Antonina and Eon reached the edge of the field. Ousanas thrust himself erect from his semi-reclined posture. There was nothing of a lurch in that movement, as there would have been for most men. On one of his powerful forearms, Ousanas bore the scar left by a panther he had slain years earlier. The tall African had triumphed in that encounter, as he had in so many others, because he shared the sinuous grace and power of the great feline hunters of the continent. For all that Ousanas derided royalty—which, as Prince Eon’s dawazz, was his duty and obligation—the man was a majestic figure in his own right.
Antonina’s grin was still on her face. She pointed over her shoulder with a thumb to the great field of monuments behind her.
“I would have thought you’d approve of this display,” she said. “An aid to your task, showing the results of excessive royal self-esteem.”
Ousanas cast a sour look at the stone ruins in question. “Nonsense,” he replied forcefully. “Maintaining this grotesque and useless field is itself a testament to royal idiocy. Who but cretin kings would need to waste so much good land for such a trivial purpose? A child requires no more than the memory of his last set of bruises.”
He began stalking off, headed toward the Ta’akha Maryam. “We’d do better just to haul the negusa nagast out of his palace, once or twice a year, and thrash him soundly.” He repeated Antonina’s gesture, pointing with his thumb at the ruins over his shoulder. “Then we could turn this into good farmland. Raise crops for needy children. Feed poor dawazz, weak from his endless labor like Sisyphus.”
Antonina glanced at Eon, walking alongside her. She was expecting to see the prince’s face twisted into a scowl, hearing Ousanas’ outrageous proposals. But, to her surprise, Eon’s expression was one of sly amusement.
The dawazz, it seemed, had done his work well.
“And just who would do all that work, Ousanas?” asked the prince. “Hauling great stones, thousands of them, out of that field. Backbreaking work, day after day after day. Take years, probably. You?”
Ousanas’ snort was answer enough.
“Thought not,” mused Eon. “No sane man would. No free man, that is. So we’d have to reinstitute mass slavery. Give the King of Kings a whole army of slaves—again—just like in the old days.”
Eon’s grin did not quite match those which his dawazz usually employed, but it came close.
“So,” he concluded cheerfully, “in order to accomplish your goal of abasing royalty, we’d have to elevate royalty to its grandiose status of old. Good thinking, Ousanas!” The prince shook his head in a gesture of exaggerated chagrin. “I’m ashamed of myself! All these years, I thought your obsession with philosophy was a waste of time. But now, I see—”
Ousanas interrupted: “Enough!” He stopped abruptly, and stared at the distant mountains which surrounded the Hatsebo plain. His expression, from a scowl of irritation, faded into one of thoughtfulness.
“You see those mountains?” he asked softly. “Impossible to reach, the greatest of them. Just so do men stare at justice and righteousness. An unattainable goal, but one which we must always keep in our sight. Or we will drown in the madness of the pit.”
He puffed his cheeks, and then blew out the breath slowly. “It’s a pity, all things considered, that democracy doesn’t work,” he mused. “But the Greeks proved that, along with so much else. Smartest people in the world, Greeks. Who else would be deluded enough to try running a country with no king?”
He shook his head sadly. “All they ever did was fight and bicker and squabble. Endless wars between petty states—never could run more than a city, at best!—and all for nothing. Ruin and destruction—just read Thucydides.” Another shake of his head. “Finally, of course, sensible people like the great Philip of Macedon put an end to the silly business.”
Still staring at the mountains, Ousanas sighed heavily. “Got to have kings, and emperors, and the whole lot of puffed-up pigeons. No way around it. Somebody’s got to give the orders.”
He turned to face the young prince who had been placed in his charge so many years before. Now, he smiled. A rare expression that was, for the dawazz. A beaming grin was often found on his face. But Antonina, watching, could not remember ever having seen such a simple, gentle smile on the face of the man named Ousanas.