Wahsi gestured toward two of the officers in the cluster. They were named Aphilas and Saizana and were, respectively, the commanders of the Lazen and the Hadefan sarwe. The Lazen had been the regiment of Kaleb; the Hadefan, that of Wa’zeb. Along with the Dakuen, they constituted the current royal regiments of the Ethiopian army.
“That is correct, King,” said Aphilas. Saizana nodded, adding: “And we have spoken to all of the other sarawit. The soldiers are of one mind on this matter. All of them.”
Then, almost in a snarl: “We will have our vengeance on Malwa. And you are the King of Kings who will lead us to it.”
Eon wiped his face with a hand, smearing dirt and rock dust. It was a weary, weary gesture. “How is Garmat?” he asked. “Will he survive?”
Wahsi broke into a smile of his own. And not a thin one, either.
“Be serious, King! If twenty great stones falling on that old Arab brigand couldn’t kill him outright, do you really think he would die of lingering wounds?”
One of the officers—an older man, well into his fifties—laughed. “I remember when we were chasing that bandit through the desert, years ago. Never could catch him, no matter how many ambushes we laid.”
Another officer, also middle-aged, grinned. “Personally, I think he’s malingering. Lazy half-breed! Just doesn’t want to haul stones.”
A little laugh swept the small crowd. Even Eon joined in the humor, for a moment.
Finding Garmat had been the only brightness in a long, dark night. The adviser had apparently been standing some distance away from the throne, when the bombs went off. The Malwa saboteurs, of course, had set the main charges in the walls near the throne itself. When the explosion took place, King Kaleb and all of the people in his immediate vicinity—including his oldest son and heir, Wa’zeb—had been pulverized by the great blast. The rest of the people in the throne room, except for Garmat and a servant, had been crushed by the falling roof and walls. But, by a freak of fortune, some of the Ta’akha Maryam’s great stones, in their collapse, had formed a sort of shelter for Garmat and the servant. The servant, in fact, had been almost unharmed, other than being frightened half out of her wits. Garmat’s injuries had been severe—several broken bones, along with innumerable bruises and lacerations—but his life had been spared.
The news of Garmat’s survival, as it spread, brought cheer to everyone—especially to the sarwen. Partly, that was due to fondness for the man himself. King Kaleb’s rule had been good, so far as the people of Axum were concerned. Much of that they ascribed to the sage, and usually gentle, advice of Garmat.
But, mostly, the news brought cheer to the soldiers laboring in the wreckage because it stirred flame in their fierce hearts. The sarwen had not forgotten that Garmat was the same wily half-Arab bandit who had eluded the Ethiopian army for years—until, finally, he had accepted their offer to become Kaleb’s own dawazz, when Eon’s father was still a boy. After Kaleb succeeded to the throne, Garmat had been his chief adviser for years, until Kaleb assigned him to serve Eon in the same post.
Gentle, the man Garmat had often been, in his advice to Ethiopian royalty. But always shrewd, always cunning, and—when he felt it necessary—as savage and pitiless as the Arabian desert which had shaped him. More than one Axumite soldier, hearing the news that Garmat still lived, silently repeated Antonina’s own thought.
Bad move, Malwa. Bad news, you bastards. You’d have done better to toy with a scorpion, after tweaking its tail.
* * *
Ten days after the explosion, the regimental ceremony was finally held. The fact that the Ta’akha Maryam was a ruin did not impede the proceedings. By tradition, the ceremony was never held in the royal compound. It was always held on the training fields where, Ethiopians never forgot, the real power of Axum was created. The army’s training fields were located about half a mile west by northwest of the royal compound, at the base of one of the two great hills which overlooked the capital. This hill, which formed the eastern boundary of Axum, was called the Mai Qoho. The one on the north, the Bieta Giyorghis.