Free Coalition of Lions by Elizabeth Wein

palace, and then he went to sleep in that room. I was waiting for him to wake up. I knew it was the tax office, but truly, I didn’t know the viceroy had a meeting there.”
    I slowed my pace to match his more evenly. “What did he do when he found you?”
    “One of the spear bearers found me. They search the room before he goes in. They sweep under alt the furniture with their spears, and stick them in the curtains. Stop a minute, look—”
    He hitched up his kilt. He had taken a long, shallow scratch up his thigh. No wonder he had been scared.
    “It was an accident,” Telemakos said. “Nafas did it. He was very upset.”
    I was guilt-stricken for having made Telemakos walk so fast, and my estimation of the emperor’s silent ceremonial guards rose, as well.
    I also saw that if they had accidentally killed Telemakos, Constantine would have been blameless. I saw this, and I knew that if it had happened that way, and my cousin had protested his innocence, I would never have believed him. I noted this piece of notional unfairness against Constantine as a mark against my own character. He had never lied to me, after all.
    “Telemakos,” I said seriously, “while Constantine is viceroy, don’t run about the New Palace on your own.”
    “I’ll be careful.”
    “Don’t hide there. Don’t stalk Candake’s cats. Don’t feed Caleb’s monkeys.”
    “I play there always!”
    “It’s different now. Since Priamos has returned and I am here, the ministers and nobles are all suspicious of him, and me, and Constantine because I am to be married to him, and you because I stay in your house. They will check the wall hangings and palm fronds with spears and daggers. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
    We stood before his grandfather’s gates. “Promise me this, Telemakos.”
    He whistled through the gap in his teeth, which he did when he was thinking.
    “Can I go through the markets? And the Necropolis, where the monuments are? Can I go anywhere I like, as long as I stay out of the New Palace?”
    Something occurred to me: he had said he must beg Kidane to take him to the New Palace.
    “Are you usually allowed to go anywhere you like?”
    “Not by myself,” Telemakos said.
    Suddenly I wanted him out of this. He was too obliviously innocent. If he did not serve me willingly, I would not coerce him, and he was not ready to make such choices himself.
    “You can go anywhere you like,” I said, “as long as someone can see you.”
    Telemakos answered mournfully, “That’s the part I don’t like. Having to stay where someone can see me. I will soon forget that part.”
    “Think about Nafas’s spear,” I told him, “and you’ll not forget.”
    We went through the gate together. “Let’s tell your mother,” I added.

CHAPTER VI
The Long Rains
    “I WARNED YOU I should be a disagreeable guest,” I uttered in a low voice. Telemakos was in bed, and Turunesh sat spinning in her private sitting room by the brilliant light of a glass oil lamp that hung from the ceiling. My own hands were idle. “I should not have allowed my quarrel with Constantine to come to this.”
    “Don’t falter now,” Turunesh said. “Hold Constantine in check. I’ll take Telemakos out of it.” She seemed calm as ever; her busy hands never stopped moving. “The roads are all impassable in winter, but in the new year I’ll bring Telemakos to my father’s country estate in Adwa.”
    The Aksumite new year falls in British September. It was July now; their spring was still at least six weeks away. It seemed remote and distant.
    “You are too forgiving,” I said, angry at myself.
    “They all say that. I make a pet of my son. But he is all I will ever have of his father, and his sweet affection melts my heart.”
    “It is battering away at mine, as well. I do not deserve such compassion. I am remorseless as my aunt.”
    “You are both kings’ daughters,” Turunesh agreed mildly, as though that excused even the worst excesses