The Enchanted Castle (Shioni of Sheba Book 1) Read online

  Shioni of Sheba

  The Enchanted Castle

  By Marc Secchia

  Text and images copyright © 2013 Marc Secchia, 2nd Edition September 2013

  Illustrated by Senait Worku from Addis Ababa

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.marcsecchia.com

  Table of Contents

  Shioni of Sheba

  Table of Contents

  Map of West Sheba

  Glossary

  Chapter 1: A Strange Encounter

  Chapter 2: Black Magic Castle

  Chapter 3: Hearing Things

  Chapter 4: Warriors at Play

  Chapter 5: Feeding Lions

  Chapter 6: Mama Nomuula Speaks

  Chapter 7: Well, Well…

  Chapter 8: A Night-Time Stroll

  Chapter 9: Buildings and Births

  Chapter 10: Famous, What?

  Chapter 11: The Captain’s Coffee

  Chapter 12: A Different Lesson

  Chapter 13: The King’s Horse

  Chapter 14: A Rip-Roaring Adventure

  Chapter 15: What Kind of a Friend are You?

  Chapter 16: Reading the Scrolls

  Chapter 17: Mama Makes a Plan

  Chapter 18: A Trunkful of Advice

  Chapter 19: Snaky, Snaky on the Wall

  Chapter 20: Disobeying The King

  Chapter 21: Finding the Wasabi

  Chapter 22: Kalcha Reveals Her Plans

  Chapter 23: Trouble on the Horizon

  Chapter 24: Punishment

  Chapter 25: The Curse on the Castle

  Chapter 26: The Power is in the Eyes

  Chapter 27: The General Tells a Story

  Chapter 28: The Enchanted Castle

  Author’s Note

  Preview of Shioni of Sheba: The King’s Horse

  Map of West Sheba

  Princess Annakiya’s hand-drawn map of the Kingdom of West Sheba.

  Glossary

  Arogit–Old woman, female village elder

  Asmat–Black or evil magic

  Asmati–Small, trouble-making creatures, bring bad luck

  Ferengi–Stranger or alien in the land, a white-skinned person, sometimes derogatory

  Firfir–A mix of injera and sauce cooked together

  Gashe–An honorific meaning ‘Lord’

  Hakim–Title of a wise or learned person, means ‘doctor’

  Hiwot–Life

  Injera–A slightly fermented large pancake made from tef (Ethiopian grain) used to scoop up spicy vegetable or meat sauces with the fingers

  Jebena–Traditional long-necked clay vessel with a handle, used for brewing coffee

  Kebero–Very large cowhide drum used in religious worship

  Kolo–Dried, slightly spiced grain for snacking on, often combined with peanuts

  Shuruba–Ethiopian style of braiding the hair close to the scalp in pretty designs

  Shemagele–Old man, male village elder

  Chapter 1: A Strange Encounter

  “If you don’t learn to get your nose out of a scroll,” Shioni teased her best friend, Princess Annakiya, “you’ll ride smack into a tree one day.”

  “What?”

  “Then the scroll will snap shut with your nose still stuck inside.”

  Annakiya chuckled. “You’re the one who taught me to ride with just my knees.”

  Resting the heavy scroll on her lap, the Princess squinted into the distance. She mopped her forehead. Though it was only the third hour, the sky was white-blue and heat shimmered off the forested hills. “Why are they keeping us here? This dry season heat is killing me.” Even the warriors were pacing about like leopards, chafing at the delay. She added, “You’re such a good rider, Shioni. I envy you.”

  She envied her slave-girl? Touching the silver band encircling her neck, Shioni sighed in her heart. It was a simple piece of metal, but it said so much. The necklet was stamped with the symbol of the Lion of Sheba, and letters that proclaimed, ‘Property of Sheba’. The King had bought her for his only daughter’s fifth birthday, for one talent of pure silver. A sum that drew gasps of jealousy like flies to rotting meat, she had discovered. Yes, every last slave in the King’s household knew her story, and they didn’t let her forget it for a second. Calls of, ‘Ferengi! Ferengi!’ had followed her all her life. It meant ‘stranger’–someone other, different, someone to be teased and taunted.

  Shioni had never met anyone like herself. Annakiya’s owl-like and very severe tutor, Hakim Isoke, said that was because she came from down the great Nile River and across the Middle Sea, from another land where everyone had yellow hair like her. Isoke had also pointed out that a slave-girl’s proper place was at her mistress’ feet, not riding a horse or shooting a recurve bow like one of the warriors.

  “I’m sorry, that was a foolish thing to say,” Annakiya said softly, looking so wretched that Shioni smiled at her even though she didn’t feel like smiling. The Princess folded down her bright orange umbrella. “Come on. Father says this trip is ‘for my education’. In that case, I had better take an interest.”

  After a moment, Shioni touched her bare heels to her wiry mountain-pony’s flanks and shadowed the Princess past the powerful elephants dragging the tall carts of supplies; past Mama Nomuula, the hugely fat and lovely head cook, whose hugs were like being enveloped in one of her famous soft honeyed sweets; past the armoured cavalry and the ranks of muscular warriors guarding hundreds of male slaves, chained ankle to ankle in sweating, silent rows; past the gaudy litters of the nobles and bejewelled women of the King’s household, with their accompanying slaves holding aloft gaily-coloured umbrellas against the fierce sun, or fanning them with large ostrich-feather fans, towards the head of the great column of Shebans.

  Annakiya had explained that her father, the King of West Sheba, planned to repair a fortress in the foothills of the dark, jag-toothed Simiens, a volcanic mountain range which dwarfed the land west of the Takazze River. The Wasabi, murderous mountain warriors, regularly swooped down from the heights to plunder the river peoples’ villages and farms. ‘Asmat Castle,’ Shioni mouthed the name. Black magic castle? She wouldn’t have chosen it for her fortress, not with a name like that!

  “–a bunch of pretty chickens sitting here while you clever warriors argue!” Captain Dabir was waving his arms, red-faced as usual. “Where’s the tracker?”

  “Sick in one of the wagons, sir.”

  “Looks like hyena spoor to me, sir.”

  “Then where’s the carcass? You idiot! We’ve buckets of blood on the trail and I am surrounded by fools–”

  Annakiya rolled her eyes as the warriors argued back and forth. “You go take a look, Shioni.”

  A puff of rust-coloured clay dust sprang up as her toes struck the ground. Shioni quickly scouted the scene, trying to shut out the argument behind her. She knelt to measure a lion’s spoor with outspread fingers and shook her head in disbelief. What a monster! And… hyenas? Hyenas attacking a fully-grown lion? The Captain was right, with this amount of blood you’d expect a carcass… where had the lion gone?

  After casting about for a few minutes, Shioni noticed a few tawny hairs on a boulder. Nearby, a civet cat had crossed the lion’s trail and bolted upon smelling the larger cat. Then, a couple of paces on, she spotted several drops of blood smeared on a patch of sharp-bladed grass. She tracked the lion’s path steadily into a narrow defile. It ended in a low overhang. She knelt to look beneath the slab of rock,
and caught an unmistakable whiff of dank air. It was a cave–the lion’s lair.

  Shioni narrowed her eyes, trying to penetrate the darkness. The cave was deep. The smell told her that. But how deep was the lion? She had no desire to stumble across a wounded lion.

  As she knelt in the cave entrance, a clear picture popped into her mind: pain radiating from a place near the centre of a chest. The lion’s chest? As quickly as that picture appeared a second replaced it: now she was inside a dimly-lit cavern, laying low, licking numerous wounds with a rasping tongue, before collapsing on a sandy floor. A sense of doom accompanied these pictures, a feeling so powerful that every hair on the back of her neck stood to attention. Shioni recoiled.

  What? She put the back of her hand to her forehead. A touch too much sun? She chided herself under her breath. She was neither one to feel premonitions, nor the kind of girl to take a silly turn when she was doing serious work!

  But then, without being bidden, another burst of pictures entered her mind: a huge lion snarling at several hyenas across a short space, a dark-robed hunter loosing an arrow, and again a pain that pierced the chest so sharply that her hand instinctively flew to her breastbone. She caught her breath. The sense that the picture had come to her mind from somewhere else was overwhelming. It was the only thing she was certain about.

  From the lion? No, that was ridiculous. Surely an overactive imagination…

  “Girl! Ferengi!” Captain Dabir’s angry shout broke her concentration. “Where’s that blasted slave-girl?”

  No doubt he wanted to advance. According to a scout she had spoken to, at the column’s snail-like pace they still had a full day’s travel up to Ginab Village, and from there a further three hours’ climb to the castle. She cast the cave a dark glance. Silly pictures in broad daylight? Madness.

  Shioni trotted back, and knelt before his scuffed boots. “Sir.”

  “What have you found?”

  She was used to people talking down to her. But Captain Dabir twisted his words more than most. She swallowed. “Around the first hour this morning, a large male lion was attacked here by about five or six hyenas, sir.”

  Hoots of laughter from the warriors made a flock of watching ravens take off with raucous croaks and a clatter of wings.

  “Go on, slave,” sneered the Captain. “Did you imagine a dragon too?”

  “The lion may have been wounded already, sir,” she replied. “The right foreleg spoor is lighter than the others. The hyenas attacked there and there, next to the split acacia tree. They were large beasts, bigger than a red wolf. The lion was rolled over–”

  “Are you sure they weren’t giant apes?”

  “Apes walk on their knuckles, sir. Their spoor is different. These were very large hyenas, hunting in a pack.”

  She could almost feel the heat emanating from the Captain at her bland response. Finally he growled, “And where is the lion now?”

  Shioni turned to point with her chin. “About a hundred yards back, Captain, behind that clump of boulders, is a gully leading to a cave. The lion has gone there to lick its wounds.”

  “Let’s kill it!” shouted one of the warriors, waving his spear. His cry was quickly joined by several others. The Captain waved them on. “Go.”

  Shioni could not stop herself. “No! It’s wounded…”

  Captain Dabir’s shadow loomed over her, clenching its fists. “What? What did you say?”

  Shioni was wishing the dust would swallow her up, or that she rather could have swallowed her rash tongue. “I, er… sir–”

  “Speak up!”

  She cleared her throat. “There’s no honour in killing a wounded animal, sir.”

  “Honour?” he exploded. “Who by Erta’s sulphurous pits do you think you are to lecture me about honour? You are a slave! A filthy, impudent–”

  “Stand down, Captain!” ordered Princess Annakiya. Shioni had always thought her a bit of a mouse, but she felt absurdly grateful for her intervention now. “There is no honour, as she said.”

  A hostile silence lengthened.

  “What else?” a gruff voice broke in. “We need to move on before our pretty nobles faint in the heat.”

  This voice belonged to General Getu. Shioni knew him by sight. A grizzled veteran, his left arm was missing below the elbow, and the whole left side of his face had once been terribly burned. But he never spoke about what had happened. Even Mama Nomuula, who loved to tell a tall tale as much as monkeys love to make mischief, knew no more than the usual rumour that Getu had fought off a lion–or a dragon. Everyone said General Getu was like a tough, gnarled old root, and the harshest of the warriors. No-one crossed him.

  “I also found the tracks of two horses, gashe,” Shioni said, using the customary word of respect for an elder leader. ‘My Lord’ suited him well. “Iron-shoed, the mountain breed. They made for those peaks. Whoever it was, they were here either during or just after the attack, my Lord.”

  “Thank you for your report, girl.” Getu eyed the distant peaks rather ferociously, as though he intended to storm them with his warriors, taking no prisoners. He sniffed the parched, thirsty air like a wolf, taking in the rich clay-dust, the pungent, fiery tang of pepper trees, and a hint of sweet anise. “Danger on the wind,” he murmured, so softly that only Shioni could have heard him. “Vague, far away…”

  “My Lord, shall we proceed?”

  Shioni risked a glance at Captain Dabir, surprised at his interruption. His mouth was set in a thin line. If his eyes could have spit fire, she would have been burned up. She knew at once he meant to have his revenge.

  “Captain Dabir,” ordered the General, suddenly brusque and in charge. “Leave the lion. Warn our scouts to look out for lions and hostile riders, and gather their reports. Take fifty men ahead to the village. Check the food supply arrangements are in place. Talk to their hunters. If a mouse moves in this valley I want to know it. Clear?”

  “My Lord!”

  After the Captain had departed, shouting at his warriors to form up behind him, General Getu rounded on Princess Annakiya. “Teach your slave her place, your Highness, or I will teach her for you. And don’t you presume to command my men when you are hardly more than a child yourself! Now, go back to the women, where you belong!”

  The General wheeled his horse about, bellowing, “Move out!”

  “Beastly, cruel man!” sniffed Annakiya.

  “Who, the General?”

  “You silly mongoose, no!” Annakiya laughed at Shioni’s gasp of horror. “Mama likes to say: ‘The General may be as tough as the skin of an elephant’s knee, but his heart is true.’ I meant the Captain, of course! He reminds me of nothing more than an overgrown, flea-bitten, selfish rat!”

  If a rat, a very dangerous one, Shioni told herself. She should be on her guard.

  Chapter 2: Black Magic Castle

  While the journey up to Castle Asmat proceeded smoothly, Shioni found herself unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong. She rubbed her breastbone as if it was her who had been pierced by an arrow, not the lion. The spot hurt. Although it was on the tip of her tongue to tell Princess Annakiya about the incident, she decided the certain embarrassment was not worth it.

  ‘Childish fears, Shioni!’ she admonished herself, patting down the Princess’ bedroll in their tent encampment outside Ginab Village that evening. And the following morning, laying out Annakiya’s outfit for the day, she muttered, ‘The lion’s dead. Forget about it. You are the Princess of West Sheba’s bodyguard, not some shrinking little mouse.’

  Annakiya glanced up from the scroll she was writing. “Are you talking to yourself again?”

  “Just doing my duties, my Lady,” said Shioni.

  “You’s missed a spot right there, my girl,” Annakiya teased, imitating Mama Nomuula’s broad tones.

  Shioni’s answering grin faded slightly as she saw Captain Dabir stride by their tent, bellowing his orders for the morning. Some people, like Dabir, treated her as ferengi filth.
But Mama was lovely and the Princess was more than she could ever have asked for in an owner. Being best friends with her owner was enough to make her head spin like a dust-devil out in the Danakil Desert. People didn’t mean to be nasty when they called her ‘ferengi’, did they? Dabir was definitely malicious. But the little village boys? When they saw her their eyes had fairly popped out of their heads, like a snail’s eyes on stalks. They had no idea.

  Still, she wished the word had never existed.

  From Ginab Village the trail was a steep ascent that had the horses and elephants blowing hard. Switchback after switchback raised them high above the river plains they had left behind–the plains familiar to the Shebans, who were sometimes called the River People. Leaving Takazze, the royal city which lay on the banks of the Takazze River, Shioni remembered looking ahead to the dark, brooding mountains, rank upon rank of peaks filling the horizon in stark splendour, and wondering what adventures might await her up in that wilderness.

  She rubbed her chest. Stinking hyenas, that spot was still bothering her!

  What Shioni had taken for a ridge turned out to be the foot of a long green valley that struck westward into the Simien Mountains. After pressing through a stretch of sparse coniferous woods, the Sheban column came to the banks of a clear, fast-flowing river and turned to follow a trail the scouts had marked for them. A scattering of birds disturbed by the column marked their progress–wattled ibis and crowned cranes and more varieties of finches and bee-eaters than she could count.

  General Getu, riding alongside the Princess during the morning to instruct her in the strategies of mountain warfare, noted, “That’s a boon, Princess. Look–even in the middle of dry season, there’s a clean flow and plenty of it.”

  “It’s looking very inviting.”

  Shioni felt a chuckle escape her at the wistful note in Annakiya’s voice. General Getu cast her a sharp glance over his shoulder. “Not unless your slave-girl can look after you in the water, Princess.”

  “Thankfully she’s half fish.”