  The King, probably not used to being ignored, knocked again. “Children! Serious matters–matters unrelated to chasing pretty braids, boys–and turning your hair as golden as Shioni’s, girls. Which I forbid, before you ask. Princess Annakiya, we need to talk.”

  Behind him, General Getu slipped into the chamber. He brought with him one of the Sheban scouts, and two Gondari warriors Shioni did not recognise.

  King Meles turned to the scout. “Make your report.”

  “We and the Gondari warriors rode south along the river, Princess,” said the Sheban. “We checked the villages one by one. A man matching Haile’s description stole a horse about half a day south of here. He headed into the deep forest.”

  “He survived?” asked Annakiya.

  “Evidently,” replied Meles. “Men–isn’t that the area where we suspected Haile of building up rebel forces?”

  “The same, my King. Deep forest. Lots of hiding places, and lots of people who keep grudges.”

  It surprised Shioni that the Gondari warriors spoke so openly to their King. Annakiya’s father would never have stood for it. “My King,” she said. “Tensi, a moment please.”

  “You look like you’re growing a fungus on your cheek,” Annakiya said critically.

  “It is a fungus, right, Tensi?”

  Tensi could be painfully shy at times. “Yes,” she whispered. “Prevents scarring.”

  Shioni raised her chin. “O King, there are two scenarios I can imagine. One, Haile intends to return to Gondar with an army. Two, he will race us to the Sacred Lake.”

  “Explain,” said the General.

  “Well, if he still wants my power … he knows where we’re going. He’ll grab the teshal from Tana Qirqos to bargain with, to force an exchange or sacrifice on our part.”

  Annakiya sniped, “Oh, well said, General Shioni.”

  “I’m the General here,” Getu cut in acidly, “unless you’ve unspoken plans to replace me, Princess? Not yet? It’s a sound analysis. How would you recommend we proceed?”

  Two high spots of colour appeared in Annakiya’s cheeks as she replied, “The key question we must answer is: ‘Where is Haile?’ Our main strategy is to put Shioni wherever he is. I suggest a hundred warriors to rush downriver. We determine Haile’s location. If he’s with these rebels, harry them but fall back. If he’s headed for the lake, chase him with a smaller group, which can move faster. Either way, King Meles, you must prepare Gondar for attack. Call in any local troops you may have within short range. Evacuate the villages.”

  Then Annakiya caught Meles’ expression and burst into peals of laughter. Shaking his head at the General, he said, “So the slaves of Sheba bring down sorcerers, and even the women are versed in strategies of war? This is … unexpected.”

  “The Princess plays war like gebeta,” said Getu, referring to the popular game played with stones on a wooden board or in any convenient patch of dirt. “Now, regrettably for these youngsters, I must interfere. King Meles, we need to talk strategy–offense and defence. We need a mixed force of Sheban and Gondari warriors ready to leave tomorrow at first light, perfectly organised and provisioned. And Annakiya, you need to choose whether you are going or staying.”

  “I will finish what I started,” said the Princess. “I owe it to my father.”

  “Then be ready and dressed for hard riding
, Princess. No fancy clothes. Shioni will talk you through what you’ll need.”

  Annakiya nodded, her dark eyes flashing. “I’m ready, General.”

  Shioni wondered if the General was thinking about the Princess’ arrow which had passed through his beard. “Very good,” he said. Getu’s finger rose to stab at Shioni. “Troublemaker-in-chief, you are responsible for the Princess on this expedition. If she returns with so much as a scratch, I will thrash your sorry hide until you admit your Anbessa was just a big pussycat. Understood?”

  “Understood, my Lord!” Shioni barked back, forgetting she was not on the training ground with the Sheban Elites.

  Annakiya smothered a giggle.

  “What?” Getu and Shioni growled simultaneously.

  “The Princess of West Sheba begs to point out,” Meles guffawed, so heartily he had to pause to wipe tears from his eyes, “that you and Shioni sound exactly like each other. That’s all she meant, General.”

  At first, Shioni thought the General might be offended. But then his shoulders shook, and his rare, rough laugh made its appearance. “We Shebans are all one big happy family, o King,” he said. “But dignity is not our strong point.”

  They worked late into the night making preparations to depart. Getu gathered the Sheban Elite warriors in Gondar and issued new orders, placing the wounded and able alike under the command of the Gondari Captain of the Royal Guard. Shifta expressed his disgust at being left behind. Shioni knew in her heart of hearts Shifta would not be able to keep up with horses for the three days’ hard riding it would take to reach the Sacred Lake, but did not say so. Instead, she promised he could lead the charge against the rebels if they came against Gondar. She said, “They’re relying on you, Shifta, to break the rebel ranks.”