Standing to one side, in the group of witnesses who were not members of the regiments, Antonina surveyed the scene. She was impressed, more than anything, by the open—almost barren—nature of the grounds. Other than the row of open-air thrones on the north end of the field, butted against the slope of the Mai Qoho, the training grounds were completely bare except for a handful of wooden spear targets.
That was the Axumite way of looking at things, she realized. When she first arrived in Ethiopia, Antonina had not noticed the absence of fortifications until the officers of her army began pointing it out to her. They had been quite impressed. None of Axum’s towns—not even the capital city of Axum itself, nor the great seaport of Adulis—were surrounded by walls. Not one of the many villages through which they passed, on their long trek upcountry, had so much as a small fortress to protect it.
The ancient Athenians had placed their faith in the wooden walls of their ships. The Axumites, in the spears of their regiments.
That was not from lack of ability. Axumites were quite capable of massive stonework. The Ta’akha Maryam and, especially, the glorious cathedral of Maryam Tsion, were testimony to the skill and craftsmanship of Ethiopian masons. But those edifices were for pomp, display, ceremony, and worship. They had nothing to do with power.
Power came from the regiments. They, and they alone.
She brought her eyes back to the thrones at the north end of the field. Those, too, she thought, testified to the same approach.
The structures were identical, and quite small—nothing like Kaleb’s great throne in the Ta’akha Maryam had been. Each throne rested on a granite slab not more than eight feet square. A smaller slab atop the first provided the base for the throne itself, which was a solid but simple wooden chair. Four slender stone columns, rising from each corner of the upper slab, supported a canopy which sheltered the occupant from the sun. A gold cross—very finely made; Axumite metalsmiths were as skilled as their masons—surmounted the entire structure, but the canopy itself was made of nothing fancier than woven grass.
Those thrones were for the commanders of the Axumite sarawit, the regiments into which their army was organized. It was typical of Axumite notions of rule that those commanders, taken as a collective group, were called “nagast”—kings.
None of them, as individuals, enjoyed that title. Unlike the vassal states of the Ethiopian Empire, whose rulers retained their royal trappings (so long, of course, as they acknowledged the suzerainty of the King of Kings), the regimental commanders derived their authority entirely from the army itself. But, in the real world, the attitude of the regiments was considered far more important than the vagaries of sub-kings.
Only three of the thrones were occupied, this day. Even that was unusual. According to tradition, one man alone should be sitting on a throne today—the commander of the Dakuen sarwe. Even the king himself, though he was not present, was required to vacate his throne in the royal compound until his son’s regiment had passed its judgement.
But Wahsi had bent the custom, today. With the murder of Kaleb and Wa’zeb, the Lazen and the Hadefan sarawit had lost their own royalty. Wahsi had offered, and they had accepted, to share the prince. For the first time in Axumite history, a man would ascend the throne with the approval—and the name—of three regiments.
The ceremony was beginning. Eon was taking his own place, standing alone to one side. At the very front, before the assembled regiments themselves, Ousanas was being brought forward.
Antonina struggled mightily against a giggle. The dawazz was positively festooned with chains and manacles. The servile devices looked about as appropriate on him as ribbons on a lion.
And probably, she thought, eyeing Ousanas’ tall and heavily muscled figure, just about as effective, if he decides he’s tired of the rigmarole. Belisarius had told her once, after returning from India, that Ousanas was probably the strongest man he had ever met in his life. Even stronger, he suspected, than the giant Anastasius.
But Antonina’s humor faded quickly enough. The chains and manacles might seem absurd, but there was nothing absurd-looking about the squad of soldiers who surrounded Ousanas. There were eight of them, and all were holding weapons in their hands. These were not the usual stabbing spears and heavy, cleaverlike swords with which Axumites went into battle, however. The soldiers were holding clubs, inlaid with iron studs.