“Muldure doesn’t know you intended to speak to me, does he?” Tiyana asked with a knowing narrowing of her eyes.
“No,” Lyann acknowledged. “This isn’t his idea. But he’ll agree to it.”
The two women shared a wry smile that said much about their experiences with men. Then they watched the clear horizon to the east as the Amdwa brought them closer to Khambawe.
2
When the fleet sailed into Khambawe’s harbor, a large throng awaited the ships’ arrival in the shadows cast by the Ishimbi statues. Garlands of flowers festooned the gigantic statues, as they had during the coronation of the Emperor Gebrem. The dry seaweed that that remained from the Ishimbis’ march into the harbor to destroy the Uloan warships remained encrusted to the statues. Although the plants’ color had faded from green to brown, they had not flaked away with the passage of time. The clumps of weed were revered as reminders of Almovaar’s deliverance of the city.
The harbor had long since been cleared of the bodies and wreckage left behind from the Uloans’ invasion. Once again, the air smelled fresh and clean, and sea-birds swooped above the surface of the water.
Dignitaries comprised the bulk of the crowd that greeted the ships. The rest of Khambawe’s populace was arrayed along the street that would be the route the Degen Jassi and the Almovaads would follow from the docks to the Gebbi Senafa. A string of gharris drawn by ornately caparisoned quaggas waited at the edge of the dock area to carry the procession along its course.
The Emperor and the Leba, each resplendent in the panoply of his position, stood at the forefront of the throng. If any suspicion or animosity lingered between them over the revelations of Eshetu, they kept it well-concealed. Once the celebration of Tiyana’s return was over, the Degen Jassi would meet, and the implications of the kabbar’s tale would be discussed in full.
Tiyana was the first to embark from the Amdwa, alighting with the grace of a bird onto the wharf. The rest of the Adepts followed, from the Amdwa and all the other ships in the fleet. In defiance of the usual silent decorum that accompanied such events, cheers rose from the dignitaries as the Adepts made their way toward them.
When she reached Gebrem, Tiyana tossed propriety aside and threw her arms around her father who, after a moment’s hesitation, returned her embrace, much to the delight of the others in the crowd.
“You have done so well, my daughter,” the Emperor whispered in her ear. “Yet there will be so much more for us to do.”
Tiyana smiled and nodded her agreement. Then she went to Kyroun and embraced him in turn. He smiled at her, but said nothing. Tiyana thought she could see a hint of disquiet in his gray eyes. She decided she would talk with him later to find out if anything was troubling him.
Then she reached Keshu, who looked resplendent in the Fidi-style blue robes of an Adept. She knew what lay beneath those robes, and she intended to spend some time alone with him after the celebration of the fleet’s return was over. They would have much to say to each other ... and they had a future to decide.
For now, they shared a long embrace.
“I have missed you,” Tiyana murmured as she pressed her face against Keshu’s robe and absorbed the touch and smell of him.
“Never again will we be apart,” he promised.
He held her tighter, as though his embrace could meld her so close to him that even a command from the Emperor or the Leba would have no effect on his resolve to make Tiyana his wife. He knew Gebrem’s eyes were upon him, weighing him on a balance between the shadow of the Empire’s past and the splendor of its future. Keshu was confident that the new ways would supersede the old, and Tiyana’s lofty status as the future Empress would not stand between them.
Other greetings were exchanged. Then, the entire aggregation of notables made its way to the gharris that were waiting to carry them to the Gebbi Senafa. Tiyana and Keshu climbed into the same gharri. The Emperor and Kyroun rode separately.
Musicians playing melekhet horns and drummers beating out a rhythm on kebarus signaled the beginning of Tiyana’s procession of triumph. Amid the rumble of gharri wheels and the braying of the quaggas, the ranks of Khambawe’s ruling class began their journey along a street strewn with blossoms and lined with cheering people.
3
Adisu the leather-worker and Tamair mingled their praise-chants with those of the rest of the crowd as the gharris passed and the music played. Other members of the dissident group were scattered throughout the throng on both sides of the street. All of them strove to conceal their knife-edged anticipation, as well as the apprehension that drew sweat from their palms. There was no part for them to play in what they expected to happen at any moment. Only afterward would they act, and they would do so with no blame attached to them at all ... if Sehaye’s scheme worked. And if that strange, taciturn man was not as insane as he appeared to be ...
The gharri carrying the foreign Leba, Kyroun, passed by the two dissidents. The white-bearded man stared straight ahead, barely acknowledging the praise the Matile were giving him – adulation that, in the minds of the dissidents, he did not deserve.
“Look at him,” Adisu muttered beneath his breath. “He cares nothing for us at all. He ...”
Tamair gave him a sharp jab with her elbow even as she sang a verse from a praise-song that was almost as old as Khambawe itself. Adisu understood the message she imparted, painful though it was. He joined the chorus of reverence for the Emperor Gebrem as his gharri passed. In contrast to Kyroun, the Emperor smiled broadly and raised his hand from time to time, as though the gesture was a benison to the crowd. With a slight nod to Tamair, Adisu
