The King's Horse (Shioni of Sheba Book 2) (5 page)

“Only the wan, insipid ones like you?”

“Only me, that I know of.” Her voice was rising as she struggled to contain her temper in the face of his unsparing contempt. “Look, I came here to help you. Why don’t you let me–”

“I don’t need
your coarse hands scraping my skin.”

“
To think I felt sorry for you.”

The horse looked amazed.
“Pah, now I get charity? From a wretch like you, a fatherless slave nobody cares for? Why, the merest drop of blood in my veins holds all the nobility of the great Arabians, the desert-dancers of yore–”

“Oh, go feed yourself to the
hyenas you old donkey!”

The stallion took a futile nip at her shoulder, but Shioni had been careful
to keep an arm’s length further than she thought he could reach. He reared and screamed, kicking his forelegs in a fine fit of anger. Thankfully, the picket line was firmly staked in the hard ground–but he did disturb all the other horses and ponies, who stamped and nickered and harrumphed and jerked at their nose ropes too.

“Shioni!
Where are you?”

Tariku
came bounding down the hill towards her like a young goat full of the joys of spring. He was taller than most of the warriors, and so lean and muscular he looked like he ran up and down mountains all day for fun. It was an open secret he would soon be promoted to Captain.

“Here!” she called.

“Did you forget?” he panted. “The General says, ‘Tell that lazy slave-girl I expected her in my quarters half an hour ago’.”

“Oh
, no! But he was still at the feast…”

Tariku clapped his hand
upon her shoulder. “Your face is a miserable rain cloud, girl. Don’t worry. He wants me there too.”

“Oh.”

That rather changed things. Her heart did a flip-flop in her chest. While there were any number of reasons the General could be mad at her, if Tariku had been summoned too, it was likely she wasn’t in too much trouble. This time.

But as she left, she still threw over her shoulder, “I meant
what I said, you old nag.”

The stallion bared his teeth at her.
“You’ll regret that, you worthless white insect!”

“Why did you say that?” asked Tariku, looking askance at her.

“He tried to bite me. As usual.”

T
ariku’s heavy grip on
her shoulder booked no argument. Shioni was hustled straight to the General’s chamber. She would have liked to pick up Zi and secrete her in her tunic pocket–which was full of honeyed sweets, she realised. Zi would have been stuck like a fly trapped in amber.

It was difficult to anticipate all the problems a
Fiuri might encounter in a world sized for humans. Since her ‘bottling’ by the witch, Azurelle’s wings had refused to work for reasons no-one understood. She said this meant she was trapped in the human world. Could it be that her wings created her magic? Or had Kalcha stolen all her powers? Shioni suspected Zi knew more than she was telling...

Talaku was already
present, filling a corner of Getu’s simple, square chamber as only he could. So too were Mama Nomuula, Princess Annakiya, and a woman half-hidden in the deep shadows thrown by an oil lamp burning on the small table in the corner next to the bed. The stranger was tall and abnormally lean, with dark skin and a face as sharp as a blade. Her forehead and cheeks were heavily tattooed with swirling blue patterns of raised, scarred skin.

“Shut the door,” said General Getu.
“Tariku, if you hear so much as a mouse breathing in that corridor, I want to know it. But stay inside, with us. Sit down, everyone.”

The
Elite warrior pulled a stool up to the door and sat with his back right against the wood. “Ready, my Lord.”

The others, apart from Talaku and the strange woman, all drew up stools near the General’s bed.
Getu’s coffee-coloured skin seemed overly pale, Shioni thought, and his cheeks looked pinched as though he were fighting through pain. She caught a whiff of cinnamon, cloves, juniper and ginger from a clay vessel at his bedside–probably one of Mama’s pain-relieving infusions, she guessed, and it probably tasted revolting too. What was it about medicinal potions that they all tasted so
vile?
Did they kill an illness by sheer nastiness alone?

“
Why’s we buzzing like bees?” said Mama Nomuula, folding her arms. “Where’s your Captains, General?”

With exaggerated care, the General lifted something out of a box on his lap and dangled it
between his fingers. “This is why,” he said, grimly. “I found
this
in my boot this morning.”

“What is it?” Shioni whispered to Annakiya.

“Remember my lessons on desert creatures?”

But the General
quelled their whispers with a bristling eyebrow. “It’s a scorpion,” he said, “and it’s a long, long way from home. This type of scorpion is only found in the Danakil desert, as best I know, in an area inhabited by the Afar tribes. I’m told their idea of a manhood rite is for the boy to commit murder. And some, who I have encountered during my travels, might sell you a scorpion or two to bring your enemies to a nasty end, if you asked in the right places.”

“
Even though he is dead, this little fellow has enough venom in the tip of his tail to kill half the castle. We all know what this means, don’t we? Somebody planted it: somebody who wants me very, very dead.”

The only sound in the room was that of breathing.
Shioni pursed her lips. They were all thinking the same thing: who might the would-be assassin be? Was it someone they knew? Someone trusted?

“
Ain’t worked before,” said Mama. “If you’s wanting my opinion for the price of a pebble, they’s needing a bigger sort of stinging beast, more dragon-size, says I.”

Getu
waved his hand as if to commit that rumour to a rubbish heap, and then patted a small scroll lying on his lap. “I received word from Takazze today.” The Prince’s royal-blue wax seal was prominently affixed to the roll of parchment. “Amongst the general news of the very busy social life Bekele has been leading in Court, it would seem our old friend Captain Dabir will be returning to Castle Asmat next week, to relieve me of my post. Generals being too important for building work, apparently.” He snorted like a sarcastic elephant. “There’s another sort of scorpion to worry about–Shioni.”

The Princess’ pocket was moving!
Zi was being very wriggly. Shioni was trying to catch Annakiya’s eye with a furtive glance, when the General said her name. She startled. “My Lord?”

“A little magpie tells me you had a dream
recently. Tell us about it.”

“A whopping fat magpie,” said Mama, who must have been talking to Azurelle.
“Honey, I’s all a-flutter at this Kalcha–”

“Let her speak,” ordered the General.

Haltingly at first, Shioni related her nightmare about Kalcha. She had been anxious about how her tale might be received. But on the contrary, the lamplight flickered upon a circle of grave, intent faces. This encouraged her. General Getu then led the questioning until he was satisfied that he had extracted every detail she could recall–how had Kalcha said that? What were her exact words? How did her face look? What about the change in her eyes? Where had Shioni been chained? What had she seen? How many hyenas did she remember? How big were they?

When she was finished she felt like a piece of fruit
squeezed of all its goodness.

“Just a hunch,” said Mama Nomuula, leaning forward.
“Lift your tunic, honey, and show us your side where you was kicked.”

“Er… sure, Mama.”

“And turn to the light.” This was from the woman she didn’t know. She had a strangely high-pitched, lilting voice that seemed to insert extra vowels where words usually had none.

Shioni rose and tucked her tunic up to her ribs.
Her eyes widened.

“As I thought,” said Mama.
“You’s not been hit in training, Shioni?” At her headshake, Mama announced to the group, “Couldn’t be plainer if you’d painted it black-and-blue yourself.”

Annakiya gasped, “But that’s
impossible
.”

“Not impossible, Princess,” said the tall woman, detaching
herself from the darkness as though a chunk of shadow had unexpectedly come to life. “Just unusual, and certainly not beyond the powers of this Kalcha. Let me examine you, girl.”

General Getu nodded.
“Let me introduce you. This is Shuba, a Kwegu Ascetic. She is a scholar from Takazze who specialises in the magical arts.”

“In
studying
the magical arts,” Shuba stressed.

“Kwegu?” said Annakiya.
“That’s south, right?”

“Correct,” said the woman, bending so close to Shioni that
her hair tickled her skin. “Far, far south. A land of jungles and monkeys. Hold still… hmm.” Her fingers, probing Shioni’s side, were as sharp as an eagle’s talons. “Yes, it is as I thought. Your ferengi skin shows it perfectly.”

“Shows what?”

“The impact was not from without.” Her bony fingers tugged Shioni’s tunic back into place. “Thank you. It would have cost the witch, however, to send a nightmare and produce a physical effect from afar. She may be nearer than we think. But undoubtedly, it demonstrates she is rebuilding her power.”

Shuba’s floor-length robe
s swirled as she returned to the shadows and merged with them once more–a most unnerving skill, Shioni decided. She sat down with a shiver and a bump.

“That is well,” Talaku
rumbled from his corner, “but it troubles me our scouts have discovered nothing of Kalcha’s location or plans since–”

“Twenty-nine days ago,” said Mama. “Kalcha’s back, isn’t she?” She nodded enough for all of them. “
Taking root like an evil fungus in them mountains, she is.”

Tariku put in, “The Wasabi camp Shioni saw was found abandoned. Our warriors never found where that raiding party came from that tried to ambush the Princess. Either the scouts don’t know what to look for, or they’re looking in the wrong places.”

“Or they’re giving false reports.”

Getu looked sharply at Shuba.
“You think…?”

“Just raising
the possibility, General. Or, that Kalcha is up to more of her witchery.”

Shioni looked around the group.
She was thinking back to the rebels she had stumbled upon when rescuing Selam, a local girl who had broken her ankle when out in the forest alone. Her bother Desta was a real hothead, and he worked at the castle. Could this incident be related? Could they be in cahoots with Kalcha? But when Selam begged her not to land her brother in trouble, she had promised! What should she do? Ride down-valley and ask Selam–without raising suspicions? She scratched her ear, wondering what sort of excuse she could concoct that would fool Mama, who had a nose that could smell waywardness and mischief from a hundred paces.

“Tariku, Talaku and I will look into this problem of the patrols,” said General Getu.
“Shuba, will you work with Princess Annakiya? That records room still holds a great storehouse of information, some of which may be of use to us. And Annakiya, do show Shuba the cave beneath the baobab. It will interest her greatly. Which reminds me, Hakim Isoke is the Princess’ tutor here, Shuba. You’d best keep clear of her given what you two think of each other. We don’t need more blood shed over this castle than is necessary.”

Shuba bowed stiffly.
“As you command, my Lord.”

“As for me,” Getu smiled wolfishly, “I find myself unable to travel at this time.
My leg is far too painful and needs complete rest in order to heal.”

Talaku
chortled like a hippopotamus with a severe bellyache. “What, no chuntering about being confined to bed? I have to see that!”

“You’s beat me to it,
Talaku,” said Mama.

“
You, Mama Nomuula, will turn your scheming, devious little mind to Wasabi spies in the castle. Something around here smells like a hyena’s breath, and I want to know who, what and where. Put your eyes and ears to work.”

“My kind of work,
” she said. “You can count on Mama.”

“We should double the guard on the King,” said Tariku.

“Noted.”

“And offer a reward for information about Kalcha,” added Annakiya.

“Also noted.”

“What about me?”
asked Shioni. “What can I do?”

“You?
Now, then, I wouldn’t want you to feel left out.” Getu’s smile had been wolfish before–now it grew fangs. He let her squirm at his expression for an age before he said, “Right now you, Shioni of Sheba, can start by telling me exactly what is wriggling in the Princess’ pocket, and why you find it so very fascinating.”

S
hioni stared daggers at
the floor between her bare feet. She could feel a vein pulsing urgently in her temple, and her mouth had gone dry. Annakiya had warned her how observant the General was, but she must have let herself be argued around by Zi, who could talk for the kingdom and then some. And now? Should she lie? No, that would be stupid. More stupid, anyhow, than not telling them about Desta and his little rebellion. A promise was a promise, right? Hadn’t Mama always taught her to keep her promises?

“Well, l
adies? It’s not a mouse or a frog, is it?”

“No sir,” said Princess Annakiya.
“It’s a more unusual creature altogether.”

“Who are you calling a
creature? Barbarian!”

Azurelle,
elevated upon the Princess’ palm into the view of all the humans present, appeared far from ruffled or annoyed. She fluttered her wings slightly to make sure her gossamer membranes scintillated in the lamplight, batted her long eyelashes, and tossed her head in a way Shioni had observed the older girls doing when they thought one of the young men were watching them. Zi loved nothing more than a stage and an adoring audience to play to–and she was playing with every ounce of her tiny being.

“A
Fiuri!”

“Azurelle,” she piped.
“Pleased to meet you all.”

Getu,
his eyes spitting sparks, thundered, “Who else knew this sneaking
pest
was spying on us?”

It was the first time Shioni had seen the
irrepressible little Fiuri stunned into silence. The General’s tone and his face were darker than a rainy season thunderhead. Tariku’s surprised smile faded. Shuba folded her arms and pressed her lips into a faint line. Talaku’s beetling brows knit together, but his response was an impatient sigh.

“Who else
, I asked! Mama?”

“Guilty.
I swear I put these two up to–”

“Stop.
There is one essential question here. And then I’ll have the truth spoken.” He sucked in a huge breath. “Fiuri, what is your relationship with Tazaka?”

Azurelle’s striking wings had drooped visibly in the face of General Getu’s unexpected wrath. But now they perked up again,
quivering as if with some pent-up emotion.

“
He was my clan-father,” Zi replied, turning to the General with a wry smile that indicated she knew exactly why he had asked this particular question. “Tazaka was seen as a hero amongst my people for many of your years. But he led a bloody rebellion against the Fiuri King. He was captured, but escaped before his trial. There is a price on his head now, and he is not welcome anywhere in the realms of Fiuriel–that’s the name of my world. The world of the butterfly-people.”

“
As for me, I was one of many, many Fiuri deceived by his clever talk and misled by his charming ways. But when I learned what he stood for, Tazaka accused me of crossing him and betrayed me to Kalcha. She bottled me and stole my powers. Thanks to Shioni I am able to stand here today. If we Fiuri did not so loathe destroying life, even that of such an evil being as Tazaka, I would not hesitate to kill him. And that is my relationship with my clan-father.”

Shioni
caught Getu glancing at Shuba, who returned him a slight nod. Interesting… so she could tell truth from lie? What other skills was the Kwegu scholar hiding?

“Hmm,”
said the General. “Very well.” His hard-eyed gaze toured the circle before settling once more upon Shioni. She shifted uncomfortably on her stool. He said, “I should have known, Shioni, that the castle’s biggest troublemaker would be somewhere beneath this weaver’s knot. But to find out in this way is
truly
disappointing.”

His words
lumped a great weight of misery upon her shoulders. Shioni found herself studying her dusty toes once more, and wishing nothing more than to slide away through the cracks between the stones, rather than face the General’s disapproval. He had to be getting used to being disappointed by her, by now. Dratted eyes! Did she have to leak tears over every little thing? She had faced Anbessa with some small courage, so this should be no problem… grow a spine, girl!

Shioni
squared her chin and tried for a firm, confident tone. “Azurelle has given her own lifeblood for Sheba, my Lord. She is to be trusted. And how would the King have responded had he known of her presence? Sorry, Anni.”

“It’s true,” said Annakiya.
“He hates all things arcane and magical.”

Mama added, “
You’s served the King these many years, Getu. You’s faithful but you yourself say you don’t trust nobody who agrees with you all the time.”

“That’s a month’s hard riding apart from hiding a
Fiuri
under my very nose, woman! A creature who lives and breathes magic, whose motives are as clear to us all as–well, as a puddle of elephant-droppings! Who knows what power she may exert over us?”

“What would
you have done?”

“Got the truth out in the open!” roared Getu.
Then he clutched his side and hissed between his teeth, “This broken rib’s sticking needles in my gullet.”

“
You’s been moving about like a live-and-kicking chicken tossed into my frying pan,” said Mama, using a tone she regularly employed on the kitchen boys who targeted her store of sweets. “Who insisted on attending prayers, all day?”

“Hush,” said Tariku.
“Steps outside.”

They all fell silent as someone passed by in the co
rridor. As the footsteps faded, Getu turned to Shioni and said heavily, “Let me guess. Kalcha stole the Fiuri’s magic in order to fuel her curse on this castle, right? You found the Fiuri.”

“Azurelle,” said Zi, peeved that nobody was listening to her.
“You see, Kalcha–”

“You let her out of the bottle.”

“Annakiya helped,” said Mama. “That bottle were hid down in the cave below the baobab. These two precious chicks fought Kalcha’s python to rescue the sweet little darling. But she was deathly sick from being bottled so long. So our Shioni rides four days up mountains and down rivers to find a disa flower’s nectar for medicine, but runs into them Wasabi child-slayers. She spies on Kalcha and rides back through the high passes overnight to warn us the witch is a-coming with the full moon. And to top it off, Azurelle tipped Shioni’s arrow with her own blood to break Kalcha’s spell on the python. There, put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

General Getu’s finger stabbed at Shioni
, but his throat was twitching as though he were fighting off an urge to burst into laughter. “So let me understand. This slip of a girl hid all of that whilst I tore strips off her hide–”

“And Captain Dabir chained her up and the whole castle’s thinking she’s
fetched the Wasabi scourge herself. Oh yes, General, that were the truth of it.”

“
And now she’s a hero and I get stuffed into pockets!” squeaked Zi, riled to a high dudgeon by the lack of attention. “Life is not fair!”

After a short, shocked
silence, Talaku’s frame began to quiver as though an earthquake were agitating the stones beneath his feet. When he could no longer hold back the shaking of his belly, a volley of deafening guffaws erupted out of him. He set everyone else off, and soon the room sounded like a meeting of comedic hyenas. Shioni was glad, for her ears had been turning very red as Mama retold her tale.

The General was the first to recover
–laughing hurt his injured side. Stroking his beard with his hand, he regarded Azurelle with narrowed eyes. “So…” he mused. “We’ve a Fiuri on our side. That changes the balance.”

“A sadly magic-less
Fiuri,” sniffed Azurelle.

“But very decorative,” said Annakiya.

“I am not a bracelet or a necklace!” Zi struck a hands-on-hips pose, even managing to squeeze a large tear from each eye. “I am a person and I have
feelings!
”

Annakiya threw up her hands
in disgust. “Learn to take a compliment, will you? Azurelle, why don’t you work with Shuba and me in the scroll room? You’re excellent with languages. And we can easily hide you in there.”

“Huh!”
The Fiuri stamped her tiny foot. “Who cares what you think?”

“It is of course a crying shame to hide such delicate beauty in a dusty old storeroom,” said Tariku,
winking at the others behind Azurelle’s back. “A tremendous loss to us all.”

“Well!” Zi perked up.
“For a human, he’s a nice, nice man, isn’t he?” She batted her ridiculously long eyelashes at the warrior and twiddled her antennae coquettishly. “Ask me anything you like, handsome.”

“Sadly, I’m a married man
–”

“Let’s focus on
Kalcha,” said General Getu. However, Shioni noticed that he did not remove his gaze from the Fiuri for a second. “What else, people? What are we missing?”

“
Knowledge of the mountains,” said Tariku. “Why aren’t our local scouts and hunters delivering what we need?”

Shioni bit the inside of her lip.
She would have to see just how closely she could skirt a dangerous pit without falling in. “Perhaps they don’t like Sheba,” she said. “I mean, what have we brought them?”

“Jobs, money,
trade, protection…” Tariku ticked off on his fingers. “Do you see differently?”

“
I suppose I do–being a slave. These people had no masters before. Now Sheba is here, things have changed. They fear us.”

She was
pleased to see nods around the group. There, didn’t that count as a promise not broken? And a quarter-sniff of a warning? But Shioni’s conscience was still pricking her–what if something bad happened to her friends as a result? She worried at a fingernail, wondering what more could she do or say.

“
I agree. These mountains people are a tight-knit group,” observed the General. “They take our money but give little of themselves. They don’t believe we can protect them from Kalcha, and buck like wild asses at the King’s yoke.”

“They are hiding their children every time our warriors approach a village,”
said Tariku. “Can they not tell us from Wasabi?”

“Gifts
.” Shuba’s voice rang unexpectedly from the shadows. “Gifts to build goodwill and obligate them to us.”

Getu shook his head.
“The King wouldn’t approve and I doubt Prince Bekele would either. A waste of the royal treasury, the King said. But I will write to ask.”

“
We’s got no proof neither,” said Mama. “We’d look right fools, scared of our own shadows.”

“Focus warriors on the works here, or out there?”
General Getu was scratching his chin so hard now, he drew blood. He dabbed the cut thoughtfully. “Right, let me sleep on this, my friends. And thank you for your counsel.”

“One more thing,” Shioni blurted out
. But as every eye turned to her, the words became stuck in her throat. How might Talaku respond?

“What’s that, honey?” said Mama.
“You looks like a rabbit in a leopard’s mouth.”

“Oh,” Azurelle realised.
She said, “It’s about Talaku–isn’t it, Shioni?”

“Me?
” Talaku stirred like a mountain shifting on its roots. “What’d I do?”

“We saw you at the river
yesterday before dawn,” said Azurelle. “Do you even remember?”

“No
.”

But Shioni thought she saw something flicker in his eyes
–fear, perhaps? Or an inkling of what he had done? Zi was forging ahead, unheeding. “You were covered in blood, Talaku. You didn’t even recognise Shioni. And it looked like you’d devoured an animal–like a lion upon its kill.”

There was a silence as raw as her words.
Then Talaku pushed out of his corner, stormed out of the door, and slammed it so hard behind him that he cracked one of the wooden panels and made dust shower from the ceiling of the room.

Getu slumped back on his bed
, making a sound as though he had been winded by a punch to his stomach. “Mama, go see what you can do for him. Heavens above! Better I lock you in the finest room in my dungeon, girl!”

“
Humph!” Mama grunted.

“Well, she attracts trouble like… like flies to rotting meat!”

“So you’s calling my girl rotten meat?”

General Getu made a pacifying gesture
with his hand. “Woman, if I had a hundred warriors who could fight with words like you, I’d rule this land from the Red Sea to the rivers of Kush.”

“
Don’t you pick no fight with Mama Nomuula,” she smiled thinly, “or I’ll beat some sense into your thick warrior skull with my rolling-pin, I will.”

“Not before I’ve put you over my knee
and paddled your behind,” the General shot back, not to be outdone.

“That’
ll be the day the Red Sea freezes over!” And with that, Mama Nomuula flounced out of the room, giving the said behind an extra waggle or two for emphasis.