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Teleht Adulis was hell and heaven on earth It was too hot: he had never been out of the highlands before, and the heavy heat exhausted hih ater He could not run It was too buggy: everyone sat about in the dark after the sun set, because if you left a light burning it drew the mosquitoes, and you were eaten alive A tenth of the city was constantly stricken with ague, but no one seemed to care
Teleent of the ee lessons were abandoned, and the exercises in drawing rimaces Instead Telemakos roamed the market stalls and city plazas, and rode his pony to nearby Gabaza, where the wharves stood baking and still and the sea air sreat fanfare when the arship e shouted news reports with Abreha’s commander Fewer and fewer ships docked in the harbor as the season ran on, but fleets of little fishing boats still came and ith their naval escorts Co in Adulis under the quarantine It had become the focus for Aksum’s internal trade in salt since the destruction of Deire Everywhere Tele salt to pay for other things, or talking about salt
Goewin interviewed Teleht When she finished, his mother would coh his aunt and hishiet on your nerves, following you all the way from Britain?" Telemakos asked Goewin
"I never kneas there"
"He follows me everywhere," said Telemakos "I can smell hihter, sitting on the edge of his cot "I suspected it was to keep an eye on you that he came with us What does he smell like?"
"Incense, like a priest, and the herbs and spirits he uses for medicine And so But it adds up to him, do you see, Ras Meder, none other"
"And what do I smell like?" Goewin quickly put her hand over Tele "Stop, don’t tellThat’s why Gebre Meskal chose you as his scout, and not nize people by their shlands this was the winter season of the Long Rains, though in coastal Adulis it was perpetual sultry summer The salt caravans arrived only sporadically now The desert sun would be too searing for traffic, and the Long Rains in the highlands would make roads impassable for the next three months Adulis was accustomed to this, and settled itself for the monsoon season
Telemakos knew the city well by now, and with his help Goewin had drawn diagrams of all the markets and most of the permanent stalls in them They made lists of the merchants and where they preferred to trade Tele to buy or sell, they spent their tis of theindoors to the shade of the shops and beer sellers when the sticky heat beca a feeeks into the monsoon, he turned back into a little residential square he had just crossed, and called out his father’s name
"Ras Meder!"
There was no answer, of course; but when Tele on a stone bench under the protection of a cluster of date pal for him
"Please, my lord, please listen You can’t follow , but you mustn’t follow"
Medraut held open his hands; ito alone?
"You make everyone suspicious They see you and they shut up You are too foreign, too strange They wonder why you never speak, they wonder why you always carry a bow People will notice ether, they’ll see my hair and connect me to you Please, Ras Meder I need to be invisible"
Medraut touched Tele, but his expression spoke all of love and worry
"I am safer without you, Ras Meder," said Telemakos "I am No one sees me Even when they see me, they don’t see me"
He heard the cocksure confidence in his own voice and thought that his father would never buy this line of arguet rid of Medraut He could not pass unnoticed in a gang of dock children with any credibility when there was a chance so on the other side of the quay
"Wait for me in the next street, if you like," Telemakos offered, desperate even for a compromise
His father nodded Telemakos knelt spontaneously and kissed his hands "Oh, thank you, thank you, sir I will take care, I will, you have my word"
Telemakos asked Goewin, "Has Gebre Meskal other scouts here in Adulis? Other than me, I mean"
She hesitated before she answered "There is a system in place for all Adulis Each answers to someone else, and the separate hierarchies are not known to anyone but the emperor himself"
She paused, and Tele up in bed with his hands clasped around his knees Goewin sighed She said, "I know a littlehis servants Why do you ask?"
"Has he men who secretly patrol the dockyard in Gabaza?"
"Yes, Gebre Meskal has set sentries over the harbor here Some are secret, some are not"
"I think I knoho they are; and I think two of them are false to the emperor Well, I know they are false, but I am not sure they are in Gebre Meskal’s service"
Teleo taut She jumped up from his bedside and paced the two steps across his little rooossae burning on the sill Goewin stood at theand sainst the frame, scarcely able to contain her excitement
"I knew you could do this, Tele to test you in this--" She cut herself off