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"Can I go through the o anywhere I like, as long as I stay out of the New Palace?"

So Kidane to take hio 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 ly, I would not coerce him, and he was not ready to o anywhere you like," I said, "as long as someone can see you"

Telemakos answeredto stay where soet that part"

"Think about Nafas’s spear," I told hiether "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 Tele in her private sitting roo fro 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 see "The roads are all i Telemakos to my father’s country estate in Adwa"

The Aksumite new year falls in British Septe was still at least six weeks away It seery 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 affectionaway at mine, as well I do not deserve such cos’ daughters," Turunesh agreed h that excused even the worst excesses of libertine behavior; or indeed, as though it were reason to expect such excesses She laid her spindle in her lap "Princess, what other weapon do you have? I cannot condedoht, but why should I have to?"

It rained and rained Even the doves were bad-tempered It orse than Britain; the rain came down torrentially, day after day I slopped back and forth in it alledthis trek was that every now and then I found Priamos left ed hiet hi fountain, as we had on theof my arrival in the city One of the monkeys crept up to us and cliant black-and-white creature beneath its chin, then suddenly drew taut the old chain with one hand Priamos said abruptly, "I hate this"

He shook the links, which rang musically "I cannot see any reason to keep them if they must be chained They are supposed to be climbers and leapers"

"You said that Caleb’s lions were chained"

"It made ain, and began to pick idly at the rivet that fastened it into the marble wall "Mikael was always kept in chains," he said "My eldest brother When I was young, sequestered with Hector and Ityopis and Yared, we thought Mikael a terrible monster He would shake his chains at us e came near, just as these monkeys do He never spoke except to recite scripture or screa spear,’ he called it He is nael Michael"

The marble around the rivet was chipped, and Priamos worried it as he spoke "Hector once schemed that he should furnish Mikael with a spear, just to see what he would do with it"

"What did he do with it?" I asked, fascinated

"Nothing Which was as well, because Hector was caught and trapped in an e spear for half a week"

Priamos jerked at the monkey’s chain "I do not think often about Mikael But I hate to see wild creatures bound I cannot stomach it"

I remembered the cowed boy led on board the yacht in Septeht, syain he jerked at the golden links, and the fastening ca a spall of hed "There, you have freed hiainst Priamos’s other arm, unaware it had been released

Priahed also "I wonder if the rest will come away so easily," he said, and reached over me to pull at the chain on the other side of the bench It did not

One of his guards said politely, "Prince, best leave it--"

Priaold links around his hand and gave a ferocious heave, throwing all his weight against the chain A chunk of marble the size of his fist came out of the fountain wall

"Hai!"

He snatched at another chain One guard tried to trip hied for him He was quicker than either of them He jumped over the rim, splashed noisily across the fountain, and attacked one of the chains on the opposite side of the stone pool The guards leaped after hi at hi up the coluan roaring in fear or excitement

Ityopis tore past me